by Fox J Wilde
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I…I just…”
“Some tour manager you are.” she responded, crossing her arms and pouting, “Now what are we going to do?! Our guitarist just ran off! We need to bring him back before we can check in!”
“How the hell are we going to do that?!” Vortecx interjected, “Look at him? He’s going crazy!”
Indeed, the wild Jakob did seem to be going crazy. He ran all over the parking lot, losing clothing as quickly as he seemed to be losing his mind, and flailing his arms about. He ran up to stranger after stranger, shouting obscenities and laughing raucously, before rocketing off into the distance. A few moments later and Jakob was nowhere to be seen.
“We have to go after him, Lena!” Vivika shouted, as she began opening a side door to step out.
“We can’t leave yet!” Lena cried, “We still have to check in, load our gear, and then…and then...”
Oh this was insufferable. Their first real show that just happened to be in the West, and also just happened to be the biggest show of their life, and Jakob had already taken major steps to ruining it all. Especially if he wound up arrested, or murdered, or…or…I mean, whatever else could befall a drunken guitar player from a foreign country. And Victor had been so uncharacteristically unhelpful. What in the world was the matter with him?!
“Oh, don’t worry about it, ma’am.” Victor spoke up quietly, as if reading Lena’s mind, “There’s always a way to make things work.”
He spoke with a note of stress in his voice, like a young man far out of his natural habitat. He sounded unsure of himself, as if his last statement was more of a hope than a certainty. And yet, when Lena turned her head to glare profusely at him, she could swear that she saw him wink at her.
Oh, this evening was just a disaster. What had only started with Jakob running off continued on into a flurry of misunderstandings and mistakes. As bad as those had been, they had culminated in a fate nearly worse than death: Nicht Zustimmen likely wouldn’t be playing tonight—in no small part due to Victor’s newfound inability to make friends with anyone. Sadly, this newfound ability was even less helpful in making friends with the show’s promoter: someone a new band really wanted to be friends with.
“You know who this is, right?!” Victor howled at the promoter, after finding out that Nicht Zustimmen’s set was getting cut two songs short so that The Dead Weights could play longer.
The cramped hallways and storage rooms between the loading bay and the performance hall were full of movement and conversation. Band members and roadies alike moved through each other like streams of water colliding, equal parts intoxicated, recalcitrant youth, and heavy amplifiers. Perhaps this wasn’t the best place for a shouting match; especially in front of the other opening bands. Yet Victor didn’t seem to be picking up on that one bit. He just hollered away at the promoter, who was a seven-foot, stooping, long-haired skeleton who looked like he used to run marathons before picking up a speedball addiction.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” the promoter brushed it off.
“This is the Mad Bunny! That’s right! This woman right here! You know the one you hear about on the radio?!”
“Look pal,” the promoter responded apathetically, “I get hundreds of people like you through here a month. You all think you got some big break after finding out that you’re on a bill with a decent headliner, but in two weeks all your bands break up. Then it’s your new crappy band wanting to play a month later. So just take what you have, and get your act together for sound-check. Alright?”
“But it’s the Mad Bunny!” Victor insisted.
Lena had to admit that it was getting really annoying both hearing her nickname incessantly thrown around, and watching ‘Victor the undercover intelligence agent’ fail at diplomacy with a coke-head.
“Read my lips, pal!” the promoter shouted back, “I don’t care who it is! Some punk twat made it over the wall? Big deal! I get kids in here like that all the time, all with the same fake story. Go find someone else to bother.”
“But…but sir!” Victor yelled after him.
“Three songs!” the promoter yelled back as he lumbered away, “Three songs cut!”
“Damnit, damnit, damnit, damnit!” Victor shouted, as he punched a nearby wall, “The nerve of these people!”
“Victor!” Lena shouted at him, “What in the world has gotten into you?!”
