Thursday night. Glenn called the Music Store to see about a couple of cheap hi-hat stands so he could set up a special foot-tap situation station.

"Hello, music store."

"Hey there ahh, Samuel," Greg said in a slow and absurd drawl, "you all puppies down there got anything like a trash banger special on down there maybe to sell?"

"You need a what?"

"Hey there-ahh, you know like that kind of thrashtwangin' set of er, is it hi-hat, there? Need a couple of cheap, wax dog safe and sturdy, you understand, but your basic, you know there-ahhh chief?"

"We have the elucidator 900 series with fulcrum thrust pedal."

"How much we lookin at on that one, there Bob?"

"It sells for a buck three eighty."

"Are you out of your clam? I'm talkin trash banger here, like what you'd sell to a school if they needed seven of them and had very little money. I need two of these pieces, Jack, this is a decent sale for you. Work with me on this one there Steve and we'll do business. I'm setting up an iration station and who knows what-all esoteric do dads and throck blocks I'll be wantin to buy. So talk to me here, don' give me the elucidator fulcrum duster, I want the town squirrel of yesteryear. Squirrel bones, whatever! As long as it's sturdy and joined well and you can shoot me a couple for small dough I'll be as pleased as a climbing chimp."

"What brand name did you have in mind?"

"I don't know, Cort? Just shoot me a price on two of your cheapest trash banger hi-hat stands, there, uh, Matthew."

"We have the green sticker Tockworths for twenty two ninety five. I'll let you have two of them for forty."

"Thirty three."

"Thirty nine is the best I can do."

"Thirty seven fifty!"

"My boss..."

"Your boss isn't on the phone. You got a chance to make a sale. If it was him he'd do it for three sep five oh, I know he would! We're talkin trash banger here."

"Thirty eight fifty is the best I can do."

"I'll bring in thirty eight cash half an hour from now. I'll come there with thirty eight dollars in my pocket, will you let me have the stands?"

"There's tax here, you gotta understand."

"So how much is it thirty eight plus tax? Tell me what it is thirty eight plus tax and I'm on my way."

"Ok. Look. I'll let you have the pair for forty twenty eight. That's thirty eight plus tax."

"Chief, sir, you've got a deal. I'm happy as a crab in the belt."

"When you come down ask for Pete."

"Of course they all say I'm crazy as a betcha bug, but that's the rub. Sure I'm a little bit, mind, and I know that cher got to get back to your harpsichords and your harps, I know it too well, so listen there, er...er....when you see the guy walk in with a Steam hat and looks like he's out of his stone cairn that's me. We'll do business."

"Forty twenty eight, now, sir, and we've got a deal. Come on in, I'll see you tonight."

"Like I said now OK. Preet sheeate it."

"I'm sure it was,"

"See you in a little bit, now. Get those stands out for me, kay?"

"Right you are."

Glenn hung up.

Meanwhile Drop Seagull was driving through the wax dog neighborhood by the huge St. Vincent's mission. It was dusk, and the street was alive with waxers issuing from the cinder block bars or sitting in the bus stops or the lot who stood on line outside the small gray building at the corner. Drop drove on through. He made it to the bank before it closed and stood on line waiting to put some money in his account. He was holding two hundred dollar bills and checking them out, admiring the watermarks. One of the bills fell from his hand and a little girl who was with her mother leaned down and picked it up, then grasped it tightly, admiring it. She was no more than two, and was standing up in the slightly unbalanced way children will when they are new at it.

Drop looked from the little girl to her mother, then crouched down and spoke to the girl. "Now you've got to give me that back, because it's mine and I dropped it."

The little girl looked uncertain. She didn't slacken her grasp on the hundred, but she looked at it with less enthusiasm. Her mother bent and gently took the bill in her hand, and the child released it, looking up at her mother questioningly. Then she and Drop both stood up and the lady, Miss McCreelan was her name, gave Drop his money back.

The iration stipulation station Glenn was planning with the two hihat stands was something like this: He'd have the two stands rigged up with some kinda flapping striker like a tethered marble wrapped in the cut-off fingertip of a rubber glove, and this flapping striker would be set in motion by the action of the foot on the pedal and would strike a wood block or small drum, which would also be mounted to the stand somehow. Or perhaps rig a striker on a stiff arm with a cam spring set-up. And something on both stands, something with a cool sound on both stands and then have a couple of good hand drums set up and be able to play with hands and feet.

COPYRIGHT 1997 DOUGLAS CLOUD ALL RIGHTS RESERVED