Shopgirl

jeremy’s adulthood

THE STENCIL ADHERES TO THE amplifier by manila tape, and Jeremy has learned to evenly apply the paint in one skillful squirt of the airbrush. The Doggone Amplifier Company has a logo of a dog with cartoon speed lines trailing out behind it, with the brand name laid out in a semicircle underneath. It is not easy to fill in the delicate speed lines; some of the earlier paint jobs, before Jeremy joined the ranks, are uneven and sloppy. When he works he crouches in an uncomfortable position that only someone under thirty could bear for long before he would have to seek work elsewhere. His salary is so small that his paycheck could read so and so measly dollars and no one would contradict. But it’s Jeremy’s work clothes that tell the story of his line of business: his jeans look like a Jackson Pollock and his T-shirt looks like a Helen Frankenthaler – he is working at the bottom end of the arts.

His boss, Chet, ambles through the warehouse with a client in tow, and their faint muffled voices waft over the stacks of amps to Jeremy’s straining ears. He catches a glimpse of them and notices that the client is a sharply dressed businessman, presumably the manager of a rock band trying to make a deal for a ton of amplification in exchange for promotion. The problem in the negotiation, of course, is that Chet only wants to sell amps, and the manager only wants them for free. There is no middle ground. Chet’s business is waterlogged and about to sink and he simply can’t afford to ship out fifteen thousand dollars worth of equipment for use months later. The manager slips away with a handshake and Chet stands there as the Mercedes disappears out of the lot through the chain-link fence.

For Christopher Columbus, it was the sailing of three ships that launched his life’s great journey. For Jeremy, it is the sight of the sinking Chet watching the ass-end of a hundred-thousand-dollar car shrink to a vanishing point down an industrial street in Pacoima. He lays down his spray gun and gets in Chet’s field of vision.

“You know what I was thinkin’?”

“What was that?” Chet barely replies.

“You know who hangs out with rock musicians when they’re on the road?”

“Who?” says Chet.

“Other rock musicians.”

“And?”

“If you had someone on the road with one of the bands using our stuff, someone who looks sharp, like that guy does…“ he thumbs in the direction of the dust of the Mercedes, “…someone the musicians could relate to, I bet you could sell a lot more amps.”

“Do you have someone in mind?”

“Me.”

Chet looks at the specter of ineptitude that is standing in front of him. He does not see a sharply dressed businessman; he does not see a clever salesman. But he does see someone he thinks a rock musician could relate to.

“And how much would you like to be paid to do this?” says Chet.

“I could do it for…“

Jeremy has never, ever been asked such a question. He has always been told what he would be paid. He can’t even fill out an employment form that asks “desired salary” as it confounds him: he always wants to write down one million dollars. But Jeremy has been asked, so he has to answer:

“…nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“I could do it for…“

Jeremy has heard only one financial phrase in his life, and he opens and closes every door in his memory bank until he finds it:

“…a finder’s fee.”

“And what would you find?” says Chet.

“Bands to use the amps. And if another band starts using the amps because of a band I got to use the amps, I’d like a finder’s fee for them, too.” And then hastily adds, “of five hundred dollars.”

Chet can’t see any reason not to take Jeremy up on his proposal. After all, it’s a kind of commission basis, an Avon Calling of rock and roll. Since a set of amps can cost fifteen thousand dollars, it will be easy to shoot five hundred Jeremy’s way. He doesn’t see any problem in finding a new stenciler; in fact, his nephew is just out of high school and is looking for a job in the arts. Jeremy, overestimating his own value, is thinking the exact opposite: “I hope he doesn’t realize he’s going to have to find someone else to stencil.”

Chet accepts the offer but does have to lay out some cash. Two hundred and twenty-two dollars for Jeremy to buy a new suit. Jeremy is enterprising enough to stretch the dough into an extra pair of pants so he won’t look like a carbon copy of himself day after day. He then spends five dollars on a copy of GQ for his road bible on dressing and finds cool ways to manipulate his own six shirts into a weekly wardrobe. On the road, he learns to scan newsstands and surreptitiously tears pages out of magazines with ideas for style.

Jeremy’s first gig is with the only professional band currently using Doggone amplifiers, Age – pronounced AH-jay. Age has scored some success with a one-shot hit record and Jeremy offers to accompany them for free in exchange for on-the-road amp repair. He will travel on their bus and bunk with a roadie. His real mission, of course, is to convince some other band, somewhere else, that he is a genius acoustician who has developed the ultimate amplifier and that Doggone amps are the only amps that any hip band can possibly consider.

Three days before Thanksgiving, he boards Age’s auxiliary bus for a sixty-city road trip, starting in Barstow, California, heading toward New Jersey, and ninety days later, in a masterpiece of illogical routing, ending in Solvang, California.