A week later, on a sunny, warm, clear spring day in Jersey, Ag Field Day arrives. And as well-prepared as we are (we are always well-prepared, remember, we have our shit together), we are all nervous. This is the biggest show we’ve ever played, and Ween are the biggest headliners we’ve ever played with. Plus, we know a lot of people out there in the crowd.
Rutgers Ag Field Day is a huge outdoor festival that spans the Cook and Douglass campuses. There are all different kinds of agricultural displays here. The cow with the glass stomach, the miniature horses petting zoo, lots of plants and flats of flowers grown by crunchy Cook students, soil testing demonstrations. Don’t even ask me why somebody might drive half an hour from Freehold to come here to look at soil testing demos, but they do.
Today we’ll be playing right on Passion Puddle, a decent-sized pond on Douglass normally home to stoned Frisbee players and feminists with acoustic guitars, now dotted with picnicking families, stoned Frisbee players, and feminists with acoustic guitars, as well as everybody within fifty miles who has nothing better to do today.
I can’t think of a more bizarre setting for a Stars on the Floor show than this, but if Ween can play it, we sure as hell can. Right now the field is mostly empty, save the handful of parents chasing wayward toddlers across the lawn. Most folks are just wandering around the booths and displays, eating funnel cake and grilled corn and hot dogs on a stick.
Not only are all our friends from the music scene and Rutgers here, but when we’re trucking our gear across the lawn I run into Professor Cocksucker with his wife and kids. He says hello and tells me to break a leg and I don’t even roll my eyes at him, so I guess we’ve come to an understanding. That’s likely because I am getting an A in his class, despite the B I earned on that paper (that would have also been an A if he was less of a dick). I think he likes me because I have a lot to say in that class (one place where talking a lot serves me well). I think I like him, too, even if he is a dick.
We’re all hanging out under the awning behind the trailer, which is our stage today. We’re in the specially roped-off “band only” area with Ween, Billy Broadband, and Carl, drinking beer. The entire women’s rugby team drops by with George to wish us a good show. My mom and Granny and my cousin Nick, with his long, permed hair and his Whitesnake T-shirt (which he unironically wears, all the time), and his girlfriend Jasmine (what stripper pole did he pull her off of?) are here, and that’s a huge deal. When my mother saw this show advertised in the
Hunterdon County Democrat
, she clipped it out and put it in my baby book (don’t even ask), and then she told me she’d be here, and she is. Granny said she wouldn’t miss it, and she, sadly, went and told my cousin Nick he had to be here to show support. And I can’t say no because in theory, I want this. I want them to take me seriously and to support my music. But it’s making me so fucking nervous and I’m suddenly aware of how many times I say “fuck” in my lyrics. Oh well. Which reminds me, the show is going to be broadcast
live, which should really help us with that CMJ quest. I think. But Billy doesn’t, and wouldn’t, ask me to bleep the “fuck” or anything else out of my lyrics. Because he knows better.
My family is hanging out and now Nick and his girlfriend are talking to Aaron and Mickey from Ween like they’re old pals. When Nick starts air guitaring and singing “Slip of the Tongue” (fucking Whitesnake!), I swear to Christmas I’m about to clock him with my Big Muff. I’d chuck it right at his fat, perfectly coiffed head but I need it in working condition in a couple of hours. Granny is calling my bandmates “honey” and “cutie pie,” and when she sees Travis, she gives him the biggest cheek-pinch and calls him “Blondie” and offers to buy him funnel cake because he looks hungry. And Travis, my heart, laughs. And he’s not just being polite, either.
“I was telling Emmy she should get her hooks into you,” Granny says, and I go red in the face. “If she lets you get away, well, let me give you my number.”
Travis looks my way and raises his eyebrows and says, “I’ll take it.”
And I die.
I don’t know why, but Travis has been nicer to me this week than he has been since I sort of suggested that we be fuck buddies in the band and then flaked all the way out and said we had to keep it on our pants for the sake of the band, like that’s what any of this has been about. For either of us. Ever since that night we wrote “Loud Is How I Love You,” Travis has been different. He hasn’t been on his man period at all, even though I put my combat boot in my mouth after the radio show last Sunday. Honestly, he didn’t even seem that mad after that, possibly just resigned to how stupid I am.
