Rocker’s Guide To Child Rearing
Chapter 7
Barrett
“You have to come up here, I want you to meet this guy that works at KGLT, you can even walk, it’s just up the street, there’s a little record store, by Joe’s Parkway and the pizza joint, and then it’s right there almost at the corner of 12th. You could already be here!” Joe seemed in a hurry.
“All right I’ll hurry up.”
By bike, I zipped up the street. In the early twenties everyone moves around efficiently by bike. When we woefully stop moving around by bike it’s the proof of a sudden shift into a more complicated life I think. I was not there yet. Life seemed uncomplicated and open and utterly confusing. Bozeman on a sunny day by bike is one of the more glorious places to be, ever, period. The mountains surround the town and it has an abundance of fresh pine scented air. Maybe it’s the elevation but there’s also clarity to the dry crisp air that is wonderful.
When I arrived in an invigorated state, Joe came out and greeted me by pulling me away from the door that I was about to enter and began passionately smooching right there tucked up by the building on the front sidewalk. After the extended embrace, he brought me into meet that guy.
“Barrett Golding, this is Sheryl Shumsky, she’s a Montanan born and bred.”
“Hey Shum skEEE what’s happening?” He smiled kind of funny, like he’d probably just seen everything we’d been doing and then looked away to peer at the vinyl album he was holding up, spinning it and examining its surface.
“Howdy Barrett?” I give him a little wave.
“I’ll be right back.” Joe jets out the front door leaving us there together without any further introduction. It was kind of awkward.
Barrett began, “He’s a very fast guy.”
“Yep. Have you known him for very long?’
“No, we just met at KGLT last week. We’re both going to be working at that Windham Hill concert for Cactus.”
“Cactus?”
“Cactus Records that’s where your standing and there’s a bigger store downtown.”
“Oh, I didn’t even notice the name when I came in.”
“So what do you like to listen to?”
“The Doors. The Police, The Clash.”
“Have you heard of The The.”
“No.” I laugh. But he didn’t laugh. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “Yeah it’s this guy that’s like a one man band doing all the tracks himself! I think you’d like it.”
“I’ll have to check that out.”
“Joe says you’re a musician too.”
“I play piano. I just started writing songs last summer but I don’t have a keyboard yet so I play piano up at the music department. I just bought a saxophone though.”
“That’s a great instrument for rock. Did you go to that Loverboy and Quarterflash concert?”
“Didn’t everybody go to that?!” Bozeman didn’t have many bands coming through so what did we have as an option?
“True. Rindy Ross, the woman saxophonist in Quarterflash was the best part of the whole concert!”
We lock eyes as I suddenly blurt out incredulous that he just gave her props. “I KNOW!” He echos. “I KNOW” We laugh.
“Saxophone will be a great instrument if you really want to rock. Seriously, it could really be cool.” He goes back to looking at other things instead of me.
Barrett Golding was from the east coast. He seemed Hobbit like to me in that he was maybe as tall as I was and a very furry fellow. Perhaps because I’d recently read the Hobbit but noticeably there was curly hair poking out at his collar and even his ears seemed rather furry. He had an adorability factor and old blue eyes sizing me up. If he were a stray pet you’d have taken him in.
“Check this out,” he handed me an album cover and took the vinyl record to put it on the turntable. “Bow Wow Wow, yeah I guess this girl was just heard singing in a laundromat and” he drops the needle and brings up the volume, we wait silently to hear her voice, it comes at us textured, resonant, haunting and “a guy found her, put her in his band and they just got signed!”
“I like her voice. This music is different than straight rock and roll isn’t it?”
“Yeah, some are calling it New Wave.”
“Really. Hmm all I know is I overall HATE drum machines!”
“Yeah why can’t they just get a drummer!”
“I love how a REAL drummer creates more intricate details …”
Joe blasts back in the door. “All right that’s enough of that!” He looks at me, “Did I see him flirting with you? Uh oh out of here Shumsky, we’ve got to go Barrett.” He’s thrown an overly protective arm in front of me and pushes me away behind him so Barrett can’t see me anymore, jokingly. Barrett laughs.
“Joe, before you go, what should we wear to that concert?”
“I don’t know, door guys, does it matter?”
“Maybe black pants and white shirts?” I offered.
“I don’t have a white shirt.” Barrett winces.
“Me neither.”
“How about white t-shirts?” I guide.
“That’s it! We’ll wear white v neck t-shirts, you have one?” Joe shouts.
Barrett nods in agreement. “Yeah, that’s brilliant! You better keep her around.” Barrett and I exchanged smiles while Joe pushes me out the door.
Later they both became very distressed with me and didn’t want me around! At the concert for Windham Hill’s New Age artists Ackerman and Winston, which was also presented at the Emerson high school auditorium., a swanky, educated adult crowd was mingling and arriving. Maybe the boss lady who ran the record store would not like it, when I sneaked up and ambushed them with my Polaroid camera with strobing flashbulbs in the auditorium foyer? They both definitely wanted to work for that record store, again and reacted so embarrassed when I did that. But I captured the moment when they began working together for the first time, rocking their improvised white shirts. I got the SHOT! None of us knew then, they’d just started something that would endure through the good times and the bad.
