Page 29 of Echoes of a Muted Song

“The school of Imma come down there and make you laugh whether you want to or not,” Ramsey replied. “Don’t test me, man. I’ve got amillion different ways of making you crack up and if all else fails, I’ll do my best to trip on one of these chords up here and bust my ass to get you chuckling.”

The did earn him a few guffaws from the crowd as he made a show of carefully picking his way over the one cord I could see.

“Seriously, though,” Ramsey said as he pointed at the mic. “It’s 2025, why the hell hasn’t this place gone wireless? We’ve got surround sound speakers, top shelf whiskey and crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. You mean to tell me no one could fork over an extra fifty bucks for a cordless mic? This is a joke, right? I’m gonna step wrong and that thing is gonna snake around my leg and drag me up to the rafters so you fuckers can use me as a piñata or some shit. I bleed red, man, ain’t no candy gonna come out of me if you start whacking me with some plastic bat.”

“I got metal!” someone yelled, while someone else announced that they had a wooden one. One guy even offered to go out to his car and get a tire iron, while beside me, Sully tensed, his gaze roving over the room. I could see Christine doing the same thing on the other side of Johnny, while others started laughing, including the MC.

“You people are sick,” Ramsey remarked, but even he was laughing, which allowed our guard to relax.

Okay, so maybe this was one of thoseinteractive places where audience participation was expected and even encouraged, good to know, not that I’d try my hand at chiming in. There was no way to make my wrecked voice heard over the other noises in the room.

When I glanced over, I saw Jonny grinning down at the page in front of him where two doodled cartoons had already begun taking shape, one of which depicted the comedian dangling from the rafters by one ankle, the cord having been drawn to look like a serpent hissing down at Ramsey while he flipped off the crowd Johnny was rapidly sketching in. Sure enough, one held a wooden bat and another a metal one. He’d drawn a fedora hat with legs wielding a tire iron, and a figure in a wraparound skirt wielding a monstrously huge high-heeled shoe. As I watched, fascinated by the process and the intense look of concentration on his face as he sketched the next item, I saw his tongue poke out as his free hand reached for the drink the waiter set on the table for him. How he located it, took a sip and returned it to almost the same spot he’d gotten it from, all without taking his eyes off the paper, was beyond me.

Holy shit.

Was that?

Blinking, I stared at the pad as Johnny randomly drew colorful paper strips on Ramsey’s clothes, just enough to complete the illusion of Ramsey as a piñata, then giggled ashe topped the whole image off by morphing the microphone stand into a flame thrower.

“Oh, that’s sick,” I typed as I stared over his shoulder as he put the finishing touches on the image.

Johnny flashed me a grin before he turned the page, then started chewing on the cap of the pen as he listened to more of Ramsey’s skit about taking his girl out to dinner at a fancy restaurant, where they received tiny plates of food and a tyrannosaurus-sized bill. Johnny’s pen fell from his hand as he started laughing, doubling over so hard his forehead touched the paper as he quaked in his seat.

The dude was funny, and clearly inspiring to Johnny, who quickly snatched the pen up, eyes widening some as he licked his lips, nodded his head several times like he was having a whole conversation with himself, then started drawing again. I watched the image of a bill take shape, wavy lines giving the impression of the menu items, before he penned in obscene figures after every one. The total, reaching almost five hundred dollars, he circled three times with a red pen, before underlining the gratuity that had already been added to the check.

“Look, I don’t know what school of math they went to, but when I get a plate the size of Texas with three sad little Oreo-sized scallops on it, I do not expect to be charged thirty-five dollars, let alone a twenty-percent tip. Fuckers need tostart paying their staff more and stop expecting the customer to do it. And what is this shit of adding the tip into my bill before you hand it to me? That’s not the way it works, motherfucker. I didn’t come in there with four women dripping off each arm, looking to get a table for ten during the evening rush. I’m in there with my girl and I’m not tipping no twenty percent when I had to get up and take our glasses to the bar just to get some fuckin’ water. Waiter means you wait on me, not wait for me to go get the shit myself before you show up at the table. You know I made them take that shit off. And then they wanted to send out a manager to be like, sir, is there a problem? Motherfucker, if you have to come out here and ask if there is a problem then you already good and god damn know there’s a problem. Show me a policy that says you can fill in some random amount on a patron’s bill. Show me where that shit is printed on the menu. Oh, you can’t. Ohh, you don’t have a policy. You just be making shit up along the way or do you let your waiters do it, ‘cause that’s like asking a billionaire to fill in what they think they should be paying for taxes.”

Johnny was trying his best to keep up with Ramsay’s rambling tirade as someone in the crowd yelled,you know that’s right.I laughed right along with them, sipped my beer and nearly spit the amber liquid on the table as Johnny added a t-rex head and short, stubbyarms to the bill as it reached out toward the newest version of Ramsey he was rapidly sketching. When he put a cartoon version of the comedian’s head on a body drawn to resembling a round dinner plate with three dots at the center, I completely lost my shit.

“Oh, you gotta draw the register as a slot machine,” I typed. “Only instead of apples, oranges and grapes, make it the numbers that add up to the tip on the bill.”

He grinned when the device read my words to him and even bounced a little, cracked his neck, and reached for his Tequila Sunrise, draining half the glass before his fingers started flying over the page again.

“Have you ever put any of your doodles on the band’s website?” I typed, marketing ideas for the band already forming in my head as I tapped the digital keyboard.

“There’s a whole page devoted to them,” Johnny said as he drew. “I update as often as possible. A couple of times a year we’ll have the fans vote on which ones they’d like to see on t-shirts and they always sell out.”

“Ever thought about putting them on other things, too?”

He nodded, engrossed in the details of the slot machine register’s face, so I left it at that and pulled my own notebook from my pocket, scribbling ideas for them, right down to the possibility of doodled guitar picks for Rebel totoss out into the crowd after he finished playing with them. Of course, that immediately kicked my brain into overdrive, and I added guitar pick necklaces as potential merchandise, along with doodled drumsticks and a note to find out where we could have the etchings done. Once I had everything in order, I’d type it out along with any samples I could get mocked up and present it to the band for their approval. I loved the idea of having the fans vote on which cartoons would make the best t-shirt designs. Having some on our merch table alongside the ones bearing the band’s logo and album covers would be an amazing addition, or at least, I thought it would. In the end, it would be the band’s decision which ideas they wanted to use and which they weren’t interested in.

I didn’t know if this was what they meant by working smarter instead of harder, but it certainly was inspiring to sit here and work out some of the things that had already been on my mind to look into. Time melted as we laughed, rocking against one another occasionally. One comedian left Johnny laughing so hard he flopped against me, shaking and holding his side.

“That’s just wrong, man,” Johnny called out, getting into the spirit of the show.

“Man, if that’s wrong, I don’t wanna be right,” the comedian replied, which only revved up Johnny’s laughter again.

My side began to hurt, I chuckled so much,barely able to draw in a ragged breath before the next punchline. Screw trying to finish my beer, at least not until there was another intermission. I’d either choke on the damn thing, or a spit beer all over the table.

“How’d you know I needed a laugh tonight?” Johnny asked as he finally settled down, his head on my shoulder, his lips so close to my ear that the feel of his breath left goosebumps prickling down my arms.

“Is there ever a night when laughter isn’t needed?” I typed with the hand he didn’t have pinned.

This time, his chuckle was more controlled as he snaked an arm across my abs, sketchbook momentarily forgotten.

“Nope,” Johnny replied as I stroked my fingers along the side of his neck. “Nope, there isn’t, not a one.”

Chapter 17

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