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Ch1: job interviews

Job interviews are never fun.

I was sitting in the back office of the local record store, sitting on the underling side of the desk with a very large, very red, and very Texan man sitting on the boss side, looking over my resume, making small grunts I really didn't know or want to know how to interpret. I figured the interview wasn't going very well already, and he hadn't even really started to INTERVIEW me. The little plaque on his desk said his name was Mr. Pagen, and all in all, I'd say he most reminded me of some sort of counry song that talked about hating your job, one with a lot of gruff vocals and jokes... and I'm sure there's a lot of those. He was very obviously not amused, but truth be told, I wasn't all that comfortable either. I never really liked wearing a tie.

"So mister... Tarot?" He said, pronouncing it like 'carrot.' Even though my family was named after a fairly common set of cards, I was pretty sure everyone I've ever met has pronounced my last name wrong the first time they've tried reading it.

"It's pronounced Ter-oh," I corrected mildly, "Justin Sittupe Tarot, like the cards..." The record store manager looked at me dubiously. I got that a lot, it just sounded like I was making it up. It could be worse though, my last name could sound like 'bite me.'

"Mr. Tarot," he said, not correcting the pronunciation, "What exactly are you looking for in a job?" he asked. I was at least happy that we were off the topic of my unusual name, even if he still wasn't pronouncing it right yet.

"I'm truly passionate about music." I told him, "And I'd like a job that involves music while I'm getting my degree at the college here." I was hoping to come off professional, but to be honest I'd never had to do this part of getting a job yet. At least, not this way.

"That's what I was worried you where goin' to say." He said very wearily, and all my hopes of being hired seem to escape with the breath from his lips as he sighed. "Listen son, your resume is real impressive, it really is. But it's impressive from the standpoint of a MUSICIAN, not a store clerk, a manager or even a regular employee." He paused as if to apologize, but not in a way that made me feel like he meant it. "If I was hirin' ya for an entertainer or if I was runnin' a bar or something, you'd get the job in a second, but son, you just don't have any real working experience when it comes to... well, working."

I felt deflated. I had grown up fairly privileged while I lived with my dad and had never needed to get a job. I could always either get a one-time gig playing for an event somewhere, work odd jobs for my dad, or just manipulate him into buying anything I needed. Sometimes I felt like a rich brat that way, but it wasn't something I had ever done on PURPOSE.

"Mr. Pagen, please re-consider." I asked him, "I promise you won't..." I started, but he stood up to cut me off.

"I'm sorry son, but I just can't take a gamble on you, not while I've got so many other safe bets , not in this economy." He said, and then nodded toward the door. "I'll call you if there's an opening." He said. I'd done enough job searching for the past few months to know what that meant. I stood up slowly and nodded my head slightly.

"Thank you for your time." I said as professionally as I could, trying not to let my disappointment show in my voice, pretending like I really was thankful. If that were all you had heard of the conversation, you would have believed me too. I've gotten pretty good at pretending.

***********************************************************************************

I crashed on the couch back at the apartment, still wearing my nice button up shirt, but with the tie already off and hanging in my hand. Well, I guess it wasn't my NICE shirt and tie, but it was one of them. It also wasn't my apartment. Not really. A shaggy-haired head poked around the corner of the kitchen-living room.

"So Tarot," it said, "I'm guessing your job interview didn't go so well."

"Not really Tito," I replied tiredly. Tito was my techie-Hispanic roommate from Arizona. He was an odd kid. Despite being Hispanic he didn't have so much as a hint of an accent, and he didn't like people asking why, preferring to keep things close to the chest, yet he was a really easy read with a face like an open book. We'd met just the year before as randomly assigned roommates on campus, and we'd hit it off so well that even now, when I was having a hard time financially, he was cool with me bumming off him 'till I could get a job and get back on my feet. I knew him well enough that I couldn't put just one song to him, but I always thought of the sound of a lone trumpet playing softly. Not loud enough to be outrageous or attention grabbing, but still articulate and powerful in it's own way.

"So you're still out on a hunt for a job..." he said coyly as he came around the corner, hands in his pockets as innocently as he could. That wasn't suspicious at all. "Still broke and stuff..."

"Yes Tito, I'm still broke and stuff." I answered only a little exasperated. Did he have to bring it up again?

"Just..." he started in that way he did when he didn't want to broach a difficult subject., "you were loaded before, can't you call your dad and..."

"No." I said firmly, and not just a little angrily. "That's not going to happen. He cut me off, remember?"

"Come on," Tito said, "you're dad can't be THAT mean. You could just ask him for a little..."

