I'm hoping this ridiculously long chapter will tide you guys over until late October, and by the way, I received so many good entries for the new bass player that I've decided to take five characters who really captured my interest and sort of write them into the next couple of chapters, which will be the audition process (and which will also see more of Max and Mel--sorry about them playing somewhat minor roles in this installment, girls), until one character remains as the permanent new bassist of Urban Trash.
P.S. The songs that Scarlet Rage perform (or at least try to perform) in this chapter are Mötley Crüe's "Wild Side," AC/DC's "Big Balls," and Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom," in that order.
A circle of proud, determined warriors gathered around a small table to determine the fate of Mankind as we know it.
"All right, here we go: Rock, paper, scissors," Caitlin declared, having been chosen to represent her band since, quite frankly, she was the sanest one out of the fearsome foursome that made up Verbena. Hmm, I should probably go with paper--too many people choose rock, the fair-haired pop star thought to herself, as she stretched out the palm of her hand to form said shape. Gail, meanwhile, was silently telling herself, Definitely paper--who'd be dumb enough to go with rock again after everybody went with rock last time? Deron grinned, having volunteered to represent his band because the rest of the Ragers were either too pissed off (do you even have to guess?) or too involved with their sweethearts to give a crap. I love rock, he thought happily to himself, a wide smile spreading across his features. Nothing beats good old rock, that's for sure. Edge, meanwhile, was frowning thoughtfully as he automatically used his hand to form paper. Uh oh, I think my hair's beginning to get split ends, he winced. Note to self: Steal Jericho's extra-special, custom-made, guava-extract conditioner tonight while he's off harassing the hotel maids for not folding his shiny checkered pants just the right way.
At that moment, all hands were whipped out to the front to show the result--four papers against one rock.
"Cool, I win," Deron cheered happily to himself, and was rewarded with four heads snapping in his direction and correcting him in unison, "No, bonehead, paper covers rock, that means you lose!" Deron shrugged, the full consequences of this particular defeat having failed to sink in just yet.
"Oh. Okay, then, whatever," the blonde Floridian mumbled in his usual happy-go-lucky way, when at that moment, his loss at Rock, Paper, Scissors registered with Rusty, long enough to snap her out of her dreamy stupor where she'd been exchanging lovesick googly eyes with Jericho from across the room. The curvy Queens native promptly flew over to Deron as if to confirm his defeat, before letting out a heart-wrenching wail of, "Nooooooo! Deron, how could you lose like that! Do you know what this means!"
Rusty's tragic howl drew the attention of the other Ragers--even Raven, who pried herself away from her fascinating conversation with Jeff about how he should shave his chest more often, and wandered over and see what all the commotion was about.
"You know what this means," Edge pronounced, breathing a sigh of immense relief that his band--and, most importantly, his own gorgeous-pearly-whites-boasting self--had succeeded in worming out of the commitment that a loss at Rock, Paper, Scissors would mean.
"Yeah, Cutler, tough luck on losing and all, but this means your band's going to be promoting the Vinyl Act tour by performing the Adopt A Civil War Relic Concert at that fancy retirement home where they're going to lock away Clive Davis and all those other record label big wigs," Gail spoke up cheerfully, also relieved that she'd avoided this particular half-baked brainchild of a publicity-crazed Vince McMahon. Rusty clapped her hands over her face and moaned something incomprehensible under her breath at this death sentence, while Raven scowled and whined, "Great, our reputation's going to go down the drain so fast...How can a heavy metal band appear at some retirement home of all places!"
Her sulky complaint caught the attention of Camryn and Shannon, who stalked on over to a now extremely apprehensive Deron. Camryn reached him first, and, being the taller of the two, wasted no time in grasping Deron by the neck and hoisting him up into the air and against the wall, while Shannon lashed out at the hapless frontman like a Fury, exploding in all her freely cursing glory, "Cutler, you motherfucking idiot! What the fuck do you think you're doing, dipshit, don't you fucking have any fucking sense in that fucking empty vessel you call your fucking head!"
"We are not going to waste an evening playing in front of Civil War relics," Camryn added in an angry hiss, her eyes flashing emerald fire as she emphasized her words, "I didn't form Scarlet Rage just to let it piss away at that kind of shitfest! Ragers. Do. NOT. Perform. For Wrinkled Old Fossils!"
Stacy winced when she noticed that Deron's face was beginning to turn as blue as his Megadeth T-shirt, and spoke up hurriedly before the two raven-haired vixens could throttle him in their fury, "Hey, come on you two, don't go killing the poor guy. It's not worth getting life in prison for five minutes of cruel satisfaction." Deron, wheezing rather pitifully, had enough strength left in him to give Stacy a wry Gee-thanks-a-lot look, before Camryn and Shannon seemed to have resigned to their fate and grudgingly dropped the blonde frontman. As Deron plopped down onto the floor and Camryn and Shannon paced around angrily in a manner not unlike that of caged black panthers, Raven started to sulk, "I don't see why Urban Trash don't have to go. I mean, they're always going on and on about how much they want to make it into the big leagues and everything..."
