Rock Revenge: Alex's Story

“Can I get a drink?” she said to Carlie. “I have something to celebrate.”

“Yeah?”

She pulled something out of her handbag. “Plane tickets. Well, not exactly tickets, but a print out of my booking. I’m heading to Europe. And, get this, I talked to Violet and she’s got a job lined up for me. International liaison for some promo company she’s been working with over there. I’m out of this place and headed for the big time.”

Shit. I guess an extra two bucks an hour wouldn’t cut it then. “But who’s looking after the band bookings? You can’t leave me in the lurch like that.”

Sally laughed. “Fucks? I don’t have any. Well, I do for the bands playing here but for you, zero. Like your band, Zero, because that’s how many fucks I have to give.”

I’d be away for a month on this festival tour. The bands would be booked that far out but there’s still all the day to day stuff. Someone had to be on-site. I turned to Carlie, ready to wheedle her into it but she shook her head.

“Don’t look at me, I’m flat out down here.”

“You can’t wait another month?”

“I could, but I don’t want to.”

Hell, as if I didn’t enough to deal with, now I had this as well. The others drifted off and I sat alone at the bar. I could get someone else to do Sally’s job but could I get them trained up in time? Maybe I could talk Hamish into taking on some extra duties. He had to be here for sound check and the gigs, but would he be able to work that around the sound? Babs couldn’t do it. No one else had been here long enough. Maybe Pete, but I wasn’t so sure about that.

Even if I advertised, I had so little time.

Everything was falling flat. I should be in victory mode. The festival, the gig, the recording. My perfect life plan coming together — instead, it felt like my life was falling apart.

Carlie came over and leaned on the bar next to me.

“Seriously, Alex, you have to make things right with Dee. You’ll never be happy until you are with her. You have it bad and you can’t hide it. Are you going to let your stupid pride ruin everything?”

Dee

It was a bit awkward living with Sally. Her place was kind of small for two people but then, it was just for a week or so, until she left for overseas. She had stuff everywhere, trying to sort out what to take.

She’d said she’d leave most of the kitchen stuff behind for me and all of the furniture. That was tops since I couldn’t really afford to buy anything.

I slept on her couch with an old blanket and had my clothes in a bag in the corner. It was about a million steps up from that rat infested hotel I’d been living at, though. I never wanted to go back there. If it wasn’t for Sally, I’d have considered returning home, but I had a job now and the band was doing okay. Even if I spent most of my time pining away over Alex, I had more here than I had back there.

I’d cleaned up the place before I’d left for work. To be honest, I wanted to get rid of a lot of the clutter. Sally had tizzy things all over the place. I’d wait until she left though, before throwing anything out.

Another day of work gotten through and I didn’t have rehearsal so that gave me plenty of time for my full schedule of moping and brooding. I’d get over Alex one day but I had no idea when that day would be.

I took off my work clothes and fished under the sofa for my sleep shorts and a singlet. It wasn’t too clean but what did it matter? No one would see me. I made dinner. Well, a bowl of cereal. I didn’t feel much like eating but I couldn’t let myself starve to death.

I still had the phone number Sally had given me still in my wallet. I’d not used it. I had the power to get the revenge I wanted but now revenge had lost its zest. Even if she was right and I could destroy Alex, what did it matter? Would I feel better? I doubted it.

People kept telling me that revenge wouldn’t bring Jake back but it wasn’t the death that had turned me against Alex, it was that he’d done that and had never had to pay for his mistake. The more I’d learnt though, the more I realised that wasn’t true. Alex might not have been prosecuted but he’d paid in his own way.