Suzie’s House 466 : Holding Up the Wall

Holding up the wall. That’s what Martin used to call it. It was a manly way to be a wall flower. Except you needed a bottle of beer to make it look right. Walter shifted from one foot to the other. His hip hurt like it always seemed to these days, and he had trouble seeing over the shoulders of the five band members who had crowded into the sound room while the sixth member played drums. Still, it was better to be here than anywhere else in the world right now. He glanced at Drew, then leaned a little harder into the wall.

The three and a half minutes of song time were up, and the drums stopped.

“Ohaaay. That was good.” Pete, the sound guy sounded a little hesitant though Walter hadn’t noticed anything at all wrong with the drumming. “There’s just a couple of places we need to do again.”

“Yeah, I know.” The girl sounded both tinny and embarrassed through the speaker.

“So just play those parts. I can splice them in.”

“Alright! Then as soon as I’m done Justin and I can leave, right? We’ve got movie tickets.”

“Yes, that’s fine,” the sound guy answered for all of them.

“Then after her can Gene and I go together? We’ve done a lot of practicing together so it might be easier and just trying to do it alone.”

“We can give it a try.” The sound guy sounded like he didn’t really think it would work, but wanted to be accommodating. His fingers kept creeping over the toggles and switches of the soundboard.

After making such a fuss over being invited to see the recording, Walter didn’t want to be a party pooper, but his mind kept wandering.

This music recording business was all new to him. Imagine, getting to the end of his natural lifespan and only now learning about something. Anything. It wasn’t like he’d lived under a rock the whole time. He just never really did anything creative.

It was more work than he’d imagined. He’d always listened to music, but never tried to make it. He’s listened during the Vietnam War, of course. Not that he’d had a choice when it blared all around him. He’d listened at work after the war. Again, someone else had tuned in to the radio. But he’d collected some albums. Music was just always there.

Funny, but he’d never tried to pick up the guitar or anything. Martin had played some. He hadn’t been good, but that didn’t keep him from bragging. Walter just watched. He hadn’t really done much creative in his life. Maybe a dirty limerick or two…,

The guitar and bass sounded really good together. Those two kids were harmonious in lots of ways. Maybe they were also dating? Then that would mean the keyboard player and the singer…? They stood about as far away from each other as they could get, so maybe not.

Martin could have loved this. Except he’d have wanted to be the star. These kids were half as old as when Martin died and played three times as well, and didn’t seem inclined to brag about it at all.

Martin used to play a song or two, then hand his guitar to Walter. He’d laugh and make snide comments about how stupid he looked with something like a guitar in his hands. He started doing it when they were in junior high school and kept at it right up until a couple of days before he died.

Walter flinched. Better to not think about that.

Except not thinking about Martin left a gaping hole in Walter’s memories. Even if you ignored all the years of their childhood and the few years of being adults, there were all those years after the war when the guilt had colored everything. As if Walter didn’t have enough problems with memory. Intentionally leaving things out could be fatal to his mental stability.

But what if Martin had never exited?

It wasn’t until after he was gone that Walter began to realize how many ways Martin had undermined him. All his belittling and “practical jokes” had destroyed Walter’s self confidence.

If not for that, he might have taken up guitar. He might have joined a band and done what these brave kids were trying to do. How different his life might have been. That he could still think that way made Walter flinch. It was a fruitless pursuit. He had to accept it. That was all there was to it.

“I guess there’s no escaping the past,” Walter muttered.

Drew gave him a funny look, but didn’t say anything. The two of them continued to lean against the back wall of the sound room, watching a group of kids trying to make a different kind of history.

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