Day 1 College Park, MD
SAM
“COME ON, DUDE, YOU HAVE TO get out of bed. Roxie and Blake are going to be here in ten minutes.”
Max groans, peeking over the railing of his stupid loft bed. “Do I really have to?”
“You know what she’s like when we’re not ready.” I climb the ladder and perch on the edge of the mattress, hunching over so my head doesn’t hit the ceiling. “That sucks about Krista. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” He’s shirtless, staring up at the ceiling as if the weight of the world is resting on his chest. “I know I’ve said this before, but it’s really fucking over this time. Finished.”
“Sorry.”
Max sighs dramatically. But then he looks at me, a surprising twinkle in his eyes as he swats me with a pillow. “You’re not sorry, dude. You hated her guts.”
I try to keep a straight face. “Yeah, I was just going to ask if she rode out of here on her broom or if she made you call her a cab —”
“Bastard —”
He tackles me, pulling me the rest of the way onto the bed, and for a few seconds we grapple, his fingers digging mercilessly into my ribs, both of us breathless and giggling as the bed frame creaks ominously beneath us. Finally, I throw my hands up in surrender.
“I swear to fucking Christ, if I die today because this bed falls down and we don’t get to go on tour because we’re in the morgue —”
“Okay, okay.” Max relents, moving over to make room for me to lie down next to him. He pushes himself up on one elbow to look at me, and his eyes are so tender that I’m pretty sure my heart stops beating. “Where did you go last night? I sent you a message after she left.”
“Yeah, sorry — I turned my phone off.” I chew on my fingernail. “I was, um —”
I don’t know why I’m blushing, because I know Max doesn’t care.
He grins. “So, what was his name?”
I throw an arm across my face. “Fuck, I never actually asked —”
“Was he good to you?” This question is much more serious, and when I lift my arm to look at him, Max is watching me intently.
“Yeah, he was.” An odd spell settles over the room, and I’m stuck, fixed on Max’s face, a weird warmth spreading through my body.
Then Max clears his throat, turning away. “Yeah, you know what? Fuck Krista. I’m not going to let her ruin this for us. Come on, let’s go be rock stars.”
“Dude, I’m pretty sure that’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said.”
MAX
“Hey, could we cool it with the sad bastard music?” I lean forward, tapping Blake on the shoulder. “I just got my ass dumped last night and the last thing I need is to listen to the fucking Get-Up Kids.”
Roxie turns around, glaring at me from the passenger seat. “Shut the fuck up, Max. You know the van rule is that the driver chooses the music.”
“No, that’s okay, sweetie,” Blake replies mildly, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror as he adjusts his glasses. “If Max wants to play something else, I don’t mind.”
We’re barrelling down the highway somewhere south of York, Pennsylvania, the van packed with all of our gear and instruments and everything we’re going to need for three weeks on tour.
Sam is sitting next to me, cross-legged on the seat with his boots lined up neatly on the floor in front of him, minding his own business.
But Roxie is still shooting daggers at me, even as she’s reaching for the big book of CDs that’s on the floor between the seats.
We’re a motley bunch of weirdos in this band, but it works.
Sam and I have been playing music together forever.
Sage gave me her old acoustic guitar when I was ten, and Sam bugged his parents for a guitar of his own soon afterwards.
Eventually, as we got into high school, Sam switched to bass so that we could complement each other.
I met Roxie during our first year in college in one of my computer science classes, and when I found out she was a drummer, I asked her to join us.
And I guess that’s how Clever Girl was formed.
Sam suggested the name as a tribute to Roxie, because she’s really the brains of the operation. But also, you know — dinosaurs.
Roxie is — well, she’s a lot. Her real name is Rosemary Lennox, but God help you if you ever call her that.
She’s the most sarcastic little cunt that I’ve ever met in my life, and I mean that with every scrap of affection that I can possibly muster.
She’s got a brain made of steel wool and a heart made of used condoms and rusty nails, and she doesn’t want to hear about your fucking feelings — but if you hurt one of her friends, she will end you.
She has a buzzcut, but I’m pretty sure that’s because her hair is afraid of her.
I’m fucking lucky to have her in my life.
I don’t know where the fuck she found Blake.
He’s not a bad dude, his affection for whiny breakup music notwithstanding.
But on paper, the two of them just don’t make sense.
Where Roxie is a shot of straight Everclear, Blake is a glass of warm milk before bed.
He’s twenty-four, three years older than the rest of us, but he looks like the youngest with his slight build, oversized glasses, and sandy hair cut into curtains.
Blake is straight edge, but he’s not an asshole about it, and he’s the kind of intellectual leftist who tries to slip me thoughtful essays by Bakunin, as if I fucking read.
