Dear Friends,
I have such mixed emotions about this, but since I have introduced the stories I have been working on in the blog, I feel like I need to introduce "Rye's Above" in the same way. I've been laughing about this idea for a while and I've shared it with a few of you in conversation, so you may remember it.
To be honest, I have to say that Maine has been a great inspiration for writing. I've gotten a lot done and as work approaches quickly, I'm going to have to figure out how to portion my time to getting everything done that I need to get done. In addition to the blog, I've been doing a little freelance to help pay for fun stuff up here, so that's been keeping me busy, too.
Anyway, here is the first chapter of "Rye's Above."
*****
May 2, 1987
Two old friends are sitting and talking in a bar they have both been to well over a hundred times. Every city worth a plug nickel has a bar like this. Bars like this one are like a cat, really, because this bar and those like it have had at least nine lives.
These are not young alcoholics who are sitting and talking, but slightly older dudes who like to get together and check out a band or two from time to time. The bar they are sitting at has hosted more live shows than any other in their town and the friends have been on stage at time or two themselves. Sometimes even together, but that’s another story for another day.
Today they are talking about baking.
“It would be great and I’m going to do it. I swear.”
The word “swear” is somewhat elongated when Ben Cheney says it. The Michelob’s he’s been drinking are catching up a bit and he’s something of a lightweight, anyway.
“Explain to me again, though, why it has to be a two-story building,” asks his companion, Charles “Chuck” Whitney.
“Dude, because the name of the bakery is ‘Rye’s Above,’ that’s why. The rye has to be upstairs. I won’t have it any other way.”
Whitney looks at Cheney for a long time before he starts laughing.
“Okay. I totally get it. But… I didn’t know you baked. Do you bake? Like, can you even make rye bread?” asked Whitney with a level of sincerity that only a good friend could muster.
“I can bake bread, man. I mean, I know I can. I haven’t done it yet, but I can do it.”
“Well, I believe in you. When you make your first loaf of rye, I want a couple pieces. You know I love a turkey on rye.”
The band they had come to see, Rabid Rabbit, was getting ready to start, so they gave each other the “time to shut up” look and enjoyed the show. It was Rabid Rabbit’s record release party for their album, Technicolor Yawn, and Cheney was a big fan.
When the show ended, the two friends continued to drink for a while longer and talk about the performance they had just seen before they headed to their respective homes. For Chuck Whitney, the idea of a bakery named after a Black Flag pun made him giggle a bit, but once he started listening to the stupid Barry Manilow song that came on the oldies station, the thought was gone.
Ben Cheney, though, had found his purpose.
*****
At 29, Ben Cheney had led what some would call a fairly interesting life. He’d been playing in bands around Phoenix since he his mid-teens and even had a bit of success in the music business. He was a good songwriter, but for the most part, that had not paid any bills. People did like his tunes, though, and around 1983, requests for his songs started to trickle in from all over the place.
What Ben Cheney didn’t have going for him was rockstar looks. It’s not like he was ugly, but he wasn’t memorable. For some reason, he was always meeting people for the first time even though he had met them many times before. Even when he dyed his hair blue in 1984, people still seemed to look right past him and notice his bandmates, but never him.
At a party one night in ’85 or so, his buddy Mark’s younger brother, Teddy, explained it to him. Teddy might have been frying on acid at the time, which was common, but he shared that Ben Cheney had the type of face that the CIA guys would love.
“Dude, your face totally changes. The face I see now, it’s not the same as the last time I saw you. You have a magic face! The CIA recruits people like you all the time. I totally read about it and you should APPLY!!! There is a number you can call to get an application (true story, Ben checked it out).”
What Teddy had told him had kind of freaked him out for a while and he did do the research to find out that you could indeed call a number and have an application for the CIA sent to you. Ben Cheney did not call that number, but it stuck with him for a long time. He had a face that anyone could forget.
To pay his bills, Ben worked at a music shop called M.E.C. which was short for Musician’s Exchange Center. It was right next door to a lesbian bar called The Incognito where Ben would sometimes go for a quick beer after work. No one seemed to mind, in those days, that he was a male and not a lesbian and he made friends with one of the bartenders, Linda.
He told Linda about Teddy’s theory a few weeks after the party in question and it made her roar with laughter.
“You in the CIA?!? That’s awesome. Yes, totally. Go for it,” she had said while she grabbed him another long neck bottle of Budweiser.
Ben laughed it off but thought there was a hint of a jab there, too. For months, he thought he should probably just go for it and call the number. It was almost like he was being dared by the universe. Time passed and the CIA became a fun story he would share with friends.
He even wrote a song about it for his band, Smug Number 8, called “CIA Face.”
Smug Number 8 was kind of a punk-ish, power pop thing with a certain Minnesota tinge to it. Imagine The Replacements and Hüsker Dü if they had a very polished baby. Most of the time when they played, people would say, “you guys sound like somebody but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
There were not a lot of true Hüsker Dü and Replacements fans in Phoenix in those days unless you were hanging out with the Nova Boys crew.
*****
CIA Face by Ben Cheney
Pleased to meet you
I’ve forgotten your name
Pleased to meet you
It’s the same, it hasn’t changed.
Didn’t I meet you in the summer
Bummer, I don’t remember it at all
Didn’t I meet you in the summer
Bummer, I don’t remember you being that tall
You’ve got a CIA face
You’re the man we can replace
You’ve got a CIA face
Prepared to scare the shit out of the human race
Pleased to meet you again
Please don’t kidnap my friend
Please don’t kill me, you wouldn’t, you couldn’t
Please don’t tell me your name
You’ve got a CIA face
You’re the man we can replace
You’ve got a CIA face
Prepared to scare the shit out of the human race
Faces change and rearrange
Places stay the same
Faces change and rearrange
No one remembers the CIA man’s name
You’ve got a CIA face
You’re the man we can replace
You’ve got a CIA face
Prepared to scare the shit out of the human race
*****
As he walked home from the Mason Jar on May 2, 1987, Ben Cheney kept turning what had been a funny thought, a “lark” as his grandmother would say, over and over in his mind. Why couldn’t you have a bakery named after his favorite Black Flag song, he thought. Even if no one got it, it would be the best thing ever. You just had to have great products.
As he turned north onto 24th street towards his apartment, he was completely lost in thought. Rye’s Above is a great name. It kept traveling through his mind like an electric shock. He could see the sign on the front of the building. Four loaves of bread arranged like the Black Flag logo. Stickers, t-shirts… he would have it all.
He was so lost in his reverie that he didn’t even consider that Greg Ginn, the guitar player, founding member, and only person still hanging onto Black Flag with a death grip in 1987, would probably sue him. He just walked and smiled and even made himself laugh out loud when he considered that the donut section could be called, “Police Story.”
“A Black Flag bakery,” shouted Ben to no one in particular. It was after midnight on a very early Sunday morning and when he decided nothing was going to stop him.
*****
See you tomorrow.
This loaf looks really good.