“I can’t even play.”
“Look, you gotta do what you gotta do. Just make sure you get the rent check to me at the end of the month, alright? I honestly don’t get why you’re so choked up about your drums and shit. I know you had some shit go down with your ex, but that was months ago.” She set the plate down and licked pizza sauce off her fingers. “Kendra, I know I ain’t the picture of productivity and like, success and shit, but come on. I remember when you moved into this place, I thought to myself, ‘damn, this bitch has things together.’ What happened? You need to snap the fuck out of it.”
“Hey, I’m trying, alright?” I felt defensive.
“I know we’re just roommates, but I’m worried about you. You know what? You should go to the Riverwalk. There’s a bunch of restaurants and shit down there. Maybe one of those places will be hiring. But I’m telling you, drum lessons are gonna pay way better.”
“I’ll figure something out, Monica,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know what’s going on.”
“For sure, my dude. You got this. You’re smart.” She held the plate up to me. “You sure you don’t want a pizza roll?”
“I’m good.” I stood up to go back to my room.
Monica picked up the headphones and controller from the couch to continue her game, then she held up her hand to stop me. “Oh, Kendra! I know!”
“What?”
“Fuck the restaurants at the Riverwalk. People go down there all the time to play music. Buskers, you know? You could totally do that and blow everyone’s cocks off. I can guarantee you the people walking around there will have never heard a Beasley-trained, award-winning drummer before.”
“That is a good idea, but I can’t sit in front of a drum set without having a panic attack. That’s the big problem here.”
“Then screw the drum set. You know what I do sometimes when my kill to death ratio in Rise to Duty starts to get all fucked?”
“No,” I said.
“I go reductive. I don’t play it anymore. I go back to the games I used to kick ass at when I was a kid. The simple shit. Maybe you need to do the same. Like… you could get some pots and pans and beat on those instead. I’ve heard you play; people would still drop money to see you bang on a pot.”
Street drumming on pots and pans. I’d honestly never considered doing that. I had watched a lot of street drumming videos before, and it had looked like a lot of fun. Would it make a difference? “I’ll give it a shot,” I said. “I guess I ha
ve nothing to lose.”
“Exactly.”
“Thanks, Monica,” I said. She smiled and raised her fist for a fist bump, which I returned. My drum set continued to leer at me from the corner in the room, but something about the idea of street drumming on a makeshift set of drums wasn’t triggering my anxiety. I would try it. Regardless of what happened, I needed to find a second source of income within the next few days. The end of the month was coming up, and if I couldn’t pay, I’d be out of here.
Frankly, I’d been hoping that Monica might’ve offered to cover my rent for next month. I felt shitty about it—I’d never been a freeloader in my life—but I felt like I was nearing my wits end. After the fact, I was glad that she hadn’t. She had, however, given me the second wakeup call I needed.
I would go to the Riverwalk and try to drum again.
After Monica left for work the next morning, I fished out my drum sticks from where I’d hidden them away inside my closet. It was strange to feel them in my hands again. I rubbed them between my fingers, taking in the texture of the wood and the little nicks and notches dug into them from practicing. My palms started to sweat. These were the sticks I’d last used when everything started going to shit, and I found myself getting nervous.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I took a deep breath and went out to the living room. I hadn’t played for months, so I wasn’t sure what would happen when I tried my hand at drumming away on a set of buckets. There was a pretty high chance I’d sound like a manic chimpanzee who learned she could make noise with a pair of sticks. A part of me—the old, perfectionist musician Beasley student part of me—wanted to make sure I was practiced and prepared, but I just couldn't bring myself to pull that sheet off the drum set and face the music. Instead, I stood and stared at it sitting there in the corner as my heart raced. When sweat started to prickle on my forehead, I turned heel and escaped to the garage to look for things to build my new, low-pressure, “reductive” drum kit.
I had a pretty good idea of what kinds of things would make a good set. I needed at least one large, four-gallon bucket to use as my main drum. I’d probably want to get a couple of other, smaller sizes to add some variation to the sound, and then I wanted to get some metal pieces to stand in for cymbals and bells. A lot of street drummers seemed to make their kits entirely out of buckets, resulting in a fairly uniform sound that I wasn’t a fan of. To me, a good drum solo had plenty of variation in tones.
Monica had inherited the house from her grandparents, and apparently had never bothered to do any cleaning in the garage. The place was filled with decades worth of junk. I searched around and quickly found some plastic paint buckets, but they were still full of ancient, molasses-thick paint. After sneezing my way through piles of gardening supplies, old clothes, and storage boxes, I finally found a large bucket filled with trowels and shovels. I dumped them, ignoring the flurry of startled spiders that fell out with the lot, and set the bucket aside. I discovered two paint cans that had a bunch of old batteries and rusty nails in them, and after emptying them out, I added them to my kit too. I wanted a couple more metal objects to fill in for my cymbals and bells, so I pulled out one of my sticks and started to test them on things. I found a rectangular metal piece that might’ve been part of a drain gutter, and an old cooking pot.
Satisfied with my kit, I fit everything I could into the big bucket and the rest into a faded tote bag embroidered with “Beasley University Class of 1965”, and went to my car to drive down to the Riverwalk.
The Riverwalk was a stretch of restaurants, cafés, and boutiques that ran along a grassy area in front of the water, shaded with trees and lined with old brick and cobblestone. Quite a few of the buildings here were historic and dated back to the early 1800s. A mix of street music always seemed to fill the air here, from classical violin to Peruvian pan flutes, the area was a prime spot for busking.
I won’t say that I felt embarrassed or shy lugging my makeshift kit down the Riverwalk, even with the big bucket rattling and clattering with the items inside—I was used to performing in front of crowds—but I did feel slightly out of place here. I’d never busked before, and I wasn’t sure of the etiquette. There were plenty of other musicians around doing their thing, and I didn’t want to intrude on anyone’s territory, or something like that. Did buskers even have territory? Who knew.
I found a nice spot in front of a bronze statue of Clifton S. Beasley, the founder of Beasley University, far enough away from any other musicians so that I wouldn't be interrupting anyone with my drumming. Families and couples strolled by, not even giving me a second glance while I unpacked my kit and laid it all out onto the brick. I sat cross-legged, with the main bucket directly at my front, the paint cans to my left, and the metal whatsits to my right. I left the tote bag open at the very front for tips.
I pulled out my sticks and swung them in the air, miming a beat, trying to figure out what I was going to play. My heart started to pound, and my palms began to sweat. I exhaled, and rubbed them dry on my jeans.