Suzie’s House 443 : Guitars at a Music Store

Gene held the music shop door open for Tracy. He followed close on her heels as she made a beeline for the guitars hanging on the far wall.

“Technically it was Aunt Stephanie who gave me the money. Mom didn’t say one way or another about getting a guitar. She just said I could have some money to play with over summer vacation. She probably thought I’d go for movies and burgers. I was supposed to get a little at a time. Maybe she thinks I don’t have enough backbone to save it for something big.”

“Pft! Like we have time for things like movies or MacDonald’s.”

“I know, right?” She pulled an electric guitar off the wall, plucked a string or two, then looked around like she thought there’d be an amplifier laying around in the area.

To Gene’s amazement, she did find one. It came with a pair of headphones. He pulled them out while she plugged in the guitar.

“I want to hear this too.”

“Don’t. We’ll get kicked out.” She reached for the headphones.

“There’s nobody here.” He dangled them out of her reach while looking around to see if he was right. Sure enough, not even an employee turned up. “Just remember, if a hundred and fifty isn’t enough, I can give you more.”

“Yeah. The money Bruce gave us.” She looked around too, then quit fighting. “Alright, but if we get kicked out it’ll be your fault.”

She tried out a couple of standard cords, stopped to tune one of the strings, then played a couple of bars from one of their band’s songs.

“It’s kind of flat. Not like mine.”

“It’s not like I’m going to be able to get something as good as that one.” She shot him a quick look filled with resentment and jealousy.

“Yeah. That’s true.” Gene couldn’t quite make himself not smile. It wasn’t every day you accidentally got a guitar that used to belong to a Rock legend. “But we can do better than this one.”

“Right.” She put the guitar back, glanced at the price tags on a couple more, then took another off the wall.

While she was doing that a woman came in with two boys that must be a couple years younger than Gene. They kind of glanced at the kit drums, then acted like they couldn’t find anything, and headed for the door.

Tracy strummed a couple of gnarly rifts, then settled into Hauntingly Familiar. It was a weird transition, and the strings buzzed a little at the cusp.

“Hey! What are you kids….” Some old guy came out of the back. Great. Now they were going to get kicked out, and they hadn’t even found a good guitar yet. Only the old guy got a funny look on his face with his eyes on something over Gene’s shoulder.

Gene glanced that way to see what, and found the woman and boys staring at them slack jawed.

“Guess not,” Tracy said. “Here, you put this one up. I’ll try to find one that doesn’t buzz.”

“Alright.” He took the guitar while Tracy went for another, totally oblivious to everything else until she went to plug in the next one.

“You… you’re from Malaprop. Right?” The woman took a couple of steps closer.

“Yeah. We both are,” Gene said.

“Can I have your autographs?” She stated fishing around in her purse.

“Sure.” Gene tried to play it cool, but couldn’t help smirking with Tracy. It was their first time being treated like real celebrities or something.

“Aunt Jen, can I try the drums?” One of the boys said.

“Sure you can.” The employee guided the boy over to the kit drums.

“I saw you playing down at Peace Park a couple of months ago, and then saw you on stage at The Station. You’re really good. Do you have any records out yet?” Hardly noticing anything else, the Aunt Jen woman brought out a little spiral note pad and a pen.

“We had a deal with a guy in Chicago, but it fell though,” Tracy said. “What?” She gave Gene a ‘well, it’s the truth’ look and shrugged. She took the pen first.

“When is your next gig?”

“Um… We’re re-organizing right now. So… probably the beginning of next month.”

“As long as you don’t break up. Here. Put me on your mailing list.” She tore off the name and address corner from a check and handed it to Gene.

“Sure.” He stuffed it into his pocket, thinking he’d have to give it to Bruce. Bruce would know what to do with it. He wrote his name in the notebook next to Tracy’s.

Then the woman noticed she’d lost a nephew, who banged around on the drums in a way that made Gene wince. Good thing Kate and Justin knew better than to play like that.

Tracy tried a couple more guitars out while the music store guy sold the drums. A few more people came in and looked around, then left. None of them seemed to recognize the Rock deities in their midst. So maybe it was just one weird woman. Not that anything could cheapen the moment.

By the time the store got quiet again, they’d pretty much settled on one of two. Neither was quite what they were looking for, but the best they could get for the money. All the money. There would be nothing left for practice room rent.

“So, you’re pros?” The employee came up to them with a used car salesman smile.

Gene and Tracy looked at each other. Were they pros? They wanted to be, but did that mean they were already? They guy didn’t give them a chance to answer.

“You don’t want either of those.” He put them both away.

“Hey, wait.” Tracy’s hands followed the guitars to the wall.

“What you want it this one.” He handed her one they’d already drooled over but didn’t even bother to try because the price tag was so high.

“Thanks, but we don’t have enough money.” She tried to hand it back.

“What do you have? One hundred? Two? Tell you what. If you’ll let me make a little modification, you can have this one for one hundred smackers.” He pressed it on her.

“Serious?”

“As serious as I ever get.”

She strummed a couple of cords, then broke into a full fledged version of Enigmatic. It was so much better than anything else they’d tried it was enough to make a poor man cry.

“Yeah. We’ll take it,” Tracy said.

“Great!” He clapped his hands together. “Just let me make that little modification over at the cash register. Will that be cash or credit?”

Tracy pulled out her hundred, but Gene kept the rest of the money in his pocket just to see what would happened. They guy slapped a bumper sticker with the name of the store over the front of the guitar, took the hundred, handed over a receipt, and wished them luck.

He waited until the door of the store closed behind them before he dared say anything.

“Wow. Enough money for a top of the line guitar, practice room rent, and burgers on the side. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

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