King Cal - Softcover

McDade, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798989828371

Verlag: Trouser Press Books, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

Many novels set in the world of rock music depict stardom, debauchery and deceit. King Cal instead focuses on the creative process, the devotion required to choose an uncertain life in music, the inspiration for songwriting and the challenge of making the rent while making art.

In the course of one ordinary day, Atlanta fast-food worker Calvin loses his girlfriend, his band and his best friend. Suddenly, everything he had planned to spend the rest of his life doing seems to have flown away.

Told with insight, sensitivity and deep respect for what it takes to make a life in music, King Cal concerns a determined young man who starts with little, aims to earn a little more and has to decide whether success, or even clinging to his dream, is worth the sacrifice.

Praise for King Cal:
"When I am asked by parents of kids who are considering a life in popular music if I would recommend that path, I say that if their child can even imagine doing anything else with their life, they should do that. But if the kid can't conceive of any future but music, I urge them to offer encouragement. Now, I can just tell them to read this book."
—Elliot Easton, lead guitarist for the Cars and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

“Having lived through my own musical coming-of-age, I’m often dismayed by just how wrong most music-themed books get it. Not King Cal. This is one of the few novels about music that have felt utterly real to me. As the book wound its way to a deeply moving end, I was both desperately hoping it would all work out for our unlikely hero and thanking Pete McDade for getting it so right.”
—Dan Wilson, singer (Semisonic), songwriter ("Closing Time," "Not Ready to Make Nice," "Someone Like You"), Grammy-winner

“King Cal evocatively captures the challenges of music in the digital age, where a hit can go viral and change everything.”
—Ravi Howard, author of Driving the King and Like Trees, Walking

“A compelling exploration of friendship, identity and the healing power of music.”
—Christy Alexander Hallberg, author of Searching for Jimmy Page, host of Rock Is Lit podcast

“King Cal perfectly captures the life of a young musician navigating the challenges of relationships and pursuing his dreams. It’s engaging, funny and highly relatable, offering authentic glimpses into the mind of a songwriter.”
—Lindsay Murray (Gretchen’s Wheel)

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Peter McDade spent fifteen years traveling the highways of America as the drummer in the rock bands Uncle Green and 3 lb. Thrill, releasing a half-dozen albums on various major and independent labels. Raised in New Jersey, he now lives with his family in Atlanta, where he teaches at Clark Atlanta University. King Cal is his third novel.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14

6:00 a.m.

There’s always one waiting. Lights on, engine idling. Sometimes ten minutes early, sometimes five. Calvin studies this morning’s first car through the closed-circuit monitor above the register, wondering what the driver is thinking about: trying to understand how their life has gotten to the point of being willing to waste some of their finite time sitting in a car, waiting for the Burger Buddies reader board to light up? Or are they really just thinking they’re hungry, and this is the first place they found open, a modern hunter-gatherer waiting for a rabbit to hop into view? Even if he is ready early, Cal refuses to take that first order until the computer clock hits 6:00. There are rules in this universe that cannot be ignored.

“WelcometoBurgerBuddiesmayItakeyourorder.”

It used to be two sentences, or at least a long sentence with a comma in the middle, but it now comes out as a single word. In theory it’s a question, but Calvin stopped bothering to phrase it like that a long time ago. The people in their cars never listen anyway; on days when he was feeling especially rebellious, he spoke in gibberish, and the unseen customer always responded as if nothing was wrong. Everyone knows their role at the drive-thru, and everyone wants to think as little as possible while playing that role.

Today’s first order comes through slurred and rushed. Maybe because it’s 6:00 a.m., or maybe the guy is stoned or drunk, or maybe Calvin is so tired everything is going to sound fuzzy all day. After two-plus years and thousands of orders his brain can still understand just fine: “Sausagebiscuitnomakeittwoandacokeabigcoke.”

(Thousands of orders? Really? The accusatory inner voice that has haunted him since puberty, ready to pounce on any possible misstatement, lives on inside his head. But yes, after more than two years of working here full-time, it has to be thousands. That makes taking orders at Burger Buddies one of the things he has done the most in life, up there with days wasted in school and hours playing piano.)