Melody and Max snapped up at this remark, and the latter raised her head enough to glare at Raven and mutter grumpily, "Thanks so very much for your incredibly generous offer, but we don't want publicity that badly!" Melody brushed a few strands of chocolate-brown hair behind her ears, adding quietly, "Besides, you know we can't fulfill this for-seniors-only engagement even if we wanted to. We're supposed to be auditioning for a new bassist on that day." Rusty glanced up from where she'd been slouching and trying to convince herself that it couldn't possibly be that horrible to waste her night away performing for an incredibly old, incredibly uptight, and incredibly anti-rock-n'-roll audience, and now looked over with interest in the soft-spoken Australian's direction to ask, "If it's not too intrusive of me to ask, just how exactly did Connor get kicked out of Urban Trash, anyway?"
"He didn't get "kicked out," I'm afraid," Melody sighed, looking miserable as she scuffed around the tips of her boots on the linoleum tiles.
"The fucking bastard exploded at the hospital--literally, I might add--and he still owed me four thousand dollars, too," Max grumbled, sounding surprisingly irritable considering her previously feisty mood during rehearsals and performances. Rusty's eyebrows nearly flew off her hairline when she heard those particular words...Unfortunately, she also seemed to be the only one interested, as Raven had drifted back to Jeff to sulk, Deron was pretending that he'd gone through a near-death experience just to wring some sympathy from Stacy, and Camryn and Shannon normally didn't give a crap about anything that didn't directly concern them, anyway.
"How did Anus--uh, I mean, Connor, was it?--how did he, ah, explode?" Rusty inquired delicately, wrinkling her nose as she silently wondered if such a thing could even happen. Melody answered with a morose sigh, and Max once again took it upon herself to explain as she stated bluntly, "He was at the hospital, and the doctors had just finished washing off his burns with one weird medicinal water or another. Anyway, this nurse suddenly thought that he'd farted, so she lit a match...and that's when we found out the hard way that whatever it was they'd just used on Connor to sponge off his burns turned out to be highly flammable."
"It was just this great explosion, like Ka-boom," Melody sobbed tearfully. "I was at the room right next door, getting my stomach pumped from when Kurttie--um, I mean, Mr. Angle--had forced all those gallons of milk down my throat to try and cure my hysteria, when it suddenly happened."
"Yep, and after that, Connor was pretty much just gone," Max cut in bluntly. Melody's eyebrows met across her forehead in a thoughtful frown, as she remembered something and corrected her bandmate, "No, actually, there was something left. It was like this little green globule..."
"On the plus side, at least the explosion canceled out my amnesia," Max remarked shortly. "On the downside, that Irish bastard still owes me four thousand bucks!"
"Well, you can always sell his car," Rusty pointed out reasonably, but one look at the sour expression on Max's face told her that selling Connor's car for repayment wouldn't even be worth the advertisement money.
"The guy drove a beat up, rust-orange, '78 model Pinto," Max revealed dryly. "I'd be lucky if I could get four thousand in pesos for that heap of classic American junk!"
Raven tore herself away from Jeff long enough to butt in at this comment, flying up to Max and Melody and demanding incredulously, "What! McAnus drove a Pinto! What the hell kind of loser would drive a Pinto? Has he no shame?" Melody looked somewhat upset at this description, as she tried to gently correct the blue-eyed Rager, "Well, McAnus--um, I mean, Connor--wasn't really a loser, it's just that he didn't care much about appearances, you see. He wasn't out to impress any girls or anything, like most men with fancy cars are, because--"
"Because he was a gynophobic old virgin," Max cut in bluntly, "which is why he didn't go out and sell his soul to the local Bank of America so that he could buy himself a fancy Porsche."
"Well," Rusty stammered, silently grateful that Scarlet Rage was now no longer the only super-dysfunctional band on this tour. "Listen, I should probably be going now, so Max, Melly, good luck on finding a replacement for McAnus--um, I mean, McAnal--um, I mean, McWhateverHisNameIs. In the meantime, it'll probably be a good idea for me to try and stop Camryn and Shannon from throttling our lead singer!"
Kyrie frowned as she touched up on her makeup, clearly irritable at having been torn from her precious Shannon's side to promote the Vinyl Act tour when she could have spent the day counting all the pretty zebra stripes in his blonde ponytail.
"Honestly, Cait," she started to complain, critically observing her reflection in the mirror as she pushed back her rainbow-streaked brown hair, "you could have made up an excuse like Urban Trash did and gotten us out of this publicity stunt--whatever it might be."
"So you can go back and ogle Shan-Shan?" Caitlin teased, grinning as she brushed her own flaxen locks in front of a mirror. "Come on, Kyrie, lighten up. You can go for one day without gazing adoringly at Shanny M, can't you?" Kyrie gave a grudging nod, before turning to Caitlin and quipping with a knowing smirk, "Just like how you can go for one day without gazing adoringly at Robby V--and his butt--right?" Caitlin turned bright pink, fumbling around the dresser top for a tube of lipstick as she stammered, "What are you talking about, Kyrie, I don't stare at his butt...not that much, anyway."
"Hey, no need to be so embarrassed--if I didn't have Shannon, I'd be staring at Rob's butt too. The guy is friggin' hot, after all," Kyrie giggled, then added with a frown as Amanda and Kelly's loudly flirting voices floated down the hall toward them, "Besides, at least you have good taste when it comes to guys. I don't get what Manda and Kel see in brainless studs like those French guys and Randy Orton. Ugh."
