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“Join the party,” Varg invited, sliding the side door open.
He was already drinking. The beer cans rattle in as I climbed in the back. A district whiff of lager on his breath.
“Scale of one to ten?”
“Four,” he belched, holding up that number of fingers.
It wasn’t the most impressive gas-based feat I’d ever witnessed. One night, after a small, club gig in Oslo, I saw him burp the alphabet, backwards in both English and Norwegian. Woe betided any well-meaning patrolman who tried to do a DUI test.
“Good, keep it that way, okay?”
“Okay, Mom.”
The fresh can didn’t even make it all the way out of the cooler before it was bouncing off the wall.
“What the fuck, man?” he demanded, retrieving his assailed brewski, cradling it like a wailing baby.
“Four is plenty,” I declaimed, in my ‘don’t fuck with me’ tone.
He gave me his best scary look, practiced and perfected over many years. The only problem was that I’d seen it too many times before. I knew what he was really like, so his attempts at intimidation fell flat.
“You have no one to impress here, Peter.”
He flinched slightly at the sound of his birth name. He’d been known as ‘Varg’ for as long as anyone outside his family old remember. ‘Peter’ didn’t sound nearly hardcore enough, so he changed it to the Norwegian equivalent of ‘Wolf’ to try and sound dangerous.
He seemed to hope it would stop the bullying. It didn’t really work, except to get the attention of the local cops. The more Peter got pushed around the more intense he became.
Far from drawing him to the dark side, I would die on the hill of arguing it kept him from it. Both the band and metal music in general became an outlet. One I was almost certain kept him from doing something terrible were he left to his own devices.
He’d been collecting weapons before we started Loki’s Laugh, turned into music equipment soon after, selling many of his weapons to afford it. In one memorable case, he traded a Dane ax for his first guitar, a scathed but usable Epiphone Flying V, which we referred to as ‘the ax’ thereafter.
The parking lot at The Sanctuary was almost empty when we got there, Sven’s wagon the only other vehicle in sight. Apparently, Seth didn’t come to every session, which only stood to reason really, since he had a label to run.
Were it not for what happened at the wedding, requiring him to drive me in to the session, he likely wouldn’t have been here at all.
That was a fact which begged the question of how he’d known I wouldn’t be home and therefore need a ride. It was possible the guys had told him about me leaving, but I had a gut feeling he knew already. He knew that I’d left with Stephanie and would likely be at her place in the morning.
At least he was being discreet about it. Varg didn’t notice much, particularly when smashed, but Stig was very alert. I doubted Seth told them anything about what was happening, and Stig figured it out for himself. They weren’t giving me as much shit as I would have expected them to, so I doubted they knew exactly who I’d been with.
Even if they’d seen me leave with Stephanie the night before, there was enough to separate her from the maid of honor they’d first seen her as. I really did appreciate the effort she’d gone through to fit in with the scene, suspecting some involvement from her sister, who was apparently a fan.
“Just keep playing like you did last night and we’re cool,” Varg said to the floor.
The session went better than expected. Four wasn’t as bad as I thought and Varg performed surprisingly well. Stig was already over his hang over, and I was stone sober. More than could be said for Sven, but he was a pro and worked right through.
“What do you think, guys?” Sven asked, looking directly at me as the tracks played back.
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Great, let’s break for lunch.”
Sven had already learned I was the perfectionist in the group, so if I thought it was good enough, it was probably excellent.
No sooner had the door closed following Sven’s swift exit, than my phone did go ping.
“That your muse?” Varg teased.
“Wrong mythology,” Stig observed.
“You guys go ahead; I’ll meet you back here,” I murmured distractedly.
Wrong mythology or not, they were right, it was Stephanie in my ear.
They traded a meaningful look, but didn’t press any further, instead heading off in search of sustenance. Just as long as it wasn’t a liquid lunch, I couldn’t be happier.
Or so I thought, until Stephanie asked if we could meet up.
It felt kind of weird being back in Stephanie’s car, driving back to her place in a rush, but there we were. The Sanctuary was a bit out of town, but Stephanie knew her way around, and we were at the building and up to her apartment in no time.
