KISS: Casablanca High School

Ch 73: Oh Yeah, The Band (Paul)

Peter showed up to school waay earlier than usual, joining me inside the 400 wing and sitting beneath his locker. "Why are you here earlier than ten minutes before the first bell?" I teased. A scowl spread across his face and he pulled his hood over his eyes. "Because I got kicked out of my apartment and my grandparents are making me get here early so there's less time for me to be 'gallivanting around partaking in illicit substances' or whatever," he grumbled. 

"Ooh, you got kicked out? That sucks. What happened?" I asked, sitting next to him on the cold floor. He let out a huge sigh, leaning his head back against his locker. "Well, I put my number down as my legal guardian's number for the school, which means they contacted me about all the trouble I got into and all that, but then I guess somehow my grandparents figured out I got suspended twice and got in some other trouble and...yeah. They're not exactly thrilled with me, so they took away my apartment and said no drugs, no alcohol, no staying out late on the weekends, no going on dates with Ace until my grades are up, basically no more fun for a few months," he grumbled. 

"Yikes that sucks. At least it's pretty earlier in the quarter so it won't be too hard for you to get your grades up. Also, they know about you and Ace?" A soft smile spread across his face and he nodded, eyes twinkling. "Yeah, guess they figured it out. I mean...I guess it is kinda obvious. We do go out a lot and all that. It just sucks that I can't do anythinggg because they don't trust me with anyone." 

My face lit up and I nudged him, grinning. "Hey, you know what we can do? We can get the band started up again! It's been ages since we've had a practice, not since me and Gene had that fight. We should try and find a gig to play, that way we actually have a reason to practice." 

He sat upright, looking at me excitedly. "Oh! Oh dude, my church is having a spring festival thing and there's a talent show, we could enter that! I think it's only like $20 to enter, that's just $5 for each of us!" My smile widened and I nodded eagerly. "Yeah! That's perfect man, we should talk to the others and see if they can come over to practice at my place after school and after practice. Also you better make sure you can actually come over first before we set this up." 

He nodded, pulling out his phone as the bell rang. "Man I hope this works out, I need something to do with my life." 

Ace ran over to me after practice, giving me a huge smile. "Hey Paulie! Can you give me a ride to your place for band practice? I don't have my car today." I let out a sigh, unlocking my car. "Fineeee, get in. You got your guitar?" 

He shook his head with a sheepish grin. "Uhh, no. Can I borrow one of yours?" Rolling my eyes, I nodded, turning up the radio as we sped off to my house. Figures Gene was already there, waiting impatiently by the door. "You know where the spare key is, you could've just let yourself in!" I cried, stepping out of my car with a grin. "Unlike you, apparently, I have manners. Now come on, Peter said he'd be here in ten but to get started without him." 

Ahh, it was nice to be able to just...jam. The three of us sat around, spitballing ideas and riffs and waiting for Peter to show up. Ace was halfway through an electrifying solo when the doorbell rang and Peter let himself in, beaming. "Ok so the show is in three weeks!" he cried. The solo stopped abruptly as we all stared at him in open-mouthed silence. 

"Three weeks?!" Gene shouted at last. "That's nothing! We're nowhere near ready to play live in three weeks! We've barely nailed any songs at all! We don't even have that many written yet!" Peter just shrugged, sitting behind the drum kit. "It'll be fine, it's just my church. They're all old people, they're not even gonna care. Or hear." 

Ace gave me a grin, still stretched out in the chair. "Church, huh? Guess we should go ahead and knock Hotter than Hell off the list! Don't think they'll like that one." I nodded, frowning. "Yeah. Might as well dump God of Thunder too. And Dr. Love. And every other song Gene's written basically." 

"Hey! Why all my songs?!" he protested. I gave him a cheeky smile, strumming my guitar absentmindedly. "Uh, because 99% of your songs are about sex, and it's a church. Probably not going to be a huge hit. So what do we have that's not about sex?" 

There was a long pause as we all looked at each other. "Uhh...let's see. I've got Beth, Baby Driver, and Hard Luck Woman, I could get away with those," Peter said. "I have...well I've got Two Sides of the Coin, and maybe Talk to Me? Oh and I've got New York Groove," Ace mumbled, going back to his solo. "New York Groove? We didn't write that," Peter said, giving him a confused look. A sheepish smile spread across Ace's face and he shrugged. "Eh, it's one of my solo projects I guess. But I can teach you guys if we're desperate!" 

Shaking my head, I looked over at Gene. "We'll keep it in mind. What about you, Simmons, what've you got?" 

Gene sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Uhhh...Rock and Roll All Nite? Rockin' in the USA, that one's fine, Naked City?" 

"Dang we're screwed," I said under my breath, before grabbing a scrap of paper. "Alright, here, everyone write down songs we're all pretty good with that we could play in front of a bunch of old church people without getting booed off stage." 

After a few minutes of desperate searching, we came up with barely any songs.

"Okay, so Shout it Out Loud, Beth, Talk to Me, Hard Luck Woman, Rock and Roll All Nite, Flaming Youth, and...that's it." 

"Eh, that'll be fine! That's six songs, it's not like a super long show or anything. Honestly, that's probably too many. We should just each take lead vocals on one song," Peter said. "Trust me, we don't want to take up a lot of time if we're not good. So I'll do Beth, Ace can do Talk to Me, and you and Gene can do Shout it out Loud! That'd be perfect." 

We all looked at each other and shrugged. "Sounds good to me. I guess let's run through it." 

Oh man we were rusty. We were all over the map, all in different keys and out of tune and out of sync. Peter was going too fast, Gene didn't know the words, Ace wasn't playing the right song, and my guitar was out of tune. But it was fun. Peter set down his drumsticks as we finished playing through Talk to Me for the fifth time. "Hey my grandparents want me home in twenty, so we're gonna head out. We want to meet up again this weekend? I mean three weeks is gonna fly by," Peter said, slipping his hand into Ace's. "Yeah, let's do Saturday afternoon. We seriously need to practice," I said with a grin. 

"Alright see you then Paulie!" Ace cried, kissing Peter and walking out the front door with him. Gene set down his bass, leaning back in a chair. "Ahah, we're so screwed." I grinned with a shrug, finally tuning my guitar. "Ah, it'll be fun! And besides, we have three weeks. We're just rusty." 

Laughing, he gave me a parting wave and stepped out the front door. Yeah we were totally screwed.