Picture This – Wayne 24

 

[For back story go here: Story so far at 17 Sept 2020 and the last one.]

[Back story also found through in-links.]

Cath realised she only had a small window of opportunity to get the promotional material for the gig at home cleared by Wayne. She realised that although it wouldn’t take very long, and although Wayne had already pretty much signed up to everything she still needed to be ready and swift to get him to OK everything and agree on the date when everything would go live. Unfortunately she didn’t realise exactly how small her window of opportunity would be. Even as she logged onto the Zoom meeting she was wishing she'd arranged for it for at least half an hour before.

But then Wayne would have probably post-phoned or rearranged it because Wayne was in the throws of being artistic. He was working on a new track. This didn't mean he knew what he was doing or anything, and he didn't promise it would be a follow up to the highly successful recent tune, but at least it would be something. As he appeared on the screen he was clearly distracted by it even though he said it was nothing and he was just putting phrases together, strumming the odd chord and sorting through old sheets of paper lined with inspiration, thoughts, titles and images. 

Cath wasn't sure he was paying full attention to her at all, even from the beginning. His eyes kept flitting over everything else around him, the guitar stayed in his lap and there was some sort of pounding drum going off intermittently.

"So, do you like the images I shared last night?" asked Cath. "They're from a different artist than usual but I thought it looked a bit fresher, what do you reckon?"

"Er, yeah, sure..." said Wayne. "What do you think of think of this? It's an augmented seventh."

He tentatively strummed something.

"Yeah, that's nice, looks tricky, does it fit in with your latest track?"

"Hm, sort of..."

"The image work - you in a front room... Mocked up, but..."

"Do you think I go on about me and my life too much?" he asked, “lyrically?”

Cath tightened her mouth a little and trying to decide how to engage with this and how much to engage with this. On other occasions she'd quite happily discuss his content and inspiration, although given that most of his songs were about his experience, what he thought and how he felt (and naturally how great he was at telling everyone how he felt) the idea of doing a song that wasn't somehow self referential seemed a little far fetched.

"What else do you want to write about?" she asked. "Whatever you do there's always something of you in it so it's always going to be about you one way or another. People like it so..."

"Yeah, just trying to work out what could be different."

"The living room gig?" pointed out Cath, "That could be different, right?"

"You want me to write a song about it? Like a jingle or something?"

"No, I just need you to OK the promotional stuff."

"Right, right. Let me take a look and I'll get back to you."

"No," said Cath, "Do it now. I'll wait online – you just need to look at it quickly and say yes."

Even as she said it she sort of knew this wasn't going to happen, but it felt good to state an objective.

"Fine, I'm just..."

Wayne strummed through a few chords to the beat that was still going on.

"Look, Wayne, please just turn put down the guitar, turn off the drums a second and look. I can share my screen right now and..."

"Drums?" said Wayne stopping abruptly."There aren't any..."

He held silence for a few moments and together both Cath and Wayne heard the beat going on. Wayne looked confused, looked round for a few moments and then got up and disappeared. Cath sighed. Minutes passed. The beat stopped and Wayne returned.

"Not going to believe this – it was Dave kneading his bread dough. Great beat wasn't it? Really pounding it, he was. Taking some aggro out on it. Reminds me of that story about Prince brushing his teeth* and suddenly hitting on a rhythm and a riff..."

"Wayne! Please will you just..."

"You know I once threw my toothbrush in the air and it never came back down, I mean, what do you think of that?"

Wayne's doorbell went off. Without an apology he disappeared again. Cath sighed. Again.

This time Wayne came back with a parcel. He sat down and started opening it. 

"You can't open it straight away," warned Cath, "You still have to wait, you know? Just in case."

But it was already too late. Wayne had started in on the package.

"It's no sweat. I know the delivery guy and he's fine. And in any case I just…"

"Can you just tell me the promotion stuff is OK? Before you get into anything else..."

"Sure, sure, I..."

But it was too late. Way too late. Wayne opened the package and found an old photo album. Page after page of pictures, carefully printed out and arranged. A true DIY job from before the days of sending your master file to some printer who would do the rest. These images were selected and placed with love. And they were all of Wayne from when he was first born to the age of about two.

Transfixed, he said nothing. And even though Cath didn't know what he was looking at she knew the meeting was over.

* Quote is: Prince: "I hear things in my sleep. I walk around and go to the bathroom and try to brush my teeth and all of the sudden the toothbrush starts vibrating. That's a groove, you know? You gotta go with that, and that means drop the toothbrush and get down to the studio or get to a bass guitar, quick! My best things have come out like that."