Calvin gives the total and walks to the drink station. Pulls a large cup out of the dispenser on the wall, fills it with Coke, sets it on the counter and slides open the window. A red Volvo erratically stop-starts its way down the lane. When it finally arrives, window open and Pearl Jam blaring, the driver appears to be softly crying. Middle-aged; Buddy Holly glasses too small for his head; rumpled button-down shirt hanging loosely off his skinny frame. Oh, Sad Pearl Jam fan. You relate that much to poor Jeremy, or you just having a crappy day already? Two sausage biscuits are gonna make things better? A thousand calories gonna straighten things out for you?

Calvin hands Pearl Jam his Coke, takes a credit card, swipes and returns it, avoiding eye contact the whole time — not out of politeness, just a desire to not start the day by watching a stranger cry for any longer than he must. At least it’s something else he can add to his list of Things Seen in the Drive-Thru: couples fighting; couples making out; several men without pants; naked babies; more Confederate flags than he would have expected, even in Stone Mountain; more joints and open bottles than he could count. This is the fifth or sixth person he’s seen crying, but the first adult man.

Calvin’s been working the morning shift for over a year, opening up with Little Ron and Annie. Breakfast is slow enough that the three of them can manage until more people start clocking in at ten, though sometimes there’s a rush of customers that requires Big Ron, the morning manager, to reluctantly emerge from the safety of the back office. Annie, who runs the dining room register, has to be pushing fifty but her husband left her for their oldest daughter’s best friend, so she’s probably stuck at the job until she can retire — which seems like it’s never going to happen. Calvin’s done the math: how much money Annie could possibly be saving towards what she would need to survive, even in some tiny crappy apartment, divided by how many more years she’s likely to live. Little Ron looks to be around the same age, and while Calvin would never put up with being called “Little,” Ron seems like someone who spends his life avoiding any potential conflict.

He pops open a paper bag and heads down to the breakfast board to wait for Little Ron to make Sad Volvo’s biscuits. Crying alone in my Volvo, crying in front of someone I don’t know. The lines slide into his head; he puts them on repeat in his brain, slowing down and speeding up the syllables to see if the idea might fit on top of the music he wrote last night. How did I wind up here? Luckily, the music playing in the background at Burger Buddies does not interfere with the music in his head. It’s the kind of generic classic stuff usually heard in elevators, aside from one terrible month when they tried Top 40. Sales went down, and bland strings, easily ignored, returned.

“Sausage biscuits ready to roll,” Little Ron calls out, much too enthusiastically for 6:00 a.m. “That’s how you do it!”

Calvin wants to lean in close to Ron at moments like this, close enough to tell him, in a whisper no one else can hear, how ridiculous it is for a middle-aged man to be that self-satisfied at his ability to slice open two biscuits, stick a piece of sausage in the middle of each, and wrap them both up in thirty seconds. Instead, he says “Thank you” loudly, as if he means it, because the only thing worse than over-excited Little Ron is the Little Ron who gets sad because he feels unappreciated.

Calvin stuffs a napkin in the bag and hands it through the window. Sad Volvo, who has stopped crying at least, takes the bag and then just stares at it. Calvin has a flash of fear, imagining the guy turning to tell him some awful secret (my wife left me my mom died my kids hate me I don’t like who I am). But, after a moment, Sad Volvo shakes his head as if to wake himself, tosses the Burger Buddies bag on the passenger seat — already cluttered with bags from Hardee’s and Wendy’s and who knows where else — and loudly sucks some snot up into his nose before pulling away.

The drive-thru timer indicates the car sat at the window for fifty-seven seconds.

The time on the register: 6:02.

Only seven hours and fifty-eight minutes left until he clocks out.

Crying alone in my Volvo, even sadder because you’ll never know. My wife left me, my kids hate me, and I can’t remember who I am.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Trouser Press Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 13: 9798989828371
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 254
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Manufactured by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.de/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxemburg