Drive (3 page)

“This is a xylophone. It's the only word that
starts with the letter X. You always see it up on the pictures of the alphabet. Say 'xylophone.'”

His hand was on the doorknob, trying to get out. I hit one of the keys with a pencil, just to get his attention. The high-pitched metallic note rang through the room, making him turn. I struck another key, the green one, and got a lower sound. His face lit up.

He came at me, reaching for it, but I held it away, over his head. “Say 'xylophone,' Daniel,” I demanded.

I was frustrating him. He climbed onto the bed to be taller than me but I moved out of his reach. He jumped down to follow, getting angrier.

“Say 'xylophone,'” I insisted. He was making sounds in his throat as he grabbed at me, a high-pitched whine. If he cried I'd be in trouble but I wasn't giving in.

I twisted away from him. “Say it!”

“Jens!” He stamped his foot and spit out the word at the same time. I whirled around, astonished, and he grabbed the xylophone out of my hand. He dropped to the floor and began tapping on it with a piece of Lego.

“You said my name,” I whispered. He ignored me now, but it didn't matter. I knew.

“Hey, I did it! I made him talk. He said my name!” I called, running out to my parents. We
couldn't get anything out of him for the rest of the day, but I went to bed feeling magical. Doors opened once you knew what somebody wanted.

Language swept through Daniel that summer like a brush fire. English, French, even scraps of German — swear words my father had thought went over our heads. My mother had been right. He'd been learning all along.

He talked softly at first, and mostly to me. If a neighbor leaned over the fence and tried to engage him, it was like an assault, an invasion. He'd slip behind me and whisper, “
Scheisskopf
.” Shithead, my father's favorite curse.

But sometimes I'd hear him by himself, repeating things as if he was playing with the words.

“
Daniel, tu sais ce que c'est
? It's my mixing bowl. I'm going to make a cake.”

It bothered me that he still used that language, seeing that he didn't need it. We were brothers. We were supposed to understand each other.

Then one afternoon in our room he picked up Spiderman.

“Best guy,” he said.

The feeling in my chest caught me by surprise, so big I could barely hold it. No matter what, I was the one who'd started this, made him reach out of his world and into ours.

Nothing would ever change that.

“Best guy, Daniel,” I said.

By the time Daniel had paid the cab driver and come back up to my apartment, I'd decided I was going to try to help him. I told myself I owed it to Mom and Dad, but underneath I was relieved to deal with some crisis other than my own. Maybe I could even fix it. Oh, God, I needed to do something right.

“Give me the guitar,” I told him, opening the door just wide enough for him to pass it through. I didn't want him to see my place. I knew how bare it was.

He handed me his six-string acoustic. At home he had three more – two electric, including a pearl-front Fender Stratocaster that he'd won over the summer at SunJam, a provincial competition and concert.

I locked the apartment door behind me.

“Where are we going?” Daniel asked cautiously.

“To see Mogen Kruse,” I said.

“Jens, no! He's
really
pissed at me.”

“That's at you.” I started down the hallway toward the stairs. “I know how to handle people.”

Daniel looked surprised when we walked past the parking lot and over to the street where my truck was.

“Somebody parked in my spot,” I said. I unlocked the doors. Daniel hesitated, even though he was getting wet.

“Do you want my help or not?”

He got in. I fired up the engine and pulled into traffic.

“Where's the contract? I want to see it again.”

“At home. In that metal box where Mom and Dad keep all their papers locked up.”

“Well, that's brilliant!”

“I didn't think I'd need it. Besides, how was I going to get it? I didn't want them to know where I was going.”

“Where do they think you are?”

“I told them I was busking at the Forks,” Daniel said.

“How'd you get to the city?” My brother had been sixteen for four months but he hadn't even applied for his learner's permit.

“I told them I was getting a ride.”

“Yeah, you told them, but how?”

Silence.

“
How
?”

“Well, what do you think? I thumbed.”

