Pauly tells
me I’m crazy when I call him up to say I joined the band.
He calls it
“a hair-brained scheme,” one I will soon regret the way he did.
I know deep
down I should listen.
Pauly has
quit the band so often it ought to pay him alimony.
But I got
this crazy idea that I can work at night while going to college.
Pauly
admits this is theoretically possible, yet tells me I’ll change and I’ll fall
into the rock & roll head, just when I’ve made up my mind finally to get a
career.
He suggests I get a real job – something part time.
He suggests I get a real job – something part time.
I say part
time won’t pay the rent where as the bucks the band pays will.
I’m not
like Pauly. I’m used to a regular pay check after a decade of breaking my back
loading trust.
He’s always
lived on the fringe, spending so little he never needs to earn much.
He also
borrows and never pays back.
I have a
conscience.
I’m also a
little hooked on the idea of the rock & roll life, something he never
loved, but put up with.
He calls it
a crock, an excuse to get laid, and claims I’ll get classier girls at college
and won’t have to fill them up with booze first.
I also like
the idea of working with Garrick, a life-long friend who lately I haven’t seen
much of.
Pauly, who
has lived most the last decade with Garrick, says I’ll get sick of that soon,
too.
All this
leaves me a little confused after I hang up the phone, as if somewhere in the
back of my head I know Pauly is right.
I I just
don’t want to admit it.
I want a
little taste of that dingy world before college changes me into someone who
won’t find happiness in a drunken date and a heavy back beat. I know I’m going
to regret it, but I’ll regret it more if I don’t.
