Top Notch

By Steve Husk

Verse Two of the Metzgerhund Retreat series is for anyone who insists on competing at the absolute top of their game, in whatever it is they do.

It's also a story for those who aren't concerned with results, but simply want to do whatever it is they do for fun. Only for only.

Although...Billy Mecklenburg would recommend you not mix the performance junkies with the participation trophy participants.

Billy had a difficult enough time creating events for Rhoden Woods Youth Center’s Olympic-style competition where all the teams could compete in equally, especially since his involvement with music and baseball pushed him into the performance junkie range. Billy knew that, by combining the two disparate groups, he would have to deal with the complainers, the slackers, the excuse makers, and those who were excluded because they weren’t good enough to compete.

It didn’t help that his lead singer and resident two-sport athlete, Reggie, was doing most of the complaining.

To add to the unnecessary noise and frustration, his bass player, Sam, began excluding potential fans from a jam session because they couldn’t play the same passages he could play.

Yet, it was Sam’s behavior that awoke inside Billy an ambition he’d kept hidden the last two years, one that he made excuses about rather than do something about it. And the last thing Billy wanted was to be lumped into the participation trophy group. He had work to do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Husk
• Release date: Oct 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301365609

Steve Husk

Some say Steve Husk is constantly going up against his demons and the many voices in his own head. Truth is, Steve has recruited most of them as his advisors. Some of them want to start a band with him.Steve is a retired software / web application developer and security control center officer. He currently works his writing (and sometimes music) craft in northern Virginia, USA.

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Top Notch

Verse Two of

Metzgerhund Retreat

Steve Husk

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2023 Steven M. Husk

Cover art Copyright 2023 Steven M. Husk

All rights reserved.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the author’s page on Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Billy’s hands danced across the synthesizer keys, adding an intricate riff to this hard-driving song. He was just a few measures away from his solo. The most ambitious passage he’d ever composed for himself. The adrenaline sent hyperactive tremors through his hands.

Or maybe it was his nerves that were messing with him. He hadn’t played that solo right yet.

He wanted to get himself to the point where this part flowed with precision. Once that happened, he would create an even more challenging passage to tackle.

He looked up at all the unfamiliar faces in the band’s practice shed. Teenage guests of Sentry Ridge had been coming and going all morning, checking out the rumors that the park’s activity counselors were really the members of the rock band Metzgerhund. Most of them seemed to like what they were hearing. Billy could only hope they weren’t noticing all the wrong notes and messed up timings.

Billy poised his left hand over his small synthesizer, and listened for the lead-in measure.

One, two three, four!

His fingers launched at the keys with power and grace.

Damn! Screwed it up again!

He immediately told himself to hide his frustration from the spectators, to show them instead how much fun he was having.

Just like his band mates were doing.

Jason, the band’s reckless weightlifting drummer, rifled through a series of wipeouts. When the song changed to a more hardcore sound, Jason grabbed both sticks with his right hand and pounded out heavy beats against the snare drum, then grabbed a water bottle with his left hand and flicked the plastic cap off with a twitch of his thumb. He raised his head and opened his mouth, then poured the water on himself from above while still playing. The song changed back to a more basic beat. Jason dropped the bottle, then went right back to playing with both hands, while water drops ran down around the grooves of his powerful and maniacal grin.

More teens walked into the un-air conditioned shed. It was starting to get crowded. And stuffy. The door was already propped wide open, and the band took down the soundproof covers from the windows over an hour ago so they could open them up and hopefully get some sort of circulation going. Which didn’t help much because it was hot and stuffy outside, too. Most of the faces were beaded with sweat, and Billy’s baseball jersey was nearly soaked. But nobody complained out loud. And the band wasn’t about to stop now, anyway.

Sam, the band’s short and heavy bass player, stood directly in front of a large speaker cabinet that was taller than him. The Planet Cracker. The face of the cabinet bore Sam’s painting of oversized headphones clamped around a painting of Earth, with bits of the planet crumbling from the intense volume blasting from the headphones. Sam reached over and turned the volume knob on his amplifier up another notch. He waited for the song’s tempo change, and broke into a thundering bass solo. Every loose object in the shed vibrated and shook.

Billy was happy to see that Aaron, the sixteen year old office assistant to the park manager, took a few minutes out of his morning shift to check out Metzgerhund’s practice. Aaron was in a local band for a short time. And Billy was hoping to jam with him one day.

Calvin, the band’s tall and awkward guitarist, strummed a growling riff that added an extra layer of heaviness to the song. Except, to Billy’s ears, the riff sounded plain. No, that wasn’t it. There was no true feeling behind it. The part was too simple and not challenging enough for Calvin. Billy understood that mentality quite well. At the start of the next measure, Calvin began adding extra notes to the rhythm part. The riff lost some of its heaviness, but Billy thought it sounded much more enjoyable to play. Calvin’s shy, lopsided smile showed everyone he thought so, too.

Billy saw two girls step through the shed doorway, pause to listen, then flash the unmistakable facial expression of Ewwwwwwww! Rock! They disappeared out of the shed just as fast. Billy laughed.

Reggie, the band’s self-assured front man, swung his guitar behind his back and sang the next verse in Spanish. He angled himself towards a girl in the crowd he thought was the most deserving of giving him every ounce of her attention. Even after only being at Sentry Ridge a week and a half, Reggie already ditched the reddish spiked hair look, but he continued keeping his hair a dark brown color instead of its natural black. Reggie reached the end of the vocals, then flung his guitar out from behind his back and began playing a wild solo. As usual, Billy had no idea what key Reggie was playing in.

Billy didn’t know most of the teens gathered in the shed. Some of them were paying more attention to each other or what was on their phones than they were to the band. This never happened back home, but Billy anticipated it might happen here, which is why Metzgerhund stayed awake until 2am this morning debating on the issue of whether or not it was a good idea to open up their practices to anyone who wanted to show up.

Billy preferred to treat band practices like a training camp. It was a chance to tighten the band’s sound and performances, and to work out any flaws without showing potential fans they actually had flaws. He also conceded that opening the two practices they had since being here were a mistake.

Calvin said he also preferred closed practices.

Jason said he enjoyed the opportunity to show off.

Sam confessed he never referred to band sessions as ‘practice.’ In his mind, he wasn’t practicing, he was playing, so he was comfortable whether he was being watched in person or not.

Reggie reminded everyone about the number of top notch professional athletes who not only let outsiders see their performances in person, but sometimes recorded their individual workouts and their drills to share on social media. This tactic, Reggie argued, made the athlete more accessible to his current fans and potential new fans, which would no doubt lead them to become fans of the team for which he played. He also recommended that Metzgerhund video record passages of their practice, including select individual performances, that they could share online.

Calvin claimed that the typical athlete didn’t care what team they were playing for because they were the only one in the video. This athlete wanted the presentation to be all about him.

Reggie mocked Calvin for not being able to relate to how top notch performers operate.

Jason asked Reggie how he qualified himself to know anything about being a top notch musical performer when he was still trying to learn guitar parts Calvin could play in his sleep.

Reggie grumbling his response in Spanish.

Sam translated what Reggie said into English, which made both Reggie and Jason even unhappier.

Billy reminded everyone that band practices could never be about one individual player when the entire band was there. For that reason, he issued an Imperial veto against the idea of video recording their practices.

Jason applauded that logic.

Calvin did the same.

Sam didn’t understand why this was even being debated.

Billy decreed that Metzgerhund would host one last open practice while they were at Sentry Ridge, but only because they already announced it.

Which was why there were so many teens in the shed right now.

Reggie sang