Page 26 of Behind the Lights

Diamond waved a drumstick in salute, Mickey shot a peace sign and Lucas sat in the corner typing away on his cell phone.

“We have a potential gig. Brett said he’d pay us to play at his employee Christmas party. You guys game?” he asked us.

“Hell yeah,” we answered.

“Cool, I’ll let him know. We’ll have to keep the music tame, but light rock will do. Is boy wonder over there going with us?” Stoli gestured toward Lucas while directing his question to me.

“I can hear you, jackass,” Lucas replied, without looking up from his phone.

“I dunno, probably,” I answered, determining this was not the time or the place to have the discussion we needed to have about him and Lucas.

“Come on guys, let’s put a playlist together for this shindig and get to it.” Diamond, always the one ready to play and avoid confrontations.

I figured beating on his drums was a Zen for him, considering the hell his parents put him through daily. At least he could beat the skins without going to jail.

We got through the first song before Lucas’ boredom became clear to everyone. He made a whole presentation of sauntering over to me, sliding his hand along the side of my face and kissing me – tongue and all. And then he turned, blew Stoli a kiss and sauntered out of the garage.

“What the fuck was that about?” I was stunned over the effort he put forth in making such a dramatic exit.

Stoli was livid. His face was more shades of red than I’d ever seen, and his teeth and jaw were tightly clenched. “I think we should make it a band rule, no girlfriends allowed at band practice,” he announced.

“He’s not a girlfriend,” I fired back.

“Really, Joey? He wears so damn much make-up he could shit a glittery fucking unicorn!” Stoli’s voice escalated with each passing syllable.

I stood, fists balled at my sides, invading his personal space. “What’s your fucking problem with my boyfriend?”

Diamond and Mickey ran over, positioning themselves between us. “Guys, come on. You’re best friends, don’t let boyfriends come between you. Man, that shit’s not worth it,” Mickey said, trying to gain control of the situation before we both did things we’d regret.

“I just don’t understand it,” I mumbled as I returned to my seat, running my hands through my hair despondently. The longer it got, the more I found myself playing with it when deep in thought or when I was stressed out.

Diamond whispered as he passed by me on the way back to his kit, “Open your eyes and you will.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but assumed he was telling me that Lucas wasn’t one of us. Which I knew, but I still thought he was the one for me and they needed to get over it and accept it. We calmed down and managed to jump into the next song on the playlist. Stoli and I didn’t utter a single word to each other the rest of the night.

Lucas handled our social media stuff, he was a wiz at it and we didn’t have the money to pay someone else to do it, so he got the job by broke-ass-band default. Stoli didn’t like it, but he didn’t fight it either because he didn’t have any time to do it himself. We knew that Lucas would have some insight into it considering his father’s career and the fact that he was going to the University of Washington aka UDub and was majoring in marketing. He told us there was a rogue follower who kept retweeting and reposting what he was posting amongst other things, but that was a positive. He said it was more free marketing. Lucas claimed the Social Sinners user name on the sites he used, but this rogue poster was calledSocial Sinners Shadowand none of us knew who it was.

The gig at Brett’s holiday party went better than we’d hoped. We had people hitting us up for birthday parties and even got an offer to do a New Year’s bash. Brett had assumed the role as our unofficial manager, so we told them to get in touch with him to set it up. Turning paying gigs down wasn’t an option for us. Uncle John told us about a friend he had who was selling his van and we were close to having the funds together for it. Borrowing our parents’ vehicles was no longer working and had become a nightmare for all of us – parents included.

For Christmas, Uncle John decided to go ahead and buy the van for us and said he would put it in Stoli’s name when he turned eighteen. He added him to his insurance and we paid him each month for our policy. In the interim, we gave him what we’d saved and made monthly payments to him for the difference on the van. It was an old black, nineteen seventy-nine Ford Econoline van. Not pretty to look at, had almost two hundred thousand miles, but the guy had just done a complete overhaul on it and it ran well enough to get us around. It had two seats up front and a bench along one side in the back with plenty of room for our bodies and equipment. Now we could finally play the gigs we’d been asked to do in Portland, Oregon.

Mickey was the artist in the group and he said he’d design our band logo. After he sketched it he was gonna paint it on the side of the van. We were stoked. Everything was falling into place, but with graduation coming up, it was time to buckle down and get over that hurdle. After St. Patrick’s Day, we collectively decided as a group to hold off on taking any other gigs except for the one we’d already booked for a graduation party that most of our class would be at.

When graduation day came, the four of us had already turned eighteen and the only one with a curfew was Diamond. Unbeknownst to his parents, he’d moved most of his stuff into the spare room at my house. Brett and my dad had moved the extra bed from Stoli’s room that I used to sleep on over for him to use. All he had left to bring was one duffle bag which he tossed in the van when we picked him up to head over to the school for the ceremony.

It was painful sitting through the two-hour presentation for the large graduating class we had which consisted of nearly three hundred students. When it ended, we tossed our caps in the air and headed outside to the waiting arms of our families. Mickey was the last one to come out to the designated meeting point we’d established earlier in the day, having stopped to grab four caps off the auditorium floor for us. His folks came walking up at the same time to join the crowd.

My dad was all smiles, hugging me while Mary claimed the job of photographer. “I’m so damn proud of you son.” He beamed, his arm was around my shoulder as she snapped again. “Make sure to give me the negatives so I can make some prints,” he told her.

Over the last few years, my dad started hanging pictures up on the walls in the entryway that ran alongside the stairs. All were of us and our tight knit, non-blood related family. Our sterile house had progressed from cold, to warm and welcoming.

Diamond’s family stood off to the side glaring at us. When his father had had enough, he walked over grabbing him by the arm. “Son, we’re your family not these people.” The spiteful lilt to his voice unnerved me.

“No Dad, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said retracting his arm from his father’s grip before sadly glancing down at his seven-year-old brother Jeremiah. “These people,” he gestured to our group standing idly by, watching this unfold but ready to jump in at a moment’s notice, “This is my family. They don’t hide who they are. They don’t follow, they lead, and they accept me for who I am — faults and all.”

At this point, the crowd surrounding us had increased tenfold. His father’s face was turning an unhealthy shade of red and he was clearly pissed. “Let’s go, son. Now. Straight to church where you’ll repent for your sins against your family.” He reached for Diamond’s arm again, who backed away out of his reach.

“I’m done,” he told his dad, crossing his arms across his chest.

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