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Author's Note: Picture used with permission from *lavonia on deviantart.

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Chapter 105
 

Jem… Chapter 105

Chapter 105

*Before…

“Thanks so much for letting us put on our Friday night show for you all tonight. We had an awesome time and we hope you did too. We’re going to play out as usual and everyone drive safe okay.”

Everyone starts to do their own thing but there’s a bunch still just weaving and leaning and actually singing along with us as we end the night with Brooklyn playing and singing. *One for the money, two for the show.* By Trooper.

It’s a good way to end the night and yet when I look over and see Carmen hanging onto my dad and she looks like she’s crying I’m so not sure that the night’s not done yet.

*And Now…

We’re caught up in the post-show stuff of tearing down and talking to the fans and the crowd. A lot of people come up to talk as they’re buying stuff or dropping off tips.

Dad’s talking with Carmen and the other cardie girls and I kind of see this mask of sorts slip back over her face before she gets back to her table and her friends. She’s holding his hand and moving like…

WTF?

No…

Really?

No….Dad wouldn’t. She’s like way too young.

But she’s kind of acting like it and laughing with the other cardies and get their purses and head off to the bathrooms.

Okay I need to know.

I head over to where Dad is at and he’s getting us some table space down in front and stuff.

“Dad?”

“Yes Angel?”

“Was Carmen flirting with you?”

“She was making it look like she was for the girls that she was with.”

“Oh so you and her talked?”

“Yes, she’s involved isn’t she?”

“Yeah Daddy honestly I think so.”

“She’s a smart girl I never even thought of her acting like that with her friends until we walked up to them.”

“I wouldn’t have either actually. So what does she seem like to you?”

“Hurt, hurt like Brook but in her own way.”

I frown.

I’m frowning because she’s another Adam casualty. Just another person used up and ground down by the Marshal family.

“Angel?”

“I’m okay Dad there’s just a lot more on the line here than me getting out from under now and it’s making me even more determined to do this.”

“As long as we’re careful…no going Ahab on this.”

“I know Daddy I really do plan on living after this.”

We hug and I part ways before Carmen comes back with her friends and head back to the fans and everyone happily taking a hot towel from Rayne. They’re just dollar store white cheap towels soaked in really hot water and wrung out so if some of the make-up doesn’t come all the way out it’s not a big deal but under the lights and in the cooling your body down after a show you really want to get make-up off your skin especially when it’s as heavy as band make up.

It’s not much but it really helps to refresh us after that and I’m sure that our fans that watch things like the fact we do this and get close to the people unmasked as it were.

I actually enjoy talking to the folks that come over and I get a kick out of signing autographs too I usually will pass them around so the whole band gets to sign and then there’s some signing of other stuff too like tee-shirts and posters and stuff nothing too crazy.

And then it’s tonight doing some of this stuff a bit more focused with mike and Molly working together with the audio and video stuff. Some with us but also they take the stuff out to the parking lot to get some of that just after the show crowd buzz and stuff.

I catch Carmen doing the Cardie girl giggle and stuff with the girls that she came with and I can see them looking at my dad like he’s a piece of…

Well Dad is a widower with his own business and land and stuff and it’s a high income job sometimes.

Sometimes…I mean it’s Dad so there’s years of favors out there with stuff he’s done because people by and large are just a paycheck or too from stuff going bad and Dad would just rather wait or take a favor for a favor or just do it because he’s that guy.

As much as I don’t like those look when they leave and stuff Carmen looks like it made a difference there’s that shift in how she carries herself like there’s this whole thing of finally…Dad leads her over to the rest of us and they sit on the edge of the stage and he’s just talking to her and passes her his knife to peel the tape up off the floor with the cords and everything.

She looks surprised to be doing stuff and as more and more people are leaving and filtering out she seems to be getting more and more shy.

I’ll admit it’s a pretty tough bunch here and stuff even the waitresses aren’t the stuff that you run into as a high school girl usually. It’s a pub a bar and one with live music and stuff it’s not like a lot of places that high school girls like Carmen go to.

Maybe…I see her grinning but hiding it with some of the jokes that are getting bantered around.

It could be the whole not your crowd and being new thing too.

I get up and I head over and I look at her and pass her a bottle of water.

“Thanks…Angel.”

“Hey it’s cool, thanks for helping out.”

“I’m not really helping out, I just staying out of the way.”

I sit beside her. “Adam and the Marshals mess with way too many people so yeah it really is thanks for helping out.”