And that’s when the worst thing happened...oh, this was just too much. The hallway, furiously a-bustle with musicians and roadies, came grinding to an awkward halt to stare at the two of them. Lena couldn’t place anyone from her quick, awkward glances about the room, but she instinctively knew that at least someone from The Dead Weights was watching her and Victor make a scene. She simply had to rope this in before they lost what little credibility they still had left. Unfortunately, Victor beat her to it.
“Stop yelling at me!” he gestured pathetically at her, “I’m doing the best I can, ok?! First your guitarist completely bails on you, and now this! I don’t know how to fix this!”
“B-but…but...” Lena stuttered, “You’re our tour manager! It’s your job to know how to fix situations like this!”
“I know but…b-but…I just...”
Oh, it was utterly infuriating seeing Patrick like this. And in front of everyone?! Simply everyone had paused to watch him break down in front of her, and it wasn’t even the ‘amused’ sort of watching—it was the awkward, ‘I-wish-I-hadn’t-seen-this’-sort. It took everything she had to keep using his pretend name. Whatever damage he had already caused, it didn’t bode well to create even more trouble.
“Just what, Victor?! Just what?!”
“I’m s-sorry…” he pleaded and stuttered, crying openly, “I just…I just need a moment...”
With that, Patrick (err, Victor) stumbled out of the hallway, out of the loading dock and into the night, leaving Lena to stare at everyone.
“What in the hell are you all looking at?!” she yelled at them all.
Sensing her feelings on the matter, the room went back to its previous shuffle, allowing the din of conversation to drown out the heat of awkward air that still fogged up the place. Yet she didn’t feel the slightest bit better. The night hadn’t even begun, and far more than it had been ruined. Not only was her show shot to pieces; not only would she have to break the hearts of her remaining band-mates; and not only was her view of Patrick irreparably damaged; but what would Grandfather do now that everything was ruined?!
That’s when she began to cry, which is quite possibly the most useless thing that a punk-rock princess could do for her image. Honestly, she couldn’t have cared less at that particular moment. The entire world had let her down furiously, and she didn’t really care who knew it at this point, “They can all be damned!” she yelled inside her head as she stamped out of the hallway and into the loading dock. She had every intention of finding some hole or alleyway to crawl into for as long as it took for the world to spontaneously right itself.
Lena sat against a particularly nondescript section of wall, hoping that the dark of night would obscure her. The darkness would have been overkill, however. There were hundreds of drunken patrons, roadies, and otherwise scrambling about, far too busy with their little lives to cue up on some sobbing young wretch who had probably drank too much. As far as most passersby were concerned, she had likely just broken up with a boyfriend, or perhaps some other story just as uninteresting and female as that.
She smoked, desperately trying to calm her nerves to no avail. But what good would that have done? Eventually, she would have to face the music, and she wasn’t the least bit prepared for that. So, she just sat, wallowing in self-pity for minutes or hours. At this point, the specific amount of time didn’t matter. Her life was absolutely ruined, and she would hide here against this stained bit of wall until that changed.
“Anyone
sitting here?” a young man’s strangely-accented voice spoke beside her after some time.
“What a stupid question.” she thought to herself. Of course, someone was sitting here…her. Oh, of course she knew what he meant, but he was an asshole, whoever he was, and he was better served just screwing right the heck off as far as Lena was concerned. She meant it, too. Instead, however, she simply resolved to confuse him by shrugging in an inconsistent manner. It was good being a girl sometimes—you could do those sorts of things.
“Well, don’t mind if I do, then,” the voice said with the slightest whiff of humor, as its owner unceremoniously plunked down beside her and lit a cigarette. He obviously wasn’t from around here she realized; yet he spoke in passable German. His verbiage wasn’t entirely correct, but his tone was well-mannered. He must have been from one of the other bands. Like most folk in East Germany, Lena spoke ‘okay’ English, but it was much nicer when out-of-towners spoke ‘okay’ German.
