Derek Ramone's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

The band could play the spell now. But they had nowhere to play it. Derek carried the amp from bar to bar all week. Every owner said the same thing. No stage time for an unknown band. Without a room to play, no festival booker would ever hear them. Derek sat in a booth at the grilled cheese diner, staring at his cold soup, out of ideas. A swan slid into the seat across from him. Derek knew the face. Dewey Mallard, lead singer of Stillwater Drift, the slacker band everyone in town half-remembered. His feathers stuck up in messy tufts. He wore a flannel shirt open over a stained tee. "You've been dragging that amp everywhere," Dewey said. "Bartenders talk, man." "Nobody will book us," Derek said. Dewey stirred Derek's soup like it was his own. "We've got a slot tonight. Rock and Roll Tavern. Our bass player quit. Our drummer's got a broken wrist." He shrugged. "You need a stage. We need bodies. Honestly, it's not complicated." Derek called Hoot and Luna. They came fast. So did two strangers Dewey had scraped up. A blonde woman with a sunburst bass leaned against the wall, arms crossed, sizing them up. A red-haired singer in a leather jacket tuned a guitar and grinned like she already owned the room. The tavern was small and half-full. Derek set the amp behind his borrowed kit. Hoot plugged in his red guitar without a word. Luna hugged her fish-shaped bass and stared at the floor. "Keep it under control," Luna said quietly. "Remember practice." Derek nodded. He counted off. He kept the beat slow and small, holding back the power on purpose. For a whole song, the amp stayed dark. Nobody cried. Nobody felt anything. The crowd kept talking. Then the red-haired singer stepped to the front and screamed into the second song. The blonde bassist dug in hard. Derek felt the tempo climb. He tried to rein it in and couldn't. The beat locked anyway. The amp flared blue. The sound thickened and pushed out across the room. Talking stopped. A man near the bar dropped his glass. People turned toward the stage with wet eyes, not knowing why. Dewey grabbed a mic and held it up, laughing, feeding off it. Luna's ears flattened but she kept playing. Hoot bent one long note that hung in the air like a held breath. They played four songs. When Derek finally let the beat fall, the crowd stood silent, then roared. A woman in a booth near the door had watched the whole set. She wore a festival badge on a lanyard. She crossed to the stage and handed Derek a card. "I book the main stage," she said. "Whatever that was, people will pay to feel it. Call me." Derek had his room now, and a booker who wanted more. But he'd felt the beat take over again tonight. Next time the crowd might be too big to hold back.