"Yes or no?" shouted Slapsaw, crouched behind his drumset, his finger in one ear while his cell phone pressed against the other. Lara calmly explained to the audience that the next tune was inspired by the Shona people of Zimbabwe.

"Speak English!" shouted Mully on the other end, engine grease covering his hands and forearms and smearing his cell phone, the steering wheel, and what remained of his mechanic jumpsuit (costume closets come in handy sometimes). Lara told the crowd that "Musasa" means a type of forest, and the song the band was about to play contained a metaphor about spotting Rhinos in that forest.

"IS THE BUS WORKING?" screamed Slapsaw, as patiently as possible for someone who had to hang up and play music in public in three seconds, someone who felt the weight of the whole band staring at him, waiting to hear if we would make it to the Aspen Jazz Fest tomorrow, or if all our efforts had been for nothing, and we would spend what was supposed to be the highlight of our tour and careers so far thumbing rides to Denver, our musical dreams as tattered and frayed as the worn out rag we used to wipe the oil dipstick. Lara began plucking her mbira, then paused to bang one of the metal keys back in tune as the milling crowd fidgeted impatiently.

"YES! I'M DRIVING EAST TO THE VAIL PASS RIGHT NOW, MOTHERFUCKER!" barked Mully, and slammed the phone into the steering wheel, his exasperation and frustration at spending his day slithering beneath the engine block in a motel parking lot, heaving and yanking a new starter into place while the rest of his tribe had pizza and plied their trade one mountain valley away spilling over into palpable rage. Slapsaw grinned. "We're good", he signaled to the rest of the group, and the collective exhalation and release became a Cecil Taylor-esque spray of noise, the group communicating to the heavens above that it had purpose, meaning, worth in this Homeric journey after all, at least for another day. The audience, mystified, clapped lightly. Lara, looking around expectantly, kept playing.

And Slapsaw, as the downbeat clicked steadily closer, four, three, two, suddenly perked up. "Wait a minute" he thought to himself, "did he say east?"