Star by Eliza Witte - HTML preview

54

XXXI

For the next two days nothing special happened. Annie finally went to get the program with the schedule for her lectures and on Monday she didn’t miss a single one.

However, she was pretty absentminded. The only thing she did was to make sketches of Stu’s face one following the other and couldn’t concentrate on anything else in class. The cycle of her sketches ended with drafting a logo for ‘All The King’s Men’, for which she was scolded by the professor. Yet, she didn’t miss a single class… unlike Stu. Ever since Saturday afternoon, he had locked himself in the rehearsal room and despite all the protests from other peers from his class or even professors who also wanted to use it, he refused to leave it. He managed to call his gang two more times but he, himself, was completely obsessed with rehearsing for their first public performance. ‘The bigger the better,’ he often said, to which Chris always added with a wink, ‘Yes, in every way’.

Stu and Annie saw each other only once as they were both very busy and agreed to meet at the staff entrance of the bar, Monday, 8 p.m. as Stu needed some time to have the sound-system set up properly. Annie showed him the logo. Stu was very impressed. His face was glowing with enthusiasm and that was much more elating than the professor’s assessment. Annie also saw Jessie during lunch-time on Monday and they seriously discussed Stu’s engagement in the bar once again as well as Annie’s plan. Jessie was supportive of getting extra hours for Annie if she needed them at Louie’s. Annie couldn’t wait to finally see Stu playing live. She shared this with Jessie and their lunch-break ended with Jessie’s bubbling laughter, when Annie asked her if the watch in fact couldn’t make it faster.

XXXII

On Monday, 8 p.m., at the staff entrance of Louie’s bar, Annie was sitting on the stairs and was waiting for the big night to begin. She didn’t have to wait for long – Stu, Bob, Chris and John jumped out of Chris’s car 5 minutes later. They were carrying their instruments and equipment and since it was a bit difficult to take a piano for Stu inside, they decided for him to play a second rhythm-guitar to all the songs along with Bob. The good thing of all those bands was that there was a covered competition among the members whereby everyone was trying to be more irreplaceable than the others by taking on as many functions as possible. Following that line of thoughts, Chris played the drums but the rhythm-guitar wasn’t alien to him at all, Bob was the rhythm-guitarist but knew quite a lot about the keyboards, Stu was the official piano player but Bob started teaching him guitar chords from the moment 55

they practically met. And John… well, John was John – the bass guitar plus a little bit of everything else.

Annie led them in and introduced them to Louie. Louie was really straight-forward about it, ‘Hi, guys! Welcome! Let me just tell you – this is a good bar and we ought to play good music here. Annie said you were good boys, so do me a favor – no modern shit, OK?

The sixties will be fine, OK? The evergreens will be fine too! Now welcome and off to work!’

Then he disappeared. Stu was stunned. The others looked relaxed, but there was palpable tension in the air. Annie felt it immediately, ‘Don’t worry, guys. Louie is always like that so just don’t pay attention to him.’

‘What did he mean with this ‘No modern shit’?’ Stu erupted. ‘We won’t be able to play our music? Is that it?’

‘Who cares? There will be enough money for the booze,’ said Chris and with this he began to arrange the technicalities. Stu was still angry, though. He rushed back outside through the staff entrance. Annie followed him. She saw him taking a small thing out of a silver box and lighting it. Then he spoke, ‘I think I made a mistake when I asked him to play at this place. I didn’t have any idea about ‘the modern shit’. We’ll be bored to death, sure as that; I don’t want to know about any of his customers.’

Annie was observing him attentively, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Smokin’.’

‘I’ve seen this,’ Annie said pointing as a small child would to the little stick between his fingers.

‘Joint? Everyone in college has seen it. Want some?’

‘Eh, no. Why do you do this?’ She managed to say it finally! The big ‘why’ that held Stu’s life at stake! She had often asked herself this and now it was finally the time to get an answer. But… there was no answer. Stu just sat there quietly enjoying the drug. Then Annie spoke again, ‘Don’t say it was a mistake. You are good! You are very good. It will be a real chance for you.’

‘A chance?’ Stu made a caustic remark.

‘I know that you’ll have a breakthrough here! Soon. Eh, I guess you call this a sixth sense.’

‘We call it a female’s intuition. I hope you are right.’ Stu smiled and although he had not finished his cigarette after one last puff he threw it away.