so excited about it at first. Being in a band is one of those notions that sort of seizes you. It’s like when you’re a kid and decide to put on a play or have a carnival in your backyard. You spend forty-eight to seventy-two crazed hours devoting your every waking minute to making it happen, and then, poof, all of a sudden you run out of steam and your big idea dies a quiet death while you sit in front of the TV watching ancient Saved by the Bell episodes.
I had a feeling Jam Band didn’t have much longer to live either.
Half a mile past the Wal-Mart, Monster pulled the truck into the parking lot of what looked like an old motel, an L-shaped, two-story building, an empty pool in front filled with burger-joint trash and two decrepit beach loungers. “Well, ladies, we’re here,” he announced as the engine grumbled and lurched to a halt.
“You live here?” Sarah sounded shocked. “I mean, for real? With your family?”
Monster pushed open his door (the handle didn’t actually work, but brute strength seemed to do the trick), got out of the truck, then leaned his head back in. “Not with my family, no way. I think I mentioned to you that they’re pretty nuts. Mama and Daddy, anyway. Granny’s all right. End of last summer I said, ‘What do y’all think about me moving out?’ and they said fine. I found this place, and Daddy came over and signed the lease, helped me move my stuff in. I pay the rent, but Granny usually slips me a twenty to help with the utilities.”
He checked his watch. “In fact, I got to be at work by six, so we better get this party started.”
We followed him up the rickety staircase to the second floor. “This used to be a Motel 6,” he explained as he inserted a key into a door with 227-28 scrawled in marker on it. “But then they built a new Motel 6 over by the highway and sold this one to my landlord, Morris.”
Monster opened the door and gallantly stepped back to let us enter. “Ladies, welcome to my den of iniquity. Or at least I’m hoping that’s what it’s gonna be one day. I’m working up to that stage incrementally.”
Monster’s apartment consisted of two hotel rooms connected by a bathroom. He led us quickly through the first room—room 227, I guessed, which consisted mostly of an unmade queen-size bed, a dresser, and a TV with rabbit-ear antennas taped to the top—through the bathroom, where a coffee mug and a cereal bowl were laid out to dry on overlapping brown paper towels next to the sink, and into room 228, where there was a couch instead of a bed and a mini-fridge with a hot plate on top.
“Sleep in one room, live in the other,” he declared, knocking a bunch of magazines off the couch and motioning for us to sit. “Don’t ever mix the two. It cost me a little extra to rent a suite, but it’s worth it. I can’t abide eating in the same room I sleep in.”
Monster’s living room appeared to be a shrine to all things musical. I counted nine different guitars, all types, a trumpet, a violin, and five amps, not to mention a snake’s nest worth of cords slithering over every spare inch of carpet. A humongous boom box was set against the wall across from the couch, and a line of CD cases—there had to be at least two hundred—stretched along the baseboard of another wall.
Monster lifted a red bass from its stand and held it in front of us. “Now, here’s what you got to understand about the bass. It is a rhythm instrument that, unlike the drum kit, its partner in crime, can carry a tune. The bass guitar gets taken for granted outside the world of jazz and funk, but don’t let that fool you. Ain’t no such thing as rock and roll without the bass.”
He handed the bass to Sarah, who took it from him and held it awkwardly in her lap. “Now, I’m gonna find you a strap, and then we’ll get you plugged in and see what kinda stuff you got.”
Rummaging through a box next to the couch, Monster pulled out a thick black strap with neon yellow peace signs running up and down its length. “This oughta do ya,” he said, leaning over Sarah and attaching the strap to the bass. “We’ll adjust it