Rock Star by James Lincoln Collier

Author:James Lincoln Collier [Collier, James Lincoln]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AudioGO
Published: 2013-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

10

The Silver Sunshine came in third at the State Finals. Sammy O’Neil messed up one song out of nervousness, but otherwise he did okay. Charlie Hoving was sure we’d have won if I’d played.

“Sammy dropped eight bars out of the second section of that minor blues thing,” Charlie told me. “And Gigi fell apart, but Herbie turned up the organ and played a solo until Gigi and Sammy got organized. I don’t blame Sammy for being nervous. There he was a little eighth-grader, up on the stage of the State University gym, with eight thousand people staring up at him. But I think if he hadn’t messed up there we’d have come in second, and if you’d played the way you played down here, we’d have won. I’m positive.”

I shrugged. “You can’t tell, Charlie.”

“I didn’t hear a single guitar player there who could cut you, Tim.”

Sammy O’Neil was pretty upset about messing up that one number. The next time we rehearsed he kept apologizing for it, and saying that it was his fault that the Silver Sunshine had lost, and all the rest of it. Until finally I told him to shut up about it, it was my fault we’d lost for getting in trouble with my father. But at least now I knew that no matter what happened to me, the Silver Sunshine would have a good lead guitar for the next few years. After the State Finals, everything was going to seem pretty easy to Sammy; he’d already had the worst.

In a way, I envied Sammy. Here he was not yet even in high school and he was working with the best group in Hammerton. If he kept on studying he was going to be terrific by the time he graduated. I didn’t know where I was going to be, or if I would ever graduate, or anything.

The days went on, and I watched them go by. I was feeling pretty mixed up. On the one hand, I knew I had to leave. It was either get out from under my father, or give up the guitar. On the other hand, I felt terrible about just taking off. It was going to hurt my parents a lot, it was going to make them upset and worried. I just didn’t want to do that to them, but it didn’t seem to me that I had any choice.

Finally the exam period came, and the end of school. The Astrobeats played the Senior Prom, because they were all seniors, but Silver Sunshine played the dance at the junior high school, and the Junior Prom. I let Sammy O’Neil take over for a lot of the junior high dance, but I only let him do a couple of songs for the Junior Prom.

I had this funny feeling that it was the last time I would ever play with the Silver Sunshine. It was queer. Already I felt out of things, as if I didn’t really belong to Hammerton, or the school, or the group, but was just a kind of a visitor from another place passing through.

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