Days 9 through 12 (sorry!)

Okay, in my own defense, my computer has been spazzing out for a while. Getting it to work long enough to get this posted was an epic battle.

Tammany (continued):

There was an uncomfortable silence until we got back with everyone's drinks, at which point Cale started talking with Grace as if nothing had happened. I found myself getting well and truly pissed with this Morgan person. Whatever she'd done that made Cale this edgy and uncomfortable so long after it happened must have been awful. I slipped over to her once we'd distributed beverages. She smiled at me, the awkward smile that says, 'you're in the same group of concert-goers as I am, but I honestly wouldn't know you from Eve, so I'm just going to smile and hope you go away.' And she made it seem elegant. Bitch.

I smiled back to her, and said, sweetly as I could, "I don't know what you did to Cale, but if I ever find out, and if you ever do it again, or hurt him in any way, I will murder you and turn you into sandwich fillings. Okay?"

She stared at me, the irritatingly sunny expression gone from her face, replaced by a frown. But before she could respond, I said, "No," and walked back around to join Andrew and Cale. I felt better.

The band was due to come on at any minute. They were an as-yet unsigned group, hence why Andrew had brought Nathan along. I'd seen them once or twice, and they were good, but only in parts. The kayboardist and drummer were merely mediocre, but the lead singer and guitarist, Rhiannon Shay, was possibly my favorite of all the musicians to frequent the Oyster. She could sing down the moon, if so she wanted. She was absolutely amazing. I intended to point her out to Andrew at the first available moment. Of course, it turned out that I didn't have to,  because as the band filtered onto the stage, he leaned over to me and asked, "Who's that chick?" I told him. "I like her," he said, decisively. "She's the only one who seems to have a clue what she's doing."

And she was - she was helping with the last minute adjustments with the other two, as well as getting her guitar ready. Then she turned to the audience, and we all fell under her spell. Her stage presence was magical. Twenty songs later, she released us all by announcing the set break, and I turned to look at Andrew. He was still staring at the stage. Grace, who was on his other side, leaned around him and stage-whispered to me, "He's in a music coma. We should probably shake him."

"No, I'm good," he said, shaking himself awake. Then he mentally disappeared again for a moment, before returning to announce, "I need her." He grabbed Nathan and marched off.

"Does he have a plan to get backstage without getting in absolutely huge amounts of trouble?' I asked his sister.

"Oh, he usually manages," she said, with a wave of her hand. "I've only known him to get thrown out of a place once, and that was because we were in Portland over the summer and he chose the wrong room to march into. It was the employee break room, not the backstage area."

"That must have been embarrassing," Cale said, (sort of) interacting with me for the first time in an hour.

"Well, he still signed the person he wanted to sign, so it wasn't a complete loss," Grace said, smiling at him. Then she turned away and started talking with Jim, who'd been her companion all night.

That's when Cale grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the crowd, the performance hall, and even the building. "God, Cale, wait, do we have our ticket stubs?" I asked, leaning back against his tug.

"Yeah, yeah, I got them," he said, continuing forward. "Look, you're the one who wanted to find out what happened with Morgan, alright?"

I followed without complaint.

When we were out on the street, leaning against the cool brick wall in the smoky night air, I looked at him expectantly. He took a deep breath, and said, "You remember your senior year of college, when I was a new graduate trying to figure out how to not become an accountant when my degree was in business and math?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "Bright idea, that major, by the way."

He rolled his eyes. "Anyway, you remember how intense I was about music back then. Way more than I am now. I was doing auditions, sending out tapes, all that crap, just trying to get a response, seeing if I could make it that way rather than doing the books for places and working fast food."

"You complained all the freaking time," I said, shaking my head at the memory. "No sympathy for my senior project."

"Hey, real life is hard," he said, turning his face up towards the streetlight overhead. "You didn't get that yet. But the thing was, with all those tapes going out and stuff, I was getting responses. People were interested. Even our very own local Music Inc. asked me to come in a do a demo."

I stared at him accusingly. "You never told me that!"

"I didn't want to get both our hopes up," he said, apologetically. "If I got turned down, you'd have gone mama bear and torn someone a new one and I'd have been embarrassed. But I did the audition - and I met Morgan. She was just a secretary there, with a brand spanking new degree in the exact same stuff I had a degree in, unsatisfied with her job, looking for something or someone to keep her mind off the fact that she was basically a data entry clerk and coffee-getter. I ended up becoming that someone."

