There's No Place Like the Present
Jan. 5th, 2011 12:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eilonwyhasemuIn our last episode, some things went well and some went not so well. If you don't know what those things are, you may want to take a look before proceeding.
Neal Tiemann and Lee DeWyze are in the sumptuous leopard-print Memphis bedroom of Stax Records head Jim Stewart, while the 1968 Stax Volt company Christmas party rages a few yards away. The tiger-print Ghost of Albums Past has just disappeared from Tiemann's clutches.
DeWyze: Standing there clutching air won't bring her back.
Tiemann: Why the hell didn't you deploy the basilisk?
DeWyze: Dude. She's the Ghost of Albums Past. She'd probably turn it to stone rather than vice-versa. We need to go home now.
Tiemann: What do you mean, go home? We don't have Dave back.
DeWyze: Go home. Like, home. You go to it. The only place we can go without Dave or a ghost is back to our own time. Let's play that song of yours and go.
Tiemann: I'm not giving up.
DeWyze: Dude. You know what the Ghost of Albums Future said. If we stay too long in 1968, history resolves itself by killing us off. That's not sweet serendipity.
Tiemann: Actually, it is.
DeWyze: No, it's not.
Tiemann: Yes, it is. Serendipity. We were looking for one thing and found another. Just not a good thing. So call it sour serendipity but--
DeWyze: What?
Tiemann: We're going to a party.
DeWyze: We're at a... oh... [He follows Tiemann toward the babble of laughter, clinking of china, and ripple of vaguely familiar music, which leads them into a large room redolent with hors d'oeuvres, pine needles, and leopard-print couches, all afloat on a plush red carpet.]
Pale man in tux: Skol, brothers! [waves can of Budweiser]
DeWyze: A party this ritzy serves Bud? Man, the 1960s were primitive.
PMIT: Oh, there's whiskey galore for those who want it.
Tiemann: Duck Dunn?
Dunn: The same. I can drink this till nine in the morning, and I can't, that other.
Tiemann: The bass player for Booker T. and the MGs?
Dunn: You know any other Duck Dunns? 'Course, I'll feel this till nine tomorrow night. [his eyes narrow] You're some of Don Davis' crew, aren't you?
DeWyze: No.
Tiemann: Yes. Great to meet you. [He darts around Dunn to survey the room.]
DeWyze: Wasn't this one of the dudes you wanted to meet?
Tiemann: No. Yes. Where are we?
DeWyze: We're at the Stax holiday party--
Tiemann: No, I mean us. From before. Where are we?
DeWyze: I think we're still in the bathroom with Janis Joplin.
Tiemann: That's even better. We'll stand here by the tree, grab Dave when he comes into the room, and go back to our own time. Do you remember the song we sang?
DeWyze: Something about circles? Marching in circles?
Tiemann: Hold that thought. I hear Joplin's voice. Be ready to play.
DeWyze limbers himself around his guitar. Tiemann assumes his best zombie-tackling position. Joplin trails into the room, followed by a second Tiemann and DeWyze.
Pale man in tux: Skol, brothers! [waves can of Budweiser]
DeWyze-2: A party this ritzy serves Bud? Man, the 1960s were primitive.
PMIT: Oh, there's whiskey galore for those who want it.
Tiemann-2: Duck Dunn?
Dunn: The same. I can drink this till nine in the morning, and I can't, that other.
Tiemann-2: The bass player for Booker T. and the MGs?
Dunn: You know any other Duck Dunns? 'Course, I'll feel this till nine tomorrow night. [his eyes narrow] You're some of Don Davis' crew, aren't you?
DeWyze-2: Yes.
Tiemann-2: No.
Male voice: Play! Quickly!
Tiemann [turns]: Andrew?
The dark-haired man is wearing a beard, hipster glasses, a turtleneck, and a bevy of bodacious beauties, one blonde in hot pants, one brunette in a paisley granny dress, and one redhead in Mary Quant. He might--or might not--be Andrew Cook.
Tiemann: Andrew, what the hell are you doing here?
Andrew or Not: Play! There's no time to waste. [singing]: It was down in Louisiana, just a mile from Texarkana, in them old cotton fields back home.
Tiemann: Why?
Andrew or Not: Just do it!
DeWyze [singing]: It may sound a little funny--
DeWyze and Tiemann [singing]: But we didn't make much money--
There is a flash of light, and the group is on a beach with palm trees. Several blond dudes run past carrying surfboards. Behind them, woody stationwagons are parked.
DeWyze, Tiemann, and Andrew or Not [singing]: In those old cotton fields back home.
Tiemann: What the f*ck? That's a Lead Belly song.
Surfer dude running by: Ho-dads! Catch a wave!
Tiemann [consults Cook's newspaper]: It's October 6, 1962. The first black student was admitted to the University of Mississippi last week. Johnny Carson started his gig as host of The Tonight Show. The Beatles released their first single with EMI yesterday.
DeWyze: If Dave was here, he'd tell us what game of the World Series we're missing.
Tiemann: So why did singing a Lead Belly song put us on a beach in 1962?
Andrew or Not: That's the risk with songs that had a lot of covers. But I had to get you out of there. You can't be in the same time twice.
DeWyze: Why? What happens?
Andrew or Not: Bad things.
DeWyze: You're a ghost.
Andrew or Not: I'm the Ghost of Albums Present. You can tell by my hipster glasses and my attitude that I'm an early adopter and heavy music buyer.
Tiemann: And who are they? [He indicates the bevy of beauties, who now wearing, in order, a poodle skirt with saddle shoes, a Jackie Kennedy-esque sack dress, and an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow polka dot bikini.]
Ghost of Albums Present: You don't know?
Tiemann: No, I'm asking just to make conversation. [strums guitar] [sings] I was over in Arkansas, people ask me--
Ghost of Albums Present: Stop, stop! They're my singles. The girls are my singles. Now that we've cleared that up, I should take you home. [sings] I was a flight risk with a fear of falling. Wondering why--
Tiemann: Taylor Swift? I'm not playing f*cking Taylor Swift.
Ghost of Albums Present: Do you want to be sure of hitting late 2010?
DeWyze: We could play some Lee DeWyze. [sings] I ain't got no car--
Tiemann: For f*ck's sake, don't you all get a car when you win American Idol?
DeWyze: It was a flippin' Ford Fiesta my year. I've seen pedal cars with better acceleration. I've seen bumper cars with better bumpers. I've seen bicycles with better cargo space.
Tiemann: If Dave was here, he'd interrupt to tell us who won the Tour de France this year.
Ghost of Albums Present: Home. You're going home. [sings] So raise your glass if you are wrong in all the right ways--
DeWyze [sings]: They used to tell me I was building a dream.
DeWyze and Tiemann [singing and strumming]: With peace and glory ahead.
Ghost of Albums Present: No! [singing] Dirty little freaks!
DeWyze and Tiemann [singing and strumming]: Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread. Once I built a railroad, made it run--
There is a flash of light. DeWyze, Tiemann, the Ghost of Albums Present, and his singles are standing in a clearing in the autumn woods, beside a grassy mound. From the slant of the sun, it is late afternoon.
DeWyze and Tiemann [singing and strumming]: Brother, can you spare a dime?
Tiemann [checks newspaper]: October 2, 1932. Yesterday in game three of the World Series, Babe Ruth pointed to the deepest part of centerfield, indicating a home run, and then hit... and then hit... It's dusty here, this time of year.
DeWyze: Dave would have known Babe Ruth's batting average. [He looks at the mound.] We're a couple months too late, though.