"I won't do it." I said a little too loud., "I can't let him win like that, I won't." I said it all harshly, angrily, and had to take a long, slow breath to calm down again before I said anything else. "Yes, I'm sorry. I know you're tired of hearing it, but I'm not giving in. I don't like putting you on the spot like this, but I promise I won't stop looking until I can get a job I can live with." I said apologetically. "You're a good friend for letting me." I added. It was always a good thing to let people know you appreciated them. Or so I thought.

"Yeah about that..." Tito said nervously. He looked up at the ceiling and down again as he obviously tried to think of the best way to say whatever it was he was about to say.

"What is it Tito?" I asked with a groan. This couldn't be good.

"Well," Tito said hesitantly, "I got an offer from someone who wants to move into your room... you know, who can pay rent." He kind of flinched, like he was expecting me to hit him. Considering my reaction, he wasn't far off

"What?" I asked loudly, "What do you mean you got an offer? When did this happen?"

"Calm down, it's nothing official." Tito said, trying to lower the volume of the conversation. "It's a friend of one of my cousins, wants to study Aero-Space Engineering up here. My cousin called me up while you were looking for jobs and said this friend needed a room and could pay. I told him I'd think about it."

"And are you?" I asked.

"Am I what?"

"Thinking about it?" I asked, maybe a little too aggressively, "Are you really thinking of kicking me out for some kid you don't even know?" This was just the sort of thing I was afraid of. I really didn't expect him to just pay my rent forever. I guess I should have seen it coming.

"It's just that..." He said then paused, like he was trying to figure out the best way to dump someone who was a little over-attached. "It's just that I ran numbers on it and I'm not really sure I'll be ABLE to let you stay for much longer for free. I'm going to have to put my second job on hold to go to school full time, and with only half the income, it's just not happening." He obviously didn't want to be telling me this, the way he was shifting his weight awkwardly and trying to be nice about it. He never liked hurting people, but he was also very practical when it came to telling it how it was. It was one of the things I had always admired in him. I never thought I'd be on the painful end of that honesty.

I really didn't have anything to say to that either. What, was I supposed to just let him go bankrupt over my sorry corpse? Was I going to be that selfish?

"I told him I'd think about it to give you a little more time, maybe a month or so," He kept explaining. "I know you want to get a job that at least sort of applies to music, but I can't keep waiting. Your scholarship stuff will pay for school, so you just need to get a job, any job, to pay for rent and I can cover utilities and everything, but you still need to get that job." He stopped looking sorry and his finally looked resolute. I remember seeing that look when he'd tell a sibling how it really was. He didn't like laying down the law, but once it was done, he never regretted it. He'd thought it out too much for that. "I'm sorry, but I just can't take so much of a gamble on you with this. You need to get a real, functional job. A consistent one." He moved to go back around the corner to his room and sighed, looking sad again. "I'm sorry, but I think you're going to have to grow up."

He left slowly, and as soon as he was gone I collapsed on the couch. This was definitely not one of my best days.

I always considered myself a musician. It's always been my passion since I was a kid. So I guess it was no surprise that I had enough instruments to build a small orchestra or two, and that the most relaxing thing to do was to lounge about in my room and play with a few. I was hoping that would calm me down some so I could figure out what to do with this problem.

I opened the door to my room and shuffled inside. I had stands for guitars in one corner, a small mountain of cases for horns and woodwinds in another, and a few wall stands to hold a violin, mandolin and a guitar-like Japanese instrument called a Shamisen all in their cases for protection. A few drums littered the ground and a high-end electric keyboard, the kind with weighted keys so it really felt like a piano, sat in it's spot of glory right next to the bed. It was pretty much musician heaven.

I tip-toed over a djimbe (an African drum, not making that name up), picked up a guitar, and slumped into bed, resigning myself to a fate of working fast food more and more by the second. It wasn't like fast food was a bad job, even if maybe it was, but it was more a manner of principle for me. I had to prove I could get along by playing music.

I looked over my instruments, remembering prices that I couldn't afford any more if I wanted to, and for a fleeting moment considered selling some, but dismissed the idea immediately. That was something my dad would have said, something he'd tried to make me do before, and something we'd had a falling out over. The instruments were part of it, but mostly it had been the music. Besides, selling instruments would only give me a temporary release from finding a job, only a few months at most, and then I'd be right back where I had been.

