CHAPTER 7: SUMMER HOLIDAYS

Now that final exams were over for all students in the Sultanate of Oman, and Don and Shelly had their yearly leave of two months, the family was planning a trip.

Despite what had taken place among them, George and Sally still had a deep respect for Don and Shelly, so George and Sally decided to invite them over to their house. They had a good meal together and had a good time talking. Don and Shelly never mentioned the incident from the last party, but George brought it up, saying that he and his wife were extremely sorry for the way they behaved. Don and Shelly responded in love and forgave them.

They decided to plan a trip with their friends to Salalah, about 620 miles from where they lived. All their friends were to go only on the condition that they could bring kids along, and there would not be any sort of drinking or smoking. The gang of friends agreed to this because they did not want any uncomfortable situations arising.

The day before they were leaving for the trip, Don left Rookie with a neighbor to be looked after till they were back, jokingly saying, "Please take good care of my son."

Early the next morning, the whole gang was up and ready. They piled into a luxury twenty-seater rented bus and were off to Wadi Darbat, the place of mountains and springs. They spent their days going on picnics, singing songs with guitars and djembe, having fun in the water and going on treks through nature. In the evenings, they barbecued fish and other meats like quail, ram, beef, and camel meat, and ended with bonfires.

Next, they went to Ain Garziz and visited a beautiful, secret beach, where they swam, rented boats, and checked out ancient palace ruins. They even visited the tomb of Job, whom Jay remembered reading about in the Primus Script—the man who had a cascade of tragedies and still survived because he trusted in the Emperor. They continued their trip with more touring, trekking, barbequing the mutton available from local area shepherds, and swimming in the freshwater streams.

During the trip, Jay was asked to shoot some rap lines. He remembered his time on Route Number Seven, and he came up with some great lines. This time, he did not use any bad language, but he was making his rap more positive and meaningful. He made a lot of fans instantly because he had quite a presence when he performed.

The vacation was much needed for the city dwellers, whose lives revolved around highway flyovers and endless roads in a concrete jungle. None of them had seen streams, mountains, and valleys in a long time. The air was clean here and they saw lots of wildlife, including iguanas, wild goats, a few oryx, and different kinds of birds.

Jay and his friends had a good two and a half weeks of vacationing, and now he wanted to get back to his city and into his music. His body ached, and he and the wild gang of kids were dead tired from the many games played, even though they had slept for a good eight hours every night. It was time to leave, so they packed all the bags and equipment and drove back home to Al Khuwair.

The very next morning after reaching home, the phone rang at Jay's house. It was Mr. Sherwood. He wanted a few of his favorite students to perform in some musical events, and Jay was one of them. Jay had a shower and rushed to get ready. By 9:00 a.m., he was at Mr. Sherwood's house.

Mr. Sherwood was a good, kind man. He knew Logwood High had tried to kill the spirit of his best students, so he had an alternative. He opened his house for those musically inclined students to come in so he could teach them different instruments and vocals.

Mr. Sherwood was not the typical music teacher. He encouraged the students to watch musicals. He gave each of the students a list of musical movies that would give them an ear for music, such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Annie, Oliver!, and Grease.

Jay wanted to train more on his vocals and to take guitar lessons. He began to do vocal exercises with Mr. Sherwood. By this time, Jay's voice had stopped cracking from puberty, but Mr. Sherwood noticed that Jay could still hit high notes.

Jay spent a lot of his free time with his Walkman, listening to his favourite genres classic rock, blues, power ballads, rock 'n' roll, and others. He listened to many artists in different genres—pop artists like Ace of Base, Backstreet Boys, All-4-One, Michael Jackson, and *NSYNC; classic rock acts like White Lion, Damn Yankees, 4 Non-Blondes; reggae acts like Big Mountain and UB40; and rap artists like Snow. His dad also had videos of different rock bands, and Jay would watch them. He saw the way the lead singer would perform onstage, and he would mimic it at home. He began to imbibe these styles and combine them into his own singing style. Since he had a great ear for music, he also began to mix these influences to compose his own songs.

Jay also knew that if he wanted to begin performing in professional venues, he needed to work on his vocal stamina and his endurance for running around onstage. So he woke up early every day, put on his jogging shoes and hit the gym. He would do some rounds of pushups and pull-ups. He was working on his cardio so that he would be able to perform better. But it only lasted a month before he got bored of the routine, so he started to run around the block of his home. Jay stuck to a prescribed diet for himself .

Even after the lessons with Mr. Sherwood were over, Jay continued to work on his vocal scales and singing technique. He also worked on his rap lines and learned many new vocabulary words to improve his freestyle. He was able to cover most of the popular songs he knew.

At this time, Don's friend Timmy had a brother who was in the last stages of cancer, and Timmy wanted to do a fundraiser concert at a club. He asked Jay to sing, and so he did. Jay's performance was well-appreciated and helped to build his confidence on the stage. All the lights and cheering didn't distract him from singing well.

Jay wanted to form a band. It was the mid-'90s and rap music was becoming more popular than ever. He also liked the hair metal bands and their leather jackets, the power vocal delivery and extreme stage presence. He also wanted to study music, but he wasn't into notations and didn't understand theory.

Jay started to wonder, "Okay, once I am done with the holidays, what course am I going to do? What about the next phase of my life?"

One day, the Central Board Exams results were out. Jay had passed, and he, his family, and Logwood High rejoiced. Jay was so very grateful to the Emperor for this triumph.

Don and Shelly asked their friends about the courses of study that were available at pre-university level. They found out that for the rest of society, parents pushed their children into what they thought was best. Since Jay wasn't showing aptitude in engineering, medicine, or law, Don and Shelly thought commerce would be the right choice. They told Jay that would be it.

So Jay blindly took up commerce as his pre-university program at a school quite far away from Logwood High.

The two years in pre-university flew as he was singing in randomly formed groups, acting in plays, and also worked a part-time job as an anchor of a local television channel. He managed to pass all his exams during pre-university, and then it was time to move on.