"Well, they are pretty cute," Caitlin reminded her, then added with a faint blush, "But not as cute as Rob, of course." Kyrie wrinkled her nose in distaste, conceding grudgingly, "All right, so they're good-looking, I can give them that. But they're so unbelievably stuck-up and in love with themselves, it's sickening--"
"Sh!" Caitlin quickly shushed, when Amanda and Kelly's voices drifted closer to the dressing room. "They're coming."
True to the only blonde member of Verbena's word, Amanda and Kelly did skip into the dressing room as soon as Kyrie had shut up, Amanda flirting at the top of her lungs, Kelly scoring a piggyback ride from some cute cameraman. Caitlin cleared her throat pointedly as soon as the two Verbena girls and their adoring male entourage had entered the room, whistling with studied nonchalance as she smoothed back her hair, "Aren't you going to introduce us to your friends over there?" while the expression in her impatient grass-green eyes clearly snapped, Where the hell have you two been! Kelly stopped just then, languidly fiddling around with the charms on her silver bracelet as she sang out, "Oh, hi there, Caitie. What'sHerFace and I were just hanging out with some new friends. Here, let me introduce you." She then hopped off the cameraman who'd been carrying her around and beamed up at him, clearing her throat before speaking.
"Kyrie, Caitlin, this is my special new friend...um, Jerry? Jimmy? Johnny?...this is my special new friend, um, Joey," she improvised, having the grace to blush and look sheepish at her obvious blunder. Her special new cameraman friend arched an eyebrow in her direction, before dryly correcting her, "That's Josh, actually."
"Heh, oops," Kelly tee heed apologetically, giving Amanda the perfect opportunity to gloat and look important, as she harrumphed, "Yes, well, unlike Kali over there, I actually have the decency to remember my new friends' names."
As Kelly scowled and stuck out her tongue at Amanda, the New Yorker turned to one of her male fans and fired off, "Caitie, Kyrie, meet my very own Southern stud, Beau. He's a Creole from New Orleans, you know. Isn't he to die for?" Beau turned to fix a wary look on the punk-wannabe pop tart, clearing his throat as he drawled without a hint of a Creole accent, "That's very kind of you, Miss Amanda, but I'm actually from Virginia, and my name is Jesse."
"Oh, Jesse's adorable, what's your full name?" Caitlin chipped in her two cents, causing Jesse to flash her a million-watt smile before adding casually, "Thanks, I appreciate it. My full name's actually Jesse James Bond, Miss."
"Ahem!" Kelly pointedly re-inserted herself into the conversation just then, attaching herself to another cute cameraman as Amanda shot her a withering look, "While Amara's recovering from her silly goof-up, let me just introduce you guys to Aaron Wilkens."
"Actually, I'm Aaron Wilkens," a handsome blonde-haired, blue-eyed youth standing several feet away spoke up, causing Kelly to frown and turn to the guy she was currently holding hands with, fixing him with a suspicious emerald stare while asking almost accusingly, "You mean you're not Aaron? Then who the hell are you?"
"Lance," he replied, much to Kelly's consternation, as she cried out, "But I thought the redheaded guy was Lance!"
"He's Rowen," Lance reminded her.
"And the one who looks like Heath Ledger?" Kelly demanded indignantly, putting her hands to her hips as she looked up at him. "Isn't he Rowen?"
"No, he's Cade," somebody called out. Amanda huffed indignantly at that revelation.
"No way!" she spoke up vehemently, pushing her way toward Lance and Kelly. "Cade is the cute dark-haired guy, the Heath Ledger look-alike's Tony! Or was that Erik?"
"There's way too many cute guys here to tell who's who," Kelly hissed at her, before groaning to herself, "Ugh, I knew we should have just gotten name tags!"
Kyrie, who'd been watching this scene with unconcealed mirth, now chose to speak up as she called out teasingly, "Next time you two should just go and pick up guys at the supermarket, huh? At least all the professionals there actually are wearing name tags for a change, so you'll be able to tell who's who!" Kelly and Amanda joined forces to give her combined glares of death, before returning to their difficult task of sorting out guys.
"All right," Kelly spoke up, and her tone of voice clearly indicated that she thought she was some sort of general weeding through recruits. "The tanned guy with the long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail I definitely know isn't Cade or Tony, because he looks too much like Shannon Moore and--" Before she could finish her sentence, Kyrie had zipped up from her seat and trampled over Kelly, crying out frantically, "Shannon! Where? Where is he! I never got to explain to him why I nearly barged into his bathroom stall the other day!"
Caitlin rolled her eyes heavenward.
"Honestly, Kyrie, have some self-respect," she muttered chastisingly, adding something under her breath about how certain girls dropped everything just to chase after a guy.
"Yeah, and the cute guy with the dimples who looks just like Rob Van Dam I'm positive is called Lafe or something," Amanda happened to conveniently pipe up at that moment, causing Caitlin's eyes to snap open their widest as their owner squealed happily, "Robbykins! He's here! Already! Let me through, or I'm kicking some serious cute cameraman ass!" Now it was Amanda's turn to roll her eyes, as she scolded, "No, Caitlin, Rob isn't here..." Her voice trailed off, as she sent a suspicious look in the blonde Texan's direction while asking quizzically, "By the way, Caitlin, just what exactly did you mean by Rob being here "already?" Are you expecting him or something?" Now Kelly had joined Amanda in frowning suspiciously at the suddenly apprehensive Caitlin, while somewhere in the sea of cute guys, Kyrie was frantically digging her way through in an effort to get a glimpse of the Shannon Moore look-alike. Caitlin swallowed nervously, fiddling around with her recently manicured nails while stammering, "No, of course I wasn't expecting him or anything, it's not like I made plans, and...Hey, look, that guy who just came in here looks exactly like Randy Orton!"
