Home Town Encounter (Writing Prompt Challenge)

by gkmoberg1

These two stories are my responses to a fellow fanfic writer's prompt. "Proposition: Oskar and Eli visit your home town, or where you are living now. They interact with you. Stretch your creative muscles. It doesn't have to be great literature, just a fun imagining."

Gladly accepted!

My response is two stories. The first story is a one-shot. The second takes up four parts. What would you write?

The location I chose is not my 'home town' yet is one very familiar and dear to me. So, it suits.

Story #1: Harvard University 'T' Stop

Sunday, 20 November 2011
Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA.

They called me near noon and I hurried over. Borrowed a car and parked on Brattle Street, almost up next to Appian Way. Then walked back to the T stop, Red Line, and took the escalator down into the station.

There's a good crowd today, as usual, both about the square and down into the metro. Kids, university kids, adults. Everyone is on the move to somewhere. Good clean late afternoon November sunshine with its late fall chill. It's alive, the entire place. I love coming here.

I could just hear them up at the street level entrance to the subway. Tommy on his electric bass and practice amp was my first clue on their whereabouts. Found him first too through the bobbing heads of the crowd once I was below street level. His hair is beginning to thin but he's still the same. Clean shaven, tall, well built, and that lost, far off look. He rambles both in his gate and his speech. Too much something happened in his youth. But - man! - can he play. He walks the electric bass like a black cat. Up, down, melodic and flowing. For him alone I'd come just to listen.

There was no denying the tune. He was charming the bass line of Rush's Tom Sawyer for the crowd. The syncopated beat he was keeping up with was Elias'. Took my getting through the crowd to see the little guy but I knew he'd be there. Headphones clamped over his head and a wheel of tom-toms hung about his tiny hips. Must be something in him, some advanced means of sensing the vibrations about him, he has learned the most amazing rhythms. Always wears those headphones down here too. He's told me they make him deaf, which with the screeching of the Red Line train and the bustle of the crowd would be a nice retreat. But he can pick up the beat by watching Tommy and Oskar. And having played these tunes a thousand times over he what to do.

Kid never changes either. He looks the same as he did when we met last year. And the year before that.

Oskar is a trip. Sporting a yellow and blue Hawaiian shirt, unplugged electric guitar dangling from his shoulders, he sings the final parts of Tom Sawyer as they ooze out of their extended vamp segue. He too wears headphones but not so packed as Elias'. The unplugged electric cords of the guitar and the headphones danced around him as he sings

"Exit the warrior,
Today's Tom Sawyer,
He gets high on you!
And the energy you trade,
He gets right on to the friction of the day."

All three move through the syncopated beats that conclude the song. The crowd is well into it and most give them a good applause when the number was over. I do too.

~o~ ~oOo~ ~o~

We came up after dark from the subterranean layers of the subway station. There is an open street level terrace along the south side of Massachusetts Avenue where it curves along the edge of the public square. The area has seats, tables with chess boards and is surrounded be a sweet collection of little shoppes and cafes. I got Tommy and myself coffees and strong chocolate treats from Finale over on Dunster Street. The kids got bottled waters. Together we watched the traffic move along. Oskar and Eli played checkers using pebbles that they found about the area.

I talked mostly with Tommy. He's not really in tune with where he is nor what day it might be. But he has opinions just the same. Rants. Raves. Some are pretty darn funny.

I imagine we could almost pass as brothers. We were born within a couple years of each other. And now with our advancing ages, well, we don't look all that different from each other. I do wish, though, I had more time than this evening to be with him; he needs some help.

Oskar and Eli talk a mile a minute. They too are nearly the same size and whatever they're keeping up on, it's all to their own keeping. Besides my Swedish is lousy.

~o~ ~oOo~ ~o~

After a bit we got set up at one of the entrances to Harvard Yard, still in the immediate view of Harvard Square. This required first a walk over to my car for the stashed mic stands and the other practice amp, but soon we were again along Mass Ave and ready to go.

Listen to me, saying "we". That's a good laugh! I mean "they". Me, I'm just a temp roadie. One of many. But for this evening, it's me and the three of them. So for a brief moment of delusion, I'll say "we" and smile.

~o~ ~oOo~ ~o~

Oskar starts off with Strawberry Fields. The other two join in and it becomes the same hypnotic thing they were doing early down in the subway. A small crowd gathers. It's been a year; surely I am the only one who remembers this from last November. He's halfway through before I remember my part with the tambourine - yes, my one small bit in all of this. After that I hand it over to Elias.

They meld through song after song. Oskar plays his six string electric through the second practice amp; Eli does the percussion; and Tommy dances slowly with his electric bass. Most of the material I know but with their experience - decades long - of playing together and the way they work together, well it's hard to know when some of their bits are creations they've grown into. Tommy is completely into his zone as he runs the electric bass. Whatever is left inside his head, it centers on moments like this.

~o~ ~oOo~ ~o~

It's well toward the point when the street performers are to disperse. Mingling groups of watchers have come and gone all evening. The traffic before us on Mass Ave is just as busy but it's getting late. Those listening at this point are either adults or Harvard students. Children and parents have wandered off towards home and bed.

Oskar, Eli and Tommy slide into a rendition of Coldplay's Yellow that is new to me. One minute they were doing Train's Hey, Soul Sister and the next I knew Oskar had launched forward with the opening lines

"Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
and every thing you do,
They were all yellow."

And the other two come in beautifully behind him with Eli's tom-tom's and Tommy's soulful bass. It is touching and the crowd feels it too. As they continued I realize this is the last number for the evening. Plus it's a fitting song.

I doubt anyone watching but me realizes Oskar is singing it all to Eli.

~o~ ~oOo~ ~o~

We pack the car and put it into gear. I fill up at the Hess station on the way out and we head north. Six hours later we are approaching Montreal. I am beat from the long day and long drive. But I drop them off near the city's massive underground and they are gone within minutes. They are off to their next street gig and whomever it is that they've met here, their next roadie, who will carry them for the day and take them on to whatever's next.

Me, I'll nap in the car most of the day and then drive back south. That, and wait for next November.

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