There was once a time when, everything I knew, everything I thought I had was there, in front of me screaming at me to embrace it. Of course I ignored its call, countinued to be the stuck up girl I was, the bitch of a girl I was. That was a long time ago, it feels that way even if it wasn’t, I’ve sort of lost track of time now. I’m a grunge kind of girl now, still bitching, but less look how rich, gorgeous and amazing I am and more I can rock harder than any of you and you know it.
I live the underground punk life, where its mostly crazy gigs and parties in the deserted back building at school, it was once a gym, once I say, now its far from that, when we first came it was crawling with everything imaginable but we cleaned it up, determined to make it our own, now its still got the concrete walls with cracks running down the floor and up again but it has a stage and tasteful decor, tasteful in the opinion of this crowd anyway, my crowd. The school doesn’t know of course, its at the edge of the woods which is actually pretty damn close to the high street. One word is all thats needed to describe it, perfect.
You know a lot more about me than most people now, and I’ve barely said anything, most people didn’t know me a few years ago, most people in my crowd and the general school population. They didn’t know how far I fell, how I spiralled out of control down a steep, steep slope. Maybe its time for you to find out a bit more. My name is Amanda, I hate it, its as boring as hell and I hate the nicknames that go with it. Very few people actually know my real name and for good reason, I go by Rio, I’m 16, actually its possible I’m still 15, my birthday is celebrated the day I was adopted, they assumed I was 1, but I know for a fact that I was younger, though I’m skinny, I’d be lucky to survive at 1 at the weight I was.
School, well, I’m damn smart, straight A, genius IQ, but the teachers hate me, I’m their worst nightmare. We moved a few years ago, so no one there knows me from before I was like this and thankfully its a boarding school, so my parents aren’t there to tell them. Its a large campus situated near London (we lived in Paris before). And its rules are not exactly scrict. A couple kids were taken to hospital after collapsing from overdoses last year, it was no where near the back building, a clique stupid enough to get caught like that wouldn’t be anywhere near us. Several people have fainted and crashed because of drug use, but when it happens, the smart cut class for the day, calling an ambulance is incredibly stupid.
If you haven’t already guessed, my crowd is the music crowd, and we’re the big guns on campus, thanks to me and my band. Most of us are at the top academically, but can’t seem to get on the nice side of the teachers. We always have a ready stash of meth, pot, uppers, lsd, alchohol & whatever else. The meth is for special occasions, damaging to the vocal chords you know. We’re all talented musicians and writers, none of us are part of the choir, none of us are part of the orchestra, none of us are part of writing society or poetry club. None of us are part of anything, if your part of the grunge, that is all you do, its the very air you breath, you live by it.
Of course its not my crew that do gigs, we get outside bands, before they become famous, they love to perform for us because almost every single band thats performed here has become big. The bands part of my crowd are all big in are own right of course, especially mine, we’re The Quirks, perhaps you’ve heard of us? We took the underground artocker music scene by storm. Recently people outside of the underground lifestyle have started to recognise us, we’re the new age of rock they say.
I’m the lead signer and guitarist, then there’s Bree, vain, pouty and my best friend has the gift of perfect pitch, my genes couldn’t quite grasp that but hers can. Shes the one on the keys. Then there’s Jasper and Ash. Jasper, a smoking hot egotistic arsehole. I’d ditch him but we need him, he’s the bassist, and a damn good one at that. When he’s sweet, slighly drunk or high he can make you feel like your the most special person in the world. If you haven’t read the signs, he’s my boyfriend, sort of, I do fool with other guys when I’m hating his guts, we have a love/hate relationship but it keeps the band driven. Ash is quiet, very quiet and arguably the best drummer in London, he also has connections, a surprising amount for someone who doesn’t talk.
The truth is I put up a barrier and refuse to let anyone in, a barrier so hard that I have no idea who I am, what I am, a few years ago I had goals, my life planned, now I know nothing and there’s nothing infront of me calling me, screaming at me telling me what to do. Nothing tells me what to do, and thats my problem, I’m like a dangerous weapon that can’t be controled but controls everything around it.
