When I was three, I began telling stories to my younger brother, and nobody has been able to shut me up since. In between various stories and various colleges, I have been a postman, a philosophy professor, a dock-walloper, a janitor, and a petty government official.

The setting sun was turning the leaden sky of Los Angeles to copper in the west, as Skippy slid along in the company alky-electric truck. He played air guitar as the autoauto avoided obstacles. That was legal under 30 MPH, but against company policy. Skippy wasn't big on company policy.

     The one-story houses of Southside slid by, the parabolic antenna on the roof of his electric turning this way and that as it searched for the sound of music. But the headphones only gave him the usual--radios, TV's, arguments, babies crying, dogs barking, lawnmowers clacking softly.

     Then he heard a little strand of music, and forgot about his air guitar. He grabbed the wheel, and swung the truck back and forth, trying to get a fix on the music. He didn't have to worry about traffic, which had almost disappeared from the streets of LA. Most people didn't have the pull to get a permit for an individual vehicle. He tried turning right at the corner, but the antenna couldn't tell live music from canned, and was trying to fix on a classic rap station. He stopped the truck, put the antenna on manual control, and swung it back and forth. There it was, way too incompetent to be a radio or a CD. Outside of that, he couldn't make it out. He started the truck again, down one street, then another, until he had the band located. It was in a garage, behind a disorderly-looking house. In this tidy neighborhood, where home ownership was a big deal, the house stood out, needing paint and some tree trimming, plus a little work on the front walk. Skippy had a professional eye for that stuff, having been a jackleg carpenter in a construction crew before he became a music scout.

     When he got the garage located, be punched "record" on his console, and sat and listened for a minute. The vocalist, probably female, had some edge to her, and would be a prospect as a transplant to another group. The drummer was 100% impossible, and the others had to keep getting him back on beat. Skippy's practiced ear separated the instruments: more or less standard. Three keyboards, electronic drummer, guitar, and vocal. He couldn't tell if the singer was playing one of the instruments. There was a hard, dense, elemental thing in the music, something they hadn't got off the radio.

     There was a German shepherd in the side yard, and so Skippy rang the front door bell. A black guy almost Skippy's size answered the door, with an endorphin Coke in his hand. He said nothing. The father.

     Skippy smiled, and said, "Can I talk to the kids in the garage?"

     The man stood a minute, then said in a thick down-home accent, "You a brother?"

     Skippy had gotten the job by saying he was black. That's what the music industry wanted to hear, and he had just enough olive color to make it believable. But he was Italian, and his name was Scippio Africanus Ponzi. Skippy said, "No." Lying to the boss was one thing; lying to regular people was another.

     Without the accent, the black guy asked him, "What you want with the kids?"

     "I'm a music scout."

     "And I'm Etta James."

     "Look out to the curb. There's my snooper truck. And here's my pay stub." Skippy pulled out his wallet, and showed the top of the stub, keeping his thumb over the rather embarrassing totals.

     "You're for real, then. But I don't know if I like the idea of my boys going into the music business. Too many dopesters and crazies. Too many good boys die young."

     "Which ones are your boys?"

     "One plays drums. The other doesn't play an instrument; he's the engineer."

     Skippy grinned. "I don't think you have anything to worry about, sir."

     "Don't be callin' me 'sir,' kid. Talking about my boys that way. Well, never mind. Go on back. Don't worry about the dog, he's a pussy."

     "Yes, sir, but he's a German shepherd."

     "Man, you won't leave a man to his quiet, will you? All right, I'll bring the dog in." He let out a whistle like a falling bomb, and the dog flapped through the dog door.

     Skippy walked around to the driveway fence, a white picket fence, and unlatched the gate. With no gasoline any more, there were around a million unused or converted garages in LA, and this was one of them. As he approached the garage, the violent and unreasonable music increased. He knocked on the garage door, but nothing happened. There was no obvious way to open it, but there was a small door around on the side, and he walked across the slightly raggedy lawn to that one and knocked.

     Knocking was hopeless, with that amount of noise inside. He hoped these kids, his musical prospects, hadn't damaged their hearing yet. He really needed another group to his credit. Meanwhile, he knocked just to be able to say he had knocked, later, after he barged in. He knocked hard, and no answer, so he barged.

     The place was full of cardboard boxes and stacks of old magazines, over which was a layer of computer equipment, most of it looking too good to throw away but not good enough to use. Much of it seemed to be turned on.

     At first nobody noticed him, but the singer was shaking her head from side to side as she screamed something unintelligible into a mike, and she caught him in the corner of her eye and did a double take. She kept on singing, if that was what to call it, but stared at him. Gradually, the other bandsters looked where she was looking, and two of the keyboard men quit playing. The drummer jumped to his feet and yelled "Cut!" Notes tumbled into a pile and lay there, and it was quiet.

