Old Familiar Song

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Then

When Larry first met the man who would one day call himself Geo, he wasn’t yet a rock star with a hit song on the radio. He wasn’t anyone, really, just another freshman new to Van Buren University, same as Larry. Theirs was a large incoming class, filled with new faces that blurred together in a nameless rush, and by the third week of school, the only person Larry knew for certain was his own roommate. He could barely remember his professors’ names, let alone anyone in any of his classes, and he may have never even met Geo—or rather Geoff, as he went by then—if the earth hadn’t shook the first time they met.

Literally.

Larry’s roommate was older than he was, a friend he knew from high school who’d graduated a year earlier and rented a place off-campus, so Larry didn’t have to stay in the freshman dorms. He roomed with Doug; the two of them had the entire attic of a three-story home all to themselves. The second floor belonged to a quartet of sorority sisters Doug flirted with shamelessly, and the first floor was a common area shared by them all. Living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry. It took Larry a few days to get used to the idea of wandering downstairs in the morning to find a couple of girls by the sink, wearing barely-there nighties and sipping coffee. The first time it happened, he blushed deeply and apologized as he backed out of the kitchen, their giggles following him down the hall.

Doug was a music major who thought he had what it took to be the next big thing in entertainment. But while he could play a mean guitar, he was tone deaf, and Larry didn’t have the heart to break the news to him. Apparently his professors didn’t care; as long as he showed up to class and did the work, he got good grades. And the sorority girls were giddy all the time, so he didn’t put two and two together when he heard their peals of laughter ringing up the stairs after he sang in the shower. He even had a band, some sort of pop/alt hybrid he called Not A Boy Band, which played covers of 80’s pop tunes by groups like Wham! and Duran Duran, but with a hard rock vibe. They didn’t play a lot, really, just weekend gigs in local clubs, but it was a start, Doug liked to say. A foot in the door. Stardom would come.

Only Larry wasn’t quite so sure. The first thing Doug asked when he moved in was if he would join. He had once played drums in a marching band, sure, but that was in middle school, and he hadn’t held a drumstick that wasn’t made of chicken in years. Still, he couldn’t say no to Doug, not when the guy was giving him a place to stay off-campus for dirt cheap, and he used to like to jam back in the day, so why not?

Less than three weeks later, Larry knew the answer to that question. Because Doug wanted to practice at all hours, day and night, and it ate into Larry’s schoolwork big time. Because no one showed up for their gigs, at least not to hear them play, and there was nothing worse than jamming out on a makeshift stage in front of a half-dozen disinterested drunks on a Saturday night. Because the only other member of the band was a forty-something keyboardist named Rob who rocked a mullet and still lived at home with his mother, and had no other income except the handful of dollars Doug divvied up among them at the end of each performance. They had no lead singer, no original material, no cohesive sound, and no hope of ever amounting to anything more than college town bar fare.