The Mechanic's Daughter

The Mechanic's Daughter Part 6: Jimmy's band

My brother Jimmy knocked on my door on Saturday. "You should hear this."

He wanted me to hear an album from the new British invasion he liked so much. We went downstairs to his bedroom and sprawled sideways across his bed, a great deal of air between us, to listen to a band called Pink Floyd. I let go my exhaustion from the past week, lying there with my ears fully occupied. This was part of the ongoing series of what Jimmy called my musical education. He began it when I was 14, insisting that the songs on the radio were too puerile even for my undeveloped ears. I think he regarded it as an antidote to my essential nerdiness.

"Such an advance on rock. But I can't get the guys to go for it." Jimmy sighed, no doubt thinking about the very limited repertoire of his own band, The Camshafts.

The Camshafts was a stupid, somewhat phallic name -- I called them The Crankshafts, and sometimes The Carburetors, to tease him. They were pretty marginal musically, but much better than they were this time last year. They got work one weekend out of three, as the bars didn't how bad they were going to be until they cranked out the first song. They played a lot of long instrumentals, some painful songs of their own and, when the patrons threaten to get hostile, some Led Zeppelin. The lead singer and bass player, Keith, had one of those high, smooth voices that was de rigueur in pop rock, and he was an absolute pain in the ass.

Jimmy had to pump coffee into him last night to get him sober enough to stand for the first set.

"He can sing, but I'm not going to be able to stand him much longer,." Jimmy said that afternoon, after we heard the last chords of The Dark Side of the Moon.

"Another band, maybe. A better one."

"Let me tell you what I'm thinking about." Music was Jimmy's core subject, the one where he was most himself, having mapped out complete fantasies that might never happen and then again, given his drive, maybe they would. There was a backbeat running through his head constantly and he felt at home on stage. His fingers were callused from working on cars and playing guitar, the tips scrubbed white when he has a gig.

Jimmy worked for my Dad in the garage. Dad was satisfied that he was there all day and my parents no longer fussed about the late nights or the long hours of practising as they had at first. Dad still complained about his hair. "Too long, you look like a girl." Sometimes about the loudness when the guys were practising. Jimmy laughed it off.

"What are you doing tonight?" he asked.

"Nothing," I admitted.

"Well come hear the band then. We'll start around nine."

I felt at home, sitting at the table near the stage with the drummer Eldon's girlfriend, Peggy. I liked the sensation of being in the middle of a sound so loud you couldn't think about anything else. They played their song, Misbegotten, which is one of my favourites as it written by Jimmy.

Keith sat beside me after the first set. "Hey, Brenda. I've got something for you, if you'll do something for me." He was offering me a tab of acid under the table. He whispered in my ear that he wanted a blowjob. I ignored him. Keith had long ash-blonde hair and fancied himself quite the ladies man. What a sleaze – it used to drive Paul nuts when he spoke to me, But Paul no longer came to Camshaft gigs.

Jimmy sat on my other side, still trying to convince Keith to change the band's sound. "You should hear the stuff that's coming out of England. I know you hate that arty stuff, but listen to what's in the clubs now. It's totally different – more stripped back like old-style rock."

They talked over me – about Yes, Eric Clapton, the sound referred to as punk. "The way of the future is Kiss and Black Sabbath. Everything is going to get more metallic. We have to catch that wave." Keith had what might be called "artistic differences" with my brother.

During the second set, Keith started forgetting the words to all the songs. His eyes were dilated beyond what was normal in the dim light of the room. He probably had ingested that tab of acid. At one point, he just stopped singing abruptly and stared at the ceiling. Then he improvised very badly, aiming his performance at an unlucky woman with blonde hair at the closest table. "You baby, naked in my arms, baby. You baby, you know what I want, baby." Jimmy, singing the real lyrics in his gravelly baritone, caught Eldon's eye and El ended the set with flourish on the drums that drowned him out.

Keith wobbled off the stage toward the men's room. I turned to talk to Peggy, so I missed the start of the fight. I heard a woman's cry of indignation and a chair scraping back, then Peggy's eyes widened and Eldon got up abruptly. I looked over my shoulder to see Keith absorbing a punch from some big guy, no doubt the woman's boyfriend. He hauled off to hit back and other bar patrons scattered out of the way. Eldon and Jimmy reached him and restrained him, Keith bellowing obscenities and throwing punches at the air. Then the bartender came over and told the band to get out.

Peggy and I paid the bar bill between us. When we got outside, Jimmy was forcing Keith into the van. He didn't want to get in, then he went limp and flaked out on the floor. Eldon watched over him while Jimmy went into the bar to pack up the equipment. He asked me to drive Peggy home.

"Eldon's really mad at Keith," she told me in the car. "You can't tell because he's so mild about everything, but he's really riled up. Even before tonight."

The band was headed for some kind of showdown.

I got up late and kicked off the day with tea. School assignments awaited. When my mother went out, I called to check in on Nikki. She greeted me warmly, then seemed at a loss for what to say. So I told her about Jimmy's band, and last night's disastrous engagement. How hostile that audience was and how the sound system failed during a long instrumental so El had to stop playing and fix it. I described Keith's habit of singling one woman out in the crowd and singing directly at her. How he picked the wrong woman this time and the fight that followed.

"Wah, Brenda. It sounds like fun. My life is so boring."

"Well, it's Jimmy who puts any excitement into my life. I was that kid in high school everyone hated because she went home and did homework every night."

"Oh, me too. I was careful not to let anyone know I understood what was going on in class. I never let anyone see me working. Even in grade thirteen, when I had to have good marks, I never told anyone about them."

"In high school, it's like you had to apologize for learning. I was so happy to meet Marion who is interested in all these geeky things I care about."

"That really perked you up, I could see that."

"You know what, at university we might be surrounded by the people who did the homework."

It was the wrong thing to say. "So how did I end up with Grade A losers! Boys who would do such an awful thing to me!" She started to cry, her breath ragged over the receiver.

I felt hamfisted, having brought her mind back to the events of last Saturday. Is it better for her to try not to think about it or to work through all the emotion? I don't know. I changed the subject to the mundane – her schedule and mine, so we decided I could accompany her to the campus Monday and Tuesday, but my classes were too early on Wednesday and Thursday. Nikki was barely listening. I'd have to work it out with Barbara tomorrow.