"Play it, man!" someone else yelled.
Jake played it, his hands belting out the rhythm to one of his favorite songs like they had so many times before in the privacy of his bedroom. Later, he would not remember making a conscious decision to start singing. If told earlier in the day that he would break into song before a group of twenty people from school (a group that was growing bigger by the second as people from other groups heard the music and drifted over to see who was making it) he would have judged the teller a liar or insane or both. Singing was a secret thing he did, like masturbation, a private thing, like taking a shower. But when the opening bar of the song worked its way around again on the guitar, his mouth opened and he heard himself belting out:
"There must be some kinda way out of here"
"Said the Joker to the Thief"
"There's too much confusion"
"I can't get no relief"
His voice was as clear and crisp as it always had been, this despite the cigarettes and the beer he'd imbibed in tonight. He wielded it perfectly, instinctively, utilizing all the lessons he'd learned over the years and coupling it with his own natural ability. His audience did not make fun of him as he'd always feared they would. They did not laugh at him. They did not mock him in any way, not even those, like Castro, like John Standman, who were known for such behavior. They watched him, their eyes aglow, their mouths open as he made music for them and before he got to the second verse, many of them were tapping their feet to the rhythm, were nodding their heads towards each other in confused respect.
He sang out the verses and strummed along, mixing his voice and the guitar nicely, never missing a chord, never forgetting a word, never having to look at his fingers to find the right fret. When the last verse was complete he ground out an acoustic guitar solo, his left hand once more moving with blurring speed up and down the neck, his right hand finger-picking out each note. After about thirty seconds of this he began to strum again, a slower, heavier version of the opening bars before finally working up a fancy flourish of strings to bring the song to a conclusion.
And then it was over and silence descended. But only for a second.
They did not applaud him, but only because that was simply not done in such an informal setting. Instead he was greeted with a chorus of appreciative phrases. "Yeah!" the most common, followed closely by "bitchin'!", "nice!", and, that perennial favorite "fuck yeah!" He was clapped on the back by several people, asked where he had learned to do that by several others, told he was fuckin' radical by others yet. Mandy's reaction to him was quite gratifying as well. She leaned into him, her large breasts pushing into his upper arm, her Maui Wowie scented breath blowing softly in his ear.
"That was tight," she told him. "Really fuckin' tight."
This time it really was the beer that made him speak wildly out of character. "Just the way I like it," he told her. He started to blush automatically, started to berate himself for saying something so stupid, was preparing, in fact, to apologize to her out of simple instinct. And then he looked in her eyes. They were shining at him and it was she who was blushing.
"Do something else!" someone shouted out, demanded of him.
"Yeah," other voices chimed in. "Let's hear some more."
A chorus of agreements followed, followed by a few shouted requests. "Zepplin!" was of course the most frequently heard. "Do some fuckin' Zepplin, man!"
Led Zepplin, to the teenage stoner crowd of 1976, was revered about as much as Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary were in the Vatican. Jake was no exception to this worshipfulness. While he didn't know how to play every song they had released, and some of them didn't translate very well to an unaccompanied acoustic guitar, he certainly had a vast and well-practiced regiment of their work in his head. So, brimming with the excitement of discovery, basking in the glow of something very like group adoration for the first time in his life, he gave the people what they wanted. His fingers began to move again, strumming up the opening chords of Rock and Roll.
He played it as effortlessly and as smoothly as he'd done Watchtower before, his voice ringing out in perfect harmony with the guitar chords. People were now swaying back and forth as they watched, some mouthing the words along with him. Mandy had now turned completely toward him, her knee touching his lower thigh, her boobs bouncing up and down alluringly as she moved to the rhythm. He cast appreciative glances at this sight as he played, noticing with black excitement that the friction of her movements (or perhaps something else?) had made her nipples erect beneath her shirt. She saw him looking at her but did not turn away in disgust as she probably would have only ten minutes before. Instead she smiled back at him, her eyes unabashedly looking him over and seeming to like what they were seeing.
Yes, he thought as he poured out the second chorus and prepared to launch into another solo, I think maybe I like this. I think maybe I like it a lot.
By the time he finished Rock and Roll, the crowd around him had grown to well over fifty people, with more still streaming in his direction. Nearby car stereos had been shut off so he could be heard better. The cries for more, more, more, continued, as did the shouted requests for particular bands. He played some Foghat next, churning out Fool For The City and Slow Ride. He then mellowed a little, showing off his fingerpicking skills by doing a rendition of Dust in the Wind. Some of the guys groaned a little at the slow tune but the effect on the girls was something he immediately catalogued and vowed to repeat as often as possible. They all but swooned over him as he used his voice to its best advantage. Remembering something his father had told him once during a lesson, a hint about performance technique, he made a point to look at his audience as he sang, making eye contact with several different girls, as if he were singing to them personally. Some blushed and looked away. Some smiled back at him. A few chewed their lips nervously as they held his gaze. None seemed to mind his eyes upon them, particularly not Mandy, whose gaze grew dreamy as they stared at each other all through the second chorus.
In all, he did twelve songs that night, going heavy on the Led Zepplin and Jimmy Hendrix. He did one more slow song-Yesterday, by The Beatles-near the end and then closed the set with the hard driving Tush by ZZ Top. His audience, which now included almost everyone present at Salinas Bend on that night, continued to shout out requests at him but he wisely elected to adhere to one of the golden rules of performing: Always leave your audience wanting more.
"I gotta take a break for now," he said, putting a pained expression on his face. "My hands are getting sore and my voice is getting kind of scratchy." This was not the least bit true. He often played and sang for two or more hours in his room and usually quit because of boredom instead of finger or voice fatigue, but it was a lie they bought and when he handed the cheap guitar back to Castro he took it from him without further protest.
"Dude," Castro said, looking at Jake as if he might be hot. "That was fuckin' cool. I didn't know you could play."
Jake shrugged, reverting back to his shy persona now that the performance was over. "I just mess around with it a little. Thanks for letting me borrow your guitar."
"Mess around a little? Shit. I mean I'm pretty good and all, but you're even better than I am." Castro said this as if this admission pained him greatly. "You play electric too?"