The crowd was awkward tonight. They just stood there waiting for the next band to come on, that band just happened to be a heavy metal group named Zombie Militia. Take it this way; we weren’t the most popular band on that night or most nights. Not to say we didn’t have fans but there was five friends from school and the local nerd that did everyone’s homework just to still have his face in one piece, not smashed to bits on a locker door. There are four of us. Josh Traight on bass. Jayden Tanner on guitar. Will Downer on vocals, and me, Niall on drums. We are Band 51.
We play the best we can but nothing comes from anything we do and we’ve gone through two different guitarists, Tom Das and Kieran Mellar. They are now the school jocks and bullies. The geek does all their homework and tells them what they need to know for the biggest and most crucial tests so they just scrape by with enough credit to get a sport scholarship. They just happened to be the two best guitarists in the school until they we’re found with steroids. We kicked them out of the band because none of us wanted the pressure of drugs with exams coming up soon. It was in ways the best thing we could have done but still had some sour notes; we became the most outcast kids in school. There’s over 800 students at Stone Park High. No one would look at us because of the abuse we got, daily, from Tom and Kieran.
Being a cover band isn’t that easy. We had to have the right songs on the night or we get booed off stage. It’s like walking into a room and playing Anthrax and Metallica to a bunch of old age pensioners. That has actually happened except we played Dancing In The Moonlight by Toploader and, inevitably, we got heckled by 80 year olds. We learn to change the song when people start yawning and falling asleep, and that happens a lot when you let your older brother, Finn, organise the venues. I don’t want to see the inside of another Care Home ever again. I don’t know what I’ll do when I’m 82 and won’t live in a one. Annie’s Home for the Aged probably wouldn’t take me in anyway. I live in Stone Park, Chicago, Illinois, with a population of 5,127 people. Small is an understatement.
Josh was the last one to get on the small, cramped bus with his bass guitar lazily slung over his shoulder. He never left home without it but today it seemed like it was a weight on his shoulders. He sat in the empty seat in front of us. Not even bothering to spare a glance at us. Something was wrong.
“Hey man, what’s up?” Jayden asked, nosily. He read my mind when he asked that.
“Nothing,” his usual styled hair was oddly pinned across his face, more than normal. The bus lurched forward revealing the side of Josh’s face. He had a large, purple bruise just below his right eye and a deep scrape along his left cheek.
“Wow, dude. Did you fall into a wall or something?” Will piped in.
“No. It’s nothing.” I wasn’t going to let this slip.
“Who was it? Come on, tell us. Which one was it? Huh, Tom or Kieran? Answer us!” I nagged, get frustrated. This wasn’t worth it, we knew who did it but Josh just wouldn’t admit it to himself.
“It’s nothing ok! Jeez, you sound like my mom,” Josh screamed in our faces. The bus stopped at the school and everyone walked into the hellhole that would take up the next 6 years of their lives. “ You know what, don’t bother saving me a seat at lunch. I’ve got better things to do than sit with you losers,” Josh sounded like the bullies we always try to avoid. We can’t add a bassist to the list of past member of Band 51.
School was harsh. Will and Jayden both got detention, for three weeks, because they got in a fight with pretty boys Tom and Kieran. Four black eyes and a fractured wrist later, I sit by myself in the cafeteria. Everyone ditched me and now I’m alone. I can’t even look at people without them ignoring me or smirking at my loneliness, but I guess that’s why blowing people off was invented.
“Hey man. Uh, yeah, about the bus, sorry about that,” Josh sat in front of me looking bored. That makes two of us. He never was good at apologies. This was the best I would get.
“It’s ok.”
“So where’s Jayden and Will?” The awkward tension disappeared.
“Detention. They got in a fight with Kieran and Tom about the…thing that happened,” I explained. “Yeah, and Will fractured his wrist. Thanks God it wasn’t Jayden or you would be playing his guitars at the American Eagle tomorrow.”
“Today has been pretty eventful without me then,” Josh said, his voice infected with a noticeable sad note. This wasn’t right; he was always the happy one. The one who told all the jokes and almost passed out laughing at most of his worst ones. Was it the band? Or was it The Pretty Boy’s and their posse?
“Well it wasn’t the same without you man.”
