Boulder, Colorado
I am awoken at 4am by the opening and closing of the tour bus’s back lounge door. Giggles and muted conversation follow. A few moments later the lounge door opens and a girl comes out into the hallway. I know it’s a girl because in my curiosity to find out which band member is partying in the back lounge, I peek under my curtain and see in the dim light, the bottom half of a young lady in tight, faded blue jeans. Her exposed belly button says hello to me. She pokes around in the bunk above mine– my “junk bunk”, where I keep my bag of clothes, camera, computer, wallet and all sorts of personal odds and ends.
Strange, I think to myself, what business does this person have going through. . . wait a minute. . . now she’s opening my curtain, one velcro attachment at a time!
With curtain open, she begins groping around in the dark near my feet. Then she crawls into my bunk. At this point I feel it necessary to introduce myself, or at least find out what she could possibly be thinking.
Um, hi, can I help you with something?
Oh, dids you play at Foxsss Theatre t’night? She asks in drunken sophomore beer-breath speech.
Yes I did.
She crawls up closer to my face. It’s dark, I can only see her shadowed outline; her sour party breath acts like a smelling salts that paramedics use to wake the unconscious.
Are you in the band? She asks.
And I think, How many times has that one been asked since the beginning of rock’n'roll? And how much currency replying ‘yes’, holds.
Yes, I reply. Did you see our show tonight?
Nope. She says in a breathy manner.
Suddenly I’m self-conscious of my own breath; heavy with fresh onions from the pizza I ate a couple hours prior. I lean back from her face as far as I can until my head touches the back of my pod.
Uh yeah, listen, who are you in the back lounge with?
My friend (insert any name you like here). My name is (again, any name you like).
Are there any guys back there with you?
Nope! She chirps. Then asks, Did I wake you?
Well. . . yeah, yes. I stammer.
At this she apologizes, crawls back out of my pod, slowly closes my curtain and retreats into the back lounge.
And I’m left thinking, Did she really just tell me there was no one else in the back lounge but her and her friend?
In my dark pod confusion I find my phone and call the tour manager. No answer. I try again. Again no answer. Then the back door opens. I peek under my curtain and see the two girls wavering down the hallway. They’re whispering very loudly as they stop at Ben Lee’s bunk.
Oh shit, they’re going to crawl into Ben’s pod while he’s sleeping! I think to myself.
After a few moments I realize they are merely stalled there trying to figure out how to open the door that will take them to the front of the bus. I look back and see the back lounge door ajar. I expect some band members to come out and follow the girls out front. But to my horror, I realize that Mandy or Cindy or whatever her name is, had not lied to me about only the two of them being in the bus. My phone clock reads 4:23am, which means the girls had been in the back of the bus, by themselves for a good twenty minutes. I quickly jump out of my pod and check the back lounge for any missing laptops. I see everything still intact, then make my way to the front lounge. There I find the two girls talking to our bus driver.
What’s going on? I ask the driver. Did you let them on? Were they sent onto our bus by someone on the other band’s bus as a practical joke? Silence.
The girls scurry off our bus.
Wait! I call behind them as they make their way over to the other bus. They bang on its door. It opens. They climb on board. It drives off into the night.
The following day I find out that Britney and Ashley were let out somewhere between Boulder, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah with $300 cab fare to get back home.
Ah, to be a groupie.
It was about time that I finally read something worthwile. Keep up the good work!