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THIS MODERN LOVE, Chapter 7This story may contain adult content. |
| Written by Crimefighter | |
| Tuesday, 26 August 2008 | |
North Carolina comes and goes. We went to the beach, we ate seafood, but my fondest memory of the trip was when Ryan and I got drunk in our hotel watching “Deal or No Deal,” yelling at the tv screen and giving each other sloppy kisses. Afterwards, we had sat on our balcony in the dark, smoking cigarettes and watching the ocean light up periodically from the storm. Being alone with him and having our own place, our own bed, our own lives, made me think over and over in my head, we should move here. We should give up everything and live here and never go back. Time passes, days repeat. Another three-day weekend is upon us, this time for the 4th of July. Originally, Ryan’s tour was to start on Independence Day – and by tour I mean in the poorest terms possible, no stadiums, sometimes not even stages, and always only held together by the love to play music – but it fell through and instead he is only playing one show. The place is a half hour from our town so we go together, ignoring my new GPS when it tries to send us to the toll road. Thankfully it “re-calculates” when we go our own way and it eventually leads us to where we want to go. The day is gray and rainy and I realize when we get there that I am dressed for the holiday and not the weather – a red and white halter sundress with white flip flops. Once we arrive, I become an even bigger outcast amongst the hipsters dressed in dark skinny jeans, geometric patterned dresses and v-neck t-shirts. I ignore it and stay close to Ryan. His band mates arrive an hour later, after we have sufficiently stayed couch and wallflowers. Riley’s girlfriend, Caroline, is carrying something, and when she sees me she bubbles over with gratitude. “I’m so glad you’re here!” she exclaims, as one of the guys takes what she’s been holding and she pulls out a cigarette. I pull out a cigarette too; Ryan leaves to help the guys. “Yah, I’m glad you’re here too,” I say, “I don’t know anyone here except Ryan.” She nods, cigarette in her mouth, lights it and takes a drag. “Me too! I knew it too, and I kept bugging Riley to ask Ryan if you were going to be here, but he kept forgetting. I figured it’d get clique-y.” Caroline is the sweetest, most stylish thing. We only see each other at shows, but always when we get there, you’d think we were such good friends. We’ve even done the whole exchanging numbers thing, but who wants to be the one to call first? We stand there for a while, talking about various things, then decide to go inside to the basement, a long room with a couch on one end and a space on the other waiting to be filled with instruments and people. We sit on the couch, and watch the handful of guys play with the audio, set up CD’s for sale, then pull out some exercise equipment from God knows where and start working out for entertainment. One of them pulls out their balls from the side of his shorts once he realizes he is being videotaped; Caroline and I giggle and turn our heads away. Later, we decide to go back outside again. The guys have set up their stuff and are smoking. It seems everyone there is a smoker. And wearing trendy clothes. At 6 p.m. we go inside for the first act, an asian kid who raps over repetitive beats he probably made in his basement at three in the morning. After his 20 minute set, people pour back out to the backyard, cigarettes and lighters in hand. “That sucked,” Ryan whispers to me. “I don’t know, I think his lyrics were pretty good. He’s not a good rapper though, his delivery wasn’t good,” I’m being honest, but I also don’t want to bash this sad kid with dreads, who Caroline had laughed to me was “a total dork” in high school. Ryan shrugs, “I couldn’t even understand what he was saying.” I shrug back, “Yah, his lyrics weren’t that bad.” The next act is a girl who sings with that raspy-ish, “honest” tinged voice and plays a keyboard. Her lyrics are little poems I could imagine myself writing when I was depressed and dreaming of death. At one point, while she is playing, she strikes the wrong note and it throws her singing off. She laughs softly, “Sorry, sorry about that.” She goes back to playing. Ryan leans over to me, “Oh, so she’s human.” I look at him quizzically, something I’m sure I do often. “Did you think she sounded like a robot?” I ask. He smiles, shakes his head. I hope he loves my ditziness. “No, because it was so perfect. You know, she messed up.” Oh. I nod; Ryan is more musically educated than I am, so I was not aware of the perfection. “She shouldn’t have just stopped like that though,” I whisper. He nods, grabs my hand and squeezes it. After the girl is done, and its time for Ryan’s band to set up and go, some tall blonde girl runs up to Ryan and hits him in the shoulder. “Oh, hey Karin,” he says passively. “Hey!” She’s a jumpy thing, grabbing Ryan’s shoulders and his back. “Where have you been dude?” She grabs the top of his head, scruffs his hair. “Oh my God, you are so bald!” Her shorter, quieter friend, Jessica, smiles, shakes her head at Karin. “Hi Ryan. As you can see Karin is still a *****.” Karin hits her, but it’s all in good fun. Oh, how much fun it is to be so touchy-feely. “Karin, this is my girlfriend Casey,” Ryan is finally introducing me, the girl who is standing right next to him that she never noticed. “Oh, hi.” She barely acknowledges me. Whatever. Ryan needs to get ready and I need to find Caroline. The closer it gets to the