Lukey Kid

Way back when in seventh grade, before Brendan was even a part of Plaster Caster, me and Ren were at Soria’s house for band practice. That was when we learned that she had a dude in her life who was basically her brother – some guy named Travis who was eight years older than us. Apparently they grew up as neighbors and that’s what led to the sibling bond that happened despite them not being blood-related.

And apparently Soria still kept in touch with him, even though he was a soldier and stationed in Germany across the world. She’d always said how he hated being in Europe and it made him feel useless since he didn’t get to fight on the front lines, but I never understood why somebody would want to be in war like that. Still, though, I’d never met him so it wasn’t like I was able to get inside of his head to find out.

I actually did end up meeting him – all of us did, since Soria came to us excitedly one day, gushing about how he took a week’s leave to fly out to Florida and visit us specifically. To drop by and check on his practically little sister, I guessed.

She was so excited for it. She even cleaned up the hotel room and made us all take a day off from recording the day he was supposed to arrive in Miami, flailing around our temporary home like a little kid with a puppy.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought he was her boyfriend or something. And since I did know better, knowing that he was nearly a decade older than her and that she already had a boyfriend, I didn’t think much of her overreacting. She was acting kind of crazy, though.

“I haven’t seen him since I was starting eighth grade! C’mon!” she’d insisted. I had to smile at that. God knows I knew what it was like to go a long time without seeing somebody I loved.

Soria shot toward the door when somebody knocked on it. I was lying on the bed in the main room, watching TV with Joey and Brendan, and Ren was sitting on the lazy chair situated between the beds. And even though Soria was in a totally different room, she still darted over and was the first to look through the peephole, dancing enthusiastically when she caught sight of Travis standing in the lobby.

She opened the door and tackled the poor guy, nearly sending him tumbling into the room across from us.

“Travis! Oh my God, you’re finally here!” she yelled, not even caring who the heck heard her.

He was laughing and hugging her back, and what really struck me as strange was the fact that he was pretty much twice her height. I stood up from the bed, following the others and wandering over to the door.

“You don’t have to scream about it,” he teased, ruffling her hair. The dude was built like a bodybuilder with huge arm muscles that could knock out a dinosaur. His blonde hair was shaved into a crew cut; he didn’t look a day out of high school. While his muscles did seem sort of intimidating at first, the friendly demeanor on his face shattered that fear when he smiled at us.

Soria let go of him, sliding her hands back from around his waist. She turned to us, a grin spread across her face.

“Well, hey hi hello!” Joey exclaimed, taking it upon himself to shake his hand. His introduction was a little weird and just plain random to us, but apparently Travis didn’t mind, since he shook his hand right back with the same passion. “You must be the kid Soria won’t shut the hell up about.”

He laughed, a big belly laugh that flooded the hotel with his deep voice. “That sounds like her. She doesn’t shut the hell up about anything.”

She shoved him, or at least tried to, but he stood solidly on the ground. “You shut up!”

By then, Brendan, Joey, Ren and I were gathered around the two of them, awkwardly standing near the doorway for what wouldn’t be the first time that month. We didn’t know what to say to him, but he seemed friendly enough. So the rest of us kind of stepped back and let him start.

“I’m Travis. In case you didn’t catch that wicked scream she just let out,” he laughed, poking our guitarist. “Nice to meet you.”

Once the weird introductions were out of the way, things felt nice. He wasn’t the buff pedophile I pictured him to be after taking one glance at him; he was a friendly guy and smiled a lot.

It was around four in the afternoon when he arrived, and after Soria pulled him all the way in to the hotel room, the door shut behind him and she ran to get her camera to take some pictures.

When she was out of earshot, Travis’s eyebrows hunched over. “Alright, which one of you is Ren?”

Our eyes all shot to our skinny singer, who hesitantly raised his arm. “Um, I am…” he whimpered, his voice cracking.

