I’m sitting alone in our dining hall when I get a message on my phone. I pull it up, and discover that Dirty Diamond has apparently got a gig lined up. We’d only done a few rehearsals, and already they were throwing me into the fires? I didn’t mind much, but this band’s confidence in me was starting to get a little frightening.

I arrive later at the joint, a local restaurant/bar called the Keel-Bridge. I enter through the front door to case the joint with my own eyes. The place is only slightly classy, with lacquered wood as far as the eye can see, comfy booths, and an overall blue-collar aesthetic, with a stage dominating the back of the floor plan. The lighting is decently bright, and warm without being outright blinding… though, they’d likely dim the lights a little for us once we got to work. That, though, was a mere intuition of mine.

I walked outside and around to the parking lot to find a van full of music equipment, with Nork and Teller lifting a speaker together. Felch at least has the dignity to put in a token effort by carrying one of the guitars in.

“What can I help you guys with?” I follow them as they make the slow march towards carrying a speaker indoors.

“I think we got it from here, girl.” Nork grunts, clearly being held back by Teller, who has a far more humble disposition with regards to receiving help from me.

“Don’t listen to him. Go ahead and help, any way you think you can, really.” I couldn’t help but chuckle at the contrast between their attitudes, as they walk up a set of stairs towards the concealed backstage area. I dart back to the van, and look around, and not wanting to touch a guitar, go for a smaller case and a mic stand. Over the course of the next 10 minutes, we finish loading up the stage, at which point Teller hands me a track list-all stuff that I had practiced before. But, it was 15 minutes before we started, so where the hell was Sard?

“Ugh, Sard’s late for sound check again.” Nork sighed, letting his drumsticks beat lightly at the drum kit ahead of him.

Looking between the other band members, I ask the obvious question: “Is this normal for him?”

“Yeah, afraid so.” Felch tilted his head, tuning his guitar strings and then playing a few notes. “He likes being fashionably late, guess it’s to avoid having to tell us straight up that he’s too cool to be doing things like helping with carrying the speakers in.”

“You’re one to talk about avoiding speaker duty, Felch.” Teller quickly retorts, getting a chuckle out of Nork and myself. Felch resorts to a calm grin and a head tilt, almost as a sign of submission.

There’s a noticeable amount of ambient noise in the room, from people chattering, presumably talking about whatever workplace grievances came up that particular day, or gossiping about something else entirely. The ambient noise dims down as soon as the sound check starts-solitary drum strikes and guitar notes, though muffled by the curtains, ring through the room. I flinched; it was louder than I expected. Never thought I was gonna be the one up on stage for a performance, after all, but I was confident that I could fight it for at least tonight. “Hey, I can’t believe I didn’t ask earlier, but how long do these normally go for?”

“We train to go for three hours, but Sard usually calls it at two hours unless we’re getting a really good reception.” Teller looked to me briefly, and then back to his guitar.

Come to think of it, three hours is a really long time for one band to be playing straight. I can’t entirely blame him, but I can’t help but wonder if his ego is a bigger factor in that particular call than anything else. Riding right on the back of that thought, Sard slips in from the side door, in the same flashy vest as usual. “Well, well, gentlemen, we’re going to be facing a pretty decent crowd tonight, with a new vocalist. I’m almost nervous.” His vision snaps over to me. “Try not to fuck this up for me, yeah?”

“I don’t expect to.” I force myself to keep my voice and face neutral, but I didn’t like his attitude very much. He strides confidently, but I think he’s sweating it more than he lets on. Felch checks his watch, the motion visible in the corner of my eye as I approach my mic stand. “Showtime in less than 5 minutes. Check your mics.”

We flick on our mics, and I’m about to say something when Sard just goes right ahead. “Testing, testing, well, well.” He seemed to almost muse, and the silence after was almost long enough for me to get right of way, except he follows up; “Our backup vocalist is new, so if we end up being trash tonight that’s why.”

Nork covers his mouth and lets out a stifled laugh, almost in sync with the faint laughs among the crowd. Teller shakes his head slowly with a smile, the bill of his baseball cap moving back and forth in the air. I turn to see Felch waving me over shortly. “Hey. Don’t let him sweat you.” I nod, turn my head back to my mic, and run a hand through my hair as a devilish idea comes to me.