“I’ll pick you up for rehearsal on Tuesday,” he said as he was getting back into the van. That gave me a glimmer of hope that I hadn’t fucked it all the way up.
“Do you want to hang out for a little while?” I asked, leaning in so he couldn’t close the door. “It’s only nine.”
“I can’t—I’ve got to finish my paper,” he said. “I’m still doing the citations.”
“Want me to read it?”
“I have to hand it in tomorrow,” he said.
“Travis?”
“Yeah?”
God, there was so much I had to say to him. But I was so certain I’d say it all wrong that for once I just didn’t say a word. Instead I grabbed him and hugged him as tight as I could, buried my face into his chest and didn’t let go. I couldn’t
even breathe until I felt him put his arms around me, his lips to the top of my head.
“What am I going to do with you?” he muttered into my hair. “I seriously have no idea.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I have no idea, either.”
At least we were in agreement on that point.
Bean picked me up for rehearsal both nights this past week, and he drove me home, too. He called me when he went to Sam Ash for strings, and while he didn’t ask me to go, he did ask if I needed picks or strings. He let me have my way when we were debating the order of songs for the set list. He even took me out for bagels this morning, and I was smart enough not to mention a word about graduate school or the tour or anything that might even remotely cause strife today. All we talked about was today, Ag Field Day, and how psyched we are to play with Ween.
Now Mom is catching on that Travis is a guy that I happen to think well of, so she invites him to the house for dinner. Casually, as in, at the end of the semester she’ll throw a barbecue to celebrate and he should come. He says thanks but he doesn’t say yes. Mom adds that the whole band should come, and he smiles and says, “Sounds great.” But he still doesn’t say he’ll be there. Not that I read into it or anything.
After the gear is squared away on stage, Travis, Cole, Joey, and I go get some lunch at the grease trucks, those heavenly vessels of all the most engorging fried and unnatural combinations of artery-clogging foods on the planet. For example, where else in the country—nay, the world—can you order a Fat Fellatio, where the chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, french fries, bacon, and honey mustard are already on top of the cheesesteak, I mean, all of this on one fucking bun, and there is no need for awkward side orders? This is where we run into Montana, gazing awestruck at the menu, looking like he just died and went to trucker heaven. He’s immobilized by the unreal diversity of bad sandwich choices, most of them salmonella-free. I do a running slo-mo thing over to him, calling out, “Oh, Montana!” (he actually answers to Montana for me and Travis—we still don’t know if he’s ever even lived in Montana), and he turns and catches me as I careen into his arms.
“You really made it!” I say. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
“Ten state troopers couldn’t keep me away,” he says. Talk about a rock-and-roll champ. “Besides, who can pass up free soil demonstrations?”
We all get our food and we’re on our way back to introduce Montana to my family (but I forbid him to tell my mother the circumstances of where, when, and how he met me because she’ll kill me—anyway, we’re working on a plausible cover story), when we spot the Rutgers soccer team kicking a ball around in front of the pond.
“Oh shit,” I say.
“What’s wrong?” Joey asks.
“Oh shit,” Travis answers.
“Do we have a problem here?” Montana asks.
I look at Travis and he tries to act cool and laughs, but he isn’t looking super confident.
“Come on, what’s going to happen right here out in the open?” Travis says.
“You’re right,” I say. “They probably forgot all about us.”
Montana, Cole, and Joey have no idea what we’re talking about. Why would we care about some soccer players kicking around a soccer ball at Ag Field Day? But then I see Eli looking our way and waving and pointing, right before he and ten soccer players come jogging over.
“Oh shit,” Travis says again. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“I’m armed,” Montana growls. “Just so you’re all aware, in case there’s trouble.”
“They’re soccer players,” I say. “And stoners. The most trouble we’ll be in for is some very slow fist fighting. Besides, Travis is a Taekwondo expert.”
“Expert?” Travis says, the color of his already pale face draining as they approach. “Not really an expert, per se.”
“Emmy,” Eli says, an enormous smile on his face as he reaches us. His eyes are swollen and squinty, and I don’t think it’s allergies, so I’m guessing we’ll be okay. If any trouble starts, Travis can just flip these assholes on their backs and they’ll lay there like suffocating fish, right? Eli wipes his brow with his jersey and I try not to notice the ripped, tan six-pack he just flashed me. “You never called me, sexy.”
“Yeah, right . . . well, um, I didn’t have your number,” I say.
