With the big speaker no longer obscuring my view of the band, I was able to see the base player clearly and the drummer too, who I now knew to be Larry’s twin brother, although the drummer was a bit more toward the center of the… well, I guess it was sort of a stage like platform that they were on, but it wasn’t very high at all. The rest of the band members all had their backs to me. All of the band members were dressed in black and each individual seemed to have his or her own unique hairstyle. Suffice it to say, that only a rock and roll band could get away with looking as bizarre as they did.
“So you were right!” Fish said to BB.
BB gave Fish a pat on the tummy as he said, “Just stand there and look beautiful would you and let me do the talking.”
Fish’s reply was to cross his arms stubbornly over his chest while rolling his eyes.
“So he is…” I started to ask BB, but before I even finished Fish was nodding his head and mouthing, “PampersBoy”.
I was quickly becoming aware of this tightness in my chest, a throbbing in my ears and my head had gone from swimming to aching like someone had brained me with a baseball bat.
BB grabbed my good hand with both of his hands and was bouncing in place, “This is soo great!”
He looked at Fish who still had his arms crossed and said to him, “We got to tell Sissy!”
I hadn’t realized until right then, but somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I had already made the connections that if BB and Fish were Baby Bruce and PampersBoy, then it seemed only logical that Sissy4U and Diapered4Life would have to be none other than Bertha and Larry.
“I don’t know where she is.” Fish said looking around and shrugging his shoulders.
“You mean Bertha? I left her over by the punch, sucking on Larry’s face.” I said while pointing in that direction and nearly poking some girl right in the boob.
BB and Fish both looked at me with what I took to be confusion, but then BB’s eyes lit up.
“Larry is here?” he asked, nearly jumping out of his shoes with excitement.
“Uh, yeah,” I grunted and nodded while mentally scratching my head.
Fish nudged me with his elbow, “Guess you didn’t whack him after all.” Of course he was joking with me, but my head wasn’t working to well and I totally missed the joke.
“I-I need to sit down.” I mumbled.
“You don’t look so good.” Fish said.
“Are you going to puke?” BB asked.
“I just need to sit.” I mumbled again.
Somehow my two friends heard me and helped me get over to the bleachers, which had been collapsed and pushed back against the wall, but still, there were two rows available to sit on. We found a section that wasn’t occupied where the three of us could sit and talk and I could hopefully get my heart to slow down and my head to stop hurting.
“You okay?” BB asked.
I guzzled about half of my water and then shook my head as I asked BB, “How did you know it was me?”
He shrugged, “Would you believe that it was just a good guess?”
Oddly I nodded even though I meant to shake my head.
“Why did you bring up Bertha and Larry over there?” BB asked leaning in and speaking right into my ear. We should have stayed where we were because now that we were in front of the speakers again the music was blaringly loud.
“What?” I said.
I hadn’t heard what he said, and I have no idea how Fish had heard him, but he had and he repeated it for me.
“Because you said you had to tell Sissy4U.” I answered.
“What?” BB asked.
“OK wait a minute!” Fish said holding both hands out and giving the universal hand gesture of ‘stop’, “I am getting confused!”
“No!” Fish said as he began to laugh; he was laughing so hard he nearly fell of the bleacher. “No, no!” he was laughing and snorting as he slapped my back, “I think maybe you got the wrong idea buddy boy.”
BB finally figured out what Fish was laughing about and started laughing too. “No man, Bertha isn’t Sissy. Heck she doesn’t even know about… well… you know what.”
Ok, I was officially confused.
“What? But I thought…” I began to say and frankly I was getting a bit ticked off at the way they were laughing.
A group of students had moved closer to us, they were so close they were nearly on top of us. It wasn’t as though any of us were looking at the band, but now we couldn’t see them even if we wanted too.
A moment later the band stopped playing and that same young sounding, singing guy, announced that the band was taking a break, but that they would be back soon to, “ROCK ON!”
BB put his mouth right next to my ear and whispered, “Sissy4U is Bertha’s sister.”
The tightness in my chest was now a dull ache like someone was trying to crush my ribcage.
Fish suddenly pointed into the crowd, in the opposite direction of the band and loudly announced, “There she is!”
“Where?” BB asked, “Never mind, I see her!” and he stood up and pointed.
For a fevered moment I thought he was going to call her over, but now that I have my mental abilities back under control, the thought that Stacks, whether she is Sissy4U or not, would have been seen socializing with the likes of BB and Fish was utterly ridiculous.
I stood up and pulled BB back down. He was drawing attention to himself and the last thing I wanted was to have others looking at me!
“Wait, you mean Sissy4U isn’t Bertha?” I said throatily to them both. I could scarcely believe I’d spoke those words.
“No way man!” Fish said, still laughing himself nearly sick, “Are you kidding?”
I looked up and saw that Stacks seemed to be making her way over and god help me I didn’t know what to do. I looked down at the bottle of water I’d got for her and momentarily thought about throwing it away so that Stacks wouldn’t come for it. I know it was a stupid, irrational thought, but stupidity and irrationality was all I had left. All other mental circuits had overloaded and burned out.
“No, no, no!” I said under my breath, “No, this can’t be!” The words, though only feeble attempts to regain control of my thought and emotions, seemed as though they were being screamed.