Live Indefinitely - Part Two

Well this ended up a much longer project than I originally intended, I just can't seem to stop extending it and adding in details. Part three to come soon, that part might be the end but if I keep going at the rate I am at the moment it might just spill out into a shortish part four. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

Live Indefinitely (Part two)

The flat swam hazily into view and the first thing Leon registered was a dull ache in his abdomen and his nose. He hadn’t been hit too hard and he was sure nothing was broken but it had been enough to both wind and floor him. He lay on his bed for a long time thinking dejectedly about the show he was supposed to be playing that night and how badly he didn’t want to do it. It was at this point when he made a snap decision, “I’m 29 for God’s sake” he thought to himself, “I could be doing so much more than this”. He slid off his bed and picked his phone out of the jeans pocket on the floor, went through his contacts, found ‘Jimmy’ and clicked call. The phone rang 8 times before it went through to voicemail and Leon was forced to listen to “I know how to fuckin’ do it man you’ve gotta wait til the beep beeps you daft twat, what? No it fuckin’ didn’t or I woulda heard it, just shut up a minute... Oh wait I think it did yeah, well I need to rerecord it now don’t I? How do I..? What no I said I need to rerecord it cos the beep’s alread-“ and then a beep. He took a deep breath and spoke quickly into the phone “Jimmy, it’s Leon. Forget this gig man, and I don’t mean just the one I mean them all for me. I’m done here, we suck. It’s time we all moved on man, if you’ve got any common sense left you’ll ditch this Supernova bollocks and go find a real job. Good luck man.” And he hung up. The silence seemed especially deep at that moment and he moved stiffly over to the kitchen to make some breakfast. As he pottered slowly around putting together a bacon sandwich the enormity of what he had done started to sink in. Playing with the band was most definitely not a hobby for him, he had been doing it exclusively for the money and without a job he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. But he thought to himself rationally that it surely couldn’t be too hard to find a job these days, and he sat himself down at his computer with an inexplicable feeling of optimism despite his pounding head and bruised stomach. He rolled up a cigarette and the smoke curled slowly above his head as he began his search.

“We can do I suppose, yes, but we want you to give up smoking son. If we’re going to be helping you out to this degree we would appreciate knowing you’re doing something responsible with the money. And get yourself signing on for goodness sake, I and your mother are glad you’ve decided to grow up you know, we’ll send you any promising leads we find for work. We’re transferring the money now, make it last.” Leon hung his phone up and sat miserably on his bed. He had not left his flat for three days now and it reeked of stale tobacco and unwashed pots and pans. He was glad to have his parents back on his side to some degree though, they had not been that warm with him for years, but they were helping him now and that meant a lot. He picked up his guitar which was already lying by his pillows and strummed listlessly to himself, he realised after a few seconds that he was playing the chords to ‘Wonderwall’ and tutted in disgust at himself. He picked up his smoking materials from by his feet and decided morosely to give the whole giving up thing a good go; to this end he rolled up a cigarette, put it on his pillow and crushed his filters and skins in his fist, he strolled over to the bin and threw the entire lot in there along with his tobacco. He lit his final cigarette and stood there with his eyes closed savouring every drag he took, it seemed only seconds before the smoke was irritating his eyes and the tobacco was all smoked. He threw the end in the bin and sat down to watch some evening television. The next morning he got up feeling irritable and sweaty, he would usually leave it another 20 minutes before he smoked anyway but just knowing it wasn’t coming was enough to make him feel awful. He rummaged through his draws and put on some vaguely “smart” clothes and left the building at 8:45. His first appointment at the jobseekers office seemed a strange affair to him because it was the first time in nearly a week he had had any human contact apart from phone-calls. He waited his turn and once called sat down across the table from a sharply dressed young Asian man who smiled at him and said “So you’re Leon Adams, lovely. So we just need to ask you what you’ve been doing to find work this week, and we’ll go over that in all subsequent appointments, you’ll have to attend a seminar from time to time but in the meantime we should be able to provide you with living expenses.” Leon nodded and said “That’s fine... Well I think my dad is setting me up with some work at the office of a friend of his... And I’ve been looking on gumtree and through various listings on forums and the like, I’m thinking about upgrading my connection though because things seem pretty slow, although it might be my router... Or the fact I’m using Chrome at the moment instead of Firefox. I’m still not convinced of its superiority as a browser to be honest, although things have been slow for a while actually so I might just reformat my whole hard drive.” Leon realised he was wittering due to his nerves and decided to shut up. The young Asian man nodded at him slowly, smiled again and said “I see Mr Adams... Well did you know that these days you can look for jobs on the internet? If you have a computer you can search for jobs and job opportunities on web sites”. Leon sat there for a second, nonplussed. “Web sites?” he queried, wondering if the man across the table was joking. “Yes Mr Adams, web sites. You go on web sites and they show you how to do all sorts of things that you look for on the internet. Do you have a computer?”

