Thunderbowl - Lesley Choyce [13]
The cops closed down The Dungeon for two weeks. Stewy was fuming, but he promised we would have the gig back when he reopened. When Drek asked him about the record company scout, Stewy looked blank. Then he said that the guy would probably come by when we were back playing. And then again, maybe not.
That’s when things started to go wrong with the band. Maybe it was just me. I couldn’t get used to being away from home. We’d practice a couple of hours a day, try out a few new tunes. But my heart wasn’t in it. I couldn’t feel the music, couldn’t get that feeling back.
Now that I was free from hassling parents, I kept waiting for the excitement to begin. But it wasn’t easy living with Al’s stereo blasting twenty-four hours a day. Sleeping on the couch in Al’s apartment wasn’t much fun either. The apartment always smelled like a locker room. He was getting on my nerves, and without school or money, life was turning into a major drag. To top it off, I missed stuff from home that I had always taken for granted. Meals, for example. Peanut butter sandwiches were getting pretty boring. But with The Dungeon closed, none of us had any money coming in.
After a couple of days I phoned my parents and told them where I was staying. Then I told them that I had quit school. But I didn’t say anything about The Dungeon closing.
“We want you to come home, Jeremy,” my mother said. “Maybe we can come up with some kind of compromise.”
“I don’t know. Give me some time to figure things out, Okay?” I said. I really wanted to just give in and go home. But I knew if I did that, Thunderbowl was done for and I would have to admit that they were right all along.
“Your dad can get you a job on the inventory counter at his work if you want,” my mom told me. “You can try it and see how it goes.”
“But I have a job,” I said. I meant The Dungeon, but right then I didn’t even have that. I had nothing. The whole idea of rock-and-roll stardom was beginning to fade. I still wanted the music. I just didn’t know if I wanted all the other hassles that went along with it.
Chapter Eleven
Al and Drek were sure that the Dogs had started the fight at The Dungeon on purpose. They figured that it was the only way they could get the gig back—by making us look bad.
“How do you know?” I asked. It was Friday night after our first week off. We were trying to practice but getting nowhere.
“Logic,” Drek said.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “What proof do you have? I know they were heckling and being jerks.”
“You don’t need proof with those Mongrel Dogs. They’ve been ticked off from the beginning because we took their gig away,” Drek answered.
Al picked up the newspaper from what passed for a coffee table. “Hey, guess who’s playing the dance at the community center tonight?” he asked. He had a devilish gleam in his eyes.
Drek grabbed the paper from Al’s hand. His eyes lit up. “Yeah. Right on. The Mongrel Dogs in person! Maybe we should go check it out.”
“Yeah, maybe we should. What do you say, Germ?” said Al.
“Why not?” Practice had been less than inspired. And I kind of wanted to hear what Richie was like as a guitar player. I’d only seen him at the Battle of the Bands, and I don’t think he’d had a good night.
But I should have known what Al and Drek had in mind.
The community center was stuffed with high school kids. It felt really weird to be at a scene like this, around people my own age again.
The Mongrel Dogs were tuning up. You could hear them arguing and swearing at each other over their PA system. They seemed pretty crude.
But suddenly Richie held up two fists and they stopped arguing. As he brought his arms down, he hammered a chord on his guitar.
The Mongrel Dogs started playing music. It was louder than any band I ever heard. Louder than Thunderbowl. They came on like a hurricane, and the sound was almost enough to knock you over. At first it just sounded like noise. Angry noise.
But kids were dancing. I kept watching Richie as he slammed away at his poor battered