The Ninth Part

It was dark inside the Airedale. Loud metal music played over the sound system, forcing everyone to yell at each other to be heard, while some band Seven had never heard of set up to play their set. Seven sat awkwardly on a dirty vinyl sofa while everyone else talked to each other, joked around and laughed. He felt like such an outsider, like he was intruding. Travis seemed to fit right in with them, talking easily to the other guys.

“You okay?” the tiny blonde girl, Anne, asked him, sitting down next to him, “You look uncomfortable.”

“We met less than an hour ago,” snorted Seven, “I don’t think we’re at a place in our relationship where I can have a deep personal discussion with you.”

Anne snorted too, “Good, because I’m horrible with serious discussions. I’m good at making people laugh and cheering them up, though. It’s my awesome skill. Now come on, you share whatever’s bothering you and I can share something about myself or whatever. It’ll be an exchange.”

Seven quirked an eyebrow. “You first.”

She sighed and thought, then turned to him and looked him in the eyes, “I don’t have any eyebrows or eyelashes.”

“What?” Seven asked frowning.

“I have trichotillomania, meaning I’m a compulsive hair puller. I pull them out, so everyday, I pencil on my eyebrows and wear tons of black-eyeliner so no one notices.”

“Seriously?” asked Seven, “Doesn’t it hurt?”

She shrugged, “Not really. Sometimes, but it’s usually the ones in the corners that are hard to get.”

“Hm. That’s weird. I mean, uh!”

She laughed, “Yeah, it is. Anyway, it’s your turn. What’s bothering you?”

Seven was quiet for a moment, then spoke hesitantly, “I’m not good at… being social. Travis is the only person that’s ever really gotten me, you know? And now I feel like… like…”

“Like we’re stealing him away?” supplied Anne.

“Yeah,” laughed Seven, “How first grade is that?”

“Incredibly,” she said, “Well, now that I know what ails you, I can properly remedy it. Seven, you seem like a cool guy and I’ll bet I’ll continue to think so more and more as I get to know you. So don’t worry about Travis getting more friends. Just get more friends yourself. And do you know the best way to make friends? Dancing.”

With that, she left abruptly. He watched in shock as she walked over to the sound guy. She gave him a bright smile and the two yelled at each other. As the metal song they were playing came to an end and it switched to something every one recognized immediately.

La da da di da da~a dada
La da da di da da~a dada
La da da di da~a dada dada di da~a la da di dada da~a dada

Be my lover wanna be my lover…

There was a loud whoop from everyone in the club as La Bouche’s “Be my Lover” played over the sound system. Anne walked back over to Seven with a bounce in her step and began moving to the pulsing beat, doing such dance moves as the sprinkler, the shopping cart, and throwing the dice.

Seven laughed loudly as he watched her antics. She beckoned him to join her and while he protested at first, she convinced him and they were dancing together to the classic song. They knew they looked stupid, but what the hell? They were having fun and other people were dancing too. Seven laughed. He hadn’t had this much fun in a long time.

When the song ended, Haddaway’s “What is Love?” started and they continued dancing. This continued until the band started their sound check and the music was stopped. Eventually, the band started playing. They were ok, a hardcore band with screaming, plenty of double-bass pedal, and the occasional off key singing that sounded like same tune in every song. Seven wasn’t that into the style of music, but they weren’t too horrible and Travis seemed to like them.

During the next break, they DJ played some low-quality sounding punk band and everyone stood around, loudly complaining about the crappy music and other bands that they hated. Seven kept quiet for the most part, since he either didn’t know anything they said they hated or hated anything they said they liked. It was a little awkward.

The next band got up, a fast-paced metal band that liked to cuss out the audience, shouting things like, “I hope you mothafuckas like this next one” and other such crude statements. Seven rolled his eyes at their attempts to make themselves seem harder than they were. No one in the group really got into it, other than Travis, who seemed to like it. Seven was unimpressed. He hated thrash metal.

“These guys suck,” Anne yelled over to him and he shrugged.

“Their playing is okay, I just don’t like this style of music,” he replied.

“I don’t like bands that cuss at me,” yelled Anne, “Why am I going to go give them my money, then listen to them insult me? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Seven shrugged and the subject was dropped was dropped. He’d never really thought of things in that way before, but it made sense.

After the thrash band was finished, which Seven was incredibly grateful for, the drummer from the first band came over to talk to the other guys, mainly Jeff since they were both drummers and had that “drummer bond” thing going on. Travis talked to Jeff and the drummer while Blaire and Rod messed with Tash’s hair. Anne went to the bathroom (a brave girl), and Seven stood awkwardly by himself.

“Are you having any fun?”

He jumped and turned to look at Travis.

“Yeah,” Seven answered loudly, “The music doesn’t suck too bad and Anne is pretty cool to talk to, I guess. Are you having fun?”

Travis nodded, “Yeah, I’m having fun. I think I was the only one that liked those last guys. Way better than the first band. The guy is cool, but their music lacked originality.” They were yelling at each other since the DJ had to play loud music between bands. It was quite annoying.

“Hardcore is a difficult genre to be original in. If you change too much, you don’t fit in the genre anymore.”

“But it shouldn’t be about fitting into a genre,” Travis sighed loudly before replying even louder, “It should be about expression and playing music because you love playing music. Why do we have to take it and categorize it? Judge it? Make it line up to certain criteria in order to be considered worth while?”

Seven shrugged, “I guess they need to be more original in their expressions?”

Travis laughed, though Seven wasn’t quite sure why what he had said was funny. Maybe it was just a tension thing. Who knew? It was an odd conversation to get into between bands at a crappy local show.

“Hey.” The two turned to look at Blaire who grinned at them, “The flirting over there with Tash and Rod was too strong so my flight mechanism kicked in. What are you guys talking about?”

“How wrong it is for us to judge music based on criteria and fit it into genres,” Seven answered.

“Genres are warning labels,” said Blaire, “So when something says Country or R&B, you know to stay away. I love genres. They keep my ears nice and safe.”

Seven laughed. Blaire noticed that this made Travis smile and made a mental note of it. It was an odd reaction.

When Seven noticed Blaire giving him an strange look, he asked “Who’s on next?”, trying to ruin the odd moment that seemed to be occurring.

“Raging Seas. They’re pretty awesome. I’ve seen them a couple of times before. You’ll like them, I think. They’re hardcore, though.”

Seven shrugged, “I can deal, I guess.”

The last band of the night was the best by far. They were in good balance, had exciting instrumentation, and while the vocalist was screaming, Seven was able to understand what he was saying for the most part. He was quite impressed. Then his stomach dropped.

“Hey guys, this is our last song. We just wanted to tell you all that we’re here playing music because we love Jesus Christ and hold him as our personal lord and savior and if you have any questions about that we’ll be by our merch table after the show.”

Seven couldn’t help but notice that everyone else in their group cheered when the vocalist talked. Ok… so they were all Christians. He could deal with that… Maybe. He hadn’t had many good experiences with religious people in the past since he considered religion to be delusions made up by people desperately seeking a purpose, denying the true pointlessness of their existences...That was beside the point! They were nice and cool and he could just keep his opinions inside if they were willing to do the same.

“They’re religious?” Travis muttered to Seven.

Seven shrugged, “Apparently.”

“This might be a very bad idea.”

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