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Chapter 2

It had been an argument with the band.

It had been an argument with the band. I had been surprised. Blaine wasn't sure if he could commit. If he couldn't commit to the one thing he actually knew how to do, then he was really in for some trouble ahead. Of course, he would be blazed off his ass any time, but if we had a regular show and some sort of promised income, wasn't that good for him? He could at least keep himself, and his habits, supported.

Brett had been thrilled. His pale brown eyes had sparkled with the words, "regular" and, "performance." He loved to perform almost as much as Blaine did. He wasn't much to look at. He wore old faded jeans and torn t-shirts back from his high school days. He kept his brown hair short, sometimes he'd put some gel in it, most times though, he didn't bother to do anything.

Lisa was unsure. Her green eyes looked troubled as she thought about it. She was the only one of us in the band that really had a life outside of the band. "I dunno, guys…" she had said. She wanted to make it big time, so I was confused as to why she would even think twice. "If we're playing regular there, where else are we supposed to play?"

"Aw, come on Liss! It's once or twice a month! That's two, at most, out of thirty days. If we have the exposure there, don't you think other bars will want us to draw in crowds?" I was determined to be there. I was hoping that girl was a regular there. I did want to see her again. And, I wouldn't miss an opportunity to at least talk to her again.

Lisa furrowed her eyebrows and crossed her arms in thought. She looked down at her "stripper" boots and meditated.

"Income… that means money, guys. We lack in that department," Brett added, trying to help my argument.

This sucked. Just sitting there. Waiting for the two incompetent members to decide. I was close to threatening their spots in the band, but that would be useless. If I lost them, I lost the deal of having the band even play in the first place. No band, no show. Damn it! While Lisa looked like she was actually thinking, I wasn't so sure Blaine was doing the same. He just kind of, sat there. His eyes glazing over, I was sure his mind was somewhere else. He was probably seeing body building chickens go at it on the wall at which he was staring.

"How about this? We sign on for two months, see how we like it. We like it, we keep going. We don't we sign off the deal yet until we know that we want to do it long term," I offered. I'm sure Steve would not like this as much, but I would be bringing him cash either way for some amount of time. I didn't think he really had a choice.

Lisa looked up at me and smoothed her mini skirt, "Yeah, I guess I could deal with that."

"Yesssssssssssssssss…" Brett muttered under his breath like a 7th grader who got an answer right on a test, or knew there would be a substitute for his science teacher that day.

I glanced over at Blaine. "Blaine, you like that idea better?" He continued staring at the wall.

"Blaine?"

Silence.

"Dude. Blaine!"

Blaine snapped out of it and glanced at me like I had just waken him up. I sighed, "Blaine, did you seriously not just hear anything I just said?"

"No, I did. I just thought you were Captain Kirk telling me to turn this ship around."

We all gawked at him. I had heard some stupid crap come out of his mouth before… But, it was either about something he saw while we were still in the picture, like, oversized Hershey's kisses in the middle of the room or something, but we had never before turned into a television show for him. I didn't understand how talking about meeting at a bar to play music once or twice a month had any sort of similarity to Star Trek. That was Blaine for you.

"Lay off the shit, man," Lisa complained.

"The orange juice?"

"If that's what you want to call it."

So, it took awhile for Blaine to really understand what was going on, but he agreed to it in the end. Brett did his little "yesssss" thing and Blaine laughed for a while about nothing. Being with Blaine for long periods of time was kind of babysitting the spawn of Satan without getting paid. If he was on something, things were likely to get broken. We all had asked him to sober up a few times, but he would lie and cheat his way around it, so we gave up. As long as he didn't really screw over the band, we just didn't care anymore.

So the first couple shows went really well and Steve had agreed to go month by month. He was just glad someone could pull a semi-huge crowd into his dingy bar. Except for the fact I hadn't seen the mysterious girl since summer, all was going really well until the 7th show. It was October now and it was a cool and crisp evening. Just a few days before Halloween, so everyone started crowding into the Bootlegger's Cavern, aka, the bar. Steve was dressed as a pirate… How original, owner of the Bootlegger's Cavern was dressed as a pirate... A lot of other people came dressed as skimpy fairies, monsters, or, their personal favorite out of the group, dead cheerleaders. It was a huge crowd.

