Jem… Chapter 190

*Hannah…

Well today went off the rails like I never expected and it wasn’t isn’t all that bad either all things considered.

Actually things started off good with Summer and I waking up and making love together and she’s been way more close to me and sticking thereafter the shit with Adam went down and her PTSD break.

I think she should have pressed charges or quit or something but she’s adamant against getting into it.

The fucked up thing is I get it.

You don’t or can’t go into things that come out of world shaking abuse sometimes.

I’m there too with stuff home and my family.

Even if I had all of my ID’s straightened up and stuff I’d still not head home to press charges against my dad because it’s still that bad i don’t think I’ll ever go home much less drag all that stuff out.

So it’s me being there for her as she gets her feet back under her.

And honestly that’s been good for both of us.

So the morning was sex and drugs...just a couple of joints for us and then some songwriting and research.

And Fall Fair.

Which is cool it’s a big week long exhibition thing and that brings folks around and that’s more people seeing us.

Well seeing Summer and Kisses & Thorns.

Then the office calls saying Adam won’t be around and that he’s been taken into custody. The girl at the office says we’re on our own with stuff at the booth and at Fall Fair until she hears otherwise.

And given I think she’s scared of Adam as well I doubted we’d see her going to see him.

So I cooked and thought things through as Summer talked with the others in the band.

The consensus is Adam’s an asshole but record labels are supposed to have this bad boy/bad ass thing if not the artists and well it might not be Adam’s fault with how he is all really broken and stuff if his old man was pushing him into drugs and the sex trade.

I’m not excusing Adam.

I don’t like him he’s an asshole and dangerous but i’ve also know guys like his father too...well not personally but they’re been around a lot of the places I’ve lived and just like poor folks can have abusive dickbags in their lives well so can rich kids.

A lot of rich assholes don’t think that any rules apply to them.

I think and cook.

We’re doing Dominoes tonight and that means we’ll likely be having pizza and stuff from there tonight so I make first thing a bunch of smoothies for us right now. Microwaved baby beets and carrots then into the kitchen ninja to liquify them and some carrot juice too and then I double down with cocoa powder and some chocolate syrup and then some chocolate ice cream and make red velvet smoothies for all of us and get them into the band before they frigging die of scurvy.

Then it’s a casserole of ground turkey with some sage and nutmeg and then some chic peas, lentils and brown rice tossed with diced celery an onion and dried cranberries. It’s something that’s not take out or junk even if I’m one of the only ones eating it.

I made Summer and I some granola with hot cream drizzled over it and a little maple syrup before we have to get ready and go.

We headed to the office first and are kind of sitting around listening to things as they’re happening and it’s not just Adam but Justin too and some others that got pinched.

And the cops and RCMP were there so we left after I grabbed some of the Kisses & Thorns tee shirts and Summer signed for them with the secretary and the cops searched them and we headed out.

…….

Summer looks at me as we’re driving.

“What’s the shirts for?”

“Freebies, we can give them out to advertise for the band. People like free stuff.”

“Yeah no der.”

I laugh. “I’ve some folks in mind with some of that and can we stop at Domino's before we get to the park?”

“Sure...pizza??”

“No...we use that credit card of Adams and get gift cards to promote us as well.”

She looks at me. “Okay...you know I’m really not one of those goodwill kinds of people, I’m a bitch.”

I screw my face up into a face. “Yeah sometimes and for good reasons.” I don’t go into the reasons. “Look you want to get some real street cred? This is how we start.”

She’s looking at me.

I shrug. “Adam’s going through the radio and studio stuff and that’s great it’s serious stuff but nowadays bands live or die online and there’s a whole thing we need to get into.”

She makes a face. “Like Rayne and Starlight Butterfly right?”

I point at her. “Like Starlight Entertainment and Music there Summer, Angel Benton’s got them seriously moved forwards and then some.”

“Like?”

“Listed songwriter's credits for most of them with the right agencies and the same for their playing and all that stuff. She has it all on their site as qualifications.”