He's not in the band, but he runs our merch table, and he has at least one contact in every anarchist collective on the East Coast. We couldn’t have planned this tour without him.
Roxie swaps the emo for some Catch-22 and glances back at me. “Is that better, princess?”
“Yeah, thanks.” I stare out the window and hope that’s going to be the end of talking for a while, but Roxie surprises me.
“Krista’s a bitch. You’re better off without her,” she tosses over her shoulder.
“I didn’t like her, either,” Blake agrees.
“Why the fuck didn’t anyone tell me?” I glance over at Sam, and he just shrugs, but he bites his lip like he’s holding back a grin. He’s been like this all day, like he’s secretly wanting to burst into song but he’s not sure how I’ll react, and it’s infectious, even though I feel like shit.
Up front, Roxie is rolling her eyes. “Oh yeah, how would that have gone? ‘Hey Max, your girlfriend is a thundercunt and I’m pretty sure I saw her punch a kitten once.’ ‘Gee thanks, guys, I’ll go ahead and do that reverse summoning spell and send her right back to hell.’”
“Yeah, okay — I see your point.” I shift in my seat, hugging my knee to my chest, and thankfully Roxie doesn’t have any more to say.
Real talk? I can’t get the shit Krista said last night out of my head, and I can’t figure out why.
It’s not like it’s the first time anybody has ever said — that — about Sam and me before.
You don’t grow up with a gay best friend in a town full of white bread hicks without somebody assuming the two of you are fucking.
And honestly, I don’t mind. I should be so lucky to land somebody who cares about me half as much as he does, or who has even an ounce of his integrity.
He’s fucking great. And sometimes it feels like he’s my extra limb, like there’s a rubber band connecting the two of us that thrums whenever we need to reach out.
I get that it’s intense, and that it would be hard to compete with it.
And yet.
I don’t know, I’m fucked up. He’d probably laugh if I told him that yet another one of my girlfriends has decided to see him as competition. But somehow, the words don’t reach my lips.
I just need to play some music and scream into a mic and get myself fucking stupid on cheap booze. Then I’ll stop riding this dumb train around and around in my head.
SAM
This is what I live for.
Underground punk shows in dingy basements, pulling up to a suburban house just off-campus from the University of Maryland to cater to the local kids, a mix of hardcore punks and middle-class college students just looking to have a good time.
We’re opening for a popular local band, another group of skinny kids who look just like us, and maybe when they go on tour in the fall, we’ll find a way to host them back at home.
The take from the door won’t be much, just enough for gas money and fast food, a few feet of floor and an ancient pull-out couch to crash for the night making up the rest of the deal.
The goal for this tour is to break even, to get our music out there, and most of all to have fun.
Blake is in the corner selling the patches we screenprinted in the school arts lab and the buttons Max and I pressed one afternoon with my mom’s button maker, our five-song EP and a small selection of T-shirts.
There are a few issues of Blake’s zine, too, stacked neatly in a corner of the table, and I know he’s proud whenever he sells a copy.
Blake is good people, even if he drives Max up a tree sometimes.
When you meet him, you think he’s too gentle for this scene, but underneath the fluff is a spine of steel, like a Care Bear with a hidden switchblade.
Shit, this ceiling is low. I like to jump around a lot when I play, so I’m going to have to make sure I don’t bash my brains out.
Max looks over at me, raising his eyebrows to bring me back into the present, and I nod my head. Then he turns to Roxie.
“ONE TWO THREE FOUR!” she screams, banging her drumsticks together, and we’re off.
I’m not going to tell you we’re the greatest band ever.
I’m an okay bass player, but I’m no Fat Mike or Matt Freeman.
Max and I write all our songs, and we sing about the same things that every middle of the road punk band does — growing up in a shitty small town and dealing with landlords and jobs and fucking capitalism while President Bush tries to drive us all straight to hell.
But mostly it’s about the noise and the energy, Roxie bashing her drum kit behind us, the grin on Max’s face whenever we lean in to share the microphone.
I know he doesn’t really belong to me, that we’re never going to be the thing I see in my fantasies, that I’m lucky just to have him in my life.
But here in this moment, the sweat pouring off us as we dance around, he is mine and I am his and everything is the way it’s supposed to be.
Max has been under a cloud all day, and I know why, and I also know that I am uniquely unqualified to do anything about it, because anything I could think of to say would risk cracking open that secret place inside me and letting what’s underneath ooze out into the open.
I know he doesn’t fucking want that. But right now, he looks like he’s on top of the world, and I’m glad that I can give this to him.
MAX
Did I say I was fucked up? Because I feel fucking great.
How the fuck did I get so lucky?