Renny Boy

Luke, accompanied by his bass, came over to my house with Soria the following Saturday. My mom was so ecstatic I had started socializing that she promised not to interrupt anything. As sad as it was in reality that it was really a milestone in my life to have friends over, it was nice that she didn’t come in every two minutes to “just check up” on us.

Luke was just as happy; then again, he always is. Eagerly, he pulled out some rad bass licks and covered a few Red Hot Chili Peppers songs. He seemed like a punk-ska-reggae kind of guy, which was cool, since he kinda did some stuff out of my comfort zone. That stuff was catchy, too.

I could tell Soria was impressed, even if she herself said that all ska sounded the same. She clapped after every song he played, smiling. He even performed “Spiderwebs” by No Doubt with a special extended solo just for him, and it was perfect. He was a great bassist, no doubt (no pun intended), and he really wanted to join the “band.”

“So what d’you guys think?” he asked after about his tenth cover. Soria and I exchanged “what the heck” expressions, but I didn’t say anything until she did.

“You’re in, dude,” she grinned, holding up her hand for a hi-five. Luke slapped her hand in accomplishment, and we were [kind of] a little more complete.

“Cool!” he chanted. “Um, you guys wanna run through a few complete songs?”

Soria pulled out a paper and unfolded it – “Melody.”

Wow. She wasn’t lying when she said I taught her something.

She handed it to Luke and he read it over with the same face I’m sure I had when I first read it. He furrowed his brow as he read it, then put it on a table, clapping his hands together.

“You gotta teach me how that goes,” he commanded, preparing to play the song on his bass. “Those are some dang good lyrics.”

Soria and I smiled at each other as she started.

It was the first time I sang in front of a fellow dude, and for once I was comfortable with it. I mean, for starters, Luke was just the kind of person that anyone could trust. He was everybody’s friend, even mine, and right in the middle of the song, he even broke out playing - even though we weren’t even finished. I guess he just had a habit for picking things up real quickly. Soria was already a great guitarist, and with his soulful bass to give an underlying force, we just sounded so much better.

All of a sudden, Mom burst in through the door, breaking her promise that she wouldn’t interfere. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry, but when these ears hear music, I need to listen to it!” she had gushed.

At that point, we were on the bridge and Soria pulled out that noodly riff. Luke swayed from side to side, despite him being in a chair.

Mom squealed. “Ooh, lemme get the camera!”

It felt like Mom made everything uncomfortable at that moment.

“Is she always like that?” Luke laughed.

I shrugged, not wanting to straight-up tattle. “Kinda, but she means well.”

Luke took Melody again and looked it over. “Who wrote this?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

I pointed to her, and she waved at the same time.

“You wrote this?”

“Yeah.”

“You - Soria Atkinson, that chick who always wears a hat?”

“Yep.”

“Seriously?”

“Okay, this is getting dumb.”

“How?”

“I’m not the only one who made the song what it is.” She pointed to me, breaking up their exchange. “He’s the messenger.”

He grinned as if he just noticed I was in the room, took my hand and slapped it. “Dude, you got a voice like…like…well, I don’t know, but you got the best voice I ever heard,” he said eagerly.

I honestly didn’t know what to say. I was singing with a couple of awesome people and they thought I was talented. You don’t know how great that feels.

“Haha, thanks,” I shrugged.

Soria patted my back. “C’mon kid, quit being modest!”

I shook my head. Accepting compliments just wasn’t my forte.

Luke copied her and took his pick again.

“Got any more songs?”

- - -

Never in a million years would me or Soria expected that what started as a simple jam session at her house would evolve into something like THIS.

We were a trio - not quite a band, but it didn’t matter. Luke picked up on a song real easy, and he’d always add to it and spin the bass line a little; sometimes he’d get a little carried away and drown out the guitar, but there really wasn’t a reason to get pissed off about it. I could tell she loosened up around him, and so did I.

And as far as songwriting went, things were really looking up. We were pretty good at bouncing ideas off of each other, and pretty soon we had a song we were really proud of.

All three of us wrote a tune that took, like, a month to make. It wasn’t like our others that were fast and straightforward; this one was slow but steady, and a little more metaphorical. We came up with the lyrics first and just went from there, and it was a lot of fun because there were so many possibilities on how it could sound.

We called it “Skylight.”

By far, it was the most expressive and heartfelt song we’d made in my opinion. I loved to sing it and the instrumentals of it were really great. Pure - I guess that’s the word. Soft but inspiring. Soria always looked like she was concentrating real hard on it, and Luke always had his eyes closed. I did too, and I wished I could know what was on their minds when they played it.

Skylight, help me see now.
Because, I can’t breathe now.
Night lights, make me wonder.
The city, just went under.
Skylight, give me hope.
Skylight, make the night alright.

That’s how it went. Luke was a pretty religious dude but hardly ever brought it up unless someone else did first, so I guess he wrote about God or Jesus or whoever makes the clock tick in his mind.

Me? I liked the word ‘skylight.’ It just rolled off the tongue beautifully and seemed to take all the air out of my lungs.

Soria came up with the last two lines, but I kept wondering what she was thinking when she wrote them. She wrote them slowly on the paper like they were fine china.

It was almost like we never talked about the lyrics. One of us just wrote a line down and we played it, never debated it. “Skylight” timed in at five minutes long because of that.

But it was neat - for once I contributed to a song that truly inspired me.

There was an obvious problem, however. One that was staring us in the face, glaring at us like a booger hanging out of a teacher’s nose.

We had no real beat.

It wasn’t like we absolutely needed a drummer for our survival. Just, sometimes we screwed up and went offbeat, and lately it seemed to be happening more frequently.

Soria was the first to point it out at one practice. We were going over “Common Sense” for Luke and right on the bridge, she was behind one beat.

“You guys wanna get a drummer?” she blurted out.

I wanted to scream YES at the top of my lungs, but I looked at Luke and we just shrugged.
“It’d be nice,” he bargained.

“Well…who do we know that’s a drummer?” I added. They stared at their feet.

“I was thinkin’ we could just hang up posters, maybe,” Luke suggested. “If that fails, you know, my friend’s a drummer. I could get him to come here.”

“There are about a million kids in my classes who claim they play the drums. This could be lucky for us and unlucky for them,” she smiled, folding her hands together.

“Alright, so…I guess we’re making flyers,” I concluded.