I felt my fingers, almost of their own accord, start playing over an arrangement of an old, happy sounding jazz song, something the exact opposite of what I was feeling. It was the sort of absent minded plucking I did when I was thinking or trying not to think, sort of Sherlock Holms-y. I found myself honestly thinking about admitting defeat, of proving my dad right and getting a job that was practical, completely ignoring the music I'd dedicated myself to my whole life. It wouldn't be the end of the world, I could keep on studying music, but just the thought made a solid, lead-like weight form in my gut. It still felt like failure, something that I was just never really good at accepting. It was a pretty depressing thought... and then something happened.

I don't know if I believe in fate per se. I don't know if it was meant to happen this way, or if some cosmic being planned it this way. Heck, maybe the guy who sent it planned it to come right then (don't laugh, you don't know him like I do). Whatever it was, chance or not, at that moment my laptop, which was sitting on my desk, merrily humming away without regard to its master's depression, gave a happy little ping that meant I had mail. I might not have seen eye to eye with my father in a lot of things, but one of the things he'd managed to drill into my head was that when someone spent the time to send you an e-mail, you darn well got to it as soon as you could. I groaned inwardly. Even many hundreds of miles away, he was still managing to keep a heavy influence in what I did. Suck.

I pulled myself out of bed, put down the guitar in its stand, leaned over a tuba case and grabbed the laptop. It was one I got before I was cut off, so it was pretty nice, even at a year or so old. I ran a finger over the touch pad to bring it to life and brought up my e-mail. There was only one, but that one was just about all I would have cared about. I'd sent out a LOT of e-mail looking for employment, most of which never got a reply, but there's always a first time, isn't there?

The subject line said, 'RE: Job Application.' My hands started sweating. Was it too much to hope for that I could get one last chance at a real, music job? I didn't recognize the e-mail address, but I'd sent out so many, there was no way I could remember so many. I forced my self to very calmly and carefully open the e-mail. It was... impressive, in a weird sort of way. The whole thing was written like a letter. Not just formatted like a letter, but WRITTEN like one. The font made it look like someone had managed to scan in a real, handwritten letter and send it via the Internet. It read like this:

Dear Mr. Tarot

We have seen your resume and are very interested in your musical, social and innately human talents. As my assistant tells me, you're very highly recommended as a performer, and may in fact fit in perfectly into our little club. My assistant has told me that she will be attaching an address and map to this note that will allow you to meet us tomorrow, Tuesday the fifteenth of July, in our lovely establishment, at noon. Due to the nature of this establishment we wish to inform you that it would be more convenient to come to the interview wearing informal dress. We wish you the best of luck.

Yours truly,

In the space just below "Yours Truly" was a signature so scrawly and wispy that it was impossible to make heads or tails of it. It also had a PS that read:

PS: We will have instruments provided. See you there

Just above that, for some reason was the RE that usually preluded the previous e-mail, which would have helped me remember where the heck this came from, but they had apparently deleted the rest of the subject line an effort to save space... and then wrote the PS. It would have looked pretty funny to see my original e-mail in that really fun, oddly elegant font that still looked handwritten to me. There were even a few ink-spots, but it was so consistent, and who would do something that time-consuming when they could just TYPE the darn thing?

I guess it didn't really matter though, there were directions and a map in the attachments, just like the letter/e-mail said, and there was just something about this letter that, while odd, caught my attention. I was sure if I didn't make a decision now, I'd be up all night thinking about it. I knew already that I'd HAVE to figure out the strangeness of this letter, weather I wanted to or not. But I did. I wanted to know where this came from and, more importantly, I needed the job. I needed it more then I needed the food or even the rent that it would bring. This job could justify hours of arguments and lots and lots of pain.

I was resolved to go. Besides, I thought to myself, the worst that can happen is they say no and I'll be right back where I am right now anyway, right?

It's funny to think of how wrong I was.

Ch2: Music and Magic

When I say I'm really not a morning person, I want you to understand what I mean. I can't sleep until at least after two in the morning. I had a doctor's note that allowed me to not take a morning class in High School during my junior year. I had to set an alarm to make it into downtown before noon... and I felt like I woke up too early. I usually wake up at noon.

I'm really, REALLY not a morning person.

I drove the kind of bike that I drove in High School and Jr. High, the ones with peddles, over the sidewalk to a little cafe on the corner of Main Street and Second. It was only a few blocks away from where I lived, so the directions were easy to follow, but I still wasn't sure that I had the right address. Don't get me wrong, cafe's are grate places to hear good music, but I've yet to find one that had live music on a consistent enough basis to higher a performer of any kind. It also looked pretty much empty, even at this time of day. I checked the directions and address again. They were right and really were kind of hard to misinterpret now that I looked at them. I mean, there wasn't anything else on the southwest corner of Main Street and Second.

