That Friday, I was busy with an on-location HalFlat project, but I deliberately left the site a bit early. I got back home around the time Alvin should be leaving for work, and my heart sank when I heard him still up in his room, messing around on his guitar. I steeled myself for a minute at the bottom of the ladder, then climbed up and shoved my head through the heavy black curtains.

"Your training starts in half an hour. You better get ready to go."

Alvin made a face. "Ugh. I am not washing subway cars."

I set my jaw, then said what I had to. "Then pack your stuff - you're gonna have to find another place to live." I withdrew my head, climbed back down the ladder, and walked into the kitchen to start dinner. A few seconds later, before I could even open the fridge, Alvin had joined me there.

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm not."

"Brother, I looked for a job all week! I couldn't find anything!"

"You did find something. Actually, something found you. And now you're not taking it. You know the rules that Simon and I set up - you get a job, or you get out."

Alvin crossed his arms and stared at me. "You're seriously going to kick me out." It was more of a dare than a question.

I stared back, which took pretty much all of my willpower. Finally, I turned, opened the fridge, pulled out a small paper bag, and held it out to him. "Here. I made you dinner. Now get going, or you'll be late."

Alvin stared at me for a bit more, then stared down at the bag. Finally, he snatched it from my paw. He turned without a word and stomped out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Once he was gone, I made my way to the living room couch, sat down, and shuddered.

Alvin admits, "I knew a showdown was going to happen, but I thought it was a long way away. Hell, I strung that groupie along for over two years. But you? I didn't even last two weeks." Alvin shakes his head. "I'd like to think I was being honest. That I really did plan on getting a job, and I just wanted to buy some more time from you so I could find something better. I figured I could just bluff my way past my little brother. But you obviously weren't so little anymore. You may not have been taking karate anymore, but you still could've kicked my tail out of your place if it came down to it." He sighs. "And it didn't come down to that. You just dug in your heels, and I caved.

"I trudged along to the subway terminal, thinking...well, you can probably guess what I was thinking. But then I looked down at the dinner you gave me. And some tiny part of my brain said 'well, that was nice of him'. Looking at that plain paper sack reminded me of all of the stuff you'd done for me recently. The bus ticket out to New York, getting a room ready for me, putting me back on stage playing rock and roll. And what had I done? Complained, mostly. I was just a spoiled little brat in his mid-thirties who didn't want to go get a job. Some brother I am. I went from really pissed to really depressed in like ten seconds. I showed up at the terminal feeling like garbage. But that was probably a necessary step to help push AL-VIN further down.

"I went through with the training, had my first day on the job, and came back home at half past one in the morning, exhausted. And you were sitting up on the couch, waiting for me. You just gave me a hug, said 'thank you', and then went to bed." Alvin smiles. "And...that was that. It was like all was forgiven."

And how was working at the terminal? Alvin shrugs. "It was the worst job I ever had, no question. But then again, I didn't have all that many jobs in my life. Even dressing like a clown and taking a pie to the face is easy work compared to putting on plastic gloves and coveralls, and going to work on the line. But all in all, it wasn't terrible. At least they had the radio blaring in the terminal. After a while, I just started losing myself in the music while I worked. But even now, every time I hear Michael Jackson's 'Rock With You', I can smell that gross industrial cleaner they used.

"I was on the lower level with all the new folks. Upper level had to do the tops of the cars, middle level got the windows. We just got the bottom sides of the cars. I'd finish scrubbing my section down, then switch a little light from red to green. All green lights meant everybody on that side was done and clear of the car, so they could move it along. My first few days, I was really slow - always the last guy switching to green. I eventually got a little better at it, probably by the end of the second week. But I was coming home stiff and exhausted every day. Luckily, I was only working on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays - I got to rest up to play guitar on Thursdays."

Simon had his friend Amy stop by our first Knack rehearsal to take some photos. For the last few poses, we tried copying the facial expressions from the Get The Knack album cover. (I learned much later that the guys in The Knack were grabbing their junk in that photo. We didn't do that part.) I had sort of forgotten about the photo shoot when we got to Riley's for the next gig, and I was pleasantly surprised when I saw some posters with our faces on them. "GET THE 'MUNK" they said. "The Chipmunks perform the Get The Knack album!" But I was floored when I saw, near the bottom of each poster, a small yellow sign that read "SOLD OUT".

Sold out! We sold out Riley's!

We decided to "open for ourselves" for this gig. We performed as The Little Rocks, making our way through our favorite early-60s songs, while wearing our old varsity jackets. Simon recalls wryly, "You had kept yourself in shape with your carpentry, whereas Alvin was at the conclusion of some literal lean years. As a result, your jackets still fit you two well. Mine, on the other hand, was a bit snug. I had not gained all that much weight over the past decade and a half, but I was quite gaunt as a youth. The few pounds I had gained were enough to make the jacket a bit too small for my frame. I managed to make do, however."

After closing the first set with "Wipe Out", we left the stage, changed into our black suits with skinny black ties, came back out, and started pounding our way through the Knack album.

"We had the whole thing down pretty well," Alvin says. "We weren't as tight as we could have been on 'Monkey and Me' - it's got a bit of a weird stuttering rhythm to it. But we were pretty damn good from start to finish."