“I thought maybe you and your skinny punk-ass vampire boyfriend here ran off to Vegas.”
“I told you he’s not my boyfriend,” I say. Like maybe he is a skinny punk-ass vampire, though.
“Thanks,” Travis says to me. “A whole lot.”
“Well, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” Eli says.
“What?” I ask.
“Time to settle up, motherfucker!” Eli laughs and cracks his knuckles as the soccer team surrounds us. Joey and Cole
flank Travis and ask us what the hell is going on here, when Eli announces that Travis cock-blocked him and Taekwondo’d his ass at his own party.
“We don’t want any trouble here, kids,” Montana says, and he gives his leather vest a suggestive pat to let the soccer team know he’s packing, but nobody here even knows what the hell that means.
“Easy, Montana,” I say. “We’ve got this under control.”
“Can you hold this for a sec?” Travis asks, all nonchalant, and then hands me his gyro and lemonade. Then he ducks and runs all Benny Hill–style across the field, and the entire soccer team tears off after him. Joey and Cole hulk out and go scorching across the field, but they’re musicians, built for carrying big awkward things up and down narrow flights of stairs, not chasing soccer players in broad daylight, and they’re still carrying their lunches. Carefully. Travis is so fucked.
“Run, Bean, run!” I yell after him. We’ve got a show to play and he knows another big rule of bandom: save all fighting for after the gig, and for God’s sake, don’t throw any punches before the show. Why? You might hurt your hand and then you can’t play your instrument. “No fighting before the show!” I call out to him. Just in case he needs a reminder.
I excuse myself to Montana and run after them myself, trying desperately not to slosh lemonade all over my Sonic Youth T-shirt. I don’t look back, but I assume Montana is still standing there, happily eating a Fat Elvis.
Now, there are plenty of other Hub City band types around, including Aaron and Mickey, who just watch the entire freak parade as it rolls by the sound booth. As Joey and Cole catch up to the soccer players, who have now grabbed hold of Travis by each appendage like they’re about to draw and quarter him, they’re joined by George, Ron and Dom, Bailey, all of Fester, and the entire women’s rugby team. But before anyone can intervene, the soccer team swings Travis and tosses him right into the middle of Passion Puddle. When he comes out, soaked in brown, putrid water, Eli sucker punches Travis right in the eye. What a dick!
“Fuck,” Travis yells, reeling backward, holding his face.
I run to Travis, and he’s not bleeding but his eye is all red and beginning to swell.
“What the fuck, Eli?” I yell at him. “I thought you were a stoner, not a fighter.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been drinking beer since ten a.m.,” he says and lets out a loud, disgusting burp. I guess he does have allergies.
A sunstroked melee now breaks out at the side of Passion Puddle, and then all these assholes are actually in the pond, sloshing it out, slinging mud at each other like a bunch of angry sows. Nick runs over and stands next to me, throws the devil horns high, and yells, “Fuck yeah, Scarlet Knights!” just as Montana, my mother, and my grandmother all arrive on
the scene. The women’s rugby team and the soccer team throw the fuck down in the pond—I’m talking an epic wrestling match ensues, and the girls are riding the soccer players like they’re green horses being broke. The music scene people are so impressed they just stand back and clap.
“Your boyfriend looks nice in a wet T-shirt,” Granny says, as Travis attempts to throw Eli off of him again as he climbs out of the sludge. “He’s got nice shoulders.”
I don’t disagree.
Two Rutgers cops arrive (and they are state police, so we don’t fuck around when these guys show up). They’re standing there for several minutes, watching the entire thing. They finally get the bullhorn out and threaten to check IDs and do Breathalyzers, so the insanity disperses into the thick of the festivities.
“We haven’t been drinking,” I say to the cops.
“Now seems like a good time to start,” one of them says.
Eli hands my grandmother a Budweiser from the soccer cooler and she shotguns that shit, and now it’s a party.
Joey picks a gyro up off the grass and tries to put it over Travis’s eye, and Travis knocks it out of the way, yelling, “What the hell is wrong with you, man?” Joey explains it’s the closest thing we have on hand to raw steak, because Joey has learned everything he knows about first aid from reruns of Looney Tunes cartoons. Eli hands Travis a cold Bud in a can and Travis puts it over his eye and I think, great. If this is how our luck is going today, we should be back to playing in basements in no time.