"On Guard"

Always scribbling, banking a little time in my songwriting added up fast. So, while Casey refused to do even the least of anything to help, my workload grew and grew to the point where I wouldn’t have a moment for anything but to write a few lines about it while stewing in my frustration and disgust with what I was now involved in, as well as with myself. A lot of that was voiced in a song I wrote about a subject in the news, Jennifer Wilbanks.

Ms. Wilbanks must have gotten cold feet regarding her wedding plans because she disappeared, causing her Bridegroom and their families to call the authorities, requesting to file a missing persons report. A lot of authorities from several states became involved. When they finally found her in Oklahoma, she claimed to have been abducted by a white woman and a Mexican guy. 

Too many opportunities had been lost in the past, like the Joey Buttafuco and Amy Fischer thing, where someone had written a song about that. Although only a novelty item, I wanted to be the one to nail this one. I couldn’t miss out on the chance to nail a gig, so I ran over to the loft in order to pitch the idea to Danimal while it was still in the news, mentioning how people land songwriting publicity that way, and that maybe we could turn something out that would gain attention for our compositions. It wasn’t long between breaths when I had my notepad out to show him what I already had to work with. He looked it over and suggested an intro idea, grabbed his acoustic guitar, and laid down a twelve bar blues progression. After about ten minutes, we had a pretty cool little blues boogie that I could belt out harmonica leads on my A harp to. We were satisfied with ourselves and basked in the glow of completing another song.

The warm weather settled in about two weeks prior, and my excitement about putting it together before anyone else, could hardly be contained. It wasn’t hard to rally Danimal into going down to Tuscan’s Deli to soundboard it on a friend of ours that worked there as a clerk, and to buy a couple of beers in celebration.  It was just about time for the lunchtime rush of customers, so we knew we had a perfect time to catch some ears. She was just about to snag a quick break when we got there, so we went out to a patio table in front of the building and started playing our song.

A minute or two into it, a man in a double-breasted blue pin-stripe suit pulled up, listened for a minute, and then entered the store with the clerk following. After he left, we played it again. As we were making a purchase, then to leave, the same guy came back in asking me for a business card or phone number, saying something or other about looking for acts. I really wasn’t paying much attention for the sake of all of the distractions and my enthusiasm over our sound-boarding the song.

Several weeks later, the phone rang. The caller identified himself as being with the D.W. Cassard V.F.W. hall, Post 3023, asking if we were available for Memorial Day. He said he needed an act, wanting to know if we could fill a two-hour slot in the schedule. I thought about it for a minute, remembering the hours we spent playing at our own art-jams. I told him we sure could, and it was set. I called Danimal right away to let him know that we were scheduled to play on Memorial Day at the Monroe Avenue VFW for a benefit to raise money for a new police K-9. All Dan said was, “We need a Ringer. We need to call R.B.”

Chapter; Sunk

As part of my plan to take back my time from Julie’s increasing demands, I returned to working for Bob. Being that Bob was a Gossipmonger; he could never resist a chance to capitalize on my trade skills and steal pieces of my character and wit for himself. The fun part for him was that he got something new to talk about, AND my carpentry efforts that he called, “Amish Craftsmanship”. My ulterior motives were to put it in his face that I was in a two hundred fifty thousand dollar home, and that I was on my way to getting hands on the situation with my children, since he always deflected me as a bum and a piss-poor father.

Julie had made another impulse purchase, trying to keep me in her snare with another boat. This time it was a fourteen-foot Glastron with an eighty-five horsepower Yamaha outboard. It was a beautiful craft, metallic green and very fast. One morning, Bob volunteered to pick me up, jumping out of his red Savannah, rushing to the north side of my garage to urinate in the bushes, where most of the neighbors could have seen him if they were looking out their windows. I sensed something was wrong since he could have used the utility bathroom that was through the garage door to the house- a mere twelve steps away. Truth was Bob’s bladder and his conscience were both full. He had been up early, coming by before sun-up, and had been in the area drinking coffee while killing the extra time and concealing his deviance, which entailed using his Panasonic cordless drill, and an eighth inch bit, to put a hole in the bottom of my boat, just to the rear of the Captain’s seat. When we got into his van he immediately picked the drill up from the floor near his seat to show me his new purchase, bragging about the technology, while trying to compensate for his guilt with nervous chatter. The green material from the plastic and fiberglass was clinging to the fuselage with static electricity. It hadn’t dawned on me what it was that he had done. And to suspect him of such a dastardly deed, well, it never damned on me that he would do such a thing. Had I not been so concerned with earning his respect and admiration I might have been able to recall that we were never ever friends. It's funny how trying to belong in a warped society causes for people to forget about guarding themselves.