“Who cares?”

“The industry does folks that if you’re serious you want to care about.”

“Suits.”

“Yeah well there is that and for that matter adam’s a suit, he’s a young suit but still a suit. Besides I’m just saying for a bunch of independents they have shit nailed down.’

Summer looks pissy.

Sigh…

I continue. “Look it’s not just the only angle to use or that we can use.”

She looks at me. “So we’re not going to copy them?’

“Heck no, we’re not Starlight Butterfly but it doesn’t hurt us to not be bitches to them either.”

“Yeah well Rayne’s my ex.”

I look at her. “Ex...actly dingus.”

Okay...we actually stop a few seconds at the stop sign and kiss a little and then we head off to Domino's for the gift cards and some stuff at the Dollarama and then we head off to Trudeau Park.

It’s nice when we get there. It’s one of those lakeside parks where there’s a bit of beach and sand though out at the water’s edge it’s kinda rocky and the beach is likely man-made and then there’s a strip of park itself with lots of lawn and really wide like more than a football field and here and there they usually have like swings and some playground stuff as well as picnic tables that have been like all moved for the fair stuff.

There’s a lot of booths and tent styled booths and it’s got a very farmer’s market meets the carnival kind of feel to it.

We meet up at this really big tent that looks like it might be for the beer gardens or something like that and we’re not the only group that’s there at tables getting organized. There’s some other events getting set up and things.

I’m not into guys like at all really but it’s kinda cool to see one group looks like a bunch of literal lumberjacks. It’s cool because guys in flannel with scruffy beards and stuff is this whole bad, bad thing called hipster dudes, y’know the asshatts with the man-buns.

And enough cologne that you get it sticking to you off from them in enclosed spaces.

It was interesting, this whole meeting and a lot of names of folks that play are on the big board thing.

And us getting our slots which for K&T were pretty good and all but with the weekend coming up some of us thought that we should play later to give more late night bands a chance and so that we could have the crowds with the older folks that don’t like this kind of music or those with kids to have their shows and get home and things and then we could do our thing on the later shows and really strut it out.

Jem was there, well Angel Benton and I got to say despite Summer and her and more importantly Rayne having all the ex-band and just plain ex issues. I’m impressed with her.

She’s really pretty with cool hair and she was dressed all sort of cool and yet she was like totally there to work as well but like I said really cool hair in the platinum blonde meets the whole kissed with pink thing that’s like her stage namesake and all and really good make-up too, like just a little but what was there was like...smooth clean looking face and a pale pink lipstick and just enough eye to hook you into looking at them. Not a ton of perfume in fact just this sort of whiff of baby powder and bubble gum? A little jewelry just as like accent stuff and just...she’s one of those perfect girls too.

And that’s all set off with her like knowing most of the folks there and the ones she doesn’t know seem to really want to know her.

Even after the meeting when we’re heading out she’s stopping and sitting with the time slot organizer lady and taking a bottle of water from her and they started chatting in earnest and getting into it from the look of it more and more.

Summer watched for a few minutes. “Suck up.”

“Who?”

“Jem, seriously why the fuck do people just fall all over themselves for her?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s falling all over her and she’s the one she called over.”

“It’s not just that it’s her and Starlight Butterfly getting gigs and all over the place, places that were my places and they cancelled on us.”

“Lucky’s has us back.”

“Yeah but still, like look at her.”

“I see someone hustling Summer, seriously she’s like me with no like school from things I’ve read online with her and all.”

“You read her stuff online?”

“Uhm hello yeah, they’re totes Indie band hon and they’re doing it really top shelf too. And Jem actually blogs with tutorial stuff for other bands to do in getting their papers and stuff for making ends meet with the businesses.”

She just looks grumpy. “You sound like a fan.”

“I am a little she’s written a lot of stuff, so has the other girls in the band and some of the songs are awesome. I think I’m more in awe of her as a person though with all the stuff she’s been doing.”

She stares at me.