"Was this when I was on that trip to Chile for a quarter?" I asked. "Because if you'd gotten yourself a girl that looked like that, and I was around, I would never have heard the end of it. Ever."


"You were," he said, nodding. "I might not have taken it so hard when she left if you'd been there to threaten her with death."

"Don't you dare make me feel guilty," I warned him. I didn't mention that I'd ended up threatening her with death anyway.

"It wasn't your fault. Anyway, she broke up with me after not even a month. Just stopped calling and texting me completely, a complete and utter silence. I finally went to see her during work, and I was turned away at the door, told that I wasn't welcome in the building and that I should consider any interest in my music to be completely revoked."

"Witch," I said, with feeling. "Complete and utter witch."

"Maybe," he said, smiling sincerely for maybe the first time all night. "Anyway. I was pretty broken up about it - that's why I didn't email you a ton while you were away, because I didn't really have it in me to do much of anything. I'd actually really liked her, and she just closed herself off from me entirely. So instead I hated her."

"Completely justifiable," I said, looking up at him. "Again, witch."

"But I was still... insecure, I guess?" He shook his head. "I blamed it on my music, sort of. I thought that if I'd been better at it, she wouldn't have left, or if I hadn't been so hardcore and paid her more attention, or something. The romantic and musical rejections got conflated in my head and so. They still sort of are, I guess." He looked rueful, for a moment. "You were sort of right with what you said the other day. I am just the tiniest bit scared. Just a little. I stopped sending out tapes, I didn't respond to any letters I got, and whenever someone comes to try to sign me, I run scared."

"And this Morgan chick is the reason why?" I asked, incredulously. "She knocked you out of your dream career for kicks?"

"Not for kicks," he protested weakly. "She just wasn't into me."

"Oh my god," I said, staring at him with new eyes. "You're still into her. That's why you looked like you'd been kicked when you saw her. She's the reason that you can't keep a girlfriend to save your life." He didn't say anything, which was the best giveaway there was. "She will die," I said, fiercely. "She will be turned into mincemeat and put on sandwiches."

"Tams, no," he said, tiredly. "It's fine. I'll just deal and say yes to Andrew. I have to get over my hangups one way or another - this is as good a way as any."

"That's a wonderful attitude to have," I said, sourly, squinting up through the streetlamp's glare to try and better make out his face. "If it's penance, then you're going to hate it."

"It's going to be the best experience of my life and I won't feel any angst about my decision for one reason or another at all," he said, practically oozing sugar and rainbows. I rolled my eyes.

That's when Grace, puppy-like, bounded out the main doors and towards us. "Come on," she shouted, to be heard over the noise pouring out from the slowly closing doors, "There's like two minutes before the next set starts. You don't want to miss it, do you?"

"Come on, Mr. Sunshine," I said. "Time for music?"

"Time for music," he confirmed, and followed me in.



Andrew:

The Friday night concert was beyond words. Once Rhiannon started singing and playing, I knew - I absolutely knew, no questions asked - that she had to play on my pieces.

I didn't know what it was about this city, but the musicians were amazing. I suspected, however, that it might have something to do with the huge record label that was cenetered here. Anyway.

As soon as the first set was done, I told Grace the obvious - that I needed Rhiannon - grabbed Nathan, and started charging backstage. "What the hell?" Nathan asked, staring at me like I'd lost my mind. "What are you doing? Where are we going?"

"You're here to see how scouting works, right?" I asked. "Well, this is how. I'm going to go give her my card, tell her to call me, and subtly suggest that she will become infinitely rich and famous yet is only barely worth my notice."

"That was a joke, right?" Nathan asked. "Also, acting like a rhinoceros with a Jeep on its tail is not subtle. And you needn't drag me like a recalcitrant child."

I let go of his wrist and slowed down, somewhat. "Sorry," I said, a little sheepishly. "I can get a little intense sometimes."

"So I see," he grumbled, rubbing his wrist and trying to shoulder his way through the crowd after me. "A little intense like the sun is a little bright."

Then, he said, reluctantly, as if it was being dragged out of him, "Why are we going to go talk to her?"

Always keen to educate, I listed off a bunch of stuff like tone quality, artistic merit, stage presence, etc. Honestly, I thought it was all going over his head until I got to the last, but when I mention something about magnetism and force of personality, he lit up. "So we're talking to her because she'd be a good frontman? I mean, woman?" he asked. "Publicity is important, I can see what you're going with here."

