Travis Starnes
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Dissonance - Chapter 40
🕑 Added 2023-02-15 17:44:26 +0000 UTCMy first stop, once I pulled out of the bank parking lot, was to go see the band. This was going to take some time, even if Chef could pay us in cash, which meant no one was getting paid today. I also noticed my gas tank was low, which was a problem, because I had absolutely no money until I got the cash from Chef.
We didn’t usually practice on Mondays, since we just finished playing all weekend, but everyone was home when I got there. That was the other reason I had to come here first. Lyla went out Monday nights after getting paid, and I didn’t want to show up late to find that she was already gone.
“I was starting to think you weren’t going to show,” Lyla said when she opened the door for me. “I told Tabitha I was taking her drinking tonight. Boys, it’s payday.”
It wasn’t a huge house, and Seth and Marco were in the living room just off the front entryway, playing video games, so I wasn’t sure what the point of yelling was, but she did it every time.
“Excellent. The place was packed all weekend, so today’s going to be good,” Marco said.
We’d fallen into this routine pretty quickly and he and Marco kept playing their games. Normally, I’d just set the envelopes I put their money in on the table, and they’d work it out, so there wasn’t any reason for them to stop just because I was there. Of course, that was normal.
“Guys, can you pause the game for a minute?” I said.
After a second, Seth did and asked, “What’s up?”
“Some stuff has happened, and there isn’t a really good way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. You know that my dad has been around and is causing problems, at least for me, right?”
“Yeah,” Lyla said, sitting down on the couch next to Marco.
“I filed for emancipation a week ago Friday and I just found out that his retaliation was to clean out both the band bank account and my personal bank account. Since Mom is a signer on both accounts, he was able to do it through her. I want to make it clear that, so far, you guys aren’t out any money. The money that was in the account was held there so we had cash if we needed to pay for something and so I could cash checks. We aren’t due our first royalty payment until next week, so only the money I left in the account was taken.”
“What does this mean for when the royalty payment is made, though?” Marco asked. “Will that get taken as well?”
“I don’t know. I just found this out and I stopped to talk to you guys after I called my lawyer. I’m going to see what I can do about getting our royalty payment another way, but it might mean the payment is delayed a month, at least until I’ve had my emancipation hearing.”
“So we aren’t getting our royalty payment,” Marco said, standing up. “That’s bullshit. Just because your life is shit, doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay us. I knew we should have set up something else for our money. You guys convinced me it was okay to let a kid be in charge of all the money. I told you it was a bad idea, but no one listened.”
“That’s not fair, Marco,” Seth said.
“No kidding. Charlie’s paid himself less so he could have money in the account for when we needed it, and he’s the only one who lost anything so far. Don’t be an ass,” Lyla said.
“Stop taking his side all the time, Lyla. I don’t know why you’re always defending him, but this is bullshit, and you know it.”
“Marco, I get that you’re pissed,” I said, wanting to defuse the situation. “I would be too. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you get everything you’re owed, even if I have to pay you out of my own pocket. The only thing that’s happening right now is the money from this weekend will be a little delayed. I know that sucks, but we still have the money coming in from Chef for playing there every weekend, so it’s not the end of the world.”
“Fine. Give us the money from this weekend then, and I guess we’ll just stretch it out a month until you fix your shit.”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“What?”
“That’s the other problem. With no money in the account, I can’t cash the check from Chef. I’m headed there next, but the banks are already closed, so it could take a day to get paid for this weekend.”
“Jesus Christ. Is there anything you don’t fuck up?” Marco said.
“You know what, Marco?” I said, finally having enough of his shit. “If you don’t like it, find another band to play with. I’m done putting up with your shit. I’ve sat back and let you rip into me any time you’re even slightly inconvenienced but I don’t have the energy to put up with that shit right now. Oh no, you have to wait a day to get paid from our regular gig that I fucking set up. Boo fucking hoo. Did you hear the part where I have to file for emancipation from my parents? My life is a fucking shambles, but do you see me whining about how it’s so unfair? No, I’m handling my shit. You have to wait one fucking extra day to get paid, and you lose your mind. What the fuck. I am very literally broke right now, because he took everything from both the band account and my personal account. I’m driving on fumes and might have to walk back from the Blue Ridge, but you know what? I’m still going to take care of my shit. My first concern was how to make sure you guys get paid, because I know this isn’t your fault and I’m trying my best to make sure you don’t get screwed over either. So what is it going to be? You want out? Just say the word.”
He didn’t say anything and just folded his arms, pouting like a small child.
“It’s okay, Charlie,” Seth said. “We understand, and we can wait. We trust you. And I’m really sorry things are so bad.”
“Do you need anything?” Lyla asked. “I can spot you some money.”
