"And you can bet your ass that if Jake and I go to Doolittle on this, you're gonna lose," Matt said. "They'll file a fucking restraining order against your ass to keep you out of here if they have to."
"You wouldn't dare," Nerdly said. "There's no way the two of you could finish this album without me."
"You're wrong about that, Bill," Jake said, jumping in before Matt could. "I'll admit it probably wouldn't sound as good without you helping us, but we both know enough about mixing to pull it off. And we're not bluffing here. We'll do it if you force us. So how about we just don't go there? It'll do nothing but create a bunch of hard feelings that will never go away, and force us to release an album that's not all it should be. You're good at this mixing shit, Bill, but you need to mellow out a little and work with what we have."
Nerdly was clearly not happy about this. Being threatened with banishment by his band mates had clearly pissed him off to the highest degree. The threat and Jake's appeasement of his ego seemed to get through to him, however. He slowly unclenched his fists and un-gritted his teeth.
"All right," he said. "It's under protest, but I'll go along with you."
"The protest is noted," Jake said. "Now how about we get to work on this thing?"
They got to work. The first thing Nerdly did was get on the inter-department phone and call for Sharon Cohen. Sharon was a twenty-three year old post-graduate student from UCLA who was interning at the studio while working on her master's degree in audio engineering — a highly specialized field that dealt almost entirely with music and other sound recording. A shy, mousy, unassuming girl who favored loose, baggy clothing and who wore a pair of coke-bottle glasses, she nevertheless had quite the ear for music reproduction. She had been assigned to assist the band at the beginning of the project with things such as coffee making and sandwich fetching but Nerdly had taken her under his wing when he realized the un-tapped potential she held. It was rare that the two of them were not together when actual mixing was being done.
"Is he boning her yet?" Matt asked Jake as Nerdly got up to open the door for her.
"Not yet," Jake said. "He says he doesn't think of her that way."
"She is a bit on the homely side," Matt said. "Probably only a little better than jacking off."
"I think he's in love with her," Jake said. "You see the way he lights up whenever she's in the room?"
Matt shrugged, disinterested. After all, he'd once written a song entitled Who Needs Love? "She probably hasn't been boned much," he said. "I bet her pussy is really tight. A girl like that wouldn't take it up the ass though. Hell, she might not even swallow."
"I'm sure we'll get a full report when he takes that step," Jake said.
"If he's not too pissed off at us to fill us in," Matt said. "You think we went too far threatening him like that? I don't think I've ever seen him that pissed off before."
"Well, threatening to gouge out his eyeball might've been a bit over the edge," Jake said, "but overall, I think we did what needed to be done. Let's see how it goes."
"Yep," Matt agreed. "If nothing else, I think we at least got through to his ass this time."
They may have gotten through to him, but he was far from happy with them. As they went through the tracks of Life Of Toil one by one, making preliminary notes on what direction the adjustments needed to be made and trying to set a baseline sound level, Nerdly remained professional but aloof to his two band mates. He participated in no unnecessary conversation with them and when he did have to talk, his words were short and to the point.
His conversations with Sharon, on the other hand, were animated and in-depth as she cued up the tracks on the tape machines or jotted down levels on a note pad for him. He talked to her about some of his adventures in the studio over the past year, sharing anecdotes about how some of the clueless technicians were actually trying override a snare drum with a cymbal, or how they dared to suggest compiling a synthesizer track atop a bass rhythm in his presence. Sharon listened with wide-eyed interest that bordered on worship. Later, as the day progressed, she made mention of her plans for the upcoming High Holy Days. This led them into a long, incredibly boring discussion of the basic differences and conflicts between the Judaism faith and the various sects of Christianity.
Through this all, despite his anger at his colleagues and his obvious infatuation with the young, mousy intern, Nerdly remained true to his word and did his very best with the tracks that were presented to him. He made no more comments about how they should overdub the recording, made no more suggestions about scrapping the entire song. By the time four o'clock rolled around, they had made significant progress on the preliminaries of mixing the tune.
A knock came on the studio door. When Jake opened it he found Pauline standing there. His sister was wearing her standard business attire of a conservative, knee-length skirt, nylons, and a matching blouse and vest combo. Her hair was done up in a bun and her jewelry was both minimal and tasteful. She carried a leather briefcase in one hand.
"Hey, sis," Jake greeted. "What are you doing here?"
"Well," she said, "apparently we all have a meeting in fifteen minutes with Crow and Doolittle."
Chapter 8b
"We do?" Jake asked.
"What the fuck?" asked Matt. "Nobody told us nothing about no meeting."
"What's it about?" Nerdly wanted to know.
Pauline answered them one by one. "Yes we do, nobody told me anything either until an hour ago, and I don't know what it's about. They just said it was important and that all five of you and myself should be there."
"Freak-boy is still in Birmingham, isn't he?" asked Matt, using his recently coined nickname for Charlie.
"Yes," Pauline said. "He's been there for the past month. And Coop is in some place called Glamis with his motorcycles. It's down in the desert somewhere about three hours away. He won't be able to make it either."
"They specified that you should be here?" Jake asked.
"Yeah," she said. "I don't know if that means anything though. I've specified that I be included in any meeting that takes place in any sort of official capacity that involves plans for the band or any changes or additions to the income stream."
"So this could be either good or bad?" Matt asked.
"Or completely neutral," she said. She looked at Nerdly and smiled. "Hey, Bill," she said. "You're being kind of quiet."
Nerdly blushed a little. "It's been kind of a trying day," he said.
"I understand it's been kind of a trying few weeks," Pauline said. Jake and Matt had both complained endlessly to her about Nerdly's over-anal perfectionism. Likewise, Nerdly had complained quite extensively to her about Jake and Matt's lack of pride in their product. "You'll get through it. The important thing is to work together and stay focused, right?"
"Right," he mumbled.
"Are you going to introduce me to your friend?" Pauline asked him, obviously with the intent of teasing him. Ever since they were children, Nerdly had had a romantic crush on Pauline.
"Uh... sure," he said. He made the introductions. Pauline and Sharon shook hands and exchanged nice-to-meet-you's. Pauline kept any further teasing to a minimum in light of the obvious tension between the three musicians.
They made their way out of the cavernous recording studio and to the elevators, riding up to the top floor where Doolittle's office was located. They arrived five minutes early but Doolittle did not make them wait as he would have with anyone else. They were ushered into his spacious office with the view of Hollywood Boulevard and given seats in the plush chairs before his desk. Doolittle and Crow were both present.
Doolittle offered both refreshments and cocaine to them, as usual. As usual, they all declined the offer. He simply nodded and called the meeting to order.