Chapter 6: The Price of the Hammer
Michael wanted to start right away. The urgency he felt at the interface of the System was a fire in his chest, an urge to create that consumed him.
But reality was a smooth and impassable brick wall. I couldn't start, because I didn't have the equipment or the technical knowledge. His first and most mundane enemy was not a creative block, but his own empty bank account.
The next day, after school, he went out to look for a job. The experience was an exercise in pragmatism. His mind, accustomed to thinking about algorithms, now had to focus on filling out applications for minimum-wage positions.
He got a job at a fast food restaurant called "Burger Barn". The place smelled of old grease and cheap disinfectant. The manager, a middle-aged man with an expression of perpetual weariness, barely looked at his request. "You can start tomorrow," he said. And just like that, Michael got his first job.
The official title was "dishwasher," but he quickly learned that was just the beginning. The kitchen at the Burger Barn was a hell of heat, noise, and chaos. His stall was in the back, next to a dishwasher that spat out clouds of hot steam.
But his work was not limited to that. When there were no dishes, the cook, a burly man named Sal, would shout orders at him. They made him take out the dripping garbage bags, mop the sticky floor, and even clean the bathrooms.
In essence, he had become the slave of the kitchen. He did everything that no one else wanted to do. He learned to turn off his mind, to move in automatic mode, not to think about the humiliation he felt.
His companions were a group of older men and other boys who, like him, seemed trapped. Communication was minimal. But there was one place where a strange camaraderie was forming: the back alley.
On the ten-minute breaks, everyone went out to smoke among the dumpsters. On his second day, as he leaned against the wall, one of the older cooks handed him a cigarette without saying a word. Michael accepted it.
The taste of cheap tobacco was harsh, but the act of inhaling and exhaling slowly was a small oasis of calm in the midst of the chaos. Smoke filled their lungs, and for a moment, the smell of grease was replaced by something else.
He got into the habit of smoking. It was simply a way of spending ten minutes in relative silence. Soon, a pack of Marlboro cigars became a permanent fixture in his hoodie's pocket.
His life settled into a crushing and monotonous cycle.
The day to day was a gray movie. Get up at seven. Bathe in automatic mode. Eat a slice of toast standing up in the quiet kitchen. And then, go to school.
In class, I was a ghost. He would sit in the back row, with his hood on, his headphones inside, and pay no attention at all. He looked out the window or simply rested his head on the desk, waiting for the bell to ring.
After school, she sometimes had an hour to go home and change. Other times, I would go straight to work. And there, for six or seven hours, his world was reduced to heat, noise, and constant movement.
When his shift ended, around midnight, he would walk home under the orange light of the streetlights. There was no energy for tutorials, there was no inspiration for music. All that remained was the need to wash off the smell of frying and return home to sleep.
And the next day, the cycle began again.
A couple of weeks passed like this. The fire the System had lit felt far away, a dying ember under a mountain of ash. Every night, before he gave up, he would look at the thousand-dollar list he'd made on his phone. The figure seemed more unattainable than ever.
Each shift at the Burger Barn was a small step, but each day also robbed him of a piece of the energy and soul he would need when he finally arrived.
…..
After his shift at the Burger Barn, Michael would come home and silence would envelop him. Fatigue was a physical weight, a dull ache in his back and feet. But he was not allowed to rest.
Their nightly ritual began after a quick shower to wash away the smell of grease. He sat in front of the old family computer, the only light in the house was the brightness of the monitor. This was his second job, his true mission.
He dived into the depths of the internet, not to socialize, but to hunt. Craigslist, eBay, second-hand forums... became their territory. It was not a casual search; she was methodical, obsessive.
Its main target was the laptop. I typed "used MacBook Pro 2012" into the search engine and spent hours comparing prices, reviewing photos for dents, analyzing the specifications.
'8GB of RAM is the minimum', I thought. "The processor has to be at least an i5. Less than that and Ableton will be locked with three tracks.'
He quickly learned the language of second-hand sellers. "Little use" was a lie. "A few scratches" meant that it looked like it had been dragged along the asphalt. He became an expert at detecting scams.
Meanwhile, in another tab, I had the Ableton Live free trial open. I couldn't create much, but I could learn. I spent hours watching tutorials, with the volume turned down so as not to wake up the neighbors.
His mind absorbed the information. 'Okay, that's how you use a compressor. I need one of those.' He wrote down the name of the plugins in his notebook.
The list of his "arsenal" grew every night. The Rode NT1 microphone was a priority. He watched auctions on eBay, watching the price slowly rise, out of reach for now.
Then there were the hearing aids. Everyone was talking about the Beyerdynamics. He found a pair of used DT 990 Pros. The salesman said that one of the pads was worn.
'It doesn't matter,' he thought. 'As long as you hear it right.'
Added the link to your favorites. It was one more piece in the puzzle.
The nights would become blurry, a mix of YouTube tutorials, eBay pages, and the constant hum of the old computer. Often, he would fall asleep in the chair, waking up at 4 a.m. with his face marked by the keyboard.
He didn't feel sad or frustrated. I was too focused for that. It was a mission, a problem to be solved. Every dollar I earned at the restaurant had a purpose. Every hour he spent researching was an hour invested in his future.
He was building his arsenal, piece by piece, in the silence of the night, while the world slept, preparing for a war that only he knew was coming.
…..
Friday arrived, marking the end of his first two weeks at the Burger Barn. The manager handed him his pay in a thin envelope, a little greased by his own fingers. It was the first time he had received a check in this universe.
