Did I mention that we’re on fire? We’re playing the best we’ve ever have. We’re usually pretty good about covering wrong notes, but tonight there are no wrong notes to cover. More people come into the club with each song. I wonder if some of them happened to be walking by and said, “Wow, that band currently playing in the Lane sounds fantastic! It would be silly to keep walking past the club, which would take me out of earshot of that delightful music. I think I’ll stroll inside and enjoy the rest of their set.”
By the time we’re on our last song, there are fifty people in the audience. That wasn’t a typo. Fifty. Five-zero. Ten times five. Half of triple digits. Sure, if Adele walked out onstage and there were only fifty people, she might go ballistic and start firing her staff, but for us, this attendance is astounding. Fifty people! Listening to our music! Voluntarily!
I assume they’re here voluntarily. None of them appear to be in handcuffs.
Not only have we never had a better show, but I’ll go so far as to say that I’ve never had a better half hour. Not during my fifth birthday party when Mom and Dad discovered the invitations had the wrong date so I got to eat all the cake myself. (They didn’t give me permission to do this, but I didn’t get in trouble for it since it was my birthday.) Not when I kicked the winning goal in a soccer game and the rest of the team carried me off the field in victory. (They accidentally dropped me, and I broke a rib, so you’d have to start timing it about twenty-eight minutes before I kicked the goal. But still, there was an excellent half hour in there.) Not when my first girlfriend, Cindy, gave me her grape juice box in third grade. None of those moments compared. This is the best thirty minutes of my life.
We finish our last song. Clarissa, Mel, and I are all drenched in sweat, and I can tell that they’re also ranking this really high on their list of life experiences. What if every show is like this from now on?
“Thanks for being here!” I shout. “We’re Fanged Grapefruit! Do you wanna hear one more?”
The crowd cheers.
The owner of the club points to his watch and shakes his head.
“I’m told that we can’t play one more,” I announce. “But we’re here every Monday! Hope to see you again!”
The crowd cheers some more. I feel like they’d give us a standing ovation if they weren’t already standing. And then they file toward the exit. That’s right. They were here for us!
The lead singer of Bathtub Scum is standing in the corner, looking dismayed. “Where are they going? They’re not leaving, are they? What about us? Doesn’t anybody care about us? Why would they leave?” The other band members quietly console him as the club empties.
“Wow,” says Clarissa.
“Yeah, wow,” says Mel. “That was the best two minutes of my life.”
“It was half an hour,” I say.
“Felt like two minutes.” Mel lets out a whoop. “They loved us! They loved us, right? I wasn’t imagining that?”
“Nope, they loved us. I guess word finally got out.” I can’t stop grinning. I want to turn cartwheels and squeal with glee, but that would be unbecoming for the lead singer of a punk rock band.
The audience clears out of the club pretty quickly. Blake is also gone, which is nice. I don’t want him coming over and spoiling my joyous feeling by doing something reprehensible.
It does seem kind of strange that all those people came into the club and didn’t even stay for the headliner. I wonder what we did differently.
Maybe word got out of my alleged behavior in biology class. Maybe they hoped I’d do the same thing onstage. You’ve gotta see Fanged Grapefruit! The lead singer chucks rat guts at the audience! It’s wicked!
Nah. It seems unlikely that childish behavior in biology class would pack the audience with an older crowd.
Did we get written up on a popular blog?
Did Audrey do some new social media promotion and not tell us?
As we break down the equipment, Clarissa asks, “Does it seem weird to anyone else that we had so many people?”
“A little,” Mel admits.
“What do you think happened? We used the same fliers, right?” Clarissa works at a copy shop, and after we designed the “Fanged Grapefruit Is Performing at the Lane” flier, she printed up five hundred copies without her boss catching her. Each time we put some up, we cross out the old date and write in the new one.
“Yeah, same fliers,” Mel says. “I didn’t do anything different. Did you do anything different, Rod?”
“I didn’t do anything different.”
“Let’s not overanalyze it,” says Clarissa. “We had our best show ever, and we should just enjoy it.”
“I agree,” I say, although I’m suddenly not sure that I agree.
We finish breaking down the equipment and load everything into my car. I keep waiting for Blake to leap out of the shadows like a happiness-draining vampire.
Clarissa, Mel, Audrey, and I spend a couple of minutes talking about how awesome the show went. But my enthusiasm is starting to diminish.
“What’s wrong?” Audrey asks me.
“What if Blake bribed the audience?”
Clarissa frowns. “You think Blake paid fifty people to be there?”
“I don’t think it’s out of the question.”
We’re all silent for a moment.
“Hmm,” says Mel.
“Please don’t say hmm. That sound has been ruined for me,” I explain.
“Do you really think he’d do that?” Clarissa asks. “You guys can’t stand each other, right? Why would he want to bring people to the show?”
“Maybe so that we can bask in the glory,
