High school can be pretty bothersome when you are roughly three years older than your senior peers. Most may snicker about you and others would rely on you for help on certain questions, which always puzzled me because I did not graduate on time for a reason. Perhaps being ditzy runs in the family. My father was quite the airhead himself, respectively. You can tell he is my inspiration from our taste in fashion, but it was not my choice to share bizarre azure blue hair -mine is long enough to reach below my knees unlike his, of course- and our severe hyphema. It was unfortunately recessive by a slim-to-none chance, but I consider mine less satisfactory. My vision is far more damaged than his and I am prone to tripping or bumping into people or objects, which did not help how people saw me at school. I am not asking for your pity, I just wish to speak the truth. I go by my nickname "No-Eyes" not just by those who pick on me because of the poor condition of my eyes. I just like how it sounds and it is a sort of indirect reference to my father's stage name, 2-D.
Speaking of stage names, I also happen to be in a band, but with twenty-year-old misfits and my pal, Samantha. She is definitely the only one I can trust in this band full of psychos. She is a senior like us, but only nineteen like me, barely making her a super-senior. Even though she is a bit timid, she loves to cheer people up with her jokes and is generally well-intended and mild-mannered. Our band did not have an official name at the moment, but I thought of something that was loosely inspired by the once famous band my father was the lead singer of called Gorillaz. I told him about it as soon as I joined and he was really glad that I joined a band and was less worried about me moving out of his band's strange mansion. I am just grateful I was even allowed to move out when I did not finish high school yet. He must have wanted me to leave as soon as possible for my safety. Even our band's bass player Rose's apartment is safer than there and she is coincidentally almost as nuts as uncle Murdoc.
"I remember the first time I heard you sing," 2-D reminisced. "And I knew you were capable of being a star one day. This will be your first step, or probably second step, toward being famous like me and the others were. Maybe even better. Hopefully, they're not gonna drag you into confronting demons or a whale or somefink."
"You kidding? I love whales!" I replied.
"Don't be fooled by their looks, sweetheart. One almost ate me!"
"Don't worry!" I laughed. "We don't even have a name yet!"
"Hm. How 'bout a spin-off name to our's like 'Chimpz?'"
"That name's taken, actually. What about the Tamarinz? That could work, but the girls might not like it."
"Oh. Well, good luck with coming up with a name. You're gonna visit us often, right?" As he asked that, I imagined what it would be like if I did come and visit often and thought about shortening my visits to just on holidays.
"Maybe not too often, but I will for sure. You can visit me whenever you want."
"Take care of yourself out there, love."
As much as I am relieved to be able to leave, instincts made me miss living with him a lot. We gave each other a big hug as I fought back tears. When I was just about to go on my way, I turned around and looked for tears in his deep black eyes. Instead, he smiled and waved at me, giving no signs of sadness. He never really was the type to get that emotional around me. While this did sort of make me worry at times, I was also impressed by it.
I liked the idea of a spin-off band to them, but it is not my decision to come up with-Well, anything for the band because of Rose. She is the self-proclaimed leader of the band. While she is rather talented with her songwriting and bass playing, she can be really stuck-up and pushy. I sat with her at her apartment that I barely moved into, trying to brainstorm for our name with her, our main guitarist, May, and our drummer, Sam.
"We are not going to be associated with that rubbish band," Rose mocked. "They're just so outdated! All they did was make lousy noises with computers since 2016! I'd be embarrassed to call myself a family member. Wouldn't you, No-Brains?"
"Oh, sorry for opening my mouth, Rosie." I replied sourly, clearly regretting joining a band just to be in a band.
"Damn straight," remarked Rose. "Your dad doesn't even have any groundbreaking vocals and the song lyrics never had a heart to them. I actually know how to write and play."
I just love it when she strokes her ego. I was shocked when she mentioned "heart" because she seemed to lack any of it herself. Maybe not song-wise, but personality-wise. I must admit, though. Her songs did catch my attention. I hoped that maybe there was some good in her, but even her songs could not convince me that she would openly show kindness to anyone.