You used to know nothing about me, know you a lot about me, more than I probably know myself. I wouldn’t be surprised if you turn and run, most people would recomend you do so. When I fell for the first time I brough everyone down with me, I’d be damned if they had any power over me. So I can bring you down too, if I play my cards right I could even make half the music industry crash and burn and more. Well maybe not half but a good part of it. I have power in my school, in my circle, in the underground, and I know how to get more. Much, much more.
***
The back building looks almost identical when you enter from the side facing the school to what it was before we undergrounders/grunge came and fixed it up. We made the other side look nicer, re-painted it, put on new doors and did what we could to save the windows, thats the guest entrance, for the bands and other music industry people who we invite to get crunk with us.
As I’ve done millions of times I enter through a chipped and battered green trap door, the hinges rusting, the visible ones anyway. Which leads to the room where gym equipment used to be kept, we don’t use this room. I stride past the pile of aged crash mats and make my way to locked door, not old and rusting like everything before. The strong scent of rust and moss starts to fade as I insert my card, a silver dog tag around my neck, into the slot and the strong smell of glass, tobacco and pot lingers in the air. I enter the bright room, it was our lounge area, there were 3 macbooks on a desk in the corner and a 32 inch across one of the white walls with Vh1 playing highlights from the Led Zeppelin Reunion. Despite the sudden smell of stale beer that hits me straight in the nose as I linger towards the two figures on the dark red couch, I’ll always love this place. The buzz when you enter the room will accelerate my brain, even if I’m not on anything, the way everything seems to be happening but all in harmony, the click of the typists on the macs and, slosh and clank of the beer bottles, the flashes of light from the television all seem to move in a pulse. I made that pulse, its the pulse of my crew, the undergrounders, the grunge, rockers, punk rockers and indie kids. This is the place to be.
Lost in thought for a moment I remember what I was here for, not that I needed a reason to be here, I start moving towards the couch again ignoring peers calling me by the snooker table, there was a band, called Panic Stricken also part of my crew, taking a break from rehearsing, sitting around a table by a bright window playing poker. Dean, one of the first people to join the undergrounders/rockers/crew/whatever was fixated to the TV screen which resulted in an easy victory at fooseball by Ash. I glance back at the sofa and see noones there. The screeching sounds of an amp confirm my thoughts, they must be in the studio.
“Boo!” a soft voice whispers in my ear just before lips start caressing the back of my neck. Guess my thoughts were wrong.
“Hi” I murmur and turn my head over my shoulder to see Jaspers deep blue eyes staring straight at me, he smiles, which makes me smile, which makes me shrug him off. No one will control me. “We should get to work,” I say, firm and strong, he starts to roll his eyes but I cover his mouth before he can reply, “I’ve written a new song, I need you to learn the bass and apparently Bree has this brilliant idea about the key part and some other brilliant idea. I dunno, we also really, really, need to actually get through, without stopping Too Far Broken otherwise we will never get it done and I spent ages on that and if you roll your eyes one more time I swear I will beat you so hard that your mother won’t recognise you.” I take my hand of his mouth and kiss his lips and whisper in a steady but challenging, slightly seductive voice, “Don’t you ever forget who started this band, I say out and your out, I say quits you fall apart. I jump it all breaks down.”
We stand there for a moment, staring directly into each others eyes,
“Your so sexy when your angry, you know, why are you angry? I am allowed to talk now right? Should I refer to you as ma’am from now on?…”
He countinues like this, he makes me laugh so hard sometimes, inside I was laughing but I don’t do more than crack a smile, the laughing can wait till after the joints and uppers. I go through to where the main gym was, I can see why it was abandoned its awfully small for a gym, the same size as our current dance studio. Two of the four walls are painted black, the other painted a deep red, a small wooden stage takes up most of the back wall, the rest is taken up by two large amplifier on either side. Lots of 60’s pop art, old records, guitar and posters of rock bands cover the walls. A few other friends were sitting along the black leather sofa that stretched across the wall nearest to the door, there was no smell of cigarette smoke here, just the smell of new leather and instruments that lust to be played.