Ghost of Albums Present: You need to go home. [His singles are now dressed in a calico house dress, a satin gown with fur trim, and a trig little bias-cut suit with a cloche hat.] David Cook is gone.
Tiemann: I don't accept that.
Ghost of Albums Present: I don't see what you're even here for. Do you think you can dig him up and turn him into a zombie?
DeWyze [snickers]: Give him Simon Cowell's brains to eat...
Ghost of Albums Present: Say your goodbyes and let's go home.
Tiemann: No. There has to be a way to change this. If not here, then in 1938.
Ghost of Albums Present [sings]: Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin--
Tiemann [strums and sings]: Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you.
Ghost of Albums Present [sings]: Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?
Tiemann [to DeWyze]: Come on! Sing this damned piece of drivel. [sings] Embrace me, myirreplaceable you!
DeWyze: I don't know.
Tiemann: What do you mean, you don't know? [sings] Just to look at you--
DeWyze: Maybe it's all for the best.
Tiemann: What best? You got us here. [sings] I love all the many charms about you--
DeWyze: That was before I saw his grave. Maybe--
Ghost of Albums Present [sings]: Do you ever feel already buried deep, six feet under? Scream but--
Tiemann: You bastard. [His hands are around the Ghost of Albums Present's neck, and the singles are shrieking.] You and your kind f*cking mock us and lie to us--
Ghost of Albums Present [whispers]: Dirty little freaks.
DeWyze: Look at the future we saw. I mean the present--
Tiemann [hands still around the Ghost's neck]: It didn't have Dave in it.
DeWyze: I know. But look, it's not like the history of music stopped.
Tiemann: What's your f*cking point?
DeWyze: People were happy.
Tiemann: Shiny happy people laughing. Your point?
DeWyze: Kim Caldwell had a gold album and three platinum singles. Andrew Cook took second place on American Idol. There must be people who love their music--
Tiemann [shakes Ghost, whom he's still holding by the throat]: This isn't about them.
DeWyze: Who are we to make the decision that David Cook's second album is more important than their contributions to music?
Tiemann [drops Ghost to earth]: Contributions to music? Who f*cking mentioned any contributions to music?
DeWyze: You wanted to save Janis Joplin so she could contribute more to music.
Tiemann: Maybe she'll f*cking learn.
DeWyze: That's what I mean. It was a worthy goal. You'll have given the world ten, twenty, who knows? Maybe thirty or forty more years of Joplin. That's something to be proud of--
Tiemann: Do you really believe in that sweet serendipity crap of yours?
DeWyze: Wha--?
Tiemann: Do you understand at all what we did? She won't learn. We fixed the timeline. I've set Janis Joplin up to die on the same day she died before, for the same reasons, with the same outcome, and the songs I plucked out on my first guitar are going to be all she ever produces. Ever. That's it. One set of memories. The Doctor as a boy and the idols on the wall and a shit-ton of nostalgia.
DeWyze: I don't--
Tiemann: You don't forget the first songs you learn, the first rock show you go to, the first rock show you play--
Ghost of Albums Present: Dirty little freaks.
Tiemann: Oh, shut up. What I studied in music theory--
DeWyze: You studied music theory?
Tiemann: No, I wrote all my songs next to the pig pen on a Texas farm while getting my ass tattooed.
DeWyze: What you studied in music theory...
Tiemann: It's ideals. It's idols. It's posters on a wall. You admire them. You play covers of their work. Your first ten or twenty songs sound like cheap imitations of theirs. If you're lucky, you meet them--
DeWyze: I'm sorry about Duck Dunn.
Tiemann: And if you're even luckier, they shake your hand and want to meet you. It feels great--
DeWyze: Mike Nesmith kind of liked me.
Tiemann: My idol carried on a whole conversation with me. Stevie F*cking Van Zandt invited me to a party--
DeWyze: Why do all of you have the same middle name?
Tiemann: But it doesn't mean the same thing as the guy you play shows in dive bars with. It's not the same thing as the guy you write songs with. It's not the same thing as the guy you spend nine months on a stinking bus with, trying to remember whether the good wings were in Ohio or South Carolina.
DeWyze: Did you ever try Harold's Chicken Shack?
Tiemann: It's not music history I want to save Dave for. It's our history.
Ghost of Albums Present: So you wouldn't care if David Cook never wrote another song?
Tiemann: What kind of numbskull asshole are you? Of course I'd care.
Ghost of Albums Present: Then if I said his second album got tabled in an RCA management change and that was the end of his career, you'd go home quietly?
Tiemann: Hell, no.
Ghost of Albums Present: But if he never wrote another song--
Tiemann: He'd still be my best friend.
Blonde single [sings]: Nothing's impossible, I have found. For when my chin is on the ground--
Ghost of Albums Present: Shut up!
Brunette [sings]: I pick myself up, dust myself off--
Blonde, Brunette, and Redhead [singing]: Start all over again.
Tiemann: How?
Redhead: Don't lose your confidence if you slip!
Redhead and Brunette: Be grateful for a pleasant trip.
Tiemann [strums and sings]: Pick yourself up--
Ghost of Albums Present: No! You don't understand--
Tiemann and DeWyze [strumming and singing]: Dust yourself off! Start all over--
There is a flash of light. All of them, including the Ghost and his singles, are standing on the sidewalk outside the Frolic Room as curvaceous Cadillacs and handsome Hudsons swoop down Hollywood Boulevard. The singles' outfits are little changed, except that the redhead's cloche hat is now a remarkably silly assemblage shaped like a shoe and topped with a little veil.
Tiemann and DeWyze [singing]: Again!
The door of the Frolic Room opens. Cook storms out, followed by Tiemann, DeWyze, and Maybelle Carter.
Tiemann-2: You just stood up Ginger Rogers.
Maybelle Carter: What is this all about?
Cook: I don't want to talk about fans, okay?
Tiemann [to DeWyze]: This time, I know what to do.
DeWyze-2: Why not? My fans are great. I love their support.
Cook: Oh, sh*t--
Maybelle Carter: That little girl--
Tiemann: Don't move! [He launches himself between Cook and the bus]
There is a flash of light. Tiemann, DeWyze, the Ghost, and the Singles are standing in a clearing in a vast hall of shelves of musical scores, tapes, gramophone rolls, CDs, sheets of papyrus, fraying notebooks, coffee-stained napkins, and every manner of recording music. Shelves stretch high above their heads toward a domed ceiling. Shelves stretch to the right and to the left, forward and behind, so far into the distance that they seem to vanish into mist. The Singles are now dressed in goddess gowns, with flowers in their hair.
Tiemann: What the f*ck?
Ghost of Albums Present: I told you bad things happened if you were in the same time twice.
Tiemann: Where--
Ghost of Albums Present: This is the Hall of Unheard Songs.
DeWyze: It looks like the Chicago Public Library. Only bigger. Lots bigger.
Ghost of Albums Present: Lots and lots and lots bigger. This is where music goes when the song's never finished or the album's never released. This is where all the lost chords are found.
DeWyze: Wow.
Ghost of Albums Present: And it's where you're going to have to stay.
Tiemann: What?
Ghost of Albums Present: There can't be two of you in the same time. That's the rule.
Tiemann: But your singles--
Ghost of Albums Present: Singles make a big impact, but who trusts them to know the full context?
DeWyze: We have to stay?
Ghost of Albums Present: You're exiled here at least until your 1938 selves die.
Tiemann: Then what happens?
Ghost of Albums Present: We don't know.
Tiemann: You don't know.
Ghost of Albums Present: Everyone we've had to leave here kind of... well...
Tiemann: Well, what?
