Chapter 2: The Open Road
Recommended music for this story
: "Nausea", by Beck
"John Kerry is a slick, conniving son of a bitch."
Or at least, that's what the message of the political ad on my TV seemed to be trying to get across.
"JESUS H. CHRIST!" I shouted, throwing a fruit loop at the television.
My roommate, Mike Sars, turned and looked at me. "What the hell, dude?"
"Fucking political ads," I snarled. "It's an entire fucking year until the next presidential election, and I've got Howard Fucking Dean on my fucking t.v. screen calling John Fucking Kerry a fucking douchebag. Why should I have to fucking see this at 7:45 in the fucking morning?!"
Mike just stared at me with a shocked look on his face. "Well… fuck," he uttered.
That broke the tension. I laughed, and he said, "Why don't you just turn it to the Weather Channel or something?"
"Nah," I replied. "I actually have to get going… the marching band is leaving at 8:30, and I need to get over to the Fine Arts College."
Friday morning, and we were about to hit the road for Sacramento. The football team was playing Sacramento State University the next day, and for some reason, the marching band was going along. What the hell – it was a road trip to California – fun, right? Well, the only problem was that it meant driving across the state on Route 66 and then up to Sacramento on multiple other highways. It was a trip of nothing but lameass cities – Ryder, Landisman, Queenlady, Laughlin, Bakersfield, etc., etc. Oh boy, oh howdy.
So, uniform bag in hand, I headed out the door. The Fine Arts College was just across the street from Bullhorn Hall, so I had plenty of time to find my way through the maze and pick up the keyboard.
On the way there, we had been told that the tubas and the percussion would be riding on the same bus. I was looking forward to that – it meant I would get to spend a few hours with Trina, and there had been precious few hours spent with her since Band Day. In fact, despite both of our hope for a repeat performance of what had happened in Coach Sweetzer's office, the most that had happened was just some making out and groping.
Of course, that wouldn't be happening. As I was exiting the band room into one of the many back passages of the FAC, I heard a voice very softly call my name.
"Jack!"
It was Trina.
"Jack, come here for a moment."
I set the keyboard down, turned around, saw her standing, strangely, in a fairly dark corner. I walked over to her, embraced her, and kissed her hungrily. She returned it for a moment, and then pulled back.
"Jack, listen," she said. "I have to make this quick, because I could get in trouble just for talking to you."
"Huh?" I was just simply confused.
"I'm being initiated into the Alpha Delta Pi Sorority," she said. "Part of my initiation is that this weekend, I can't have any boys or any booze."
It took me a moment, and then –
"Aw, GODDAMMIT!"
"Shhhhhh!" she said. "I know, this sucks, but I really want to join the sorority."
I let out a big frustrated sigh. "Dammit, dammit, dammit. I was really looking forward to this weekend."
"Really?" she asked. "Tell me, Jack, why?"
Hmmm. What did I say here?
Because I was planning on banging you senseless all weekend, that's why?
"Uhhh…"
She breathed in, and then let it out slowly. "Listen, Jack, I love you as a friend, but…"
She paused. "What?"
"But, if you were just looking forward to this weekend because you wanted to have sex and lots of it, then maybe we should rethink that part of our relationship."
Wow. This weekend was off to a fantastic start. "Sorry," she said, walking off.
So, I stuffed myself into a corner in the back of the bus with my laptop and my DVDs. Fortunately, the school had just replaced the bathroom in the bus, so it didn't really smell in the back… thank God.
The buses stopped several times. The longest stop was in Queenlady. As were pulling off onto Andrew Sacred Blvd., one of the buses blew a tire. So, we were there for about an hour while that was getting fixed. All the while, I just sat fuming at the stupid ADPi initiation bullshit, not to mention the fact that I was missing out on a weekend of hot band geek sex.
Of course, that's when I realized that that might've been my problem. Right at the moment, I was only in this relationship with Trina because we had, ONCE, had amazingly hot sex, and I was hoping for a repeat performance. Quite honestly, Trina was much more than just that, and I needed to treat her as such.
Properly self-chastised, I returned to the back of the bus.
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
would do the trick for the next leg of the trip. Earphones on, I settled in for some Kevin Smith madness.
We finally got into Sacramento around 10:00 PM. We were staying at Holiday Inn, which was a plus. However, there would be FACulty (as we called them) roaming the halls till 2:00 AM, and it was made quite clear that if anybody wasn't up to snuff at rehearsal the next morning, there would be hell to pay.
I, for one, was exhausted. I climbed into bed, and was out before all of my roommates actually even got to the room.
The alarm went off at 7:00 the next morning, and I crawled back out of bed. Dressed in my black band t-shirt, a black jacket, and blue jeans, I headed downstairs for breakfast. As I sat in the dining area eating my donut and drinking my coffee, I saw Trina come into the room. Even in the tracksuit she was wearing, she still looked damn good. I felt a "stirring in my loins", as they like to say, but I told myself to calm down.
Rehearsal was oh so much fun. I spent half of it figuring out why I couldn't get the keyboard working and then the other half of it chewing a gradass up one side and down the other for bringing the wrong FUCKING amplifier. So, after rehearsal, while everybody else was headed off to SacState, that particular gradass got to go rent the right type!