We stuck to our rules here, we did cleaned up after ourselves and kept the smoking and drug use for the lounge, we respected music, and didn’t want anything clogging up the sinuses or messing with vocal chords while performing. This is why we left snorting and meth for rare occasions, we were serious musicians and that could destroy our voices, even pure instrumentalists needed to sing sometimes, we’d rather not take the risk. Too often anyway.
As we plug in Ash enters casually, long hair covering the majority of his face drum sticks spinning and dangerous speeds in his hands. Bree is already playing her vintage keyboard, Jasper is already yelling at her to shut up so he can tune his bass guitar, and I smile to myself, I may have fallen hard, my parents may think I’m a lost cause, my teachers may hate my guts but I’m doing what I love, living the dream, even if its enclosed here, I’m living the life of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. The rest of the day wasn’t so pretty.
“So my songs are crap is that what your saying and if you can claim a line of it then its the fucking greatest song in the universe.” I felt like I was about to bust a vein in my head, he was such a bloody jerk.
“Not the greatest song obviously, just better than how you do it. Its either whinny or pathetically dismal or…”
“Or what?! Do you seriously think that are songs are all about the same thing, look at the range of what I’ve written. I’m a good songwriter and you know it your just trying to boost the little male ego of yours.”
“Guys please can we just..”
“Shut up Bree!” We both say to her in unison. Then we start shouting again.
“Our stuff just sounds young and naive and a bit dated, you gotta learn to keep with the times.”
“Keep with the times! Have you seen what your wearing? That is so 80’s. And besides the greatest songs and bands were before our time if we just…”
“Why don’t you just go shag each other then come back, we can never get through anything without arguing, I’m leaving until you shut up.” God, Ash just spoke, he never speaks and fuck me he actually had a point too. Jasper opened his mouth to retaliate then closed it again, lost for words.
“Lets call it quits today.” And I walked off, Bree rushing behind me. Jasper didn’t even try to apologise, the bastard.
We each had own room in the Paddington Dorm, they’re named after tube stations, isn’t that sad? But two or three rooms would all link to one bathroom, Bree and I shared which was cool, it worked well that way. If I was stuck with neeks then it wouldn’t, but I was very good at getting what I wanted. If I could be anywhere I’d do up more of the back building and sleep there, we have plumbing and electricity and room for about a few bedrooms but the teachers would know, this way we could sneak out and appear to be asleep. If the teachers saw the amount of powder stacked in our rooms they’d know we never got much sleep, but teachers don’t know anything do they?
Bree was sitting at the end of my bed, Paddington was a nice building, brick walls painted over with white paint, mine had a guitar hung on it and an Andy Warhol print. My desk was quite messy, but I liked it like that, guitar picks scattered among concert tickets, half finished homework from 3 weeks ago, doodles, make-up, poetry and cut out fashion spreads. I had a Black, white and red bedspread. Black with white and red flowers. If you had flowers they think your innocent, which is a far cry from me. But to perceive that which isn’t true is so my game.
Bree and I talked, turned out shes pissed about Jasper and I being disruptive, whatever. I pushed her off topic, talked about the idiots who got caught doing crank last week. There are a heck of a lot of smart kids at this school, why they go here rather than a top ranked school, well most of them did, but they wanted to have a bit more excitement. More happens on this campus, each clique has tons to offer and they practically all have there own special place on the ground. The thing about us, is that no one else has found us yet, if we stumble across another clique we’ll steer clear we may chat for a bit then move on, what I like about this school is that the ones who stand out are the ones at the top. The barcode prototype generic ‘popular’ girls aren’t. The school hotties are edgy & different. That is why I’m at the top and boy do I know I’m at the top.
Your probably wondering why I’m telling you this, heck I don’t even know you. But you’ve entered my life, you can’t stop now and you need to know the basics.
“You know, that black eyeshadow actually suits you, you can pull it off with your eyes.” says Bree, she picks up silver eyeliner from the make-up scattered across the bed. Finally we were way off the Jasper topic, I keep up the act,
“I’d use the green one it goes nicely with the lipgloss.”
“We’re going to get crunk as hell tonight and we’re gonna score seriously. Who knew the old underground station became a club after 1?” We give each other out devious smiles, kind of our interpretation of a secret handshake and then burst out laughing. We were gonna score tonight we were going to knock infinity straight out and keep going and going. It was an exclusive gig, you gotta know your stuff to get in and gotta be hardcore as hell. This was the underground in its literal form, we were entering the very depths of hell.
