So after I left school I had rented a crappy studio apartment and had gotten a shit job at the local poultry plant. And Garrett and Mitch had started a band.

Garrett had met Jordan, who was going to Rinard College and was working at Barton’s. Jordan played drums and soon their laughable pastime became a legitimate thing. They had asked another friend of ours from high school, Fred Rhodes, to sing for them.

They sucked. Mitch could barely play bass and while Garrett and Jordan had talent, Fred sounded like a tortured cat when he sang into a mic. They were booed off every stage that would have them.

Until I came along.

I’m not saying that to be a jackass. It’s just the honest to god truth.

Because I could sing. I always could. When I was little, my mom would dress me up for church where I had to suffer through hours of god shit just so I could belt out the hymns. The old ladies loved me.

As I grew older, my musical ability wasn’t something I broadcasted around. I was a jock, plain and simple. I didn’t have the time or inclination to jam or whatever the hell you call it.

But when Garrett had finally wised up and kicked Freddo out of the band, he approached me. We had gone out one night and gotten plastered. Mitch spent most of the evening worshipping the porcelain god. And I, in a moment of weakness, agreed to front their sad, pathetic band. Who knew that it would one day be the best decision I had ever made.

We were called the Headless Chickens at first. In homage to my dismal day job. I had a morbid sense of humor.

But the name didn’t quite roll off the tongue and it looked crappy on T-Shirts. We weren’t feeling particularly optimistic about our future as a band when the name Generation Rejects had been born. Because that’s what we had felt we were.

A bunch of rejects.

Things had been pretty bleak in the early days.

Jordan and I had clashed almost immediately. I hated the college kids who came into Barton’s. Townies and Rinard students fought on a regular basis. And Jordan was just another obnoxious frat guy with his pretty boy looks and talent that came entirely too easily.

I hated him. Like really hated him. The chicks loved him and I hated him even more. I had always been the big fish in the little pond until Jordan f**king Levitt came into the picture. And the feelings were definitely mutual.

Yeah, so I had gotten to second base with this bitch he had been dating for a few months at the time. She was some sorority chick named Olivia who had an attitude. She had always looked down her nose at the rest of us.

But it had been easy enough to get my hand up her shirt and my tongue down her throat. That hadn’t gone over too well with Levitt. And maybe I felt crappy afterwards. And maybe I didn’t really fight back when he punched me in the face and broke my nose.

And just maybe I had taken things a step too far. But that didn’t mean that Jordan wasn’t a dick. Because he was. But over the years my animosity had cooled some and Jordan and I now almost tolerated each other.

We’d never be friends the way I was with the other guys, but he wasn’t all that bad.

And the dude could really play. And even if I didn’t like him all the time, I had mad respect for his talent and his contribution to the band.

Because Generation Rejects and the guys in it were my life. They were my family. And when push came to shove, despite our differences, despite any history of bad blood, I knew those f**kers had my back.

And I didn’t have anyone else in my life I could say that about.

Certainly not my family.

Just my band.

But maybe there was someone else.

Even if she wasn’t currently returning my calls.

I walked out to the small kitchen on the bus and turned on the coffee maker. It was ridiculously early. Way earlier than I was normally awake for. Usually I didn’t bother putting my feet on the ground until the afternoon.

But my silent phone had kept me awake.

And then there was the day ahead of us. It was going to be a big one.

We had our first radio interview at a midsized station in St. Louis, where we would be playing tonight. Then later we had some principal photography that the label had set up for our upcoming album release.

Current Static was set to go live in a couple of weeks. Now that our tour with Primal Terror was doing so well, Pirate Records told us that they were planning on pumping more and more money into our release.

We were all pretty excited about it. But for me this was my chance to prove that I wasn’t a waste of space. That I could do something with my life without going into the military or going to college.

That I hadn’t made a huge mistake by walking out of my parents’ house all those years ago. That I was going to make it with or without their support.

It was kind of pathetic that here I was, a twenty-four year old man and still hung up on his mommy and daddy issues. It was so cliché.

“Pour me a cup, will ya?” I looked over my shoulder to find Jose Suarez, our new manager, sitting down at the table and pulling out his laptop.

“Sure, man. Cream or sugar?” I asked.

“Black,” he said shortly.

Of course. That didn’t surprise me. Jose Suarez wasn’t the type to mess up perfectly good coffee with bullshit.

We had been on the road for a little over four months, sleeping out of Garrett’s van or in crappy Motel 6s when Jose approached us after a show.

We had been playing steady gigs with the help of Dougie, Mitch’s club promoter cousin.

At first, the whole thing had been embarrassing. Hardly anyone showed up and we were playing to crowds of twenty to thirty people. We were living off fifty bucks a show and were close to calling it a day and heading home.