St Jimmy

Chapter 6- She

We arrived at Liberty’s or ‘She’s’ 15 minutes later, she lived in an apartment under the rail bridge, on the south end of JingleTown. Taylor banged on the door.

Liberty opened it, she had blonde hair which had been tied tight back and the pony tail had been gelled to create very impressive spikes. She was chewing gum.

“Hey Rebel,” she said.

“Hey She, this is Jett, Jimmy’s girl, I think we’ve found ourselves a new bassist,” Taylor smirked.

“You’re replacing Maxi?”

“No, she can play rhythm guitar, so now we have a bassist and our band is complete again,” she laughed.

“Awesome, let’s give you a shot,” Liberty laughed leading us through her apartment. We came to a set of stairs which lead to a basement. A lot of people around here have basements, I thought. The lights were low and lots of gear was rigged up. Another girl was lying on the couch; she had short green hair, which was awesome. Another was sitting slouched on a beanbag; she wore a baggy Green Day T-shirt on and had long wavy black hair. All of the girls were wearing thick black eye makeup and either Converse or biker boots. Liberty sat down on the arm of the couch. Taylor stood at the front of the room with me.

“Guys, this is Jett, she’s gonna be our new bassist,” she smiled. One of the other girls stood up and gave me a knuckle punch.

“Nice one, so we can play at Greig’s tonight yeah?”

“Sure,” said Taylor.

The other girl coughed and put on an upset face.

“Oh Maxi, will you play rhythm guitar for us?” Liberty asked her.

“But I’m shit,” she sighed.

“No you’re not, you just don’t have any self-belief,” Taylor laughed.

“Cool, but if I suck, don’t blame me,” she said. She stood up and gave me a knuckle punch, nicely, she wasn’t in a bad mood she was just being funny.

When everyone was sitting down again apart from Taylor and me, everyone was introduced.

“Right,” Taylor began. “As you know, I’m Taylor, I’m 17 and I sing. We’re all nicknamed after a Green Day girl, I’m Rebel.”

Liberty stood up “As you probably have guessed, I’m Liberty, I’m 18, and I’m ‘She’ coz I make people’s ears bleed with my drumming,” she laughed.

Then the girl with the black hair stood up, who was Alex, from our other discussion. “I’m Alex, I’m 21, I play rhythm guitar now, and I’m Extraordinary Girl or sometimes just called Extraordinary for short because I’m emotional and because I don’t believe in myself.”

Everyone laughed.

Then finally the girl with the awesome green hair stood up “I’m Maxi, I’m 16 and I play lead guitar. I’m American Girl because I wear the most makeup and my solos are one of a kind.”

“Right so everyone we need to think of a nickname for Jett, any ideas?” Taylor asked.

“Weren’t you like mugged and Jimmy found you on the sidewalk?” Liberty asked.

I nodded.

“And you don’t come from here right?” asked Maxi.

“No.”

“So then you could be Little Girl, like Viva La Gloria Little Girl, because you’re away from home, like ‘runaway from the river to the street.’ Then you were found on the sidewalk, like ‘and find yourself with you face in the gutter.” Alex finalised.

“Awesome,” I said. “I’m Jett, I’m 21 and I play bass. I’m Little Girl because I was found in the gutter and I’m away from home.”

Everyone clapped.

“Right let’s get this set list ready.” Taylor yelled.

“So what songs d’you know?” Maxi asked. I sat down on the floor and leant against the red wall.

“Well what sort of stuff do you play?” I asked.

“Green Day, Clash, Pretty Reckless, Runaways, Joan Jett, that sort of stuff,” Liberty replied.

“Well I know a load of Green Day songs, Make Me Wanna Die (Pretty Reckless), London Calling (Clash), Cherry Bomb (Runaways), erm just name one.”

“Ok, why don’t we run through…”

 Taylor began.

“She!” Liberty exclaimed.

“Yeah sure,” I said. Maxi stood up and picked up her guitar from the other side of the room, it was a red and black Gibson SG Special. Alex also picked up her guitar; it was a white and black Gibson Billie Joe Les Paul Junior. Liberty sat behind her Yamaha drum kit which had a logo of a silhouetted man standing with his arms out wide on the bass drum. Under it was text reading ‘OVERJOYED.’ Taylor then stood behind the mic and I picked up my new bass. Alex stood behind a mic on my right, Taylor behind the one in the middle, Maxi behind the one on the right. There was another beside Alex so I stood behind it. We all plugged ourselves in.

“One, two, three, four,” Liberty counted us in. I then knew that it was my cue. I had a bass and drum solo which was the intro. I played it reasonably confidently; we went great together, Liberty and I, and the bass worked great.

“She, she screams in silence, a sullen riot penetrating through her mind, waiting for a sign to smash the silence with a brick of self-control,” Taylor sang, but as I’m telling you this I should probably use their nicknames so I get used to using them. When we successfully reached the chorus, the two guitars came crashing in. The rest of the song went well; we had a few good guitar jumps as well. We ran through a load of other songs and before we knew it it was 5 o‘clock. We had 4 hours to create a set list, eat, get dressed, re-do our makeup and hair, and get slightly pissed for our gig. Once the set list was ready we called Greig. Alex put her cell on speaker.

“Hey Alex,” Greig’s voice came down the line, still flirty.

“Hey Greig,” Alex sighed deeply.

“Are you coming tonight?” he asked.

“Yes, but I’m actually phoning with the rest of Overjoyed, we can play tonight.”

“Yeah! Hey girls!”

“Hey,” we all sighed.

“I thought you lost Callie?”

“We did but we have a new bassist,” Taylor said, leaning against the wall with attitude.

“Nice, who?”

“Jett,” Maxi replied

“Oh, hey Jett,” he flirted.

“Fuck off Greig,” I laughed.

“Alright, you guys be at mine for 8pm, you’ll have an hour to set up, then you’ll enjoy the party then from 10 til whenever you finish your set, you’ll play.”

“Kay,” Alex said.                                            

“See ya then girls.”

Alex hung up.