He’s made a terrible mistake. I’m a well-liked guy. Maybe people will take his side at the beginning, but in the long term, Team Blake is going to have exactly one member. (Blake.)
Fanged Grapefruit is setting up at the Lane. Trivia: experts have counted twenty-three different types of stains on the ceiling, only six of which they’ve been able to successfully identify. I feel good about tonight’s show. The headliner is a group from Atlanta called Bathtub Scum, and they’re so popular that I think as many as a dozen people could show up early enough to see our act.
We don’t say much as we set up. Mel and Clarissa both know what happened in biology class, but I guess they don’t want to bring it up in case it messes with my mojo before the show. Everybody in the band is very respectful of one another’s mojo.
Audrey, as always, is working the merch table. She smiles as I look over at her. Ha! Try as he might, Blake wasn’t able to get my girlfriend to stop smiling at me!
By eight o’clock, I’m disappointed that there are only seven other people in the club. Bathtub Scum has a reputation for showing up to their gigs an hour late, smelling of gummy worms, so maybe their fans know not to get there too early. Oh well. We’ll rock the house for these seven.
“Thanks for coming out tonight!” I say into the microphone. “Are you ready to rock?”
“Affirmative!” shouts the one guy who’s actually looking at the stage.
“We’re Grapefruit Fangs,” I say. “And this first song is called…”
Grapefruit Fangs? Wait. What?
“I mean Fanged Grapefruit,” I say, even though Grapefruit Fangs is kind of a cool name for a band too. “And this first song is an original called…”
Blake.
No, the first song isn’t called “Blake.” I mean that Blake walks into the Lane.
He’s wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt. To better fit in with the punk rock crowd, he seems to have cut holes in his clothing. Despite this, he couldn’t look more out of place if he were dressed for a rodeo.
He looks at me and gives me a thumbs-up.
I think Blake is counting on me being too professional to scream at him from the stage. And the little creep is right. I’m going to carry on as if he weren’t there.
“This first song is an original called…”
Which song is first? What are our songs?
There is, of course, a set list taped to the floor next to my feet. “This first song is an original called…”
The one guy who was ready to rock looks like his readiness to rock is fading.
We were supposed to open with “The Night I Drank Way Too Many Blue Raspberry Slushes,” but I don’t think I can handle Blake’s smug look if it goes well. I want to start with a song that he didn’t influence. “Let’s change things up,” I say, turning around to look at Clarissa. “Let’s do ‘That Bandage Won’t Keep Your Legs Attached.’”
“We haven’t practiced that in months.”
“It’ll be okay.” I turn back toward the tiny audience. “This first song is an original called ‘That Bandage Won’t Keep Your Legs Attached.’ One, two, three, go!”
Clarissa launches into the opening drum sequence. Mel joins in with lead guitar. I do my famous screech and then begin to sing.
The guy in the audience bounces around, body slamming invisible people.
Who cares if Blake is here? When I’m onstage, there’s nothing he can do, except cause me to change my set list without informing my fellow band members and fluster me into forgetting the name of the first song. He’s not going to bring me down. This is my world.
We’re on fire tonight. Sure, there’s only one guy bobbing his head to the beat, but his head is bobbing in a big way. By the third verse, I’ve almost forgotten that Blake exists.
The song ends, and the guy up front applauds with great enthusiasm. Blake (that kid I almost forgot about) applauds as well. Though he shouldn’t be here at all, at least he’s considerate enough to stay in the back. Or he’s scared of being injured in the one-man mosh pit. Either way, I’m glad he’s not near the stage.
We go into our second song, which was supposed to be the first song. I don’t care if this song is .009 percent better because of Blake’s input. Tonight is about the music and nothing else.
A tall skinny guy who’s maybe a few years older than me walks into the club. He’s wearing a black Fanged Grapefruit shirt. If this were a cartoon, which it might as well be, my eyes would pop out of their sockets on springs. I’ve never seen anybody in our band’s T-shirt who wasn’t (A) Mel, (B) Clarissa, (C) Audrey, (D) my mom, or (E) me.
It can’t be a coincidence that he’s wearing a Fanged Grapefruit shirt to a Fanged Grapefruit show. He must be a Fanged Grapefruit fan. A fan! An actual fan!
He walks up to the stage and begins to move to the music.
Two more people, a guy and a girl, walk into the Lane. They aren’t wearing our band’s T-shirts, but that’s okay because they hurry up front. For those keeping track, we now have four people enjoying our music enough to move to the rhythm.
By the end of “The Night I Drank Way Too Many Blue Raspberry Slushes,” there are six. One of them is a girl I sort of recognize from school. The rest look like college students.
“Thank you, everybody,” I say as the song ends. “How many of you like chess?”
The crowd gives a huge cheer for the game of chess.
“Well, this song was inspired by that amazing feeling you get when you put your opponent into checkmate. It’s called ‘Checkmate, Checkmate, Checkmate,’ and it goes like this!”
By the time that song is done, the size of our audience has doubled. One guy is wearing
