Different Circles

It turned out that Jake could fly. He had just enough maneuverability of his fingertips to be able to manipulate the switches and dials that he needed to manipulate. As for the yoke, he could use his left hand only on that without any problems. As for the throttles, it was a bit clumsy, but he could push and pull them well enough to achieve control for those periods of flight—takeoff, landing, and taxiing—where he was not using the auto-throttle. The most awkward parts were filling out his flight plan—he was right-handed and could not write with a pen in his current condition—and programming the flight plan into his flight director screen, as he was used to doing this by punching the buttons with his right index finger and now had to switch to the left.

The Avanti roared into the sky at one o’clock the next afternoon and climbed to twenty-one thousand feet. Jake sat in the pilot’s seat and Nerdly sat next to him in the copilot’s seat (Jake had disabled the controls on that side). Sharon and Laura sat behind them (Laura had fallen asleep shortly after they had passed ten thousand feet). Obie and Pauline were sitting in the rear facing seats. G and Celia were sitting on the side seats in the rear.

“So ... how did Matt’s sound come out?” Jake asked Nerdly as they bumped and bounced a little over the mountainous terrain below. Nerdly now had a very respectable shiner going on, but he seemed rather proud of it.

“It was not our best work,” Nerdly admitted, “and I only listened to his first three numbers before it was time for us to board the limo for the ride back to the hotel, but I believe it was exponentially better than the Saturday night performance.”

“I concur,” Sharon said from behind them. “I could actually understand his lyrics and hear his guitar and the backing guitar as two distinct instruments.”

“And the volume was not as ear-shattering,” Nerdly put in. “It was still louder than your performance by a considerable margin, but not overwhelming. He and the band also seemed to be considerably more in synchronicity last night.”

“Well, I hope that asshole is grateful for what you did for him,” Jake said.

“I believe he is,” Nerdly said. “Remember, he actually shook my hand and thanked me for helping them after we completed the sound check.”

“That is very unlike Matt,” Jake pointed out.

“True, but he did also make a point to let me know that he still considered me complicit in Darren’s death and that he would never forgive me for it.”

Jake chuckled a little. “Now that sounds like Matt.”

“Indeed,” Nerdly agreed.

JAKE KINGSLEY STEALS THE SHOW AT THE TSF read the headline in the LA Times concert review on Tuesday morning. The article that followed was a ten-thousand-word piece, of which about five thousand were dedicated to Jake’s performance and two thousand to Matt’s. All the other bands’ performances were encompassed into about a thousand words (Pantera was particularly lambasted, mostly because of the ear-shattering volume, which made the set almost completely incomprehensible), while the remaining two thousand words was dedicated to the event as a whole.

Matt’s review was not a bad one by any means. The author of the article, who was enjoying his dream job of doing nothing but attending regional concerts so he could review them, commented that Tisdale’s set was “hard driving and full of emotion” and that “the former Intemperance guitarist proved to all that he is the best heavy-metal artist currently slinging an axe”. He did call Matt out for using the same setlist as his tour shows and for the initial miscues and lack of synchronicity during the first night’s performance. He did report, however, that the second night was far superior both in sound and group cohesion.