I knew she spent her money as fast as she made it and she hadn’t gotten paid since last week, so that would almost certainly be taking her last dime. I did absolutely need money, but I couldn’t take it from her. Especially with Marco in the room. I didn’t need him to have something else to throw back at me the next time he was annoyed.
“No, I’ll be okay. I’m headed to talk to Chef next. I still have the check. I’m sure he can pay us in cash, and I bet we can get it tomorrow, but it might be Wednesday. I’ll call Kent next, and see if there is anything we can do about the royalty payment. I’ll be upfront with you, there’s a chance there won’t be. I’m a minor, so my mom signed everything and is actually the one who gets to make the decisions, which now also includes my dad. If they have to deposit the money like normal and Dad takes it, I will pay you guys back every penny. It will just take time, but I will make sure you don’t lose anything.”
“Charlie, you don’t have to do that,” Lyla said. “This sucks and is unfair, and you shouldn’t be the one to have to lose everything.”
“The hell he shouldn’t,” Marco said, unable to contain himself.
“Shut the fuck up, Marco,” Lyla said.
“No, he’s right. If this was a band problem or a fight between us and the label or something, then it’d be right to split the losses among all of us, but this is a personal thing between me and my family. If we lose anything, it should come from me and not you guys. I just wanted to let y’all know first what was going on and that I will make this right.”
“We trust you, Charlie,” Lyla said. “Go do what you have to do. We’ll still be here.”
Marco made a face that said he wasn’t sure if he would, but I honestly didn't care. At this point, I was ready to dump Marco. He and Seth were best friends, and I liked Seth and we needed a drummer, and Marco was a really good keyboard player and had contributed a lot, but I was sick of his attitude. But, I had enough shit to deal with at the moment, so as long as he kept his mouth shut and stopped making demands, I’d just ignore the eye rolls.
My next stop was Chef.
“This is what I meant by ‘unexpected consequences,’” Chef said after I told him everything that had happened.
“Honestly, I should have expected this,” I said. “I really should have seen this coming, and I’m mostly pissed at myself for leaving money in the bank accounts Mom has access to after he took money the last time. In hindsight, it’s so obvious.”
“It always is, in hindsight. Don’t beat yourself up too much. The entire idea of emancipation can be hard, and you have the physical confrontations between you and your father on top of that. It was inevitable that you’d miss something. All you can do now is try to deal with it.”
“Yeah, that’s the hard part. I still have the check you gave me, since I didn’t want to put it into the account and wait to withdraw it. Dad would expect that and just take this money, too.”
“Probably. I can pay you cash, but it will be tomorrow after I can get to the bank.”
“Thanks. I thought you could, and I expected it would take another day, but I didn’t want to assume. I already stopped by and talked to the band and told them there’d be a delay in getting paid for this weekend.”
“Were they okay with that?”
“Yeah,” I said, seeing no reason to throw Marco under the bus. “My bigger concern is our royalty payment from MAC. It’s coming next week, and Dad knows it. I’m going to call Kent after I leave here, but if he can’t do anything this is going to be really bad. Mr. Eaves said that Dad is entitled to take everything if he wants to, as long as I am his dependent, and even if I get emancipation, I probably won’t be able to get that money back. This is going to be our largest check, and think he’s going to take every penny of it.”
“You’re probably right. Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just money, right? I mean, this sucks and it’s going to be very annoying, but as long as we can play here on the weekends, the guys will have enough to pay their bills and I don’t really have any bills, since I live with Mrs. Phillips. It will make it hard for me to start paying you back now for helping to pay for Mr. Eaves, though.”
“Don’t worry about that, Charlie. We’ll deal with that later. Right now, I just want you to focus on making sure you are safe and healthy. Everything else can be taken care of eventually. I’ll start getting money out on Fridays to pay you guys in cash Sunday nights. I don’t like keeping that much money around, but it’s why we have a safe. Hell, we used to have cash like that all the time before everyone switched to credit cards. It’ll be okay.”
“Thanks, Chef, I really appreciate it.”
“Do you have enough money right now? You said he cleaned out your bank account,”
“Mostly. It will cost me some fees, but I can pay late on my insurance and cell phone bill. Next month, hopefully, this is all over, I’ll be emancipated, and I’ll have a bank account in just my name, and none of this will matter. Uhhh … I hate to ask, but I’m driving on fumes, though.”
“Sure,” he said, reaching for his wallet and pulling out forty dollars. “This is all the cash I have on me at the moment, but I can check the bar and see how much came in over lunch if you need more.”
“No, this is great. I promise I’ll pay you back.”
“Charlie, stop worrying about paying everyone back. We know you’re good for it. Right now, just worry about yourself, okay.”