Ghost of Albums Present: Kind of went mad before their other selves died. And on that note-- [he vanishes]
Tiemann and DeWyze look at each other.
DeWyze [sings]: I ain't got no car--
Tiemann: What do you think you're doing?
DeWyze: Taking us home. It's the only way we can hope to get out of here.
Tiemann: I'm not so sure about that.
DeWyze: I know it's just a hope, but it worked when you sang that other song. The one about marching in circles.
Tiemann: No. I mean, if there's any way to undo the damage to the timeline and save Dave, the key would be in a limbo place like this. [He prowls the shelves, prodding at documents.]
DeWyze: Dude. Do you ever admit you're beaten?
Tiemann: Did you ever see Alien?
DeWyze: What does a spaceship full of weird eggs have to do with us?
Tiemann: Did Ripley f*cking give up?
DeWyze: Uh. She's the protagonist, right?
Tiemann: I'll give you a hint. The answer to "Did Ripley f*cking give up?" is "No."
DeWyze: I see you less as Sigourney Weaver and more as Samuel L. Jackson.
Tiemann [picking up a CD]: What the hell?
DeWyze: You've found a sixth Leonard Nimoy album?
Tiemann: No, I've found Dave's lost album. This is the one he made before going on American Idol and never released. It's missing a couple of tracks--
DeWyze: I wonder how many of my notebooks are here.
Tiemann: This place must have a CD player.
DeWyze: Haven't you heard it already?
Tiemann: Yes. Yes. That's not the point. Here. Look. This is his notebook. So's this. This is an iPod that he must have recorded ideas on. Give me a hand.
DeWyze: There's stuff here from when he was fifteen.
Tiemann: Come on. [He strides down a random aisle, guitar bouncing, hands full.]
DeWyze: His handwriting was illegible then, too. What are we doing?
Tiemann: Weird science.
At a break in the endless row of shelves, there is a couch facing a vast multimedia center holding every sort of playback equipment, including some items with blinking lights that the guys have never seen before. Tiemann shoves the CD into a likely slot, punches some buttons, and is rewarded with music.
Tiemann: That's Dave.
DeWyze: That's pretty good. Angsty, but good.
Tiemann: At least he's not singing about his lack of wheels. Come on, find a way to play back all this other stuff.
DeWyze: You can't play back a notebook.
Tiemann: I'm betting you can. [He rummages among the equipment.]
DeWyze [flipping through notebook]: How come in his songs, the girls always leave?
Tiemann: Girls kept leaving.
DeWyze: Yeah, but I have to beat them off with a stick.
Tiemann looks at him.
DeWyze: Okay, some of my fans want to do the beating.
Tiemann looks at him some more.
DeWyze: But I'm a hot and horny rock star--
Tiemann keeps looking.
DeWyze: That's what my fans say.
Tiemann: I'm carefully not envisioning any of this. [He prods an unfamiliar piece of machinery. It clanks menacingly at him and whirs.] Put that notebook in this.
DeWyze: It looks like a shredder.
Tiemann: Looks can be deceiving. Try it. [He takes the notebook from DeWyze's hand and slides it into the weird machine, which clanks, whirs, spits, burps, shoves the notebook halfway out, gulps it down, rings three times, and then plays music.]
DeWyze: It's... interesting.
Tiemann: It's not as good as the stuff he released, but that's not the point. Come on. We have to play the rest of it.
DeWyze: All at once?
Tiemann: All at once. [He loads CDs, docks iPods, feeds notebooks into burping machines, uploads mp3s, hits buttons, slams switches, prods mice, turns dials, and...]
DeWyze: It should be a cacophony.
Tiemann: But it's not. It's Dave.
DeWyze: So?
Tiemann: Give it a minute.
A minute passes. The music swells, fugue-like, dissonant, yet oddly coherent. Another minute passes.
DeWyze: What are we waiting for?
Tiemann: I'm not sure. Maybe... that.
He points to the couch, where a strange shimmer in the air takes roughly the shape of a sleeping man.
DeWyze: That's a strange shimmer in the air.
Tiemann: It looks like Dave.
DeWyze: I don't think he's feeling coherent enough to tour.
The music fades. The shimmer fades. With the last notes, the air trembles and is clear again.
Tiemann: Damn it!
DeWyze: I don't think this will work.
Tiemann: It almost did work.
DeWyze: It was a shimmer.
Tiemann: I'd call it more of a mist.
DeWyze: You can't recreate a dude out of his unpublished works.
Tiemann: Why not?
DeWyze: Think about your own music. Is it your important stuff that never saw the light of day? The statements you felt you had to make, so you polished them and kept polishing them?
Tiemann: It's a point.
DeWyze: The most important parts of David Cook the musician are the songs he chose to release. And those aren't here. We don't have access to enough of what made him who he was.
Tiemann: The hell we don't.
He sets off down a random aisle, poking at files, grabbing CDs.
DeWyze: What are you doing?
Tiemann: R.E.M. That's a band his brother introduced him to.
DeWyze: These aren't the same songs--
Tiemann: Here's a band from the 1970s that his father played covers of.
DeWyze: We're only getting people's missing parts.
Tiemann: Parts is parts. Give us enough parts--
DeWyze: And the best we can do is a Frankendave.
Tiemann: And they'll overlap to reproduce the same sounds that influenced him in the first place.
DeWyze: How can we know--
Tiemann: Whoa! Some of these indie bands never stopped writing. Here, take care of Flaming Lips.
DeWyze: Flaming--
Tiemann: Official rock band of the state of Oklahoma. Has to be included.
DeWyze [staggering under load of ephemera]: When do we know we have enough?
Tiemann: Use the laundry bag. Here's the Foos. We can't do without the Foos. Here's an entire lo-fi movement...
DeWyze: Who the hell is this chick?
Tiemann: I remember him picking up her EP at a record shop in Durham, North Carolina. Voice to die for. Creepy lyrics. Cool tonality.
DeWyze: You dudes totally did not find an actual record shop.
Tiemann: I know. Old school.
They seem to have come in a circle, as they're back at the media center. Tiemann loads CDs, docks iPods, feeds notebooks into burping machines, uploads mp3s, hits buttons, slams switches, prods mice, turns dials, then stands back as the music leaps into the air, infinitely more complex this time, yet still somehow making sense.
DeWyze: Sweet f*cking serendipity.
The mist forming over the couch solidifies. It is definitely the shape of a man.
Tiemann: I told you. I told you.
DeWyze: We don't know that it's him.
Tiemann: Big head. Look at that head.
DeWyze: Kris Allen has a big head. Hell, Elliott Yamin has a big head.
Tiemann: Kris Allen and Elliott Yamin are not lost in time and space.
DeWyze: We don't know that. And Dave's not lost. He's dead.
The form grows more definite: thin but muscular, strong jaw, large feet.
Tiemann: That's Dave.
DeWyze: He'd better not have anything to hide. He's kind of transparent.
Tiemann: At least he's not naked. He's getting more solid. Look. He's--
In a crash of cymbals, the body vanishes.
DeWyze: Gone. It's not working.
Tiemann: It's working. It's not succeeding. [He takes off down yet another aisle.]
DeWyze: What now? Forgotten works by the writer of his seventh-grade musical?
Tiemann: Already got those. Didn't you notice? [He grabs a handful of CDs and tapes and notes, dropping bundles of notes on the floor. DeWyze follows him, picking up the lost bits.]
DeWyze: Sanjaya Malakar?
Tiemann: Fools we were to leave out the American Idol influence. Dave credited the show in every damned interview.
DeWyze: I thought he was just being gracious.
Tiemann: Gracious was part of his personality. Let's try this again.
