“It’s gonna be a big change,” said Corey, who had just tried to drink his beer and found it had turned to an icy slush. He tossed the can to the side and pulled another one out of the snowbank. He popped it open and took a drink. He then spent a moment pondering the life-change of which he spoke. Encouraged by his father, he had been talking to a United States Navy recruiter down in Billings and had all but committed to a four-year hitch once he had diploma in hand. That would get him money for college—assuming he wasn’t killed in some war in a faraway land—which would hopefully get him out of this tiny town for good.
“It all seems so unreal at times, doesn’t it?” asked Renee. She herself was planning to attend Billings Community College for a few years and then hopefully transfer to Montana State in the same city. Her aunt Becky lived just outside of Billings and was willing to let her stay there with her while she was in school, and there was some money her parents had put aside for her to help her pay for it. Pig farming had been reasonably lucrative these last ten years and Renee was an only child.
“Do you think we’ll be able to get together like this?” asked John. “You know ... after we graduate?”
“Probably not as often,” Corey said. “But sometimes. I’ll have leave from the navy now and then, and you’ll still be living here in town, and Rennie will be home on weekends and holidays, right?”
“I should be,” she said. “It depends on what kind of job I get to help me along.”
“We should make a vow,” said John. “At least once a year, we need to come out here and drink some beer together. Sound like a plan?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Corey said, raising his can in salute.
“Sounds like a plan,” agreed Renee, who, at the age of eighteen, was already wise enough in the ways of the world to know that such vows are much easier to make than to keep. She drank her beer slowly, feeling an uncomfortable surge of melancholy washing over her.
“Some new music here for you on K-cold,” said the DJ from the speaker of the boombox. “This is the latest from Celia Valdez.”
“Not this song again!” complained Corey.
“I thought you liked The Struggle,” said Renee, who was assuming that that was the song they were about to play.
“It’s all right,” Corey said, “they’ve just played the fuck out of it these last few months.”
“I like it a lot,” Renee declared. “It just kind of hits you where you live, you know?”
But the song was not The Struggle. “This is called Playing Those Games,” the DJ said, “the latest from her solo album, and ... well ... it kind of rocks. Give it a listen and see what you think.”
And with that, the music started. It was a slow intro accomplished by piano laying down the melody. Soothing, gentle, not bad at all. And then it kicked into gear. A grinding, distorted guitar began to play and Valdez’s voice ramped up into an angry, emotional outburst about the trials and tribulations of falling in love with someone not worthy of you.
“Damn,” Corey whispered, as his feet began to tap to the rhythm. “That’s some good guitar work.”
“The girl can rock,” said Renee, who was smiling as she listened.
“Not bad at all,” said John, who actually started miming an air guitar to the riffs.
They listened to it all the way to the end. Later on, the DJ spun The Struggle again, allowing them to reacquaint with it. Later still, just as the sun was starting to set and they were getting ready to head back to their respective homes, Playing Those Games was spun once more and they listened to it again, giving it all their attention.
On their way home they talked about pooling their money to buy a copy of the CD the next time one of them was in Billings and could hit the Walmart. They could then record it on cassette tapes and each have their own copy.
Bangor, Maine
December 22, 1992
It was icy cold in Maine as well, but inside the City of Bangor municipal building garage, it was nice and toasty thanks to a propane fired blow heater set up in the corner. The garage was responsible for servicing and repairing all of the seventy-four vehicles owned by the municipality. It was the size of a small warehouse and featured four lift stalls, each of which had its own equipment racks full of tools of all variety and an array of diagnostic machines. Lining the walls from floor to ceiling between the stalls were shelves that contained hundreds of different parts needed for routine maintenance: oil filters in varying sizes, tires in varying sizes, lights, hoses, quarts of oil, quarts of power steering and brake fluid, windshield wipers, and many other things.
Steve Bledsoe was a ten-year mechanic with the city. The job paid decently enough and had a retirement plan, although that bitch of an ex-wife of his was sucking out nearly forty percent of everything he made with those alimony and child support payments that shyster lawyer of hers had managed to get the judge to agree to. Just because he had been boning her sister—and that slut had begged him for the banana, had kept demanding it often until they’d been caught red-handed that one fateful night—Belinda got all righteous on him, filed for divorce, and went for broke. Did he really deserve that shit? Hell, he had at least been keeping it in the family, hadn’t he?
Steve was dressed in a pair of greasy overalls with his name stenciled on the breast. His fingers and fingernails were dry, cracked, and perpetually grimy with grease and oil stains. His hair was long and his stomach bulged out a bit with the beginnings of a beer belly. Currently he had a black and white Crown Victoria that belonged to Bangor PD up on the rack and he was draining the oil out if while getting ready to lube up the chassis. On the wall behind him was a boom box tuned to WZAP, the primary hard rock station for the Bangor region, the volume turned loud enough that everyone in the garage could hear it, even over the sound of ratcheting air wrenches.
Currently there was a commercial for Allied Bail Bonds playing, the announcer explaining to the target demographic of eighteen to thirty-nine year olds, many of whom would be unemployed since it was after ten o’clock in the morning on a weekday, how they had a constitutional right to bail if they were arrested and how Allied Bail Bonds’ specialists in providing this service would be sympathetic and non-judgmental to all who found themselves in such a situation. And, they were conveniently located right next door to the Penobscot County jail in downtown Bangor.
The commercial ended and the late morning to early afternoon DJ came back on the air. It was Justin Side, an up and comer recently hired by WZAP after he was fired from a morning show in Montpellier.
“It’s eleven-thirty-three here on the Zapper,” Side told his audience, “and that means it’s time for some new music to guide you toward the lunch break. This is Jake Kingsley’s latest tune, a little something called Insignificance, and it’s from his solo album released last year, Can’t Keep Me Down. The tune features Kingsley himself on the acoustic guitar and, here’s a little piece of trivia: His mother, Mary Kingsley, who is a retired symphony violinist, is playing violin for him. Should be interesting, huh? Let’s give it a listen.”
Steve’s attention perked up as he heard this. He had been an Intemperance fan from the very beginning, ever since he’d seen them open for Earthstone on their first tour date ever on New Year’s Day of 1983 in the Bangor Auditorium. He owned every album Intemp had ever put out and had been quite bummed when the group had broken up. He had been unimpressed with Matt Tisdale’s solo album—he had not bought a copy of that one—but he had enjoyed the one cut from Kingsley’s solo album he’d heard so far: The Easy Way. True, it wasn’t exactly like an Intemperance tune, and it had taken a few listens for him to start getting into it, but now he truly enjoyed the song and looked forward to the times he heard it play. And now, here was something new from the album. Something with a violin in it? A violin played by Kingsley’s mother? His freaking mother? How old would she have to be? At least in her fifties, Steve figured.