“Ryan,” he said cheerfully. Ben was perpetually cheerful. “Hey, buddy, thought you were dead back here. The smell really had me worried.”
“Shut up,” Ryan rasped. “It’s way to goddamn early.”
“Dude, it’s two in the afternoon.”
Ryan covered his face with his hands, letting them slide up as his head dropped, gripping the ends of his bleach-blonde hair and groaning. “When do we play today?”
“Not till 7:45.”
He looked up, brown eyes focusing on the guitarist for the first time. “Seriously?”
“Yep, we’re the last act on the Viacom stage.”
Ryan laughed hard, too hard, in fact, because he abruptly stopped and clutched his head. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbled. “That’s, like, past the bedtimes of most of our fanbase.”
“We should check in on the sound system and everything, see what we wanna do,” Ben said.
“Yeah, we should. Where’s everyone else?”
“Every-who-else?” Ben asked.
“Like, LP and Sean?”
“They’re over at the stage, talking to the crew.”
“Well, we should join them.” Ryan placed an unsteady hand on Ben’s broad shoulder and stepped out of the van into the blazing sunshine of the Wisconsin afternoon. “Where the hell are we?”
“Milwaukee.”
“Happy Days Milwaukee?”
“One in the same,” Ben laughed.
Up on the stage, LP had a joint idling from the left corner of his mouth and Sean was just getting his violins unpacked from the tugger that carried them. Alex stood next to LP, flirting with Patricia, a lighting expert for the Marcus Amphitheater. Sean unlatched the heavy box and extracted the electric fiddle, then the black violin he had come to love so very much lately. “Hey, baby,” he said to the musical instrument. “You didn’t get too hot in there, did you?”
LP stifled a laugh, then replied in a high, thin voice, “No, Sean, Jeremy took good care of me.” Jeremy, their tech, looked up in amusement, then pushed the next heavy box up into the equipment area behind the stage. Joel, Paul and Billy from Good Charlotte were talking with the crew and techs as well, just getting a look at the stage, as they were dropping in for just a month and a half of dates here in the middle of the tour before they broke off to headline their own. They were up at 6:45, still during the peak hours of the tour.
As Ryan approached the stage, his second home, his gait became easier, and he lapsed into his sway-backed, easy slouch instead of the uncomfortable, stiff movements the booze-woozies often gave him. He focused on the unfamiliar people, and didn’t address his bandmates when he approached; he simply stepped into their conversation with, “Good Charlotte.” He said the name with such contempt that it even sounded hateful to those who had lived with it for seven years. “You know, you are the antithesis of what I hate about rock music today.”
There was a stunned, uncomfortable silence. The techs and crew moved away and Ryan’s glare focused on the shortest of the GC members, and in his mind, the focus of the crap-chute punk music was sliding towards. Joel stuttered, then found his voice. “You’re from that band Yellowcard, right? Ryan?”
“Good job, bright light. You wanna go for the million dollar question? How come you put out one incredibly honest record then follow it up with an empty, piece of crap, put-money-in-my-bank album?”
“Hey, hey, back off, Ryan,” Paul said, about to get up in his face. Sean stepped up to hold ground with his bandmate however, the huskiest in both bands standing to defend their respective clans.
“I believe the songwriters are having a private conversation,” Sean said calmly.
“Whatever,” Paul said, shaking his head and pulling on Joel’s shoulder. “We don’t need this, let’s just go check on our shit.”
“I- I don’t think our album is empty,” Joel replied, ignoring Paul, much to the bassist’s annoyance. “It’s just not about the same stuff-”
“Riot girl? Was that, or was that not written specifically so all the 14 year old girls who watch TRL would think you were paying attention to them? ‘Perhaps,’” Ryan imitated a high, girly voice, “’Perhaps Joel’s talking about me. Oh I know he’ll love my Good Charlotte tattoo I got for eight month’s allowance.’”
“Hey, lay off Joel, dude,” Billy said.
“Or he’ll throw a bag of money at me? I’m shaking,” Ryan retorted.
“You know, we all stand behind the lyrics Joel and Benji put together,” Paul said. “So all this crap you’re saying you might as well say to me.” The bassist stood taller than Ryan, Joel and Sean, imposing when he got angry. LP, Alex and Ben stood back from the fray, trying to ignore it as they unloaded their stuff.
