Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,34
to be our moms.
“Thirty Seconds to Mars,” said Milo.
“That’s a ding-dang Japanese RPG soundtrack,” sniffed Jamal. “Best Coast.”
I unzipped my backpack. “I want you guys to listen to something.”
“Train,” said Milo to Jamal.
Me and Jamal stared at Milo: Train?
“Mom piped in early 2000s adult contemporary when I was still in her tum-tum,” said Milo with defiance. “All the greats: Norah Jones, Jason Mraz—”
I shook off this image of a fully grown Milo in his mother’s abdomen.
This is stupid. Look at us.
“A real band wouldn’t do covers,” I said.
“We’re not a real band,” said Jamal.
“I’m talking about the effect we’re trying to achieve here,” I said. I didn’t want to say the word fake out loud.
“Jamal has a point,” said Milo. “Don’t we just want her to witness us playing, so that the illusion becomes complete? What does it matter what we play?”
“It matters because a real band plays originals,” I said. “Cirrus has friends in bands, I tell you. She’s probably watched a million shows from backstage.”
“Awesome,” said Jamal. “So all we have to do is work on an amazing original song while Lady Lashblade loses interest and our ScreenJunkie channel has a final tombstone post saying, Hey, fans, it’s been a real honor over the years but—”
“We can use this,” I said.
From my backpack I produced the iPod.
Milo tilted his head to read the iPod label. “Property of Gray Dae.”
I turned the iPod around. “No one needs to know that.”
“Including Gray?” said Jamal, wincing.
“There’s a song on here he’s never performed for anyone, and never will,” I said. “It was sitting at the bottom of a crate. We might as well make use of it.”
Jamal and Milo looked at each other, most likely wondering what they’d gotten themselves into. What I’d gotten them into.
“Just listen,” I said, and hit Play.
“Beauty Is Truth” boomed and growled through studio monitors, filling the room with its ever-shifting kaleidoscope of genres and moods. I watched as it brought Jamal and Milo up, then down, then back up again on waves of energy in every hue.
When it finally reached the hard-driving four-beat of its conclusion, I opened my arms.
“Right?” I said. “Right?”
Milo kneaded his chin, lost in thought. “Your brother is a genius.”
“Was,” I said sadly. “I don’t know about is anymore.”
Jamal nodded. “No way in any circle of hell can we pull that off.”
“Absolutely agree,” said Milo. “One hundred percent incompetent.”
I lunged to the blackboard and wrote so fast I broke chalk. “Look. I mapped out the chords for the first part. It’s not so bad.”
“You mapped the chords,” said Jamal. “You came prepared.”
Because I’m secretly taking this very seriously.
“G, G-sharp,” said Milo.
“Chromatically up to B,” said Jamal.
“Let’s just pick our way through super slow,” I said. “Milo, you count us in.”
“A-one, and a-two,” said Milo, like a USO big-band leader in the swinging 1940s, and already things felt stupid even before we’d played a single note.
We lurched into the song, if it could be called such a thing.
We were terrible. Me and Jamal seemed to be playing two totally different songs.
Milo administered blows to different drum parts with the frenzy of whack-a-mole gone pro, scrambling to keep up with what was on the recording.
Jamal’s face spasmed with unsettling dork theatrics between sneers and grins as he dug deep doinks out of the large bass.
We did not rock. We convulsed.
I sang. My sweet, high voice pierced the air with the same golden intensity of that divine sunbeam that delivered the most immaculate of conceptions from on high, elevating our noisemaking to a cult worship service.
To make matters much, much worse, Jamal found a mic and elected to “back up” my “vocals” with off-script ululations in fake Gaelic.
I winced the hardest I have ever winced. We had slathered Gray’s masterpiece with a thick layer of nerd-tella on top. I felt measurably nerdier than before.
Before Cirrus had entered my life.
“Beauty Is Truth” tumbled to an end like a nun coming to a dead stop at the bottom of a staircase with no one but diseased rats to note her passing.
“I thought we sounded convincing!” said Milo.
“Same!” said Jamal, impressed with himself. “Those were some killer time signatures you were playing.”
“What is time signatures?” said Milo.
“Did I sing okay?” I said quietly. “I’m equivalent to a mezzosoprano.”
“Perfect one hundred percent on expert mode in my opinion,” said Milo.
“Sounded gr-r-r-reat to me,” said Jamal. “Can we work on DIY Fantasy FX now?”
Jamal and Milo, nodding maniacally.
I bit my own face. We knew nothing. We were three imbeciles