     Skippy looked at the girl, because, when she was in sight, there was no point in looking anywhere else. She looked Chinese. Her hair, disturbed by the head-shaking, stuck out in wings here and there, while a very thin pigtail hung down the back of her neck. She was tiny, not over five feet, and dressed in denim and black lace. Perfectly in command of the situation, she said, "Yes?"

     One of the other guys butted in, saying "This is a rehearsal, you know. What you doing here?" He had a young face with an American Indian rudder for a nose. The girl gave him a withering look, and he did, indeed, seem to wither.

     Skippy had been trained to get the upper hand when possible, and he said, "It's not a rehearsal, because a rehearsal is practice for a gig."

     The girl stamped her foot. "Let's not argue about who's important. Cut to the titles."

     She was, Skippy thought, beautiful without quite being pretty. Was she much older than these others, who were obviously teenagers, or was she just born old? He said, "Do you have a pre-contract?"

     "We got jack," said a white kid, one of the keyboarders. "What you got?"

     "I can bring somebody down here to hear you, and if they like you, you get a pre-contract."

     "A promise of a promise," said the Indian. He was a keyboarder too. He switched to a movie-redskin accent and went on, "My people have heard white man's promises before." Then in his normal voice, "Why give up what we got, for vapor?"

     "Because," said the white kid, "we got dick."

     The girl interrupted this enlightening discussion by saying, "Number one, you can't fuck me as part of the package. Number two, we see some money before we sign anything. Number three, you tell us who you work for and who you've signed, before we sign."

     Skippy was starting to get a hard on, for no reason he could think of. He said, "I work for Omnivox Sounds, but I myself have only one group on the charts, the Smelt." The Smelt had made a hundred million in sales, the year before. Of that, about ten million was profit, and about a million went to the Smelt themselves. The agency, Omnivox, made five percent of that, and Skippy made five percent of the five percent, adding up to two thousand after taxes. He had a salary, of course, but he really needed another hit group if he was going to pay for his mom's wedding.

#

     Skippy pulled out the envelope. He had carried the same sealed envelope since he started the job: he hadn't had to use it on Slit Trench, or Vibrant Nodules, or his hit group Smelt. But he needed it now. It had $500 in twenties, and an option for a pre-contract, together with some free passes and other promotional stuff. He handed it over without even opening it. The girl had him paralyzed. She tore open the envelope, and handed everyone three twenties, sticking three in her pocket, and laying four right down on the oil-stained garage floor. "Band expenses," she said, and signed the option, using the top of an amp as a writing table.

     Some of the others seemed to want to argue, but she said, "We took their money. Want to give it back?"

#

     Late that night, back in his lifespace, Skippy lit up the internet, and looked up the girl, Delsey Chang. You could look up anyone, under the Privacy Amendment. The name of the group, he learned for the first time, was Thorny Mandala. Delsey was listed as "solo vocalist, tambourine, wooden blocks." She was only 19, for all her hardwood manner, and had a year at El Camino Community College in police science. She was taking a year off from college, working at the Beautiful Dog as a cook and dog groomer. Evidently the Beautiful Dog was a dog hair salon and Tibetan restaurant.

     She had been arrested in a civil rights protest whose purpose Skippy couldn't remember, and again in a prank which had to do with planting a live chicken in the Dean of Women's room at El Camino. The chicken had originally been put in the dean's bed, but had gotten out and was found eating Purina Rabbit Chow out of the dean's rabbit's dish.

     She had attempted to get married twice. The first time, she had run away with a Long Beach policeman at the age of fourteen, and been hauled back. The policeman was allowed to resign from the force with no charges, further details not available.

     The second time, she had tried to marry a Chinese immigrant of twice her age, to get him permanent residence status. She had stuck to her guns, but her parents had intervened, and no marriage had taken place.

     This information did not make Skippy desire her less, but it made him fear her more. The cop had been lucky to avoid a long prison term. The Chinaman had been deported.

#

     His boss, Tif, scheduled a baffling array of auditions, some designed to distract the band, some designed to test them. Only the ones without the two brothers were serious--nobody at Omnivox thought they would cut it at engineer and drums. The girl seemed about to balk. He took the risk, and took her aside. "Look, here's the real deal. You're good, or you can be good. The drummer and the engineer stink on ice. The keyboards and guitar vary. If there's a pre-contract, it will be for you, and from none to four of the others. OK?"

     "Not OK. Everyone or nobody."

     "Then nobody. Come on, this is the talent division. You have some, some of your bandmates have a little, some have none."

     "Everyone or nobody."

