Chapter 1: Chapter 1 – I Need A Dollar

“Okay, so keep practicing your songs, but I really do want to hear your G major and natural minor scales next week. Two octaves for both of them and when those are solid we can look at the third octave and we’ll cover the other flavors of minor scales.” I’m not entirely sure that my student catches the last sentence because he’s already out the door but he tosses a “‘Kay!” over his shoulder as he heads for his waiting mom, who waves at me as I stick my head out the door. I smile and wave back.

It’s a lot less stuffy in the hallway than it is in my little soundproofed studio room, so I quickly unplug my bass from the amp and zip it into its gig back, which I sling onto my shoulder, and gratefully head out.

“Done for the day?” Kelly asks from behind the counter as I navigate my way to the front of the store between shelves of music books and displays of electronic pianos.

“Yep, that was my last one.” I give her a tired smile. Kelly has worked at the music store since before I started teaching lessons in the back studio space and we hit it off right away. I’m always glad when she’s working on days I’m teaching. “No more lessons till next week, so I’ll see you on Monday?”

“Nah, I’m off on Monday,” she says. “My sister and her girlfriend are in town next week, so we’ve got some plans and my work schedule’s a little weird. I tried to take the whole week off, but Chris put in for a few days off this week like three months ago, so I gotta be here on Tuesday and Wednesday at least. Not sure yet about later in the week. Jayden wants to pick up some hours if he’s not at his other job, but doesn’t have his schedule yet.”

“Oh, cool! I mean, that you get to see your sister, not that you have to work.” Kelly introduced me to her sister Michelle about a year ago. I didn’t really get to know her, but the two sisters are very close and I know that Kelly misses her sister a lot since she moved to a different state a few years back. I haven’t met the girlfriend.

“Yeah, I’m really pumped to see both of them again! They’re staying with me, so I’ll still see lots of them even though I have to work.”

“Do you have room for them? You’re always telling me how tight it is in your apartment.”

“My roommate is gone this week, so that’ll help. Makes it less weird for them to crash on the futon in the living room. We kinda planned it that way. But yeah, no money for a hotel and Airbnb prices keep going up too and Lily doesn’t like Airbnb on ethical grounds anyway.”

“Lily’s the girlfriend?” I interrupt.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Yeah, she’s not wrong.” I motion for Kelly to continue.

“Oh, it’s not like me or Michelle disagreed. Just exploring options, you know? My parents tried to guilt Michelle into staying with them, but she said she got enough background queerphobia growing up and she won’t subject Lily to that. I think they agreed to go out for dinner with our folks, but beyond that probably won’t be seeing them.”

“Oof,” I add helpfully.

“Yeah, they keep saying, ‘Oh, we’re trying! It’s a lot to get used to!’” Kelly shakes her head. “It’s weird, they’re way more upset about her being gay than me being bi, but Michelle’s more patient with them than I am. Of course, I’m more mad about them being shitty to her.”

“Maybe they’re hoping if you’re ‘only’ bi,” I do the finger quotes, “then you’ll still end up with a dude.”

“Yeah, or the whole thing where a bi man is just a gay man in denial, but a bi woman is just a straight woman looking for attention.”

“Is that a thing?” I pause to consider what Kelly just said. “Oh yeah, I guess it is. Huh.”

“Anyway, enough about my family’s shit. You should hang out with us sometime next week. I promise my parents won’t be involved and we won’t dump too much queer trauma about them.”

“Yeah, sounds fun! I’d be down for that. Unfortunately, my evenings are pretty free.”

“Still no luck on the band front, then?”

“Nope, don’t even know if we should be looking to recruit for our band or find a band to join. Either way, lessons alone aren’t cutting it, so I’m kinda looking for more work.”

“That’s rough. I don’t think Bill is looking for more help for the store right now, but I’ll let you know if I hear of anything. Looking for something in particular?”

“I mean, I’d prefer music obviously, but at this point, I’m not super picky as long as I can make it work with lessons and I’m not too locked into anything if we get a band going again.”

We talk a bit more about how money (or lack of it) is depressing and promise to check in to make plans on Tuesday. I get my bass bag situated a bit more comfortably and leave the store.

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*****

Kelly and I haven’t hung out much outside of the store, partly because schedules are weird and up until recently I was often busy in the evenings, but also just because I’m an introvert and don’t do a lot of social stuff. Her coworker Chris says she’s into me, but he also thinks that any woman who smiles at him is flirting, so I don’t put much faith in his judgement. I wonder if Kelly’s invitation to hang out is just that or something more, but I don’t worry about it too much. It’s nice to keep things uncomplicated.

