Chapter 4: If This House Is Rockin'...

Scott and I had come up with the idea one day in late July while tossing passes back and forth in front of the large barn that sat at the rear of my family's property.

"Man, your barn is in really good shape." He'd said, looking in through the open doors.

"Yeah. It was built about ten years ago because my dad felt the place 'needed a barn'." I'd replied, making rabbit-ear gestures with my fingers for that last part. "We never use the thing other than store some stuff in it like the extra pool supplies."

Scott caught my pass, but then stopped and didn't immediately throw it back. "You gonna have a big party this season?"

"Always do. No reason for this year to be any different." I'd replied. "What are you thinking?"

"You should have it here, in the barn." He walked towards the entrance, and I followed.

As I said, my dad had decided that the property needed a barn, and he'd spared no expense to put one in. It was one of the fines modern barns man could build. It was large and spacious, with a hayloft that traversed half of the upper floor and looked down upon the main floor. The barn was mainly empty. Scott pointed to the far end of the barn. The doors there were closed, and usually stayed that way.

"We could build a stage over there, for the band." He'd suggested.

"Yeah." I agreed, starting to see his vision. I pointed off to one corner where there was a raised area. "And in the corner there we can set up Brian's turntables."

Scott looked around and got a big grin on his face and bobbed his head. "This is gonna be the best party ever."

When I pulled up to the barn, the place was already beginning to fill up. There were several flood lights set up, illuminating the area leading up to the barn. There were also two large bonfires burning on either side of the barn's double door entrance, which was wide open. From the sounds of it, Brian was already here and already spinning from his perch in the corner. He'd been excited when I'd asked him to DJ for the party.

I put my truck into park and climbed out of the cab. Right now, I was driving a '07 Ford Sport Trac. It was a few years old, but I'd taken care of it, and it took care of me. I pulled open the rear door to collect my gear when another car pulled up after me that I didn't recognize. The sporty little red car pulled into the field where I had some of the other kids directing people to park, using light cones to arrange people's cars. I watched with interest as the car pulled to a stop, and three girls got out. Well I'll be damned.

Kara, Anna, and Roxanne came marching up the hill and headed straight for me. I'd just pulled out my gear bag and guitar case and slung them over my shoulder when Kara reached me. I shut the door and turned to her.

"OK, I'm here. How about my ten minutes?" she asked, and her tone was like she just performed one of the labors of Hercules.

"When. I. Have. Ten..." I paused, very briefly, " ... free minutes. Now is not that time." I deliberately looked around Kara to where Anna and Roxanne were standing. "Hi, girls. Welcome to Casa Capuzzo."

"Hey Nick." The girls replied in almost-stereo. I returned my attention to Kara, who I could tell was getting frustrated. "Nick, I'm... we're missing an important party of our own tonight. Can't we just get this over with?"

I started walking towards the barn. "You can do whatever you want, Kara. I need to see to things here. As you can see, a lot is going on right now. Afterwards, if you're still around, we can talk."

She chased after me, with Anna and Roxanne following. I think they were amused by how frustrated their queen bee was getting. As we approached the entrance, I saw Rob standing at his appointed guard post. He was the bouncer for tonight's shin dig.

"Fearless leader!" he shouted when he saw me.

I stepped up to him, and smacked his outstretched hand. "How's it going, Rob. Everything cool?

He nodded his head. "We're about at quarter cap right now, but we're filling up quickly. I'd say another fifteen minutes we'll be full up. Brian's set up and running, as you can hear, and Reichman's doing the sound check."

"Good, good." I said, pleased that everything was going alright. I nodded to the three girls I had in tow. "These three are with me, ok?"

"You got it."

We entered the barn, and stepped into what could only be considered half hoedown, half rave. There were only about sixty people there so far, so it wasn't too full, but man did the place look great. I'd given a few of the underclassmen (and women) the chance to decorate, under Brian's direction, and they knocked it out of the park. There was a large snack table off to one side near the back, next about ten tubs filled with ice and cans of pop. The lights were dim on the main floor, with most of the illumination coming from the lights on the stage we'd built earlier and the various colored lights I can only assume Brian had provided.

"Hold up just a minute, ladies." I said, and our procession came to a halt. I looked around, straining my head to try to find someone. I spotted who I was looking for, and called out his name.

"Andy! Andy, come here for a second." Andy looked up from his spot near the stage and saw me gesturing over to him. He set the cords he was winding down and ran over to me.

"What's up, Nick?" the sophomore boy asked. I took the gear bag and my guitar bag off my shoulder and handed them to Andy.

"Have Reichman set me up, will you? I have to take care of a few things."

"Sure thing" Andy replied, and headed off back towards the stage with the two bags. I turned back to the girls. They were looking around, sort of in awe of what they'd just stepped into.

"This way girls." I said, and motioned for them to follow. As we walked over towards the stairs, Roxanne drew up next to me.

"Why did your friend call you 'Fearless Leader'?" she asked, as we walked out from underneath the hayloft. At her question, the other two girls sidled up to us, so they wouldn't miss what sounded to them like a very interesting answer.