“My beef’s not with you, so back off,” Ryan said.
“Does the rest of your band feel like this? Cuz we can have an all out brawl here, if you want,” Billy said, usually the one to plea for peace but was feeling a little froggy this afternoon.
“Any time, anyplace,” Alex said, joining the conversation from behind Ryan. Yellowcard’s lead singer turned to look at him, a bit of incredulity in his face.
“Who the hell are you?” Ryan demanded.
Alex’s expression turned sheepish, his eyes dropping to Ryan’s shoes a moment. “Um, I’m Alex, your new bass player.”
Ryan nodded. “Oh, right.” He turned back to the GC boys as Benji and CJ approached from the Warped floor, weaving through the crowd towards the stage. “Why don’t you and your corporate whore twin singer toddle on back to your tour bus and fuck yourselves.?”
Benji could spot a fight from about a mile away and he charged over, putting an arm around his brother and smirking as he looked Ryan up and down once. “Who’s this asshole?” He asked.
“Oh, good, the other half of the brain that cash built,” Ryan mumbled.
“Why don’t you go make out with Chris Carrabba and leave Joel alone?” Benji inquired, still smirking, leaning forward so their noses almost touched.
“Did you just call me emo’s bitch?” Ryan asked.
“Your words,” Benji replied.
CJ had stopped dead in her tracks about ten feet away. She stood agape for a few moments, then said. “Oh… my …God. LP!” She bounded over as he looked up at the utterance of his name, smiling as she came.
“Hey, I know you,” he said, trying to place her face.
“I came to, like, your last three shows in DC. You’re my hero! My drum God!”
“Oh, you’re the ‘drum God’ girl,” LP said, remembering that she had called him that every time she met him. Usually she was buzzing around Ben when she saw him.
Paul had never seen her so excited or animated. Usually she was the pinnacle of cool. He watched as LP put and arm around her and she hugged his midsection. It wasn’t often there were Black people in punk groups, even less often were there two on the same tour, even less often than that they both filled the same niche in their respective bands.
“You guys are my favorite band,” she said to LP and Ben.
“What about these guys?” Ben asked, pointing to Joel, Billy, Paul and Benji.
She followed his gesture then shrugged, grinning. “Oh, those kids I followed around since high school. I was just lucky enough to get into a band I knew everything about. You guys are my favorite actual band… I’m not in,” she laughed. “You can’t like your own band. That’s like enjoying how your voice sounds on tape.” She shuddered theatrically.
Ben put his hand to his chin as though in deep thought. “You know, you look like a little female version of LP.”
CJ looked up at LP and he down at her. They did have the same hairstyle, in twists, though his fell down around his head and hers stood up in spikes all over. Other than that, they looked completely different. “No, I don’t.” she replied, giving Ben a light punch in the stomach.
“Yeah, you shouldn’t insult people like that,” LP added.
“Hey, look, I got a tattoo of one of your songs.” She brandished the design for them. It was on her elbow and had been the first tattoo she had ever gotten. It was slightly faded by the sunshine, but still was impressive to the three guys looking at it. How bizarre it was, to them, that anyone even bought their first album, let alone had a song name from it emblazoned on their body.
“Hey Ryan and Sean,” Ben called. They looked back at them. “Come meet CJ. She’s got a tattoo of one of our songs.”
As the two turned and went over to inspect the goods, three sets of eyes turned to Paul as he watched the five guys huddle around the diminutive drummer. He became aware of the questioning glares. “What?” he asked, looking over at his band mates. “I didn’t know it was a Yellowcard tattoo. It just says AWOL, that coulda meant anything.”
Benji shook his head and turned to walk away, mumbling, “Fuckin’ A.” He gripped Joel’s t-shirt by the shoulder and dragged his brother with him. Billy eventually wandered after them, Paul following after a prolonged look at the happy set of six reclining against LP’s drum cases.
“Sorry, sorry,” she breathed.
“It’s all good. You got here with time to spare,” Billy told her.
“Where the hell were you?” Paul asked.
She frowned up at him. “Why do you care?”