I blinked. Publicity had been the last thing on my mind going into this, but he was right - a good frontperson makes the difference between a amazing band with a niche following, and an amazing band that gets big enough that it's original fans renounce it. Seeing as I was now with a Big Company Record Label, the second on was probably what I should have been aiming for. But the music itself tended to grab me first. "Exactly," I said, covering my 'Now I'm supposed to be legitimate?' terror. "A lead like her could make all the difference."

We were by the stage door by then, and facing a man who could have been the twin to the one I'd talked into letting me see Cale when he performed. The main difference was that this one was bigger, scarier, looked way more intent on his job, and probably didn't know Tammy. I went the other route, instead, pulling out my wallet and grabbing a business card from within. "I'm with [really need to remember this company name]," I said, as officially as I could. "Do you mind letting me back to speak with the band?"

To my surprise, the guard not only didn't laugh at my presumptiousness (oh, look at the little indie dude pretending he's legitimate!), but took both me and by actual, official business card seriously. "Sure,"  he said. "But as soon as Rhia tells you to get out, you get. And," he said, smirking, "I don't think it will take her that long. She'd not one for signing a contract."

Ignoring that ominous sounding line, I thanked him, ducked through the door, made sure Nathan was with me, and hit the dressing room. This one looked less like a janitor's closet, which I took as a good sign. Knocking on the door, I said, "Excuse me? I'm Andrew F., and I'm here scouting for -"

Before I could finish, the door was ripped open, and Rhiannon, looking absolutely furious, yelled, "How many times do I have to {bleep}ing tell you {bleep}ing folks that I don't want to sign your {bleep}ing fat cat contracts! I have my damned artistic integrity, now leave me the {bleep} alone!"

I'd taken a step or two back in the face of her wrath, but now I stepped forward once more, and said, "Rhiannon, I'm here in the name of Farthing Records. The only way in which we're affiliated with a 'fat cat' company -"

Then Nathan stepped up, pushed me out of the way, and said, "There's nothing wrong with signing to a large corporration. It simply allows your words to reach a greater number of people, while you get to receive significant remuneration for your efforts."

She sneered at him. "Pig." The door was slammed. I stared at Nathan. "Didn't I tell you not to talk?" I asked, incredulously.

"No," he said, frowning. "I was here to get the full experience, correct? That includes talking to a potential client."

"And in this case, losing an amazing potential client," I said, beginning to get well and truly pissed. "You have never done anything like this before. You've never even attempted to sign a musician, especially one like Rhiannon. You can't just jump in and try to both sign her and change her entire philosophy of life at the same time. That just gets us both thrown out on our ears."

"No it doesn't," Nathan said, and turned to the door, apparently about to knock. "Watch."

"Not a chance in hell," I said, grabbing his jacket and hauling him off. "You pissed her off, you are not talking to her again."

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked, angrily, trying to pull away. "I'm going to try and fix it."

"It doesn't work like that," I said, keeping a tight grip and continuing to pull him towards the stage door. "You obviously don't get it." We passed the guard, who was smirking at me, and I nodded at him, short and tense. As much as I liked and appreciated Morgan, having this little idiot - whose last name I didn't even know, now that I came to think of it - was not worth the lost business and time. I was going to have to tell her that soon.

Since we were now in the performance area proper, I allowed Nathan to successfully pull away from me. He stalked off somewhere in a huff. I wasn't about to miss his company. I stomped back to the group. Grace took barely a single look at my face, and she figured out what happened. "Nathan ruined it for you, didn't he?" she asked.

"Yep," I said. "I'll be lucky if she even returns emails from me in the future. God, why is the guy such an idiot?"

"Who's an idiot?" Morgan asked, coming up from behind me. Cale and Tammy were nowhere to be found, I noticed.

I took a deep breath. "Morgan," but I was cut off before I could finish by the arrival of Tammy and Cale. They were both looking a little subdued, and I honestly ddidn't want to know where they were together. And then the music starts and the conversation is over for a while.

Rhiannon is just as good the second set as she was during the first, if angrier - and I know what caused at least part of that fury. Cale looks about as entranced as I felt, when I glanced over to gauge his reaction to a possible band mate. That boded well, I thought, if I could somehow manage to convince her that not everyone involved with my music was an idiot like Nathan. That was going to be one hell of a trick, though.

Nathan: I was pissed, I will admit. Andrew was way out of line - he was supposed to be teaching me, after all. To just grab me and haul me out of there when I had a good chance of being able to convince that Rhiannon woman that I was right was uncalled for. He seemed to think I didn't understand people like her - she was just a college-age musician, an Occupy Wall Street chick who could sing. I could talk her into just about anything, given time. In my experience, offer enough money and problems go away. She wouldn't be any different.

