Unrehearsed

Manchester, New Hampshire. Verizon Wireless Arena.

Day one of the tour, everything was off to a smooth start, except that Frank had bought Guitar Hero Three with him, and I had beat his ass several times, causing the whiney emo to have two tantrums (one about guitar hero, one about the fact I called him a whiney emo kid).

That earned me a scold from my Dad, which put me into a sulk. I mean, how old did he think I was? Three?

Then Ray, being the idiot Ray is, broke a string on his guitar and couldn’t find the spare strings he’d bought with him. Bob was stressing out over the fact Frank was throwing a tantrum, Dad was yelling at me for swearing then insulting Frank and Uncle Mikey? He was just sitting back in amusement.

Eventually we would all calm down, but this was how we started most of the time, because we were all so used to having our personal space and now we were stuffed into a bus together, and expected to live together just like that. It’s not that we hated each other, it was just difficult to accustom to after a living in a spacious, comfortable house for months.
I sighed and rolled my eyes, walking away from Dad and sat by Mikey.

“Hello pretentious, bratty niece.” He said putting an arm round me and pulling me into a hug.

“Hi big, loser geek uncle, how are you?”

“I’m good, child.”

Mikey was by far, my favourite family member. I know you shouldn’t have favourites, but, Mikey was awesome. Out of everyone, I got along with him the best. We’d never argued, I could talk to him about everything and I didn’t mind him calling me names like ‘kiddo’ and ‘child’. It’s what he’d done since he was eleven, since I was born. He kept me partially sane.

Frank though, that man really knew how to wind me up. His favourite way to wake me up? Shining a flashlight in my face, or pouring cold water over me. He was one of the main reasons I was dreading this tour. There was only so much Dad and Mikey could do to protect me from him, there was only so many times Bob could threaten him and there was only so many times that Ray could just sleep his way through it.

Let me tell your more about Frank. He was twenty six, and – well actually I guess you already know the intimate little details, being a fan?

Anyway, Frank and I never really got along. He took great joy in making me angry, or making me sulk. He thought it was hilarious to get me into trouble and have my Dad shout at me. I didn’t find it at all amusing, and it usually earned him a whack or two round the head from Bob.

“Stop fucking winding her up you little shit, you’re not the only one that’s got to live with her!”

Frank was also the one who revealed to my Dad that I smoked, after swearing on his life that he wouldn’t say a word. However, alcohol, plus Frank equals bad, bad combination. Everything the idiot knew about me he spilled. The times I’d come home drunk, the time he’d had to go pick me up from the middle of nowhere because Christopher, Lola and I thought it’d be fun to get drunk and wander…

Luckily Mikey had been there to stop my Dad going ballistic. Eventually he came to terms with it.

We arrived at the venue a little late; me being ushered to the side watching all of the chaos unfold. One of the merch boys, Russell, chucked me a cigarette and threw a wink my way as well, “Don’t tell your Dad,” he grinned. I lit it up gratefully. This concert was uneventful, well, I mean, as far as concerts went, for the fans it was exciting and eventful, but I’d seen this all being planned out, I’d watched the rehearsals and heard the songs more times than I cared for.

“What did you think?” Dad grinned at me as he bounced off of the stage, giving me a sweaty hug. I grimaced and pushed him away,

“Yeah, great, whatever, can I go home now?”

“No.”

Frank followed shortly after Dad, pulling his shirt off.

“Did we do good?” he had a look in his eye; an ‘I’m going to do something, and you’re not going to like it’ look.

“No.” I smirked, however, that was quickly wiped off of my face as Frank shoved his sweaty shirt into my face.