Chapter 22

I couldn’t tell the guys right away, because there was a third person with them when they pulled up. I guessed he was the bass player Seth had been talking about, and I didn’t want to start talking about gigs with someone if he wasn’t going to stick.

“This is Paulie,” Seth said when they walked up, confirming my guess.

“Hey, good to meet you,” I said, offering my hand.

“Yeah, good to meet you too, kid,” he said, shaking it limply.

That set me on edge, and I could tell Marco saw the problem, but Seth ignored it so I decided not to make a big deal of it.

“Willie said we could use their setup, if that’s alright. They have a drum kit already on stage.”

“I’m still gonna bring in my keyboard. A drum kit is a drum kit, but a stand-up piano sounds too different from my keyboard for us to get everything dialed in,” Marco said.

“A drum kit is a drum kit?” Seth asked, jokingly angry.

“Yep. Deal with it.”

“All right,” I said, “let’s get set up.”

We got Marco’s keyboard, amp, cables, and Paulie’s bass out of Seth’s car and set everything up on stage. Paulie was already starting to rub me the wrong way, correcting me several times when I started talking about what I wanted to practice and some thoughts on song order. I again ignored it, since we hadn’t really started yet.

“Did Seth give you the music we’re gonna play?” I asked Paulie.

“Yeah. It’s cute.”

“Sure,” I said, repressing what I actually wanted to say. “Let’s start with Country Roads. I want to go through it once like we’ve done it before, just to make sure we’re all on the same page, and then I have a change to throw in.”

“You sure? It’s pretty good as it is,” Seth said. “You gotta be careful tinkering with a song too much. Sometimes you gotta say ‘okay, it’s done’ and just walk away.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Someone told me the same thing the other day. Just hear it out and if you think it’s too much, just tell me.”

I don’t know why I avoided saying it was Mr. French, since both Seth and Marco had met him at my party earlier in the week, but the ‘kid’ comment had gotten to me, even though I knew it shouldn’t. I knew I was young and a lot of people might see me like that, and it got to me sometimes, if I thought about it.

Seth gave the lead in beat and we started playing. To Seth’s credit, he was right. Paulie was really good. If I was being honest I’d say I was still better, but it’d be close. He went off book in between the second verse and the chorus, doing this little riff before dropping into the chorus that was really good. It didn’t match the song and wasn’t something that I’d keep, but it showed off his skill, which I guess wasn’t a bad idea when auditioning.

“Not bad,” I said as we finished the song. “What was with that little riff?”

“Just something that felt right,” Paulie said. “It was just kind of boring and I thought it could use something. You can keep that in if you bring me on.”

I didn’t feel like arguing with him about what was right or wrong for the song, and tried to just keep going. My instincts told me this wasn’t the guy, but he was really good, and maybe I was just projecting from the bad experience with Rodney.

“Sure,” I said instead. “Let’s do Hush next.”

“Really? I thought that was a joke. How about this, let’s skip that one and the next one, do Seth’s song, and then I have a few covers that I think we could probably kill.”

“What?” I asked.

“Hey, I’m not trying to step on any toes, and you aren’t bad on that thing, but this is all just too ... cute, you know. If you really want to do something, you gotta take some risks and really get down. I heard about the talent scout, and I can tell you we’ll never get a second look with this crap.”

“What do you mean ‘we?’ You understand this was an audition, right? You came here to show us what you had to offer and see if we were a good fit. Hell, it’s the first time you’ve played with us and after one song you want to start having a say in what songs we play?”

“Hey, don’t get in a twist. I get it, you’re new at this and you feel like you gotta stand up and show whose boss. That’s cool, but you gotta learn to take criticism. I mean, I heard that you could shred, but that won’t mean nothin’ if you don’t listen to advice.”

“I don’t think this is going to work out,” I said, setting my guitar down on its stand. “Thanks for coming.”

“What? You get a little criticism and you can’t take it. Weak. Seth, man, I wish you would have told me about this kid before you wasted my time. Let’s pack up and go,” Paulie said, unplugging and grabbing his case, carrying both out separately.

Seth looked at the door and then back and me, clearly torn while Marco just looked uncomfortable.

