Bad Enough For You

“So wait, let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re in a band with your friend Zack and there are two other members, making four total. And your name is Jack. Are the other two Frick and Frack?” Jack Barakat, of the super mega famous band All Time Low (cue cheering), began laughing loudly, the sound filling the small room we were situated in as I interviewed him for a stupid school project.

“Yes, Emily, that is definitely their names. Are you sure you’ve heard our music before?” As his infectious laughter died down, we were able to actually hold a conversation. “Tell me about yourself Emily.”

“What is there to tell Jack? Your little sister’s best friend is my journalism teacher in college. Professor Kennedy pick myself and three other talented aspiring journalists to interview you, Zack, Frick and Frack.” I giggled as he smiled widely.

“Who would be Frick and who would be Frack?” His question was thoughtful.

“Well, Frick rhymes with prick, so that’s Alex. And Frack makes me think of track, and you guys are musicians, and well, Rian is really the only one left.” We both laughed again together. “Seriously though, I need a good grade on this. Back to my questions, which songs are your favorite from each album you’ve done?”

“Which songs are your favorite?”

“Jack! I mean it! Now, tell me.”

“You tell me Emily.” Obviously, Jack wanted to play games. Professor Kennedy warned me of that.

My professor in journalism is Professor Samantha Kennedy. She used to write for the Rolling Stone, and before that, J-14. She approached us, hesitantly, with a new project. She had contact with a bunch of bands from her personal life and was giving every student a chance to work together, but separately. Everyone pulled a ticket out of her favorite hat, the ticket would feature a band she had seen, and there would be enough to cover the members of those bands. For example, All Time Low has four members, so there would be four All Time Low tickets that could be picked.

After everyone in class picked a ticket, we got together by band. I was paired with Trinity, Abel, and Avery. Trinity was a slut in every essence of the word. Of course, she picked Alex Gaskarth immediately because he ‘was like, so hot’. Gag me. Trinity, however, was very pretty. She had natural brown hair and surprisingly didn’t cake on her makeup. She was also, unfortunately, nice. She just made horrible decisions. Oh, and she wasn’t very smart, her blue eyes always seemed a bit... dim. Like someone shut the lights off upstairs.

Abel and Avery were twins. Abel was gay and older than his sister Avery. They both had sleek black hair. Avery had lime green streaks in it, like toxins she had said, and Abel had pink, like unicorns. They were both incredibly smart and were close, but not overly. Abel decided to go for Rian Dawson, the drummer, and Avery got Zack Merrick, the bassist. That left me, Emily Winters, with Jack.

A week and a half ago, Professor Kennedy pulled me aside after class. “Now Emily, be careful with Jack. You’re my most promising journalist, and a good journalist has to be good at interviewing. Jack doesn’t like to be serious, ever, so make it a game of sorts. I’ve interviewed Jack before, it was horrible and my paper got a failing grade because he wouldn’t cooperate. Outsmart him, which isn’t hard, at being childish.”

“Don’t worry Professor, I’ll get him to cooperate one way or another.” I smiled confidently and her eyes narrowed.

“I bet you will, but remember its not allowed for you to take their numbers. You will have this interview then a ‘meeting’ with your team. At that meeting you will decided together if you should go through with secondary interviews. Do not, I repeat, do not get too close to Jack Barakat, because he will convince you to break the rules.” Though her warning had shaken me, I didn’t show it and left confidently.

Professor Kennedy had really freaked me out. I knew, that after that warning if I messed up this assignment I was done for, but thinking about that talk gave me an idea. “Hey Jack, wanna play 20 questions?”

“Oh oh! Yes lets do that. You ask one and we both answer, then I ask one. Ten for each of us. Lets do it!” His eyes shined with child-like energy.

“What is your favorite song from Dirty Work?”

“That’s easy, ‘Bad Enough For You’.” He smirked evilly, then started to sing the chorus,



I clapped for him as he finished and he bowed goofily. “ Your turn, answer.” He said.

I thought for a moment, running through the list of songs in my head. “‘Time Bomb’. I love the song ‘Time Bomb’.” He nodded then just sat there staring at me. “What?”

“Aren’t you gonna sing? I sang to you!”

“I’m sorry Jack, but I don’t sing. Well, I do, but it sounds like a lion getting raped by an elephant. Not a pretty sound.” He giggled for a minute, but pouted right after. “Nope, no singing for Emily.”

“My turn then. what is your natural hair color?” I gave him an odd look.

“Blonde?” I fingered the tips of my natural hair. “Yours?”

“It is not blonde! You’re so smart and stuff. Oh! Mines brown!” He puffed out his chest proudly and I giggled.

“Yes, I’m smart. Brains have nothing to do with hair color. That would be like me saying you need to be strong because you’re a brunette. It doesn’t work that way. Your hair is because of your genes, your brains, or brawn, is partially genes and partially effort.” He nodded for a moment, squishing himself against the brown leather of the sofa. Then he motioned for me to talk and I realized that; one, I was staring, and two, it was my turn to ask him a question. “What do you look for in a girl?” I cringed as I asked. Trinity made myself and Avery put that in our questions.

“Well, I like blonds, I like blue eyes, I like smart girls. My biggest thing, is they have to get along with my band. If Alex, Zack and Rian don’t like the girl then, to me, she isn’t worth keeping around.”

“You said ‘to me’, does that me Alex or Zack have kept a girl around even though you didn’t like her?”

“A couple of times. Alex, once, brought this redhead back and all she ever did, was hang off of his arm. He said he loved her after thirteen days and asked her to marry him after a month and a half. It took him walking in on her cheating on him to make him realize how horrible she was. And even though I tried to warn him a million times, and he didn’t listen, I was still there to listen to him and hold him as he cried. We’re more than friends, we’re more like brothers, ya know?” A single tear slipped down his cheek and he hastily wiped it away.

“I understand. Hey, we have time left for one more question.” He picked his head up and looked me dead in the eye.

“What’s your number?”