WE HAULED OUR GEAR TO the Bug Jar in Butt's van. Just like a real band, I thought. This is what it will be like when we tour. The four of us together, all cranked up, ready for the stage, hungry for the almighty noise.
Only when we got big, we'd have roadies and the places would be huge.
The Bug Jar holds maybe a hundred people. In the front room, a gigantic fly rotates from the ceiling above the bar. There's seedy old punks and a few biker types, college kids and teenagers drinking pop. Even though we were playing that night, we had to have our hands stamped with Xs. No beer for Scorpio Bone.
Kruel and Unusual was already there, hanging around the bar. For a big-name act, they were pretty friendly. The lead singer talked a little with Relly, about mikes and amps.
So we set up and watched the crowd come in. By the time we were supposed to go on, the place was packed. The back room is where the stage is. There's a booth for the sound man and about as much room on the dance floor as in Relly's kitchen. In the back was a table where one of the Kruel and Unusual girlfriends was selling CDs and band T-shirts. By eleven o'clock we could hardly get through the crowd to the stage.
"All right," Jerod yelled, grabbing the mike stand with both hands. "We are Scorpio Bone and this is the end of the world as you know it." Butt gave us the four-count and off we went.
How good were we? Better than ever. How did the crowd like us? They screamed for three encores, and that's saying something for the opening band. Everyone came to see Kruel and Unusual, but they went away talking about Scorpio Bone.
We did all our best songs, which means all the ones I wrote the words to. With the crowd pushing up against the stage, with the noise ripping out of the amps like a horde of furious demons, with Jerod yelling my words, I thought nothing could ever be as good.
My Ibanez and me were like one body. And Relly's crushing riffs were mine too. Butt's bass drum pulsed in my brain. Jerod screamed words that I had written, or copied off old gravestones. And the whole crowd was mixed up in our rising, roaring tide.
I was back behind Relly and Jerod. Still, it felt like this was my night, not anyone else's. This was for me, and me alone. This was what I'd been waiting all those years for. To be real, to be wild and loud and free. And to have a hundred people yelling because they loved it.