Night in the Ruts

Ms Patty Flannery Scares Me to a Point Where I Should Consider Help - Steven

I hung up the phone quickly and, for some reason, did a little happy-tribal-dance-thing around the living room.  Joe probably saw that but chose to say nothing.  He's the only one here, currently; it's just him and me.

        "Where you goin'?" he asks.

        The one time he pays an interest to my life.  "Dinner."

        "With?"

        "Why do you care?" I challenge.  He doesn't respond, though.  He merely shrugs and goes back to playing his guitar and drinking his beer...  And smoking his joint.  And watching TV.  I hate when he does that.  Now, for some reason, I've got nervous-excitement.  Why? I don't know.  But ever since I started talking to Charlie, I've had the jitters.

        Joe sits up–for once–and looks at me.  "Alright," he begins quietly.  "You were practically swinging your feet and twisting your hair while you talked on the phone.  What's wrong with you?"

        "Nothing!" I sing, jumping up from the couch and dancing to the kitchen.  "Absolutely nothing!"

        I return moments later with a beer of my own, dancing back to the armrest of the couch, which I choose to sit on.  Joe starts to laugh at me.  Really, really, laugh at me to the point where there's tears coming from his eyes.  Alright, man, lay off the Mary Jane.

        But is it a date?  Am I going on a date?  I haven't been on a date in a really long time.  Now that I've gotten a taste of fame (we're working on an album!), the girls practically throw themselves at us and half the time I'll wake up somewhere covered in body glitter with a massive headache and not remember anything from the night before.  It pisses Joe (our manager) off when this happens because that means we were getting high and drunk backstage.  Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, baby.

        It's not like Charlie's gonna throw herself at me.  She is not that type of girl.  She wouldn't even take a drink.  Though it did surprise me that she said fuck or hell.  Something tells me she's not allowed to use those words at home.

        But in casa del Aerosmith you can say whatever you want.

        Not like she'd ever come home with me.

        "Honestly, I don't know why I'm trying so hard to get this girl.  I like her, I really do.  I like her a lot.  She's gorgeous in every way, she's very funny, she makes the sun seem dull, she makes a rainy day fade away, she takes the storm clouds back.  She seems to live in her own little world, and it's always happy.  I'd like to see that world sometime–"

        "What the fuck are you saying?  Did you drop acid or something?" Joe demanded, interrupting my thoughts that I was apparently voicing out loud.

        "What?"

        Joe tries to make his voice sound like mine.  "I like her a lot.  She's really fuckin' sexy and eats rainbows."

        "Shut up," I advise him.  "That's not what I said, either."

        "Basically was," he muttered.

--

The day didn't seem to pass quick enough.  The guys came and went from the apartment, telling me to calm down whenever they saw me.  I couldn't sit still at all.  I was up one minute, down the next.  I even got out the KORG keyboard and played it, because playing music tends to calm the nerves.  Yeah, I was nervous.