She stares at me. “And you’re doing this for your cousin…”

“Partly, I’m doing what I can because it’s right.”

“I really don’t know what’s right from wrong anymore…it’s just so…”

I reach over and give her a hug. “Scary?”

She nods and sniffles. “A lot…”

“People like him, you know that they win when people don’t do anything…his whole family wouldn’t be all that if they’d been stood up to in the first place.”

(Sniffle.) “But what can we do now…they have everything just…they own everything, everyone…the whole thing is stacked against us if we try to fight back.”

I look her in the eyes. “They don’t own everything or everyone they just think that they do, that they’re entitled to. And that whole stacked against us thing…you know what we do when they try that?”

(Sniffle.) “No….”

“We play effing Jenga.” I grip at her and she sniffles some more and she grins back.

“You’re a complete trip, you and your uncle.”

I shrug. “Most of us just call him Dad.”

She gets this cloudy look on her face. “Must be nice having one that cares.”

I nod. “I never knew new just how nice it was until this year and now…well Dad just is Dad and he’ll be that for whoever he feels that needs it.”

(Sniffle.) “He actually pinky swore with me.”

“You know that to him that’s a forever promise.”

(Sniffle.) “A…A what?”

“A forever promise…five, ten, twenty-five years from now he’ll still keep it.”

(Sniffle.) “He will…!?” She looks and sounds like she is surprised and can’t actually imagine that.

I hug her again. “Yeah…he will.”

(Sniffle-sob.) “I’m not alone…?”

“No…this isn’t going to be easy Carmen but you’re not in this alone, not anymore.”

“You going to be okay?”

“No…but I’m better...you go do all the stuff you gotta do I’ll be okay here.”

I give her another squeeze. “Nothing doing you don’t have to do stuff you can just come over with the rest of us and hang out.”

“I…...”

“C’mon you’re so not in the head space to be alone with your own thoughts right now. We’re nothing like you’re used to I imagine but we’re friendly.”

(Sniffle.) “…………Uhm…okay…” She’s actually nothing like the whole confident I have money cardie girl that I know from school.

Scratch that, I really didn’t know her I just knew the stuff she was putting out there. She looks scared and a little awkward.

I give her another smile and pull her over to the tables that have been fitted together and all the money stuff is there and Jake and some of the waitresses are there except for the two that still won’t put their tips into the kitty.

Rayne’s actually talking to Josie who came to another show and I give her a hug. “You came!”

“Yeah, I wanted to see you girls do a rock style show and I’ll have to say that I really wasn’t disappointed.”

“Good! You know we need to get some more stuff printed out we’ve already sold a truckload and we really don’t have stuff to send out online like we want to.”

“Hey, steady gig doing your stuff is a blessing Angel seriously. Print shops work is usually single runs on stuff.”

“We’ll work with you Josie as long as we keep selling them and getting orders.”

“Honestly thanks.”

“Hey no thanks needed in fact I’d like to work out a deal with you at some point.”

“A deal?”

‘Well we’re doing up our website for the band and our company-slash-label and we’d love to put you on there with an advert and a link to your webpage like I said before.”

“Oh yeah, okay…you said that at The Pine Tree.”

“Yeah and if we all work together and stuff we can seriously get something going.”

“Like?”

I actually kind of boldly look over to Jake. “Pub shirts and other things.”

“Other things?” He asks me.

I smile. “Well you still have yet to show us all that stuff from all the years of this place back when it was hopping and stuff.”

He nods. “For our webpage.”

I smile and take a drink of my water. “For the web page but also for the pub too. We can take like old posters and leaflets and stuff and get print’s and blow them up and old photos and stuff and frame them for in here and stuff as well as scan them for the sight and we can even add all of that stuff into the rock tour thing.”

“Rock tour thing?” Several of them ask.

Kimmie shouts. “Whoo-hoo! We’re going on tour!”

I hold my hands up.

“We’re not going on tour we have to handle our dates here first and we’re plenty committed as it is. No what I’m talking about is we get this set up for us well there’s other people doing bands here in town and close by here too so we reach out. We build a local band and venue association and we bill the entire as Rock-tourism. We get people to come here because there are so many live bands here and there, people go to these things all over Europe so we can do it here and with getting local places involved and all the spin offs it can be a real thing.”

I’m getting stares….Jake, Carmen, Josie, the waitresses there.

Dad’s grinning at me; Brooklyn and Kim are giving me the thumbs up with her drumsticks in her hand.

