Picking Up the Pieces

I rubbed my full tummy and sighed with content. This had to be the best tour food I had ever had, and I’ve toured with lots of bands. Shane, the merch guy, had made the most heavenly pizza bagels known to man. It’d been at least fifteen years since I had a pizza bagel, and this was definitely worth the wait.

We had arrived to the venue around noon, and unloaded all the stuff for the concert. It was almost four now, and the band, crew and I were enjoying a pre-show meal. The boys were about to start sound check. Doors were at six, show at seven.

I sat at the table, next to Evan, a short skinny boy with big glasses and dirty blonde hair who was the band’s sound engineer. He was currently chowing down on his fourth pizza bagel.

Jaime and Vic sat across from us, and everyone else was scattered about the front lounge- on the couch, on the floor, Shane was even sitting on Luke’s lap. They all chatted excitedly about the first show of the tour.

Jaime noticed I was bored, and he took my paper plate from in front of me and put it in the garbage. When he came back to the table, he smiled brightly at me.

“Nervous?” I asked.

“A bit. First show, ya know,” he replied. I nodded with understanding. “You?”

“Kind of, about getting to know you guys,” I said truthfully. “You seem like a tight-knit bunch.”

He shrugged. “Always room for more! You seem nice, don’t worry.”

“I also heard you guys were partiers,” I hinted.

Jaime laughed at my statement. “I guess you could say that. Mike and a couple others smoke a shit-ton of weed.”

“Good to know,” I said, laughing nervously.

After a couple minutes of silence, and when mostly everyone had finished eating, I checked my watch. Part of my job as a tour manager is to make sure everything is on schedule. And, just in time, it was four thirty. Time for sound check.

I stood up from the table and clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention. It didn't work.

I felt someone tug on my hoodie and looked down to see Jaime, holding a megaphone towards me. I took it gladly, wondering where the hell he had been keeping it.

“Okay, people. Four thirty. Time for soundcheck, let’s move!” I announced. They all jumped at the sudden sound.

Slowly, they all filed out the door and went inside. The medium-sized crowd outside the venue screamed loudly in response.

Tony was the last one out, before me, of course. He glanced at me for a second and it looked like he was going to say something, but instead he ran out the door.