Walking up to the dreary rows of storage cells that made up Kamloops Mega Storage, Kelly hesitated. Starcubism was supposed to be dead. By going here, he was just giving the guys false hope.
He thought back to Ferguson’s words back at the pizza parlor: “Moonbeam said you’d be back eventually.” Moonbeam had always been the one who didn’t quite fit in. The rest of the band had been from working-class families, but Moonbeam was Native American, and he always saw things a little bit differently. Sometimes it almost seemed like he had a prescience about him, as if he could grasp inklings of the future in the dreamcatcher of his mind.
Without realizing it, Kelly had approached the door to #237. Behind the metal, he could hear a few indistinct words, a few casual drum hits, a few carefree guitar chords. Again, he thought about just leaving the whole city, going back to Boston, and forgetting about this whole homecoming thing.
But that wasn’t fair to Conrad or Ferguson or Moonbeam. They needed the solace as much as Kelly did. Breathing deeply to steel himself, he knocked.
The door opened, revealing all the old gang: bassist Conrad, drummer Ichabod, and Native flutist/percussionist/chanter Moonbeam. Ferguson, the one who had opened the door, had his guitar around his neck, the same old red Ibanez. None of them looked all that surprised to see Kelly.
“I was right, was I not?” Moonbeam asked with a smile. “The Moog Man has returned to his ancestral home.”
“I have,” Kelly affirmed. “But you guys can put down those instruments, because I’m calling it quits. Ending it. Starcubism ended a long time ago, but now it will finally be put to rest.”
“We knew you’d say that. Ferguson warned us,” Ichabod said from behind his 40-piece drum kit. “But we thought you might change your mind when you see what we’ve gotten for you.”
Kelly noticed for the first time a tarp which covered an unknown object. “If it’s not a bus ticket back to Boston, I don’t want it,” he said testily, not wanting to draw out the already-painful process.
Ichabod reached over and yanked the covering off the object, revealing an instrument unmistakable to Kelly.
“A Moog Modular 55,” he gasped, hardly daring to believe his eyes. “The most sought-after synthesizer in the entire Moog catalog.” All thoughts of disbanding his band had disappeared from his mind, so awed he was by the synth. He had to play it.
“All right,” he said. “One more jam, for old time’s sake, and then I’m done.”
The other members of Starcubism smiled to each other as Kelly placed himself behind the ranks of keyboards. The Moog Man was back.