I've never had a knack for physical labor but I've often wound up having to do it anyway. Growing up in the Valley and having a farmer grandfather and carpenter step-father makes it difficult to avoid. I thought a career in singing would help me finally be rid of it, yet here I am anyway, carting and lifting 50+ pounds of electronics and hammering tent stakes etc. Still far better than having to shovel chicken shit and pull cows' tits at 4 in the morning like Granddad would prefer. Mom, bless her, always had higher aspirations for me than that. Those aspirations helped me when I was in the pits of despair after I dropped out of college, after everything with Rick, and still now, exhausted and covered in sweat in my bunk on a cramped tour bus (can't shower 'til we get to the hotel-- which we're literally only using for the showers).
The crew are putting up with me and my newcomer's clumsiness well enough. ...Well, all of them besides their boss. My temporary boss-- Phil. I was shaken at how quickly he called me a fag; the sneer of his lips while he said it was all too familiar. Plenty of guys get a real thrill from keeping other guys in line and punishing the ones that can't or don't or won't, and those sorts of guys tend to make a beeline for me if I slip up for even a second. But Phil, as it turns out, isn't too picky with his targets: if you're not wonderbread-white, the second he learns your ethnicity or is able to guess at it, he's ready with a corresponding slur to sling at you. So I haven't just been 'fag' and 'tranny'; he's thrown in colorful language for Jews, Mexicans, Arabs, Italians, Greeks, slinging various guesses based off the color of my skin n’ hair and my facial features. It's as amusing as it is gross (only because the idiot's gotten nearly all the guesses wrong and one only right on a technicality, and I haven’t told him which ones). I just also happen to be short, thin, and quieter than he prefers on top of being racially/ethnically ambiguous. Silence is faggotry, I guess! And there I was thinking the "strong, silent type" was a manly one! Guess I'm not strong enough to pull the silence off.
Others-- especially Juan and Eoin-- do their best to make up for Phil. I'd met Juan before at a bar; became friendly with him after a few tipsy misunderstandings that were thankfully taken in stride. Eoin is new to me, Irish-from-Ireland (Phil has a field day with both of them...), with a delightful accent and kinder, wittier sense of humor than Phil. They've been patient in showing me the ropes and surprised I've taken the time to let them teach me, considering I'm only staying with the crew for another few months. I needed the money, tho, and the more I see them work the more I respect them (not that I was lacking in respect before!). Near all of them are rough around the edges-- not surprising in a gig like this-- but their closeness to outcast-hood makes them easier to trust than the band so far. I've always got along with other outcasts.
PS: Eoin told me it wasn't smart to keep a journal around here-- I opened up a page and told him to read the first sentence he could understand. He got my point, but still told me to be careful. Noted? I think it'll be more important once I'm officially in the band, but even then... I know how to be careful with things like this. I've been around far worse people with my composition books around. The last time someone ever found one was before I figured out a good code to write in!
Wanted to get to know Nate better (was too stressed and tired to really give him a fair chance at first), but he was initially more interested in me "proving" that the lifting tips I talked to him about when we first met were "for real" and not just me pulling the wool over his eyes. I let him forget about it eventually, then once we dropped into a rest-stop convenience store I surveyed it, then nicked some extra snacks, lighters, and little rum and vodka nips. There WAS one point where the cashier was looking at me funny, but Nate never noticed me picking up anything. The cashier forgot about me after I picked up the things I was actually buying, too. The usual.
Emptied my sleeves and pockets out after we left and he was impressed. "You must've been kinduvva wild child yerself, huh?" Didn't answer committally to that, of course. He seems more easily impressed with mystery than with anything. This could become a problem later on if his interest turns to solving said mysteries, but for now, it's fun to give myself a little air of ~mystique~ I don't normally feel I have.
I got Nate to tell me more about himself, though, before all that. His dad's also a musician and a composer; plays various brass instruments and writes/arranges tunes for playing people on and off of shows, TV station ditties, things like that. That's what got Nate into music-- that and listening to all his dad's jazz and classical records, and eventually, his father training him in various instruments. So a lot like my father professionally, but a lot more... personally adjusted, maybe? I asked him if his dad was ever a little disappointed or upset about the path he chose and how he chose it (a lot less professional, etc) and he shrugged, laughed. "Yeah, kinda, but he's my dad, yknow? He's just happy that I'm doin' music too, at this point." Yeah. Must be nice. He asked about my father, of course, and I just said he left when I was seven. Mostly true! And still says barely anything, and stops any further conversation dead in its tracks most of the time. Same here, too, thankfully, even with Nate's curiousity. A mumbled apology, and soon after, the lifting lessons. :)
Drugs are a common sight around here, though of course that doesn't surprise me. One of the things I had to make peace with before taking this gig was the fact that I wouldn't be able to escape or ignore seeing all that around or being offered them (hard drugs, I mean-- pot is fine and I'll take as much of that as I'm offered!). I was probably too excited at the time to make a serious thought experiment out of questions like "will someone offering me speed make me relapse?", but it's been alright so far. Walt being against us taking anything harder than psychedelics helps. And-- the biggest relief-- I don't have to worry about Lorenzo showing up now that he's gone all born-again. Imagine someone like him thinking he's "saved"! After all he's fucking done!! Repenting to the Christian god is one thing, but that doesn't require apologies or amend-making to anyone on earth, and that must be the appeal of it. The man who escaped from you still has nightmares and night terrors about you every so often, he still jumps at sudden loud noises like a spaz, but it's fine, you're still going to heaven and that guy was a dirty sinner anyway, who cares what happens to him, right? :)
Ugh, why the hell am I even getting worked up over this. He's some small-time hellfire preacher or whatever now and I'm in the position to achieve something he thought was impossible for me (after nearly giving up, after thinking he must have been right!). Knowing that Walt knew him sometimes sends a chill up my spine either way-- I mean, he was getting to be a pretty damn big-time dealer by the time he quit and got ~baptized~, so I should expect other people (especially in the music biz) to know him and not know just how evil he is. I SHOULD, and I do, rationally. The rest of me needs to catch up.