Generation Why Bother

The first thing I did the next morning as we awoke bright and early at the butt crack of dawn was call my dad. I had an impulse to let him know I was fine even though I wasn’t expecting him to answer, but to my surprise he’d picked up the phone and was, in fact, awake. I held a little conversation with him and talked about how nervous I was, and he kept pepping me up and told me I’d be fine but he emphasized me being careful. I tried to tell him to be more worried about the world in general, knowing how unprepared the general public was for this whole thing and how fake they were bound to think it was going to be; still, he shrugged it off and instead focused on me.

We said our “I love you”s and signed off, and I told him I’d call as soon as I could after the threat was over. I had no idea when it would be, and obviously, it scared me. It was no use dwelling on fear when everything was set in stone and rolling in motion. Well, that’s what I told myself to try to stop being such a worrywart…

When everybody was dressed up in their battle armor – I sported jeans and a The Wonder Years t-shirt along with the jacket Tegan got me – we ate a quick breakfast courtesy of Mick, and we loaded our crap into the plane to get going to Miami.

It was a small jet, though big enough to hold all eight of us and our junk comfortably, and there was even a little wiggle room for some more stuff to happen. By “more stuff,” I mean a little acoustic show, probably to ease all of our nerves and keep a cheery attitude in the face of chaos.

Chance broke out his guitar and strummed along as Andy sang, warming up his vocal cords for the high-octane show that was going to go on later on that day. Anthony and Mick were sitting to the side and singing along just for the sake of fun, and to an extent we were all involved. We’d shout out a song suggestion and, depending whether or not Chance knew the song (most of the time, he did), they’d play it, even if it was an off-the-wall cover.

It was the kind of intimacy with a band that normal people had to enter contests to experience. Despite the nerves pounding through my brain that wouldn’t let me think positive thoughts about the danger we were about to face, I couldn’t help myself from feeling blessed. For the first time I could think of Put’emup, Put’emup not just as a band, but as friends of ours. We saw them walk around in their boxers, for God’s sake. We saw them interact as people and not just as bandmates forced to get along.

For all any of us knew, it could’ve been the last music we’d ever hear. When that thought crossed my mind, I just tuned out all the anxiety and listened, soaking it in and trying to listen as closely as I could. I didn’t have steady enough hands to be able to draw for the past few days, and for that, I tried to focus on the second-most important interest in my life just to stay sane.

Chance was in the middle of strumming the intro to a Rihanna song, when suddenly, he stopped, a look of confusion sweeping across his young face.

“Dude, wouldn’t it suck if it happened during our set?” he asked quizzically.

Mick smiled and held up a finger to answer it first. “That’s when we show our true colors and amaze the crowd even more than we’re already going to.”

They didn’t even acknowledge the fact that it was gonna raise a hell of a lot more questions that would probably tie to all the other supernatural conspiracy theories fans were coming up with. In a skeptical world, though, anything could be played off as entertainment – and Put’emup, Put’emup seemed more than eager to take advantage of their gifts.

“Wait, hold on,” Riley ushered, standing up despite the plane moving. “We need to settle a bet here. First of all, when this is over, do we get to keep our powers?”

The band looked at each other for a moment and murmured something, and then Anthony said, “Well, the stars never said they’d get taken away. So I assume if we don’t die, we keep ‘em.”

“Then are you guys gonna use your powers in concerts and call them special effects?” Riley continued.

They all glanced at each other again and even smiled this time. “That would be cool as hell,” Chance laughed.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Andy said, a hint of nerves flashing across his face as he folded his hands in his lap. From what I had seen, he hadn’t gotten a chance to really work his powers yet. He didn’t dare use them on the plane for obvious reasons and I don’t think he had time to in the morning. Tegan used her telekinesis to move our bags onto the plane, but that was the most I’d seen of anybody’s abilities that morning.

That basically summed up our feelings going into this and flying into Miami. We’d see how it went. There wasn’t anything we could do at that point, and while that itself was a scary thought, in a backhanded way it gave me a sense of security. All I knew was that I didn’t know.