After I was so gracelessly tugged away from helping my own employee fix his problems, I left. I felt a twinge of guilt about leaving Jim and Morgan alone with a bunch of hipsters and hippies, but not much of one. They'd seemed pretty much at home with the crowd. Except, of course, Morgan had seemed uncomfortable with that one fellow. Maybe a fling from her college years. It wouldn't have surprised me. In any case, I left and went to the first place that looked like it served alcohol. It turned out to be an elderly tavern a block down, the kind that unironically has a 'Pabst Blue Ribbon' sign hanging over the door and a dartboard with a picture of a Democratic president taped to it, liberally (ha) filled with holes. I looked about as out of place as I normally would have felt, dressed as I was in the remnants of my college rebellious phase, surrounded by truckers listening to Johnny Cash. Tonight, though, I was just generally angry at the world, and so the place felt right. Being mad in a bar that could accurately be described as a 'honky-tonk' is as natural as is feeling powerful sitting behind a penthouse office desk. It's just right.

I went to the bar, and brusquely ordered some on-tap beer that ended up coming in a Mason jar. I didn't even care - I simply drained half of it and sat scowling at the opposite wall, stewing over why everyone in my life seemed to hate me. A man with an honest-to-god Stetson and handlebar mustache - maybe the only one in the entire town, ignoring the other four I could see in this very room , sat down next to me. I ignored him.

"You look upset, son," the old man said. "You looking for trouble?"

"Not unless it finds me," I said. There was so much that was completely foreign to me in this situation. I decided that even if Morgan reported to my father that I was playing truant on her strange little learning game, I could tell him I was

pushing my boundaries in other directions and getting closer acquainted with certain other demographics.

"That's a dangerous attitude to be going around with," he said. "There are people who would take advantage of that to start a little trouble themselves."

"If it comes to that, maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world," I said, took another swig of the dark, bitter beer, and successfully prevented myself from making a face.

"What's got this mood going?" he asked, curiously, holding up a finger for the bartender. "You ain't exactly the normal patron for this here bar."

"My job is awful," I said, thumping my fist on the table. "My cousin is evil," thump, "I'm being put through hoops to impress my father," thump, "And I was just thoroughly embarrassed in front of a potential client." Thump.

"That's quite a list," said the cowboy wannabe, condescendingly. I sort of wanted to hit him. "Have you thought about going and talking to any of them?"

I looked at him incredulously. "I'm at a suspicious honky-tonk bar, drinking even more suspicious beer, wearing punk rock clothes. I'm almost daring people to fight me. And you're suggesting I go and talk with the people I'm pissed with?"

"Point." The guy nodded and stuck out a hand. "Frank Withers. You?"

I shook. "Nathan Harding."

"Good to meet ya, son," he said. The bartender came over, finally, and Frank said, "One fer me and something other than that piss you served him the first time fer him."

"Got it," the bartender said.

"So, yer just looking for to burn off some steam, that right?" Frank asked, turning back towards me. "'Cause then you've come to the right place."

"Good," I said.

"Hey, fellas," he called to the people who surrounded the pool table, deep in the building. "We've got a person to wants to party."

Cheers went up. The bartender came back and shoved a different, darker, and alarmingly foam-filled glass in my hand. "Drink up," Frank said, smiling. "Yer gonna need it before you play pool with the likes of us."

I drained the glass. The cheers got louder. There might be something to this whole 'meeting the demographics' thing after all, I thought.

Andrew -

I woke up the next day with a mild hangover and a desire to just go back to sleep for the next three days. Groaning, knowing that I needed to head in to the studio today to make up for the work I hadn't been able to do while babysitting Nathan, I hauled myself upright and waiting for my vision to return and the room to stop spinning. I remembered why I didn't like going out scouting with friends. It inevitably ended with me deciding to ignore my awful A.T. and people laughing when I couldn't talk after a single beer. Embarrassing.

I stumbled out into the kitchen, still wearing my pajamas, only to find that Grace - vile, headache-less morning person that she was - was up already, dressed, and making food that probably would have smelled amazing had I had any appetite at all. Instead, it made me want to go back to bed. Not that that was hard to do.

"And the mummy walks," she said, turning, spatula in hand. "Are you going to be hungry any time soon?"

"Not unless you have a magical hangover cure," I said, grabbing a chair from the table and sitting, hard. "Who was it again that suggested we go for drinks?"

"I think it was Tammy," she said, returning to the hellish fried potatoes.