***
OOC: this is still a draft, there may be typos and I'm definitely going to be adding and taking things out. I've outlined more of the story so yes there is more to come because nothing has really happened yet >.<
I live the underground punk life, where its mostly crazy gigs and parties in the deserted back building at school, it was once a gym, once I say, now its far from that, when we first came it was crawling with everything imaginable but we cleaned it up, determined to make it our own, now its still got the concrete walls with cracks running down the floor and up again but it has a stage and tasteful decor, tasteful in the opinion of this crowd anyway, my crowd. The school doesn’t know of course, its at the edge of the woods which is actually pretty damn close to the high street. One word is all thats needed to describe it, perfect.
You know a lot more about me than most people now, and I’ve barely said anything, most people didn’t know me a few years ago, most people in my crowd and the general school population. They didn’t know how far I fell, how I spiralled out of control down a steep, steep slope. Maybe its time for you to find out a bit more. My name is Amanda, I hate it, its as boring as hell and I hate the nicknames that go with it. Very few people actually know my real name and for good reason, I go by Rio, I’m 16, actually its possible I’m still 15, my birthday is celebrated the day I was adopted, they assumed I was 1, but I know for a fact that I was younger, though I’m skinny, I’d be lucky to survive at 1 at the weight I was.
School, well, I’m damn smart, straight A, genius IQ, but the teachers hate me, I’m their worst nightmare. We moved a few years ago, so no one there knows me from before I was like this and thankfully its a boarding school, so my parents aren’t there to tell them. Its a large campus situated near London (we lived in Paris before). And its rules are not exactly scrict. A couple kids were taken to hospital after collapsing from overdoses last year, it was no where near the back building, a clique stupid enough to get caught like that wouldn’t be anywhere near us. Several people have fainted and crashed because of drug use, but when it happens, the smart cut class for the day, calling an ambulance is incredibly stupid.
If you haven’t already guessed, my crowd is the music crowd, and we’re the big guns on campus, thanks to me and my band. Most of us are at the top academically, but can’t seem to get on the nice side of the teachers. We always have a ready stash of meth, pot, uppers, lsd, alchohol & whatever else. The meth is for special occasions, damaging to the vocal chords you know. We’re all talented musicians and writers, none of us are part of the choir, none of us are part of the orchestra, none of us are part of writing society or poetry club. None of us are part of anything, if your part of the grunge, that is all you do, its the very air you breath, you live by it.
Of course its not my crew that do gigs, we get outside bands, before they become famous, they love to perform for us because almost every single band thats performed here has become big. The bands part of my crowd are all big in are own right of course, especially mine, we’re The Quirks, perhaps you’ve heard of us? We took the underground artocker music scene by storm. Recently people outside of the underground lifestyle have started to recognise us, we’re the new age of rock they say.
I’m the lead signer and guitarist, then there’s Bree, vain, pouty and my best friend has the gift of perfect pitch, my genes couldn’t quite grasp that but hers can. Shes the one on the keys. Then there’s Jasper and Ash. Jasper, a smoking hot egotistic arsehole. I’d ditch him but we need him, he’s the bassist, and a damn good one at that. When he’s sweet, slighly drunk or high he can make you feel like your the most special person in the world. If you haven’t read the signs, he’s my boyfriend, sort of, I do fool with other guys when I’m hating his guts, we have a love/hate relationship but it keeps the band driven. Ash is quiet, very quiet and arguably the best drummer in London, he also has connections, a surprising amount for someone who doesn’t talk.
The truth is I put up a barrier and refuse to let anyone in, a barrier so hard that I have no idea who I am, what I am, a few years ago I had goals, my life planned, now I know nothing and there’s nothing infront of me calling me, screaming at me telling me what to do. Nothing tells me what to do, and thats my problem, I’m like a dangerous weapon that can’t be controled but controls everything around it.