I glanced over at Roxanne, just long enough to notice she was wearing a little more makeup than she was at the game. Interesting.

"Ah." I said, pursing my lips and nodding, "That, my dear, is for good girls to wonder why."

We arrived near the bottom of the steps that lead up to the hayloft.

"What about bad girls?" This was from Kara, who was looking mighty pleased with herself for coming up with that all on her own.

"Bad girls already know why." The low, sultry voice came from up the stairs. It was followed by the thumping of heavy heels coming down the staircase, as Alexandra Jenks came into view. While I probably wouldn't classify Lexi as a bad girl per se, she'd probably get there one day. I knew if I patted her down right now, I'd find a pack of Marlboro's, a Zippo, and a switchblade.

"Hey, baby" she said to me, as she remained on the third step and eyed my companions.

Lexi was tall and slender, almost as tall as me, and I was 5' 9". She was wearing black women's cowboy boots with ridiculous heels, tight jeans that hugged her hips like a second skin, and a black button up vest that left her shoulders bare. Her pitch black hair was pulled back into a messy bun. Country western sex kitten, I think, was the look she was going for. She was mostly succeeding.

"Just the person I was looking for." I said, unfazed by her outfit. I nodded back to the other girls, who seemed, finally, stunned by the company I kept, and in particular by the female looking down at them, almost predatorily. "These are my guests. Can you do me a favor and take them up to the loft? Get them good seats." I paused for a moment, and then added, "Be nice to them." I put particular emphasis on that last part.

Lexi looked at me, then over my shoulder at the girls. "You always spoil my fun." She added a fake pout.

"That is blatantly not true." I replied. She rolled her eyes, but didn't dispute it.

"Fine, fine. Girls?" With that she spun around and headed back up stairs. I turned to the girls.

"That's Lexi. She'll find you a place to sit for the show."

"What show?" Kara asked, finally able to process a coherent thought.

I grinned. "Well, since you have no idea, I'm certainly not going to spoil the surprise."

The girls headed up, somewhat reluctantly, and I headed over to the stage to talk to Reichman.

As I approached the stage, I passed one of the Courtland sisters, Sandra. The Courtland sisters were a year apart, but looked damned-near identical and they spent most of their lives trying to be as un-identical as possible. Samantha, a year younger than Sandra, was the social butterfly; blonde and beautiful, cheerleader, all that jazz. Sandra seemed to go out of her way to be the exact opposite; she was bookish, wore glasses, and dressed conservatively. Too much so, everyone thought. She was a pretty girl, you could tell by looking at her sister; she just seemed to be overpowered by Sam's intensity, and dealt with it by trying to be invisible. She usually succeeded at that. We were trying very hard to coax her out of her shell, but were not making much progress.

"Hey, Sandra," I said, "You doing ok?"

"Yeah, I just got here." She replied, taking a sip from a can of Diet Coke.

"Cool, cool. What's your sister up to tonight? Anything we're going to hear about come Monday morning?"

"Gawd." She intoned. "She's such a slut." She rolled her eyes overdramatically. "There's this party tonight, I don't know where, it's the jock crowd." She said that last part like it was offensive. "She would have been going anyway, she's a cheerleader, but get this. She said there was going to be some guy there, and she was going to try to land him, because 'his bitch' wasn't going to be around tonight. Land him! Steal him is more like it."

"Sooooo ... that would be a yes to Monday morning fireworks?" I asked.

"Why is she such a whore?" Sandra asked plaintively. "I am so embarrassed."

"Can't help you out there, Sandra. I skipped 'Why my sister is a whore' day in Psych class, probably because I have no sisters." I paused. "However, if you need to know why you're always naked in your dreams, we may be able to get somewhere." I put my hand up to my head and feigned a furrowed brow. "Or is that naked in my dreams? I don't know, I can never remember." I shrugged. You need to sell comedy sometimes. "Any time you want to talk about being naked, though, my couch is open." I winked lasciviously at her and she laughed.

"My, someone is in rare form tonight." She said, now in much better spirits

"Anything for you, Sandra. I gotta go, though." I said, needing to move on. "Have fun." I said, then added, "Get laid!" right before walking off.

I wondered if the party Sandra was talking about was the same one Kara had been talking about earlier. I looked up over my shoulder to the hayloft, where I could see Lexi, Kara, Anna, and Roxanne sitting on hay bales right by the railing. They seemed to be in deep discussion. That was probably bad news for me, and I shook my head as I finally made my way to the stage.

Jason Reichman was a sophomore this year, and a hell of a guitar player. While the rest of us were self taught and just messed around, he actually knew what he was doing. We, and by we I mean myself and a few friends, had formed a "band" two years ago, when we first started hanging around together on a regular basis. At first, it was just a glorified jam session, another excuse for us to get together and hang out. A few of us had guitars, someone had a drum set, and so we got together and "jammed". That's all it was for the most part, until one of the girls in band class asked us if we would play at her birthday party. Then we actually had to get serious and try to play a set list together.