old fashioned • dj&ts

i. pittsburgh

Interviewer: What was your life like before you met the band?

Alexis: Shit. Absolute shit.

...

Alexis Rose grew up like most children, with a happy heart and hope for her future. When she got older and started to have a deeper understanding of the world around her, that hope and happiness seemed like a lost dream. Her picture-perfect family fell apart right in front of her eyes and there was nothing she could do about it.

Alexis had an older brother, Sam, who was attending college to become a doctor. He found away to take his pain and turn it into something good. He got the fuck out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and had no intention of ever returning. Alexis, on the other hand, was about to graduate high school and had no plans for her future. She still held onto her pain, but felt comfort in music. She felt emotionally connected to it, like the music was speaking to her and telling her everything was going to be alright. She even tried writing songs herself, but she never intended to sing them or sell them. It was just a way to get her thoughts onto paper.

Alexis wanted to get out of her house as soon as she could. Despite all the fighting, name-calling, threats, and the occasional physical altercation, Alexis's parents stayed together. Living in that house was like being in the middle of a war.

Her plan was to move in with her boyfriend, Derek, right after graduation. She stuck to that plan and was moved in with twenty four hours. She didn't even tell her parents, she just left a note in her empty room. Nothing changed, though. Living with Derek was still a war, but now she was fighting in it.

She started spending a lot of time downtown flirting with bouncers who would let her into the bars every now and then. One night, she had drowned her sorrows a little too deep when she ran into some boys she went to school with.

"Lexi Rose," one laughed. The boys at school used to call her that because it made her sound like a porn star. The boy grabbed her arm and she quickly pulled it away. "What's wrong? Not working tonight?"

"What the fuck," she yelled, pushing him away from her when his friend snuck behind her back and grabbed her arms from behind. "Get off of me."

"Hey, leave the girl alone," someone intervened. Another boy had been smoking a cigarette outside when he heard the commotion, so he stepped in. "Let her go!"

"Alright, man, relax," the person holding her huffed, pushing her forward. The school boys mumbled nasty insults under their breath before walking away.

"Did they hurt you?" Cigarette boy asked. She shook her head. "Can I get you home?"

"I'm not going home," Alexis told him, crossing her arms close to her chest.

"Well, my band is about to play if you want to stick around. We're pretty new so we're still playing the graveyard slot," he chuckled lightly. "We could use a crowd. I can buy you a drink."

Alexis didn't know where she'd go other than home, so she agreed to stay but refused the drink. She followed him back inside and sat at the bar, reluctantly accepting a soda from the boy before he made his way back to his band. The Dunne Brothers, they were called. Cigarette boy played bass guitar, and his real name was Eddie Roundtree. He definitely looked like he was meant to be on stage. They all did.

As their set ended, Alexis went back to worrying about where she was going to spend the night. She'd been working at a music store since graduation so she had money saved up to stay at a motel for a few days. She needed to be away from Derek. Desperately.

"What did you think?" Eddie asked, approaching her at the bar with another cigarette in his mouth. He offered Alexis a cigarette and she gracefully accepted it.

"I like your sound," Alexis smiled. "I think the ratio of lead to band is a little off, though. I felt like he was screaming at me."

"Billy is...passionate," Eddie laughed. "If you're not headed home tonight, where are you going?"

"Are you going to follow me if I tell you?" Alexis asked.

"No," Eddie defended quickly. "It's late, I thought we could take you on our way out."

"I don't know where I'm going. I'm trying to figure that out," Alexis admitted, starting to walk out of the bar. He followed her.

"You're not from Pittsburgh?"

"I am," she explained. "I just have nowhere to call home right now. I'll probably go to a motel or something until I figure it out. Don't feel the need to stick around because you caught me at a bad time."

"We'll be back here tomorrow night. Can I expect to see you again?" He asked. Alexis put out her cigarette on the sidewalk.

"You want to see me again?" Alexis asked, not thinking that night was exactly a meet-cute situation.

"Maybe tomorrow I'll catch you at a good time," Eddie shrugged, putting his cigarette out, too. "And I'll know you survived the night."

"Alright," Alexis agreed. "I'll think about it."

"Eddie!" Someone honked, waving him over to what Alexis assumed was the band's minibus. Alexis nodded goodbye before he jogged away and joined his friends.

"Who was that?" Warren, the drummer in the band, asked him. Eddie watched as the girl disappeared around the corner. That's when he realized he never got her name.

"I don't know," Eddie responded quietly. For a girl he just met, he was actually really worried about her. "Some guys were giving her a hard time so I brought her in to hear our said. She said she liked our sound but felt like Billy was yelling at her the whole time."

"Seriously?" Billy asked, shaking his head.

"I'm not fucking lying dude, that's exactly what she said."

"It's fucking rock and roll. Of course I'm going to be loud," Billy defended.

"Did you get her number?" Graham asked. Eddie shook his head.

"I invited her back for our set tomorrow," Eddie explained, leaning back in his seat. "I guess we'll see if she shows up."

She did.