As he walked home, he held the envelope in his hand. It felt both insignificant and monumental. It was the result of almost eighty hours of exhausting work, of smelling of frying, of cleaning the dirt of others. But it was also the first stone. The beginning.
He did not feel euphoria. I was too tired for that. He felt only a quiet and cold curiosity to see the number, to know how far he had advanced in his mission.
He got home and went straight to the kitchen table. He didn't turn on the television or put on music. He emptied his backpack and pulled out a small stack of mail he'd been ignoring. It was the invoices.
He put the envelope of his pay in the center of the table. Next to him, he placed the others: the electricity bill, the water bill, the internet bill. They were the guardians of the door, the tolls he had to pay to continue living.
Carefully, he opened the Burger Barn envelope and pulled out the check. His eyes searched for the figure. Four hundred and fifty-three dollars and twelve cents. After taxes.
He stared at the number. In his head, it had sounded bigger. Eighty hours of his life, reduced to that figure. It felt... little.
With a sigh, he opened the electricity bill. Eighty dollars. That of water, fifty. That of the internet, sixty. The internet was non-negotiable; it was his only window to the world, his only school.
He pulled out his phone and opened the calculator.
$453.12
$80 (electricity)$50 (water)$60 (internet)
The total dropped to $263.12.
Then, the food. I had to eat to be able to work. A strict budget was assigned. A hundred dollars a week was too much. Fifty was very little. He decided on seventy-five. One hundred and fifty dollars for the next two weeks.
$150 (food)
The final number on his phone screen left him staring into space.
$113.12.
All that work, all that fatigue, the smell of grease that didn't leave his skin... all for one hundred and thirteen dollars.
He opened the notebook where he had his team list. Laptop (used, decent): ~$500.
He looked at the number on his phone. Then, the one with the notebook. At this rate, he would need almost five more payments, two and a half months of hellish work, just for the laptop. Not counting the microphone, headphones, interface...
He did not feel defeated. He didn't feel like giving up. He only felt the crushing weight of time. The mountain he had to climb was much higher than he had imagined.
He got up, went to his room, and came back with an old glass jar. He put the one hundred and thirteen dollars inside. The money barely covered the fund.
He put the jar on the kitchen counter, a visible reminder of his progress. It was a pathetic beginning. But it was a start.
That night, there were no Ableton tutorials. There was no bargain hunting on eBay. Burnout, now mixed with the cold reality of his financial situation, finally got the better of him. He went to bed at ten o'clock at night, knowing that in a few hours, the cycle would begin again.
…..
The next two months were a blur. The routine was engraved in his DNA: school, work, smoke, hunting, sleep. Repeat.
His hands constantly smelled of grease and disinfectant, a smell that didn't go away no matter how much he washed them. Dark circles became a permanent part of her face, two dark spots that betrayed the hours she stole from sleep.
But the glass jar on the kitchen counter was filling up. A crumpled five-dollar bill. A couple of ten-dollar bills. Slowly but surely, the pile of money grew, a tangible testament to their sacrifice.
Meanwhile, night hunting had become more specific. He was no longer sailing aimlessly. He had a goal. A 2014 MacBook Pro, 13-inch, with 8GB of RAM. It was the minimum I needed. He found one on Craigslist, posted by a guy named Kevin, a film student who needed money to upgrade his equipment.
After two and a half months, payday arrived. Michael went to the bank and cashed his check for cash. That night, in his room, he emptied the jar and counted all the money on his bed. Six hundred and twenty dollars. It was enough.
He wrote to Kevin. "I have the money. See you tomorrow?"
The address was the parking lot of a Starbucks across town. Michael arrived half an hour early, sitting on a nearby bench, watching. A part of him, the most cynical, hoped that it was a scam, that the guy wouldn't show up or that the laptop was broken.
Kevin arrived in an old Honda Civic. He was a skinny boy with glasses and a nervous expression. He looked as scared as Michael. They greeted each other with a clumsy shake of the head.
"Here it is," Kevin said, pulling the laptop out of a padded sleeve.
Michael took it. The cold metal felt solid in his hands. He inspected it with a seriousness that surprised Kevin. He turned it on. The apple logo lit up.
He checked that the charger worked. He checked every USB port. He looked for dead pixels on the screen. He opened several apps to test the speed of the processor. Kevin watched him in silence, clearly impressed by his thoroughness.
"It works well," Michael finally said, his tone neutral.
She counted the money and put it in the envelope that Kevin handed her. The exchange was made in silence. The envelope felt light when handed over. The laptop, on the other hand, weighed a ton.
"Thank you, brother," Kevin said, relieved.
Michael just nodded, closed the laptop, and put it in his backpack as if he were a newborn.
He didn't run home. He walked with a deliberate and careful step, aware of the treasure on his back. The bus ride felt eternal, each stop was torture.
When he finally got home and closed the door, he let out the air he didn't know he was containing. He went to his room and took the MacBook out of his backpack. He placed it in the center of his empty desk. He plugged it in and turned it on.
The white apple shone again, this time in the darkness of its own shrine. He did not open any music programs. He did nothing. He just stared at the shiny logo, the symbol of his first and hardest achievement.
After a long moment, he opened the browser. He typed "Ableton." The page appeared. I still didn't have the money for the microphone, or for the headphones, or for the license. But now he had the brain. He had the base.
A small smile, the first genuine one in a long time, appeared on his face. The mountain he had to climb was still immense, but tonight, for the first time, it felt a little less high.