The awkward pair sat by each other for nearly three minutes, not saying much of anything. The young man smoked, happily ignored, and Lena pondered if lighting another one of her own counted as ‘paying attention’ to him. She had decided, seconds into her silence, that it would be a sign of attention. And so she resolved to wait it out as cantankerously as possible. That is, until her blood began to itch. Surely, there had to be a way to light a cigarette and let him know that she was ignoring him, right?
She reached into her pocket, grabbed a cigarette and grouchily placed the business end between her lips. Doing her best to ignore him completely, she began fumbling around for her matches.
“May I?” the man’s voice spoke, as the body attached to it lit a match and began reaching over. Oh, what a bastard.
“I’m fine.” she said, as he moved the lit match closer to her cigarette, “Seriously, I’m...”
Now, with her cigarette lit by him, she had an even worse decision she was forced to make. Either she puffed on it, which would mean giving in to him. Or she, well…I don’t know, threw it out…or lit it again or…you know, whatever would demonstrate her upset the most. After thinking it through for a second, she resolved to simply not puff it, but instead turn away and ignore him as hard as possible.
“Here,” the voice spoke, “I’ll light you another.”
With that, he reached over and stole the cigarette from her lips, placed it between his, and began dragging on it.
“Oh this asshole right here.” she screamed at herself. Had he any idea what he had just done?! He had stolen her cigarette! Right from her lips! Oh, she was going to have to ignore him even harder now. She put every ounce of strength she had into focusing on ignoring him, by turning away until she couldn’t see him at all.
It was then that she heard that all-too familiar sound: paper being gently dragged out of a cardboard box; the head of a match scraping across sandpaper; the faint sound of burning paper intermingling with that warm, gentle sucking-sound that filled the air with smoke…oh, what a positively tantalizing noise, it was. Oh, how Lena hated this awful stranger.
“Here you go. This one’s fresh.”
Lena didn’t have a choice, really. If you thought about it, the most ‘ignoring’ thing she could possibly do was to take that damn cigarette and smoke it. Right in front of him. She was going to do it, too. Yet, as she reached over and forcefully yanked it from him with her best ‘ignoring’ glare, something about him struck her. He had a way about him. It might have been the long, spicy drag of a Western cigarette (whoa boy…you have no idea), but something about him just seemed…well, casually cocky. Like someone who didn’t take anything seriously, and absolutely knew how awesome that was.
He wore a studded leather jacket and about the skinniest jeans she had ever seen on a man. His hair was hacked to pieces and styled in an outrageous blue color, and his sneakers looked like he had hand-decorated them himself with marker and duct-tape. Patches were absolutely everywhere, and he had sewn a blood-red stripe down the side of his pants just like the Soviets wore on their uniforms. Yet his frame, skinny as it was, held a cocksure posture that belied a solemn sort of attitude, and his positively arrogant eyes sealed the deal. This man knew how to throw down. She felt drawn to the man…in a strange sort of way that she couldn’t explain.
“So, bummer about your guy, in there.” he said, in a positively cheeky tone.
“That asshole.” Lena swore under her breath, “Everything was going perfect up until about thirty minutes ago. Then everything went wrong all at once…and he wasn’t helping.”
“No, it doesn’t seem like he was.”
“I guess…I guess...” she started, trying to think of what she wanted to say, “I just don’t understand it. You’re on your way to an entirely different country...”
“Right.” he replied, while rubbing his chin obnoxiously.
“...where you don’t know anyone.”
“Uh huh.”
“And all of a sudden, your guitarist splits, your road manager just…completely fails you.”
“Right.”
“...and now you have to figure out how to put on a show without a guitarist of all things...”
“Yeah.”
“And it’s just…god!”
“Uh huh.”
“So now what the hell am I gonna do?!” she yelled, exasperated at the entire world.
“Well,” he began, as he lit up another smoke, “I suppose there’s a few things you could do.”