Luckily for Leon his first trip to the dole office turned out to be his last, as his father had indeed come through on his offer and secured him a job working in his friend’s office. The office Leon would be working out of supplied biros they had bought at wholesale prices to businesses. He noted dully on the morning of his first shift that he was wearing a suit again and that he should probably go and purchase another one if this was his new calling. He drove his small car the short distance to his new office and once there entered the building and strolled towards the lift. The ground floor was anonymously bland with no defining features and Leon couldn’t help but thinking some of this blandness had rubbed off on the people walking around him, most of who looked like the male or female that the big man might have started with before creating variants and offshoots of to come up with a variety of people with which to populate the human race. Realising he had five minutes to spare he walked into the cafeteria and picked up a bowl of soup and a piece of bread from the hot food section and carried them carefully to the till. He looked at the man working on the till in surprise, “Dom!” he exclaimed, “Leon? How’re you?” his old friend asked. “Been better man but... but also I’ve been worse” he replied, he was feeling elated just seeing a friendly face although he hadn’t seen Dom for just over 10 years, since he’d left college. “Ok well that’s £1.79 then please”. Leon was slightly taken aback by Dom’s lack of interest in catching up in any way but he shrugged it off mentally and shoved his hands into his back pocket and pulled out some change. He counted the many coins out in a slightly apologetic tone for all the 1p, 2p and 5ps and reached £1.78. “Ah shit, sorry man I’ve not got the penny. I’ll give it to you at lunchtime yeah? You can stick it in the till then”. “Sorry Leon, you can’t not pay for it” he replied in a stony sort of way. There was an awkward silence “C’mon man I’ve got a bit more in my glove compartment... D’you want me to get it now?” Dom shook his head and said “No sorry because then where would you leave your food? You can’t just leave it on the table here with the till, that’s not policy. And also there’s a queue. You’ll have to put something back”. Leon stood there for a moment in disbelief at his old friend acting like such a jobsworth. “Fine” he said slowly and picked the piece of bread up. “No not that, that’s unhygienic now it’ll have to be thrown away if you don’t eat it, but the soup’s in a bowl. Why don’t you put that back?” Leon was fuming as he walked out the cafeteria eating his dry piece of bread, he walked into the lift in a defeated sort of anger and took it to his floor.

It did not take him long to discover than nearly all the employees of “Biro supply-o” acted in similarly pedantic ways when it came to rules, flinching at the idea of using integrity or common sense to bypass never enforced regulations and it was only days before Leon felt thoroughly miserable again, despite the fact that he knew was lucky to have landed a job at all. He had never before in his lifetime experienced anything that was consistently both stressful and boring. His time in the Champagne Supernovas was usually boring during their actual sets and stressful later on while having to deal with the fallout of a bad review (especially earlier before they were all used to it) or an unruly and unsatisfied crowd after they had come off stage. However working in the office was a hellish combination of both at the same time and it was this that caused him to buy the necessary materials and after just over a week of frustration he was sitting at his computer desk with a lit rollup. He figured if he could go for 10 days without smoking at all he could wean himself off them in a month or two. He sat at his desk for a few minutes before deciding to pick up his guitar and have an idle fiddle with it, it wasn’t long before he found himself playing a riff he had written himself several months ago, he stood up and rummaged under his bed before pulling out a notebook. He took the notebook and the guitar back to the desk and flipped through until he found a page covered with lyrics and various ideas he used to scrawl down whenever he felt inspired. Looking through all the lyrics he had (the complexity of which pleasantly surprised him) and remembering a few riffs he had imagined he realised he had at least two complete songs. He sat there for a few seconds before playing them starting to feel excited, he didn’t have a band and for the moment he didn’t want one but if he could perfect these two songs he had written in pieces last year it meant he could do it again. He typed them up and used a piece of software to record his vocals and then again to record the guitar section and after only 15 minutes he was left with what he considered to be a couple of demo takes, he then took one of the songs and played it live in his chair into his microphone and although the sound quality was fairly poor he delighted in how comprehensive it sounded as a song. He had never done this before, he had only entertained the idea of stepping from behind his drum-kit to sing and play lead guitar in vague daydreams. He did not sleep for several hours, he sat there thinking about work and everything he associated it with and as he did so words began flowing from first his pen until eventually he felt confident enough to type them up and after fiddling around with different sounds he found a riff he was happy with. He entitled his song ‘Pens’ and quickly set up a Myspace page for his recordings, despite the website being dead for social networking it was still a great place to discover and be discovered music-wise. After his songs had all been posted Leon realised the time was just after four in the morning and he only had a few hours of sleep left, nevertheless he went to bed in a state of feverish enthusiasm.

Another Ruth Kitchen original.
Much thanks and love!

