Autobahn, Germany
The rain poured down in buckets and the countryside passed by almost too fast for her to notice anything of it. She raised her head from the crossword she was doing to look out the window. Just a blur. That's what it was. Just a blur.
The windshield wipers worked their way across the huge front window of the enormous bus as it chugged along its way down the endless highway. They had been going for at least four hours now, and the rain had been pouring almost the whole time, except for about ten minutes, two hours ago.
Sam, she called herself Sam, as everybody else in her, ever so little, circle of friends called her, and she was twenty-five years old, but her name was Samantha Travis, or to be more exact, Samantha Maiden Travis. That middle-name was something else. That was something her hippie, rock'n'roll parents had thought of in a moment of total drug related euphoria...and she was forever doomed to have a name after a rock and roll group she couldn't care less about.
The road ahead was like it was endless, not even a town for at least 100 kilometers or so. She sighed dejected and turned her eyes back down on her crossword. The paper laid neatly in her lap and she every now and then added a letter to it, sighing for each and every one of them. Could life be more dull and boring?
A month ago she'd been back in Richmond, working her ass off for the local farmer on the outskirts of town, branding his cattle and breaking his horses. Doing more than she was supposed to do in the first place. But she'd liked it, really she had...to start with. But as the days got longer, and the nights got shorter and the pay got lesser, she had finally grasped that she was in fact, getting 'screwed' in every sense of the word, by the farmer.
And to her total surprise, she realized, when she aired this to him, he countered with making a pass at her.
So totally flabbergasted, she just stood there, looking quite awkward, the thought of yelling at him or do something close to it, had been out of her reach to grasp. She'd felt so silly and so utterly stupid, so the only thing to actually do was to leave, then and there.
That was a month ago. Now she sat in this enormous bus, a few seats back from the driver, doing her crossword.
Further back sat the ugly bunch, as she called them, the band. The Rabble.
How had she come to this? Just how?
Thinking back, she could not recall who's 'fault' it was, hers or her friend's.
At a party given to her brother two months ago, a friend of his and hers had just out of the blue, said that a friend's friend needed a favor. There was a job. But not just any job. They needed somebody that could work hard, lift heavy, take insults, do overtime and not complain.
And her brother just simply smiled and said. "Sam's great for the job...she works harder than the devil himself, can take a word or two in the wrong direction...and she never complains."
As he had said that, he never even got the chance to add : " Need I say more ", before the guy had shaken her hand and told her to meet him the next day at the mall downtown.
And now she sat here, in a bus, in the pouring rain, on an endless highway, doing crosswords. And the ugly bunch sat just four rows back, drinking Jack Daniels and making fun of women in general.
She disliked them a lot. Well, to be more precise, she sort of hated them...really she did.
Crawling down in her seat, she pulled her cap down lower, making it almost covering her face as she peered sideways out the window.
Next stop were Wacken, Germany. Now, let there be a recess in the openings of the dams of heavens...pleeeease!
Enough of this everlasting rain.
The band, or more accurate, the pesky hooligans she worked for, had been signed for the yearly Wacken festival in Germany. A big get together and festival for all kinds of crazy rock and rollers, regardless age or gender, so that's where they were heading.
The bus-driver peered a little at her, giving her a sympathetic lopsided grin as he pulled into a rest stop, next to the highway, stopping the bus slowly.
Sounding like a stampede approaching, the four of the band members, along with their usual entourage, containing less picky crew members and one or two groupie dolls, came stumbling down the aisle to exit the bus in the front.
Sam glared at them from under her cap. One month. It had now been one month on the road with these animals. She couldn't say she was surprised. No, that was not it. But she could admit that she was a little bit amazed, though.
She 'd witnessed outraged behavior before, and she had seen people down a lot of alcohol before, but not this much. These four guys were exceptional and totally rare specimens of tough and durable human beings. Well, they were more like animals, she thought...but never the less, definitely four of a very special kind.
As all, more or less, drunken members of the motley crew, in different styles exited the bus to get some fresh air, and to get absolutely soaking wet, Sam stood up and stretched her sore and aching body. Moving down the steps, she was impeded by the bus-driver clearing his throat.
"You got a cigarette Sam?" he asked as she turned around facing him.
"Yeah, I think I got a few" she answered and continued the steps all the way to the ground.
Searching her shirt-pocket, she pulled up a torn and battered package of cigarettes and handed it over to Rusty, the bus-driver. "Take the whole lot will ya'," she said and nodded to him,"I don't want that shit anymore "
He gave her a scowl as she turned her head away, looking for the restroom sign. She found it eventually, hanging more or less awry on the door to the small facility.
She hurried over there, shielding her eyes from the rain that stubbornly were set to, if not to drown them eventually, but to make them feel as wet as they had never done before.
Opening the door, she discovered that both of the 'dolls' from the back of the bus, had gotten there before her.
Unabashedly they discussed her employers as they refreshed their make up, their noses close to the mirrors.
"I honestly do not know what's wrong with Mike " one of them said, and with a swift motion she brushed a huge lock of blond hair from her face. Her blue eyes were framed with layers of the most infinite black mascara, and her full lips were accurately smothered with the reddest color imaginable. She pouted them, looking at herself in the mirror."Have you...? " she looked at the other girl, poking her teasingly down below, "...done him?"
The other girl, a voluptuous red head, reared back and cursed loudly, as it made her smudge her lips with the burgundy lipstick.
"No. I haven't done him..." she hissed, giving the blond girl a mean stare, "He does not seem to want to. But, hey...the others will, " she took a tissue and wiped it off, going for a new try ."And I'll be damned if I'll miss any opportunity."
With a shake of her head, Sam turned around and got back out again. Doing them, meant 'fucking' them, that much she knew. What she had heard and seen this last month, was beyond her earlier wildest imaginations. Now, nothing would or could shock her anymore. Well, she was just sad or you could say afflicted, with everything going on around her. The whole glamorous rock and roll life, wasn't that glamorous after all.
One thing though, the mentioning of Mike not wanting their attention, she thought of as odd.
Mike 'the snake' Aaron. Good looking lead singer and front man of the band. Him, of all people, Sam thought of as a womanizer. He was in fact not really the stereotype of the normal, if there is such a thing as a normal, rock star.
He had a wonderful voice, and even Sam had to admit to herself, she 'd gotten goosebumps the first time she heard him sing. He looked good, too darn good in fact. His hair was shorter than the average rockers, and he was a work of art, tattoo art.
She 'd been working for him for a month, but never spoken to him, but she 'd been told, that most of his body was covered with tattoos. She had seen some of it from afar, but the major part she did not dare to even think about.
Rusty whistled, the sound echoed off in the rain.
"We're leaving, ya' got two minutes." he yelled , nodding his head as he saw Sam hurrying towards the bus.
"If the damned rain could stop drowning us, we may get there in time." she hissed as she stepped back on the bus, nodding back to Rusty.
"Don't count on it..." he laughed softly as a response and stepped up after her .