“Shizknit plays at that stage.” She pointed. “We should get here super early and stake out a spot.”
It was a field, if I haven’t mentioned that. There weren’t seats or anything, just grass. “How super early?”
“Like maybe four or five.”
“AM or PM?”
“AM.”
I gave her a What’chu talkin’ ’bout, Willis? look. “That’s pretty early. How about we just enjoy the show?”
She looked annoyed. “We will enjoy the show if we can get a good spot.”
“Yeah, I get that. But if we’re too asleep to enjoy it…”
“Last year I was with this guy Tommy and he was all hung over, and by the time we got into the show all the good spots were taken and we had to hang out by the porta potties.”
I nodded. “I get that. I totally get it. But if we overdo this, it will be just as bad, but the other way. You know?”
Her face reddened and she refused to answer me, maybe because she knew I was at least a little bit right. She stared at the field and then tugged on the fence.
“What are you doing?” I looked around expecting, I don’t know, ninjas maybe.
“I want to check it out.” She started trying to scale the chain-link.
“Let’s go…do something else. I think there are people over there.” They might’ve been squirrels, though I wasn’t going to mention that.
She jumped and struggled until she could grab the top of the fence and tried to pull herself up, but her shoes slid on the fencing. She turned to me. “Maybe we can meet the band.” Her smile was best described as devil-may-care, but I cared.
“The band’s probably not here yet.”
“Well then, we can meet some roadies.”
That didn’t seem like much of a plan. I had visions of high school stoners plus twenty years. “Why?”
“Why does there always have to be a reason? It’ll be fun. That’s the reason.”
I was stunned for a moment until I realized she was talking to herself more than to me. I looked at the squiggles of people who probably weren’t squirrels over by the stage. They didn’t seem to have noticed us, but it was hard to tell.
“Come on,” she said. “We can either climb this fence, or we can go back to the campground and swat flies. It’ll be a story to tell.”
“You make a convincing case,” I said. “What if we get arrested or something?”
She shrugged. “We’ll still have a story to tell.”
I wanted to say I had lots of stories to tell, but the fact was, I couldn’t actually talk about most of the stuff I’d done without people looking at me like I was fruit loops.
The squiggles were still at work unloading the trucks and setting up the stages, I assumed. “What if a gang of bikers rapes us?”
She dug a can of mace out of her back pocket. “Any other stalls?”
“Not really.”
She turned back to the fence. “Give me a hand.”
I pushed her up to the top. She straddled it and reached down to pull me up. She hopped down, rolling when she hit the ground. It was graceful and beautiful. I tried to do the same, but my shoe got caught in the fence so that I swung down and landed on my face.
“Are you OK?” Emily asked.
“Mmph,” I said, through a mouthful of grass and dirt. When the pain passed, I appreciated that she hadn’t laughed; there had been real concern in her voice. I lifted myself up on my hands and knees and stumbled to my feet. She helped brush me off.
“Here.” She licked her finger and wiped it on my cheek.
“Dude!” I pushed her away.
“You had some schmootz.”
I batted the rest of the dirt and grass off my jeans.
“You need a minute?” She smirked at me.
“I need a couple hours, but let’s go.”
I limped toward the nearest stage.
* * *
We went around the side of the truck. There were mostly burly guys, mostly with rock shirts on, mostly with beards and tattoos, unloading the truck and carting equipment to the stage. I glanced at Emily who kept looking from guy to guy, instrument to instrument. I think she was at a loss what to do now. The guys ignored us, probably since we were out of the way.
“Come on,” Emily said.
She led me past the truck and to the front of the stage. We could see the setup better here. The drums with the Shizknit logo were already up, and some guys were bringing out the guitars and bass.
“Wow,” I said.
The stage itself was at about our chin level and surrounded by a metal frame. Speakers hung on the sides and a roof covered the top. In the back, behind the drum set, a banner with the festival name—Wollyballoo—dangled over a wall. An eighteen-wheeler with Shizknit’s logo painted on it sat by the stage. Emily squealed like a…well, a college girl, I guess, though that doesn’t mean I approve of the stereotype.
The truck seemed to be just about unloaded, because they weren’t bringing much more out. The stage was set up. We watched the guys tune and then another guy came out and tested the mics.
I was happy to watch the setup, but I guess Emily figured since we’d come that far…
“We should sneak around back,” she said.
I looked at Emily, wide-eyed. Before we could decide what to do though, Shizknit walked out from behind the back wall.
There were three of them. Maybe this will sound strange, but one of my favorite things about Shizknit was that they looked like real people. Some bands look like models—not that they’re hot, but that they look fake. Shizknit didn’t look fake. They were all young, maybe twenty-something, all fit, though the singer was thinner with blond hair and a cocky grin that made me think he was probably a jerk, while the drummer and bass player were more heavyset with brown hair—the drummer looked like a bruiser, while the bass player just looked like a normal guy. They all wore casual clothes that made me think of skateboarding: long shorts or jeans, T-shirts with band logos, Keds or tennis shoes.