Simon points out, "One minor drawback was that the two hits on the album were at the close of the first side and the beginning of the second. This meant that the last five songs we performed were not as familiar to the audience. Still, most people remained until the very end."

Alvin adds, "They called for an encore, and we didn't have anything planned. Simon and I ended up swapping instruments, and we did 'Salt Peanuts'. It didn't fit in with the Knack stuff at all, but we were pretty much out of uptempo numbers."

Given the turnout and response, the owner of Riley's naturally asked us to repeat the gig the following Thursday. We chatted about it, and decided to give it a go. "It did mean contacting the three musicians we had scheduled for Cemented on that night," says Simon, "and politely asking if they would mind postponing a week. Thankfully, all three were most gracious about it."

We did decide that a few changes needed to be made. "Our Little Rocks set was longer than the Chipmunks set, which didn't make much sense," Alvin says. "So we tightened the Little Rocks set down to forty minutes. Then we had to find some uptempo pop-rock songs we could play after the Knack stuff."

I suggested two songs that Alvin and Simon agreed to right away: Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me"' and "I Wanna Be With You" by the Raspberries. And early the next morning, I camped out at the big record store not far from my place and started digging through their 45s. After listening for a couple hours, I managed to find two more good ones - "She's in Love With You" by Suzi Quatro, and Bram Tchaikovsky's "Girl of My Dreams". Also, a woman who worked with Simon who had sat through our first Knack show suggested "Girls Talk" by Dave Edmunds. Simon borrowed the 45 from her, and that quickly became our fifth addition to the set. "All five songs had a similar sort of feel," adds Alvin. "I don't know if 'power pop' was really a term back then. If it was, I hadn't heard it. But that was sort of our sound."

Our second "Get The 'Munk" show hadn't sold out by the time we arrived, but I seem to recall that it did sell out at some point over the course of the night. "The crowd may not have been larger for the second show," Simon says, "but it was assuredly louder and more animated. Perhaps it was because some of them had seen the previous show and knew what to expect, or perhaps our tweaks to the set encouraged them to be more boisterous."

Despite doing gangbusters two weeks in a row, Simon and I decided to go back to doing a Cemented gig the following Thursday. Instead of a power pop extravaganza, we gave the audience a mix of jazz and rock with Kenny, a violinist, and jazz trumpeter. Alvin says, "Yeah, I got it, sorta. You didn't want to burn people out on the Chipmunks-do-The-Knack idea, and there were Cemented fans who hadn't seen a gig in awhile. But I wasn't happy. For the first time since the Little Rocks days, I was really jazzed to be playing live, and now I didn't have a gig again for the next two weeks."

The next Monday morning, I was deep into a HalFlat project in my work room. I had gotten to a spot where I needed a tool, but I realized I had left my tool chest in the truck. I hated breaking my rhythm, but I really couldn't move ahead without it. Resigned, I started to head back outside to retrieve it, but I stopped in the living room. Alvin was just coming back from the kitchen, swigging a Coke.

"Could you help me out?" Alvin finished sipping his drink, then shrugged. "Can you go to my truck, and bring back the yellow tool chest in the front seat? Keys are there on the hook." Again, Alvin shrugged, and headed out. I went back to the work room, and immersed myself back into my project. When Alvin brought the tool chest up, I had him rummage around for the tool that I needed, then had him read me a measurement I had written down in my notebook. He did both of those things, and after I thanked him, he started flipping though my notebook.

"You've done a lot of these things."

I made something between a grin and a grimace. "That's my sixth book. Or seventh. I forget."

"Wow." He watched me saw a piece of wood, then asked "You need any more help?"

I paused and looked over at him. "Um...sure. Could you mark off 24 inches on these pieces?"

"Sure." He stepped over and grabbed the pencil.

"Make triple sure you have it right," I warned. "I don't have any wood to spare right now."

For the rest of the day, Alvin helped me out. He measured pieces, held things in place, or sanded the edges smooth. Other times, he just sat and chatted with me to help pass the time. He even went out and picked up our lunch, since he had already learned what my favorite sandwich at the deli was. And later that afternoon, after he had helped me load the parts and my tools into my truck, I convinced him to come along to help install the shelving. As we made our way there, I said, "Now I guess I'm gonna need to talk to Simon."

"What for?"

"To revamp the HalFlat finances. Gotta figure out how best to pay you as my assistant."

Alvin says now, "I swear - when I was helping you out at the beginning, I never once thought about you hiring me. And then when you actually offered me the job, I wasn't sure I wanted it. Not because I hated the work or anything. But...I don't know. It just felt weird, you know? Working for that kid I used to boss around. But I decided to give it a try, and I'm glad I did."

Simon agreed that all the "investment money" I had been sending to him could go towards paying Alvin, effective immediately. "I had over ten years worth of returns on that investment," Simon states. "Alvin at least was working for it, and I wanted to encourage his efforts as much as possible."

With Alvin on board as my assistant, I started getting through my projects faster. My calendar used to be perpetually full, but it finally started easing up. I could go see a show, or take an evening at the Dirty Rat with Alvin, without feeling guilty about it.

"I never did any of the heavy stuff," admits Alvin. "The planning, the heavy sawing, any of that. Maybe I would've started to if I'd been with you longer. But it was fun working with you. At least, I enjoyed working with you a lot more than I did going to the terminal at the end of every week."