He loads CDs, docks iPods, feeds notebooks into burping machines, uploads mp3s, hits buttons, slams switches, prods mice, turns dials, then stands back. The music starts more quietly this time, then picks up speed, adding a complex rhythm line and then a trio of intertwining melodies.
DeWyze: How many songs are we playing at once now?
Tiemann: More than ten thousand.
DeWyze: So how come the music makes more sense each time?
Tiemann: Because we're getting closer to Dave's one personality. Look.
The mist forming over the couch solidifies, first into a transparent shape, then translucent enough that the upholstery pattern is only a blur. Slim and muscular, large head, large feet, definite features, tuke...
Tiemann: It's him. It is positively him.
The shape wavers.
DeWyze: It's not going to work.
Tiemann: It has to work. It has to--
The shape loses solidity, grows transparent, flickers, becomes semi-solid again.
Tiemann: Come on, Dave!
And then he's gone.
Tiemann: If I have to load the entire history of music--
DeWyze: We'll go mad. [He leafs through the packet of papers he's still holding from their last trip through the aisles.] I wonder if this matters?
Tiemann: You're holding something I should have loaded and you're wondering if it matters? Of course it mat--
DeWyze: You see?
Tiemann [reading from label on packet]: Clay Aiken: Unrealized Dreams of his Fans.
DeWyze: I don't think this would matter to Dave, but--
Tiemann: There's one of these with his name on it.
He tosses the Clay Aiken package aside and runs toward the aisle where he first found Cook's unreleased 2008 CD. DeWyze, following more slowly thanks to a detour, finds Tiemann standing in front of a full shelf.
Tiemann: There's more than one of those.
DeWyze: Wow.
Tiemann: Come on. Grab as much as you can. We have to start somewhere.
Back at the media center, he loads CDs, docks iPods, feeds notebooks into burping machines, uploads mp3s, hits buttons, slams switches, prods mice, turns dials, queuing all the music played before. The mist shimmers, solidies, turns translucent, is definitely Cook. Tiemann takes the first packet of unrealized dreams and opens the feeder for what he hopes is the correct machine.
DeWyze: Wait.
Tiemann: We can't wait. When the music stops--
DeWyze: I'm not sure you want to add that packet.
Tiemann: If it's what it takes to get Dave back--
DeWyze: Just. Wait. I stopped and looked at my own packet. I read a couple. It made me think.
The music picks up speed, adding a complex rhythm line and then a trio of intertwining melodies. The mist flickers.
Tiemann: Think faster.
DeWyze: I don't want to be defined by the unrealized dreams of my fans. I want--
For an instant, the mist seems to be almost fully solid.
Tiemann: Faster, damn it! I can't stand to do this a million times.
DeWyze: I want my fans to live their own dreams. And if Dave's a good guy--
Tiemann: There's no "if" about that.
DeWyze: Maybe he wants that, too. I mean, love the music, yes. But be your own dream. Live who you are. Live it up, even.
The music swoops into a complicated yet lyrical bridge. The mist flickers to translucent even as Cook's chest seems to rise and fall with a breath.
Tiemann drops the packet of unrealized dreams and picks up his guitar. The melody he plays falls into the music from the mysterious machine.
Tiemann [sings]: I can sway my feelings for yet another wasted day. Never once will I be broken. I will lock my heart away--
DeWyze: Why are we going home now?
Tiemann: We're not. [sings] Somewhere else. A key I hid inside my head before this world started making its escape. I'm planning my escape. [to DeWyze] Hum or something, damn it.
Tiemann and DeWyze [singing]: Just one breath that I can breathe, just one honest untouched scene, just one taste of rust to show the bars the cage is bending.
The music picks up Tiemann's guitar line as if it's the centerpiece of a fugue. The body goes from translucent to solid to translucent to solid--
Tiemann and DeWyze [singing]: Just one melody that I can really sing.
The body is solid. It breathes.
Tiemann and DeWyze [singing]: After all you've taken, can you give me this, one true thing?
Cook opens his eyes and sits up. He looks at Tiemann, at the music machine, at DeWyze, and at his wrist.
Cook: Why do I have your pistol necklace, Doctor?
Tiemann: It's a long story.
DeWyze: Are you--
Tiemann: It's dusty in here.
Cook: And "here" is?
DeWyze: An even longer story. Do we know how to get home?
Tiemann: We sing a song from our present, and since we're going home, the gates of time open for us. The little bitch didn't lie about that part. Are you ready, Dave?
Cook: First, could we do where "here" is?
DeWyze: It's the Hall of Unheard Songs. Every unpublished song in the history of the world is here.
Cook: And you want to go home? Do you know what we could find here?
Tiemann: It's making my allergies act up.
Cook: There's more to this than you're telling me.
Tiemann: Long story.
DeWyze [sings]: I ain't got no car--
Tiemann: Let Dave sing.
Cook: Sing to go home?
Tiemann: Pretty please with f*cking sugar on top.
Cook: Something that will take us right to the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011?
Tiemann: Not just sugar. Sprinkles.
Cook: Let's see how you can follow this.
He sings.
It is a song nobody has heard before.
DeWyze: Wow.
Cook: You like it?
Tiemann: It's upbeat but still complex.
Cook: Are we singing or what? The chorus should be hooky enough for you to follow along.
He sings. DeWyze sings. Tiemann finds the harmony line on his guitar.
There is a flash of light. The guys are back in Cook's kitchen, though it now smells like dinner. Andrew Cook is on the phone, trying to schedule a party. The dogs circle, sniffing. On the television, things with large teeth are devouring things with sharp claws.
DeWyze: My album covers! They're still here. [He reaches for the calipers.] And I still have infinitesimally more tattoo showing on mine to give me that extra edge of rock cred.
Cook: Who's counting?
DeWyze: My fans. Your fans. The Idol blog media. Sixty-two Adam Lambert fans who despise both of us but like popcorn. Also, Crystal Bowersox, who's a lot less impressed with me now than she was last April.
Cook: My fans don't worry about crap like that.
Tiemann: Are we talking about the same fans who tweet me questions about your hair?
Cook: What are you taking for those allergies? Look. [He pulls out his iPhone, loads Twitter, points it to a list of 400 or so active fans, and hands it to DeWyze.]
DeWyze: You're kidding. [He scrolls.] Your fans talk about interesting stuff. They're reading a book about how music affects the brain... [scrolls] Snarky bunch... [scrolls] Raised a lot of money for cancer research... [scrolls] Damn, some of them have cute kids.
Tiemann: No hair?
DeWyze: One of the fans just dyed hers candy-apple red. Does that count?
Tiemann: It has to be his hair.
Cook: Not that I have enough of it to be worth mentioning.
DeWyze: Nobody's discussing your undershorts. I mean, that was kind of my fault for bringing them up in the first place, but I'd never shopped at The Gap--
Tiemann: Because you had one pair of jeans that's been stretched too far and ripped at the seams. We know, we know.
DeWyze: This Swan gal is downright wise. Have you seen her blog? My fans are some of the nicest, most polite, most commonsensical people on earth, and they're quick with numbers, but... just wow.
Cook: Dude, we're not a bunch of Justin Bieber types that people follow for the hair and the gossip. Our fans voted for us because they wanted good music.
DeWyze: Here's six people discussing the structure of one of your songs and some of your influences.
Cook: Only six? They must all be busy watching Top Chef.
DeWyze: Ah. That's why so many are discussing cutting up livers. I thought it might be House.
Cook [taking iPhone from DeWyze]: No, it looks like it's Dexter. Damn, that's a new episode and I'm missing it.
