Standing By

A Disturbing Message

(Tim)

 I eyed Adam suspiciously. He was starting to get on my nerves. For one thing, he wouldn't stop jiggling his leg no matter how often Rob put his hand on his knee. He'd conveniently forgotten his promise to try the alternate version. I was more than prepared to tackle him again as a reminder if that was what it took. And could he not be any clearer in his directions? Bump it up and down. OK, how far down you want it? Wayyy down? What the hell is that supposed to mean? An octave? As far down as I can get it? What do you want from me? Before I could open my mouth to complain again, he'd started us back up. Rob started in smoothly; Mitch blended in nicely. A major look of consternation came over Chance's face as he started in, taking great care with his words and enunciation, with a result sending like he was just learning English— clipped, precise words, wobbly on the notes. I poked him and tried to wave him down. At least he'd gotten a clear direction—a step. He dropped his voice and his notes improved, even though I could hear a little Southern creeping in. Rob hopped in with his line, gesturing frantically at Adam to actually sing. Adam looked at him, a puzzled look on his face.

" '—baaaAAAAaaaabyyy!" Rob improvised, shrugging. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Serious. I had to keep it together. And serious. OK, up. Let's do half an octave here. " 'When I close my eyes, I see you, no matter where I am—'." Ooo, Adam was right. Me up half an octave and Chance down sounded really good together. We really ought to have his explore his lower register. OK. Now me down some, a half octave again. " 'I can smell your perfume through the—'. " OK, where exactly did he want my 'pines' to go? All he'd said was 'down, way down'. For lack of a better idea, I held on to the existing D and just let my voice slide its way down the scale. Chance looked bemused, but Adam started getting irritated around about F, an octave below where I'd started from. Mitch's eyes widened as I continued to let it fall. I would've kept on going if I'd had the breath. I didn't though, so I quit, and we wrapped up the song with some notes that sounded inhumanly high, comparatively.

Adam frowned. "Parts of that were amazing. Other parts were, well, not so amazing. Others still were amazing in their own right, but out of place."

"Adam!" I finally snapped. "Will you quit talking in code? Say what you want in plain English!"

He glared at me, but Rob spoke up on my behalf. "When you don't say exactly what you want from us, don't be complaining when we don't give it to you!"

Adam blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

" 'Feel free to ad lib it or riff it, if you want'," Rob quoted. "Well, I did. And I saw that look you gave me. You didn't care for it."

"Well, it sounded good," he said dubiously. "Just wasn't quite what I had in mind."

"Well, what did you have in mind?" Rob challenged him. " 'Cause I didn't bring my crystal ball with me today."

"Just..." Adam waved his arms all around a couple of times, interjected a few times with 'this', 'that', 'then', and 'there'.

Mitch stared at him. "None of us has a clue what that was supposed to mean."

Adam exhaled loudly. "Ugh. I can't seem to...," he started, then couldn't even finish his sentence.

"Talk?" Chance volunteered.

"Yeah. That," he mumbled, then took a breath. "OK. This is what I'm looking for." He finished his water bottle and sat there mumbling the line himself for a minute.

"Adam!" Rob yelped at him. "Say something! We're not mind-readers!"

He licked his lips and when he opened his mouth again, he was actually singing what he wanted to hear. " 'I don't want you but I need you. You know it's you that calls me back here, baaabyyy'." For some reason, he looked embarrassed. "I know I didn't write it like that. It came to me when you were slaying it a few minutes ago."