Ace's Basement by Ted Staunton

“Maybe when people hear it there, they’ll pay more attention.”
    â€œYeah,” Lisa says, “you’re right.” I tune up my sixth string, and then she says, “Would you do it again?”
    â€œWhat? Like, the video?”
    â€œYeah. But on purpose. Would you act stupid to get attention?”
    â€œWell,” I say, “Denny does it all the time.”
    Lisa rolls her eyes. “No, but say it was to get attention for another song?
    I guess I mean, was this worth it?” She sighs, and her shoulders slump. “Like, it did work out. But think about the last couple of days. Even busking was more fun before everyone wanted us to act silly. If that’s what you have to do to get people to listen, it’s pretty lame. In fact, it’s horrible.” Now Lisa plucks a string and checks her tuner. She looks down, then at me. She’s waiting for an answer.
    I say, “I don’t know. Maybe it would be okay if I thought people were laughing with me, not at me.”
    â€œHow would you know for sure?”
    That’s a tough question. I shrug.
    Lisa says, “I don’t know either. Maybe you couldn’t know. But what do you think? Would you do it?”
    Answers crowd my head. One of them is Nooooo. One of them is For a million dollars. The one that comes out is, “Maybe…with you.” The “with you” kind of trails off into a mumble though.
    Lisa smiles and does some more tuning. “One more,” she says. “Then I have to go. What should we do?”
    â€œâ€˜I’m A Believer . ’ We haven’t done that yet.”
    It’s an easy one, and people like it because they know it from Shrek . Lisa even does the accent the second time through, and I have a harmonica bit. When I open my eyes after my solo, guess who’s standing in front of me?
    As the song ends, Denny says, “Yo, don’t thank me, just throw money my way.” He’s looking in the guitar case as he says it.
    â€œHow about bricks?” I say.
    Denny doesn’t get it, as usual. His arms flap around. “I told you it would work! I told you a video would get your song out there! And now a million people know my name and style.”
    â€œAnd think that Lisa and I are nimrods. You left out that part, Den.”
    â€œC’mon, Ace. You win some, you lose some. Just be glad I check all the comments on my YouTube account. Do you think you could show that producer some of my other stuff?”
    Lisa doesn’t say anything. She puts her own guitar away. Now she scoops the money from my guitar case and puts it on top of hers. She kneels down to divide it up. I take down our sign and put Chuck’s guitar away. I remove the harp rack and tuck my pick in my pocket. “What other stuff?” I finally say to Denny.
    â€œWell, there’s the Doom Master footage from your place to work with, but what I’m really thinking is, we all do a follow-up. I’ve got this great idea. We need to make fake space suits and get helmets. Have you got a song that would go with that?”
    â€œNot yet,” I say. “All the rest of our songs are about zombies, but we’ll get right on it.”
    â€œYessss,” Denny says. “Zombies in space!”
    I don’t even try to answer. Lisa stands up. “In your dreams, Denny.” She hands me my money. It looks like quite a bit. I stuff it in my pocket to count later.
    â€œI’ve got to go,” she says to me, “or I won’t get to work on time.” To Denny she says, “Thanks for sending the message, Denny. Don’t thank your gal pals for us, ’kay? Later.”
    Lisa grabs her guitar case and heads off down the street. Denny calls, “Will do, Lee. Ciao !” Then he says to me, “Hey, want to see a movie Friday? Death Watch III is opening. My dad can drive.”
    â€œYeah, why n—” I start to say. Then I say,