“Jesus, Daniel!” The fury seemed to burst in my chest and my hand swung out for him. I wanted to grab him, shake some sense into him. Instead I thumped his shoulder, maybe too hard.

“Do you want to die? Do you want some nutcase to murder you for that stupid guitar?!”

He was against the door, mad but trying to stay out of my reach. “I know, I know! Get off my case. I'm in enough shit already.”

He sounded like he was on the verge of tears. I took a long breath and tried to let it go.

If we were those ice cream cones, Daniel would be Rocky Road. He's a blues guitarist, although he likes to think of himself as a performer. Personally, I don't think he sings that well. He's all right in the middle range, but his voice has a kind of raspy, frayed quality that sounds better when he's speaking the words than when he's holding a note. He says it's perfect for blues.

Daniel picked up his first guitar when he was eleven. He started to play blues when he was almost thirteen and I was fifteen. That was the
year he moved out of the bedroom we shared and into the basement, by himself.

There are a lot of different kinds of blues — Chicago, Delta, Mississippi, Texas – each with its own slightly different swing and style. I don't like any of them. No matter the pace, it seems to me that blues walk. The music sounds like somebody drifting down the sidewalk with no particular place to go. I think music should run, a driving beat with a destination. I'm a rock 'n' roll man.

Daniel says that all rock, all country and almost all gospel grew out of the blues. I'm a pretty good arguer and Daniel isn't, but this is his subject and once you get him started he'll bore you to death, and take it as a win.

I never told him the truth, that what bothered me the most about blues was the hurt. They're lost-my-woman, down-on-my-luck, gonna-carve-you-up songs. Daniel was a kid. He'd lived his whole life in the same little town and he had everything. He didn't deserve to sing about pain. When he started to write those songs, it seemed like the biggest joke in the world.

Mogen Kruse didn't think so. A producer with a small recording studio in Winnipeg, he saw Daniel at SunJam and gave him his card. A lot of performers build up credibility and an
audience for themselves by producing a demo cassette — a CD if they can afford it — which they sell any chance they get, at performances or even busking.

By December, Kruse had convinced Daniel and my parents that nobody gets their tape into a label — even an independent company – without an agent. He told them he'd make the demo recording free of charge, and submit it as Daniel's agent. He'd also “front” the cost of making the cassette tapes.

The first time I heard about it was at Christmas. Sitting at the kitchen table, the contract in my hand, I had an uneasy feeling. I couldn't imagine how they got Dad to go along with it. My father is Mennonite German. He gave up the religion but there are things you can't leave. Old World caution is in the blood.

“When do you have to pay Kruse back for the tapes?” I asked.

“Well, all along, as I sell them,” Daniel said, fidgeting in his chair.

“
You
?” My brother had played in front of four thousand people at SunJam but he wouldn't ask the clerk at the Lucky Mart where the toothpaste was.

I turned to Mom. “How much is this going to cost you?”

“It's not going to cost her anything,” Daniel
cut in. “I told you, I'll sell the tapes.”

I wasn't even looking at him. “You know you're going to wind up paying for it, Mom.”

“Jens, I don't think this is your concern,” my mother said. But her hands were clasped tightly around the coffee cup in front of her. I knew the glass truck needed new brakes, and two suppliers had phoned for money in the twenty-four hours I'd been home.

“He's just pissed off because somebody thinks I'm good,” Daniel muttered.

I twisted in my chair to face him. “If he thinks you're so good, why is this in here?” I found the spot and read out loud, “For the sum of two dollars, either the Agent or the Performer can terminate this contract and all monies will be rendered payable within fifteen days of that termination.”

“Well, that protects me, too,” Daniel said. “He'd have to pay me whatever…”

“Except he doesn't owe you – you owe him!”

“Until he signs me with a label,” Daniel said stubbornly.

“Keep dreaming, Daniel,” I said in disgust. “It's what you do best.”

“Jens —” Mom started.

“No, he can't help it.” My brother pushed away, his chair scraping. “He's an asshole through and through.”

White heat burst inside me as I leapt to my feet.

“At least I'm doing something…asshole!” I shouted after him.

When I looked back, Mom was staring at me in cold disapproval. I was embarrassed. I'd promised myself that I'd make this visit as an adult.

I drifted to the kitchen counter and leaned against it. I flipped to the end of the contract, to the page with my parents' signatures.

“Did you tie Dad up to get him to sign this?” I said, trying to lighten the uncomfortable silence.

“Why don't you ask him?” my mother said evenly.

It hit me in the heart. She knew I'd barely spoken three words to Dad since I'd been home; I couldn't meet his eyes. I'd disappointed him, and it seemed worse to me than anything Daniel could dream up.

•

The rain had slowed to a drizzle by the time we pulled up to Kruse Studios. It was an old, renovated two-story house on an artsy street with outdoor cafes.

Something occurred to me as I cut the engine.

“Did he give you the money?” I asked. “The two bucks?”

Daniel shook his head.

I felt a shot of hope. I hadn't really understood that part of the document, but if no money had changed hands, maybe the contract was still in effect.

A small bell sounded when we walked into the front office, but no one came. Down a short hallway, I noticed a red light glowing over the studio door. Kruse was recording someone. I asked Daniel how long this could take.

“All afternoon, maybe all night,” he shrugged.

I didn't have all night. I waited with my hand on the doorknob. When the light went off, I pushed my way in.

The only illumination in the narrow room was over the control board that ran like a table against the wall, a scramble of knobs and levers and dials. Through a glass window, I saw the attached recording booth, its walls covered by black, bumpy foam. Three musicians were inside — two guys and a girl, with a guitar, a keyboard and saxophone.

Kruse turned abruptly in his swivel chair. He was a slight, bony man with a stomach over his belt that was surprising on his small frame. He had long, rippled gray-brown hair to his shoulders, but it was mostly gone on the top of his head.

“Hello, Mr. Kruse, how are you today?” I stuck out my hand but he didn't take it.

“Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?”

I gestured behind me, as best I could. “The door was open. Listen, I know you're busy so I'll get right to the point…”

I heard Daniel step behind me. When Kruse saw him he stood up.

“Oh, no, you don't. I'm finished with this guy,” the producer said. “There's nothing to talk about.”

“Five minutes!” I blurted. “If I could just have five minutes of your valuable time, I'm sure we can sort this out.” I glanced through the booth window at the musicians who were staring at us curiously.

Kruse looked, too. He was turning a little pink.

“I know you want to resolve this quickly,” I said in a low voice.

The producer leaned over the table and flicked on the microphone.

“I'm sorry. I have to take a few minutes. Help yourself to a coffee.”

“Does this come off our bill?” one of the men said.

Kruse herded us into another room off the reception area. Probably his office, it was crowded
with a desk and a daybed. Boxes and paperwork were everywhere, piled on top of the filing cabinet as well as stacked up against the wall.

“You've really done a lot with this old house,” I said. “It looks so…professional.”

Kruse shut the door securely and leaned against it. “Look,” he started, “I don't know who you are…”

I had a card ready. “Jens Friesen. Five Star Ford.” A lie now but I needed it. “I'm Daniel's brother.”

“Well, he's driving me crazy,” Kruse said, tossing my card on the desk. “He must phone me four times a day. I'm trying to run a business here. I don't think he realizes I did him a favor.”

“He hasn't done dick,” Daniel said sullenly. I shot him a look, but it was too late.

“That garbage is what I'm talking about,” Kruse said. “He's on me about what
I've
done. Do you know how many tapes this kid has sold in three months?
Fifteen
. That's a hundred and fifty bucks out of five thousand. I'm the one carrying that money.”

“You said you knew people,” Daniel argued. “You said you could get me a contract with a label in three months — four, tops.”

Kruse was getting red in the face. “That's insane! I never would have said that!”