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Seth: Give me the cross street, and I’ll pick you up.
As the fates would have it, I was near a cross street, so I could just put in the street signs as I saw them.
I’d heard that Seth used to drive a motorcycle, back before little Casey was born. It was hard to put a baby seat on a bike, though, so he’d gone for a more appropriate family sedan, keeping the Ducati in the garage for special occasions.
It was the sedan that pulled up to the curb in front of the bench, much to my delight. I’d developed a bit of a prejudice in favor of four-wheeled vehicles; it was a matter of balance.
“Stig and Varg are already there,” he told me, once I got in. “Sven is setting things up.”
“Sorry about this.”
“Don’t be. I know how it is.”
He probably did. Seth was older than any of us and had a reputation as a sort of big brother figure to most of the bands the label released. If anyone understood what had happened with Stephanie, he would.
Except that she was his sister-in-law, and that could get a bit thorny—hence my hesitation to tell him whose apartment I had ended up at last night when he had asked over text.
Despite the burning urge to tell someone about what had happened, if nothing else to process that it had actually happened, I kept it tamped down. It wasn’t my first one-night stand, but I had this nagging feeling it might be my last.
There was a round of applause when we showed up at The Sanctuary. It was led by Sven, the main producer, and head engineer, who shot me a glare that could crack glass. Then again, he usually looked that way anyway, so I tried not to take it personally.
“The returning hero,” Varg said.
“If not conquering,” Stig added.
“Both, I would wager,” Sven said, getting in on the action.
“How much?” Varg asked.
“Oh, at least twenty.”
I sat down behind my kit, trying to ignore them, as hard as that could be once they really got going.
“You talking dollars or age of the girl?” Varg asked.
“Girl? The person I saw him talking to was definitely a woman,” Stig observed. “With curves for miles.”
“That she was,” I affirmed.
“Ah, going for the plus-sized ladies now, are ya?” Varg asked.
I snorted.
“Please. Her weight is none of your concern,” I told him. “And she happens to be absolutely gorgeous.”
“Agreed,” Stig said, which was enough to make me throw him a glance that clearly said, “back off; she’s mine.”
It wasn’t the hill I planned to die on, but they’d started going after Stephanie. They could break my balls all they wanted, I could take it, but she had nothing to do with it, really.
“All right, guys, let’s do ‘In the Embrace’ from the top,” Seth said from the booth.
We all jumped to attention, and then we started to play. I knew there would probably be more teasing to come, but I really didn’t care. My night with Stephanie was beautiful and, while it made no logical sense, I wanted a whole lot more.
It could have been love, or it could have been greed. All I knew was that I wanted to see her again. Even if she was a bit posh.
I accepted all sorts of personalities into my life, or at least I tried to. It was how the band had stayed together for so long, that was for damn sure. Stig was okay, but I sometimes thought we were friends with Varg just because no one else would be.
It had just gone on so long that none of us really noticed anymore. Going through lawsuits together can do that.
A church had burned down near a venue we’d played, and people had accused us of arson, likening it to some similar incidents back in the 90s where some black metal bands went on a rampage wrecking old churches.
The century had changed, but most minds hadn’t. Not when it came to subcultures. We weren’t even the same kind of band, and pyrotechnics definitely weren’t our thing, but that mattered little to the prosecutors, intent on getting the blood the public was baying for.
In the end, it was revealed that the church had burned down because of faulty wiring. We were still said to have gotten off on a technicality.
I could understand the anger, honestly, and held no ill will against the locals hurting for the loss. My ire was reserved for the slanting media and pragmatist courts. We could have written a song about it.
Or a series of online articles, as Stig suggested, though that wouldn’t really have done anything. We decided the best way to punish those who would rather we didn’t exist, to the point of nearly locking us up, was to go on doing just that.
Our continued existence as the band became a monument to their failure. The fact that we were about to have three albums on international release was just the icing on the cake. We planned to send an autographed copy, in both CD and vinyl, to every news editor, station manager and prosecutor who gave us shit during the trial.