"Well, I guess this is it then." I muttered to myself. I chained my bike to a convenient lamp post, stretched out the bike ride real quick, and knocked on the door.

The door and all the visible walls were made out of that kind of opaque glass that defiantly made a better door then a window, seeing as it only let through light, but not enough to see anything other then shadows, but not even that right now, because there wasn't any light on in the whole place, or so it looked like. I waited for a beat or two, whistled a verse and the chorus of "Mississippi Queen" under my breath and went to knock again. Before I could, the door was opened by an absolutely stunning woman.

She was fairly tall for a girl, five ten to my five eleven (I swear I'm taller then her by at least an inch), with an olive complexion and high, striking cheekbones. Her hair was streaks of every shade between dark-chocolate brown to a smooth golden blond, all put up in a very businesslike bun that allowed only a few strands to hang to the sides of her face. She wore a shirt and skirt that managed to look comfortable for a bar, but somehow still formal and fairly modest to boot. Age wise I'd probably place her somewhere in her early twenties or so but she somehow had a maturity to her far beyond twenty something that I envied already. Instantly the sound that came to mind was a bright, powerful voice of a female vocalist backed by a chorus, singing something mildly sad, but bright. But that was just a little off, like there was something I was missing. I couldn't quite pin it, and it added a layer of mystery to her, which she wore well, the same way she wore the slightly questioning look on her face.

"Hello," she said, extending her hand for a shake. It was firm, not painfully so, but still commanding. "You must be Justin Tarot. It's nice to meet you." I was pleasantly surprised that she actually pronounced my name correct, even if it was with the slightest of accents that I couldn't place. Mediterranean of some sort maybe?

"You can call me Tarot," I said in a way I hoped sounded smooth and confident. If I were going to be working with her, I'd almost work here for free... if I weren't in desperate need of a job and stuff.

"My name is Persephone Seraphim, but you can call me Seph. I believe we asked for casual clothing?" She said it more then asked it as a question as she motioned for me to enter in, and I looked down at my own clothes. Sure it was still a button up shirt, but it was a comfortable button up shirt. I was also wearing what I guess most people would consider nicer jeans, but they were a year or two old.

"This isn't casual?" I asked, mostly teasing as I followed her. I wasn't really a cafe go-er, I never really liked coffee, but something told me this wasn't the typical cafe. There was the usual front counter with a glass case for pastries and such. There was the usual bulletin board with artsy festivals and things like that advertised on it. The tables scattered almost willy-nilly around the actual room, the par-like table on one side with stools that were probably for those that wanted to bring their laptop. There was even the near-mandatory comfortable reading chairs, but it still felt... off. there was something about it that just didn't add up. Was it the angles of the room? Maybe just the lack of people? Something about this place was setting off internal bells.

"...art casual." Seph finished, looking at me with that same amused look that reminded me vaguely of a cat playing with a mouse.

"Sorry, didn't catch that." I admitted. I wasn't about to play the whole 'I totally heard what you said, so what did you say?' game. Macho stuff like that was stupid.

"I figured as much," she said, laughing a little. "I said I would say you're wearing something a little more like semi-formal or smart casual. But I guess that doesn't really matter." She gestured to one of those comfortable reading chairs, a lazy boy chair in deep red. "If you'll be seated, I'll bring along my employer," she finished, a little more businesslike then I would have wanted to hear from her.

"Oh... ok." I said, not keeping up to speed.

"We won't keep you waiting." She said, and winked at me. Seph was defiantly having fun with my awkwardness. She opened a door in the far side of the wall that I hadn't noticed before and disappeared as the door closed behind her. Probably the smoothest conversation I'd ever had with a girl and it still made me feel like a dork. I'd always figured as I grew older it would get easier to talk to people in general, and especially women, but I was going on twenty and I STILL didn't have so much as a clue as to what to do in most conversations.

I pushed it from my mind for now. It wasn't going to help me get the job to be dwelling on anything other then music. I was pretty sure I'd be asked to play the piano, and most people wanted the guitar, and if I was asked to play a classical instrument it was probably a tossup between a violin, mostly for raw classical umph, or the Saxophone, if the proprietor was more of a Jazz enthusiast. In my hurry to be as awkward as possible to the women who was most probably the assistant mentioned in the letter, I'd completely forgotten to ask what sort of club or cafe or whatever this place was. Brilliant.

