Chapter 4
It’s the weekend, and finally a free one.
Gene sits on the couch in the living room next to Ray, while Santiago is seated on the floor in front of them, acoustic guitar in his lap.
They’ve been mixing up their style every now and then in their down time, doing dual acoustic guitars with Santiago mainly on lead and Gene mainly on rhythm.
Gene actually prefers it this way—it’s much easier for him to feel the groove when he’s not trying to do a bunch of parts all at once.
Yet they haven’t been able to actually perform this way, seeing as if both of them were on guitar they’d be without a bassist again.
But the idea has been on everyone’s mind to bring in yet another member to the Dusty Brooms. The Rolling Stones have five members after all, and many other bands have even more than that.
Even if it’s just one more guitar, Gene thinks it’s what their band needs to give it more edge.
Not that they aren’t already good, but it’s never a bad thing to aim higher.
A lot has happened these past few months.
Since playing their first gig, the Brooms have found a venue to play at every weekend, and even some during the weekdays.
It’s not always at the same place, seeing as there are quite a lot of bars and clubs in their city of Grand Rapids alone.
But it’s been time consuming, and word of mouth spreads quickly—the club attendees and staff have been putting in good words for them, securing their position as a prominent new local band.
With this guarantee of work in the Brooms, Gene has left his job at Meijer, especially since he also has school work on top of it all. It’s become too hard to manage all of it. He wants to put more focus into his band.
To make matters easier, and as his goal to become more independent, Gene finally moved out of his parents’ house and started renting an apartment with Santiago at the beginning of this month.
Santiago was living at his family’s farm house on the outskirts of the city, making the move an easy choice for him to be closer to them all.
Ray plans to move into their apartment too, but he’s stuck at his college dorm until he graduates in May.
Even so, it’ll be nice to have most of the band in one place when the time comes.
This apartment has two bedrooms—Santiago has one while Gene has the other, and Gene will share his room with Ray later, each with their own beds.
It’s still up in the air what Mick plans to do when he graduates high school, but Gene figures they’ll just worry about that later when the time comes.
Santiago strums a riff on his acoustic—the opening to the song ‘You Really Got Me’ by the Kinks.
Santi seems to have adapted into his role as an ‘up-and-coming rockstar’ fairly eagerly, letting his hair grow out a bit longer, loose curls forming a wide halo around his head, and now he even sports a rather thick and bushy black mustache.
‘Gives me more of a groovy vibe, y’know? ’ he’d said.
Ray hasn’t changed much in the hairstyle department—keeping his gorgeous mop-top of sandy blond curls—but he’s certainly become more fashionable, Gene thinks.
He’s been wearing scarves more often, matching colors with his pants and shoes, coordinating his outfits.
Today, sitting next to Gene, he’s wearing a black mesh T-shirt, almost see-through, accented by a silver chain necklace.
It highlights the curves of his shoulders, the dip of his collar bones, and how it hugs tightly around his chest…
Gene swallows, feeling his cheeks start to burn.
Well, it’s no question that Ray is an attractive guy. That’s just a fact of life.
He directs his attention to Santiago instead. “Hey Santi,” he says.
“Hmm?” Santiago looks up and stops his strumming.
“Have you ever thought of writing songs yourself? If Ray’s okay with it, maybe you could write stuff, too?” He looks over for Ray’s approval, who shrugs with a smile.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind,” Ray says. His thigh brushes against Gene’s, sitting so close to him on the couch. Gene tries not to notice. “Gene and I are kinda our own songwriting duo, but if you had songs of your own to contribute, that’d be cool.”
Gene can’t help but feel a pleasant flutter in his chest. He can read between the lines of Ray’s words—Gene is my sole songwriting partner, and I want it to stay that way.
Like he’d joked before, but still rings true: Ray wants to keep Gene all to himself.
Something special that stays between the two of them.
“Nah man, I got nothing,” Santiago says with a chuckle.
“It’s sort of the same with my drawings—I’m good with technical skills, but not so much with making up my own stuff.
Ask me to draw that plant, and I’ll draw it.
Ask me to play that song, and I’ll play it.
Ask me to learn that instrument, and I’ll learn it.
Writing your own shit is a completely different skill set, man.
