When You Stop Hating To Exist

Holly's Hearse Hates Homophobic Hardliners

An unknown number disrupted Jessie's spiteful loneliness.

Chris was busy in the shop, this close to Christmas people bought more and Louise was in France with her family. She could have called her buy Jessie passed time by watching TV. She had borrowed Louise’s movie collection and was now at the fifth VHS tape. They shared their movie interest; therefore, Jessie had not watched one bad movie yet.

"Hello?" she groaned out of reflex, her attention still fully on the movie.

"Hey! This is Holly, from the AMPs. I have time now. If you have time we could set up the band room today?"

Jessie had not listened to any of the words, still focused on her movie. Therefore, her answer was short and precise.

A simple "Huh?" told Holly to repeat everything.

"I'm Holly. If you have time, we can set up the AMPs today. Chris called me and said they were ready to pick up."

Jessie nodded before realizing that, yes, Holly could not see her.

"Ugh yeah sure. Meet me at the guitar store in half an hour?"  Holly agreed which forced Jessie to actually stand up, get dressed and go out. She put a hoodie, washed-out green, her white sleep T-shirt still very visible, with some normal black jeans. Her hair was kind of oily; she had not bothered to wash it. She had not expected Holly to call. She hid it with a beanie.

The walk over to the guitar shop took more time, she drew hearts on the car's hoods, as she did when she was younger, but she had still arrived too early. Chris waved over at her, motioning her to bring the AMPs out. Jessie did that and Chris thanked her for helping. They would bring her some cookies as a thank you later.

Everyone noticed the hearse driving up in front of the store, Holly emerged and walked into the store like she owned the place. Her head high, her steps clear, her way directed to Jessie.
Holly had everyone's attention and she knew it. She would be treated like a queen without asking for it. Jessie was still admiring this confidence while Holly already stood in front of her, blocking her from the eyes of the others.

They quickly continued to do what they had done.

Jessie was forced to look up to this woman, only reinforcing the queen attitude. Holly greeted her, forcing her other woman to come back to earth. Jessie quickly replied, hiding the fact that this woman was very inspiring.

"The AMPs are ready. Thank you for bringing a truck that is big enough. I was not ready for any kind of stupid discussions." Holly laughed and agreed that there really were people delusional enough to ignore something that could be mathematically explained. The volume of the back of their car.

They had loaded the AMPs in the hearse without any big problems. The drive went well, except for the very low quality sounding tapes that Holly sang along to. Jessie did not understand how someone could jam to screaming guitars, brutal drum sounds that resembled someone beating it up and a screaming singer whose words she could only understand because Holly sang along to them.
It honestly sounded like it they recorded it through a toaster.
Jessie did not comment on it.

Once arrived, Holly asked Jessie to open the garage doors for her. Jessie jumped out of the car, doing exactly that. They marked the spots for the AMPs with chalk before placing the AMPs to avoid having to move them more than absolutely necessary.
Holly had been persistent on making a sound check, which made Jessie a drummer, her rhythm was steady but boring,
a guitarist, the chords necessary for punk went well.
Holly started improvising under her chord progression, which turned their jamming into a well sounding practice session.
The second Holly told Jessie to improvise, Jessie messed up royally and they found themselves laughing until they had no air left anymore.
When they had calmed down, Jessie switched to the microphone but before they could try it out, Holly started to laugh again, which delayed their sound check further.

Jessie had absolutely no clue what to sing anyways. Therefore, Holly had instructed Jessie to play a specific chord progression, after putting her bass down, while taking the microphone in her hands.
They tried to check again but were disrupted every time by Jessie starting to laugh.
The only thing that the microphone amplified was Holly’s desperate ‘Jessie please stop,’ laughter followed, ‘stop laughing, I can’t’. They had abandoned the sound check, as nothing more productive would follow anyways.

“Umm Jessie, we gotta eat something. We can go to my place and prepare something if you want to.”
Jessie had agreed, she did not have any plans anyways and she wanted to know more about Holly. One could say the other woman intrigued her. Holly had invited her for the same reason.

Holly only told her five seconds before entering the apartment that she indeed had a person living with her. Her name was Talia and she was the guitarist of Holly’s band. They had met before, when Chris and Jessie were inspecting their band room. “Please take off your shoes. TALLY, is lunch ready?”

“No bitch, make food if you’re hungry. I literally just had breakfast.” Talia slid in, nearly falling over when she spotted Jessie,
“Holly. You know that you don’t have to bring home every lost puppy you see on the street, right?” Holly rolled her eyes.

“Do I need to ask you what the name of the person was you bought home yesterday? I bet you don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl anymore. Therefore I strongly suggest, before I expose you more, to shut your mouth.”

Talia chuckled, then fluttered her eyes and looked at Holly as if she was a baby. Jessie did not want to look at them as it made her stomach sick.
“Make me?” Talia asked, not bothering with the sexual subtext.

Holly shook her head ‘no’, which made Talia turn her head and furrow her brows, then, after a moment passed, she smiled widely.
“Ooooooh, Holly. Are you suure?” her eyebrows raised, her eyes jumping from Holly to Jessie and back.

Jessie was completely confused and in combination with her hunger, she pressed out a ‘Whatever. Holly, you said we’d cook.’ between her gritted teeth.
It thankfully came out less pissed off than Jessie had intended it. The behavior of the other women annoyed her because they refused to tell her what they were referring to.