“So, what do I do about a bank account? Do I just keep a bunch of cash lying around?”
“Yeah, that’s not a great idea. If you want, I can keep whatever cash you don’t need at the moment in my safe, and you can come get it whenever you need it. Or, you could ask Mrs. Phillips to put it in her bank account for you. I’m sure she won’t mind. Probably safer than my safe, although no one has ever tried to rob us.”
“Without a debit card, it means I’d need to ask her to go to the bank and hope I estimate how much I need correctly.”
“True, although if you really need money for something and she can’t get to the bank, you know you can always come here. I trust you to pay me back.”
“My debt to you is already getting kind of huge.”
“Not considering the situation you’re in. Record contracts … emancipation … it’s a lot to deal with, and if you don’t do it right, you’ll be in a lot worse shape. Besides, you make me a killing every weekend, even with giving you such a large cut. I’d be shooting myself in the foot doing something that causes you to stop playing here. I know one day you’re going to be huge, and you won’t be playing here anymore, so I need to get what I can now. This is just good business.”
“It’s not, and you know it, but I appreciate you trying to make me feel better. And I promise, if I get big, I’ll still come back here and play.”
“The hell you will. You become famous, and this place would be a madhouse. Maybe I’ll set up some kind of outdoor charity thing and guilt you into putting your celebrity name on it, but if you get big enough to play large venues, I’d kick your butt if you tried to come back here.”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter. The odds of me getting famous are like a billion to one.”
“We’ll see,” Chef said.
At least our immediate money problems were handled. Everyone would still get cash every week, which meant that the band could pay rent and I’d be able to cover my bills. It would be a pain in the ass to either have Mrs. Phillips or Chef hold onto my money, but it was doable.
The next problem was our first big royalty check. I’d pulled out all the stops this past week and even without Ronnie, I couldn’t imagine we’d get a bigger push than we’d got. We’d survive even if Dad did take the check, but no one would be happy. Hell, it might be enough to finally cause Marco to leave, although I doubted it. He was short-sighted and wouldn’t want to lose the regular money from playing at the Blue Ridge. Before the Wild Cats, he and Seth had been playing gigs very irregularly and they were living life very much how I had as a kid. A regular, weekly gig was like winning the jackpot for local musicians who didn’t have much in the way of prospects for making it big.
Still, I wasn’t ready to give up on that money quite yet.
This time when I called Kent, I sat on hold for a very long time, the clock passing ten, then twenty minutes. This was the longest he’d ever made me wait, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t a great sign.
“What can I do for you, Charlie,” he said curtly when he finally answered.
Another not-good sign.
“Hey, Kent. I had a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about if you have a few minutes.”
“Sure. What can I do for you?” he asked, again sounding almost annoyed.
“First, I wanted to let you know that I heard you when you said we really needed to show strong sales numbers, at least until Warren was back and things were back on track. I made some calls, trying to get us some free press. Linda from House of Graceand Eli Sampson from Nightshade both sent out messages to their followers promoting our album. I know it’s not the same as being out there playing or paid marketing, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. I’m also going to call some of the clubs I know in the Ashville area and one in Raleigh, and see if I can book us some shows on my own. I know they aren’t large venues, and regulars at the places in Ashville already know me, but I figure everything helps.”
“You were behind that post from Eli? I wondered. I knew you and Linda had some kind of friendship and figured she was either being nice or doing you a favor, but having an artist on another label promote your album is really unusual. I was trying to figure out why that happened.”
“Ohh, is that bad?”
“Not for us, no. I’m just surprised his label let him do it. They are usually pretty protective of their artist and don’t want to see other labels getting free press. Hell, I bet someone over there is wondering if that was a shot across the bow, letting the label know they were thinking about moving. I’d heard they were unhappy after the label pushed back on their guitarist’s drug problem. Maybe I should give them a call.”
Shit. It was good Kent no longer sounded mad at me, but I wouldn’t have asked Eli to do anything if I’d thought it would get him into some kind of trouble. I was now really surprised he’d done it, and that he’d been the first out of the gate. Worse, I couldn’t exactly tell Kent to not call them. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I needed to keep MCA from dropping me, but I didn’t want to be the reason Eli lost his contract, or had more problems.
“I didn’t realize that was a problem,” was all I could say, hoping he would hear the worry in my voice and decide against calling them on his own.
“Ahh, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not something that’s going to lose him his contract or anything. Still, if they move over to us, they’d probably be happier anyway. And they’d be perfect for the new, harder sound we’ve been trying for. I don’t suppose you could call them, and put in a good word for me?”
Double shit.
“I don't know. I was already pushing it with that first call. It’s not like we’re friends. We meet the one time, but I guess they thought I did them a favor, so I called it in already. I’m kind of out of favors now.”
