Roach, the drummer for Skye’s revived punk band The Dynamite Chicks is looking over her new baby, a brand new drum kit, being as she could finally afford to upgrade with the success of her band!

This story is featured in my collection of short stories entitled Short Songs, featuring characters from The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright series.

     She sat down.
     She stood up.
     She walked around.
     She sat down again.
     She stood up.
     Sitting down and then standing up one more time she walked around her drum set before sitting back down and shifting around her snare.
     She had been so used to her old drums that she was still getting used to the new ones. She insisted on double bass drums, but it was throwing off her pedal positions. She moved the snare and started slowly and methodically shifting around the bass drums while also trying to resist the urge to tune her floor toms again.
     “Look at this beast!”
     Roach had been concentrating so much on her new drum kit that she had not noticed Larry, their sound engineer, coming into the studio.
     “Gonna insist on bringin’ this whole thing on tour?” asked Larry as he stepped up on the drum riser.
     Roach scrunched her face as she looked it over. “Not sure yet. I have to go through a few more rounds a’ playin’ it before I decide.”
     “Either way, the roadies will have fun with this one.”
     “Eh. It’s what we pay ‘em for, right?”
     Larry raised an eyebrow. “I happen to be one a’ those roadies, m’dear!”
     Roach shook her head. “You’ve been goin’ out with Tandasil too long.”
     “What?”
     Roach looked Larry right in the eye and raised her eyebrow.
     “Oh blast,” said Larry. “Am I doin’ that now?”
     Roach waved her hands around. “You’ve been seduced by the Vulcan!”
     “I don’t think Tand has ever heard that nickname yet.”
     “Really? That’s what we all call her.”
     “It’ll be our little secret!”
     “Hey, can you do me a favor? I’m screwin’ around with the pedal positions. Wanna try it out?”
     Larry screwed up his face. “You actually want me to touch your new baby?”
     “You know me. I’m gonna fuck this kit up.”
     “Of course!” Larry sat down on the drum stool. He looked around. He tested out the bass drum pedals and then stepped onto the high hat. “I’m just a might bit taller than you love.”
     “Not by much.”
     “True enough.” He picked up the drumsticks and belted out a rhythm while kicking one of the bass drums.
     He stopped drumming. “Personally I’d bring this in a little closer,” he said, gently tapping the top of the left bass drum. “I think the high hat’s fine though. Maybe tilt the snare a bit more.”
     “Damn Larry, you ain’t bad. We’re you already a drummer?”
     Larry stood up. “I think I’ve played every damn instrument you can think of besides the didgeridoo.”
     Larry handed the drumsticks to Roach who sat down at her kit and started shuffling one of the bass drums closer.
     “How come you ain’t in a band?” asked Roach as she tested out the bass drum’s new position. “Like maybe even just a side gig thing that you could do once in a while?”
     Larry shrugged. “Personally I wonder why Tandasil ain’t got her own gig. She’s a better musician than I am.”
     “Seriously?”
     Larry nodded.
     “I ain’t never heard her play nothin’,” said Roach.
     “She’s fuckin’ good. At guitar and bass. You’d be surprised.”
     “Fuck yeah I would!”
     Larry left to tend to other studio duties.
     Roach stood up once again and looked over her kit. As she contemplated how to arrange her various floor toms, her thoughts drifted back to her first drum set, a rusty and rugged kit that had been relegated to one corner of a garage. When she was only a pre-teen she spent most of her time at her friend Chelsea’s house, where Chelsea’s rough-looking dad Grizz had set up a music studio in his garage where his biker band would practice.
     As a young girl Roach had initially been wary of the tall and rough looking Grizz, with his perpetual five o’clock shadow and his frayed denim and leather clothes. But she quickly learned that he was an amiable and mischievous man, acting more like a teenager than an actual grown up. He had a new drum set which was all his, but there was the smaller drum kit in the corner. Chelsea had warned Roach that his new drums were strictly off limits, but one day when grizz noticed Roach looking over the old drum kit, he admonished her to try it out.
     She bashed and tapped away at the set now and then, and eventually Grizz got around to showing her the basics. He had her concentrate on the high hat, the snare, and the bass drum first, getting her used to drum beats and tempos. Later on he taught her fills, and initially confused her with the idea of single stroke rolls, double stroke rolls, and later on paradiddles.
     The lessons were sporadic. Grizz would occasionally be drinking and watching television, or he would be hanging out with members of his gang. Oftentimes he would be working on motorcycles and cars, as she learned that was how he made his living.
     When he wasn’t helping her with occasional lessons, she would practice, sometimes tapping the drums or just mimicking beats she had heard from one of the many AM radio bands she had been listening to.
