| I was sitting in my grandma’s old house, hanging out with my little cousins. We all were eating lukewarm, gloppy ice cream out of big buckets. Just as I took a big bite, the doorbell rang. I ran over to the door and answered it, and guess who was there? Bermuda! I kind of went silent in shock, and let him in. He strolled over to the couch and flopped down on it. My cousins looked at him like he was a total stranger-since, of course, to them he was one. I sat down next to Bermuda and started chatting with him. Eventually I got around to thanking him for linking frivALity to weirdal.com and he said “No problem”. (What a guy!) After about half an hour, he looked at the clock and said it was time to go. I walked out the front door to go see him off. He’d driven over in a silver car. Hidden in the shadows of the backseat was…I couldn’t quite make him out, but there was definitely a guy back there. As Bermuda opened the door and got in the driver’s seat, the guy in the back leaned up to tell him something, and my jaw dropped. It was Al! Right after I realized who it was, the car backed out of the driveway and sped away. Rats. I went back in, slightly depressed. My cousins were staring at me like I was from Mars. “Who WAS that?” “That was Bermuda!” “Who?” “Al’s drummer!” Their jaws dropped in shock. “Really?” “Yeah!” Just then, their dad wandered in. He was…how shall I put this…trashed. Wasted. Completely and utterly drunk out of his mind. “I shjust wanned to thank tha’ Al guy…had s’m really good French shtuff…said the ice would d’lute it but WHOA…” And then he passed out on the carpet. Thanks, Al. Well, the man now sleeping on the carpet was supposed to take my cousins to a play that night. Since I was the only other person around who had a license to drive, the responsibility fell on me. So they both got dolled up in their best dresses and we drove down to the theatre. What was I wearing? I was in my very best hideous blue Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies frock. We went in, sat down, and almost as soon as we’d gotten our coats off, the lights went down and the show started. A childhood pal of mine, Emily, and her brother Paul were up on stage acting. Well…I call it acting. It was really, really horrible. No one knew their lines, and the prompter was WAY obvious. It was so bad that the audience was getting up and walking around DURING the show. I stood up and started looking around for the exits, when lo and behold, Bermuda, Steve, and Rubén all walked over. Berm and Steve stopped right in front of me, side by side, making kind of an impenetrable wall with their bodies. For some reason, each was wearing a shirt from my high school’s production of The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew. “Hi, guys!” Just then, a pair of hands appeared between Steve and Berm’s elbows, shoving the two apart to reveal Rubén “Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze”-ing his way between them. (Yes, he was muttering the word Squeeze.) Rubén had on a shirt like the one he wore in WAY Live!, but silver instead of red. I smiled at the three of them. “Hi Steve…hi Bermuda.” Rubén looked at me with the cutest, saddest little puppydog face I’ve ever seen. I grinned at him, said “BIG hug!” and latched onto him bear hug style. Awwwww. When I let go of him, I realized that we were no longer in the audience, but on the stage! The prompter was whisper-screaming “Someone answer the phone! Answer the phone!” I looked down on the table, and there was nothing there but random hunks of junk jewelry. Rubén grabbed a couple brooches and a pearl necklace, held them so they kinda looked like a phone, and put it to his ear. “Hello?” He then gave us this psycho silly grin and said “It’s for Miss Tomorrow-tomorrowsly.” We looked at each other, then at the prompter, who was quietly freaking out. I shrugged and walked offstage, the guys following. We headed back to my seats, which now were located on the other side of the auditorium. Rose was sitting right behind them. “Well, I just don’t think it’s right that SOME people get to go up on stage from the audience when more EXPERIENCED people don’t get to…” she was whining to a friend. I ignored her and started chatting with Bermuda, Steve and Rubén. Berm asked me if that was my outfit for the audition tonight-apparently I was auditioning to be part of Al’s band-and I nodded and said “Yeah, it’s “weird” enough.” I even did the little air apostrophes as I said the word weird. Then Steve asked me to pass him a beer. Beer…beer…I turned to my right and saw Al’s mom holding a tray of tiny plastic cups. “Hi Mary.” “Hi dear.” “Steve wants a beer, please.” Mary started sifting through her tiny cups. “Let me see…laundry detergent,” she held up a cup that REEKED of detergent, “water…beer! Here you are dear.” “Thanks, Mary.” I passed it over to Steve. “So, Steve, what’s the occasion?” A voice croaked from the floor “Birthday!” I looked down at the guy on the floor. Short red hair…I didn’t know anyone with short vivid red hair, but he looked so familiar…it was Jim! He’d had a few too many little cups of beer, because there was no way he could even stand. Just then, I heard a metallic CLUNK come from the vicinity of the stage. “Hold on guys, I’ll be right back,” I told them, and hurried over to the floor lights. Instead of just grabbing the one that had fallen and reattaching it from the front, I slid under the lights and attached it from there. And then, I realized what a bad move that was, as the rest of them started falling. On me. Ow. I slid back out and stood up, dusting myself off. It was then I happened to catch a glance of Mr. Meyer, my art teacher. I waved at him, ran up and started gushing excitedly that “Al’s band is here and oh my gosh they came up to me and talked to me and it’s just too cool and…” He gave me a panicked look and ran like a frightened gazelle. Too much fandom, methinks. Oh well. I went back over to the band. Steve and Bermuda were lifting Jim up off the floor. “We gotta go now. It’s been fun!” I nodded and waved as they dragged Jim out the door by his arms, Rubén holding Jim’s feet. My Take On It Next Dream |
| A Night Out With the Band 04/10/01 |