You used to know nothing about me, know you a lot about me, more than I probably know myself. I wouldn’t be surprised if you turn and run, most people would recomend you do so. When I fell for the first time I brough everyone down with me, I’d be damned if they had any power over me. So I can bring you down too, if I play my cards right I could even make half the music industry crash and burn and more. Well maybe not half but a good part of it. I have power in my school, in my circle, in the underground, and I know how to get more. Much, much more.
***
The back building looks almost identical when you enter from the side facing the school to what it was before we undergrounders/grunge came and fixed it up. We made the other side look nicer, re-painted it, put on new doors and did what we could to save the windows, thats the guest entrance, for the bands and other music industry people who we invite to get crunk with us.
As I’ve done millions of times I enter through a chipped and battered green trap door, the hinges rusting, the visible ones anyway. Which leads to the room where gym equipment used to be kept, we don’t use this room. I stride past the pile of aged crash mats and make my way to locked door, not old and rusting like everything before. The strong scent of rust and moss starts to fade as I insert my card, a silver dog tag around my neck, into the slot and the strong smell of glass, tobacco and pot lingers in the air. I enter the bright room, it was our lounge area, there were 3 macbooks on a desk in the corner and a 32 inch across one of the white walls with Vh1 playing highlights from the Led Zeppelin Reunion. Despite the sudden smell of stale beer that hits me straight in the nose as I linger towards the two figures on the dark red couch, I’ll always love this place. The buzz when you enter the room will accelerate my brain, even if I’m not on anything, the way everything seems to be happening but all in harmony, the click of the typists on the macs and, slosh and clank of the beer bottles, the flashes of light from the television all seem to move in a pulse. I made that pulse, its the pulse of my crew, the undergrounders, the grunge, rockers, punk rockers and indie kids. This is the place to be.
Lost in thought for a moment I remember what I was here for, not that I needed a reason to be here, I start moving towards the couch again ignoring peers calling me by the snooker table, there was a band, called Panic Stricken also part of my crew, taking a break from rehearsing, sitting around a table by a bright window playing poker. Dean, one of the first people to join the undergrounders/rockers/crew/whatever was fixated to the TV screen which resulted in an easy victory at fooseball by Ash. I glance back at the sofa and see noones there. The screeching sounds of an amp confirm my thoughts, they must be in the studio.
“Boo!” a soft voice whispers in my ear just before lips start caressing the back of my neck. Guess my thoughts were wrong.
“Hi” I murmur and turn my head over my shoulder to see Jaspers deep blue eyes staring straight at me, he smiles, which makes me smile, which makes me shrug him off. No one will control me. “We should get to work,” I say, firm and strong, he starts to roll his eyes but I cover his mouth before he can reply, “I’ve written a new song, I need you to learn the bass and apparently Bree has this brilliant idea about the key part and some other brilliant idea. I dunno, we also really, really, need to actually get through, without stopping Too Far Broken otherwise we will never get it done and I spent ages on that and if you roll your eyes one more time I swear I will beat you so hard that your mother won’t recognise you.” I take my hand of his mouth and kiss his lips and whisper in a steady but challenging, slightly seductive voice, “Don’t you ever forget who started this band, I say out and your out, I say quits you fall apart. I jump it all breaks down.”
We stand there for a moment, staring directly into each others eyes,
“Your so sexy when your angry, you know, why are you angry? I am allowed to talk now right? Should I refer to you as ma’am from now on?…”
He countinues like this, he makes me laugh so hard sometimes, inside I was laughing but I don’t do more than crack a smile, the laughing can wait till after the joints and uppers. I go through to where the main gym was, I can see why it was abandoned its awfully small for a gym, the same size as our current dance studio. Two of the four walls are painted black, the other painted a deep red, a small wooden stage takes up most of the back wall, the rest is taken up by two large amplifier on either side. Lots of 60’s pop art, old records, guitar and posters of rock bands cover the walls. A few other friends were sitting along the black leather sofa that stretched across the wall nearest to the door, there was no smell of cigarette smoke here, just the smell of new leather and instruments that lust to be played.
We stuck to our rules here, we did cleaned up after ourselves and kept the smoking and drug use for the lounge, we respected music, and didn’t want anything clogging up the sinuses or messing with vocal chords while performing. This is why we left snorting and meth for rare occasions, we were serious musicians and that could destroy our voices, even pure instrumentalists needed to sing sometimes, we’d rather not take the risk. Too often anyway.
