so I head over to the gear lounge and Joey is arguing with Dan the drummer in Circle Time over something stupid like Zildjians versus Sabians. I stagger to the bathroom. I’m glad to find Millie in there putting lip gloss on, because that means she’s not making out with Travis somewhere. She, Hanna Octane, and our friend Julia, the bass player from Circle Time, are talking about who’s going to get tapped to open for Ween at Ag Field Day.
“Awesome set tonight, Emmy!” Julia says, raising her cocktail to me.
“Magnifico,” Hanna says with a faraway smile, but then Hanna always looks like her mind is being operated remotely by tiny space monkeys. Except when she’s playing—then she’s sharp as a tack.
“You guys nailed it tonight,” Millie says and wraps her arms around me in a drunk hug. “You were so fucking awesome, girl.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“Hey,” Millie says. “I need to ask, are you and Travis Bean a thing?”
Oh shit.
How the hell am I supposed to answer this now? First of all, she’s using my nickname for him and she does not have permission to do that, does she? Not from me, she doesn’t. I want to tell her to keep her fucking hands off of him, but I’m in no position to do that. I’m of the mind here that what I need to be doing is backing as far out of this weird headspace with Travis as possible. Get things back to normal, as in, not fucking him and making out with him. So no, we’re definitely not a thing in that regard. We’re friends, bandmates, and nothing else. And I need to make sure everybody knows it, too.
“No,” I say. “We’re not a thing. Why would you even ask me that?”
“Because I don’t want it to be weird if I hook up with him.”
“Oh,” I say, but I feel like horking up every bit of alcohol I’ve consumed in the course of my college career onto her Doc Martens. I pull it together and say, “Well, it’s not like that with us.”
“Good,” she says and plants a strawberry-scented kiss on my cheek. “Chicks before dicks.”
I’m already most of the way to drunk, which isn’t helping that sick, angry feeling I have now, so what do I do? I march back out to the bar and ask Greg for another shot, which he pours for me on the house. I do it and oh shit. I push my way up front through the crowd where Red Five is killing it, really killing it. Ron, the singer, sees me up front and gives me the “what’s up, fellow musician” nod. Ron Red—all the local musicians get rechristened by Billy Broadband, the local music scene coordinator, if you will, with their band name as their last name, in the tradition of Dean and Gene Ween. Anyway, Ron has fucked every single female in this town except me (including Millie), and he never will as a matter of principle. I like Ron and he’s an awesome guitarist, but much like the rules about hooking up with guys in your own band, hooking up with guys in the scene is also a pretty bad idea. We play with Red Five at least once a month so it’s almost like being in the same band anyway. I’m not saying Ron wants me, by the way. I’m just saying he’s quite fuckable. Actually, all the guys in Red Five are fairly fuckable and only half of them have regular girlfriends.
I’m drunk-thinking all of this when the asshole in the Flyers jersey comes up alongside me and says, “Hey, do you like boys?”
You’d be surprised at how often drunk guys ask me stupid shit like this, and worse.
I turn and give him my best “what the fuck?” face.
“No,” I say to him. “I don’t like boys. I like men.”
He puffs his chest out and beats it like Tarzan, like he doesn’t even get that I’m trying to insult him, so I grab him by the shoulders and turn him to face Ron, Hank, Dominick, and Chad, who are ripping through “Hell Party” now, sweaty hair in their eyes, mouth-breathing from exertion from rocking so hard.
“You see these guys?” I yell, pointing at the stage. “They’re men, and they can fuck anybody they want.”
Flyers’ eyes go wide and his mouth drops open and then he rushes the stage, and no shit, he pushes Ron out of the way and grabs the microphone away from him and