     Well, he hadn't had that much hope they would be a hit band anyhow. But he really wanted her under contract, for monetary and personal reasons. "You having a thing with one of the boys?"

     He never saw the punch coming. He saw a blaze of yellow light, and felt the floor hit him coming up. He heard her say, "Ow."

     He burst out laughing, not even trying to get up. "If it hurts," he said, "don't do it." She kicked him, but not nearly hard enough to hurt. She seemed to be trying not to laugh.

#

     At the next audition, he found out that she wrote the words. Evidently Tif was getting around Delsey's resistance to splitting up the band: Delsey and the only two other Thorny Mandala players with any real chance were thumping out a song with no drummer, just a drum line on the Indian's keyboard. The black guitarist spun pinwheels and chainsaws of vibration out into the room. In a level scream, Delsey sang:

     Electric man! Electric man!

     Buys your innards when he can

     Says he's black but he's Eye-tal-yan

     Never gets it in the socket, 'lectric man.

     Electric man! Electric man!

     Never does anything with his hand

     Sells your gonads when he can

     'Lectric person, what's your plan?

     Electric man! Automatic man!

     Sit right here and eat your spam

     Keep on working on your scam

     Never ask yourself where you am.

     He had never desired anyone so much in his life.

#

     Skippy began to sense a score. Not a sexual score, but a music breakthrough. Maybe Thorny Mandala couldn't be trained and marketed before his mother's wedding in three months. But the group was a prospect, and no doubt about it. Once Delsey got convinced to sing so people could understand the words more often, once the legals arranged things so's it could be a trio, once the audience got used to that untame sound.

     Delsey had a fit when Tif tried to boss her, and Skippy was brought in. Skippy set up a gig at the Virtual Head, one of the string of clubs operated by Omnivox. There was a "reality" drummer available, a guy who didn't use virtual drums, and Skippy hired him. He was losing street time, time he might be finding more bands, but he wanted to be with Delsey. She hardly talked to him, but he wanted to be with her.

     With an Omnivox tech, the reality drummer, and three Mandalans, the show was raw, but intense enough to please the audience Skippy had rounded up especially to appreciate an emotional and noisy performance.

     Afterward, he came back to Delsey's dressing room off the little stage, and she said, "This is just a happening, right? Don't make anything out of it." Five minutes later he was doing what he had so badly wanted to, and it was better than his dreams had made it. Everything seemed to go away, the physical details, the room, the future.

     In an hour they cleared out the dressing room and went their separate ways. Delsey wouldn't kiss him in public, but he said, "I'll do anything for you. Any time."

     "It makes me feel good to hear that," she said, and left. This teenager is more mature than I am, Skippy thought. Then he got in his electric, and started touring the eighties, from eighty-second south. As he cruised along, listening to his earphones, he started up the truck computer, and began checking around. At first, he didn't find anything that wasn't in the Privacy Amendment file, but then, he found her on the commodities market. She had sold shares in herself to go to college.

     Delsey Chang, police science major and musician. Not a very salable combination for equity buyers, Skippy thought. Eight percent of her sold, two more percent unsold.

     He had to tell the computer four times that he wanted to pay more for her outstanding shares than was listed for her unsold shares, but he got a chunk of equity in her. His mom could elope, he guessed. It would be hard to explain to her.

#

     The cacophony of Thorny Mandala became more and more organized and determined, as they practiced under the keen eye of Tif, and music consultants she was bringing in. Or maybe it was just that the fakers had been sliced away, and the real musicians were hearing each other better and starting to jam together. Omnivox bought out the rejected members for a couple of thousand, hired the reality drummer for salary, and signed a pre-contract with the three best. Delsey cried out, at the next session:

     I like the way you feel my vest

     I like the way you say I'm best

     I like the way you call me babe

     I like the ol' Marquis de Sabe.

     I like the way you lay me down

     I like the way you kiss my frown

     I hate it when you try to get free

     I hate the way you talk to me

     I like the way you kiss my honey

     I like the way you take my money

     I like the way you lie on me

     I like it when you let me be.

     After that performance, Skippy knew she wanted him one more time. But he was too stupid and honest. Outside in the parking lot he said, "I have to tell you something."

     "Later," she said, and spread her whole body against his, standing on the bumper of an abandoned car to do it. It was a wonderful body, sort of a scale model body.

     "I bought shares in you."

     She went rigid.

     "I bought them so's nobody else could own them."

     "Mind your own business. I manage to mind mine; why can't you mind yours?" She peeled her body off his.

     "You can have the shares."

     "Well, stop, because I don't like it. I don't like presents, not big ones."

     "I can't help it. I love you."