Travis walked over and held his intimidating and muscular pointer finger in his face. “You listen here, kid. If you ever hurt her in any way, I will kill you, and I will burn you. And I will come to your funeral and piss on your tombstone. Then I’ll frequently visit the cemetery you’re buried in, bringing flowers to place on somebody else’s grave. Do you hear me?”

He didn’t fool around. I learned that within the first five minutes from the way Ren nearly cried after that little speech.

Travis still was all up in Ren’s personal space. His mean face was scarier than anything I could ever pull off, and for that I sort of envied him. Suddenly, he wiped that scowl off of his youthful mug and pretended like nothing happened.

It might’ve been because Soria was standing in the lobby with her camera in her pretty little hands, smiling eagerly.

“Photo op! C’mon. I need a picture with you, Trav,” she cheered giddily. Turning her camera on, she snaked an arm around his waist, pulling him close like siblings do when they go for years without seeing one another.

He turned around and smirked at us as if to say, “Uh, guys, how do I get out of this…?”

“He just got here, Sor; give him a little time to settle in,” Ren suggested, still looking up at Travis fearfully like he was a mix of the spawn of Satan and Sasquatch.

Travis thanked him with his eyes. Maybe it was his way of apologizing for the slightly creepy moment just seconds before all of that.

Soria’s hands fell to her sides and she looked up at the soldier standing next to her. “You don’t mind, do you? Just one picture?”

He looked at her with a hard stare, but it melted away after a minute, his soft side showing. “Ah, shit…maybe just one for now.”

It was sudden, yeah. Especially when she insisted that all of us take a group picture, relying on the magical powers of the camera’s timer to make it turn out decent. We literally just met the guy minutes before, and previously only had foggy bits and pieces of information known about him, so yeah. Naturally, it felt sort of odd when he snuck an arm around me and Brendan’s shoulders like we were old buddies, but at least I could see that he felt odd too.

After a few group photos, Travis checked his cell phone for the time and rubbed his flat stomach, moaning in apparent hunger. “Ugh, God. I’m starving. I tried eating the steak they were serving on the plane last night and ended up killing the airport bathroom. Almost missed my flight this morning.”
“That sucks,” Brendan sympathized, laughing slightly but not too much.

“I know,” Travis chuckled. “That’s why I wanna go eat, all of us. I’ll freakin’ buy, I don’t care. I just got done working on a farm in California last year and I’m loaded. I just wanna pig out right now and I bet all of you wanna do the same, recording and everything.”

Soria cocked her head, but didn’t ask the obvious question that we could see flickering through her mind.

- - -

We were once able to fit two bands into Joey’s van before – us and Kickback, if you have to know – so it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to cram Travis in with us. However, we didn’t have Joey’s magical van with us. All we had was a poopy old SUV that Olli rented for us, but even then, we were still able to fit Travis somewhere in there with us.

None of us cared that we were eating the early bird special, either. We hardly ever ate a proper dinner as it was – a few slices of pizza here, maybe an apple there, and oh, snacking on munchies at midnight – so we were just glad that somebody was taking us out for something proper, not that he had any idea what it was like to be recording all day and come back to a not-home hotel.

That “friend of a friend” stuff always struck me as weird, anyways. Everybody has to face awkward situations like that but that didn’t make it any better. We were stuck in the company of a guy who Soria idolized and looked up to as a child, and we didn’t know the first thing about him. He was nice enough, though. I mean, food was always good in my book.

Travis apparently didn’t give a flying poo about where we ate. He just said to take him someplace where food was good and wouldn’t give him the runs. So Joey, our trusty driver, ended up taking us halfway across the whole city, turning the place upside-down to look for a cheap place with decent eats.

We stumbled across a Saturday’s and ended up eating there. By that point it was half past five and all of us were starving, tempted by the simple thought of a nicely cooked meal. The boring day off sitting in the hotel was shaping up to be something of value, turning around and actually becoming pretty fun.