Amanda and Kelly nearly fell down as they whipped around, before spotting at the same time a tall, dark-haired guy who'd just entered the room, and calling out what they thought was his name in unison.
"Brandon!" Kelly sang out happily, waving around one arm in a wide circle and nearly decking Amanda in the process.
"Rhys!" Amanda, after ducking wildly to escape being hit, laughed in an obnoxiously loud voice so as to be heard over Kyrie's disappointed whines that nobody in the male harem looked like her precious Shanny. The guy at the front blinked in confusion, before mumbling in a low voice, "Actually, my name's Dylan, and I just came by to tell you girls from--what was your band name again? Veranda? Verdura?"
"Uh, no, it's Verbena--you know, as in the flowers that you grow?" Caitlin, who'd grown up in Texas and was acquainted enough with the Spanish language to know that Dylan had just unwittingly called them all vegetables, hastened to correct him.
"Whatever. You're up in five," Dylan shrugged off his mistake, then quickly scooted out of the room before either Kelly or Amanda could latch on to him.
Caitlin stood up and beamed, chirping a little too cheerfully, "All right, girls, you heard, um, that Damien guy or whatever his name is, we're up!" Amanda and Kelly reluctantly stopped counting all the hotties they'd collected, before sifting through the crowd of guys in search of an MIA Kyrie.
"Nope, uh uh, you don't look at all like my Shanny," Kyrie was sniffing disdainfully to herself, peering closely at each and every guy in the face before letting him go and resuming her search. "Too tall to be Shannon, too redheaded, too skinny, too tanned, too blonde...Well, I guess you sort of look like Shannon." She finally stopped and paused in front of a medium-height sound technician with a modestly muscular physique and a long blonde ponytail that sported a few black streaks.
"Yup, I guess you kind of look like Shanny," Kyrie muttered critically to herself, tapping at her chin as she looked the blonde up and down. "What's your name? Is it something that sounds like Shannon, like Shane or Rennon or something?" The blonde arched an eyebrow at her, before speaking up dryly, "My name's Lila." Kyrie stopped and frowned.
"Lila? That's kind of a girly name for a guy, isn't it?" she pointed out, and Lila scowled and sniped, "For your information, you dumb brunette, I am a girl!" She then turned and jabbed an accusing finger in Kelly and Amanda's general direction, hissing angrily, "And the only reason I even came here was because those two pimpettes tried to steal my boyfriend, Michael!" Amanda eeped under the frightening glare and quickly ducked behind Caitlin's shorter form, while Kelly boredly peered at her rose-painted nails and drawled in a languid Southern-accented voice, "So what? You say that like it's a bad thing!"
Caitlin, after assuring Amanda that Lila wouldn't harm her, and that if she did they could always pin a lawsuit on her ass faster than one could say her boyfriend's name, tried to collect the scattered members of her band together so that they might go out for their publicity stunt.
"Come on, girls, it's time to go on," she said enthusiastically, yanking Kyrie away from where she'd been grilling a cute blonde cameraman who sort of looked like Shannon, while at the same time stopping Kelly from trying to flirt with half a dozen guys at the same time. Kyrie, Kelly, and Amanda exchanged curious looks at this prodding from their fair-haired bandmate, before shrugging and beginning to head out of the dressing room.
"Aren't you coming with us, Cait?" Kyrie stopped and turned around to ask the one member of Verbena who seemed to be holding back.
"In a minute," Caitlin answered a bit too sweetly. "Let me just, um, finish putting on some eyeshadow, then I'll catch up to you guys right away, I swear." Kyrie shrugged again, none too concerned, and began heading out to the stage where Caitlin had assured them Verbena was supposed to do an interview to promote the Vinyl Act tour.
The trio of pop stars took the stage at that moment, and were instantly greeted by a wave of cheering and applause from the studio audience, much to their pleasant surprise. The host, a nice-looking young man in his late twenties with thick, jet-black hair and dimples when he smiled in greeting, spoke warmly into his microphone as the three ladies came into view, "Ah, and I see that our special guest judges have now arrived!" Kyrie, Kelly, and Amanda exchanged pleased looks, each wondering what they might be judging. Kyrie decided that it was probably a talent contest, Kelly was hoping that it would be an all-male exotic dancing extravaganza, and Amanda was thinking that it might be a beauty pageant--after all, only a gorgeous Southern belle like her would know how to spot beauty in others.
"All right, ladies and gents, now we'll be getting to know our special guest judges for this very special Jiggliest Love Handles contest!" the host announced enthusiastically, as Kelly, Kyrie, and Amanda exchanged dumbfounded looks. Jiggliest Love Handles contest!