I stare back and shrug. “She makes me think of what’s possible for us hon.”

She gets that semi-embarrassed face scrunched look. “I’d rather our possible than her possible.”

I smile and get the gift cards and some of the shirts that I had signed for. “Chill we’re going to do that right now.”

“We are?”

“Yup, c’mon let’s get some folks some free eats and shirts and get them to come over to our gig tonight at Dominos.”

“For Dominos?”

“Heck yeah, every little bit helps. We’ll get folks there and some of the folks I’m planning on will do more than just the usual they will give us street cred.”

She looks at me and i’m not passing things around here.

I head to the car. “C’mon, we’ve places to go.”

We head out and I get Summer to drive us to East-Harpers. It’s the crap area of town now. Like back in the day and like a thousand other town including my own something happened when whichever recession took hold and folks left town or migrated and things.

This part of town was by the old provincial highway and it was a place where stuff came from and got shipped out to Toronto or Hamilton or wherever but they made car stuff here...mufflers and other parts that were like part of the whole deal with auto and steel in Ontario.

That stuff dried up, the Marshall’s could even stop that really and with the new highway and with the Mill and the fish plant on the other side of town traffic turned to a trickle and as that happened shit got worse.

Now it’s old crap buildings and an old crap downtown section and cheap rental places that need a lot of work or literally need to be torn down and a lot of those are places where I used to crash.

Junkies and street kids are inventive and shutting off power can be a flip of a switch on a wall in a cable box or whatever. Heck I’ve helped a friend swipe cable tools from a cable guy more than a few times so we have internet.

Internet’s really important when you’re a street kid these days.

Jobs, resumes...listings, people posting where food got dropped off by charities, stuff with shelters, go fund me things, paypal...all of that stuff is constantly used by kids out on their own.

Hell there’s couchsurfing things on lots of social media sites like Facebook and Tumblr.

Fecking adults bitch about kids on smartphones but that’s our computer, our job source , our money, our resource finder sometimes.

And that’s what I’m doing.

Finding friends and friends of friends that are online, in town, homeless or squatting and I’m giving them free gift cards for pizza or whatever.

Food, warmth, free bathroom, free refills and leftovers...even the napkins and stuff we all use those and tossing in a free shirt with all of that in exchange for some face time with them. A smoke with me and Summer as we’re passing out the shirts and cards.

And I’m up front.

So the conversations go like...

“We’re the real deal, yeah we signed on with Marshall and stuff but who the hell knows where that’ll go with that guy y’know.?”

“What’s the catch? Blog it. Come to the show when we’re there get more stuff from the place, dance, watch us and when it’s all said and done just spread the truth. What we played like and even the deal.”

We do that about ten times and the thing is all ten will more than likely show and they’ll bring friends.

And as much as I like Starlight Butterfly and the cool things that they do. They haven’t done this. They haven’t thought of the street kids.

It’s cool because Summer’s getting it and everything and she’s in a good mood when we get done and she takes us for a grocery run.

Not like groceries but something like that.

We go to this place outside of town a couple of miles just off one of the roads to Harper’s Point junction and she takes me to this army surplus store.

And okay...just by the stuff here it’s one of those places that had the old army stuff sure but it has a bunch of stuff that has ‘fallen off the back of the truck’

Yeah most of it’s like damaged and stuff and pretty much illegal to sell sort of if anyone bothered to come out here but it’s a small fry place. Like I see clothes and sneakers and all sorts of old stuff and cheap stuff and things like boxed cereal out of the boxes just in those opaque bags that’s inside the boxes.

Summer actually does know stuff like dealers and places like this.

We end up buying cases of things like cup of soups, hotel single coffee packets of Nescafe, ramen noodles and food and it’s not great but we get a lot of it and some isn’t complete garbage either with some of those pull off the top cans of Chef Boyardee pasta there going for really cheap.

Dented cans too.

And yes you can eat dented food. If the can actually doesn’t look too crimped in the dent it’s still sealed, still good.