Paul realized he usually never asked her about things such as this. That she was there was usually enough. He shook his head, feeling his cheeks redden and feeling grateful CJ would never notice. “I don’t. Nevermind.” Warped tour sets are unusually short compared to independent concert sets, so there was a lot less talk from the band and a lot more music. Some bands just played their songs, mumbling the name of the tune before they played it, but GC wasn’t every other band. Joel and Benji easily bantered in front of the crowd before playing their next song, but kept it short enough to get the most out of their set. They ended with the Motivation Proclamation. For the last repetitions of “Motivate me,” Joel hopped down off the stage, chanting with the crowd that was clutching at his sweaty wife-beater. The security guards had a tight grip on his belt as he leaned into outstretched hands to let one guy scream, “I wanna get myself out of this…” into the microphone. He turned and jumped back on stage, rolling once on the dirty surface before hopping up at the end of the song.
“Everyone run over and catch the next band Count the Stars, they’re great. Thanks for watching our set, Milwaukee, you kick ass!” Joel said into the microphone, out of breath from the manic set they’d just performed. Count the stars started their set the moment Joel stopped talking, attracting about half of the crowd with their catchy rock hooks.
CJ liked Count the Stars live. She didn’t much like the album, as the songs were slower in CD form, but just the pace she liked when they sped them up for the live show. She ran off the stage and over to the Count the Stars set, jumping around in the amazingly animated crowd pushing and pressing together. The crowd surfers were dumped directly on the Maurice stage surface, as the barrier holding the spectators back was right against the stage, no guards standing between artist and appreciator. Chris got a couple checks to the mouth as he was trying to sing, accidental jogs created by having more than the allotted four people on the stage. He laughed it off, a pink film coating his teeth after a particularly brutal collision. CJ came out of the crowd sticky and dazed, opting to go backstage for the Yellowcard performance, which was next, back on the Viacom stage. She was wearing only a sports bra at this point, having shed her shirt to play her set with GC, and the security guard at the backstage entrance stopped her.
“Sorry, ma’am, only artists go back here.”
“Hold on.” She had placed her laminate in the back of her bra for safe-keeping, as anything stuck to your pants might get lost in a reckless crowd, like the one she had just broken free of. She fished it out and held it up for the security guard to see. He smiled and let her through. At a sprint, she made it to the Viacom stage before the first song started, seeing LP walk calmly out to his set and start a raucous lead in for Ryan, Sean, Ben and Alex to enter the stage to. She stood just next to the roadies who made sure everything went right during the set, staring at LP’s handiwork all the while. At one point he glanced over and saw her there, smiling at her, then turning to look at Ryan, to keep on rhythm with him.
Paul packed away his bass and looked around for CJ. Usually they went and walked around the venue together, looking for trouble and free beer, and maybe to pick up a Frosty at the Wendy’s booth. But she seemed to have disappeared again. “Hey Billy.”
“Yeah, dude.”
“You see CJ around?”
“Uh, last I saw her she sprinted for the Count the Stars set.”
“Oh yeah,” Paul recollected. “She really likes those guys.”
“I don’t want those pussies on our tour bus,” Benji said from behind the two guitarists. He was still talking to Joel about Yellowcard and how pissed off he was about them. Apparently they had been laughing after their set, asking them, daring them to play Waldorf Worldwide next show without laughing.
“It’s a situational song,” Joel had rebutted. “It was complete honesty at the time. We’ll play it next set.”
Ryan and Sean had just kept laughing, not listening to him at all. “Wait, wait, I need a picture of your face,” Ryan had sputtered out between spasms. “God, you’re so… serious,” he laughed again, breaking down to the point that he needed to lean against Sean to keep from falling over. Sean was laughing just as hard, to the point where he his face turned bright red.
“Oh, shit, I gotta ask you to go away now,” Sean had managed to choke out. “We gotta get ready and you’re wreaking our concentration.” He gained some control over himself and let out a long, slow breath.
“Yeah, run along,” Ryan said, waving him away the way you might shoo a puppy that was yipping at your heel, tugging at your pant cuff. Joel had lapsed into silence, turning away to hide the shame that had somehow bubbled to the surface in the face of all the cajoling. Had they, perhaps, written an album that wasn’t up to par with their debut? The instrumental music was definitely better, but what of the lyrics? He started questioning their right to be the kings of middle-of-the-road, inoffensive punk. He started questioning the importance of two television shows, frequent stops on TRL, and a clothing line. He started questioning the Fendi jackets and classic, tricked out cars. He started questioning…
“But, I guess they’re just trying to rattle me-”
“And you can’t let them, Joel,” Benji said turning and grabbing his brother by the shoulders. “You just look them in the face and tell ‘em to shut the fuck up, all right?”