Bevan, the drummer, went to his drum set and fiddled with something. Can you tune a drum set? Maybe that’s what he was doing. C Note, the guitarist and main singer, started messing around with his monitor. The bass player, Quasi, was coming up to the front of the stage to adjust the monitors when he saw us standing there. He looked at us and then back toward C Note and then back to us again.
“Hi?” he said, more a question than a greeting.
“Sorry,” I said, trying my best don’t kick us out smile.
“Hi.” Emily beamed like LED Christmas lights.
C Note came over wearing his guitar.
“What’s this?” He refused to make eye contact with us and just spoke to Quasi like it was his fault we were there.
“Stowaways?” Quasi said.
“Are you guys about to practice?” I asked.
C Note looked around, I figured for security. “Trying to.”
I held up my hands. “Hey, we’ll be cool.”
“We’re totally cool,” Emily said with just a hint of flirt in it. “We won’t say a word. Just please don’t kick us out.”
Bevan came up from tinkering with his drums.
“Stowaways,” C Note told him. “Do we have any security here yet?”
“Just let them listen.” Quasi put a hand on C Note’s arm. They both glanced at Bevan who shrugged.
“Whatever.” C Note stalked over to his guitar.
Quasi smiled at us. “You can’t laugh if we sound like shit, though, all right? This is just a sound check. And, you know, don’t record it or anything.”
We both nodded and generally acted like idiots. I may have given him a thumbs-up. Quasi scooted over to the sullen C Note and picked up his bass, and Bevan went back to his drum set.
“He’s barefoot.” Emily pointed at C Note.
“Cool!”
She was so happy it was contagious.
* * *
They messed around, talking and testing levels for a
while, and then started playing around with some riffs. They had a shorthand of mostly visual communication between them. They’d play for a bit, and then one of them would nod or grunt and they’d switch up tempos or keys or just stop. If you weren’t really looking, you probably wouldn’t notice it. I guess they’d developed it over the years of playing together. This warm-up went on for a couple minutes.
“Everybody good?” C Note asked. There were two yeahs. “Let’s do it, then.”
That’s when Shiz got real. C Note started hard and fast, and the band laid down a tight jam for the next hour and a half, pausing only for a moment between each song to tune or discuss something about the song. A couple of the songs they played more than once because one of them would point out something he didn’t like about the previous performance. Through all this, Emily was rapt. I was having a hell of a time myself. After they’d played through their set and let the last chord die down, we were both nearly deaf, but we grinned at each other and didn’t even try to speak.
“Sounds good.” C Note played a little solo. “Let’s run through some new stuff.”
For the next half hour, they played new songs. I thought Emily was going to die. She kept grabbing my hand and squeezing it. Some of the songs were nearly complete, but as they played more and more, they progressed to half-formed ones. The last song they played was only a couple riffs without lyrics. They kept playing them, though, and improvised based on those riffs. After they’d jammed on this for about ten more minutes, they stopped and compared notes. Each member picked out riffs they liked, and they put them together and tightened it up until it resembled a full song.
“Anybody got any lyrics?” C Note asked.
Quasi said he had part of a verse, so they played it again with him singing, and then C Note added more lyrics to it. C Note had a little notepad in his pocket, and he jotted down notes while Quasi and Bevan continued to play.
“They’re writing a song,” I yelled. “Right in front of us.”
“What?”
I pointed to the stage and mimicked writing and then playing. Emily said something back.
“What?” I yelled.
She pulled my head to her mouth and screamed in my ear, “I know!”
As they jammed on new stuff—and this was the cool thing—we suddenly weren’t watching alone anymore. I’d noticed a couple buses pulling up as Shizknit played, but I hadn’t put it together that other bands were arriving until they started trickling out to watch with us. A crowd of maybe thirty or forty people had formed. Some were roadies and backstage support staff, but quite a few I recognized from videos and, I’ll admit, tabloids. They were cool, though. I mean, they mostly watched in little groups, but what I guess stood out was that we were cool—as in, we didn’t start mobbing them or anything—and they seemed totally at ease, as though they knew we weren’t going to mob them. I locked eyes with a couple pretty famous folks from bands with ridiculously silly names, and they nodded or smiled or whatever, and got back to watching the show.
Emily was so giddy, I was afraid she might evaporate into a beam of light. It was awesome, sharing in her joy like that. I felt like we were really bonding, even though neither of us could hear.
* * *
We watched Shizknit play for around two and a half hours with their set and the new songs. When it was over, C Note and Bevan started packing up their instruments. Quasi came over to us. Most of the crowd had thinned out.
“That was so awesome.” Emily jumped up and down in place.
“Thanks for letting us stay,” I added. “Looks like you gained some more fans.”
He glanced out at what was left of the crowd and exchanged a couple nods. “No problem. We play better with an audience, anyway.”
Emily and I both grinned. By the way she was eying him, I could tell she was about to throw herself at him, but I could also tell that he wasn’t really into that. He was kind of bashful, actually. I liked that he was shy, even though I didn’t know if I was into the rock and roll lifestyle.
“You guys are good,” Emily said.
Quasi laughed. “We’re OK.”