ACook: Lee, dude, if you're gonna crash here, how are you at Ultimate Frisbee?
THE END OF THE BEGINNING.
Neal Tiemann and Lee DeWyze are in the sumptuous leopard-print Memphis bedroom of Stax Records head Jim Stewart, while the 1968 Stax Volt company Christmas party rages a few yards away. The tiger-print Ghost of Albums Past has just disappeared from Tiemann's clutches.
DeWyze: Standing there clutching air won't bring her back.
Tiemann: Why the hell didn't you deploy the basilisk?
DeWyze: Dude. She's the Ghost of Albums Past. She'd probably turn it to stone rather than vice-versa. We need to go home now.
Tiemann: What do you mean, go home? We don't have Dave back.
DeWyze: Go home. Like, home. You go to it. The only place we can go without Dave or a ghost is back to our own time. Let's play that song of yours and go.
Tiemann: I'm not giving up.
DeWyze: Dude. You know what the Ghost of Albums Future said. If we stay too long in 1968, history resolves itself by killing us off. That's not sweet serendipity.
Tiemann: Actually, it is.
DeWyze: No, it's not.
Tiemann: Yes, it is. Serendipity. We were looking for one thing and found another. Just not a good thing. So call it sour serendipity but--
DeWyze: What?
Tiemann: We're going to a party.
DeWyze: We're at a... oh... [He follows Tiemann toward the babble of laughter, clinking of china, and ripple of vaguely familiar music, which leads them into a large room redolent with hors d'oeuvres, pine needles, and leopard-print couches, all afloat on a plush red carpet.]
Pale man in tux: Skol, brothers! [waves can of Budweiser]
DeWyze: A party this ritzy serves Bud? Man, the 1960s were primitive.
PMIT: Oh, there's whiskey galore for those who want it.
Tiemann: Duck Dunn?
Dunn: The same. I can drink this till nine in the morning, and I can't, that other.
Tiemann: The bass player for Booker T. and the MGs?
Dunn: You know any other Duck Dunns? 'Course, I'll feel this till nine tomorrow night. [his eyes narrow] You're some of Don Davis' crew, aren't you?
DeWyze: No.
Tiemann: Yes. Great to meet you. [He darts around Dunn to survey the room.]
DeWyze: Wasn't this one of the dudes you wanted to meet?
Tiemann: No. Yes. Where are we?
DeWyze: We're at the Stax holiday party--
Tiemann: No, I mean us. From before. Where are we?
DeWyze: I think we're still in the bathroom with Janis Joplin.
Tiemann: That's even better. We'll stand here by the tree, grab Dave when he comes into the room, and go back to our own time. Do you remember the song we sang?
DeWyze: Something about circles? Marching in circles?
Tiemann: Hold that thought. I hear Joplin's voice. Be ready to play.
DeWyze limbers himself around his guitar. Tiemann assumes his best zombie-tackling position. Joplin trails into the room, followed by a second Tiemann and DeWyze.
Pale man in tux: Skol, brothers! [waves can of Budweiser]
DeWyze-2: A party this ritzy serves Bud? Man, the 1960s were primitive.
PMIT: Oh, there's whiskey galore for those who want it.
Tiemann-2: Duck Dunn?
Dunn: The same. I can drink this till nine in the morning, and I can't, that other.
Tiemann-2: The bass player for Booker T. and the MGs?
Dunn: You know any other Duck Dunns? 'Course, I'll feel this till nine tomorrow night. [his eyes narrow] You're some of Don Davis' crew, aren't you?
DeWyze-2: Yes.
Tiemann-2: No.
Male voice: Play! Quickly!
Tiemann [turns]: Andrew?
The dark-haired man is wearing a beard, hipster glasses, a turtleneck, and a bevy of bodacious beauties, one blonde in hot pants, one brunette in a paisley granny dress, and one redhead in Mary Quant. He might--or might not--be Andrew Cook.
Tiemann: Andrew, what the hell are you doing here?
Andrew or Not: Play! There's no time to waste. [singing]: It was down in Louisiana, just a mile from Texarkana, in them old cotton fields back home.
Tiemann: Why?
Andrew or Not: Just do it!
DeWyze [singing]: It may sound a little funny--
DeWyze and Tiemann [singing]: But we didn't make much money--
There is a flash of light, and the group is on a beach with palm trees. Several blond dudes run past carrying surfboards. Behind them, woody stationwagons are parked.
DeWyze, Tiemann, and Andrew or Not [singing]: In those old cotton fields back home.
Tiemann: What the f*ck? That's a Lead Belly song.
Surfer dude running by: Ho-dads! Catch a wave!
Tiemann [consults Cook's newspaper]: It's October 6, 1962. The first black student was admitted to the University of Mississippi last week. Johnny Carson started his gig as host of The Tonight Show. The Beatles released their first single with EMI yesterday.
DeWyze: If Dave was here, he'd tell us what game of the World Series we're missing.
Tiemann: So why did singing a Lead Belly song put us on a beach in 1962?
Andrew or Not: That's the risk with songs that had a lot of covers. But I had to get you out of there. You can't be in the same time twice.
DeWyze: Why? What happens?
Andrew or Not: Bad things.
DeWyze: You're a ghost.
Andrew or Not: I'm the Ghost of Albums Present. You can tell by my hipster glasses and my attitude that I'm an early adopter and heavy music buyer.
Tiemann: And who are they? [He indicates the bevy of beauties, who now wearing, in order, a poodle skirt with saddle shoes, a Jackie Kennedy-esque sack dress, and an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow polka dot bikini.]
Ghost of Albums Present: You don't know?
Tiemann: No, I'm asking just to make conversation. [strums guitar] [sings] I was over in Arkansas, people ask me--
Ghost of Albums Present: Stop, stop! They're my singles. The girls are my singles. Now that we've cleared that up, I should take you home. [sings] I was a flight risk with a fear of falling. Wondering why--
Tiemann: Taylor Swift? I'm not playing f*cking Taylor Swift.
Ghost of Albums Present: Do you want to be sure of hitting late 2010?
DeWyze: We could play some Lee DeWyze. [sings] I ain't got no car--
Tiemann: For f*ck's sake, don't you all get a car when you win American Idol?
DeWyze: It was a flippin' Ford Fiesta my year. I've seen pedal cars with better acceleration. I've seen bumper cars with better bumpers. I've seen bicycles with better cargo space.
Tiemann: If Dave was here, he'd interrupt to tell us who won the Tour de France this year.
Ghost of Albums Present: Home. You're going home. [sings] So raise your glass if you are wrong in all the right ways--
DeWyze [sings]: They used to tell me I was building a dream.
DeWyze and Tiemann [singing and strumming]: With peace and glory ahead.
Ghost of Albums Present: No! [singing] Dirty little freaks!
DeWyze and Tiemann [singing and strumming]: Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread. Once I built a railroad, made it run--
There is a flash of light. DeWyze, Tiemann, the Ghost of Albums Present, and his singles are standing in a clearing in the autumn woods, beside a grassy mound. From the slant of the sun, it is late afternoon.
DeWyze and Tiemann [singing and strumming]: Brother, can you spare a dime?
Tiemann [checks newspaper]: October 2, 1932. Yesterday in game three of the World Series, Babe Ruth pointed to the deepest part of centerfield, indicating a home run, and then hit... and then hit... It's dusty here, this time of year.
DeWyze: Dave would have known Babe Ruth's batting average. [He looks at the mound.] We're a couple months too late, though.
Ghost of Albums Present: You need to go home. [His singles are now dressed in a calico house dress, a satin gown with fur trim, and a trig little bias-cut suit with a cloche hat.] David Cook is gone.