     She eventually got good enough that Grizz told her to go ahead and practice on his main drum set. Her friend Chelsea was amazed that he let her play his new drums, letting Roach know that there was no way he would ever let her touch them unless he was convinced she had what it took to be a great drummer.
     Roach shuddered when she remembered why she spent so much time at Chelsea’s house: so she could get away from her family.
     Especially her perpetually drunk and occasionally violent father.
     Roach adjusted a few cymbals and stepped back as she reminded herself that she could become obsessed with adjusting her kit, and that she needed to take a break and come back to the set up so she wouldn’t spend too much time futzing over her new baby.
     Picking up her backpack, she took the book out of her bag, the one where she stuck the band stickers between the pages so they wouldn’t get bent up before she stuck them to various parts of her kit. It was an old Calvin Trillin book she had found in a little library. She used the book to store all of the band stickers she collected, usually gifts from many of the bands that would come through Butt Fork studios, the place where her band The Dynamite Chicks would practice and record. She was there so often she felt as if she was an employee of the place, a feeling that really came through when she occasionally helped out bands who were there for recording sessions. She was surprised how often it happened, drummers not showing up for their band’s studio time. Though when she thought about it she should not have been that surprised, given how chaotic punk and metal bands usually were.
     She cussed between her teeth when she discovered that her Die Spitz sticker was stuck to one of the pages.
     Looking at her drumhead, someone suggested she get it painted with the words ‘The Dynamite Chicks’. She was not too keen on the idea, since she occasionally drummed for Hat Confusion, and would probably end up in other side gigs.
     She had considered getting the official logo on it, the one of the punk riding a large stick of dynamite like a horse while lighting its fuse.
     It was not too long ago that Roach had to constantly adjust her set up, because her bands always ended up playing at different spaces. Occasionally they would play a stage that was wide enough for her to set up her drums as she liked, but other times she was crammed into a corner of a room, or she had to make do with a ridiculously small amount of space, or a laughably small drum riser, if there was even a drum riser at all.
     She remembered how much fun she had playing warehouse shows, where she could set up her drum kit as she pleased, but then she also had the problem of flying punks running into her kit, high-speed moshers who had flown off course who would knock down her cymbals or fly into her toms. Once, a particular rabid punk flew right into her, knocking down all of her cymbals and crashing on top of her snare after flying over her bass drum. She had quickly clambered to her feet and was about to beat down the errant punk, but he was already being wrestled out by club security when she finally got herself upright.
     The Dynamite Chicks were doing well enough that they were playing bigger clubs, and occasionally large concert halls, where the hazard of catapulting punks was much less of a problem. Not that the occasional wild stage diver careening across the stage might still knock over a cymbal or two now and then.
     She heard someone walk into the room.
     Somehow she knew it was Tandasil.
     “I’ve been workin’ here too long,” said Roach as she turned around. “I know what your footsteps sound like.”
     Tandasil stopped in place and raised an eyebrow. “I’d think your hearing wouldn’t be good enough to be so cat-like.”
     “Like I said, I’ve been workin’ here too long.” smiled Roach.
     Tandasil walked around the drum riser. “I heard drumming, but I knew it wasn’t you.”
     “Larry was checking out my setup.”
     Tandasil stopped in place again, looking surprised for a moment. “I keep forgetting that Larry’s actually a pretty decent drummer.”
     “Maybe you guys should form a band,” said Roach as she walked up to her set.
     “No thanks. I already have way too much to do without getting in on an act.”
     Roach tilted her head and looked right at Tandasil. “I’ve also heard rumors about how good a guitarist you are.”
     “Don’t pay any attention to such gossip.” Tandasil looked over Roach’s new kit as if she were studying it. “The roadies will have fun with this one.”
     “I almost feel sorry for them.”
     Tandasil raised her trademark eyebrow. “You do know we pay them, right?”
     “I know. But I don’t want to be that guy.”
     “What guy?”
     “The ‘that’s what you get paid for’ guy.”
     Tandasil rolled her eyes. “Sometimes you have to with that crew.” Tandasil squinted at Roach’s setup, as if she were concentrating on something specific. “By the way, The Bong Rips are about to record, and their drummer hasn’t shown up.”
     “No shit? Damn, that’s like the third band in the last couple a’ months with a missing drummer.”
     “Can you fill in for a few songs?”
     Roach knitted her brow. “Shit. I guess? I can’t remember any of their songs.”
     Tandasil waved a hand at her. “Don’t worry. You’ll hit it so quick once you hear their stuff. You’re a much better drummer than their trommler. You’ll probably make them sound too good.”
     “Okay. I’ll go find Larry.”
     Tandasil left as Roach put away her drumsticks. She stepped back, walking backwards from the drum riser, and looked over her new kit.
     “Fuckin’ a,” she said to herself. “This is a fan-fucking-tastic drum set!”