Rebel Yell

Marci’s POV

I shouldn’t have gone to that party, I knew that work needed doing but I simply had to follow Debbie and Louie however it did have its benefits. I had left Billie Joe under those dusty old blankets that morning, gathered my clothes and hitched a cab home before anyone noticed I had been missing. I had felt a little bit guilty for leaving him so vulnerable alone in that room without the lock on but I didn’t want to wake him to have a most awkward conversation that would just leave a bitter taste in such a sweet night. True to my thoughts last night, it was a stolen moment in my psyche that I had decided to follow him up the stairs like the white rabbit in Alice in wonderland. My curiosity got the better of me after seeing the attention I was receiving from such a good looking man as himself.

I bit my lip as I romanced back to Saturday’s antics and closed my eyes in the taxi cab I was riding in to see if I could link an image back to such a sensation. Nothing though appeared as sharp as I had so whished it had. Debbie had obviously seen the difference in my attitude to my work as it was more carless and under thought about than normal.

“What happened last night then?” her words whispered as we sat across her kitchen dining table planning and organising a draft for an upcoming show on the Sunday. I must have shown a little cheek in my smile as I remembered back to his face and she smiled fully knowing what I was keeping a secret. That’s when I told her what had happened in a bare whisper to stop her fiancé Louie hearing in the other room. We must have sat and spoke for hours after the ice had broken and it was the disturbance of Louie walking in looking for his dinner that we realised no work had been done on the only day left before the meeting.

So alas as I sit in this incense smelling taxi driving through one of the worst downpours San Francisco had ever seen I was scribbling down little notes in hope that Steven, our boss wouldn’t fire me on the spot. Usually I would be on target for such a large tour, prepared for all the disasters that may occur and even the maintenance of such high maintenance rock starts but I wasn’t.

The Taxi slowed to yet another halt and I sighed pulling an agitated face at the ironic situionat. So except from having just a basic outline of what to do for a tour I was going to be late. Just great.

“Sir” I tapped wildly on the cab screen in front and he turned around looking dumbfounded at me,

“Yes” his angry Chinese accent said, obviously he must have been having a hectic day like mine. His eyebrows furrowed as I tapped my pen and looked at my watch,

“How far are we from the Fairmont Hotel?” He turned back to his steering wheel and yawned loudly.

“Around another ten minutes with this traffic” I froze, he didn’t just say ten minutes because that means ten minutes of the clients waiting and I can’t wait that long. I scowered the surroundings seeing if there was any signs for the Fairmount hotel and my stomach plummeted into sickness as the cab’s radio ticked to the 12:00 news. I’m so screwed.

It would have been ok if I had actually lived in San Francisco and could find all the small side streets down to the Fairmount but having only moved to Oakland four years ago from my tiny little town of North Kingston in Rhode Island, getting around the block in Oakland was hard enough.

The cab after turning yet another corner into more bad traffic turned off its engine,
“Why have you stopped the engine?” I was panicking now beyond normal and I could feel my heart rate increase with the pressure. I grabbed my once neat hair and scraped it back to rub my aching head.

“There is maintenance going on up the road, probably the source of the bad traffic. We’ll be here for a bit” I couldn’t believe what he was telling me, it was like karma had come around and bit me on my arse for doing something wrong. “however the hotel is just at the end of the street and if you run, you can make it in less time” My face picked up into a smile at my sudden luck and I pulled open my purse throwing a few dollars at the taxi driver before getting out of the car with my heavy briefcase. I began to run for gold down the busy damp sidewalk. Rain dropped on every bit of my body as I pushed past people walking which led to a trail of angry people behind me cursing in anger but I couldn’t turn around and apologise because I could see the hotel door flags beckoning me closer to the doors.
Once I walked into the Diplomat suit in which our meeting place had been organised to take place, my boss Steven glared at me angrily. I mouthed a sorry and he shook his head casual as he turned back to speaking to who I presumed was the bands manager. I looked around the room and it didn’t really look like a meeting was taking place, was I that late that I had missed it all?

“Marci, you have a few minutes to set up your stuff and” he coughed and look me up and down “get smartened up before we are all here to begin” I followed his eyes back up to my face and I smiled, relaxing a bit that I wasn’t the only one late. I pulled off my black blazer that was now pasted onto my skin from the weather and hung it up next to a few other jackets, some of which were beyond peculiar. I grabbed my bag and followed it over to the large brown table set up in the middle of the room. I sat down and combed my hair back into a ponytail as watched Steven pat down his own suit.

“If you would like to all come sit down at the table and maybe get ourselves acquainted before we are all ready to start the meeting” Steven the bold headed imbecile with his wiry brown mustash commanded and soon the table was filled with large eyes all staring at me. Cue Marci.

“Hello, I’m Marci Madison and I will be your tour manager for the-” I read the piece of paper in front of me and tried to sound the word out in my head, “Dookie” I looked around and the two men sat in front of me smiled “-tour” I held out my hand and the shorter of the two grabbed it and shook it violently.

“Hello I’m the sexualising sensualising drummer extrodanainer Mr Tre Cool” I smiled at him, at his rosy red cheeks and his sweet smile as he winked at me suggestively. I nodded at him making a small laugh before turning to the second man who looked at Tre stunned.

