[writing] Galen Encounters The Doctor, Part ONE!
After playing this many shows since coming to the UK, Galen was positive that he knew the names of - or at least recognized - everyone on the tour crew. He made sure that he did, wherever they went; he wanted to know who they were working with — and besides, he felt that it was common courtesy. So, of course, Galen was fairly certain that the tall guy with the bow tie was in fact not a crew member.
With a couple of hours left until the show, the band had been at the venue for a while, now. Galen, bored out of his mind, had already left the bus and was milling around, offering to help where he could — and that’s when he first saw him. Galen didn’t think much of it, at first; the man was crouched behind an amp backstage, adjusting something, but as soon as he looked up, Galen noticed that he was completely unfamiliar.
The man went back to whatever he was doing, and Galen waited a moment, peering at him, before taking a few steps in his direction. It could have been nothing; just an extra pair of hands backstage, but he wanted to be sure. The guy looked pretty out of place.
“Hey, excuse me,” Galen started to say, startled by the emphatic “Yes!” of a reply he got when the words were barely out of his mouth. The guy didn’t look up, though, so focused was he on whatever was happening with the back of the amp. Whatever it was, the amp was giving off an annoying, shrill noise. Galen eyed it for a moment, shifted his weight, waited for the man to acknowledge him further.
He didn’t.
Galen ran a hand back through his hair, trying not to pay any attention to the ‘shit is weird’ vibe he was getting. “Have I seen you here before? Do you work here?”
“Oh, yes, yes, of course I do. Love the music business, me,” the man said absently, finally looking up from whatever the hell he was doing. The annoying noise stopped. Then the man stood up to his full height - several inches taller than Galen, dammit - , tucked something into his pants pocket and gave his red suspenders a stretch. Even if he wasn’t supposed to be in here doing weird things to amps, Galen had to respect a guy who could fearlessly sport the Hipster Professor look.
“I’m local, see. Tech support, electronics, all that,” the man continued dismissively, and Galen wasn’t sure whether to believe him. “Heard the Counter-Curse were in town! Big fan. So — sorry, sorry, I’m in the way, aren’t I? D’you — I dunno, need to start carting these amplifiers out? I’ve had a look, they’re all fine. Mostly all fine. Not sure about this one here.”
When Galen didn’t say anything, he made a face as if he were stopping the next outpouring of word-vomit, then slowly said: “You… are crew, aren’t you?”
Galen chewed on the inside of his mouth for a moment. It was decided: Bow tie guy was either some weirdo who had snuck in, or really dense. “I’m Galen.” Beat. “The singer of the band, dude,” he finally said, and the skepticism in his voice must have been obvious; bow tie guy looked very briefly stumped. “Can I see your pass?” Galen indicated the one he had threaded through his belt loop, and watched as the man fumbled around in his pockets.
“Let’s see… I know I took it out of my coat… ah-ha!” He grinned, producing an old leather card holder, and flipped it open in the direction of Galen’s face, stepping over the amp. “I’m the Doctor, tech support and repairs! I was called in to double-check all of your equipment for —”
“Uh,” Galen interrupted, leaning to the right so that he could see the Doctor behind the, er, ‘pass’. He pointed to it gingerly. “Sorry to be a bummer twice in a row, Doc, but there’s nothing on that paper.”
“What?” The Doctor flipped it around, brow furrowing, and looked like he was about to toss it behind him before deciding that that would actually be a bad idea. He tucked it into his back pocket, goofy expression quickly turning impatient — and then unreadable. “Oh, alright, you’ve got me,” he said hurriedly, looking past Galen, then pulling something else out of his pocket. “You can go on and call security and kick me out, but I need you to do something for me first, Galen.”
Man, that vibe was getting worse. “What?”
“I need you to duck, right… NOW!”
Galen didn’t think, as the Doctor’s hand flew towards his face; he just ducked. That annoying noise came back, above his head, and then there was a crash behind him, and the Doctor dashed by. Cursing loudly, Galen thought he’d just let some crazy-ass bow-tie-and-suspenders-and-word-vomit guy outsmart him, but when he turned around, the Doctor was still in the room. He was standing on one of the other amps, some glowing green flashlight thing - the source of the noise - aimed directly down at it. And it was sparking.
“What the hell?!”
“Galen!” The Doctor yelled, just as the amp sparked loudly. “Galen the American! You play baseball, don’t you?!”
Galen stared, dumbfounded, the only things in his immediate line of sight the Doctor’s ass and a dangerously sparking amplifier. “Wait — What? No!”
The Doctor craned his neck to look at him, grimacing like whatever he was doing with the noisy flashlight was taking a lot out of him. “What? That’s rubbish! Well — you do now! Get something you can hit with and get over here!”
Galen felt insane for following through so quickly, but he turned, scanning the small back room for something even remotely akin to a baseball bat (and offhandedly wondering why the hell no one else had heard this madness and come running, yet). All the mic stands had been taken out, already, so Galen grabbed a disused music stand that screamed high school band room and rushed as close as he dared to the Exploding Amp of Death. It was hard to think with all this noise, and Galen had to raise his voice: “Okay, what the hell am I doing?”
“When I count to three,” the Doctor called over the cacophony, “I’m going to lower the sonic screwdriver’s frequency, which will allow our little - aaaah - friend to hop out, and when that happens you need to knock him!”
“Knock him?”
“Yes, knock him! One, two —”
“Shit!”
“Three!”
PART TWO!