Molly’s smiling hugely and nodding and Rayne’s got that wants to do stuff to me thing going on.

Jake’s shaking his head. “Sounds complicated.”

I sit down. “Not really it’s a web-ring with local places and we’re all doing a little bit to help each other out and when word gets out that this is going on in like a year or so we might see provincial money or we might attract a small music festival and at the very least we’ll likely attract better bands.”

Carmen actually asks. “Won’t better bands play better places?”

I nod. “They might and if they do that’s cool but they’re still coming here…and that draws people to places to eat and sleep and get gas. But we’ll also have the whole landmark thing here with places like here. We might get nostalgia plays.”

More odd looks, mostly from everyone.

“That’s when you play someplace that you usually don’t because of the place. Lots of bigger bands will go to a local famous hot spot and play just because other bands did it.”

Jake actually has this look on his face. “That would be cool.”

I nod. “Very…so how about we get this stuff done and Jake you can show us to the stuff you have stored and we can get at it all tomorrow and maybe have some stuff done or outlines of it before the show tomorrow night.”

Josie grins and asks. “Can I stick around guys; it’d help me to get a look at stuff too.”

I nod.

She’s like. “Cool…man this hasn’t felt like a rockin town like this since I was a kid…”

Jake grins at her. “Haven’t had that spirit here since nineteen-sixty-nine.”

And that little quote joke is enough to have me and the girls and Dad belt out together.

“Welcome to the Hotel California!”

“Such a lovely place” (Such a lovely place)…That’s Brook, Kim and Josie chiming in.
“Such a lovely face.”
“Plenty of room at the Hotel California!”
“Any time of year…” (Any time of year)… The girls again.
“You can find it here”

We’re all grinning like a bunch of music geeks and it just really broke things up in like a good way and I’m pretty sure that it was all caught up on camera with Mike and Molly.

Yeah I grin into the camera.

Sometimes you really can have those feeling it moments. This is so one of them.

We get down to business and we’re adding things up and the girls are adding up all of the tips with the change and rolling things once we have full rolls and getting totals. There’s a lot of change with the tips from the tables and the bar tips and the bar was hopping apparently with all of the glasses and stuff that was used tonight.

That’s good people tip well when buzzed and they also order food.

Add it all together then we divide it by the staff involved with everything and it works out to forty eight dollars and change each. Jake excuses himself from the tips and takes some of his share even though he was working too and we dish it out with everyone and it’s an even fifty three dollars.

The rest he puts into a big water cooler jug labeled x-mas fund. I look at the girls and we all put the three dollars of our fifty three into the jug. Then everyone else does too…Jake’s looking surprised again.

I shrug. “Looks like the start of a decent party.”

He shakes his head and smiles.

I love that everyone else is grinning and happy at that.

I love than nod that Josie is doing like this is what stuff used to be about.

And it’s a very fair play happy feeling too. Fifty bucks each in tips between the tables, the door and the bar and band. Fifty dollars that the kitchen staff and the dishwashers get to take home too.

Other than the two waitresses not willing to do that no one’s feeling the lack really. It’s not like that crappy wait staff wages that get paid to people in some places they still get an hourly wage this just evens it out really and they’re only doing it on the nights that we play as far as I can tell.

And then there’s that look.

That I’m not broke anymore look.

Molly has that look on her face right now as she’s putting her cash into her purse.

I take the check too from Jake for us with the new amount on there. Mike and Molly are on payroll now and our band prices are reflecting that too and hey it sounds like a lot of cash but with the tip money I can make a guess that Jake actually made a really decent profit tonight.

We’re done with all of that and we’re mostly packed up and stuff and Jake looks at me and the others. “You girls all want to do this now?”

I nod. “Old rock venue history and stuff? Wyld Stallions couldn’t drag me away.”

He looks confused and Kim and Brook lean on each other and do the whole air guitar thing and I laugh and he shakes his head. “Okay I think it’s all upstairs.”

We start heading up and I look at Carmen. “You wanna come too?”

“But I’m not part of the band?”

I look at her and I make a choice.

Carmen was one of them and yeah I could simmer and be mad and stuff even though I know in my head there’s more to what was going on with her.

There’s a lot I could be mad about really.

And sometimes, sometimes mad’s just not worth it.

I give Carmen a smile. “You don’t have to be part of the band to be one of our friends.”

She looks shocked and stunned….and she’s tearing up.

I start going after Jake. “Well? C’mon…”

She does this really big sniffle and a nod. “Yeah…yeah I’m with you.”