I like Chili Pepper. I saw them in concert and met Flea’s brother-in-law once, but I think he was a ghost. His name was Clyde. He was posing as a regular human with his own band, Third Step from Heaven, who he was on his way to perform with. So I went with them.
I sat on the burgundy carpet in the back of their hippie van, with guitars, three, all in their cases. There was a large amp, against the front passenger seat and I found a drumstick in the jack. I picked at a clear sticker on the bottom of my heel.
“This is Scott.” Clyde tapped the driver’s shoulder with his finger. “He’s the drummer. This is Donnie, with vocals.”
“I play guitar too!” Donnie said turning around in the passenger seat.
“He thinks he plays guitar,” Clyde said.
Donnie punched him in the shoulder. “I’ll show you that I play guitar, alright Allie.”
“It’s Allison.” Here I should have been aware that they were ghosts. I had introduced my self to Clyde at the show, and he had introduce me to his friends but he hadn’t told them my name yet.
“Oh no you’re not going to play that tape for her!” Clyde yelled. He grabbed Donnie around the neck holding him to the passenger seat. “Say Uncle!”
Donnie struggled against the front seat. He tried to reach behind him and push Clyde away but he couldn’t get power behind it. Scott looked back at me. He smiled. I looked away. We were stopped at the corner of Central and Jefferson. The light rail was passing on the right. It was silence even without all the noise in the van.
“Uncle! Uncle!” Donnie shouted
Clyde let go of him sitting back down. “He always plays our tape for everyone.”
“Don’t you want people listening to your music?” I tucked a strand of brown hair behind my ear.
“If they choose to listen to it.” Clyde ran the zipper of his jacket up to his collar and then back down. It was too hot to wear a jacket, but it was October and everyone wanted to dress like it was fall. A high pitch wail of guitar came from the speakers. “Donnie!” Clyde jumped to his knees wrestling to get Donnie back into a choke hold.
“Maybe I want to listen to it!” Donnie yelled moving out of Clyde’s reach. He had to sit on the dash, his back hunched under the windshield.
“Do it on your own time!” Clyde had a leg over the back of the seat. He leaned over and popped the CD from the player. He brought it back with him. He picked up a CD case, removing the Chili Pepper’s CD and putting his own inside. He handed it to me. “I like your shirt. Did you go to that concert? Or did you get it from your ex?”
I held out my shirt looking at it. It was from the Californication tour. “I stole it from Patrick, a guy I dated last March. It was the only think good I got out of him.” At the time I wasn’t surprised by his question about my ex because everyone steals stuff from their ex boyfriends when they’re jerks.
“It was a good show.” Clyde tapped Scott on the shoulder. “Wasn’t that a good show?”
“I’m not sure. Which one was that?” he didn’t take his hand off the steering wheel. He didn’t look back at us either.
“Remember we saw it a few times. LA, Vegas, San Diego.” Clyde tapped Scott on the shoulder as he listed off the concerts they’d gone to.
“I remember San Diego. You went backstage without me and I didn’t see you again for two days!” Donnie answered for Scott. Donnie turned to me and asked, “Didn’t Patrick go to his grandmother for the weekend and not tell you?”
“Yes! I was so pissed off at him. I tried calling him; I know he had his cell right there. He was purposely ignoring me. She wasn’t even in the hospital, she was just sick!” I always got distracted when I thought about how scummy Patrick was to me.
“Didn’t you break up with him because he was cheating on you with that Christina?” Clyde asked.
“Yes! She was a total slut! She had big porn star boobs. I looked threw his contacts on his phone and I found her name there. I told him to take her off!”
“But, he didn’t do that, did he?” Scott asked.
“No, he put her number under ‘work’ isn’t that suspicious? It’s so suspicious. As soon as I saw it I was out of there.”
I calmed down after that because we arrived at Marquee Theater, a small venue on the Tempe Lake. Scott pulled into the back entrance. There were college students in black pants, tight shirts and fishnets on their arms waiting in the main parking lot. I could only see a few from the back.
Clyde reached over me to open the door to the van. It slid open. I crawled out ahead of him.
Donnie went around me. He opened the back door. I could see him inside the van. He opened one of the guitar cases. The guitar was red, with black around the hole in the middle of the guitar. The part of the guitar with the strings was also black. He shut the guitar case and picked it up. He shut the back door.
“Hey you can come in with us if you want.” Clyde slid the door closed. He had a guitar case over his shoulder. He pulled the zipper up on his jacket. I followed him in through the back entrance. There was a table with food piled on it against the back wall. There were ropes hanging from the rafters, the lights were blinding white heat. There was another band in on the other side of the stage. One member was rubbing a drumstick through his hair and the other two were gesturing wildly with their hands as they talked. I walked into Clyde when he stopped walking. I took a step back. “We’re going to practice. You can hang out here until the gig starts. Or find that asshole Patrick and tell him how you feel.”
“I’ll stay here.” I waved. I started walking over to the other band.
“Are you supposed to be back here?” A man with a yellow shirt with the word ‘crew’ on it asked. He held out a hand. It was sweaty and I could see the little grooves and arches on the palm.
“How’d you know?”
“Your shirt?”
I held out my shirt looking down at it. At the time I didn’t understand what was wrong with the shirt, but I realize now that it made the man believe that I wasn’t there with anyone. “What’s wrong with the Chili Peppers?”
The man laughed. “There’s nothing wrong with them. In fact, I’ll lead you to the front of the stage just because of them.” He led me to the front of the stage. He checked the seating with the usher and put me in a red chair near the front. It wasn’t long before the group from the front parking lot started to come into the theater.
“Allison?” Patrick stood in the row behind me. There was a girl beside him.
“Is that who you’re dating now?” I stood up pointing at him accusingly. “You should leave this jerk right now.”
The girl took a step back, she looked up at Patrick. “Is that my shirt?”
“What?” Patrick looked down at my shirt. “Did you take that?”
“Her shirt! You were sleeping with her when we were dating?” I asked.
“I’m his sister,” the girl said.
“That’s disgusting!” I don’t know about you but I’m pretty open-minded, but that is just wrong! I grabbed the hem of my shirt pulling it over my head. I threw it at the girl. “Keep it!” I pushed passed the line of people waiting to get to their seats. I left the Marquee Theater. The door slammed shut behind me.
I stepped into the Chili Peppers’s dressing room. They were all staring at me. I wasn’t wearing a shirt or a bra, my nipples were pebble hard, and I had to hold them up to keep them from being uncomfortable and bouncy.
“Oh my god that is the funniest story ever!” Christina roared with laughter. “Then you were escorted off the property and arrested by the police?”
“After they signed my chest,” Allison laughed.
“I bet the photos they took of you were hilarious!” Christina couldn’t stop laughing. “Do you even know how you ended up in the dressing room?”
“Not at all.” Allison shook her head. “But I don’t really want to know what happened anymore. I like the fantasy better than the reality.”
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