I took another look around to try and figure what kind of music this place would cater too. It was surprising what you could learn about someone's taste in music by how they set up their house, so I figured it applied to businesses too. The paneling was a deep, slightly red wood of some kind (I'm not exactly an expert on woods). 'Rich' was the only word I could think of to describe the color. It was set in fairly ornate squares that matched the door I hadn't noticed until Seph used it. The carpet was a fairly muted tone that went well with the walls, and the furniture was in a wood similar enough to look like it belonged here, but not exactly the same, giving each piece a sort of individuality that I actually really liked. In short it looked... like it was going to be really hard to figure out a specific genera, although I'd bet it would be more on the easy-listening side. That was fine with me; I'd always preferred elegance to intensity anyway.

I closed my eyes and started to concentrate, bringing up music in my mind that I thought they might like. It was technically really wide genre wise, everything from classical to punk rock, but all of it was the more elegant arrangements I'd created of each song. It wasn't so much of a mental image or even sound as it was the feeling in my fingers. Its not something that's easily described, but if you've ever done something so often that it almost happens on its own, like flipping on the lights, or putting in your password, you'd understand when I say that it was nearly involuntary, the slight movement of my fingers as they rolled over an all piano of 'Falling for the First Time' by Bare Naked Ladies.

About half way through the last chorus, I heard the slight click of a door opening, and just about the strangest man I'd ever seen stepped through the door Seph had gone through.

His appearance was shocking enough, with crazy, ringlet filled hair that went down almost to his waist without restraint from a hair band, hat or anything. He wore a baby blue, white pinstriped suit, but with what looked like an expensive bathrobe instead of a jacket. The lines on his face said he was old somewhere between fifty and sixty, but the way he moved said something different. He seemed so alive.

And then there was something else. He had a presence to him, a permanence and power that made you feel like everything he did mattered. And what surprised me the most, that as sudden and powerful he was on a first impression, I didn't get a single note off of him. Everyone I met in my life so far had reminded me of an instrument, or a song or a melody, but with him it was simply...nothing. It was like he was just to big, to much for me to process. And yet he was so very personable.

"Ah, you must be Mr. Tarot!" The man said, throwing his arms open as he strode confidently towards me. Now, I'm just fine with the amount of human contact you get out of a handshake, or even a bro-hug with the whole one-slap thing, but this was a bear hug coming at me. I had stood up out of reflex and good manners when he entered the room, and I didn't even have time to think about objecting to a hug before he threw his arms around me and crushed me with more strength then I thought would have been possible for someone his age. It felt like a real bear was giving me a bear hug, not a strange old man.

The hug lasted a little longer then I thought was comfortable, but that was probably because I couldn't breath, and then he set me down, putting a hand on my shoulder in an almost fatherly gesture.

"Yes sir," I said, as soon as I could talk again, "you can call me just Tarot."

"Well, 'Just Tarot,'" he said, humor twinkling in his eye, "I've heard great things about you. As you've probably figured out, I'm Relious Evvasanctum the third." As he said his name, I felt something shift, some unknown quality of the house. It felt like the whole world had blinked in surprise and took a moment to recover. "But you can call me RE." He added. He laughed a bit to himself and then decided to share his private joke. "It'd be a pretty mouthful to say all that name all the time, wouldn't it?"

"I would imagine so sir." I agreed. Something about calling him RE pricked a thought at the back of my mind. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was the fact that he was so peculiar I couldn't mentally pick out any kind of song that fit him. Whatever it was, it was bothering me, so I couldn't help myself but to try and figure it out.

"Did my resume help you in selecting me for this interview?" I asked carefully.

"Oh, don't think of it as an interview," he said. "Think of it more as a performance that will help us evaluate the truth of many glowing reports on your abilities." I figured this had to be the guy that wrote me that e-mail from that sentence alone. Who talks like that? "And coincidentally, I don't think we ever DID get your resume dear boy, but enough about that."

"You didn't get my..." I said to myself, looking down. It didn't make sense. Hadn't I gotten their e-mail as a reply to my resume? Then I thought about the strange way it was set up. The RE before the postscript, the topic line, all of it.

"RE: job application." I muttered to myself, "Relious Evvasanctum."

There was that same shift in the world, that unmentionable change that sent a small shiver down my spine. I looked up at Relious and suddenly couldn't move. His smile was gone, though his gaze wasn't unkind or angry, but it suddenly had a sort of intensity that could have stilled liquid mercury or frozen entire lakes. It was... powerful.

"RE or sir would be preferable, Tarot." He said gently, and then the smile returned and the pressure lifted. I decided right there and then I did not want to get on this man's bad side. Whatever that had been, I didn't want to experience it again.

"But enough with the introductions," he continued, not letting me recover or dwell on what just happened, "we're here to hear you perform!"

He waved his hand and the door he'd just come through seemed to open itself, but as it opened it reveled a standup piano coming through and Seph pushing it behind.