And in the relaxed atmosphere of the Saturday’s, the beach memorabilia and TVs switched to every sports station imaginable around us, eventually all of us eased up – even Ren, who was struck by terror upon seeing Travis for the first time.

Our food was on the way, according to our cute waitress who had a blonde updo and freckles across her heart-shaped face. Muffled laughs coming from the elders surrounding us sunk into my ears and hovered through my mind. In front of all of us, minus Travis, sat a soft drink.

Travis, on the other hand, had a beer sitting in front of him. The foam was dripping off of the sides and collected on his upper lip as he drank it, wiping the excess from his face. And as the minutes passed, his face turned redder while his drink shrank.

“Thank God you’re not the designated driver,” Soria laughed, sipping her cola.

He gently pushed her shoulder. “You know I’m a good driver even when I’m drunk. Remember that time I drove you to that birthday party when you were ten?”

Her face went blank for a split second, then she covered her face with both hands and broke down in laughter. When she showed herself again, she was as crimson as he was – only she wasn’t stumbling over words.

“I like this place. It’s nice,” Travis said casually after taking a big swig of his alcohol. “I’m gonna have to get a second home ‘round here.”

I looked over at Brendan, sitting next to me. He had his eyebrows cocked, paired with a slight half-grin.

“So you live in Cali, right?” Joey asked. Lucky. He seemed to be the one who felt the least freaked out by his rather sudden appearance.

Travis nodded, a big nod that made his short hair move with the air. “Lived in Santa Monica all my life. Then I joined the army and lived in…other places and crap.”

“And he complains about it,” Soria jabbed.

“Hey, I can’t help it if I wanna be a hero.” He finished off his beer – the first of many. “I guess it’s better to be in Europe if I want an Internet connection to listen to you guys, though.”

Ren smirked. But Brendan was the one to ask, “You listen to us?”

“Hell yeah, I do! You think I wouldn’t at least check out my baby girl’s band?” he burst. Meanwhile, a waiter came around and asked if he wanted another drink; he said yes. After ordering another one, he smiled at the five of us and said, “I was one of the first people to order a demo from you guys, all the way in Germany.”

“Aw, shucks. You’re making us blush,” Soria gibed, jokingly holding her head.

By that point, Travis’s cheeks were blotchy and scarlet, even worse than they were before. “Nah, I’m serious. I was on Soria’s FlySpace when I was still in Spain and saw she was in a band, then I checked you guys out. You’re pretty good for a bunch of kids.”

Brendan and Joey shared a called-for hi-five.

“When I was your age, we had this shitty band in our high school. Nobody liked them and we kept tellin’ ‘em to just quit playing music, but they never listened to us. I wish I had a Plaster Caster back when I was a kid,” he reminisced.

“Oh yeah?” Joey asked. “What was the band’s name?”

Travis stared at the ceiling. “Oh, Christ. I dunno. Metrosexual Airport, something like that.”

We experienced a lull in the just-starting-off conversation. I squirmed. The only thing worse than having an awkward exchange with somebody you didn’t know was having an awkward silence with someone you didn’t know. So I glanced over at Brendan and Joey, who were staring at the vast blackness of their pops; Ren was throwing fearful looks at Travis while holding Soria’s hand under the table; Soria still had a small smile on. Travis was looking more impaired by the second.

“So, Trav…what’s this about working on a farm?” Soria spoke up, rescuing us from the doldrums.

His eyes grew wide and he broke out in little giggles and snorts. He almost spit up the gulp of beer he had recently taken, banging his head on the table. “Oh my God. I completely forgot that. Holy shit, it was awesome.”

“What, being surrounded by animal crap?” Brendan joked.

“No, it was more like being surrounded by trees. But the family I was working for did have a few cows,” Travis explained, dipping his mouth into his beer again.

Soria had a quizzical expression. “What was the family’s name?”

