He had just gotten back from one of the last days of his summer job – lawn care for a golf course. He didn’t quite know how he had gotten stuck with that job, because he hated golf and he hated the business strategy of “look beautiful and people will trust you” even more, but a job was a job and money was money.
There was only an hour of free time between work and band practice, and he had planned to use that time battling the writer’s block that had decided he wasn’t meant to write songs. The sudden inability to come up with song ideas was just one of the many thoughts rushing through his mind. He was also thinking about how much he hated his job, how much more he’d hate his campus job, and if his band was going to be ready for their show the next night.
It seemed to him that when his band mates were together they had a tendency to either not be serious enough to work with their music, or too serious to understand their own songs. They needed to be somewhat serious to practice, but they couldn’t be completely serious about the lyrics or they’d be too practical to understand them. Most of their lyrics had to do with depression, sadness, hardships in life; Shane hoped that maybe one day their music and his lyrics could help someone through one of the more difficult times in their life. Shane figured that was one reason why so many kids his age who suffered from depression had problems getting through it: people tried to take a practical approach. Depression is anything but practical, so using a serious line of thinking did the lyrics no justice.
Shane stopped tapping the pencil on the desk, instead he twirled it with his fingers and broke his gaze out the window to let his eyes wander the room. For a split second he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror attached to the open closet door. Shane had short, brown hair that was a few inches long, hazel eyes with flecks of brown and green in them, and he had an average build.
Average – that was exactly the word he hated most when he looked into the mirror. It wasn’t that he hated how he looked, that was just his style and he didn’t have a problem with it, what he didn’t like was that he looked generally like every other guy. The problem with looking like every other guy was the fact that looking like them was probably one of the only things they had in common – but barely anyone knew that. Even the people that listened to his music seemed more impressed with the CD’s cover art than they were with him if they walked by him on campus. Shane was sick of the scenario, but what could he do? There was absolutely no point in lying to himself by changing his looks for the sake of others, so for the time being he was stuck with his predicament.
He continued to look about the room, disliking how bare it was, but knowing it would get better after the hectic first week of school was over. The only part of himself he had there were a couple of pictures sitting on the small bookshelf. One picture was of him and his little sister, Dahlia. She was only three years younger than him, and though they’d grown apart when he began going to college, they still found that they could talk to each other about almost anything. Shane liked the photograph, he liked how different they both looked in it, especially since he knew how similar they really were. Shane was wearing a black band t-shirt in it, and it was right after a concert he went to with his band mates, so he had a bit of black eyeliner on. Dahlia, though, looked rather small next to him. She had straight blonde hair and gray eyes. Her hair was in an elaborate type of ponytail and she had on a beautiful pale pink dress, since she had just gotten back from one of her high school formals. The picture usually confused people, and for some reason he loved that.
The other picture was of him and his band mates, it was a photo taken for one of their EP’s. In the picture they were each on a different step in front of a building, although you can never quite tell exactly what the building is. All the way to the left, on the highest step, stood Sonny the drummer, looking shy as usual. He was looking towards the left, partially so that he didn’t see the camera, and partially so that the camera didn’t see all of him. You couldn’t see his soft, blue eyes, but his black hair was blown to the right by the wind. He was wearing a gray button-up shirt and form-fitting jeans. Out of the picture was his lip piercing, which was on the right. When taking band pictures he tried to be the guy that you barely noticed, and he ended up being that guy, but when you did notice him, you wondered how you didn’t see him there before. To the right of Sonny, and on the next step down, was Adam the bassist. His approach to pictures was to act like he didn’t care if he was noticed, when really he wanted to be the guy that everyone noticed. You could tell because he looked straight at the camera, one hand in the pocket of his jeans, which were a little tighter than Sonny’s. His hair was brown and medium-length, and he styled it to look messy. He had brown eyes, and he was wearing a collared shirt, with a band t-shirt over it. Sitting on the next step was Shane. He was also wearing jeans, and a black band t-shirt. His one hand rested on the step, the elbow of his other arm rested on his knee, and he was looking down, his eyes not daring to notice the camera. Shane got enough spotlight being the vocalist, more than enough, so he never tried to take up any extra attention. Standing on the next step was Matt the rhythm guitarist. He was wearing a plain black t-shirt and jeans. His hair was just a little longer than Shane’s, and black. He was facing towards the camera, but his head was down, so you didn’t see too much of his face, and his deep brown eyes were completely hidden. If you looked hard enough, you could catch a glimpse of his eyebrow ring. Matt was like Sonny in the way that he didn’t care if he was noticed, the thing that he cared about people paying attention to was his music, that’s what he thought should have the spotlight. All the way to the right and one step down from Matt was Mike, the lead guitarist. He had one hand on the railing to the right, and he was looking towards the camera, but not directly at it. His brown hair came down in front of his one eye, so only one sharp green eye was exposed. He had jeans on, and a gray band t-shirt. In the picture it looked like something close to the camera caught his attention, which was exactly what had happened. Mike’s girlfriend came to that photo shoot, and the look in his eye is a product of her being there. Overall, that had to be Shane’s favorite picture of the band, it caught so much more than just the look of all of them.