The next 3 weeks or so were not the explosion of productivity and creativity that Leon had hoped for, he still went to work every day to work for a guy who made him wish he were working for David Brent, he was still struggling to smoke less than five cigarettes a day and he was still aware of the fact that he had not gotten laid for over a year now, but putting these things aside he started to almost enjoy himself. He would sit at his cubicle by day phoning people about missing orders or writing up long tedious emails and think about his plans to restart his music career in a completely different direction, exactly 22 days after the night he had rewritten his first two songs and written a third he had six in total. He was happy with the songs themselves and through posting on a few blogs he had already attracted over 200 views on his Myspace page which now featured all six of his rough songs. He had decided that no good showman who had never been on stage before with his own material and would be playing to mostly oblivious people should go in without a cover and to that end he had fashioned what he believed was a decent take on The Arctic Monkeys’ ‘The Bakery’ in the hopes somebody might recognise and enjoy that even if they disliked what he had written himself. He had his first gig coming up at one of the local pubs and a few of his friends he had met through playing the circuits previously had told him they would turn up, as well as a couple of strangers who didn’t live too far away and had enjoyed the songs online. He felt privileged to have an audience already; even if they were likely to be less than ten in total number and he was also grateful to the pub for having him back as it happened to be one that had banned the tribute band from the premises. After his shift was over he walked quicker than he had ever walked in front of any of his colleagues into the lift and into the car-park at which point he sped home. He picked up his guitar, stood in front of the mirror nervously still in his suit and over 30 minutes played what he considered to be flawless renditions of all six of his songs and the cover. He arrived at the pub for 8 o’clock and before he knew what was going on there was a small crowd of people making their way towards him and shaking his hand, most of them he recognised but a group of two guys and a girl told him they had just discovered him online and had come to hear his music, the girl looked like she was in her mid twenties and something in the way she looked at Leon made his stomach lurch. The group found a large table and Leon took his guitar through to the back and found the event manager, Barry. Barry was a round, fat man who Leon tried very hard to like but found difficult due to his constant usage of misogynistic and racist comments about everything around him, Leon suspected he was slightly senile, despite not even being 50. “I bet the Jews did this” he fumed at a technician who was telling him about a faulty light, “Ah Leon” he boomed warmly and put his arm around him “Glad to have you back now you’ve ditched that Jimmy prick, I see you sitting over there with that tidy bit of fanny. I tell you what son, I would smash her back doors in without a second thought, and have her make me breakfast too”. He smiled at Leon in a way which said “I have made a funny joke, please share in it”. At which Leon grimaced reluctantly “I’m sure she’d be honoured to let you, Barry... Now when am I on and where do you want me to put my guitar?” Barry outlined to him that he would be on at 10 and he would have to sound-check on the fly as he was setting up. Leon was starting to remember why he had never been bothered that the band had been barred from coming there. He put his electric acoustic guitar down in a corner as he had been instructed and sat back with his friends – new and old. He sipped a pint slowly all the way through the other musicians and spent some time talking to everybody at his table, explaining at large what was wrong with his job and relishing that every time he made a joke the pretty girl who had come purely on the merit of his music (whose name turned out to be Laila) giggled and smiled at him.

At half past nine the band on stage took a bow and exited, at which point Leon stood up, and everybody at his table clapped him on the arm if they could reach or wished him good luck. He made his way back stage and a few minutes later found himself standing awkwardly on stage checking the sound levels in front of the entire audience. He struggled with his feelings of feeling slightly foolish and got the levels to a point that suited him, sat backstage for a few minutes rushing through it all in his head. Barry walked past him at 3 minutes to ten, told him to get ready and went on stage and introduced him as “A good friend of mine (Leon cringed) who’s not played here since he was bottled off three years ago in that dreadful Blur band”. Leon heard a spattering of vague and unsure applause and walked back through the sheet of curtain onto the small stage, passing Barry and standing in front of the entire pub. He quickly scanned the room and estimated the total audience to be around 60, he thanked people for watching, took a deep breath and began. The show went better than he could ever have predicted and he noticed that some of the younger crowd sang happily along to his cover. By the time he had finished his last song a good portion of the pub were standing up in interest, he walked back into the curtain and thanked everybody and to his surprise he heard chants of “one more tune, one more tune”. He dithered just behind the curtain wondering what exactly he should do before Barry gave him an encouraging nod and told him “You’re the last act on, it’s only 10:45, you’ve got time for one more”. Leon nervously walked back on to more applause than he had ever experienced in his life, not that that was saying much really but it was still an achievement he felt. “Well.... this is unrehearsed so don’t expect it to be perfect, but as you asked so nicely” and for the first time in his life he found himself enjoying playing an Oasis cover. He sang the opening line of Wonderwall but quickly realised it wasn’t necessary at all as the pub at large took over for him. By the time the song was over almost everybody in the venue was clapping and whistling him; he walked backstage and then immediately reappeared on the main part of the pub and sat back down. The reception appeared to be unanimously good and suddenly strangers were buying him pints, it also transpired that  one of the lads who had come to see him perform but didn’t actually know him had filmed the entire thing and assured him “I’ll make sure people see this soon man”. People shook his hand for the next half an hour or so until the pub closed, he found himself once again stood outside a pub thinking about getting himself home although he found this time there was no vicious mob. He felt a touch on his arm and turned round to see Laila standing there “Are you getting a taxi?” She asked “Yeah” he said uncertainly... “Aren’t you going home with the others?” “Nah” she grinned, "I already told them I’ll see them later. They don’t own me y’know, they’re just a couple of friends.” Leon smiled vaguely at her through his beer induced haze, leaned in and the pair kissed on the pavement. Feeling excitedly like things might be slowly turning around for him; he hailed a taxi which was driving slowly past the pub, opened the door for Laila and got in himself.