     "Oh, shit, well, in that case, you can give me presents. But just remember I don't love you. Squeeze me hard. Try to break my bones; I mean it."

#

     Delseys futures dropped on the market when the pre-contract was announced. Small investors had apparently bought the shares on her cop value, which was obviously now in jeopardy. Skippy had a talk with his mom, about the money. When she had heard him out, all she said was, "You can't win this girl. She's nineteen, and she's sufficient unto herself. You can have fun with her, you can help her, but she's not ready for love."

     Skippy borrowed money and bought some more Delsey at the depressed price.

     When he went to work the next day, there were three terrible flaps going on simultaneously. Delsey had enrolled at El Camino College again, to finish her AA in police science, and Omnivox was trying to find a clause in her pre-contract that said she couldn't do that. His boss, Tif, had been fired, or promoted, it was hard to tell which. Anyway, she was now working in Africa. And Omnivox had sold its backlog of contracts to Totality.com, for cash and stock, meaning that Skippy was due a lump sum payment and a smidgen of stock for his 5% of 5% of Smelt and the other bands.

     But the big news for Skippy was that Thorny Mandala had been part of the sale. He lied to the new boss, and said Tif, now safely on a boat to Africa, had told him he could come in for one hour and then spend the rest of the day surfing for internet music. Then he caught a trolley to Hollywood, and applied for a job at Delsey's new company, Totality.com.

     But Totality.com didn't hire people to cruise for garage bands, and wasn't impressed with Skippy's other credentials. He went back to Omnivox, and tried to concentrate on his work. Thorny Mandala and the reality drummer left the next day for a tour of the Midwest. Delsey didn't say goodbye, but she sent him a postcard from a motel in Moline.

     Skippy contemplated suicide, but couldn't get up much enthusiasm for it. He didn't believe in heaven, so if he died, he would be giving up music. Sex, too. At least the disaster had straightened out his finances. After selling the stock he got for his interest in Smelt, he was able to get his mother a nice wedding, and also buy up the rest of Delsey's shares, which were now dirt cheap, since she had left El Camino College again. His mother made him find a girlfriend, but he was too honest again, and told her he was in love with a rock singer. She left.

     He followed Delsey on the net: the parties, the sometimes disastrous gigs, the stunts, the arrests. Gradually, the other people in Thorny Mandala dropped out of the reports, and it sounded more and more like Delsey Chang and her band. She called a news anchor a "dumb cunt" on the air, and set some sort of record by drawing down a slander suit, an FCC fine, and a women's group protest, all on the same two words.

     When she collapsed on stage in St. Jo, Skippy forgot everything, and caught the fastest train. He intentionally left his phone behind, but at Kingman, an express letter caught up with him. "You are AWOL from Ominvax. No personal emergency could possibly justify the taking of leave without notice. You must return at once or be terminated."

     He saw no point in arguing. He plugged into an Amtrack computer, and, avoiding his email, checked on Delsey. Nothing. So she was alive, but not up and playing pranks. And that's how she looked in St Jo, when he got there.

     For the first time, her size made her look weak, almost handicapped. Her perfect skin was a little loose, as though she had lost weight--something she didn't have any of to lose. And her attitude was beat down. The conversation was halting. He wasn't ready to tell her he now held the whole eight percent of her future earnings that had been on the market, and would give it to her any time. She wasn't ready to tell him how she wound up with a bronchial infection and a drug overdose.

     The male nurse said, "Well, she's perking up, now that you're here!" Delsey gave him a glare, and even sick and lying on her back and in the nurse's care and power, the glare clearly did him some damage below the waterline. He excused himself.

     "I can't be a cop any more," she said. "I got a drug bust."

     Skippy laughed. "Hell, did you think you were going to be a five foot, 90-pound, rock and roll cop?"

     "Yes I did. I could do it, too."

     He suspected she could, but now they would never know. He said, "If you go back to school, you could be a private detective or something."

     She smiled, and he remembered why he loved her. She said, "I made them let me keep up my studies. I almost have an AA in police science now. I also have pimples on my ass from lying here in this bed, which is something you need to take into consideration if you are deciding whether to fuck me."

     He was speechless.

     "Another thing you need to know is that if you do, you can never give me those shares of myself. Never. I don't mind your having them. But I'm only fucking for love from now on, so if you do it, you can't be giving me shares of me. Understand?"

     "Not a word. I don't understand a word of it," he said, studying the door. He could prop the chair he was sitting on under the knob, and it would hold. Maybe.

     "Oh, ok, that's cool," she said. "This isn't about what you understand and don't understand."

     Not wanting any more of this, he covered her mouth with his. Then he broke off the kiss and said, "I love you."

     "Yeah," she said. "I know."

© 2006 Harry Ingham