Instead, I’m thinking about money and how I don’t really have any as I walk the five blocks to the light rail. I worked a series of shitty jobs out of college, since the economy wasn’t that great, but things started coming together a few years ago. I play bass and my roommate is a drummer. My roommate knew a guitarist whose girlfriend is a pretty solid vocalist. We started a band and got pretty decent. We mostly played bars, but got a reputation as an easy band to work with who would show up reliably and on time, so the owners were happy to invite us back regularly. That was mostly evenings and weekends, so in the afternoons after school, I was able to start teaching bass lessons at the music store. Some months were better than others, but overall I was doing pretty well financially and so were my bandmates.

Then there was a pandemic and live gigs dried up and in-person teaching dried up. As a band, we pooled our stimulus checks for studio time and recorded an album. We had enough album sales to make back our money and then some, so we did all right, but it was tight. As the country collectively decided to ignore that the pandemic wasn’t really over, gigs and teaching started picking back up, but slowly, and I was running out of money in my savings account.

Last month, our guitarist got a really good job offer in Seattle. Two weeks ago, he and his girlfriend moved out there and now we only have half a band. I’ve got next month’s rent covered, and then I’m going to be broke.

So when I see one of those folding chalkboards set out on the sidewalk I stop. I stop because it says, “If you can read this, come ask about a job!” with an arrow pointing in the direction of the stairs that lead down about eight feet from street level to a basement entrance door. The door is unmarked. Fifteen feet further down the sidewalk, there’s a set of three steps leading up to an entrance for a shop that appears to cater to wine moms. Otherwise, there aren’t any immediately obvious storefronts on this side of the building.

The buildings around here have been renovated and turned into coffee shops and then gutted and renovated again to be turned into microbreweries so many times that a basement establishment is unremarkable but I’m a little put off by the wording of the sign. Is this some sort of MAGA “speak English or shut up” attitude filtered through Midwestern passive-aggressiveness or just somebody’s idea of a joke?

I look at the sign again. The text is written in light green chalk, but something about it hurts my eyes. It feels like when you look at clashing colors, like bright red text on a bright green background, but that doesn’t make much sense for pale green on a dark grey chalkboard. I shake my head. I’m probably just tired.

I figure if it’s a MAGA jerk, they’re usually not subtle, and it won’t hurt me to find out, so at worst I’ll waste a few minutes. I head down the stairs and look at the door. I’m not sure if I should knock or just go in, so I settle for knocking and then opening the door partway.

“Come on in!” yells a voice, so I open the door the rest of the way and step inside. Inside appears to be a bar in the final stages of construction.

Since there’s no one else present, I assume the voice belongs to the stocky woman seated at the bar looking at a spreadsheet on a laptop. “What can I do for you?” she asks.

“I saw the sign, so I wanted to see what the job was?”

“Oh! Good! That was fast. I just put that thing out. Come over here, please.”

I walk over to the bar and the woman stands up. She doesn’t come anywhere near my six foot two, but the way she’s built, my money would be on her in a cage fight.

I shake my head and tell myself that’s a weird thing to think about when first meeting a potential employer. Still, there’s something about her that suggests not to even think about messing with her. It’s like a subliminal aura. Not threatening, just…there.

That’s when I realize she’s sizing me up too. I wonder what she’s looking for. Aside from my height, which isn’t that far off from a lot of other guys, I don’t think I’m particularly remarkable. I walk and bike, which keeps me in okay shape, but I don’t do much to work out my upper body. I can put on muscle if I hit the gym, but I’ve never been able to make it a habit. I’ve got a bit of a tummy, which kind of bothers me sometimes, but again, it’s nothing remarkable. Overall, my appearance, from my slightly shaggy brown hair to my jeans and loose button-down shirt (unbuttoned) over a comic book tee, is calculated to be low-maintenance and inoffensive.

“So what are you?” she finally says after eyeing me up and down.

“Um, a musician?” I respond, trying to gesture at my bass, which is super awkward because it’s on my back.

“No. What are you? Not what you do.”

“I don’t know what you’re asking? Like, honestly, being a musician is pretty important to my identity. It’s a bass, by the way, not a guitar. I know most people don’t really understand the difference, but it’s an important distinction to some of us.” I’m babbling a bit because honestly, I have no idea where this interaction is going.

“Look, kid, you said you read the sign so I know you’re not a hundred percent human. What are you?”

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