Tiemann: I don't accept that.
Ghost of Albums Present: I don't see what you're even here for. Do you think you can dig him up and turn him into a zombie?
DeWyze [snickers]: Give him Simon Cowell's brains to eat...
Ghost of Albums Present: Say your goodbyes and let's go home.
Tiemann: No. There has to be a way to change this. If not here, then in 1938.
Ghost of Albums Present [sings]: Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin--
Tiemann [strums and sings]: Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you.
Ghost of Albums Present [sings]: Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?
Tiemann [to DeWyze]: Come on! Sing this damned piece of drivel. [sings] Embrace me, myirreplaceable you!
DeWyze: I don't know.
Tiemann: What do you mean, you don't know? [sings] Just to look at you--
DeWyze: Maybe it's all for the best.
Tiemann: What best? You got us here. [sings] I love all the many charms about you--
DeWyze: That was before I saw his grave. Maybe--
Ghost of Albums Present [sings]: Do you ever feel already buried deep, six feet under? Scream but--
Tiemann: You bastard. [His hands are around the Ghost of Albums Present's neck, and the singles are shrieking.] You and your kind f*cking mock us and lie to us--
Ghost of Albums Present [whispers]: Dirty little freaks.
DeWyze: Look at the future we saw. I mean the present--
Tiemann [hands still around the Ghost's neck]: It didn't have Dave in it.
DeWyze: I know. But look, it's not like the history of music stopped.
Tiemann: What's your f*cking point?
DeWyze: People were happy.
Tiemann: Shiny happy people laughing. Your point?
DeWyze: Kim Caldwell had a gold album and three platinum singles. Andrew Cook took second place on American Idol. There must be people who love their music--
Tiemann [shakes Ghost, whom he's still holding by the throat]: This isn't about them.
DeWyze: Who are we to make the decision that David Cook's second album is more important than their contributions to music?
Tiemann [drops Ghost to earth]: Contributions to music? Who f*cking mentioned any contributions to music?
DeWyze: You wanted to save Janis Joplin so she could contribute more to music.
Tiemann: Maybe she'll f*cking learn.
DeWyze: That's what I mean. It was a worthy goal. You'll have given the world ten, twenty, who knows? Maybe thirty or forty more years of Joplin. That's something to be proud of--
Tiemann: Do you really believe in that sweet serendipity crap of yours?
DeWyze: Wha--?
Tiemann: Do you understand at all what we did? She won't learn. We fixed the timeline. I've set Janis Joplin up to die on the same day she died before, for the same reasons, with the same outcome, and the songs I plucked out on my first guitar are going to be all she ever produces. Ever. That's it. One set of memories. The Doctor as a boy and the idols on the wall and a shit-ton of nostalgia.
DeWyze: I don't--
Tiemann: You don't forget the first songs you learn, the first rock show you go to, the first rock show you play--
Ghost of Albums Present: Dirty little freaks.
Tiemann: Oh, shut up. What I studied in music theory--
DeWyze: You studied music theory?
Tiemann: No, I wrote all my songs next to the pig pen on a Texas farm while getting my ass tattooed.
DeWyze: What you studied in music theory...
Tiemann: It's ideals. It's idols. It's posters on a wall. You admire them. You play covers of their work. Your first ten or twenty songs sound like cheap imitations of theirs. If you're lucky, you meet them--
DeWyze: I'm sorry about Duck Dunn.
Tiemann: And if you're even luckier, they shake your hand and want to meet you. It feels great--
DeWyze: Mike Nesmith kind of liked me.
Tiemann: My idol carried on a whole conversation with me. Stevie F*cking Van Zandt invited me to a party--
DeWyze: Why do all of you have the same middle name?
Tiemann: But it doesn't mean the same thing as the guy you play shows in dive bars with. It's not the same thing as the guy you write songs with. It's not the same thing as the guy you spend nine months on a stinking bus with, trying to remember whether the good wings were in Ohio or South Carolina.
DeWyze: Did you ever try Harold's Chicken Shack?
Tiemann: It's not music history I want to save Dave for. It's our history.
Ghost of Albums Present: So you wouldn't care if David Cook never wrote another song?
Tiemann: What kind of numbskull asshole are you? Of course I'd care.
Ghost of Albums Present: Then if I said his second album got tabled in an RCA management change and that was the end of his career, you'd go home quietly?
Tiemann: Hell, no.
Ghost of Albums Present: But if he never wrote another song--
Tiemann: He'd still be my best friend.
Blonde single [sings]: Nothing's impossible, I have found. For when my chin is on the ground--
Ghost of Albums Present: Shut up!
Brunette [sings]: I pick myself up, dust myself off--
Blonde, Brunette, and Redhead [singing]: Start all over again.
Tiemann: How?
Redhead: Don't lose your confidence if you slip!
Redhead and Brunette: Be grateful for a pleasant trip.
Tiemann [strums and sings]: Pick yourself up--
Ghost of Albums Present: No! You don't understand--
Tiemann and DeWyze [strumming and singing]: Dust yourself off! Start all over--
There is a flash of light. All of them, including the Ghost and his singles, are standing on the sidewalk outside the Frolic Room as curvaceous Cadillacs and handsome Hudsons swoop down Hollywood Boulevard. The singles' outfits are little changed, except that the redhead's cloche hat is now a remarkably silly assemblage shaped like a shoe and topped with a little veil.
Tiemann and DeWyze [singing]: Again!
The door of the Frolic Room opens. Cook storms out, followed by Tiemann, DeWyze, and Maybelle Carter.
Tiemann-2: You just stood up Ginger Rogers.
Maybelle Carter: What is this all about?
Cook: I don't want to talk about fans, okay?
Tiemann [to DeWyze]: This time, I know what to do.
DeWyze-2: Why not? My fans are great. I love their support.
Cook: Oh, sh*t--
Maybelle Carter: That little girl--
Tiemann: Don't move! [He launches himself between Cook and the bus]
There is a flash of light. Tiemann, DeWyze, the Ghost, and the Singles are standing in a clearing in a vast hall of shelves of musical scores, tapes, gramophone rolls, CDs, sheets of papyrus, fraying notebooks, coffee-stained napkins, and every manner of recording music. Shelves stretch high above their heads toward a domed ceiling. Shelves stretch to the right and to the left, forward and behind, so far into the distance that they seem to vanish into mist. The Singles are now dressed in goddess gowns, with flowers in their hair.
Tiemann: What the f*ck?
Ghost of Albums Present: I told you bad things happened if you were in the same time twice.
Tiemann: Where--
Ghost of Albums Present: This is the Hall of Unheard Songs.
DeWyze: It looks like the Chicago Public Library. Only bigger. Lots bigger.
Ghost of Albums Present: Lots and lots and lots bigger. This is where music goes when the song's never finished or the album's never released. This is where all the lost chords are found.
DeWyze: Wow.
Ghost of Albums Present: And it's where you're going to have to stay.
Tiemann: What?
Ghost of Albums Present: There can't be two of you in the same time. That's the rule.
Tiemann: But your singles--
Ghost of Albums Present: Singles make a big impact, but who trusts them to know the full context?
DeWyze: We have to stay?
Ghost of Albums Present: You're exiled here at least until your 1938 selves die.
Tiemann: Then what happens?
Ghost of Albums Present: We don't know.
Tiemann: You don't know.
Ghost of Albums Present: Everyone we've had to leave here kind of... well...
Tiemann: Well, what?
Ghost of Albums Present: Kind of went mad before their other selves died. And on that note-- [he vanishes]
Tiemann and DeWyze look at each other.