“The name is Dirnt, Mike Dirnt. Double o one” he tried to act smooth but his flamboyant green shirt would never conform to his James Bond illusion. After shaking his rough hands and smiling at the two wonderful characters in front of me he looked towards Tre and shoved him lightly in his seat. “Our backbone of this entire operation shall be here soon, he is with his shithead ex-girlfriend” Mike spat sourly towards me before smirking,

“again” Tre followed Mikes statement and they both looked at each other, “he isn’t usually like this, apparently a girl or something made him re think some stuff and-“ Tre wittered on and Mike slapped him casually under the table making Tre look at him angrily. The two men sat in front of me were beyond any people I had met before; they were like a modern day slapstick comedy performing live for me. If the third member of such a trio was as brilliant as these then I knew that I would be enjoying the next two months a lot more than I would a normal band. Once I had a band on tour for nearly three months who toured every small state in America and yet they were boring as sin, there was never any variety in them.

“Marci I’m just going out into the town for some things and I’ll meet you back at the office. Now will you be able to look after yourself during this meeting while I’m gone” Steven plodded over in his plaid pants and checked shirt,

“Yes” I didn’t bother to look up at him, he had a face only a mother could love and I really couldn’t be bothered with anymore interaction with him today.

“don’t burn anything, don’t scare anyone, don’t chew my pens, don’t make things complicated, don’t talk too much, pull down your skirt, don’t flash yourself again, make sure all the documents are sealed and signed. Do you understand?” I gritted my teeth together as I pretended to look for something important in my pile of papers. He always treated me like I was a child incapable of doing anything but yet I always questioned my theory; if I was so incompetent would I really have made it to being a tour manager?

“Fine” I said bitterly back and he threw down a stack of papers next to me which I grabbed without removing my eyes from the piece of paper in front of me. I could feel him walk away towards the door and once the door seem to have slammed shut tightly, I looked up and gave the door the fingers forgetting about the clientele in front of me. Suddenly laughter erupted from Tre and I looked back down in shock and embracement to what I had just done.

“I’m so sorry- bosses right?” I stuttered along hoping that they wouldn’t go tell on me, I couldn’t deal with it being added on to the list of things I do wrong.

“Chill out about it, he sounds like a fucking jerk anyways” Mike slid a placemat along the table as he laughed along with Tre who seemed confusingly amused at my gesture.
“So do you guys have anything you really want in this tour which starts-” I flicked through some papers to find the date,

“14th, this Wednesday” My folder hit the desk and I looked at them as Tre confirmed the date. I knew it was soon but this Wednesday, I had a lot of planning to do and a lot of organising. I could already imagine the coffee filled long nights. None of this would have happened if that silly bastard Allan hadn’t quit on this tour so soon along into it. I tried to regain my composure,

“we know it’s going to be hard for you but don’t worry about it we are just really making it big with this album so nothing is really expected of us” I made a silent ‘O’ and writ down scribbles to make it look like I had already an idea in my head. The door handle wobbled open and everyone looked up to see a blue haired man walk into the room with his head dipped low onto his green striped shirt and black pants. I assumed that this was the third member of the trio and I jotted down yet some more scribbles to look intelligent at what I was doing.

“You’re fucking soaked; you said you were only nipping down to the bar to meet Cheri. We’ve been waiting here for ages” Tre exaggerated and Mike just rolled his eyes up at me. I laughed before looking back down to where I had wrote, ‘balloons and streamers’ and laughed at myself.

“Well I headed off down to the shop to pick her up some tampons, I didn’t know it was raining” he whispered the last bit but it was still audible for me and I stifled a laugh before dropped my pen on the floor to stop my cheeks from going bright red in public.

“Well sit down, I’m meeting up with Katherine later and I need to get going soon” Mike moaned and I could hear the wet splodges of the third mans trainers as he walked over to the table. I sat up right and pushed my hair out of my eyes making somehow the entire lot fall down into my face.

“you’re going to be fucked now if your boss comes in, hair down in the presence of ‘The Cool’- never” he put on a fake mafia voice and I pushed back my hair and laughed at him and pretended to jot something else down. I was doing that a lot lately.

“Hello I’m Billie Joe Armstrong, sorry I was late but ex-girlfriend troubles and all that” his hand shot out under my nose and my heart rate ran high. It couldn’t be the same Billie Joe from Saturday night; it just couldn’t be could it? My eyes slowly lifted up and there was his green eyes shining into mine once again, his hair dripping into his face. His face suddenly changed and he gulped as he pulled his hand away, it was like he had seen a ghost.

“This is Marci Madison our super fly, tour manager for the next two months” Mike bounced on his chair as he checked the clock at the end of the table. I grabbed the cup from in front of me and downed the content. The room was now filled with tension that even a cleaver couldn’t cut and I gulped the last bit of water down before perking up.

“so anything you really fancy for this tour, I mean we have accommodation for you, family, roadies and things, it’s just the added accessories” I slowly looked at the blank faces in front of me except of course Billie Joe who was still wide eyed at me. This was going to be a long long meeting.