He gazed into the ceiling again. “Uhh…God, something Irish. I forget right now.”

“Don’t tell me their name was McEwin or I might have a heart attack,” she laughed.

His eyes shot open and he looked at her for a long time.

“Oh…oh my God, was it?” she gasped.

“Do you know a McEwin family?”

“One of my friends in Santa Monica last year was a McEwin.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know Isaac or Michael McEwin then, would you?” he pushed.

She shoved him by the shoulders. “I know both of them! Did they have red hair and freckles and Southern accents and crap like that?!”

“Yeah!” he gushed, practically having a conniption fit right along with her. “You’re kidding me, you know those people?!”

“Dude, I spent the night at their house one time!” she snorted.

“No shit?! I spent six months sleeping at their house while they paid me to help manage their farm with Isaac!”

“On that volunteer program thing? The one with Helping Hands and stuff?” she kept on asking.
Meanwhile, her bandmates had no idea what was going on…

“Yeah! My folks were broke when I got outta Europe so I joined that so I could make some cash,” he explained. “That’s some crazy shit. You know the family I roomed with. That’s insane.”

“I know!” Soria still beamed, nonchalantly taking a drink of her beverage.

“Oh my God. So about what happened there,” Travis swung the conversation back on topic smoothly. You know, even though me, Brendan, Joey, or Ren had no idea what was going on. Travis paused, licking his lips and biting them. Then he doubled over, snickering.

Soria elbowed him. “What happened? Were they nice to you?”

“Oh hell yeah, they were nice. Really nice,” he said, waggling his eyebrows up and down. That was when he downed another beer and flagged down a waitress to bring him another one.

“What, d’you sleep with Michael or something?” she teased.

“God no. I like ‘em young, but not when they’re still in frickin’ middle school.” He twiddled his thumbs anxiously on the table top, waiting for his next beer. “But his brother, on the other hand…”

“Isaac’s gay. You didn’t know that?” Soria told him, looking at him with disbelief. “Don’t tell me you screwed him not knowing that.”

He shot her a blank poker face and said, “Sor, I knew he was gay when I saw his hair. It reaches his ass…his beautiful, round little ass.”

She covered her mouth and faked a gag. “You slept with him?!”

“No, we got drunk one night and ended up making out on their couch. And it was fucking amazing.” The waitress swung by and gave him his overflowing drink. Like a triumphant athlete, he downed half of it. “Then we fucked in his bed. It was completely mind-blowingly awesome.”

Soria was snorting, making all sorts of unladylike noises in laughter, while the rest of us had slight smiles on our faces, not knowing enough about any of these people to be able to really laugh about it.

She propped her head up on the table, holding it up since she was too weak from quaking with giggles. “Oh my God, that’s hilarious! I totally wasn’t expecting to hear that!”

“I’m surprised he wasn’t getting laid sooner!” Travis exclaimed a little loud. A few heads turned our way. “The dude’s freakin’ beautiful. He’s like a model or something. Except he cracks the lamest jokes ever and can’t cook for shit.”

“Ahh, that’s love,” Soria snickered, still riding the wave of snickers she just crashed into. “I’ll be at your wedding.”

“You better be. I’m already starting to get butterflies when I look at him – in my tummy,” he said, pointing to his stomach, “and not in my pants. It’s only a matter of time until his parents find out we’re fucking and then they’ll probably laugh about it.”

“They know he’s gay, though,” Soria defended.

“I know they know. They’d just find it funny that their hermit son is getting some dick after being sheltered up in that house for half his life,” he shrugged. (The more he drank, the fouler his sailor mouth became.)

“Must be nice to be trapped in a house with people you like,” Brendan half-laughed, elbowing me in the side.

Travis furrowed his eyebrows together, his drunken smile still spread wide across his face. “Oh hell yeah, it’s nice. And at that wedding, whenever it happens, you guys are gonna be the wedding band. ‘Cause I’m cheap and I don’t wanna have to pay that much for good music there.”

