Different Circles

“Some of you may know this,” Jake told them, “and some of you may not, but Laura is a saxophonist. She plays on Celia Valdez’s first and third releases and has just come off a long tour playing for her in North America and Europe. In fact, she flew in from Poland just last night so she could be here to help me out with this next tune.”

Another round of cheers. Matt pondered this information. Yes, he knew that Kingsley’s bitch was that Mexican bitch’s sax player and had been touring with her. After all, the tabloid rags and the entertainment shows had been going on about the whole Celia Valdez and Laura Kingsley lesbian sex scandals for the past few months (Matt could kind of picture Celia Valdez sticking her face in some muff—and the mental picture was not unpleasant at all). But had he just said that she had flown in from Poland? And that she was going to perform with him right now? How the fuck was that possible? That would mean that they had had no rehearsal time for the tune they were about to play (it had to be South Island Blur, Matt realized. That was the only Jake Kingsley tune that had any sax in it at all. And it was soprano sax, the same instrument his bitch was now holding in her hands). Was the moment of Kingsley’s downfall now here? They seriously could not think that they could just step up and pull off a tune like that without prior rehearsal, did they? Even if they were already intimately familiar with the piece, shit like that just could not be done—not outside of a cheesy Hollywood movie or TV show anyway.

“Laura and I met each other,” Jake continued, “back when she first signed on to play the sax for Celia Valdez. You see, Celia and I have known each other for years and we were both rehearsing our first solo CDs in the same building and we both recorded those CDs in the same recording studio up in Oregon. Laura and I did not think too much of each other at first, did we, hon?”

She did not speak into the mic, but she did give a sideways smile and an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders, indicating he was correct. The crowd laughed at this revelation.

“But ... well ... as we got to know each other better, we realized we did have something fundamental in common: our love of making music and playing in front of people. We bonded over that, and that bond gradually became attraction and, eventually, love. And it was during this period, somewhere between bonding and love, that I realized one of the tunes I was working on was missing something, something I could not quite put my finger on. And then I realized what it was. I needed to throw in a little soprano sax to nail down the melody and the rhythm. And I just happened to know a badass sax player. I asked her to work with me on the tune and she agreed. It was during the composition and recording of this tune that we fell in love. The rest is history.”

The crowd cheered loudly again, obviously appreciative of the story, though Matt still did not understand the whole marriage thing. Why did he need to get married to keep boning the bitch? I’ve been boning Kim for almost ten years now and we’ve never even considered getting married, let alone actually gone and done it. What rationale, besides love, which Jake kept going on about (and that Matt did not think could possibly be the actual reason, even if it really did exist), could he possibly have? Was he just deranged? And, of course, he could not possibly be only boning her and no one else, right? No fucking way. Not Jake Kingsley.

“So, we’re going to play that tune for you here tonight,” Jake said. “It’s a tune that I wrote about one of the worst times of my life and I’m now going to play it for you here during one of the best times of my life. Life really is a wheel, people. Here we go now. Let’s do a little South Island Blur.”

A tremendous roar erupted as he said the name of the tune. Though Insignificance was Jake’s best charting tune, Blur was by far his most popular, crossing into nearly all demographics, enjoyed by millions of people who would not be caught dead listening to anything else that Jake or Intemperance had done. The song was regularly covered by bands playing at parties and weddings, was played over boomboxes on booze cruises and tropical pool parties. KVA received twenty to thirty requests a week for permission to perform the tune in live venues (they generally granted such requests for a nominal fee). And this heavy metal oriented crowd was quite eager to see it performed now.