the lead singer for two reasons: although he couldn’t play an instrument he could carry a tune, and his grandpa had an old SUV which he allowed Chuck to drive to gigs, as long as they weren’t too far. The Retros were bad to start with, and only mediocre when they broke up at the end of junior year, but they had, as the rhythm guitarist’s father once put it, “made that quantum leap to palatability.” And really, it was hard to do too much damage when you were playing stuff like “Bits and Pieces” (Dave Clark Five) and “Rockaway Beach” (Ramones).
Chuck’s tenor voice was pleasing enough in an unremarkable way, and he wasn’t afraid to scream or go falsetto when the occasion called for it, but what he really liked were the instrumental breaks, because then he could dance and strut his way across the stage like Jagger, sometimes wagging the mike stand between his legs in a way he considered suggestive. He could also moonwalk, which always drew applause.
The Retros were a garage band that sometimes practiced in an actual garage and sometimes in the lead guitarist’s downstairs rec room. On those latter occasions, the lead’s little sister (Ruth? Reagan?) usually came ditty-bopping down the stairs in her Bermuda shorts. She’d station herself between their two Fender amps, waggle her hips and butt in exaggerated fashion, put her fingers in her ears, and stick out her tongue. Once, when they were taking a break, she sidled up to Chuck and whispered, “Just between you and me, you sing like old people fuck.”
Charles Krantz, the future accountant, had whispered back, “Like you’d know, monkeybutt.”
Little sister ignored this. “I like to watch you dance, though. You do it like a white guy, but still.”
Little sister, also white, also liked to dance. Sometimes after practice she would put on one of her homemade cassettes and he’d dance with her while the other guys in the band hooted and made semi-smart remarks, the two of them doing their Michael Jackson moves and laughing like loons.
Chuck’s thinking about teaching little sister (Ramona?) how to moonwalk when he first hears the drums. Some guy is banging a basic rock beat that the Retros might have played back in the days of “Hang On Sloopy” and “Brand New Cadillac.” At first he thinks it’s all in his head, maybe even the start of one of the migraines that have plagued him lately, but then the crowd of pedestrians on the next block clears long enough for him to see a kid in a sleeveless tee, sitting on his little stool and beating out that tasty old-time rhythm.
Chuck thinks, Where’s a little sister to dance with when you need one?
* * *
Jared has been on the job for ten minutes now and has nothing to show for it but that one sarcastic quarter flipped into Magic Hat by the skateboard kid. It makes no sense to him, on a pleasant Thursday afternoon like this with the weekend just around the bend, he should have at least five dollars in the hat by now. He doesn’t need the money to keep from starving, but man doesn’t live by food and rent alone. A man has to keep his self-image in order, and drumming here on Boylston is a big part of his. He is onstage. He is performing. Soloing, in fact. What’s in the hat is how he judges who is digging the performance and who is not.
He twirls his sticks between his fingertips, sets himself, and plays the intro to “My Sharona,” but it’s not right. Sounds canned. He sees a Mr. Businessman type coming toward him, briefcase swinging like a short pendulum, and something about him—God knows what—makes Jared want to announce his approach. He slips first into a reggae beat, then something slinkier, like a cross between “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Susie Q.”
For the first time since running that quick paradiddle to gauge the sound of his kit, Jared feels a spark and understands why he wanted the cowbell today. He begins to whack it on the offbeat, and what he’s drumming morphs into something like that old joint by the Champs, “Tequila.” It’s pretty cool. The groove has arrived, and the groove is like a road you want to follow. He could speed the beat up, get some tom in there, but he’s watching Mr. Businessman, and that seems wrong for this dude. Jared has no idea why Mr. Businessman