J'exploserai

It turns out Jack cannot have some sober fun without Alex, and he comes to this realization after he spills his fourth cup of beer in the stadium parking lot.
“Goddammit!” Jack tries to wipe the alcohol as best he can off his new Nikes whilst still walking, stumbling over them in the process. Fuck his clumsiness. He’s not even that drunk, really.
Zack laughs and grabs Jack’s arm, holding him steady.
“Thanks,” Jack says, and straightens his sunglasses against the bright sun. “Hey, what time is it?”
“About three-thirty.” Flyzik replies, checking his phone. “Oh,” He frowns.
“Hmm?” Jack asks.
“Alex called, about half an hour ago. I wonder why.” Flyzik taps on the screen a bit before holding the phone up to his ear. “Yeah, hey Lex, it’s Flyzik, you called?” Pause. “I thought you were gonna meet us tomorrow morning in Cleveland.” They reach the rental car and Flyzik opens the driver’s door. “Oh, um, okay, yeah, that works too. We were going to start driving over there at eight, but we can wait up for you, sure.” Flyzik switches the phone to his other hand and closes the door. “Yeah, man, no biggie. Everything alright?” Pause. “Oh, okay. ‘M sorry, yeah. Okay.” The phone switches hands again as Flyzik buckles his seat belt. “Uh-huh. Yeah, I got you. We’ll see you then. Buh-bye.”
“What was that all about?” Rian asks as he closes his door.
Flyzik starts the engine. “Alex called, saying he’s got an earlier flight out of Baltimore and is coming back here instead of catching up with us in Ohio.”
“Why?” Jack’s curious. Did Alex and Lisa have a huge fight? Did they break up again? God, Jack hopes so.
“Didn’t say.” Flyzik maneuvers the car out of the stadium parking lot and onto the street, heading back to where the bus is still parked in the venue, silently cursing himself for not booking hotel rooms for last night.
Jack’s mind is on things besides venues and hotel rooms. He’s almost positive Alex and Lisa had a massive fight. Or even a small one, really. Lisa is a bitch in any mood, so he can’t blame Alex for wanting to escape.
To come back to him.
“Rian and Jack, you guys got an interview at five-thirty, on the bus.” Flyzik says at the red light.
“Who for?” Rian asks.
“Um, Bryan Stars, I think,” Flyzik chews on his lip, impatiently waiting for the signal to change.
Zack laughs proudly. “You guys get stuck with him and I don’t!”
“Yeah, ‘cause we’re the better looking members of this band,” Jack returns, kicking Zack lightheartedly.
Rian scoffs. “Come on, Zack, he’s not that bad.”
It’s common knowledge that Bryan Stars is one of the more annoying interviewers, but still a relatively nice guy. Rian, always the fair and logical one of the four, presses this on Zack. “He’s a nice dude—”
“He’s a pain in the ass.” Zack deadpans.
“He’s just doing his job!”
“Jesus, Ri, if you like the guy so much, why don’t you marry him?” Jack snickers.
“And give up Cass? No, never.”
“You’re so weird,” Jack throws his empty beer cup at Rian’s head, but misses and hits the window.
“You better not spill anything in this, it’s a fucking rental,” Flyzik warns.
“Yes, mommy,” Jack replies in an annoyed tone.
The car reaches the back lot of the venue, and it’s absolutely deserted, save the tour bus and a pickup truck subtly advertising a security firm.
Jack gets out of the rental sedan and waits about 2.5 seconds before whining, “I’m bored!”
“I’m gonna go for a run,” Zack says, and goes to retrieve his iPod from the bus.
“I saw a record store a couple blocks back that way,” Rian points to where they came. “We could check it out. They might have a Dookie vinyl.” It’s a small goal of Rian’s to obtain a vinyl copy of Green Day’s third album without just ordering it online.
“Yeah, ok, let’s.” Jack shrugs, and he and Rian head down the street.
“Be back here at quarter-after 5,” Flyzik calls after them.
***
The record store is mostly empty, save for a college-age girl perusing the used punk CDs and a slightly older guy behind the counter. Rian and Jack aren’t too worried about being recognized.
“I’m gonna look at the vinyls,” Rian says, and walks off to the aisle lined with the large record sleeves.