"That would explain it," I said, resting my forehead on the table. "Ow."

"Um," came a vaguely familiar male voice. I looked up, and saw Jim standing, a little awkwardly, in the doorway to the bathroom, wearing his clothes form last night. He was smiling at Grace. I (more carefully this time) put my head back down and pretended I hadn't seen anything.

"Hey," Grace said, happily. "There's breakfast."

"Coolness," Jim said, and I heard a scrape of the chair across getting pulled back, and the bone-conduction-loud sound of him placing his hands on the table. "What's up with you, pal?" he asked me.

"He can't hold his liquor," Grace said, flippantly. I heard the sizzle of more food landing in the pan, and I groaned.

"Let me suffer in silence, woman."

"Dude, you had like, nothing," Jim said. "I think you even ordered a virgin margarita."

"He's just exaggerating in hopes that I'll call him in hung over and he won't have to go finish up extra work," Grace said.

I lifted my head and glared at her. "You don't know me. You don't know my life."

"Lies and damned lies," she said, turning her back on me. "Even you don't get that hung-over that easily. Suck it up, eat, and go deal with whatever at work is scaring you."

"But moooom, I don't wanna," I said. Jim snorted.

"Go," she said, not turning back towards me. "Baby."

"Fine." I stomped back off to my room, changed huffily, and then stomped back out. I was just in a generally bad mood, and the raised eyebrow that Grace gave me when I returned was not helping. I shook my head and ate the pancakes she'd set out.

She and Jim made small talk as they ate, and I decided that there were worse people than Jim my little sister could hang out with. He seemed to be a surfer dude with a hipster's sensibilities, but that wasn't particularly offensive. The only thing I really needed to do was the elder brother's prerogative: as I got up to gather all my stuff up so I could successfully make my way to the office without getting subway-shanked for change, I said, "Hey, Jim, could you come over here and help me with this?" I was standing in the living room by the couch, far enough it would be difficult for Grace to hear without giving away that she'd been eavesdropping.

He came over and grabbed the other side. "Where is it going?" he asked.

"Just over in the corner," I said. It was moved, and I successfully got my keys out from underneath it. "Awesome, thanks," I said clapping a hand on his shoulder. Then, more quietly, "If you screw my sister over, they'll never find your body."

He nodded once, seriously. "Note taken, dude. If nefariousness had been planned, I wouldn't be here right now."

"Good," I said, and left, ignoring the suspicious look Grace sent me.

Aside from my still-lingering headache, the trip to work - or at least, the first half - wasn't so bad. Nice weather, not too hot, just generally nice. Then, as I was about to head into the signal-less cavern that was the subway system, I got a call from an unknown number. Because I had a cell number posted on my website, I answered it professionally. "Hello, this is Andrew Farthing, how can I help you?"

"Andrew, ais Nathan at your place?" came Morgan's forced-calm voice. "I haven't seen him since last night."

"No, but Jim is," I said, confused. "Do you think something might be wrong?"

"Nathan is punctilious to the extreme," she said. "And he had... some appointments this morning, and he missed them. So yes, something might be wrong."

"I was just about to head into the office," I said. "Do you want me to go talk to Tammy and Cale instead?"

"That would be great, yeah," she said, sounding tense. "I'm probably just being paranoid, but still. He's never been late, much less completely miss an... appointment."

I vaguely wondered what the ominous pause before the word 'appointment' meant, but then I forgot about it in favor of the whole 'my apprentice might be dead in a ditch' thing. That struck me as more important. I did an about-face and headed back up towards the cafe. Today was probably going to be Cale and Tammy’s morning, if Cale had recovered from the partying he’d done the night before. I wasn’t sure what had caused it, because he didn’t strike me as a party dude most of the time, but he’d just gone and gotten himself as thoroughly hammered as he could. He wasn’t a cheap drunk, either. I saw him put away shots like they were going on a shelf, while I gave up at one and a half because I was already tipsy and falling fast.

And, when I got in the cafe, I was right. Tammy sat behind the counter on a barstool, earbuds in ears, while Cale was hidden from view - probably on the couch - and groaning. I had to walk within ten feet before Tammy looked up at me “Oh, hi,” she said, smiling and putting her book (no longer the Stephenson, which she’d finished last Wednesday) down. “What are you doing here? Social visit?”

“I wish,” I said, rolling my eyes. “No, I’m here on a search-and-rescue mission. Apparently Nathan is MIA, and Morgan asked me to find him.”