“Like I said, that won’t be a problem.” I spoke right into the mic, exposing our internal feud to the crowd. “And if it is, I’m sure you’d love to give us your brilliant standup routine.” At this line, Nork almost exploded with laughter, Teller was giggling, and Felch smiled before covering his mouth with his hand. I inhale and exhale with a smile as I watch Sard look behind himself at me, his shocked and probably annoyed expression in sharp contrast with the much more energetic response of the crowd.

He turns back to his mic. “Talking mad shit, I see. Let’s see who laughs when the heat really kicks up.” That wasn’t exactly much of a withering roast, despite his dramatic delivery making him almost sound more like a rapper than a punk rock frontman, but I let him take the last word before the curtains open.

The performance goes well. The patrons take us in with stride, with several tables being quickly relocated to make room for a developing moshpit about 30 minutes in. By the time two hours has passed, I can see Sard pause. “Well, well, well, normally we scram right about now, but I suppose we can stay for a little bit more. You feeling up for it!?” The crowd, ever receptive of us, beckons him on. “Alright...” he looks back to the rest of us. “Looks like we’re working overtime now!”

Looking around myself, I see Teller and Felch smiling, with Nork giving off a battle cry of his own in turn, his very movements displaying an abundance of energy and hype. I know what the guitarists are smiling about, though: I proved Sard wrong.

The performance goes on, and though my vocal cords are straining, I hold it together until the end. Across the last 15 minutes I can feel our collective work get a little sloppy, though not by nearly enough to upset the crowd before us. We then take a bow collectively, Sard taking a moment to take a picture of the crowd before joining us. The curtains close, and Sard finally helps with taking one of the speakers back to the van before walking off to collect the cover charge.

“She made Sard look kinda foolish tonight.” Nork laughs, jabbing my arm as I smile slightly.

“Yeah, I admit I was a little nervous when Sard put her on the spot back there. Thought she might’ve slipped just because of that.”

“I was pretty confident in her. That backchat was fucking insane, though. Got the crowd emotionally invested from the start-we might have to actually make that a planned part of our routine!”

Nork groans. “Oh, leave it to Felch to try and over-complicate things by mixing stand-up in with our rock music.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Hey, I think it’s actually not such a terrible idea. The crowd did react well.”

“I don’t mind it either, to be honest, though that would make it feel a little less special.” I shrug, letting the others handle most of the talking.

“Yeah, without the novelty of actually showing Sard up like that, it might just get a little boring, and cheesy.”

“I’ll admit, Teller, that was the best part of it. Overall, though, this was one of the best nights we had: the crowd liked us enough to let us play for three hours, we got a moshpit running, and Sard even got showed up, and it’s all because of June!”

“With the way you say that, it sounds like you want to give her a group hug.” Nork looks over to Felch as he speaks, half-smirking.

Felch pauses as he seems to think it over. “Ah, fuck it, why not.”

“Yeah, I guess we can afford to get a little goofy for once.” Teller joins the others as I sigh at the awkwardness of the situation, feeling myself preemptively tense up as they close in.

“We’re really doing this, huh?” raising an eyebrow, I slightly frown as the group hug happens, and wait for some… inappropriate touches that thankfully never came. As much as I hated to admit it, it did feel kinda nice to be appreciated by the boys. Reigniting my previous confidence, I offer up a half-smile. “Well… I guess I can let it happen just this once.”

The hug breaks up and the boys and I have a good laugh about it. Then, we’re back on packing up duty, as Sard ends up coming back and waiting by the van with a bucket of cash. By the time we’re done, it’s 10:17 PM. “Alright, what’s our payday look like?”

We watch Sard count out the money with bated breath, as singles and tens turn into hundreds. “So… We’ve got about 600 here.” It’s at this point I notice the others share a look among themselves-it seems they weren’t normally this successful. “300 gets cut off to the collective equipment fund, and that means 50 to each of you, and 100 for me.”

“Really? A double cut, you think you’re that important?”

“To be honest, he pretty much arbitrarily decides how much his extra cut is,” Teller explained. “You get used to it.”

“That’s right, because I’m the face, I’m the charisma, I’m the flame, baby!” To hear him so hyped about justifying this act to us, was slightly annoying.