DeWyze [sings]: I ain't got no car--
Tiemann: What do you think you're doing?
DeWyze: Taking us home. It's the only way we can hope to get out of here.
Tiemann: I'm not so sure about that.
DeWyze: I know it's just a hope, but it worked when you sang that other song. The one about marching in circles.
Tiemann: No. I mean, if there's any way to undo the damage to the timeline and save Dave, the key would be in a limbo place like this. [He prowls the shelves, prodding at documents.]
DeWyze: Dude. Do you ever admit you're beaten?
Tiemann: Did you ever see Alien?
DeWyze: What does a spaceship full of weird eggs have to do with us?
Tiemann: Did Ripley f*cking give up?
DeWyze: Uh. She's the protagonist, right?
Tiemann: I'll give you a hint. The answer to "Did Ripley f*cking give up?" is "No."
DeWyze: I see you less as Sigourney Weaver and more as Samuel L. Jackson.
Tiemann [picking up a CD]: What the hell?
DeWyze: You've found a sixth Leonard Nimoy album?
Tiemann: No, I've found Dave's lost album. This is the one he made before going on American Idol and never released. It's missing a couple of tracks--
DeWyze: I wonder how many of my notebooks are here.
Tiemann: This place must have a CD player.
DeWyze: Haven't you heard it already?
Tiemann: Yes. Yes. That's not the point. Here. Look. This is his notebook. So's this. This is an iPod that he must have recorded ideas on. Give me a hand.
DeWyze: There's stuff here from when he was fifteen.
Tiemann: Come on. [He strides down a random aisle, guitar bouncing, hands full.]
DeWyze: His handwriting was illegible then, too. What are we doing?
Tiemann: Weird science.
At a break in the endless row of shelves, there is a couch facing a vast multimedia center holding every sort of playback equipment, including some items with blinking lights that the guys have never seen before. Tiemann shoves the CD into a likely slot, punches some buttons, and is rewarded with music.
Tiemann: That's Dave.
DeWyze: That's pretty good. Angsty, but good.
Tiemann: At least he's not singing about his lack of wheels. Come on, find a way to play back all this other stuff.
DeWyze: You can't play back a notebook.
Tiemann: I'm betting you can. [He rummages among the equipment.]
DeWyze [flipping through notebook]: How come in his songs, the girls always leave?
Tiemann: Girls kept leaving.
DeWyze: Yeah, but I have to beat them off with a stick.
Tiemann looks at him.
DeWyze: Okay, some of my fans want to do the beating.
Tiemann looks at him some more.
DeWyze: But I'm a hot and horny rock star--
Tiemann keeps looking.
DeWyze: That's what my fans say.
Tiemann: I'm carefully not envisioning any of this. [He prods an unfamiliar piece of machinery. It clanks menacingly at him and whirs.] Put that notebook in this.
DeWyze: It looks like a shredder.
Tiemann: Looks can be deceiving. Try it. [He takes the notebook from DeWyze's hand and slides it into the weird machine, which clanks, whirs, spits, burps, shoves the notebook halfway out, gulps it down, rings three times, and then plays music.]
DeWyze: It's... interesting.
Tiemann: It's not as good as the stuff he released, but that's not the point. Come on. We have to play the rest of it.
DeWyze: All at once?
Tiemann: All at once. [He loads CDs, docks iPods, feeds notebooks into burping machines, uploads mp3s, hits buttons, slams switches, prods mice, turns dials, and...]
DeWyze: It should be a cacophony.
Tiemann: But it's not. It's Dave.
DeWyze: So?
Tiemann: Give it a minute.
A minute passes. The music swells, fugue-like, dissonant, yet oddly coherent. Another minute passes.
DeWyze: What are we waiting for?
Tiemann: I'm not sure. Maybe... that.
He points to the couch, where a strange shimmer in the air takes roughly the shape of a sleeping man.
DeWyze: That's a strange shimmer in the air.
Tiemann: It looks like Dave.
DeWyze: I don't think he's feeling coherent enough to tour.
The music fades. The shimmer fades. With the last notes, the air trembles and is clear again.
Tiemann: Damn it!
DeWyze: I don't think this will work.
Tiemann: It almost did work.
DeWyze: It was a shimmer.
Tiemann: I'd call it more of a mist.
DeWyze: You can't recreate a dude out of his unpublished works.
Tiemann: Why not?
DeWyze: Think about your own music. Is it your important stuff that never saw the light of day? The statements you felt you had to make, so you polished them and kept polishing them?
Tiemann: It's a point.
DeWyze: The most important parts of David Cook the musician are the songs he chose to release. And those aren't here. We don't have access to enough of what made him who he was.
Tiemann: The hell we don't.
He sets off down a random aisle, poking at files, grabbing CDs.
DeWyze: What are you doing?
Tiemann: R.E.M. That's a band his brother introduced him to.
DeWyze: These aren't the same songs--
Tiemann: Here's a band from the 1970s that his father played covers of.
DeWyze: We're only getting people's missing parts.
Tiemann: Parts is parts. Give us enough parts--
DeWyze: And the best we can do is a Frankendave.
Tiemann: And they'll overlap to reproduce the same sounds that influenced him in the first place.
DeWyze: How can we know--
Tiemann: Whoa! Some of these indie bands never stopped writing. Here, take care of Flaming Lips.
DeWyze: Flaming--
Tiemann: Official rock band of the state of Oklahoma. Has to be included.
DeWyze [staggering under load of ephemera]: When do we know we have enough?
Tiemann: Use the laundry bag. Here's the Foos. We can't do without the Foos. Here's an entire lo-fi movement...
DeWyze: Who the hell is this chick?
Tiemann: I remember him picking up her EP at a record shop in Durham, North Carolina. Voice to die for. Creepy lyrics. Cool tonality.
DeWyze: You dudes totally did not find an actual record shop.
Tiemann: I know. Old school.
They seem to have come in a circle, as they're back at the media center. Tiemann loads CDs, docks iPods, feeds notebooks into burping machines, uploads mp3s, hits buttons, slams switches, prods mice, turns dials, then stands back as the music leaps into the air, infinitely more complex this time, yet still somehow making sense.
DeWyze: Sweet f*cking serendipity.
The mist forming over the couch solidifies. It is definitely the shape of a man.
Tiemann: I told you. I told you.
DeWyze: We don't know that it's him.
Tiemann: Big head. Look at that head.
DeWyze: Kris Allen has a big head. Hell, Elliott Yamin has a big head.
Tiemann: Kris Allen and Elliott Yamin are not lost in time and space.
DeWyze: We don't know that. And Dave's not lost. He's dead.
The form grows more definite: thin but muscular, strong jaw, large feet.
Tiemann: That's Dave.
DeWyze: He'd better not have anything to hide. He's kind of transparent.
Tiemann: At least he's not naked. He's getting more solid. Look. He's--
In a crash of cymbals, the body vanishes.
DeWyze: Gone. It's not working.
Tiemann: It's working. It's not succeeding. [He takes off down yet another aisle.]
DeWyze: What now? Forgotten works by the writer of his seventh-grade musical?
Tiemann: Already got those. Didn't you notice? [He grabs a handful of CDs and tapes and notes, dropping bundles of notes on the floor. DeWyze follows him, picking up the lost bits.]
DeWyze: Sanjaya Malakar?
Tiemann: Fools we were to leave out the American Idol influence. Dave credited the show in every damned interview.
DeWyze: I thought he was just being gracious.
Tiemann: Gracious was part of his personality. Let's try this again.