I’m happy to improvise and fill in the gaps of your guys’ songs with my own parts, but that’s it, really. ”
“Alright, alright,” Gene says, smiling. “It was just an idea.”
“I’ve got another idea, actually,” Ray chimes in. “Santi, what if we switched you to lead guitar instead of bass? I know we’ve been thinking about doing it, officially.”
Santiago scratches his cheek. “Yeah, if I’m gonna be honest, I’d like that. Yeah. But we don’t know anyone else who can play bass.”
“Who’s to say we have to personally know someone?” Ray offers. “We could always put an ad in the paper and host auditions. Or we could scout someone out—watch other local bands and find a bassist, see if they’d rather join us.”
“You mean like—steal a cat from another band?” Gene’s eyebrows shoot up.
“I’ve heard plenty of other bands do that!” Ray laughs. “But that’s not to say we have to do it that way. We could just try holding auditions, first.”
“I like the sound of that,” Santiago says.
“Same for me,” Gene says.
“Then it’s settled.” Ray claps his hands. “I’ll whip something up for the paper. Better put my business knowledge to use somehow, someway,” he says, chuckling.
May, 1974
Ray folds one of his shirts and proceeds to set it in an empty box.
There’s a lot more boxes where that one came from, some also empty but others are filled with his things, already packed from taking them home from his dorm.
Finally, after all this time, he’s truly (and not just temporarily for school) moving out of his parents’ house.
Later tonight, they’ll be moving Ray’s bed into the bedroom he’ll share with Gene, already planned out to sit against the wall opposite from Gene’s bed.
Ray finally has his business degree from Grand Valley State College.
Graduation was a week ago, and it felt wonderful to walk on stage, his family and friends congratulating him.
Sure, there’s always the option to pursue further education and get a bachelor’s, but that’s the last thing on his mind.
Truthfully, schooling had become such a drag that he’d thought many times of just dropping it and putting his sole focus on the band.
But his parents (and even Mick) pushed him forward, saying, why drop out when you’re already so far along?
The payoff will be worth it. He’s glad he stuck through it all, because with this knowledge, he can help the Dusty Brooms move forward.
Managing their money, booking their gigs, talking with people in the industry and potentially signing contracts…
I’ve basically gotten this degree just so I could become the band’s manager. He laughs to himself.
A couple months ago, Ray put an ad in the newspaper: Local Rock Band In Need of Bassist. It wasn’t long before he started receiving phone calls, and held a few small auditions.
With the approval of the other band members, the Dusty Brooms selected a young man named Stefan Grzeskowiak, the son of Polish immigrants who’d fled their country to escape the war.
Stefan’s father works for GM just like Gene’s, but Stefan had told them all he didn’t want to follow the same sort of fate.
He wants to chill, lie back, and groove to amazing music—not slave away at some factory job.
Stefan was actually already in another band, but was looking for a new group ‘who doesn’t suck,’ he’d said in his own words.
He’d actually seen the Dusty Brooms perform before, and jumped at the opportunity to join them.
There’s a knock on the bedroom door.
“Hey Ray, may I come in?” It’s Mick.
“Yeah sure, it’s not locked.”
His brother opens the door and closes it behind himself as soon as he’s inside. “You need any help packing? I, uh, wanted to talk to you about something, and figured maybe I could be of some use rather than stop you from what you’re doing…” He fidgets with his glasses.
Talk about something? Ray’s heart jumps. “Yeah, that’s fine. You can help by folding the clothes here on the bed with me.”
“Alright.”
Mick comes up next to him and grabs a shirt, folding it neatly and flattening it on the bed.
He’s a couple inches shorter than Ray, but one can tell just by looking at him that they’re related.
Same sandy hair, same blue eyes, similar facial features.
Even though Mick’s the more introverted out of the two, he’s never had trouble opening up to Ray, seeing how they get along easily being rather close in age.
Living together for close to two decades helps, too.
Since Mick seems rather nervous to start talking, Ray does it for him. “So, what did you wanna talk about?”
“Oh, uh… yeah.” Mick licks his lips, avoiding eye contact. “I guess I’ll start with the good news. I got accepted into U of M.” University of Michigan. “And I’ll be going for my undergrad in Computer and Communications Sciences in the fall.”