Cale groaned a little louder. Tammy rolled her eyes. “You are aware that you are a sound man, right? That means when your boss asks you to find her missing pet, you don’t actually have to do it.”

“Well, I do feel a tiny bit guilty,” I said, smiling. “After all, I was the one who ended up letting him run away. Shouldn’t have let him off the leash. Anyway, have you seen him?”

“Nope, unfortunately for you,” she said. “Not going to say that I minded, though.”

“We’re awful people,” I said, solemnly. “And we should be ashamed.”

Tammy nodded, and Cale mumbled agreement. I leaned over the the counter to discover him curled up on the couch, head half buried in a cushion, the eye I could see shut and last night’s eyeliner smudged across the face. "Is he okay?" I asked.

"For a given value of 'okay,' which includes and does not exceed 'dying,' yes," Cale answered, before Tammy could say anything.

"Drama queen," she said. Then, to me, "Do you want something to eat?"

"No," I said, regretfully, having learned in full the magic that she could work with the simple ingredients of bread and spreads. "I ate. And I honestly should be looking right now - Morgan sounded legitimately worried."

Cale groaned again. Tammy shook her head. "Alright, but you're missing out. We've got Nutella, which means that it's the one day Nutella special today."

"Temptress," I said, laughing, and left.

My only trouble now was that I honestly had no idea where to look. The city was big. It had an honest-to-god subway system, which was huge, compared with where I'd come from.   It meant that I was going to have a lot of places to look. I started my search along the tried and true 'wander around in the general area of the lost thing's last known position' method for a while, and all I learned was that the Oyster was surrounded by a lot of sketchy bars. Nathan didn't strike me as a sketchy bar type. He struck me as a spoiled rich kid who'd probably been eating caviar since he was old enough to chew. Blue-collar country bars would not be his area of expertise.

Or so I thought. Imagine my surprise when, as I wandered past the sketchiest of them all, I heard people chanting the name, 'Nathan, Nathan,' over and over. There was some casual murmuring along the lines of, "If he's still alive in two days, I'll give you fifty bucks." That was my cue to go in and possibly rescue an idiot.

Opening the door set off a roll of little bells along the top, but it was loud enough inside that I could barely hear them myself.  My first impression ws that someone had decided to have a Texas-themed costume partty, until I realized that, as far as I could tell, the country music, barely audible in the background, was apparently being enjoyed unironically. ThenI discovered that the village idiot was standing on a pool table in the back, shirtless, covered in what was probably ketchup, holding one of those huge gallon novelty stein that I was always shocked to see outside of Wisconsin, and roaring at the top of his lungs. I almost left then and there, because honestly, I wasn't getting paid enough for this. Hell, I wasn't getting paid for this, period. But then I thought of the genuine worry in Morgan's voice, and I changed my mind. Even if me and mine didn't care for him, he still had someone who'd miss him. I’d feel endlessly guilty if I left him here to be eaten alive by a collection of cowboy cannabils.

“Crap,” I said, and started forcing my way through the crowd. I got a couple death glares, and I half-wondered whether it would be possible for them to get a lynch mob going in a place as crowded as this. I sped up, not eager to find out. “Nathan!” I yelled. It got absolutely no affect in the room already chanting his name. He roared again. Idiot. I hauled myself onto the table with him, to the displeasure of the crowd, some of whom tried to haul me down. I managed to shake them off and grab Nathan’s shoulders, though. “Nathan, you’re an idiot who’s going to self-destruct in a couple minutes,” I told him, as calmly and loudly as I could.

He made a face at me and said, with a pronounced slur, “Not a chance. I’ve finally found people who understand me. This is awesome.” He took a long swig from the gallon stein. When he brought it down, I glimpsed random stuff floaing amidst the suds. So he was definitely getting his stomach pumped later.

“How long have you even been here?” I asked him, as the cries for me to get down started getting louder.

“Not long,” Nathan said, leering out at the crowd. “We just got back. Had a party at FRANK’S HOUSE, isn’t that right FRANK!” He swung the stein, and if I hadn’t been holding him upright, he’d have fallen and concussed himself. Idiot. Someone out in the crowd cheered. Bigger idiot.

“Come on, Nate,” I said, trying to calm him down and get him down. “Your people are going to be fine without you for a bit. You missed an appointment this morning, according to Morgan. She wasn’t very happy with you.”

“Yeah, right.” He shook his head, and then nearly fell over again. “Hakuna matata, no worries. I don’t have appointments, I have meetin... oh, shit,” he said. “I missed the meetin’ wi’ Dad, didn’t I?” And then he passed out.