“Charlie, man, I’m sorry. I’ve played with him a few times and I knew he was really good, but I didn’t think he’d go like this. The few times we’ve hung out after a show, we were okay.”

To his credit, he seemed really genuine and we hadn’t had any problems when they’d come to audition for Willie, so I was pretty sure we could still work together.

“It’s fine, I’m not going to blame you for Paulie being a tool. If you still want to do this, then I’m still in.”

“I do. Really, I’m serious, I do,” he said.

“Let’s just call this practice a wash and try again tomorrow, okay? I don’t want to have to deal with Paulie again and I’d rather you guys just took him back.”

“Thanks, Charlie. Again, I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, helping Marco unplug.

“I might know someone,” Marco said.

“I don’t know,” I said, pausing. “I mean, we do need a bass player, but that’s two really bad ones in a row. I don’t know how much time I want to burn having them come out to our practices, just to have it end like this. Besides, in two weeks we do our first set here, and an audition goes bad then, we’ll have to just miss an entire night. I don’t want to screw over Willie or Chef like that.”

“I know, but it’s tough to make the trip back and forth more than a few times a week. Look, we’re only practicing next weekend. Let me talk to her and see if she’ll do it. She’s not as good as Paulie, but she’s pretty decent and I think she might mesh better.”

I gave a sigh and kept helping him pack up. We needed a bass player, preferably before we had to play here in two weeks. I think maybe I was just getting discouraged.

“Fine. Talk to her and let’s see how it goes.”

“Sure,” he said, picking up his cables and keyboard.

“Charlie, I just want to say again how sorry I am.”

“Stop apologizing. I’m not blaming you for this. In fact, I might have some good news. I have us our first paying gig that isn’t the Blue Ridge.”

“Really?” Marco said.

“Yep. It won’t pay great. You two and whoever we have on bass by then will have to split two hundred, but it’s for my school’s Prom. I don’t know if that’s your thing or not, and I can still turn it down if you don’t want to do it.”

“No. I’ve made less on a gig and a prom sounds good. Besides, stage time is stage time. It’s still kind of early for proms, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, this isn’t until May. I’ll have more detail on the exact day coming up. Thanks, guys.”

“Hey, so you’ve arranged for a steady two nights a week, a gig months in advance, and a look by a record talent scout. You’re doing more than most bands managers at our level.”

“Guys, are we bailing or what,” Paulie said, stepping back into the front door.

“Get him out of here before I kick his ass,” I said.

Seth looked apoplectic again, but Marco smiled and shook his head.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Marco said, hopping off the stage.

I watched them leave as Hanna, who’d been sitting off to the side watching our practice walked over.

“Well, that sucked.”

“Are all bass players’ jerks?” she asked.

“Nah. I knew a bunch that played at the same places as Dad, and they were all cool. We’ve just had bad luck. I guess I’ll get changed and go start training.”

Chef would probably be busy for another hour, since he would have expected me to be practicing, but I thought I could use some exercises to work off my annoyance.

The next day’s practice went much better, reinforcing my belief that I’d made a good choice with Marco and Seth. We made a pass at the new song, which Marco really liked. They both had some input, a lot of which was good and would end up in the final song.

Seth was back to himself after the disaster the day before, although he still tried to apologize one more time. As we were finishing up, Chef did something he hadn’t done before, he met me by the stage where we’d been practicing. Normally, I’d get changed and go outside to begin warming up and he’d show up when he felt I was ready to start or when he’d finished whatever he was working on. The one thing he didn’t do, at least not after the first couple of lessons months ago was come and get me since, as the student, I was supposed to be ready for him, not the other way around.

“Did you drive here today?” he asked, his eyes going to Hanna who’d been sitting near the stage.

“Yeah. Hanna drove on her own, because she wanted to sit in on the practice.”

“Okay. Then drop your stuff up in my apartment and then meet me out in the parking lot. Make sure you have your driver’s license.”

“Okay?” I said, more as a question than anything else, because I was thrown by the sudden change.

He didn’t explain, which I guess was his right as my instructor. I said ‘bye’ to the guys and collected my backpack and guitar and ran up to his apartment before meeting him outside. I couldn’t figure out what the license part was about since, if I needed driving lessons, three days after I got my license was a little late.