Shane smiled a little thinking about the band and performing, but thinking about the band also caused his eyes to wander past the digital clock next to his bed and see that it was just about time to hop into his car and head to practice. He sighed and tossed his pencil onto the desk, then he grabbed his keys and headed out.
He had gotten so used to the drive from his dorm to Mike’s basement that his thoughts stayed with him. What would the guys say if he told them how much trouble he was having writing? He was the vocalist, and they depended on him for lyrics, and sometimes for entire songs. Being in a local band, you can’t just tour and wait a couple of years to release another album, CD’s and little shows are all you have. If a local band doesn’t retain some sort of interaction with people, their fans get bored and stop keeping track. The last thing an upcoming band wants is for its fan base to shrink.
Shane sighed as he pulled up to Mike’s house. He went up to the screen door, knocked twice, then promptly let himself in, waving a polite hello to Mike’s mother as he descended into the basement. As he got to the bottom of the stairs, six pairs of eyes became fixed upon him. “Hey guys,” he said, faking a smile then walking over and adjusting the height of his microphone stand.
He thought practice might subside some of his thinking, or at least help him de-stress, but of course not. Out of the six pairs of eyes, four belonged to his fellow band mates, and two to “the girlfriends.” Practice tended to be much shorter and contain many more breaks when “the girlfriends” were present, and that’s the last thing they needed the day before a show.
“The girlfriends” referred to the only two girls that had gone steadily with a band member for awhile. The first was Casey, Mike’s girlfriend. Usually Shane didn’t really mind her; she was a senior in high school, but not as concerned with petty high school things as most teenagers are. She dressed nicely, but fashion didn’t take over her life. She had long red hair that she usually tied up in some way, and crystal blue eyes. She came to almost every local show, even if she was going to be the only person there for their band. Brittany, on the other hand, was Sonny’s girlfriend. She was the epitome of a ditzy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed high school prep, and no one in the band had any idea how Sonny could stand to stay with her, but apparently he saw something in her whole act that nobody else did. Casey and Brittany occasionally showed up at practices, and usually Shane tried not to think of it as a big deal, but today they really had a lot of work to do to be ready for tomorrow’s show.
At least they were all ready to start practice right away since Shane was the last one to get there; he was thankful for that. Most songs went more smoothly than he had thought they would, but there were still a few major problems that needed to be fixed before the show, so it just added to Shane’s frustration when they decided to take a break after only a few songs.
He sunk into the chair next to the stool that Matt was sitting on. Adam had excitedly went outside to make a call, and Mike, Casey, Sonny, and Brittany were hanging out on the other side of the room.
Shane watched the two couples for a few minutes, their happiness reminding him of his dilemma in the girl department. It seemed like every girl that Shane met was either a groupie at their shows, or a workaholic at college that could care less about music. He’d spent more time than he’d like to admit wondering if a happy medium between the two existed. He sighed and looked over at Matt, his girl problems being pushed to the back of his mind while the writer’s block problem pushed its way to the front.
“Hey Matt,” Shane said, watching Matt quickly return from the zoning out he’d been doing.
“Yeah?” he turned to Shane, his black hair almost hiding his soft brown eyes.
Shane looked down then back over at Matt, “I’ve been having a lot of trouble writing, man, and I can’t figure out why. I can’t even get a line of a song anymore…” Shane thought that he sounded pathetic, he was old enough where he thought he should be able to handle these things on his own, and it made him feel helpless having to talk to Matt about it.
“That’s going to happen… you can’t expect everything to work out perfect all the time,” Matt told him, taking a sip from his can of coke then resting it on his knee. Shane thought that he’d be fine if things worked out perfect even once in awhile, he didn’t agree with Matt’s exaggerated optimism, but he didn’t tell him that.
“Well we need to get out another recording… but first we need the material,” Shane reasoned.
Matt nodded slightly, “You’re right, but me and Mike will write a little…” Matt paused. “Just don’t get too stressed, man. If you can’t write, then you can’t write, eventually something will present itself to you.” Matt was like that, he believed in some grand scheme of things and that everything would happen for a reason, whether good or bad. Sometimes Matt’s line of thinking terrified Shane. What if the thing that presented itself to Shane was that he should quit the band, or that he was never going to be good at writing? Music meant too much to Shane for him to be able to handle either of those fates.
Matt and Shane sat in silence for awhile, each of them to their own thoughts, until Adam came back down into the basement. Adam paced around the basement, still talking on his phone, but smiling the whole time, and even giggling once in awhile. It made Shane feel a little better about his talk with Matt, Adam was definitely more pathetic.
After a couple minutes of Adam’s pacing, Matt and Shane gave each other knowing looks. Adam was too easy to read, and even easier to predict. He’d met a girl – and now he’d spend every free moment trying to woo her. They’d seen it before, Adam worked in phases. He’d either give up in a couple of weeks, or get her and be bored with her in a couple of weeks.
After a few more minutes of observing Adam, Shane decided to try to get everyone to start practice again. When Matt saw Shane get up and walk towards the others, he followed, understanding his friend well enough to know that he’d be happy for the help.