"Judge Number One--will you please stand up?" the host was winking at Kyrie, who cautiously half-rose from her seat as he proceeded to introduce her with, "Our first judge hails all the way from Yeehaw County, Arkansas! Please welcome the best corn-fed hog farmer in the entire U.S. of A., Miss Petunia Belch!" Kyrie's eyes widened into indignant green saucers, as she squeaked out disbelievingly while flapping her arms about, "What! My name's Petunia Belch! I'm raising pigs for a living!"
"Uh, Security, please restrain Miss Burp--I mean, Miss Belch," the host spoke up warily, running a hand through his hair before motioning toward a suddenly frightened-looking Amanda.
"Our second judge," he began, as Amanda nervously stood up and waved at the makeshift audience, "is a Playboy playmate--" Amanda let out a breath of relief. Whew. At least she hadn't gotten anything horrible, like Kyrie and her disgusting, slobbering fat pigs.
"--who became one of Hef's bunnies after dropping three hundred pounds of flab through gastric bypass surgery. We can all view a tape of her operation during the contest intermission," the host continued cheerfully, as Amanda brought her hands up to her face in dismay and wailed, "I was fat! I can't be fat! I'm the new punk version of Britney but with better hair!"
"Please welcome Miss Beulah Bové, formerly known as Blubber Butt Bové before she got all that blubber sucked out!" the host finished, then motioned for a traumatized Amanda to sink dazedly back into her seat.
"Now, our third and last special guest judge here today," he said, moving on to Kelly, who swallowed nervously but attempted to put on a brave face as she began to stand up and greet the audience. "Our final judge is the queen--or, should I say, king?--of transvestites--"
"NOOOOOOOO!" Kelly howled, bolting up and out of her seat before the host could finish.
Backstage, Caitlin wove her way through the midst of cute guys that Amanda and Kelly had collected, sneaking out furtively through a back exit and looking around with expectant grass-green eyes. Seeing a silver rental car parked at the curb, the blonde San Antonio native broke into a wide smile and jogged over the few yards before hopping into the passenger seat.
"Hey, I'm so glad you managed to get here on time," she smiled at the handsome young man seated behind the driver's wheel, who grinned before shifting the gear stick to Drive and slowly peeling away from the curb.
"So, which movie do you want to see?" Rob asked, as he pulled out of the studio parking lot and turned into a street marked Palm Avenue.
"Lé Divorce," Trish and Jackie Gayda called out laughingly from the backseat, while squished in between the two of them but looking like he wasn't minding being a divas' sandwich too much, Test chimed in with mock macho bravado, "No way are you two dragging me to a chick flick! I say we go see Bad Boys II."
"Ew!" Trish and Jackie shrieked loudly at the same time, nearly blowing out Test's eardrums in the process before Trish proceeded to add with tongue-in-cheek impishness, "I heard that movie stunk even worse than You Of The Anti-Anti-Perspirant One, Testicle Boy!"
Rob tuned out the squabbling in the back as Test began to splutter wordlessly in mock anger, taking his eyes briefly off the road to shoot an inquiring look at Caitlin as he asked, "So, what do you think, Cait?" The tanned Texan shrugged, replying pleasantly, "Anything, really. I could care less what movie we saw...By the way, Rob, Edge is taping this live jiggling contest for us, right?" Rob nodded, causing Caitlin's smile to grow even wider as she gleefully rubbed her hands together and laughed, "Great! I can't wait to see how the girls are reacting to this "publicity stunt!" That's what they get for all ditching me at the first show on the Vinyl Act tour!"
A crowd of retirement home residents, many of them in wheelchairs, some of them plugged up to life-support, loitered around aimlessly in the nursing center's garden that had been hastily cleared out and transformed into an outdoors concert venue--as was made evident by the scattering of lawn chairs and a crumbling old stage plopped down in the center--waiting for the "blues" band that some buffed up old guy had promised would come and perform for the crowd.
Meanwhile, five miles way, a somewhat bedraggled-looking crew of Ragers were trying to stumble and stagger toward the location of their unfortunate publicity stunt, moving at about a snail's pace after having been kicked out of the limo Vince had rented for them. Right now, Deron was busy fighting with Rusty for the only Walkman the five rock stars had in between them, whining obnoxiously about how Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me To The Moon" was the perfect song to get the two of them in the mood--
"Ow! Rusty, quit slapping me already, I meant getting us in the mood for some fooling around--Ow! I was talking about fooling around as in playing a half-assed show for those incredibly old and wrinkled people!" Deron puffed insultedly, yelping to duck another punch before a light of understanding finally dawned upon Rusty's chocolate-colored eyes and she paused in mid-swing.
"Show some respect, Cutler, you could at least refer to them as senior citizens," she corrected him dryly, her attention soon diverted from Deron's exaggeratedly injured looks when Raven piped up from a few feet behind, "Say, Rusty, do you happen to know who's hosting this old farts' concert?" Rusty shrugged, screwing up her face in a thoughtful frown as she tried to remember, "I'm not sure...I think Vince McMahon was too scared to pronounce his name clearly in front of Shannon and Camryn..."
"Didn't his son mention that it would be Gilbert Godfrey?" Deron chimed in airily, as looks of sheer horror popped up simultaneously on Rusty and Raven's faces, before the former sputtered weakly, "But...but...but Gilbert Godfrey isn't that old...is he?" Deron shrugged.
