I Need an Easy Friend

Story Submitted by Lee:

I found Mina's profile online, and discovered that we liked a lot of the same bands.  I wrote to her, we spoke, and I invited her to dinner on a Friday night.

"That'll work out great," she said, "My friend's playing in a concert that night.  We can hit it up after."

That Friday, I took her out to dinner at a good place, and I asked her about the concert.  "Who is it?  I might have heard of them.  And which venue?"

She said, "It's my friend, Pete.  He's doing a solo set at 125 West Sycamore Street."

"Which club is that?  Or is it a bar?"

"It's a new place.  Not on the map yet."

It had been a while since I had seen live music in the area, but  I was willing to support an independent artist, especially if said artist was friends with a girl in whom I was interested.

After dinner, we climbed into our cars, and I followed her to a suburban neighborhood and she parked her car in front of a house: the house at 125 West Sycamore.  We hopped out of the cars and I asked her, "The concert's at a house?"

She said, "Pete's house!" and rang his doorbell.

Pete answered the door.  He was shirtless, in a pair of torn jeans, and seemed to be the only one at home.  He and Mina gave each other a big hug hello, he invited us in, and led us down to his basement.

He had a table stocked with about three dozen half-finished beers.  "Help yourself," he said, and Mina grabbed one and started drinking as if it was nothing out of the ordinary.  The basement itself was dark, and was carpeted up to Pete's "stage," a series of linoleum tiles laid out on top of the carpeting.  He otherwise had a full setup with amps and lights.

He spoke into a microphone.  The sound blasted far louder than necessary for such an enclosed space.  "You guys hear me?" he shouted.

Mina clapped and screamed, "Woo!"

"Hey you," he pointed to me, "Have a beer."

I said, "I'm good."

Pete pulled out his electric guitar and hacked away at it.  Mina didn't stop clapping, and I tried to be supportive at first.  However, it took me a minute or two to realize that he had likely never picked up a guitar before.  That and the lyrics he was butchering were from Nirvana's About a Girl.

Mina flashed a smile at me, and I smiled back, thinking that she would be into how into the music I was pretending to be.  She shouted, "He's great, isn't he?"

"He's different!" I shouted back, over the din.

Mina tossed back three bottles of half-beer before she unhooked her bra and tossed it at him.  Pete kept playing one "song" after another, without so much as a few seconds rest between each.

After a little over a half-hour, I told Mina, "I think I'm going to go."

She said, "You just got here!"

I wasn't really having fun, and it seemed like she was way more into him than she was into me, which was fine, although I wasn't sure what I was doing there, if that was the case.

I bid her and Pete goodbye.  Pete yelled, "Everybody say bye to Lee.  It's been real, man."

Mina screamed, "Bye Lee!" at me, and I took off.

The next day, Mina called.  She said, "I had a great time with you last night."

I said, "It seemed like you had a better time with Pete.  With all respect, maybe you and he should be the ones dating."

She laughed and said, "No way.  It would never work.  He's way too into the drugs scene."

No shit.

She went on, "We're just into the same music, and we're fuck-buddies."

"That's really great."

I didn't hang out with Mina again.