Southern California
Late 2018 - Nighttime
Outside a shitty bar/club thing
The air conditioner was broken, or not on, or maybe nobody noticed how oppressively hot it was in here. Consequently, everyone was drenched in sweat, and the air was thick with cigarette smoke and Axe Body Spray.
I quickly found a spot in the back to comfortably be a wall flower and checked the time.
9:50 p.m.
I was ten minutes early.
In one corner, a guy was pretending to masturbate. This must have been funny because everyone around him was laughing. He bent down and very indiscreetly snorted something off the table in front of him.
Well, that explained a few things, at least.
A couple of buff guys eventually brought in a huge fan and set it up to oscillate, so now instead of inhaling stagnant, thick, sweaty, stale bar air, we were breathing in moving, thick, sweaty, stale bar air along with all the dust and whatever other particles the powerful fan was now disturbing. Paralytic by Dead Poetic came on, way too loud and through speakers that buzzed whenever there was too much bass.
When “the record label” [that will not be named for legal reasons] said they were impressed with our numbers and requested an actual, in-person meeting, I was surprised. These days, I was pretty sure all meetings were done through email, or, hell, maybe even Facebook Messenger.
I was less surprised when my phone buzzed in my jacket pocket and I saw the text message informing me that “the agent” for “the record label” was running late.
Very late.
Agent: Hey, Adam. Sorry. Metting [sic] ran longer than I expected. I should get there by about 11.
Eventually, I sat down as 11 p.m. rolled by, then 11:30… Anyway, long story short: “the agent” never showed (and as of today, still hasn’t returned any of my calls).
I felt a gurgle in my stomach. I’d been fighting a bug for a few days now and the air here wasn’t doing much to aid me in a swift recovery. I made my way over to the bar and ordered a bottle of sparkling water from the woman dressed in a dollar-bill print onesie with the words “capitalism in effect” written on her forehead with what looked like eyeliner – I think this was supposed to be poignant but it just came across as convoluted.
A collective uproar of surprise and drunken glee broke out around Pretend-Masturbater Bro as he took a handful of cocaine from the table and threw it into the back of the fan, immediately filling the room with white powder and mixed feelings.
I think the cops were called, but I’m not sure - I was busy vomiting in the bathroom at the time.
I called an Uber to take me back to the hotel. It arrived only a few minutes later.
When I opened the back seat of the gray sedan, I heard the old man in the driver’s seat shout.
“No!” He said firmly, holding up his hand.
I froze.
He reached over and placed a Sesame Street blanket over his seat.
“Okay. Now you can sit.” He grumbled, fixing me with a death glare in his rear-view mirror.
“Uh, thanks...”
Not wanting to spend any more time out in the freezing rain, I got in and closed the door.
“I don’t go to dispensaries...” the old man said.
“O—kay.”
“And I expect a tip.”
The next day, I made the long drive back to San Jose having heard nothing more from the label. My calls and texts went unanswered and I knew I had been ghosted. But at least I got a funny story out of it. It’s important to find that silver lining - like when you get pistol whipped by a robber with one eye and comb-over but at least you didn’t sink any money into NFTs.