We leave and head for home and I’m looking at her.

“What’s all of this for?”

“You can find us a place to meet these kids after like our show...I wanna give stuff out and maybe ask our folks that come to our gigs to like maybe give food.”

I look at her and she’s so red in the face from being embarrassed.

I smile then kiss her. “I can do that.”

“Uhm...good.”

“You feel like playing a rave?”

“A rave?”

“Yeah there’s one going on later tonight.”

“Will we get paid?”

“Not likely but we’ll get some more street exposure.”

“Let’s talk it over with the guys, it won’t hurt us in my opinion but some of them might have plans.”

We head back and we have something to eat with the crew and get our stuff together and talk.

Adam’s our boss but he’s not our boss...sure we have contract but I don’t and at the same time we don’t really care, he can bitch at us after we do something.

So after talking about it and the thought of partying to go along with it and us able to play how we want and what we want without any expectations we decide to go and do the Rave and I use my phone and go online and make a few calls to get everything lined up.

And then we head out to Dominos.

We need to get better organized when we do gigs or at least get a bigger vehicle because band stuff doesn’t fit well into cars and Gary’s truck is garbage and the sole redeeming feature is that it’s got a cap on it. Most of the amps and things go in there. But it’s got holes in the truck bed and well it was just the best he could get when he took off from home.

Yeah another runaway.

He’s from some crappy little town up in northern Ontario and his family are a bunch of hard cases that are those kind of family assholes who see any attempts to get ahead as more resources to like borrow from and stuff.

I had a couple of ex-friends like that in montreal who thought if you got paid it was on you to lend them money, even got offended when you didn’t.

Gary’s whole family was doing that and then some and he took off and ended up here when the truck broke down and met Summer and Muzz at some party where he was at.

He’s been here ever since.

I think most of us have these messed up stories.

Tara left home because of a guy and Summer met her waiting tables in Toronto and she mentioned she played. From just stuff the guy she was with was a serious asshole, like the girl beating kind.

Dee’s from a druggie family and yeah we use and stuff Dee’s family was just all apart with overdoses, teens getting knocked up, suicides too I guess. She’s a sweetheart that ended up here because of a decent grandmother who she was kinda raised by and she is helping out.

I guess Dee’s trying to keep her from going into a home, she’s like not incompetent but she had a stroke a while back and has issues with one of her arms which sucks because she taught piano...so with Dee on keyboards she taught Dee.

Muzz...Muzz is older and was in a bunch of bands and stuff and apparently Summer had been hit by him while driving wrecked on a motorcycle he doesn’t own anymore.

Yeah we a whole bunch of messed up kids.

Well except Muzz and sort of Summer.

Summer’s broken enough that I’m not sure where she’d qualify. She’s old enough to be like some sort of functioning adult but the longer we’re together the longer I’m seeing it’s going through the motions until it’s time to run.

We get ourselves together and arrive at Dominos and it’s actually pretty awesome.

The place used to be an old A&W with the roof thing that comes out for the drive in service and they’re still doing that here and it brings in customers. They don’t skate while serving here but they do serve here right to the cars.

That’s a big draw here to, there’s a lot of people here that come here for their cars. It’s way more a younger Fast & Furious crowd than the old cars but still it brings people here all the time in an area of town that doesn’t have a lot of places to go to.

We set up at the end of the car-port thing where the owner has a patio made and usually pipes out tunes for so some folks can listen or at night dance. For us they let us use the patio as a stage and the people that come to listen to us sort of just gather in front and in a bit of the car-port.

It’s kinda a free for all then and but we’re a draw because more cars and people do show when we’re playing even to the lot across the street which is usually empty.

Tonight with the added push we’re actually pretty packed and I can see some of our freebie people there and inside looks busy too.

We do set-up with things and I’m just dancing as Muzz and tara start playing and Summer starts everyone off with something loved and familiar with her rendition of *Sweet Child of Mine* By Guns and Roses.