"Oh," I said as I started for the door, "let me help you with that." Part of me was trying to be chivalrous, and the other half remembered quite a few times in Jazz Band in High School when I was left to move the piano all by myself. It was never fun.

Seph gave me the low eyebrow, flat mouthed face that people always wear when they're not amused. Again, it wasn't angry and her gaze wasn't the same kind of powerful as Relious'es, but it still stopped me in my tracks.

"I've got it." She said, her voice as un-amused sounding as she looked. I backed off and I have to give her credit, she was strong. She didn't even seem to strain at all as she moved a heavy piano (albeit on wheels) across the room to where RE and I where standing. She took the bench off the top, sat it the perfect distance from the keys, and motioned me to sit.

I was honestly sort of entranced by the piano. It was obviously an old piano, which where always my favorite kind. It had a black finish that was weathered with cracks and scratches to the point where it looked like leather, but somehow that made it look better in my eyes. The whole thing had gold molding that looked leafy and flowery, like the kind of molding you'd find in an old Victorian home. The keys where slightly yellowed, but none looked damaged. There where no cracks on the keys, or keys that sat too low or too high, and as I sat down at the bench and ran my fingers over them, I could tell that had that perfect texture to them, just between exceptionally smooth and pleasantly sand-like. The only flaw at all would have been that each key had the smallest of indents in the center, like someone had decided to let Edward Scissor-Hands play, but the indents were consistently in the middle, so if Scissor-Hands had played this piano, he'd been good at it. I looked to RE and Seph, who'd already seated themselves in two of the comfy reading chairs that where positioned to face me.

"This is a beautiful piano." I told them. RE nodded.

"Thank you, I've had it for a very, very long time." He said. The way he said it made me feel like maybe I'd underestimated his age. It just seemed like he was saying this piano was truly OLD.

"Has it kept it's sound?" I asked. That was the only probably with really old pianos. This one looked in good shape, but if it sounded like a dog with it's vocal cords cut, it would have almost made me cry with disappointment. It just LOOKED like it had to sound beautiful.

"Well," RE said, "that's what we're hear for, isn't it?" He shifted to a more comfortable position in his chair and paused. "Well? Why don't you play something?"

"Oh, right." I said awkwardly, and then asked, "What would you like to hear?"

"You do requests?" He asked.

"Yes Sir."

"Any requests?"

"Sir," I replied with a grin, "it's what I do."

He game me his own grin that looked like he'd been expecting that. I guess he'd really heard of me.

"Play me something happy." He said, and I paused in my mental track for a second. That was a pretty broad subject.

"Any genre you wanted in particular?" I asked, hoping to narrow it down.

"My dear boy," he replied with a small laugh, "I wouldn't know the differences between genre's of music if each of them personally came up to me and beat me on the head. Play what you think would be best considering the request."

"Sure," I said, mentally shuffling through my selection of songs. It was still a bit of a task. I figured if I played things that where more in 'his time' it would impress him more; people always liked something they recognize. Something jazzy, something fun, and something that played to my strengths as a performer would work great.

I finally settled on 'Rock Around the Clock Tonight.' It was a crowd pleaser, and it was easy to jazz up or make elegant. I bounced around the cords a bit as an intro, and then opened my mouth and sang.

I've heard a lot of singers, and as a culture we have a lot of different artists we listen to that sing really good, and some that just don't sing so well. Heck, some of them become famous almost BECAUSE they can't sing. Johnny cash would have told you he couldn't sing very well if you would have asked him, but he was still good enough of a performer to make it big. After dozens of performances, gigs, festivals and recitals, I could honestly say I could sing with the best of them.

I bounced through the song, keeping it light and happy, throwing in a few spots where I improvised on the piano, jazzed it up because, lets face it, jazz is FUN when you do it right, and ended it with one last lick.

RE looked over to Seph and smiled then looked back at me.

"Alright then. Play something funny." He requested.

Speaking of Johnny Cash, I don't think I'd ever heard an artists that did funny songs better. Some people would say it was his voice, but I'd say it was defiantly his lyrics and his presence on stage. He was personally on of my heroes. And no song of his is funnier in my opinion then 'A Boy Named Sue.'

It's hard to play country on a piano, the guitar in most country is just so iconic with how twangy it is, and to be honest I don't even try to re-create the real sound of guitar on piano, but I'd figured out a basic system. I played it a little jazzier and rocky then country, but tried to keep the southern sound to it. Heck, I may have even drawled a little bit, focusing maybe a little too much on the original. It was a silly song, and I couldn't help but smile wide while singing it.