Jack isn’t looking for anything in particular, so he just browses the aisles. Punk, metal, indie, folk, electronica—all by bands Jack’s mostly never heard of. Besides Green Day, the most popular band that he sees is La Dispute (filed under ‘Local’, even though Jack’s pretty sure they’re not actually from Detroit). Jack feels weirdly out-of-place until he comes across a very tiny section marked ‘Pop Rock’ (the sign having “fuck that shit” scrawled beneath it in Sharpie) stuck at the end of an aisle, appearing equally as out-of-place. There, he finds two My Chemical Romance CDs and, wedged in the very back of the column, a copy of Don’t Panic. Signed.
Jack smirks and pulls the CD out. All four of their signatures are on the cover in silver marker, his ‘JB-star’ written in the corner below Alex’s ‘AWG’. Jack doesn’t think they did a signing in this shop—he would have probably found the shop vaguely familiar—so someone must’ve gone to a Meet & Greet, got it signed, and then sold it to the store. Jack doesn’t know why, but it upsets him a little bit. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s only being sold for $15.99.
“Dude! Look what I found!” Rian says excitedly, rushing up to Jack. He’s holding a slightly beat-up vinyl copy of Dookie. “I found it!”
Jack holds up their signed CD. “Look what they’ve got,” He says with a crooked smile.
Rian laughs with a slight discomforted edge to it. “Ha. Weird.” He hates being reminded of his relative fame.
“Wouldn’t expect it in this place, you know?” Jack says, glancing at the large Ramones flag tacked to a wall, taking up easily half the wall’s space.
“Totally.” Rian meanders over to the posters display, flicking through the selections. Largely punk rock posters, but he did come across half-a-dozen yellow-psychedelic posters emblazoned with Bob Marley’s face. “So are you gonna buy anything?”
“Might buy this—” He puts on an excited, girly voice, “—signed All Time Low CD!”
“Please tell me you’re joking,” Rian replies, looking over a Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band poster.
Jack cracks up. “Yeah, no, I don’t think I’ll get anything. Well, maybe I’ll see if they have a copy of Enema of the State, I think I lost mine.”
“Gotcha,” Rian says as he carries his vinyl to the counter.
They don’t have a copy of Enema, but they do have Neighborhoods and Jack buys it anyway. As the guy at the cash register scans the CD, Jack looks over the gig flyers by the counter. He notices some bands he knows—Asking Alexandria, Escape the Fate, Hollywood Undead—and some he doesn’t. There are a few handouts advertising last night’s show, and Jack wonders if it’s polite to put a store’s old gig flyers in the trash for them, but decides against it.
“Hey, you kinda look like that dude from that band,” The cashier says as he hands Jack a small black bag with the CD inside.
“Yeah? Which one?”
“All-something. I don’t remember the name, but my little sister really likes them. Has their posters all over,” The cashier shrugs.
“I get that a lot,” Jack laughs. “Thanks,” He holds up the bag.
“No problem, have a nice day,” The cashier replies.
“You too!” Jack calls as he and Rian go out the door.
“So we did get recognized,” Rian says as they walk back to the venue.
“Sort-of. I guess. I’m not sure if it counts,” Jack replies, amused.
“Well, in any event, I finally fucking got a vinyl Dookie.”
“You can die happy, now.”
Rian laughs. “Yeah, I suppose I can.”
They reach the tour bus and climb on, setting their purchases on the small table in the lounge.
“Honey, I’m home!” Jack hollers.
Rian whacks him in the side. “Dude, shut up, they’re probably sleeping!” He stage whispers.
“Not anymore,” a groggy Flyzik calls back. “I was hoping to have some quiet time before Bryan got here, but I guess I couldn’t be so lucky.”
“Sorry!” Jack whispers back loudly.
“I’m tired anyway,” he says to Rian. “I think I’ll sleep a bit. Wake me up when Alex gets here, yeah?”
Rian looks up from typing on his phone. “We have an interview, remember?”
Jack groans. “When?”
“Like, twenty minutes.”
“Shit.” Jack rubs his face. “Um, can I sleep a little, and you wake me up when Bryan gets here?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m gonna go give Cass a call.”
“Have fun,” Jack says as Rian steps out of the bus to make the call.
To someone who loves him.