The band was dressed to impress. Brett was kind of a werewolf… The best he could do. Fake hair on his face and on his hands and weird ass teeth. His drumsticks had been gnawed on and were covered in fake blood. It was actually impressive. Lisa was wearing something that looked like it came from "Legs Avenue," the really slutty short Halloween outfits guys liked. She was a puppet or something. A marionette. She knew how to do her make up. She looked… fake. It was pretty cool. I just slashed some fake blood across an old tux shirt, ripped off the sleeves and put some other holes in it and Lisa put some of her black makeup below my eyes. I was freaking awesome. Living dead. Simple and awesome. Blaine, of course, was no where. I shook my head and didn't think much of it.

Well, I didn't think anything of it until we were down to five minutes. This was Steve's biggest house I'd ever played for. We were on stage and I was starting to break out in a cold sweat. I was kind of looking for the girl too, but I didn't try too hard. I'd figured I'd missed my chance. Which pissed me off from time to time.

Blaine… Blaine… Come on…

"I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL RIP HIS NUTS OFF IF HE DOESN'T SHOW UP," Brett growled. He was in character, fittingly so. I just warily looked over at him and nodded my head. I was thinking the same thing. The marionette glanced over at me worriedly, standing in front of her mic…

I found Steve glaring at us. I had told him Blaine was risky. He was coming up the stairs backstage now, looking at the empty space that should've been Blaine. He glimpsed at me with a sideways look and came towards me.

"Where is he?" he quizzed.

I examined him a minute. "Honestly, Steve, if I knew, don't you think I'd go pick his sorry ass up and kick it all the way to China? … After the show of course."

"Do you think he'll be here soon?" he hissed. He was seriously pissed, but it was rather hard to take Steve seriously when he was dressed as a pirate.

"I dunno. Tell the crowd we're having technical problems."

Steve stalked to the mic where Lisa stood, looking at him confused, which made her look more like a marionette. The three of us looked at each other and communicated with our eyes. We were almost sure we knew what happened.

"Ahoy ye scallywags! Due to, er, technical difficulties we—"

Blaine, dressed as a hobo, bounded on stage at that moment. Actually, he wasn't dressed up in any sort of Halloween attire at all. He was just being him. Pathetic. God, how I hated him and wanted to kiss his freaking feet at that moment.

"Fixed," Steve said relatively relieved and walked away. I glared at Blaine. He was off his ass high or something. Tripping on something.

"BLAINE! Really, friend? Really? Tonight? You couldn't fucking wait until we got done with the show?"

"What, man? It's Halloween. Trick or Treat, right? I got me some treats." He smiled smugly. I don't really think he understood my emotions.

"Are you fucking tuned?" I asked, completely irritated. Blaine slung his guitar from his back to his front, took out a pick and strummed it against the strings, resonating a faint perfectly in tune guitar and smiled.

"Plug in and let's get started."

Blaine cantered over to his spot, plugged in to the amp and turned everything on. I was so incredibly relieved. I allowed myself to get over Blaine's tardiness and let the music take me. I let it go throughout my body as we started to play "What Happens Happens." Since this whole Steve and Bootlegger's Cavern thing, we'd created a plethora of music and new songs.

We were four songs in and the crowd was rocking, moshing and just having a great time. I looked over at Blaine and he was just nailing his solo. He was awesome. Godly in his own sense. I was concentrating on my guitar again, watching my fingers move obediently by muscle memory. The guitar was out. I looked up. Blaine had his guitar hanging in front of him, arms at his sides. Looking in the center of the crowd. I was trying to see what he was looking at.

"Holy shit! Flipper, I didn't know you could swim in people! You're yellow today!"

Lisa, Brett and I gaped in horror at him. Everything had stopped. Silence… it was so weird.

Blaine began climbing on top of his amp and his expression went from gleeful to fearful. "FUCK OFF YOU GIANT SHARK!! DON'T TALK TO FLIPPER THAT WAY!"

He just started screaming. Screaming and running around. "AHHHHHHHHHH DON'T EAT ME!!" He was crying hysterically. Brett chased after him. That was a mistake. Blaine looked behind him and started screaming at a walrus on wheels that I guess was Brett. Brett tackled him and I was there in a second. We pinned Blaine to the ground and Brett slapped him which then convinced him he was getting gang banged by Hello Kitty and friends. This was ridiculous. We got Blaine to our van and since all the equipment was still on stage we locked him in back. Just till the high wore off.

I debated going back in… I wasn't sure it was a good idea. I would no doubt lose the contract with Steve… I would have to get rid of Blaine. I couldn't face the humiliation this would cause. I would have to change the name of the band. This all around sucked.

"Jesus Christ…" I whispered and just concentrated on breathing.