I finished the song with a last, short cord and turned to RE again. This time I was surprised that Seph was the one that spoke up.

"Now play something modern." She said. I had thought that 'happy' was a broad subject, but this one took the cake. I thought about it for a while, and settled on 'Dragonfly' by Shaman's Harvest. It wasn't exactly the newest song out there, but I figured it was close enough. Besides, I absolutely love that song.

I started with an elegant but moving baseline. It wasn't aggressive, the piano just didn't do aggressive quite to the level of a guitar, but it was just as mournful and, I thought, much more beautiful. I changed the tone of the vocals to be a little less harsh, mostly because I didn't do it as well and again to pander to the piano. Nevertheless, It worked, and was one of my favorite songs to play. Some of the lyrics really resonated with me, like 'When I come, give me a beat. Then take my advice, and just let me be.' Or 'What if today I'll stop a-workin' for the man. Who said I've had another, well maybe I can. 'Cus it's all gonna end anyway."

I ended on one last, drawn out note singing 'dragonfly,' and let my fingers up off the keys to let them know I was finished. RE looked at Seph and she shook her head a little.

"That was beautiful, but I was thinking REALLY new." She said. It was obvious she enjoyed the song, but she was right. I needed to show I could keep up with new music. I also got the impression she was playing the 'hard costumer' card. But it was a fair test.

"How about, 'Somebody That I Used to know?'" I asked. I really hoped that misinterpreting the request hadn't hurt my chances of getting a job. Thinking about it, I didn't even know if there was anyone else gunning for this job, but I'd rather not find out.

"Sure." She said, and I gladly started, hoping to impress. It was fun to play a song like this for me. It had so much classic instrumentation, and it really translated to the piano well.

I started with sharp, staccato notes, trying to keep in the same rhythm of the original song. It had the same sort of mournful quality that 'Dragonfly' did, but I didn't like to play it quite as much. I didn't like playing it because it just brought up certain emotions about me and my Mom and Dad. I know, the song is about breaking up with a girl, but it just resonated with me on probably the most emotional cord I had right now. I mean, my mother left when I was really, really little, so I never even KNEW her, and my dad had been so supportive of my music all the way up until I said I wanted to make it a career, it felt like I never really knew him at all. I hoped it showed up in me playing the song in a way that made it better.

I finished and turned to my potential employer and his assistant again, and was surprised by the two completely different reactions. Seph was looking at me like I was some sort of injured puppy, barely concealing tears. It was probably the biggest compliment I could have received as a musician. RE, however, looked as giddy as a schoolgirl. He was beaming ear-to-ear and positively buzzing in his seat.

"Oh, I like this one," he said, seemingly oblivious to his assistant's emotions. "Let's give him something really challenging, like... oh what's that electricity music stuff that you where showing me the other day Seph?"

I had to give it to her, Seph recovered fast. By the time he was done trying to remember whatever he was talking about, she was already under control of herself.

"Dubstep." She replied. "It's called Dubstep."

"Ah yes," RE said, satisfied. "Dub Step. Try one of those songs, but it has to be on the piano!" he said it like I had some sort of choice in the instrumentation, which would have made this so much easier.

See, Dubstep is very, VERY difficult to transpose to other instruments with any sort of continuity. Its just too many sounds going at once that are too far removed in sound texture from each other. I mean, its still possible, you can play any song on any instrument given enough time to figure it out. There's that one Asian chick on YouTube that's such a big Skrillix fan that she made very elegant arrangements of his stuff for the piano, but I was never satisfied with them. They just didn't capture the darkness, the anger to them. I had only one that was nearly finished, 'Bangerang' by the very same Skrillix, but was it ready? It wasn't time to question it now.

"Of course." I said, really trying to put on a performance face, trying not to let them I was slightly nervous with this one.

I started with the driving, powerful baseline and started building up. More complex melodies on top of more melodies, over and over and over again. Eventually I got to it, the point where I just couldn't lay the last layer over itself. And then I sang... sort of.

Now, there are just not a lot of lyrics to Dubstep, and on top of that, the piano just doesn't have the right grittiness to it to imitate most songs. It also takes way to much skill to play so many layers of sound. Heck, if I didn't pick a song by someone who did such simplistic (but very good) Dubstep like Skrillix, there was no way I'd have been able to do it. But I could, I just had to growl.

It sounded so visceral, feral even, the kind of sounds I was making. I didn't try and imitate the electronic sound of them, but the animal part of them. It got the idea from the kid on YouTube that does electronic music A cappella. I figured if he could do it and record all the individual parts, I could do it for at least one at a live performance.

