Yeah Boy & Doll Face

Pulling the door to the fridge open, I surveyed its insufficiently stocked shelves: happy fucking birthday. Thirty years old and I still couldn't feed myself properly. Evidently, something wasn't quite right.

Staring blankly at the white walls, I mentally debated going home to my mom’s for a meal. It would be a distinctly unfashionable new low (I mean, I was hardly living the rockstar life I was expecting at seventeen), but it was already four o’clock and my mother was the only one who seemed to remember today was my birthday.
Then again, I’d imagine it would be hard for her to forget the experience. Ho hum.

Much to my disappointment, none of my friends had remembered either; my younger brother Mike was the only one who had text this morning, and that was to remind me that our band had a meeting with the producer of our label. Bad news is inevitable, and on bad days, even more so.

At the thought of bad days, something else wormed its way into my thoughts: it had been exactly a year since the girl I thought I was in love with had told me she was pregnant. In all honesty, I had been ready to whisk her away and marry her at the earliest, until she added the fact that it wasn’t mine. Then I just wanted her as far away from me as humanly possible.
If the person you love admits they’ve been cheating on you, most people would be heartbroken/devastated/soul shattered/insert whatever other emosh teen girl adjective you’d prefer to feel.

I just stopped feeling.

My brain had finally flicked the “off” switch on my emotions, and I suddenly ceased to give a shit. Not that anyone else came to know of this: for everyone else, I was at peace with the world. Or as at peace with the world as an ex-self destructive aspiring musician child trapped in a man’s body could be.

It was hard to imagine I was going to grow old to become anything other than a lonely cynical old bastard. And all that from an empty fridge.

*

“Hurry up, Vic!” Mike called from the living room.

It was ten to seven, and he was waiting impatiently for me to change into something that wasn’t a tank top and board shorts. Apparently, the producer had some classy taste.
I just didn’t want my musical dreams to get the almighty kick up the A-hole I suspected they might.

“Ten seconds, Vic!” Mike continued.

“Shut up.” I replied, re-emerging from my bedroom. He glanced over my chosen outfit and nodded: a buttoned up white shirt, black skinnies and Vans. “Lets get this over with.”

“What’s got your G string in a twist?” Mike asked as we headed to the door. I locked it, shaking my head, before glancing up at him. “Because if it’s the fact I’m in my twenties and taller than you...get over it.”

I chuckled and readjusted my cap.

“You’re just jealous ‘cause I have a bigger wong.” I said. He laughed sarcastically as we left the apartment block and headed to the car parked at the curb.

“At least chicks wanna su-”

“VICTOR, BABY!” My best friend Jaime yelled, catapulting himself out of the car. I dodged his attack and dove into shotgun. My other friend Tony was sat behind me.

“Liquid courage?” he said, offering me a small metal flask.

“Jameson?” I asked. He shook his head, mohawk struggling free of its cap confines.

“Jack.” he replied. I pulled a face but accepted the offering anyway as Mike got into the driver’s seat and Jaime bundled in next to Tony.

“Nervous?” Jaime inquired, watching me take a swig: the bitter alcohol infiltrated my tastebuds, and I winced as it hit the back of my throat.

“I think the label’s gonna drop us today.” I mumbled, setting my gaze on the road.

“What makes you say that?” he continued. I quirked an eyebrow and handed Tony the flask back.

“I’ve got that feeling.” I said slowly: Mike groaned immediately, making Tony and Jaime grin.

“What feeling?” Tony pressed. Mike shot them a look in the rearview mirror.

“My genius big brother here sometimes gets a ‘feeling’ that something bad is gonna happen.” Mike explained, throwing me an amused glance.

“Not bad. Just...inevitable.” I corrected, frowning at his thin face.

“You know what else is inevitable?” he continued.

“You being a dick?” I replied.

“You being a wanker?” he replied.

“Oh, we’re here! Thank fuck for that.” Tony shouted, he and Jaime hurrying to get out of the car.

“Where the fuck are we?” I asked, realising this wasn’t the parking lot to the recording studio. Mike had barely pulled up and the other two were already out of the car and half way across the parking lot.

“Dunno. This is where Matt said Mr. Big Shot Producer Bitch wanted to see us.” Mike murmured, killing the engine. “May as well go find out what’s happening.”

A black windowless building towered over us, and I opened the car door somewhat hesitantly: I had passed this building several times on my way to work or other ventures, but the lack of any actual features meant that it was difficult to tell exactly what purpose it served.

Maybe I was wrong: maybe we weren’t going to get dropped. Maybe we were going to get gunned down at point blank range. Maybe the musical Mafia were inside, waiting to punish us for crimes against the post-hardcore scene.
Maybe I had been watching too many poorly-plotted action movies.

By the time Mike and I had made our way across the parking lot and to what seemed to be the only entrance (a small grey metal door with a keypad and speaker), Tony and Jaime has already managed to get in. Mike pressed the buzzer and the door unlatched itself.
I pushed it open and let myself be engulfed by pitch black. For a second, there was nothing but the black and its silence; then all the lights fluctuated simultaneously, flooding the air around me with bright, sharp vision - I was standing at the top of a set of stairs, descending into a club that was pulsing full of lasers and lights and loud music and tipsy friends.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” they all screeched as the bass began to shake the room. I stood where I was, a breathing statue.

“Surprise, Vic,” Mike added, throwing an arm around my shoulders and guiding me towards the steps, “You didn’t think I forgot, right?”

“Well,” I said, looking up at his teasing grin, “yeah.”

“Then you really must be an idiot.” he laughed as Tony and Jaime broke away from the partying crowd and approached us. “So. What does the birthday boy wanna do?”

I smiled widely at the three of my best friends.

“Lets get faded!”