“Don’t worry about it. If I had to choose between the two, I’d prefer him promoting your album than taking my call, although if you do talk to them and it comes up, just remember all the favors I’ve been doing for you lately. It would be a long shot anyway, so I’d rather have the money on the table. We won’t know the numbers for last week until tomorrow, and their messages were on the weekend, so some of that will flow over into next week. Still, it should help keep your momentum going, which is good. I’m also happy to hear you’re out there booking your own gigs and promotions. That’s the kind of hustle we wanted. Keep it up, and we might make it through this yet.”
“I’ll try. And since you’re happy with me at the moment, I had something else I needed to run by you.”
“Why do I get the feeling you buttered me up with the good news before asking for me to stick my neck out for you again? Your father is already making noise because we haven’t officially removed Warren yet. Since I know he might be gone in three or four weeks, I’m trying to hold him off, but it hasn’t been easy.”
“Yes, I was buttering you up with the good news, because I have another favor to ask.”
“What?” he said, more exasperated than angry.
“I know we have our first big royalty payment coming next week, and that’s a problem. Since filing for emancipation, my father who through my mother has access to my bank accounts, since I had to have a parent co-sign on the accounts, emptied both the account I have set up for the band and my personal account. I don’t know if he’s just trying to hurt me or if he thinks he can make it hard for me to pay for a lawyer, but either way, it’s causing me problems. I know that as soon as our royalty check is deposited, he’s going to withdraw everything, and this will be our biggest royalty check, since I know sales slowdown after the first month.”
“Not necessarily. Most of the bumps from having Linda and Nightshade give you shout-outs happened just at the end of the month, and will stretch sales into next month. You also dropped in the middle of September, so you only had two weeks of sales instead of a full month. You’re generally right that the best month for sales is the first month, but circumstances sometimes result in your second month's sales actually being higher.”
“Yeah, I can see that, but I still don’t want to give up our September royalties if I don’t have to. If it was just me, I wouldn’t bother you and just take the loss as the price I have to pay for filing for emancipation, but my bandmates didn’t do anything to get screwed and the way the contract is set up, they only get paid if I get paid. I was hoping there was something you could do. Either change it so I get mailed a check or just postpone getting the check out this month.”
I heard him sigh and I could just imagine him putting his head down on his desk, if he was at a desk, in frustration.
“You realize that’s just going to double the number of calls we get from your father, right? We’re already playing three card Monte with Warren, because at least keeping him on board adds to your long-term value to us. Keeping your royalty payments out of your father’s hands doesn’t give us anything but headaches. I mean, you getting paid or not doesn’t help you sell more albums in the future, at least not directly. I’ve been able to sell what I’m doing to my bosses so far, as long as it’s temporary, but I don’t think I can sell this one.”
“What if you mailed me the check to the Blue Ridge instead? It’d be for just the one month and I know he’d ask you to switch the payment details for next month back to that bank account, but by the time next month’s payments are made, this will be all over, one way or another. I just need a little breathing room.”
“What if he calls to ask about payment details?”
“I don’t think he will. He’s always been really sure that he’s smarter than everyone else, and only ever sees problems after they happen. My father is a short-sighted man. Still, how late can you submit a change for how I’m paid to your accounting department, and still be sure it will mail out right?”
“I can probably wait until three or four days beforehand, as long as I double-check that they’re on top of it and doing it right.”
“Could you do that for me? I swear this will be the last favor I ask of you. I’ll work hard and will promote us as much as possible, and once this emancipation thing is done, I won’t cause any more trouble.”
“You shouldn’t promise things you can’t deliver.”
“Okay, I’ll try to not cause any more trouble and I’ll work as hard as possible.”
There was a very long pause on his end before he said, “Fine. But this is the last one. No more favors after this.”
“No more favors, I promise. Thanks, Kent. I really appreciate it.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, and hung up.
I knew I was pushing the line, but I just needed to buy myself a little time. I could have someone else cash this check for me, although I wasn’t sure how that worked with large checks, and pay the band their share. Between that and Chef paying us in cash, I would be able to keep Marco off my back for a few weeks. Long enough for this emancipation thing to happen.
I was still pissed at Dad, but I’d managed to at least counter his latest move and wasn’t going to be completely screwed.
Comments
Thomas Corbin
I hope something good happens for him soon!
Thomas Corbin
I would hope the judge can do something about it. Also the fact that he's been helping his Mom with money from his paychecks should discount him being a dependent, hopefully a bit.
Whicked
I expected this chapter, but I don't know enough to know if it is completely right. I would think he has at least some right of restitution here. I'm probably just ignorant though.