“If that’s true, then I did a good job of dousing you tonight, didn’t I?” I speak in a deadpan manner and raise a brow, evoking a generally positive reaction from the other band members. Sard, on the other hand, just looked exasperated. “Whatever… I talked with the bar owners. They said we can leave the van here until tomorrow, they won’t tow it or anything shitty like that.

“Great, just what we needed: an excuse to drink away our new earnings.” Nork seemed to smile at Teller’s comment, who in contrast was shaking his head and smiling at the same time.

“About that, boys… I also convinced the manager to give each of us $40 worth of drinks, only available tonight. Drink it or lose it!”

“Huh. Maybe Sard is useful after all.” My thinking out loud was mostly drowned out by the cheers of the other band members, especially Nork.

They make to walk into the bar, with Felch looking behind himself. “So, June, you wanna come and have a drink with us?”

Originally, I was going to decline, but since Felch was asking, I decided to give it a spin. “Fuck it, sure, I’ll give it a try.”

We all head into the Keel-Bridge together, and we all sit at the counter, a small pack of fans slowly recognizing our presence-many I vaguely recognized as the remnants of the moshpit we had left in our wake-and surrounding us as we order our drinks.

“I’ll take one of… whatever Teller’s having, thanks.” I didn’t know much about alcohol, and I figured Teller would be the lightest drinker here.

“I think I’ll be taking one of the… Black Flag rum, yeah.”

“My, my, Teller’s reaching for the hard shit from the start!” Felch adjusted his hat.

“Looks like our boy’s knuckling up!” Nork let out a hearty laugh, like I’d expect a sailor to after hearing a half-decent joke. I move my eyes over to Sard, and realize that he doesn’t seem to be paying as much attention to us as he is to a pair of blond girls further down the bar from us, conspicuously unaccompanied by anything resembling boyfriends. I turn my sights back to the others, as they get handed their drinks and realize that I had inadvertently ordered rum. I didn’t know much about alcohol, but I was under the impression that rum was among the more powerful drinks, up there with vodka, and enjoyed chiefly by hard men such as sailors and pirates. The liquid was of a brownish hue.

I watch Teller take a swig of his own rum, as he leans back and then shakes his head. “WHOOH! That taste is… nuts.” Looking dubiously at my own rum, I cautiously sip it, and find a shockingly sophisticated flavor profile with a strong caramel-like foundation, almost too strong for my liking. I shiver as I let it hit me. Teller then looks over to me. “First time?”

I nod, before staring back at the brown beast in the glass. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. Didn’t have many friends back home, so I never really got into the deep end of drinking. Not exactly the most comfortable introduction...” I sigh, picking up the drink and downing a fifth of the glass in one go. The taste was almost overwhelming again, but I knew what to expect this time and swallow it with more ease-though it was definitely not a good idea as I slam my fist on the counter, fighting the urge to hurl it back up. How the hell did a fifth of a glass do this much to me?

Teller chuckles. “God, ain’t that one hell of an experience?” I let out a light chuckle as I finally keep the rum down, and commit myself to focusing on pacing myself as I hear one of the fans get closer-they’ve clearly had a few drinks, judging by their demeanor.

“Heeeeyyy, man, that was a hell of a show you lot put on there! Especially the female, she’s pretty cool!”

“Oh, who, her? Yeah, she’s new to Dirty Diamond. Doesn’t even have a proper stage name yet.”

“She’s still super cool, can I, like, have her number?”

“No.” I sharply interject, not even turning around to dignify his inquiry. My eyes turn back to where Sard was, to find that he’s now sitting next to the two blonds I noticed earlier, trying to chat them up with limited success. I focus on watching him, morbidly curious at how strong his charisma really shined.

Nork looked behind him, finally seeing the small crowd of fans gawking at us, as his eyes almost literally light up, and piped up; “Holy hell, we have actual fans! If this holds up, we might just be real rock stars!”

“Well, it’s not like we’ve been working at this for over 6 months or anything...” Felch sighed, resting an elbow on the table. “Still, it’s nice to have some recognition.” I catch him smile almost smugly as he readjusts his hat.