I played and growled through the song. It didn't sound all that good to me, mostly because a piano was never meant to sound harsh, and I was defiantly trying to make it that way. I finished with the layers coming together into one cord, stopped as sudden as lightning, and would have held my breath in anticipation if I didn't need to catch it first. Did it work? Did it sound good? I turned to Relious and Seph.

Seph seemed to be a little taken aback, and considering how well shed been in charge of her emotions so far, it was probably a LOT taken aback. I'm sure she had never imagined sounds like that coming out of me. I wasn't sure how to judge that, but at least it made an impact. RE, however, was very easy to read. His slight smile said he was satisfied, but not as excited. I sat in silence for a second, and decided I couldn't take it.

"Ok, so what did you think?" I finally asked. "I would have preferred to use electronic instruments for this one, but..." I trailed off, not sure how to finish that.

"Oh it was fine," RE said, which made me mentally cringe. Fine didn't get you a job, it's what your parents say when they didn't like your performance, but don't want to hurt your feelings. "It was fine, I don't really care for that particular kind of music," he continued, "but it did show something rather promising." He paused, maybe to see if I'd ask him what, but probably for dramatic effect. I kind of wanted to explode. This was just way too much emotional jerking around for me.

"It shows," he finally continued before I had an aneurism from the tension, "that you're willing to take risks and try something new." He winked at me and I finally allowed myself to relax some. I was still in this. "I like that." He said, almost as an after-though.

"I've got one last request." RE said, just as I thought I was out of the woods. "I want you to play the song that you think fits this place this place best." He lifted his arms wide, gesturing to the walls around him. I wasn't sure what I was expecting as his last request, but I was surprised at this one.

I thought about it, and was even more surprised at what came to mind. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I really, really wanted to play this smokey-bar feeling arrangement of "The Sharpest Lives" by My Chemical Romance. It was one of my earlier attempts at taking modern rock songs and making them a piano arrangement, so I'd run over it so many times and improved it every once and a while, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I wanted to play it here and now. I'd learned to trust my instincts though. I guess RE was right, I liked taking risks.

I started, mostly rolling out a cord as I sang a line, trying to put some soul into it that you just don't get in a rock song anymore. It was sadder, less aggressive, but just as dark, and it fit. I felt like the whole building was leaning in and listening. I picked it up some as I hit the chorus and really laid into it. It was a song that you could sing to a room full of people, it was a song that could resonate with the outcasts, the oddballs. If anything I had always felt like I was one of them, and in this place, it just felt RIGHT.

I finished with a last, emotional note and stopped. I was expecting... I'm not sure what. I felt something attach itself to this place and I suddenly knew that if I didn't get the job, it was going to rip me apart. Up until this point, the idea of them saying I didn't get the job was depressing. Now, it made me want to stand in the corner and scream at the top of my lungs. Now the idea made me feel... angry.

I looked over at Relius and Seph, trying to gauge their reaction. Both of them where suddenly concerned, studying me intently, looking at my face for some sign of... something. RE spoke first.

"Why did you pick that song?" He said. There was still no anger in his face, but the smile was gone too. It was so blank, so sharply neutral, I couldn't tell at all what he was looking for. Had I offended them? Why had I picked that song?

"I, uh... really like that song?" I tried. I was hoping to step lightly over this one.

"And?" Relious said. I could tell he wasn't buying it. I guess I had to fess up.

"I'm not sure..." I said, "It just felt... right." It was all I could really say. I never thought it through enough to say anything else. I hoped I didn't just lose the job. I REALLY hoped I didn't just lose the job.

Relious smirked.

"Well," he said, standing slowly. Seph followed his lead. "It seems like what we've heard about you is absolutely true." He beamed at me and I felt all the tension in my body leave. Then he kept talking.

"I'd say you're ready for the last test." He said. I tensed up again. This was defiantly not something I was expecting, but so far I hadn't expected any of it.

"Last test?" I asked hesitantly. "What's that?"

"Oh, nothing too bad," RE assured me. I saw Seph start to push the piano back toward the door it came out of. She really didn't need any help, did she? She didn't so much as have to lean into it to move the darn thing, and it wasn't like it was light. Sitting down and playing a piano will usually give you a good idea of how solid it is. That thing was HEAVY.

"We'll just need you to follow us down stairs." RE said. "A bit of a... personality test, if you will. Not that I think you have an abrasive personality, we just need to make sure you'll fit in with our particular clientele." He looked me over, as if noticing something about me for the first time and added. "I do hope you're not to attached to those clothes though."

I felt just a little more shocked then I already was.

"My clothes?"