“I don’t want any crap about how hot they are.”

She made a face. “You know I don’t write like I’m from Teen Beat.”

He seemed to ignore this statement and continued on his tirade. “I want hard-hitting journalistic questions, Carter. Hit ‘em in the balls! See if they can take it.”

She rolled her eyes and continued walking, the cell phone perched between her shoulder and ear. “You mean like ‘What’s your favorite color?’ or something more docile than that?”

“Don’t fuck around, honey, or I’ll have you back in this fucking office faster than you can say cu---” he was cut off by the loud coughing on the other end of the phone. “What, did you swallow something unsavory?” He laughed throatily and proceeded to choke; all those years smoking hadn’t helped his vocal cords much.

“No,” she answered in disgust. It was beginning to wear on her, this conversation. And the job, come to think of it. She actually loved what she did, but hated her boss with a passion. When he wasn’t flirting with her, he was yelling at her or treating her like she was his maid. Which she was not.

A few more steps and she’d be at the gate, and could get off the phone (God willing). “Anything else, sir?” Calling him ‘sir’ left a seriously bad taste in her mouth, and she felt her stomach stir with repugnance.

“Yeah,” Richard ‘Call me Dick’ Washington said in his best impression of someone who warranted respect. “Don’t go around sleeping with the bands, you hear me? I don’t want you screwing anybody while you’re there. I’m not paying you to go on vacation, Carter. I’m paying you to work. You can be a whore on your own time.”

“Fuck off,” she muttered, clicking the off button and sliding the phone into her purse. She shook her head, ridding her mind of thoughts of her deplorable boss and concentrated on the task at hand. “Hi,” she said brightly to the large man in front of her wearing a shirt that said ‘STAFF’ in big, chunky letters across his bulky chest. “I’m Mackenzie Carter.” She flashed him a tight smile and handed over her press pass as well as ID.

He took it, his expression remaining stoic while he turned around and talked in hushed tones to some other ‘STAFF’ shirted people; one person smiled at her and said something into his walkie-talkie before the first guy came back to stand in front of her. “Okay,” he said gruffly, motioning behind him. “You can go on in.”

Mackenzie took her things from him, then walked briskly past him and into the throngs of buses parked along the sides of a chain link fence.

She had her instructions, which she would take seriously; aside from everything her boss had said earlier on the phone. She would completely disregard all of that.

The first person she saw that she recognized was leaning against a maroon tour bus, smoking a cigarette. She walked up to him, looking more confident than she was feeling. This was her ideal job, going on tour for a couple weeks with some bands she actually liked and respected…but it was her first big article, and she was incredibly nervous.

“Hi,” she said, clearing her throat when she heard the tremor in her voice; she stuck her hand out toward him and he dropped his cigarette but and stomped it out in the dirt, then took her outstretched hand. “I’m Mackenzie Carter, from The Scene magazine.”

He laughed and shook her hand. “Hey. Frank. Iero. My Chemical Romance.”

Mackenzie made a mental note to jot down something about how Frank seemed to only speak in one or two worded sentences. Maybe it was because it was so early, or because it was so ridiculously hot. Mackenzie was usually freezing, even in ninety degree heat, but she felt a strange perspiration starting beneath her hairline and she longed to take her denim jacket off and slip into some more comfortable shoes. Or no shoes at all, if she could get away with it.

She shook her head of all the sentences forming in her mind for an article and smiled at him. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too.” He jabbed a thumb behind him. “Do you wanna head inside? The guys are in there, and it’s air conditioned.”

“Sure,” she replied gratefully, following Frank up the steps and onto the much cooler bus.

The first thing she heard as she and Frank walked down the cramped hallway was someone yelling, “You fucking cheated you fucking bastard! I’ll kill you!”

Mackenzie smiled to herself. She was really looking forward to this experience. At least these guys wouldn’t be the type to pussyfoot around and act completely out of character. She hoped they’d keep it real, so she could get the best sense of who they were as people, not who they were as a band. Come to think of it, she hoped all the bands she interviewed would be like that. She hated having to literally dig information out of them, even if it was just the title of their latest record (which she would already know, anyway, seeing as how she did extensive research before getting on the plane here).

Frank pushed a door open revealing a lounge and two guys attempting to strangle each other, while another cheered them on. They all stopped moving when Frank shouted over the yelling, “Shut the hell up! There’s a lady present!”

And all eyes turned to Mackenzie, making her feel like maybe she would have been better off at home in California with her two dogs.

[lyrics: Fall Out Boy, “Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying”]