Where I Want To Be...Chapter 1
Jerry's POV
“If Cassy’s not here in five minutes, she’s out. I’m fucking sick of this.” I pull my guitar case from the back seat of Dom’s truck and slam the door shut with enough force to shake the car. “Can you call her again?”
“She’s on her way. Chill out.” Toby says without glancing up from his phone. I swear his thumbs and eyes never leave that stupid piece of plastic, except maybe to play his bass. I roll my eyes as I walk right past him and head for the stage area so that maybe we can get this show on the road sometime soon, with or without Ms. Sassy Cassy.
“I can’t get my keyboard to come through on the speakers.” Kiley mentions to me before I even make it three feet into the place. Her sudden appearance catches me off guard and I find that I have to catch my breath for a second.
“Jesus, Kiley. Why do you always do that?” I use my hand as a signal for her to follow me as I walk closer to the stage. She stays close to me, catching the back of my low Converses with her…moccasins? Why is she -you know what, I’m not even going to ask her because I know she’ll just tell me to “deal with it”.
“Sorry.” She mutters like she couldn’t give a shit as I fix it with my free hand and continue on with no acknowledgment of her lackluster apology. I don’t take it personally. I’ve known Kiley for almost ten years now, and I know that her “carelessness” is just her façade. As we kneel down to check all of her connections to her Moog, I catch the lavender shampoo she uses and freeze. The scent creates invisible curls around me, forcing my head to spin with dizziness. In an instant I’m thinking about that see-through white shirt she has on and the yellow bra that’s beneath it. Her straight, long brown/red hair. And those skinny jeans on her thin, pale Irish skin…
“Jerry?” I love that look that she always has on her face, the one that says ‘fuck off’ and how she’s got that teardrop birthmark on the back of her neck that you’d only know existed if... “Hey, you okay? Is your sugar low?” I blink my eyes a few time and rush back to reality before I do something I regret.
“Sorry, I just got distracted for a second.” I disregard her second question as I fix a loose connection and secure it with tape, though I’m sure that isn’t the real problem. “Try your keyboard now.” Before she can even bother me with another question I am halfway across the stage, pretending that Dom has asked me to help him assemble his drum set.
“Yo, where’s Cassy?” Dom expertly adjusts his cymbal stands and waits for my answer.
“Who knows? I’m pretty sure if we stood back and made her set up she wouldn’t even know where to start. I bet you it’s that damn hair of hers that’s keeping her in front of her bathroom mirror. Either that or some kind of lip gloss or eyeliner.” The stress that I’m feeling comes out in a long, drawn out sigh. Dom starts talking, but no matter how hard I try to focus on the words, my brain refuses to pick up on the syllables. Instead I’m thinking about how big this show we are playing really is. I know for a fact that there’s going to be an important person sitting at the bar in the back of the room, some middle aged man that no one else in the band will even notice. He’s going to be listening intently and watching our every move as he sips some kind of drink, probably a rum and coke, making that big decision of whether or not we are worthy to add to his collection of recordees. He’ll approach us at the end of the show as we’re loading our cars with our secondhand equipment, maybe make a comment on the Gibson Les Paul Jr. that he noticed I was playing, and purposely fail to mention that he knows who my father, who I, am. No one else in the band even knows that we are going to be watched by someone other than our “fans”. By someone that can make it all happen with the snap of his fingers. If only we could just pull it together enough to make it really happen…
That’s when Cassy waltzes in like she isn’t even late. Ugh. She drives me fucking nuts! “Hey guys, what’s up? I am like so tired so can we not spend forever warming up?” She says to me as she flops down on the side of the stage with a Frappucino in her hand. She starts slurping through the straw and I can somehow hear it over the conversation going on in the room and the music playing through the speakers.
“Cassy, what the fuck?” She ignores me as she sits there, her jet-black hair that matches her dark cutesy makeup moving as she sips her goddamn expensive cold coffee. My body starts to shake in anger.