“No, you’re really good. I even love your B-sides. You guys put on a good show.” He winced. I nudged her, and when she looked at me, I shook my head.
“So are you guys from here?” he asked. “Um, wherever this is. Small town, Virginia?”
“No, we came down from Baltimore,” I said.
He jerked back in surprise. “Wow! That’s far.” Now it was our turn to be embarrassed. “Where are you guys staying?”
“We’re camping,” I said.
“Cool.”
Things were settling into possible awkwardness until Emily produced her phone. “Can we get a picture?”
“Sure.” He pulled us up to the stage. Some other rockers had climbed up on stage and were chatting with C Note and Bevan. “C Note! Bevan,” Quasi called.
They came over. I thought C Note wouldn’t do it, but they all posed with us and one of the roadies took a couple pictures.
“Thank you, guys,” I said. “This is like the experience of a lifetime.”
Quasi laughed again. “We’re just a band, man. No big deal. We’re just people.”
“Speak for yourself,” C Note said.
“That’s true,” Quasi said. “You’re barely human.”
“Exactly,” C Note said.
“He wears designer underwear,” Quasi said. “That’s how you know.”
“Cool,” Emily said, smiling like her face might split in half.
CHAPTER TWO
We grinned and giggled and gossiped like little girls all the way back, sharing notes about the band and the other musicians we’d seen, Emily driving about twenty miles an hour as cars passed us and a few honked. We didn’t even stop to breathe.
“Did you see the bass player from Grilled Hair? He had a pink Mohawk.” Emily was talking about as fast as a hummingbird on speed.
I searched my memory. “Was he with the guy from Blotto?”
“Yeah, with the chicks from Schemy Nix and Hate Hate Hooray! and, uh, who’s that band that sings ‘Secret Sauce?’”
“Prodigal Sump-Pump?”
“Yeah. I like them.”
“I’ve only heard that single, ‘Ass Shuffle.’ But it’s pretty good.”
“You should download the album. It’s tight.”
“The guy from Khaki Brigade was really tall.”
“I know! And when he came over by us? Did you notice…?”
“He smelled like mothballs?” We both laughed.
“I thought it was just me,” I said.
“No way. He stank like Gramma’s closet.”
“You know, it’s funny. They look like college kids. I mean, not preppie kids, but I couldn’t pick them out of a lineup, like at a campus event or something.”
“Except the dude who smells like mothballs.”
“No wonder he’s so angry.” We laughed again.
It took us about twice as long to get back to the campsite as it had to get to the festival site. The site closest to us was occupied by a couple guys when we got back. Instead of parking alongside the spot, they’d backed right up to it and had the hatchback open. One of them was sitting in the back of the car while the other got a fire going. The acrid smell of weed smoke wafted over to us, and we could hear snatches of their conversation.
“Man, I’m going to go in those woods and find me a bigfoot,” the tailgate sitter was saying.
“Yeah?” The other stoked the fire.
“Yeah, and then I’m going to get fucked up with him. ’Cause bigfoots have the best weed, man!” This was followed by cackling laughter from both of them.
I was thinking it would be a trial to put up with these guys, but at least we didn’t have to talk to them, when Emily popped out of the tent, grabbed me, and dragged me over to them.
“Hey guys.” She threw her arms around the fire-starter, who was the thinner of the two. It seemed a fairly persona
l hug, but then she gave an equally squeezy one to the pothead. “When did you guys get here?”
“Just now,” Fire-starter said. “We were looking for you.”
“We were scouting out the site.” She grinned like the Cheshire Cat.
“Yeah?” Fire-starter said.
“We totally met—” I started to say, but Emily put her hand on my arm.
“A roadie. We met a roadie. He chased us away.”
I glanced at her, but she seemed to know what she was doing, so I went with it.
“Yeah. It was cool, though.”
“So, uh,” Emily said. “This is my friend Daisy.”
“Todd.” Fire-starter held out a hand. I tried to shake it, but he slapped my hand instead. One of those.
“Davis.” The pothead didn’t even offer to shake hands, just waved. He was a big boy who looked like he worked out all the time, when he wasn’t smoking pot.
I looked at Emily. “They come out every year too,” she said. “You really get to know folks.”
“That’s kind of cool,” I said.
* * *
We all decided to go get something to eat, so we found the nearest buffet place, since the guys were so high they preferred the shovel-it-in approach. I could barely sit still after meeting the band even though I very quickly got over pothead humor.
We had to wait a half hour to get two tiny tables because the restaurant was so packed with other festival goers. One section was separated by ropes from the rest of the restaurant, and a bunch of people back there were getting kind of raucous. I avoided even looking back there until I saw Quasi walk over to the buffet. I nudged Emily—whose mouth fell open—and went right up beside him at the fried chicken bar.
“That stuff’s bad for you,” I said.
He did a double take. “Hey, the trespasser.”
I offered my hand. “Daisy.”
“Quasi.” He shook it like a normal person.
“For real?”
He nodded. “Had it legally changed.”
Tall, Dark and Hairy (The Necro-Files Book 3) Page 3