“We’re going to drive down to Asheville, and get you signed up for the competition,” he explained as we were getting into his truck.

“Ohh. I assumed that was a thing you did over the internet or by calling them, or whatever.”

“Usually, yes, but Shan likes people who are nearby to come and sign up in person, so he can meet them. If we were further out, we’d call and get you signed up, but I’d never hear the end of it if I tried to do that.”

“He’s your friend?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away, which kind of answered my question.

Finally, he said, “It’s a small community, especially in an area like this, so we have to deal with each other from time to time. It’s best to keep things cordial. Besides, it’s his competition, so it’s the respectful thing to do.”

“Ohh. So you aren’t friends.”

“I wouldn’t say that. We just have different philosophies on kung fu. We’ll be going to his school, so it’ll be an opportunity to see how other people train. Broaden your horizons.”

His school turned out to be in the back of a Chinese community center not far from downtown Asheville. The center itself was pretty busy, with people coming and going, although all the signs except the name of the community center were in Chinese. Some of the random people we passed seemed to know Chef, since there were a few head nods and mumbled greetings as we passed them.

It was weird. At the Blue Ridge, I felt completely at home, but now, following behind Chef, I felt like an outsider. I could feel eyes on me as I followed in his wake and I knew I stood out like a sore thumb.

We walked through a big empty room that must have been used for events or something and through a door with a picture of a bowing man on it, and into what I had imagined in my head when Chef first mentioned teaching me to fight. I would call this a dojo, since it was exactly what movies had convinced me dojos looked like, except I didn’t know if there was a Chinese version of the word.

The floor had a thick, padded carpet and the walls had mirrors stretching its entire length, except for one side that had cubicles and the door to an office. There was a class going on, so we walked around the outskirts of the room, stopping a few steps from the office. Chef told me to wait for a moment while he stuck his head inside the office door, and then disappeared inside.

The training that they were doing was very different than what I’d experienced at his school. For one, they were all dressed in grey robe tops where one side folded over the other, and loose-fitting pants, tied with rope at the bottom. It was exactly what I’d always imagined monks looked like, again influenced by movies. Their shoes were generally white and looked to be canvas with incredibly thin soles.

There were about twenty people ranging from teens to people I’d guess were in their mid-thirties and forties in two lines, with an instructor in a black monk outfit standing in front of them.

He was calling out numbers, and the rows of people all did moves in unison. I actually recognized some of the moves as things Chef had been teaching me. First, they dropped into horse stance, which we didn’t use in actual training, but Chef sometimes used as punishment, and then they twisted, lunging into a Gong Bu, which we did use The lunging twisting motion with your knee at a ninety-degree angle and your other leg extended back gave you very solid support and the twisting punch allowed you to put real power behind your blow.

We didn’t normally hold that stance, and it was more like an in-between move that you would drop into in certain circumstances, or as you were getting out of something lower.

What they were doing was interesting, especially how they were doing everything in unison, but I was having trouble seeing how you’d use the practical application. A lot was familiar, but when Chef was teaching me, it was with a focus on defense. This seemed more like a focus for style, rather than anything else, with the corrections being given to students mostly about body position which I wouldn’t think about if I was actually fighting.

Before I could consider it more, Chef tapped my shoulder and waved for me to follow him into the office.

“Charlie, this is Master Zheng. Shan, this is the student I was talking about.”

Since Chef had called him master, I assumed I should bow like I did to Chef, which I guess was right since no one acted like it was the wrong thing to do.

“Ni hao, Shifu,” I said, using the second of three phrases I’d learned.

“Shifu Tang tells me you are interested in competing in our juniors’ competition.”

Although it was more the other way around, I wasn’t going to call out Chef in front of another master.

“Yes. I just started learning and this would be my first competition.”

“That’s fine. If we were talking about something like Wushu or traditional Shaolin that might be a problem, but there’s an age minimum for actual contact matches and we separate the juniors by age bracket. You’ll be with the other sixteen-year-olds, which is the minimum age you have to be to compete. Some of them will have been training for maybe a year or two, but I don’t think any of the schools start training much earlier than that, and none of them will have competed before. You should be about equally matched.”