“But they got a point.”
Benji blinked at him. “What?”
“They have a point… about Waldorf Worldwide? I mean, we can’t legitimately sing that song anymore.”
“Just for that, we’re singing it every night from here on out,” Benji said, turning away from Joel and dropping his last guitar into its slot after pressing on a new Flashlight Brown sticker he had gotten for free at the Alternative Press stand. “Case closed.” He dropped the top of the case and latched it.
“Benji-” Joel started, but he walked away.
Billy sighed. “Damn, well, I guess there’s another band we can check off our friend list.” He looked around, but Paul had vanished as well. “Oh, good, I’m talking to myself again. Perfect.”
Paul stepped into their tour bus, cool and inviting from the sticky heat outside. The back curtain was slightly open and the light was on. He walked back and slid it open, finding CJ, as he had predicted, with LP. They were both lying on their backs in the middle of the floor, still shirtless and sticky from their sets. CJ’s head rested on LP’s stomach as he read one of her Entertainment Weekly magazines and she flipped through a drum equipment catalogue. Both had on earphones and had no idea Paul was watching. She pointed to something in the catalogue and LP looked at it, nodding in approval. “CJ, what the hell?” Paul said finally. They both lazily shifted their gazes to him. Paul hadn’t noticed before, but LP’s laid-back nature mirrored CJ’s, though his seemed to be more chemically induced, rather than a natural adoption.
“Paul,” she said softly. “Hey.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Paul demanded.
LP lifted the mouthpiece of the hookah that sat near their heads, taking a long, deep drag and exhaling some beautiful-smelling smoke. “Just kickin’ it, dude,” LP replied. “Want some?” He lifted to mouthpiece towards him.
“Are you smoking up in our bus?”
“It’s just tobacco,” LP replied carelessly.
“Mango flavored,” CJ sing-songed, trying to entice Paul to try some. “You know you want it.” Paul remained unconvinced. CJ took the mouthpiece from LP and licked it seductively, circling her tongue around the tip, then taking a strong drag. LP watched her in rapt attention, his tongue unconsciously reaching for his lips to wet them.
“CJ, can I talk to you in the hallway please?” Paul asked.
“Sure.” She hopped up and followed him just beyond the curtain. LP went back to flipping through the Entertainment Weekly, tapping his feet along with the music pulsing in his headphones. “What’s up?” She asked.
“Do you have any clue what’s going on out there?” He pointed through the window of the tour bus.
“Uh, the fans are leaving?”
“No, Joel and Benji are really fucking pissed at Yellowcard as a whole, and you bring the freaking enemy on this bus with you?” He whispered harshly.
“Enemy?” She pulled back the edge of the curtain and looked at LP, bobbing his head with his music and letting a lazy stream of smoke escape his lips. “He’s never said a damn thing to any of you guys.”
“You think that’ll matter?”
CJ frowned, thinking about it. Paul raised his eyebrows, as though he was surprised she even had to consider it. “Dammit,” she breathed, shaking her head. “Can I just hang with him and meet you at the hotel? It’s right down the street, isn’t it?”
Paul slit his eyes at her, folding his arms and dipping his head towards her height. “You’re serious?”
“I’ll take a cab if I have to, it’s all good.” She turned. “Hey, LP!”
He looked up at them. “Huh?”
“Wanna go get a beer or something?”
“Can I bring the hookah?”
CJ smiled, enamored of him and his randomness. “We should prob’ly drop that off back at your van.”
LP sighed. “Okay.” He pushed himself up and used the metal cover to extinguish the block of coal sitting on the screen above the water filter that cooled the smoke before it came out through the mouthpiece. “I’ma go put this back and I’ll come get you.” He slipped past Paul and CJ and moseyed off the bus. She smiled softly as she watched him go, and Paul watched her, his eyes glowing in composed dissatisfaction. She looked up at him, recognizing the look in his eyes and laying a hand affectionately on his stomach, leaning towards him so he could feel her breath on his mouth.
“Baby, don’t get all moody on me, now,” she said softly.
He pulled his head back away from her. “I don’t get moody.”
