Chapter 11

It was after midnight when we finally got back to Hanna’s aunt’s house after the show. I’d spent enough late nights with my dad over the years to know this was what our schedule was going to be like; extremely late nights followed by sleeping until noon. Although we’d have to travel some days, none of the cities we were appearing in were more than five hours apart and we didn’t normally have to start setting up till five or six most nights, since we wouldn’t go on until eight or nine. My sleep schedule was going to be ruined by the end of the summer when we had to go back to being at school at seven-thirty every morning, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

This was our second to last night in Raleigh, although after the gig in Durham, we’d have to get up and drive to Virginia the next morning, so this was the last day we’d actually get to spend time with Hanna’s aunt and Sam. The rest of the tour, at least until we had the break in the middle to go back home and do some shows around Ashville, would be spent in very cheap motels and eating fast food, so I was enjoying this last day in a real home.

Durham was very similar to Raleigh, except it seemed a lot more industrial. We passed several factories on the way in and there was even a noticeably tall smokestack in one area, about as tall as the water tower not far from it. Maybe my impression of it being industrial was because there were a lot of two and three-story rectangular brick buildings on the way in and the streets seemed smaller somehow.

As we got close to Duke, things got nicer, although it still had a different feel to Raleigh. There were a lot more trees, for starters. It also seemed like a lot of the clubs and restaurants frequented by the students weren’t right next to the campus. They were further down, around main street, which was only two lanes instead of six like the main drag in Raleigh. A lot of the old brick buildings had been renovated into restaurants, clubs, and businesses, giving everything an almost quaint feeling. It’s being only two lanes also made it feel very small, while still feeling like a big city, probably because these two-lane roads with businesses on either side seemed to go on forever.

What they didn’t have a lot of was parking! This meant we had to have Kat sit in the driver’s seat while we unloaded. She was ready to move the van in case a cop showed up, since we were double-parked in front of the club. The city must have had good bus service, because I couldn’t imagine where anyone who wanted to come out to one of the several clubs I could see from where I was standing would park.

The club itself was also a lot tighter than other clubs we’d played at, except maybe the Blue Ridge. There wasn’t really any kind of backstage or curtain. We got set up right in front of the crowd, which really reminded me of the Blue Ridge, except this place only had a bar and didn’t do food. There was a door next to the stage that led to a thin set of stairs leading down to the basement, which the club used as a kind of storage room.

It also meant we were going to have to leave our instruments on stage, since carrying them up and down these thin stairs, especially Seth’s keyboards, would be treacherous. We decided to set everything up now, just as the people were starting to come in, and either Kat or Hanna would sit next to the stage to watch everything, while the rest of us relaxed and got into the headspace to start the gig.

Kat and Seth had parked the van in a lot almost two blocks away, which meant it would be a pain to retrieve it and get everything packed up and out at the end of the night, since we had to carry it through the crowd or wait until the bar closed to break down, but I guess not every place we played would have a back door and loading area.

I could hear the noise from above as it got late and the club started to fill up. We actually had to go back up the same set of stairs and back out to the street, and then in through a fire door when it was time to play, which also seemed really strange, and had us pressing through the crowd to get to the stage.

When we got there, Kat was sitting on the edge of the stage, talking to a girl who looked vaguely familiar. She occasionally looked around, making sure no one was messing with our instruments, which is when she noticed us and hopped off, and pulled the girl she was talking to into the crowd.

In spite of the strange start, the show itself went well. The crowd was really responsive and the floor stayed packed the whole time, although that might just have been an illusion because of how the club was set up. It was hard to tell the area in front of the stage where people were listening and dancing, from areas further back where people were just hanging out or lined up next to the bar getting drinks.

We’d redone the lineup again, making adjustments from the previous show where we weren’t getting much response, and it seemed to help. When this tour was over, I needed to start thinking about more high-energy songs, to counter the slower, more melodic stuff. Marco made another push to get his song in, but it still wasn’t ready and he wasn’t open to hearing critiques or changes that he needed to make for the song to work.

That was something else we were going to have to deal with when we finished the tour. It was starting to be a point of conflict between Marco and the rest of the group. Even he and Seth, who’d known each other the longest, had started to argue about it, since the conversation around Marco’s song kept happening again and again, but was the same every single time. I could understand why he was upset, since everyone else had contributed something to the band’s lineup, but we all listened to the input of others and made adjustments, and he took offense every time changes were suggested, even when a professional like Rowan was the one making it.

Dealing with it, though, was going to be difficult, since I knew him well enough to know that he would take even talking to him about why there was friction or his refusal to take criticism as criticism, and get defensive. My best bet was to talk to Seth and see if he could convince Marco to cool off, since they were closer than the rest of us. I wasn’t sure where to go from there, if that didn’t work, since besides his little side comments and general pouting every time his song got turned down, he was a pretty good guy and really added something to the band.

The show ended well and the floor in front of the stage stayed full the entire time. Again, that could have been an illusion, since this venue was almost too small for us and the last one had been much too big, making the contrast even starker, but the energy from the crowd was good enough that I was happy when we finally made it off stage.

As with the last show, Marco and Seth were in charge of getting everything back in the van, which they’d have to go get and find parking near the side door to the club, while Lyla and I made our way to the small table where we were selling merch in the back. Lyla headed back while I stayed with our stuff until she could send Kat to swap out with me, since the open nature of the club meant we couldn’t just leave our stuff unattended on the stage.

Kat came bouncing through the crowd, full of energy, which made me smile. It was great to see her in such a good mood. She’d been slowly coming out of her shell with more people outside of our friend group the longer she was away from her father and living with Hanna, and that process had accelerated once we got on the road.

“Everything okay?” I asked when she jumped up on the edge of the stage, kicking her feet like a little kid.

“Yeah. Hanna’s psyched. Stuff is selling really well. A lot better than the last place and everyone seemed to really like the show.”

“Good. I thought the vibe felt a little better, but it’s hard to know from up here, especially with how small this place is. Well, I’ll go back and help her. Marco and Seth already went to get the van, so you shouldn’t have to wait long.”

I was already taking a step towards the crowd and the back wall where the merch table was set up when Kat grabbed my arm and said, “Hanna needs you to grab something from the storeroom place first.”

“What?” I asked.

She’d had us unload several boxes there before the show that she and Kat were going to bring up while we played, but I thought she left most of it back at her aunt’s house, since there was no way we were selling everything this early in the tour. I hadn’t really been paying attention, since I was always in my head before a show, but there hadn’t been that many boxes.

“I don’t know; a box of something. She said you’ll see it. It’s right when you get down the stairs.”

“Okay,” I said and diverted to the side door.

Thankfully, the light switch to the basement room was at the top of the stairs, so I didn’t have to climb down in the dark, although I did have to basically watch my shoes the whole time to keep from missing the narrow steps and crashing to the concrete below. When I looked up, there was a girl in just her underwear sitting on a stool in the middle of the room. Oddly, I actually knew her or at least recognized her. She’d been one of the people to stop by the merch table after the previous show.