He loads CDs, docks iPods, feeds notebooks into burping machines, uploads mp3s, hits buttons, slams switches, prods mice, turns dials, then stands back. The music starts more quietly this time, then picks up speed, adding a complex rhythm line and then a trio of intertwining melodies.
DeWyze: How many songs are we playing at once now?
Tiemann: More than ten thousand.
DeWyze: So how come the music makes more sense each time?
Tiemann: Because we're getting closer to Dave's one personality. Look.
The mist forming over the couch solidifies, first into a transparent shape, then translucent enough that the upholstery pattern is only a blur. Slim and muscular, large head, large feet, definite features, tuke...
Tiemann: It's him. It is positively him.
The shape wavers.
DeWyze: It's not going to work.
Tiemann: It has to work. It has to--
The shape loses solidity, grows transparent, flickers, becomes semi-solid again.
Tiemann: Come on, Dave!
And then he's gone.
Tiemann: If I have to load the entire history of music--
DeWyze: We'll go mad. [He leafs through the packet of papers he's still holding from their last trip through the aisles.] I wonder if this matters?
Tiemann: You're holding something I should have loaded and you're wondering if it matters? Of course it mat--
DeWyze: You see?
Tiemann [reading from label on packet]: Clay Aiken: Unrealized Dreams of his Fans.
DeWyze: I don't think this would matter to Dave, but--
Tiemann: There's one of these with his name on it.
He tosses the Clay Aiken package aside and runs toward the aisle where he first found Cook's unreleased 2008 CD. DeWyze, following more slowly thanks to a detour, finds Tiemann standing in front of a full shelf.
Tiemann: There's more than one of those.
DeWyze: Wow.
Tiemann: Come on. Grab as much as you can. We have to start somewhere.
Back at the media center, he loads CDs, docks iPods, feeds notebooks into burping machines, uploads mp3s, hits buttons, slams switches, prods mice, turns dials, queuing all the music played before. The mist shimmers, solidies, turns translucent, is definitely Cook. Tiemann takes the first packet of unrealized dreams and opens the feeder for what he hopes is the correct machine.
DeWyze: Wait.
Tiemann: We can't wait. When the music stops--
DeWyze: I'm not sure you want to add that packet.
Tiemann: If it's what it takes to get Dave back--
DeWyze: Just. Wait. I stopped and looked at my own packet. I read a couple. It made me think.
The music picks up speed, adding a complex rhythm line and then a trio of intertwining melodies. The mist flickers.
Tiemann: Think faster.
DeWyze: I don't want to be defined by the unrealized dreams of my fans. I want--
For an instant, the mist seems to be almost fully solid.
Tiemann: Faster, damn it! I can't stand to do this a million times.
DeWyze: I want my fans to live their own dreams. And if Dave's a good guy--
Tiemann: There's no "if" about that.
DeWyze: Maybe he wants that, too. I mean, love the music, yes. But be your own dream. Live who you are. Live it up, even.
The music swoops into a complicated yet lyrical bridge. The mist flickers to translucent even as Cook's chest seems to rise and fall with a breath.
Tiemann drops the packet of unrealized dreams and picks up his guitar. The melody he plays falls into the music from the mysterious machine.
Tiemann [sings]: I can sway my feelings for yet another wasted day. Never once will I be broken. I will lock my heart away--
DeWyze: Why are we going home now?
Tiemann: We're not. [sings] Somewhere else. A key I hid inside my head before this world started making its escape. I'm planning my escape. [to DeWyze] Hum or something, damn it.
Tiemann and DeWyze [singing]: Just one breath that I can breathe, just one honest untouched scene, just one taste of rust to show the bars the cage is bending.
The music picks up Tiemann's guitar line as if it's the centerpiece of a fugue. The body goes from translucent to solid to translucent to solid--
Tiemann and DeWyze [singing]: Just one melody that I can really sing.
The body is solid. It breathes.
Tiemann and DeWyze [singing]: After all you've taken, can you give me this, one true thing?
Cook opens his eyes and sits up. He looks at Tiemann, at the music machine, at DeWyze, and at his wrist.
Cook: Why do I have your pistol necklace, Doctor?
Tiemann: It's a long story.
DeWyze: Are you--
Tiemann: It's dusty in here.
Cook: And "here" is?
DeWyze: An even longer story. Do we know how to get home?
Tiemann: We sing a song from our present, and since we're going home, the gates of time open for us. The little bitch didn't lie about that part. Are you ready, Dave?
Cook: First, could we do where "here" is?
DeWyze: It's the Hall of Unheard Songs. Every unpublished song in the history of the world is here.
Cook: And you want to go home? Do you know what we could find here?
Tiemann: It's making my allergies act up.
Cook: There's more to this than you're telling me.
Tiemann: Long story.
DeWyze [sings]: I ain't got no car--
Tiemann: Let Dave sing.
Cook: Sing to go home?
Tiemann: Pretty please with f*cking sugar on top.
Cook: Something that will take us right to the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011?
Tiemann: Not just sugar. Sprinkles.
Cook: Let's see how you can follow this.
He sings.
It is a song nobody has heard before.
DeWyze: Wow.
Cook: You like it?
Tiemann: It's upbeat but still complex.
Cook: Are we singing or what? The chorus should be hooky enough for you to follow along.
He sings. DeWyze sings. Tiemann finds the harmony line on his guitar.
There is a flash of light. The guys are back in Cook's kitchen, though it now smells like dinner. Andrew Cook is on the phone, trying to schedule a party. The dogs circle, sniffing. On the television, things with large teeth are devouring things with sharp claws.
DeWyze: My album covers! They're still here. [He reaches for the calipers.] And I still have infinitesimally more tattoo showing on mine to give me that extra edge of rock cred.
Cook: Who's counting?
DeWyze: My fans. Your fans. The Idol blog media. Sixty-two Adam Lambert fans who despise both of us but like popcorn. Also, Crystal Bowersox, who's a lot less impressed with me now than she was last April.
Cook: My fans don't worry about crap like that.
Tiemann: Are we talking about the same fans who tweet me questions about your hair?
Cook: What are you taking for those allergies? Look. [He pulls out his iPhone, loads Twitter, points it to a list of 400 or so active fans, and hands it to DeWyze.]
DeWyze: You're kidding. [He scrolls.] Your fans talk about interesting stuff. They're reading a book about how music affects the brain... [scrolls] Snarky bunch... [scrolls] Raised a lot of money for cancer research... [scrolls] Damn, some of them have cute kids.
Tiemann: No hair?
DeWyze: One of the fans just dyed hers candy-apple red. Does that count?
Tiemann: It has to be his hair.
Cook: Not that I have enough of it to be worth mentioning.
DeWyze: Nobody's discussing your undershorts. I mean, that was kind of my fault for bringing them up in the first place, but I'd never shopped at The Gap--
Tiemann: Because you had one pair of jeans that's been stretched too far and ripped at the seams. We know, we know.
DeWyze: This Swan gal is downright wise. Have you seen her blog? My fans are some of the nicest, most polite, most commonsensical people on earth, and they're quick with numbers, but... just wow.
Cook: Dude, we're not a bunch of Justin Bieber types that people follow for the hair and the gossip. Our fans voted for us because they wanted good music.
DeWyze: Here's six people discussing the structure of one of your songs and some of your influences.
Cook: Only six? They must all be busy watching Top Chef.
DeWyze: Ah. That's why so many are discussing cutting up livers. I thought it might be House.
Cook [taking iPhone from DeWyze]: No, it looks like it's Dexter. Damn, that's a new episode and I'm missing it.
ACook: Lee, dude, if you're gonna crash here, how are you at Ultimate Frisbee?
THE END OF THE BEGINNING.
