Trouble Bored by Matthew Ryan Lowery

Author:Matthew Ryan Lowery [Lowery, Matthew Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Matthew Ryan Lowery

“Gray.”

I opened one eye, then closed it.

Natalie was getting ready for the day, fussing with her hair and straightening out her sundress while I lay snoring in a small pond of drool.

“Gray, your phone is ringing.”

I rolled over and put the pillow over my head. Suddenly, Natalie’s face was inches from mine.

“Pick up your goddamn phone!”

“Alriiight. Fuck. Damn.”

I sat up and reached for my phone on the nightstand.

“Ah, fuck my fucking neck hurts. Damn.”

Natalie pinched a bobby pin in her teeth. “Did you ice it last night?”

“I...um...oh, shit—it’s Doug! I gotta take this.”

“Obviously not.” Natalie sighed, then walked away.

I cleared my throat quickly before answering. What was Doug calling about? I had just seen him less than twelve hours ago.

I groggily answered. “Hello?”

“Oh hey, Grayson. It’s Doug. Sorry if I woke you up, dude.”

“Nah, it’s cool. What’s up?”

“Listen. Ben Watts, a promoter with Green 90 just outside Burlington, Vermont, called me looking for bands to fill in on a show tonight. I know it's short notice, but AngerFM is playing and a band just dropped off.”

Adrenaline shot through my entire body.

“AngerFM? Actual AngerFM—not an AngerFM tribute band or something, right?”

“The AngerFM.”

I'd grown up listening to AngerFM. They were part of the first-wave punk legacy, circa '77. They weren’t the Sex Pistols or the Ramones, but they still managed to play all the bigger punk festivals worldwide. They were in all of the punk rock documentaries we watched. We were being asked to play the biggest show of our career.

“Holy shit. Are you serious?”

“Yup. If you guys can be there by seven p.m. it's your spot. You'd be on second, too.”

“Yes! We'll take the show. Hell yes! I can't believe it. Thank you so much, man. Thank you. You really hooked us up.”

“Hey, you're welcome. I'll let Ben know you'll be there.”

I hung up.

Natalie was fuming. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

I got out of bed and started grabbing my clothes.

“Can you believe it? Trouble Bored. Playing with AngerFM. Us!”

Natalie shadowed me around the apartment. “You...fucking...asshole! You promised to help me today!”

Shit.

“Yeah, but that was before! You can’t honestly think I knew this was going to happen. You were right here when I got the phone call!”

“I don’t care! You promised you'd help! You promised...Fucker!”

I turned to face her. “Natalie, I’ve been waiting my entire life for a chance like this. What if it’s my only chance? Our only chance? The band needs this! What if they like us? What if they take us on tour?”

I’m not sure exactly where that rationality came from. I think it’s something you buy into as a teenage musician, a folktale that follows you into your twenties: some label rep discovering your band at a random show in a small club in your shit town, or playing with a massive band that for some reason just decides they like you enough to snap their fingers and take you on tour. Steve, Wolf, and I were obsessed with music documentaries where that stuff had actually happened. We were hopeless romantics.

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