Social Norms (Synacky)

Chapter Four

Fashionably late was his motto. Brian most certainly made no exception to that when he arrived at Jimmy’s. The whole band had gathered, and they were crowded around the drummer as he hummed out a tune to Matt. “And then you could start screaming, here.” He pointed to a point on the page in Matt’s hand.

They all looked up at Brian as he approached them, and Zacky’s eyes fell on the Gibson case he had slung across his back. “Hey.” He greeted the guys, and they all waved, except Zacky.

“What’s up, Bri?” Jimmy asked, standing up and going over to him, slapping him on the back. “Zacky’s all ready to play, Matt and I are just gonna work on some lyrics. Wendt’s gotta leave early today, but you guys can go get started. You know where the amps are, Brian.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Brian shuffled to the corner of the room, unzipping his case and pulling out his guitar. He hooked it up to the amp, and motioned for Zacky to do the same.

“Okay, show me what you can do.” He told the younger boy, watching as Zacky's fingers nervously flitted up the fret board.

“Um… W-What should I play?” he asked, tongue flicking over his snakebites.

“I don’t know what you can do. Do something advanced, if you can manage it. I need to see how sucky you are so I can find out how much work I’ll have to put into this.”

Zacky sighed, before positioning his fingers and drawing forth a chord. Brian watched his fingers as he switched from an E to a C and then to a G. All very basic, unless he barred an F or B minor. He stopped Zacky after about fifteen seconds, shaking his head. “Okay, at the very least you need to work in some sort of strum pattern. It sounds really childish when you only strum down every note.” He thought back to when he first started learning guitar with his dad when he was eight. “Guitars are amazing instruments because they keep a rhythm, as well as a tune. Strum patterns and muffling are what we do to achieve rhythm in our songs.”

He slipped the neck strap over his head, and played the same chord progression Zacky had been, switching up the pattern and style to make it sound different. “See, we can make it sound fast paced and fun, or we can make the same chords sound sad and drawn out. If you can’t do that, you can’t do anything.”

Zacky chewed his lip as he stared at Brian’s fingers. He nodded, but Brian got the feeling that he still wasn’t sure what to do. When he didn’t begin to play again, Brian’s suspicions were confirmed.

“Okay, look.” Brian began the riff again, slowly mapping out a strum pattern that he thought would be easy enough for the kid to figure out. He played it slowly, then Zacky followed at the same speed. There. He wasn’t a total imbecile.

As much as Brian hated to admit it, teaching Zacky wasn’t as horrible as he thought it would be. As long as he didn’t talk to the queer, and Zacky kept his mouth shut, things went along smoothly. The only words that were exchanged were Brian saying, “No, dipshit, like this.” And Zacky’s quiet breath of a reply, “Oh.”

After two painstakingly long hours of working on patterns and a couple power chords, Zacky piped up, “I uh, I need to go.”

“Thank god.” Brian sighed in relief, standing and stretching his legs. He went over to Jimmy, who was drumming swiftly on his practice pad. Matt had already left, and it was just the two of them.

“Bye, Zacky.” Jimmy, called out to the younger boy, who just waved as he slung his guitar case over his shoulder and headed down the street. Brian watched him go, eyes trained on the black hair of his head until he turned the corner at the end of the street.

“So what’d ya think?” Brian started as Jimmy leapt over their amps and landed next to him. “About Zacky?”

Brian shrugged. “He’s okay.” He replied. “Sucks ass at the guitar though. Needs a lot of work.”

“That’s why I asked you to help him.” He chuckled a little, “He is pretty bad… But he’s not as bad as you anticipated, right? Like, as a person. I think he’s a handy little fucker, comes up with some great ideas for like marketing and stuff. He knows a guy that can get us to open for a band at Chain Reaction once we get out there a little.”

The guitarist just scoffed, heading into Jimmy’s house with the older boy bounding behind him. “He’s annoying as fuck, that’s what he is.” He grumbled, kicking off his shoes by the front door.

“Jimmy!” Katie cried, and Brian leapt aside in order to just miss the ball of energy that crashed into the drummer.

“Kate, what’s up? I was just outside...”

“Kelly’s being boring, and you’ve been out there forever!” she groaned.

“I’m not being boring!” Kelly shouted from upstairs. “You’re just being too damn hyper!”

Katie groaned, tugging on Jimmy’s hand. “Let’s go do something! Please?”

“Katie, quit bothering your brother!” Barb called out from the kitchen. “He’s got his band over!”

“Ugh, mom, it’s just Bri.” Brian rolled his eyes as Katie scrunched up her face at him.

“You know you love me.” He winked at her, and she shrieked.

“Ew, yuck! Nasty, who would want Brian cooties? Besides, you’re too wrapped up in Michelle. Oh, Bribear!” she brought her voice up high pitched to voice Michelle. “I just love it when you kiss me and we make out all day like this!“ She proceeded to make horrendous kissing sounds, causing Brian to chuckle and Jimmy to sigh exasperatedly.

“I think that’s enough, Kay.” Jimmy interrupted abruptly, “Besides, ‘Chelle doesn’t sound like that.”

“You staying the night, Bri?” Barb asked from the kitchen.

“Sure.” Brian replied, “That’d be great, thanks.”

“Come on, I’ll ask the Berry’s if they wanna go hang out at the park with us.” Jimmy tore through the house to the kitchen to reach the phone.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Brian agreed, “Who’s bringing the drinks?”