"Why are we even worried about our band name right now?" May asked. "They could just call us 'Those girls that couldn't keep up in school, so they had to form a band so we could pity them even more.'"
May is very similar to Rose, but just a bit sassier in general, less violent for me, and does not know how to write a song to save her life. How she plays her electric guitar is not half bad, however. We also did recognise each other for as long as I can remember, unlike the crazed kidnapper of a bass player-something I will get to later.
"And Sam," Sam jokingly replied, trying to complete the silly name May came up with.
"Shut up," May shot back, possibly lowkey jealous of her being only barely up-to-date with her classmates.
"Er, maybe we should just go back to practising," I suggested. "We can think of it as we play."
"You could go practice," Rose replied. "You're not much help with names anyway. Be careful with that voice, too. I don't want to hear you sound like you're dying."
Sometimes, my hyphema can be helpful because Rose would not be able to tell that I was rolling my eyes at her for her smart-aleck remarks. I walked to my new bedroom, the storage room, to sing by myself. I was surprised I was even allowed to engage in a conversation with her. I was merely a tool to her because she stumbled upon me one-day last year at the cafeteria after school while she was putting up posters for a concert as I was waiting for Sam to come with me so we could just hang out and chat. I was singing one of my father's songs -I think it was Tomorrow Comes Today- and let's just say she was impressed. We did not have a long history of knowing each other, but she must have been so desperate to form a band, perhaps as a publicity stunt or to prove something. So she did what any rational person would do to convince me to be the lead singer of the band.
She slammed me with a chair to knock me out, drove me to her apartment, splashed her wine in my face to wake me up, and shoved a microphone in my hand, expecting me to sing a song she wrote. Of course, I was terrified and speechless, yet she did not care. Me, being the gullible person I am, I fell in love with her song and joined her formerly two-member band because I have always dreamed of being a singer. I can assume that May was the first to volunteer to join Rose's band because they were already friends despite how they sometimes cannot stand each other. Then I invited Sam to join because I figured they needed a drummer, but she was not too thrilled to meet Rose or May either.
"Sam, this is Rose and May," I explained. "I moved in with them to leave my mansion and I thought that you could join our band because all we need is a drummer."
"I mean," May added. "We don't need a drummer because we could always use a drum machine app, but okay."
Sam's smile quickly dropped and she looked a little embarrassed by May's comment. Rose had to retaliate to keep her from changing her mind about drumming for the band because she has never been fond of relying on technology for such situations and wanted us to sound natural. Her response might have been misleading, though.
"Are you crazy?" Rose asked May. "That would mean more work for me to do! Don't you try to scare away some stranger that actually volunteered to come with us! Her friends could help support us, too."
"No, she's right," Sam replied nervously. "A drum machine sounds like a better idea." She already had a bad feeling about them, but I was still able to convince her to join.
"I wouldn't worry about them if I were you," I whispered to her. "They'll only pick on me. If they do abuse you, I'll do something about it."
"I guess if you're in it, it wouldn't be that horrible," she whispered back. "Are you sure you can work with them?"
"I think so. We've never been invited to join a band before and this could be a good start for us."
"But why wouldn't you want to join a band with better people in it?"
"I wanted to try something nice for them."
"Er, hello?" May noted. "We can still hear you, ya know."
"Oh!" Sam shouted. "I'll be the drummer!"
We became a complete band about seven months ago from now. I guess I should have told my father about the members. Oh, boy. I did not see any demons or even a whale, but I still stressed out about this band and the pressure of being the face of it somewhat like how he was with all the madness uncle Muds got him and the others into. Then there was the concert that Rose was trying to advertise in the cafeteria last year. The date had to be extended to just around the end of September in the auditorium that night between a school play so we can be the "guest performers." Thinking about what my father said, how joining the band is my first step to becoming famous, lifted my spirit and gave me hope that I could get used to Rose and May so we could enjoy performing together and we would not be put down for being held back as much as we do now. However, it appears that we are far from getting used to each other and we have only a little over a month left on practising for our first real concert. It will be a bumpy ride.
...