Yeah it’s old stuff but it’s that kind of beloved stuff that you hear around here all the time.

GnR, AC/DC and all those old bands are like really still played here a lot.

There’s street tunes and new stuff too of course but we don’t play a lot of the and Summer refuses to cover Lavigne or Nicklebarf.

But we have our own stuff too.

Though it’s always better to warm up the crowd.

So we go through. *Cherry Bomb* By The Runaways.

Then *Bittersweet Symphony* By The Verve and I like that because I start things off with my violin and I’m really into rocking them and getting then going and I go close as I can get to the people listening and dancing as I start us into the song.

The we hit them with *Do You Feel Me* By Kisses & Thorns.

Then we hit them with *Edge of my seat* By Kisses & Thorns.

Some of them are dancing now with a few of our freebie kids leading the way and like always as soon as some people start dancing other people start dancing.

Which is good for us because while there’s no booze here and still dancing bodies buy stuff and they have a good time and the biggest thing is that they come back.

Tara starts in with the bass and we shift into a new cover one that I’ve picked out because it suits Summer and her mood and her voice which is a lot like that heavy and yet not good chic rocker thing sort of somewhere between Sass Jordan and Stevie Nicks.

We play. *Use Somebody* By Kings of Leon.

I can see this is a good fit for us as people are getting into it a little more with the dancing and paying us more attention.

Then we do a switchover with the mood set by that last song for something that’s slower to dance to.
*Sweet Child of Mine* By Guns & roses is a solid softish tune and one of Summer’s go to songs and after that we do. *Sunshine* By Kisses & Thorns and that’s one of mine which has me pretty happy.

Well it does and I seriously want to do some better songwriting because most of the stuff that I have done is just a lot closer to poetry or even off-poetry.

I want to do more, I want to do better honestly.

We keep things going and it’s with our sort of signature stuff like *Every rose has it’s thorn.* By Poison and *Kiss from a Rose* By Seal and I will give Summer this she so can do this deeper line and she can ramble in that sort of heady-heavy-breathless way.

And then we’re done.

It’s not a big show here anyways just a couple of hours but it’s something for us. It gets us out live and we play and make more word of mouth.

Plus the Dominos here is doing stuff way outside the box when it comes to a chain place.

And those franchises are really big on No.

Which means he’s, the owner here must be making the numbers enough for the heads to give him leeway.

I gotta say though the drive up, that’s kicking ass as well as the motorboy crowd here making it their hang out doesn’t hurt.

Ten to fifteen really cool well done cars and then there’s double that in the wannabee types which still have cool cars really and most of this brings in the fans, the girls and I’m pretty sure those just here for the vibe.

So for like three good hours before and while plus after us there’s sixty or seventy locals here buying pizza and drinks and a lot of the other than pizza stuff gets ordered and reordered like the chicken and breads and that cinnasticks is always around plus drinks and desserts like the cookie brownies.

They’re making money here, and more when we play because it’s a Thursday night which is a paynight for a lot of folks.

Heck I order a large order of cinnasticks with the icing cups as we’re packing up and talking to folks.

We’re actually good at the talking game.

Gary talks to the motorheads and the sort of jocks and he’s automatically macho’d in since he’s a drummer and guys flock to Dee because she’s hot and funky with those huge boobs and Summer and Tara sort of have the girl fans covered and cornered.

Everyone likes to talk to Muzz because of his accent and he sort of sucks in the rock people that think his accent and that he plays makes him and by default us super legitimate.

Me I’m good with the streeters like me, the ones here for our gift cards and to frankly get clean and warm.

I don’t know if the owner here gets what’s going on but the staff sort of does and this is one of those sides of town where the runaways are, where the folks live that you don’t see on those TV families.

Overall it’s gone really well tonight and we leave after an hour and head off driving with some of the locals headed out to Laurier airstrip to where the rave is going to be.

*** Author's note... This is the work of Bailey Summers and if not found on BCTS it is stolen.
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/node ***