"Nah, they just needed somebody with a really, really loud, shrill, and obnoxious voice to make sure none of the old geezers drift into any comas during our show," he spoke up cheerfully, causing Raven to wail, "Noooooo! First no Jeffykins for a whole twenty-four hours, and now we've got Iago the Parrot as our host!"
Stumbling around behind the trio, Shannon and Camryn stopped fighting over the last drop of Jack Daniel's when they heard Raven's terrified howl, snapping straight up as they realized that Iago would be their host for the evening. Shannon exploded at their bad luck with a string of curses that would make even a Long Island trucker blush, while Camryn's eyes narrowed into hard emerald slits before she turned to exchange meaningful looks with her fellow Troublesome Triplet (the third being Rusty whenever she was PMS'ing). Without a word, the two sped up their pace and sprinted ahead of their bandmates, causing Rusty to frown worriedly at the prospect of what her fellow Triplets might be up to, Deron to snatch the opportunity and start cranking up Sinatra, and Raven to turn and yank on his longish blonde hair for effortlessly ruining Scarlet Rage's badass hard rock image as soon as that first, "Fly me to the moon" line was crooned out.
By the time Rusty, Raven, and Deron had managed to trip and totter their way to the aptly-titled Adopt A Civil War Relic Concert venue, Shannon and Camryn had already long since arrived, and were standing in front of a closed elevator looking innocent as only they could. Which basically translated into the duo standing around puffing furiously on cigarettes, ignoring the suspicious pounding noises coming from the elevator behind them and occasionally fighting over the bottle of over-priced cognac they'd swindled straight out of the hands of some poor guy too old to even realize he'd been inveigled out of his booze.
"About damn time you three made it," Shannon growled in a harsh, smoky voice, as Camryn beside her grunted something in agreement before tossing her still burning cigarette away and onto the hair of some hapless over-moussed nurse who had the bad luck of being shorter than the Scarlet Rage guitarist.
"Come on, let's get this damn thing over with," the green-eyed vixen snapped, clearing her throat and slinging her guitar over her shoulder. Raven and Deron shrugged and obligingly followed suit, but Rusty stopped in mid-pace as the loud, obnoxious pounding persisted from inside the elevator Shannon and Camryn had been previously reclining against.
"Hey, you two," she called out, even as in the corner of her eyes she caught sight of a sudden movement rounding around the corner, "do you hear that thumping noise?"
"No," Camryn lied blatantly, looking rather bored, when Shannon abruptly seemed to notice the same movement Rusty had perceived earlier, and hastily dealt an urgent backhanded slap onto her taller bandmate's arm. Camryn turned around, her green eyes widening at the sight of a horde of enraged security guards careening toward them, before quickly cursing, "Oh, shit!" and taking off in a flash. Shannon wasted no time in following in her example and scramming as well, and right before a bewildered Rusty's eyes, the two Troublesome Triplets had disappeared around a corner with a swarm of security guards in hot pursuit.
"I don't think I even want to know what you did this time," the second guitarist of Scarlet Rage muttered with a wry look on her face at this turn of events, at the same time that Raven, who'd wandered curiously over to the elevator from which the loud pounding noises had been emanating, called out as she pressed the Open switch, "Hey, would you look at that, Rust! Somebody's tied up and gagged Gilbert Godfrey and tossed him into this elevator right here!" Deron perked up at this announcement.
"Dude! That's so cool," he grinned, flashing a thumbs up sign to the red-faced and severely pissed off-looking Gilbert Godfrey, while Rusty groaned and smacked her forehead with the heel of one hand, grumbling, "So what else is new?"
By the time all five members had managed to make their way to the stage, Shannon and Camryn had already succeeded in landing themselves a November 18th trial date for assault and battery...but as the saying goes, the show must go on, which was how Deron found himself in front of his microphone stand, grinning idiotically at the crowd of bewildered, half-deaf senior citizens in front of him and cheering, "Are you all ready to rock the roof off?...Well, if this garden had a roof, of course!"
"What did he say?" a man well in his eighties turned to warble into his nurse's ear, while some chubby little old lady with an array of knitting needles and blue yarn on her lap stopped in the middle of weaving a hideously bulky sweater to snap sourly, "Pipe down there, young man!"
"Jeez, what's your problem there, grandma? Is it that time of the month or what?" Deron pouted innocently, causing Raven to explode into giggles and Rusty to nearly fall down in frustration. Thankfully, the irascible old lady failed to hear his remark, and after he'd managed to get the crowd about as riled up as retirees aged seventy through one hundred could possibly be, Deron strutted up to the microphone stand and began to belt out the lyrics of the first song.
"Amen!" Rusty sang obediently as soon as Deron was done; however, Raven completely missed her cue and opted instead to shriek, "Ew, that perverted old guy just tried to moon me! Oh, no, now he's broken his hip bending over! Aw, poor guy..." One of the retirement home managers quickly rushed up to the stage before Deron could resume singing, covering up the head of his microphone and hissing, "Uh, Mr. Cutlass?"
"That's Cutler," Deron corrected him cheerfully, but the guy waved off his mistake as he rushed on, "Whatever. Listen, sir, many of our residents don't have much longer to live--if you know what I mean--and the last thing they want right now is to be called sinners in the few weeks or months they have left with us!" Deron blinked innocently.
"Oh, whoops," he mumbled a half-hearted apology, before turning around to signal the rest of his bandmates to cut the song in mid-verse.
