I buckled up and focused. I sent Mattie off to Nana and Papa’s with his stuffed bear, a lunchbox full of food, a bag full of washable paints, and a few extra sets of clothes. During my next practice session, I thought that I should have instead packed him a suitcase and a cooler, because he was going to be staying quite a while. I kept “Your Love” on repeat and listened to it so many times that the room started to spin, and it wasn’t the disco ball kicking in. I had Cheerios and wine for dinner. More than once. Cooking held no status or priority here. It was go-time. And I needed to get this song learned.
What we were now calling the music room held constant through the summer at a dry and crisp seventy-two degrees. I didn’t plan on breaking a sweat, but an hour into my first I’ve-got-to-do-this session I felt my face flush. I was sticky, and when I looked at the thermostat off to the side of the kit, I saw that my exertion (or perhaps the speakers I’d cranked for so long) had raised the temperature of the room by one degree! I was really doing something here! It took all afternoon to get it. My ears were ringing for a few hours after. But it felt so good. The progress was real. The lick that had flummoxed me and the three limbs I’d been trying to coordinate for so many months finally came out smoothly and not accidentally.
I couldn’t get any neuroscientists interested in investigating what was happening inside my brain as I practiced my drums. Maybe they knew I wasn’t yet show-ready. But I had a hunch that my brain had had quite the workout that day. I wasn’t an expert and wouldn’t be called in as a backup for the Outfield’s reunion tour—yet—but I was certain that my brain could now take on a wee bit more than it could before, and that my multitasker quotient had just ticked up one notch.
Showtime
The day of my show, I woke up to a bed full of vomit. It was actually Mattie’s bed. And it was his own, from his dinner the night before. I blame the half a watermelon he insisted on eating. Everything was in dire need of laundering, including Mattie himself. This morning surprise cost me ninety minutes and nearly all of the mental focus I had allocated for roadie work (since I had no staff, go figure). This setback is the reason, I believe, that it took until I was unpacking the boxes of T-shirts I had personally printed for my merch table to discover that the image was backward. It was my face and hands holding my own drumsticks, sure, in mottled hues of blue. But the show’s slogan PONY UP: THE ONE-TRICK TOUR, firmly affixed to the swag, required you to scan the printed words not as the English language usually commands, but instead in reverse, from right to left.
I rushed out to make some shirts using an at-home iron-on transfer paper system instead. The product was definitely second-rate, but legible to those both with and without the aid of a mirror. I piled up the cotton tops, still warm from my personal printing-press job, for ticket holders to peruse. I included the backward-texted ones too, thinking that the reversed imagery might appeal to those particularly interested in irony. This whole gig was a sort of through-the-looking-glass experience anyway. My face with drumsticks and transposed catchphrases was the concrete manifestation of just that.
I’d also printed up CD liners with the show’s icon and motto. I intentionally left the disc-side of the plastic cases empty, except for a small placard indicating that purchasers should provide their own CD of preferred music. I was certain the cases would sell better if I didn’t include a recording of myself. I filled a cooler with bottles of wine and beer clad in labels featuring my tour’s logo. I had a few varieties of performance posters, announcing myself as the featured artist along with (previously) recorded artist the Outfield. I was playing along with a track off their studio album, after all. I took it upon myself to pre-autograph some of the posters in anticipation of a mad rush after the gig.
Just before showtime, I turned off all the lights in the music room and turned on the disco ball. I set up auxiliary globe lighting on the floor around the merch table. I checked my sticks to see if I had cracked them in my last rehearsal. Nope, I’m not that powerful. Yet.
The doors opened and in came the crowd. A dozen or so vied for a seat on the oversized couches.
I sat down on the throne. Mattie’s friend Sarah checked and double-checked that her headphones worked, then settled in up front.
I turned on the stereo, cued up my tune, and hit PLAY.
I thought I had made a wise though cheeky choice in selecting a song that had the drummer wait out the first minute as the guitar and lead singer laid down the intro. Since the song was only four minutes long, that was 25 percent less for me to learn, I thought. In the end, it was awkward. Me sitting at the drums looking at them as they looked back at me. And my mom—an always loving but at times too honest critic—was keen to tell me later she thought I had frozen in panic. The stereo was cranked, so I couldn’t tell jokes to cover my self-consciousness, though at this point I had better percussions skills than humor.
But then it was my turn to jump in. I nailed the snare on the pickup to the fourth beat before smashing the crash on the downbeat. Commence basic rock rhythm. I’m off!
As I opened and closed the hi-hat on the offbeats in between the eighth-note chicks, Pete smiled. I winked back, pretty proud of how all four limbs were doing their own thing and my brain didn’t explode. I caught the fill and crash into and out of the interlude, and switched up the bass drum pedal action. I woke up the crowd with my first roll across the toms.
I live-streamed the event internationally. My sister lives across the continent and one country up, in Canada. She tuned in for the show. She’s a professional musician and professor. Despite her having just flown back from Thailand a few hours before, still a little out of it because of the food poisoning she was fighting off, I knew she was listening closely and critically. She bobbed her head even more affirmatively when she caught the syncopation on the snare, which I had clocked probably four hours trying to perfect the week before.
I recorded the show too, and sent it off to a cousin who is a drummer. When he had heard what I was up to, he’d told me he routinely washes the family dinner dishes to that song. I’d like to think my performance inspired him to take on the breakfast ones too.
In the one or two moments when I wasn’t counting the beat in my head like a bird in a cuckoo clock, I looked around the room. I saw my dad whip out a cell phone, light up the screen, and wave it over his head. Was he calling for an encore already, or lighting his way out? I saw Pete teaching Mattie how to give a thumbs-up sign. Mattie couldn’t coordinate the necessary appendages. With his thumb and pointer finger both up and out, the product in Mattie’s hand looked more like an imitation of a revolver. I wasn’t sure of his intention. Maybe he meant to say, “Why don’t you just shoot me?” But honestly, I doubt it, because I was doing pretty darn well!
In the third verse, my mounted-tom work was spot-on. I was rapid-firing alternating sixteenth and eighth notes on the floor tom and snare, then landing on the crash to kick off the final chorus. I was pulsing on the ride and driving it forward with crashes on every other beat. Yeah, I ended up too far on the backbeat on my last syncopation, but by then half the room was dancing, not taking notes. I was spanking the crash and rocking as hard as I ever had. I finished it off with the little splash for kicks, and threw the stick up in the air. It did a 360 and landed back in my hand. Rock-star style.