show, me and her decide to go inside and get a good spot, right at the front. Their first song is a surprise that Ryan would not divulge even the smallest detail about to me. On the set list, it is simply “Star.” It turns out to be the “Star Spangled Banner,” bringing a little patriotism to this left wing crowd of president haters. The rest of their set is fun, and we all bounce and move to the loud music. After the show, Karin runs straight up to Ryan immediately, which burns me up to no end. Even I rarely do that, she shouldn’t be allowed! I can’t help but wonder if I’m being clouded by the fact that she is just a girl showing any interest in him. After a few minutes, she is gone and I go over to talk to Ryan. “You guys were great!” I say, and kiss his sweaty face. “Really, you think so?” he asks, “We kind of ****** up the first one. I couldn’t even hear Riley!” “Its okay, you were good. It was really a good show. Even the banter in between songs was good.” Ryan smiles; this is something we’ve discussed before. It used to be awkward, but the more they play together, the funnier it becomes. “Really?” he asks and kisses me on the forehead, then starts packaging up his bass. He’s borrowed someone’s bass amp and I ask him “Is the next band using that?” He looks over at it. “No, I’ve gotta move it or something.” Call me a groupie, but seeing him play always excites me. I feel like being a good girlfriend. “Want me to take your bass to your car while you take care of the bass amp?” I ask. His eyes light up, “Sure! Baby you’re the best!” He hands me the bass, in its beautiful hard case that I bought him for our anniversary, and his keys. I walk out, passing Caroline and some guy I’ve seen before at shows. “Is it raining?” I ask as I’m walking by. “Yup” they both say, and I moan. “Why did I have to be nice and say I’d take this for him?!” I walk up the back stairs through wet bushes that brush too close, and walk through the wet grass in my flip flops, getting wet and cold all over. Thankfully, Ryan’s car isn’t too far away and I load his bass into the back seat. Slowly I walk back around the side of the house, walking under a large tree hoping for some cover from the rain. Suddenly, I hear my name being called over by the driveway. Ryan is running toward me and when he gets to me he wraps me up with his arms so tight, kissing me all over. It feels so good after being cold and wet, and I hug back. “Here, come with me,” he says and starts walking back toward the street. “No, Ryan, I’m so wet! It’s raining!” He smiles and leads me by hand. “I know, it’s okay,” he says softly, “Riley’s giving me cigarettes.” We walk over to the street, and after too many seconds of rain in a sundress, we start to walk back. “Let’s go this way,” Ryan suggests, and we go around the other side of the tree, right through mud. In his slip on Chucks with no laces, Ryan is not affected by this, but I am. “Mud?! Ryan!” I cry out, “We should’ve gone the other way!” “Oh baby I’m sorry.” We walk a little further, down the stairs, standing under the deck like everyone else is. We join Caroline and the guys in their corner. I light my last cigarette; tell Caroline about the mud. “At least these shoes are so old and beat up I don’t even care,” I say. “Yah, all my flip flops have foot imprints on them,” she agrees. I notice a little bit later that Karin and Jessica have found Ryan, and they are all talking far enough away that I can’t join them. At one point, Ryan makes eye contact with me, trying to get my attention. “Hey, when did you get your nose pierced, the first time?” he asks. I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I’m sure I’ll find out later. “I think it was in the summer, around August,” I say. They’re both fanning and fawning over Ryan’s tattoo, his newest one, and Caroline overhears. She kind of laughs in my direction, and I roll my eyes, shrug my shoulders. They’re friends, what can I do? Later, more people have gone inside and Ryan and I get a chance to talk. “So, you were talking about me?” I ask slyly, and push him softly. He’s oblivious; “Nah, they were asking me when I got my tattoo and I knew it was when you got your nose pierced.” Oh. With Ryan, it’s almost never what I think. “Well, she sure likes to touch you, doesn’t she?” I’m still being sly, flirty. I don’t want to sound mad, just amused. Ryan smiles sheepishly. “I know, and I don’t like it.” I smile devilishly. “Yah? I don’t like it either.” He laughs and grabs me. “I know! But I ask her to stop. Didn’t you hear me? I said ‘Please stop touching me.’ She doesn’t listen.” “But you sound all playful when you say it, like ‘please stoppp,’” I tease. He pushes me lightly, laughs. “I do not say it like that, I said ‘Stop’!” We go in for the last show we’re staying for, a ska band called “Elephant Appreciation Day.” Their first song is a cover Ryan knows and he sings loudly when they stop playing music and everyone just yells the words. Their third song is a Beatles song, and I sing along to Ryan, who doesn’t know it. (He’s not a Beatles fan.) Their fourth song is a Blink 182 song, but it’s so overdone that we acknowledge it but don’t sing along. Their last song, Ryan grabs me and starts doing a two-step, and we start ballroom dancing in the back row to the loud, fast music of the ska band. It’s sweet and surprising, and I kiss him over and over, something I do when I can’t express my love in words. At the end of the song, I whisper, “You have to dip me!” And of course, he does. Copyright 2008 Crimefighter |
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