Wait until the music's over

37. Tweety, Gene Vincent and the new Eddie

"Are we there yet?" I ask our drummer.

"No, but we're almost there" he answers, as he keeps on looking left and right, his hands firmly on the steering wheel.

"Are we there now?" I repeat a minute later, after we probably drove for a couple of yards at most, considering how slow Dave's driving this wreck of a car.

"No, Kurt, not yet" the kid says again, clearly annoyed, but also clearly focused on not showing it for fear of irritating me. And I don't need to stretch towards the front seat and look at the passenger in the eye to know Krist is secretely laughing.

"And now?" I insist as I open the window a little more to throw away what's left of my cigarette.

"We'll be there in five minutes, it must be somewhere round here..."

"What do you mean, somewhere?!"

"Oh now I know what's the place, you gotta turn right at the next lights and you'll find it on your left" Krist explains totally ignoring my complaints.

"Yeah, I knew it was here!"

"Are we at the traffic lights yet?"

"Shut up, Kurt!"

"But I'm hungry! I haven't eaten anything since early this morning and I wouldn't really call 'breakfast' the expired milk with play dough cereal I quickly gobbled up before getting to our rehearsing space"

"Come on, you never give a fuck about food when we practise, you never give a fuck about anything really, you're lucky enough if you remember to pee from time to time when we play" Krist remarks briefly turning towards me in the backseat.

"Exactly, I didn't give a fuck as long as we were playing. But the we left and Dave said 'Oh, I know a cool place, it's close, I'm gonna take you there' and I fell into this trap of evil you call Toyota Corolla, where I'm worryingly ageing and where I'll probably starve and die"

"Kurt"

"Since we left I counted three pizza places, four diners, two fast food, a chinese, a tai and two mexican restaurants. And I lost count after the first crossroad"

Krist glances me another both scolding and amused look. I know, I'm a pain in the ass, I like it.

"There it is! We're finally, ehm, there, Kurt" Dave catches out attention by shouting, then abruptly lowers his voice.

"Huh... ok" I grunt as if I didn't give a single fuck, after being a real pain in the ass about it the whole time, and I make eye contact with the poor exasperated drummer through the rearview mirror.

I like picking on him, although Krist kinda reproaches me every time saying I should stop bullying Dave. Aw come on! A bully? Me?! I hate bullies, I was the favorite victim of all the jerks and jocks in Aberdeen for more than two thirds of my life; if one day I happen to remotely start looking like one of those dicks, I'll personally buy the gun for Krist to kill me. I'm not bullying Dave, I'm annoying him. And I enjoy it so much.

Grohl finds out what's the gas pedal for right in the last yards between the green lights and the parking lot of this infamous diner. Roxy the sign says and it doesn't look promising.

"I was here a couple of times before, it's not bad, neither are the prices" Krist says as he gets out of the car, Dave gets off on the opposite side and they both proceed towards the entrance, whereas I keep myself stuck in the backseat, waiting for those two to notice my absence.

"What's up, Kurt?" they notice almost immediately and the bass player stands still beside the door, leaving Dave with the duty of jogging back to the car to find out what's wrong with me and why I'm not moving.