Different Circles

“This is the face of the company,” Jake said. “It’s where Pauline keeps her office, where the receptionist answers the phone, where the mail gets delivered. It’s also where we keep our rehearsal studio.” He shrugged. “We don’t need some fancy-ass office up in a high-rise somewhere to do what we do.”

Matt thought this over for a moment. “I guess that shit makes sense,” he said at last. He locked his eyes on his former best friend, a man he had once called a brother. “I heard you knocked up your old lady.”

Jake nodded. “That is true,” he said. “It’s a girl. She’ll be born sometime around Thanksgiving.”

“How’d it happen?” Matt asked.

Jake raised his eyebrows a bit. “Uh ... in the usual way,” he said. “You are aware of where babies come from, right?”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Matt said, rolling his eyes. “I meant what caused the fuck-up? Did your rubber come off like with Coop? Or did she ‘forget’ to take her fuckin’ pills?”

“Neither,” Jake said. “We wanted her to get pregnant. We want to have a baby.”

It was quite clear that Matt had absolutely no comprehension of why a dude would want his old lady to get knocked up. In his world, pregnancy happened through accident or deceit and there was no other option. “All right, all right,” he said. “I get you. None of my fucking business. I’ll say no more about it.”

“We really did want her to get pregnant,” Jake insisted, feeling the odd need to have Matt understand this.

“Right,” Matt said, clearly disbelieving him. “Of course you did.”

Jake gave up. He stood and opened the little half-door that guarded the entrance. “Come on in,” he told his guest. “We’ll have our meeting in the studio.”

“All right,” Matt said carefully. He stepped through the door.

Jake led him down the hall and to the solid, soundproofed security door that led into the rehearsal studio. He punched in the code that released the lock and pulled the door open. Matt followed him inside. Nerdly, Celia, and Pauline were back at the card table, sitting in their chairs, their eyes taking in Matt silently, with no hint of emotion on their faces.

“Go ahead and grab a seat,” Jake directed as he closed the door.

Matt said nothing. He simply walked over to the table and sat down at the end position. He did not greet anyone and they did not greet him. No hands were shaken. Jake secured the door and walked over and took his own seat next to Celia.

“All right then,” Jake said, breaking the awkward silence. “You know who all of us are and we know who you are. I would like to point out that we four at this table are the owners of the entity known as KVA Records LLC. We make all decisions regarding this entity together and we answer to no one except ourselves. Do you understand?”

Matt nodded. “You are the grand fuckin’ poohbahs of KVA,” he said. “I get it.”

“Good,” Jake said. “Now, it is our understanding that you came here today with a proposal that we sign you to our label for your next solo release. Is that correct?”

“Yeah,” Matt said, his eyes looking down at the table in shame as he said this. “That’s correct.”

“Why?” Jake asked.

Matt brought his eyes back up and looked at Jake. “I’m tired of working for National,” he said simply. “And I don’t want to sign with any of the other big recording labels.”

Jake and Pauline shared a look with each other. Pauline picked up the thread for the moment. “There has to be more to it than that,” she said. “You’ve been with National since the Intemperance days. What is different now? If we are going to consider your proposal, we need to know your reasoning.”

Matt looked angry for a moment, looked as if he was going to throw out one of his famous angry tirades, but then seemed to think better of it. “They’ve lost faith in me and they’re trying to screw me,” he finally said.

“Explain,” said Jake.

“They think I’ve tapped out my creativity,” he said. “They don’t think that any further CDs I put out are going to be very profitable for them, but they know that having me go out on tour is extremely profitable in this day and age. All they want me to do is pound out a lame-ass CD in a few months so they can justify setting up another tour. And they are not willing to negotiate on a higher royalty rate for that CD. In fact, they’re trying to push me to accept a lower rate.”

“Interesting,” Celia said, speaking for the first time.

“It’s fucked up is what it is,” Matt said. “They’ve even been trying to get me to accept less than half of the tour profits too. I broke off negotiation with their asses two months ago. And I’ll fade into fuckin’ obscurity before I agree to their terms.”

“I see,” Pauline said. “And I’m assuming that you’re here because you do not want to fade into obscurity.”

“Fuck no,” Matt said. “But ... well ... there’s another reason. A big reason.”

“What is that?” asked Celia.

He looked at Pauline. “I’m sure you’ve told them about my fucked-up tax situation,” he told her.

“No,” Pauline said simply. “I actually did not.”