"What seems to be the problem?" Rusty wanted to know, frowning worriedly while running a hand through her hair.
"The guy in charge's real anal about us playing something to do with sinners," Deron shrugged in response, then turned to his microphone and cheerfully sang out, "All right, you wonderful old people out there! Since Mr. Preppy by the side of the stage has just nagged me about all you guys dropping like flies within a couple of months, Scarlet Rage has decided to change its setlist from the darker material about sinners and crime toward more lighthearted satire-types of songs!"
"What did he say?" the same eighty-year-old man hollered into his nurse's ear, even as several gasps of indignation and shock ran across the audience as the seniors who were still able to hear united to shoot dirty looks in the general direction of the manager, who gulped and nervously tugged at this collar.
After gathering together to converse none too quietly amongst themselves, during which Rusty was promptly shoved out of the huddle for raising too many common sense questions, the remaining four-fifths of Scarlet Rage soon decided on a new song and scattered across the stage to resume playing, looking rather pleased with themselves as Deron proceeded to screech out the lyrics.
While Deron concentrated on singing and vigorously humping the microphone stand at the same time, several of the seniors turned around and hollered at their nurses about what sort of newfangled devices these balls were. The unfortunate few that did get the thinly-veiled meaning of the song promptly fluttered and dropped onto the lawn like flies, while the lady with the knitting needles remarked solemnly about how she could use some balls (of blue yarn!) right about now.
"Mr. Q-Tip!" the retirement home manager wailed, nearly tearing his hair out as seniors continued to either swoon or bawl out demands about what these balls were supposed to imply. "Stop! Stop! This is entirely inappropriate!"
In a huff, Scarlet Rage stopped playing to allow the frazzled manager to intervene. Raven pouted and griped about how her Jeffykins always approved of whatever music she chose to play, unlike this "bad-toupee-wearing geezer with the jumbo stick up his ass," Rusty wore a knowing, See-I-told-you-so smirk on her face, and Camryn and Shannon looked like they were barely restraining themselves from doing the same thing to the hapless manager that they'd done only half an hour earlier to Gilbert Godfrey and earned themselves a court trial as a result.
"Dude, if our party material isn't good enough for you, and our darker material isn't good enough for you either, then what the hell do you want from us?" Even the ever-mellow Deron was beginning to look frustrated, as he whined sullenly with a pout on his face. Several dark blue veins popped out on the manager's forehead, before he growled out in as civil a voice as possible, "Mr. Cutthroat, please! These are respectable, seventy-eighty-and-ninety-year-old citizens listening to your music here. Could you please just play something...Well, if not romantic or demure, then at least not obscene, either!" Deron perked up at something the manager had said, a grin of unholy glee replacing his sulky pout as he bubbled happily, "Well, why didn't you say so? If you wanted something to get these old farts in the mood, you should've just told us so in the beginning!" The manager began to look apprehensive, as Deron turned around and signaled for his fellow Ragers to strike up "that special song." As Raven obediently started strumming out a series of opening bass notes, the manager whimpered to himself, "Get my residents in the mood?"
Deron sang out cheerfully, nearly giving the manager a seizure right there on the stage. Before said manager could intervene, however, Rusty, too engrossed in playing to even notice what was happening, accidentally bumped into him and knocked him facefirst onto the floor, allowing Camryn then to step carelessly over a certain part of the luckless man and nearly give him a free circumcision as a result. With the manager and his meddling ways temporarily taken care of, Deron was free to yodel and hump away, as he cheerfully delved into the chorus of his special new song.
Fortunately for the flabbergasted retirement home manager and his bewildered and offended residents, Deron abruptly stopped singing after that last line to let out a high-pitched yodel.
"Owie owie owie!" the tanned lead singer shrieked, unexpectedly shoving his microphone stand as far away from him as possible and ending up sending it hurtling into the crowds and knocking out a cluster of seniors equipped with wheelchairs and oxygen tanks. Deron failed to notice his mistake, as he instead opted to hop around gingerly all over the stage, grimacing and sniffling about his boo-boo, until Raven sniped crossly, "What the hell are you bitching about over there, blondie?"
"I think I pulled a muscle from humping the mic stand too hard," Deron half-whimpered, half-squeaked in a pathetic voice, causing Raven to roll her eyes heavenward and grumble something about how thank God Jeffykins was smart enough to know that humping the air was much safer than humping a mic stand. Meanwhile, back in the audience...
"What did he say?" the deaf eighty-year-old rasped into his nurse's ear.
Melody smiled gently as Kurt continued to hover over her like a fussing baby-sitter, trying to think of the most tactful way to tell him that band outsiders generally tended to stay on the outside whenever Urban Trash was conducting important business like auditioning a new bass player.
"Kurt, please," the pretty Australian spoke up in as nice a voice as possible. "I'm sure your band needs you way more than I do. Why don't you go help them out or something?"
"But Melly," Kurt pouted, "after what happened with your old bassist, I have to stay here and make sure you don't wind up hiring another guy who'll swindle you out of four thousand dollars again!" Melody shrugged wordlessly, unsure of exactly what to say to this, when fortunately the first of the potential bassists arrived for her audition and unwittingly gave the coffee-haired Aussie an excuse to wriggle out of a comeback.