“Then what’s this about?” He looked down into her eyes, but couldn’t find an answer. “Paul, you know I don’t make awesome connections with very many people. You know that, ‘cause I told you when… when we figured out that we were good together.” She nodded, wanting some sign of agreement on his part. Paul crossed his arms across his chest, looking down at her shoes, her tiny shoes, and grudgingly confirming her remark with a defeated shrug. “So maybe I wanna hang out with this kid that’s gonna be around for, what, a month?”
“Month and a half,” Paul corrected.
“I been with GC for a year now, you’ve had exclusive access for a year, and I’m not going anywhere. You still got all the rights.” Paul smirked. He liked it when she talked in completely unlinked euphemisms. “Me and LP… he’s just so chill, it’s easy to just hang out with him.” Paul frowned, still not looking up at her. “Besides, I’ll probably be bored with him in two weeks.” She shrugged and started off the bus after smacking Paul on the ass. He laughed as she looked back at him over her shoulder and made a face, wrinkling her nose and making a kissing face.
The commotion drew him out of his thoughts and off of the tour bus. Unfortunately the rest of Good Charlotte had been on their way back to the bus in order to get out of the still oppressive night heat when LP had tried to exit.
“Look, dudes. I can’t help it if Ryan doesn’t like your mid-tempo rock stylings, all right?” LP tried to reason.
“Why don’t you just keep the hell away from all of us, Longineu?” Billy asked.
“Don’t call me that,” LP bristled, pointing a slender finger at Billy’s chest. “Only my family calls me that.”
“LP,” CJ said softly, tugging on his elbow from the bottom step of the bus. “Why don’t we just go to your van-”
“Oh, I see. You’re gonna hijack our drummer now?” Benji demanded.
“I was thinking the same goddamn thing,” Ryan said, approaching from the darkness beyond the reach of the lights within the bus. Sean, Ben and Alex followed, not as enthused to jump into the fray as Ryan seemed to be.
“You need to stay the hell away from my brother,” Benji said to him.
“Aww, well, wittle Joely and I just had a talk eawlier and he’s just pissed I was wight,” Ryan baby-talked, stooping a little bit and patting the top of Joel’s gelled faux-hawk. Joel knocked his hand away and slit his eyes at him, fight boiling in his gut and manifesting itself in his eyes.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” he growled.
CJ grabbed LP’s hand and said, “Oh, LP, why must we be the only bond that holds these two bands together?” Then she pulled away, turning his hand over and running her fingers over the rough skin of his palm. “Jeez, dude, you seriously need to moisturize, this is like an oven mitt.”
“I dunno,” LP replied. “They sure seem to like to fight with one another.”
“Hey, know what’d be awesome? Like, a punk battle. Yellowcard could make a song dissing Good Charlotte, then GC could rebut.”
“I was just thinking that,” LP laughed. “How’d you know what I was thinking?”
“That would be so freaking lucrative.”
“That’d sell SO many records.”
“Not just that, it’d be funny as hell,” Paul chimed in, joining in the conversation from behind the drummers. Ben had overheard the conversation and walked around the fray, joining Paul, CJ and LP.
“We totally need to do this, dudes,” Ben said. “It’d be too fun.”
“We could just fire back and forth the whole time we’re on Warped. It would rock,” CJ said excitedly, gripping Ben’s t-shirt and bouncing on her toes. The four of them turned to look at the tussle that had escalated from pushes back and forth to a wrestling match on the dusty ground between the twins and Ryan and Sean. Billy and Alex stood just outside of the match, watching. They didn’t seem very enthusiastic about jumping in, and they came around to join the other onlookers.
“Hunh, that looks like it sucks,” Alex said, still watching the fight. Someone landed a punch on Joel’s left eye. They heard Benji apologize before going after Ryan again.
“Yeah. Maybe they’ll get tired soon,” LP commented.
When at last the four guys were just a pile of scraped limbs, bruising skin and muscle, heavy breathing and exhaustion, they sat back on the blacktop and tried to catch their breath. “Crap, these are my favorite pants,” Ryan mumbled, putting his finger through a bloody hole in his khakis on his left knee.
CJ knelt between Ryan and Joel, putting a hand on either of their backs and grinning. “Gentlemen, have we got a proposition for you.”
That’s just chapter one. How awesome is this? My two absolute favorite bands in one story! I’ll update as soon as I get the time to write more. r/r please, I always appreciate it.