“I mean, maybe if we write some shit of our own, but lyrically everything Sard’s ever put together is kinda bad, and Nork’s writing is even cornier.”

“At least my writing’s actually funny, unlike his.” Nork takes another drag at his beer.

“Can’t say I’m any better at writing, gentlemen, but speaking of being real rock stars...” A smile spreads over my face, as I point over at Sard, who at this point appeared to not actually be having much luck with the girls. “This guy thinks he’s already hot shit, angling for a threesome.” It was the most juvenile thing I think I’ve ever said, but after drinking some rum, I was doing a much worse job of thinking before speaking. This line gets a serious laugh out of the others, and I admit I had to laugh as well. I could catch Sard looking towards us briefly, before looking back to the girls he was talking to.

As the night goes on I realize I’ve downed three whole glasses of rum, by the time of the third glass I’ve worked my way up to being able to take on a quarter of a glass without flinching too much. I’m actually starting to like this Black Flag stuff. Another thing I take note of is that with each drag my nerves loosen more and I over-analyze less.

“Alright, my tab’s up, how about you?” Felch crosses his arms, leaning into the counter to get an angle on the rest of us.

“My tab isn’t quite up, but I should probably just stop now.”

“I feel like you should’ve stopped a pint ago, my guy.” Teller chuckled, slapping a hand onto Nork’s shoulder.

“Ahh, one minute guys.” I lean over the counter, flagging a barkeep over. The barkeep wore a tied handkerchief around their neck, and a dress shirt that gave them a charming blue-collar aesthetic. “Do I have enough left over on my tab for a bottle of that Black Flag shit? Like, to go?”

He picks up a sheet of paper hidden from my view, looking at it. “You’d need another $12 to cover the difference.”

“Say no more.” I pull out the money from my wallet, pushing it over the counter. He fetches a bottle off the shelf for me, and I grab it. I look back over to Sard, and though I don’t have a concrete reason why, I think he’s getting a little pushy with the girls. “Teller, hold my Flag. I’m gonna get Sard out of here.”

He takes the bottle from my hands. “Damn, Teller, you got her hooked on the good shit, how could you!?” I hear a laugh from all three of the other band members as I walk off to Sard, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, enough chasing girls, we’re headed out.”

He snaps his vision over to me, frowning. “None of your business, I’m my own man!”

I still knew, even as tipsy as I was, that getting physical with Sard was probably a bad idea, but with the influence of liquid courage, I went for it, grabbing his vest and pulling him closer. “Didn’t you say you were the party face? You chasing after girls like a thirsty little shit makes the rest of us look bad.” Just past Sard, I see two men emerge from the bathroom, and I see their vision immediately snap to the girls-and us. “And, I think their boyfriends just came out of the bathroom.” I muster up the most psychotic, serial-killer-like smile I can manage, but inside I could barely keep a straight face, not entirely believing my own guess. Regardless of how convincing I felt, Sard clearly takes the hint as a look of muted panic comes over him. “Better run, Sard.” I help him out of his stool and walk him to the door where he leaves with the rest of the band as I turn around to find the two men from before right behind us.

I make a split-second decision and stand in the doorway, slipping a hand into my pocket. “Looking for someone, gentlemen?”

They look to each other, clearly confused, and unsure what to do with a woman blocking their way. I’m sure they would’ve just shoved me aside without blinking if I was just some scrawny dude. “Thought so.” I walk out the door, meeting up with the band as they walked down the street.

I take my Black Flag back from Teller. “Good save, June. Seriously.” Felch tilts his head over to me.

“Well, I just felt charitable-and a little drunk, if we’re being completely honest.” The rest of the gang laughs, even Sard. “Anyway, I’m gonna scram, boys, see ya.” They wave to me as I go my own way.

Back at the dormitory, I enter my section, setting the bottle down and staring at the clock. 11:23 PM. A thought hits me, like a bullet sent straight from the dark. I can’t seem to remember the last time I was ever able to just hang out with a nice, big group of friends like that, much less drink rum and be cheered on by an entire crowd. What’s even more troubling was that I was practically a different person after drinking-would I have had friends if I was just… different in my conduct? What’s left of my inebriation manages to take the edge off the mixed pangs of loneliness and sorrow I felt before I finally went to sleep that night.