think of a more bizarre setting for a Stars on the Floor show than this, but if Ween can play it, we sure as hell can. Right now the field is mostly empty, save the handful of parents chasing wayward toddlers across the lawn. Most folks are just wandering around the booths and displays, eating funnel cake and grilled corn and hot dogs on a stick.
Not only are all our friends from the music scene and Rutgers here, but when we’re trucking our gear across the lawn I run into Professor Cocksucker with his wife and kids. He says hello and tells me to break a leg and I don’t even roll my eyes at him, so I guess we’ve come to an understanding. That’s likely because I am getting an A in his class, despite the B I earned on that paper (that would have also been an A if he was less of a dick). I think he likes me because I have a lot to say in that class (one place where talking a lot serves me well). I think I like him, too, even if he is a dick.
We’re all hanging out under the awning behind the trailer, which is our stage today. We’re in the specially roped-off “band only” area with Ween, Billy Broadband, and Carl, drinking beer. The entire women’s rugby team drops by with George to wish us a good show. My mom and Granny and my cousin Nick, with his long, permed hair and his Whitesnake T-shirt (which he unironically wears, all the time), and his girlfriend Jasmine (what stripper pole did he pull her off of?) are here, and that’s a huge deal. When my mother saw this show advertised in the Hunterdon County Democrat, she clipped it out and put it in my baby book (don’t even ask), and then she told me she’d be here, and she is. Granny said she wouldn’t miss it, and she, sadly, went and told my cousin Nick he had to be here to show support. And I can’t say no because in theory, I want this. I want them to take me seriously and to support my music. But it’s making me so fucking nervous and I’m suddenly aware of how many times I say “fuck” in my lyrics. Oh well. Which reminds me, the show is going to be broadcast live, which should really help us with that CMJ quest. I think. But Billy doesn’t, and wouldn’t, ask me to bleep the “fuck” or anything else out of my lyrics. Because he knows better.
My family is hanging out and now Nick and his girlfriend are talking to Aaron and Mickey from Ween like they’re old pals. When Nick starts air guitaring and singing “Slip of the Tongue” (fucking Whitesnake!), I swear to Christmas I’m about to clock him with my Big Muff. I’d chuck it right at his fat, perfectly coiffed head but I need it in working condition in a couple of hours. Granny is calling my bandmates “honey” and “cutie pie,” and when she sees Travis, she gives him the biggest cheek-pinch and calls him “Blondie” and offers to buy him funnel cake because he looks hungry. And Travis, my heart, laughs. And he’s not just being polite, either.
“I was telling Emmy she should get her hooks into you,” Granny says, and I go red in the face. “If she lets you get away, well, let me give you my number.”
Travis looks my way and raises his eyebrows and says, “I’ll take it.”
And I die.
I don’t know why, but Travis has been nicer to me this week than he has been since I sort of suggested that we be fuck buddies in the band and then flaked all the way out and said we had to keep it on our pants for the sake of the band, like that’s what any of this has been about. For either of us. Ever since that night we wrote “Loud Is How I Love You,” Travis has been different. He hasn’t been on his man period at all, even though I put my combat boot in my mouth after the radio show last Sunday. Honestly, he didn’t even seem that mad after that, possibly just resigned to how stupid I am.
“I’ll pick you up for rehearsal on Tuesday,” he said as he was getting back into the van. That gave me a glimmer of hope that I hadn’t fucked it all the way