“You’re paying for our food,” Ren pointed out.

“Shit, that’s not bad. I don’t care about that,” he countered. “I just want an awesome band playing there no matter who I marry. Just lemme know if you’re gonna be here a decade from now.”

We all kind of exchanged a flattered smile.

“Yeah, we’ll be here,” I spoke up, my first words of the dinner.

“Awesome,” Travis smirked. He pointed at me from across the table, but not in a singling-out way.

That was about the time our food actually arrived. All around us, delicious sights and smells fluttered into my senses, making my stomach growl with desire even more than it already was. We chowed down like it was what we were born to do, not leaving a speck of food on our plates. I downed a cheeseburger and fries. It tasted like Heaven, though I guess anything freshly cooked would taste better than stale popcorn or microwave corn dogs.

Funnily enough, the conversation halted when we began stuffing our faces. It didn’t matter if it was hardly past six at night; we were all apparently hungry enough to ignore that fact and just eat anyway. That uncomfortable and unknown tension that hovered above us had melted away long ago when Travis drank his first beer. He didn’t want to break our necks, and that was fine with us.

And after we were fat and happy, just about ready to pass out, Soria rose from her seat and said, “I gotta go to the little girl’s room.”

Thus, she left us alone with Travis.

His cheeks were still flushed. Paired with his sharp jawline, his cerulean eyes had that drunken haze drifting over them. I didn’t know how to deal with a drunk Joey, let alone a drunk stranger.

Travis looked over to his left, over at Ren. “No hard feelings, right dude?”

Ren hesitantly nodded, slowly then quicker. “Uh, not at all. No.”

“I’m just a protective person, I guess,” he droned, smiling at me and Joey and Brendan aimlessly. “I take this shit seriously. And I mean it, though, but not in a mean way. I mean, I will kill you guys if you mess her up at all. But not really. I will hurt you. But I…I don’t know what the hell I’m saying.”

“You’re a lightweight, man,” Joey laughed, taking a leap of faith by calling him out on it. None of us had the courage to point it out.

To our surprise, Travis laughed right on back. “I know. You should’ve heard some of the shit I got back in high school for it.”

“I can imagine,” Brendan mocked, rolling his eyes a bit. Travis didn’t look like the kind of person who’d get pushed around in school.

“No, but really,” Travis sighed, crossing his arms, “you cats seem pretty cool. At least from what I’ve seen on Cooltube and everything with your videos. You seem nice and stuff. So let’s keep it that way, alright? No drugs or nothing. Don’t get fucked up by that crap.”

I don’t think the restaurant people were very fond of him using that language, but he carried on anyway.

“And don’t ever let me catch Soria crying about something one of you does to her. You hear me? That goes for all of you,” he threatened, putting back on that angry face that was diluted by his drunkenness.

Brendan saluted him. I couldn’t tell if he was just doing it to mess with him, or if he was being honest. “Sir, yes sir.”

“Damn right, ‘sir yes sir,’” he smiled, taking yet another drink.

- - -

Travis skipped town the next day. We left the restaurant and he chilled at our hotel for a while before going back to his hotel, saying that he wanted to get a decent night’s sleep in before heading to Ocala the next day. He said he had a friend there and wanted to visit them. He also told us that he didn’t want to screw up our concentration in recording, to which Soria replied with, “Dude, we’ve had enough crap to screw with our concentration. I don’t think you’d make a difference.”

He just mussed her hair and said, “Yeah, well, I’m flying back to California the day after tomorrow and I don’t wanna miss more poontang from Isaac. Is that convincing enough?”

It was.

We bid him farewell at ten at night and fell asleep like logs, as if we never even took the day off.

And yeah, sometimes those “friend of a friend” things start off pretty gosh darn awkward. But sometimes they ended up being better than you ever expected. Sometimes.