She was a tall redhead in her mid-twenties, with a modestly muscular physique and a brisk, Indian gait as she crossed the room toward where Max and Melody were seated. Melody quickly signaled Kurt to be quiet as she turned toward the redhead and offered her warmest smile, speaking pleasantly, "Hi, you must be here to audition for Urban Trash." The redhead merely offered a terse nod, before sensing that perhaps a perfunctory introduction might be necessary at this moment and grunting curtly, "That's right. My name's Sarah Jean Slade. Pleasure." Her cold blue-gray eyes, however, conveyed no sense of pleasure at this meeting, as she added almost as an afterthought, "You can call me Renegade, though--or Gade, take your pick." With that she walked over to a corner and began tuning her bass, making it clear that those were pretty much the only words Melody was going to wrench out of her for the rest of the afternoon.
"Well, that was a delightful experience," Max drawled sarcastically, looking rather bored as she doodled little purple V1's on a notebook and seemingly unaware that she was actually drawing one Matt Hardy's logo. Her brown eyes narrowed a bit, as she added frostily, "I guess she's one of those so-called non-conformists who think they're too good for talking since it's so entrenched in pop culture." Melody frowned at the biting tone in her bandmate's voice, reproving mildly, "That's not fair, Max. Renegade's probably just shy."
"Yeah, she's definitely got to be shy if she runs around calling herself Renegade," Max snorted scornfully, scribbling something in her notebook and not-so-accidentally jabbing a hole right through the lined paper.
"Max, please..." Melody's voice trailed off in mid-reproach, when the sound of light footsteps skittering across the floor announced the arrival of two new bassists.
"Hi, hope we're on time for a change," a high-spirited female voice called out laughingly from across the room, drawing Melody's attention to the figures of two girls in their early twenties, both with jet-black hair and lively, easygoing grins. The girl who'd spoken, a pretty twenty-one-year-old with a Van Dutch hat pulled over her purple-streaked hair, added cheerfully, "We bumped into each other at the bus station and found out we're actually auditioning for the same band--" At that moment, the older of the two piped in, "Yeah, so we just started talking and kind of lost track of time. By the way, I'm Christina Madden." Here, she quickly extended her hand for Melody to shake, who dutifully complied as Christina's friend added, "And my name's Brody Jordan. Nice to meet all of you."
Christina had by then moved on to Max, who pointedly ignored her outstretched hand and instead demanded, "What did you say your name was again? Christina Madman?"
"Madden," Christina corrected her, silently reminding herself that getting into a tiff with one of her potential future bandmates wasn't exactly the best way to get the job. "You know, as in the Madden twins of Good Charlotte? Benji and Joel are actually my brothers, if you can believe that." Max's lips twisted up in a smirk, as she enunciated with languid sarcasm, "Oh, really? Well, aren't those news just absolute thrills and chills; what are you going to tell me next, that Avril Lavigne's your floozy godmother and you're stalking the guy from Sum 41?" Christina's bright smile faded a notch, as the normally sweet-tempered twenty-four-year-old gritted her teeth and snapped, "Are you insinuating something about my brothers?" Max scowled.
"Honey, I'm not insinuating anything," she began cruelly. "I'm flat out telling you that you and your whole amusingly ball-less punk pop clique can--"
"Max, please!" an embarrassed Melody, who'd been watching the mounting tensions with dread, hissed before a fight could break out. "That's no way to talk to the poor girl."
"Should I come back another time? Your band members seem to be rather agitated today," a new voice spoke up from seemingly out of nowhere, causing all the girls to turn around and look at the latest arrival who'd come to try out for bass.
"Oh, so now you're implying that I'm hostile too, aren't you, newbie?" Max shot back nastily. Alexis Black calmly returned her glare with a smooth, blank look, flipping out her short, dark brown hair as she replied in an impassive voice, "I'm not implying or judging anybody. I just wanted to know whether this was a bad time, so I could go back to my hotel and return at a more convenient date."
"No, it's quite all right," Melody spoke up quickly, trying to ignore the angry looks Max and Christina were exchanging. As Brody tried to help her out by putting a restraining hand on Christina's left shoulder, the Urban Trash frontwoman added, "Believe me, we're definitely ready to decide on a new bassist right now. There should be another person auditioning though, I believe..."
Here, her voice trailed off, to allow for a lazy male tone to blab, "Hey, sorry I'm late. I, erm, accidentally gave my taxi driver the directions to this video game convention instead, and then when I finally found a new taxi after waiting three hours at the convention for one, I nearly got run over by a Haagen Das ice cream truck on the way over!" Melody exchanged incredulous looks with Max, who simply rolled her eyes as though to snicker, Yeah, that guy's definitely a keeper!
"Erm, you must be Adam Woo," Melody spoke up politely, choosing to keep her thoughts and impressions unspoken, and was answered with a dazed look and a slow nod.
"Yeah, must be," the pale, somewhat skinny young man mumbled stupidly, narrowing his eyes at her in a wide-eyed stare before he added, "Hey, did you know you look just like that chick from Final Fantasy?" Melody smiled back, although somewhat uneasily.
"Heh, how nice," she stammered awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. Shifting her glance over to the five bassists gathered in front of her, she proceeded to add, "Well, I guess that's it, then. Within the next few hours, we're going to find out which one of you is going to be the new bass player for Urban Trash."