“Calm down man, we don’t need this right now. She’s here and-“ Dom says, but I interrupt him.
“I can’t take this right now, I really fucking can’t. I’ll be outside.” I pause before leaving. Kiley rolls her eyes and I give her a nasty look before storming off because she never opens her mouth to defend anyone but herself. I go outside and light a cigarette, realizing on the first drag that I cannot live without them. I get so stressed sometimes that it’s the only thing that calms me down. Immediately it begins to make me feel better. I stare at the traffic going by and think of what will happen to the band. I really believe in it. Like we are so close to making it big. My dad wants to help us out, but I want to be able to make it without his connection. I refused to let us be on his label, Adeline, because people would think that’s the only way we could get big, which I am sure they will still think even without his influence, but whatever. I want to prove to everyone that I can do this. That we all can. I remember the day we started it. It was back in my freshman year. Actually, that’s how most of us met. I mean, I had known Kiley since we were 10, but the other guys, we didn’t find each other until high school. I suddenly start to feel a little dizzy and notice that my hands are a bit jittery. Fuck. I throw my cig to the ground and squish it in with my Converse before I scramble inside of the venue, the noise disorienting me as I try to find my way to my guitar case. I grab a juice box from one of the velvet pockets and attempt to jab the straw in rather unsuccessfully. Kiley appears in a heartbeat, as per usual. She gets the straw in and has it in my mouth before I can even say anything to her. I go to sit down and miss but am picked up and redirected by someone, Kiley I assume, who is asking me to give her my “fucking finger”. My stomach does a whirl and all I want to do is lay down. I’m shaking and I’m cold but sweating. Wow, my sugar must be really low. I haven’t felt this bad in a long time. There’s a prick on my finger, but I don’t wince or even care that Kiley is checking my blood sugar level for me. I don’t even care about rum and coke dude. All I care about is the fact that I have my juice box and that Kiley is here.
“44.” She says and sits down next to me. We’ve done this a bunch of times, the whole “low” routine, and I can’t help but wish she was always this personable. “You want another juice box?” Hearing that makes me wish I got lows more often. Seems like it’s the only time Kiley’s actually nice.
“Last one.” I say, straw still in my mouth. My eyes close and my head is suddenly on her shoulder, leaning. I don’t want to move, even though I know Kiley hates body contact. Surprisingly she doesn’t tense up under my weight. My head continues to spin.
“Glucose tabs. How many?”
“Three.” I continue sipping, the dizziness still running around in my head. My stomach flips and I feel like I might throw up. But somehow I feel fine, leaning here on Kiley. I feel safe, like everything will be fine. Maybe if I just take a quick nap…
Next thing I know I’m crunching down on one last cherry sugar tab feeling a lot better than I had ten minutes earlier. Kiley is pricking me again, but I really don’t care. I’m tired of doing it myself. “85. That’s an improvement.”
“Can we get this show on the road please? We’re late and I don’t think we should keep the crowd waiting.” Cassy is bitching and I’m still feeling pretty crappy from my low. I really have zero patience for her attitude right now and can’t help but want lash back. I suck on my newly pricked finger and think of something to say to her.
‘I inconvenienced everyone by having a random low blood sugar and I deserve to be scolded, but it’s okay for you to spend forever doing your hair and grabbing a fucking iced coffee ten minutes before we’re due for curtain.’ wants to come out, but I stop myself and take a deep breath before getting up and grabbing my guitar. Our group does the quickest warm-up/sound check we’ve ever done before finding our places and settling in. That’s when I think of it, the perfect line. Or at least, it seems perfect, because I’m still not thinking straight.
“I’m sorry for having diabetes, Ms. Sassy Cassy.” It comes out really sincere, like I’m apologizing for doing something I really didn’t mean to do. “It won’t happen again, I promise.” Dom clicks his drum sticks before she can even get a word in and we break out into our first song while I hope that the rum and coke dude I see sitting at the bar is here to change out lives.
