Chapter 7: Monotone (February 4-5, 1983)

Wednesday, Feb 4, 1983

Today was the first day that Joe thought about the kid on the way to work. It was just a Wednesday like any other Wednesday he had ever encountered, but for some reason he was itching to see what the kid would do today.  The words he had been holding up on sheets of paper were pretty confusing yet intriguing at the same time, sort of a phenomenon that was slowly scratching more and more at Joe’s curiosity. Joe decided for now that there was no rhyme or reason to the kid’s words, but it was finally something interesting at work. On a personal level, Joe was impressed with the kid’s collection of t-shirts and by the selection of his mask. He didn’t think that any kid knew about the legend of Clyde or any of the other bands that the kid mysteriously chose in correlation to Joe’s childhood. 


At around 12:15, Joe sat at his desk and began to eat his sandwich that Pam packed for him. Eyes glued to the monitor, the kid entered in at 12:20 and seemed to have a simpler message than any of the other days. There were just a few words on his paper today, all beginning with the letter “O” again. Joe deeply wished that there was a meaning behind this kid’s appearance everyday, but he had been so disillusioned by trying to find meaning in things as a young adult that he simply stopped trying. 

February 4, 1983 12:20:00 PM

Thursday, Feb 5, 1983

Joe hated alarms. The monotone, incessant beeping just crawled under his skin and tended to ruin his mornings temporarily until he got a glance of Pam sleeping right next to him. Noises were just ugly music to Joe, and he felt that all noise had the capability of becoming beautiful. Joe slowly started grunting out of his bed, only to be startled by another ugly noise: the telephone was ringing. “Joe we’re puttin’ you on the night shift, so you don’t have to come in until around five, dig?” “Ugh, yeah OK have a good day,” replied Joe. He liked his boss, and he knew that if he really couldn’t make the night shift that night, there wouldn’t be a problem. He crawled back into bed much to the delight of Pam, and slept for a few more minutes.

After breakfast, the kids got on the bus to go to school, and Pam went out shopping with her friends. This left Joe a substantial chunk of time to relax. He migrated to the basement and decided to sit back in his chair and think. He picked up his acoustic, but all he could think about was not seeing the kid’s message today. “Who the hell is that stupid kid?” Joe pondered. He couldn’t help but think there was some meaning behind it. Joe dove a little deeper into his own mind. He started thinking about how he ended up where he is, with a family he loves yet also with a job that could literally be done by anyone.  Where did his passion go? Even if he eventually became the head manager at Rykes Securities, which he was pretty sure he’d get soon, he knew he would never be satisfied there. He felt so disconnected from his outside world. Music was crumbling and becoming more like the sounds of his telephone and alarm clock than the old sounds of Clyde.  However at this point in time Joe felt like it was a lost cause. If Clyde survived, he knew music never would have come to this, but at the same time Joe wasn’t sure that Clyde would ever get big in today’s scene if he were just starting out now. The problem was that people did not take Joe seriously when he talked about current music. While it was true that he never listened to anything current, he still knew exactly what it was all about: money. Joe felt like the modern musicians can fool people all they want, but they would never fool him into giving them any sort of musical respect. 

All this thinking forced Joe to pick up the phone and call Sean. The last time they talked was a few weeks ago when they were planning out the next time their families were going to have dinner. The two families were pretty close, but not as close as Joe and Sean had envisioned when they were growing up. A few seconds in to the call more ugly noises attacked Joe’s ears: the ringtone and a busy signal. Joe felt utterly surrounded, and had to start plucking his instrument to feel some sort of calm. The guitar always helped. Joe found that he always played his acoustic when he was in a place of deep thought, and barely ever picked up his electric anymore. Upstairs he heard the floor creaking of family footsteps, and he decided to play one last song before heading up to talk to Pam about her day. He played an old dear Clyde song, whose sounds came out of Joe’s instrument and seemed to sit right beside him and gently whisper a story in his ear. And much like a pleasant dream on the verge of becoming a revelation, the song abruptly ended as it always did, and Joe had to face the facts that life was moving on with or without him.