Lena waited…and then she waited some more. Honestly, she probably waited thirty entire seconds staring at this stupid boy with his stupid face, as he just stupidly stared off into the distance not finishing his stupid sentence. It was so…so stupid.
“Well?” she didn’t exactly whisper.
“Well what?”
“You were saying there’s a few things I could do?”
“Oh, yeah. I suppose there are.”
“And what might those be, exactly?”
“Well...” he offered her another smoke (which she yanked out of his hand forcefully), “You could always shoot your manager.”
She stared at him for a second. At first, she thought he was kidding. Yet, he had a look on his face that was…blank. It was sort of a dark, unfeeling stare that communicated all sorts of silent promises. She still didn’t believe that he meant it, but the thought of it made her heart skip in a bad way.
“Are…wait...” she raised an eyebrow, “...you’re not serious, are you?”
“Of course I’m not serious, dumbass! The hell is the matter with you?! Killing your band manager? Jesus.”
Just then, Lena began to laugh. It started out as an awkward laugh, before moving on to relief. But as soon as his grin widened to unearth the most infectious laugh she had ever heard, she found herself genuinely laughing along with him. Suddenly, she felt as if she had known him for months, or perhaps even years.
“But seriously,” she began, after the laughter died down, “what should I do?”
“I suppose you should find a new guitarist for the show, honestly,” he said in a more-or-less serious tone. “I mean, you can’t give this show up. It’s too important.”
“How do you know it’s so important?”
“You’re the ‘Mad Bunny’, aren’t you?” he said casually, in an almost mocking tone.
“Ah, yes…that nonsense.”
“Don’t worry about it. That’s how labels work. They write this whole interesting backstory that’s just barely possible, so that people get sucked into it instead of the music. No, I get it.”
“So, you don’t believe my story, then?” she laughed, feigning insult.
“Oh, I believe you’re a strange one—that’s obvious. But to think you escaped from a Stasi prison all by yourself, and then strangled a few guards before running across the Wall? No, ma’am…that you did not do.”
“Oh?” she feigned even more insult, “How do you know? I might just be a secret street assassin.”
“Then why in God’s name would you front-line a band?” He had a point.
“Ok, so the stories aren’t true. But still, it is an important night and unfortunately, I don’t know anyone that knows our music.” In a testing sort of tone, and hoping beyond hope, she added, “Unless you know a guitarist that might want to plug in?”
“Get me the music and I’ll jam with ya,” he said matter-of-factly.
Lena stared at him blankly for a few idle seconds. Was he being serious? After a few more seconds of making sure she had heard him correctly, she awkwardly responded as graciously as the surprise would allow. As if by the Gods, sweet serendipity had finally arrived when it was actually needed!
“Uh…sure?”
“Sweet.” he said with a boyish look, before standing up and wiping off his dirty behind, “Now, I gotta go get sound check done, smoke with the boys, and then I’ll hook up with you so we can hash out a few notes. Sound cool?”
“Uh, sure…yeah, sure. That’d be great!” she stuttered, “Uh, thank you!”
He began walking back towards the loading port, going through his pockets for whatever odds and ends band folk from the rest of the world stuffed in their pants for no particular reason. Before he was more than two meters away, however, he turned around to offer Lena a handshake while nonchalantly stating, “Pleased to meet you by the way…I’m the lead singer from The Dead Weights, Matt York.”
Der Gesuchte Anführer
It was ten minutes into the second band’s set and twenty minutes until Lena’s, yet Victor was still nowhere to be seen. Under normal circumstances—well, more normal, perhaps—she would have been a basket-case in response. Yet, despite this complication (and the many others it brought along with it), Lena’s band was doing quite well. Once Matt York had met up with his band, he had immediately informed them that all of his free time would be dedicated to learning Nicht Zustimmen’s music. Either he was an exceptionally quick learner, or their music was deplorably easy to play. In either case, he had mastered the majority of it within a few cigarettes, to be immediately followed by a brief ‘safety meeting’ in the green room.