Oops and I rehearsed and practiced every free minute we had. He was a perfectionist and I was too, at least in music. I had no intention of not sounding perfect before I performed in public. I had had my own little gigs for happy hours at a couple of places but Oops wanted to be a draw, have a following, be IT. And he wanted to marry me.
I was very ready to have children. I had "female" problems all my life, (Bubba, you can close your eyes and skip this paragraph). I was always hounded with horrible cramps and heavy periods. I had been to my doctor whose motto was, "I am your doctor until you get pregnant and I refer you to an OB/GYN". He had explained to me that I was a wimp about the cramps and that I had a strangely twisted and bent uterus. "Once you get pregnant all this will straighten out and your period issues should resolve themselves". I tried birth control pills for a while but if they were strong enough to work I vomited all day, if the dosage was too weak I bled irregularly. No birth control for me. I took my chances. In the back of my mind I wondered if I ever would get pregnant and secretly prayed for a baby all the time. OK, this man wants to marry me, be a musician and have children. Too good to pass up. We planned a small wedding at my parent's house. Real small, Zelda was there I think and our parents, that's all I remember. His mother took me aside and welcomed me to her family. Oops was an only child and she had always wanted a daughter. "We think you might keep him calm", she said referring to her husband, Oops' dad, Angry Face. The knot in my stomach got tighter. What an odd thing to say.
My parents expressed no opinion about this man or this marriage. They had washed their hands of me to a degree. I was not at all what they had expected to have to contend with as a daughter. Brother was still in college adding to his many degrees. I'm not sure how many, I know it is at least 3 maybe 5. He worked and went to school. My saving grace was that he wasn't married and didn't have perfect children yet. My dad was always lecturing me about getting a real job, with a real company that offered benefits and paid vacations. He didn't care that I loved my job and was very happy there. He was worried about the practical side of life. All lectures ended with, "I could be wrong, but I don't much think so".
Oops and I rented an house in a questionable part of town, it was what we could afford. He had a day job in addition to wanting to be famous. I worked at the print shop. We went weren't working we were rehearsing. Playing the Martin was proving to be a challenge. I was used to a classical style guitar with a short, fat neck and nylon strings. Martins have long, thin necks with steel strings. This is what blisters and eventually calluses a player's hands. I didn't have those and all my fingers landed in the wrong spots from having a narrower fret board. Oops would get irritated that I was clumsy but we kept at it. My fingers bled and hurt but eventually the guitar became a familiar, easy friend. I got my calluses.
The singing part was easy. We both had about two and a half octave ranges that overlapped nicely. He also had an amazing falsetto that he could leap to easily. We could weave our voices like a tapestry. When he thought we were ready we went to "sit in". Oops and I would show up where he knew someone and asked if we could join them for a few songs. No one said no to having Oops on stage. Then he would ask if we could play the set breaks. Oops' objective was to be better than the musicians with the actual paying gig. This embarrassed me a little. I was very fond of jamming and blending, not so much as taking a gig from some band.
One day Oops announced it was time to go pick up a P.A. systems so we could start booking gigs. We were ready. Except for the paying for the P.A. part. Oops said to me, "we'll borrow one from the music store". Oops had been buying all his equipment from one store for years. It was good to be Oops at the music store. We borrowed a two speakers, two monitors, a mixer, and equalizer, four microphones and four stands. About $1800 dollars worth of equipment. They gladly loaded us up. Wow. I didn't know this sort of thing happened.
I invited my parents to dinner one night and wanted them to hear us sing. Even dad couldn't deny we were good. We gave ourselves chills when we sang. Dad was impressed. Oops obviously had real talent and I worked in there nicely. That was a nice compliment for him. After a while we wanted to buy this equipment and I went to dad and asked to borrow the money. He agreed, with a payment plan, and wrote down the numbers in the ledger.
Oops and I played one night and a local music critic came to hear us. In the morning we couldn't wait to see the paper. We got a good review, some hoopla about Oops being back on the scene. Great harmonies very nice. The next paragraph said "however, if you want to be entertained go see THIS GUY and THIS CLUB. He is a one man show!"
The next night we went to see the one man show. Oops was not at all impressed. He starting heckling the guy from our table. People around us asked him to shut up, but not quite that politely. Oops got real drunk and real loud. "You're a JOKE, I cannot believe you people are paying money to see this JOKE".
The manager/bouncer showed us to the door. I was so humiliated and I said so as soon as we got in his VW Beetle. "Don't ever do anything like that again", I said as I slammed the door. "What is your problem, can't you just leave instead of making a scene?".
The next 12 hours topped every nightmare I ever had.
No comments:
Post a Comment