As we plug in Ash enters casually, long hair covering the majority of his face drum sticks spinning and dangerous speeds in his hands. Bree is already playing her vintage keyboard, Jasper is already yelling at her to shut up so he can tune his bass guitar, and I smile to myself, I may have fallen hard, my parents may think I’m a lost cause, my teachers may hate my guts but I’m doing what I love, living the dream, even if its enclosed here, I’m living the life of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. The rest of the day wasn’t so pretty.
“So my songs are crap is that what your saying and if you can claim a line of it then its the fucking greatest song in the universe.” I felt like I was about to bust a vein in my head, he was such a bloody jerk.
“Not the greatest song obviously, just better than how you do it. Its either whinny or pathetically dismal or…”
“Or what?! Do you seriously think that are songs are all about the same thing, look at the range of what I’ve written. I’m a good songwriter and you know it your just trying to boost the little male ego of yours.”
“Guys please can we just..”
“Shut up Bree!” We both say to her in unison. Then we start shouting again.
“Our stuff just sounds young and naive and a bit dated, you gotta learn to keep with the times.”
“Keep with the times! Have you seen what your wearing? That is so 80’s. And besides the greatest songs and bands were before our time if we just…”
“Why don’t you just go shag each other then come back, we can never get through anything without arguing, I’m leaving until you shut up.” God, Ash just spoke, he never speaks and fuck me he actually had a point too. Jasper opened his mouth to retaliate then closed it again, lost for words.
“Lets call it quits today.” And I walked off, Bree rushing behind me. Jasper didn’t even try to apologise, the bastard.
We each had own room in the Paddington Dorm, they’re named after tube stations, isn’t that sad? But two or three rooms would all link to one bathroom, Bree and I shared which was cool, it worked well that way. If I was stuck with neeks then it wouldn’t, but I was very good at getting what I wanted. If I could be anywhere I’d do up more of the back building and sleep there, we have plumbing and electricity and room for about a few bedrooms but the teachers would know, this way we could sneak out and appear to be asleep. If the teachers saw the amount of powder stacked in our rooms they’d know we never got much sleep, but teachers don’t know anything do they?
Bree was sitting at the end of my bed, Paddington was a nice building, brick walls painted over with white paint, mine had a guitar hung on it and an Andy Warhol print. My desk was quite messy, but I liked it like that, guitar picks scattered among concert tickets, half finished homework from 3 weeks ago, doodles, make-up, poetry and cut out fashion spreads. I had a Black, white and red bedspread. Black with white and red flowers. If you had flowers they think your innocent, which is a far cry from me. But to perceive that which isn’t true is so my game.
Bree and I talked, turned out shes pissed about Jasper and I being disruptive, whatever. I pushed her off topic, talked about the idiots who got caught doing crank last week. There are a heck of a lot of smart kids at this school, why they go here rather than a top ranked school, well most of them did, but they wanted to have a bit more excitement. More happens on this campus, each clique has tons to offer and they practically all have there own special place on the ground. The thing about us, is that no one else has found us yet, if we stumble across another clique we’ll steer clear we may chat for a bit then move on, what I like about this school is that the ones who stand out are the ones at the top. The barcode prototype generic ‘popular’ girls aren’t. The school hotties are edgy & different. That is why I’m at the top and boy do I know I’m at the top.
Your probably wondering why I’m telling you this, heck I don’t even know you. But you’ve entered my life, you can’t stop now and you need to know the basics.
“You know, that black eyeshadow actually suits you, you can pull it off with your eyes.” says Bree, she picks up silver eyeliner from the make-up scattered across the bed. Finally we were way off the Jasper topic, I keep up the act,
“I’d use the green one it goes nicely with the lipgloss.”
“We’re going to get crunk as hell tonight and we’re gonna score seriously. Who knew the old underground station became a club after 1?” We give each other out devious smiles, kind of our interpretation of a secret handshake and then burst out laughing. We were gonna score tonight we were going to knock infinity straight out and keep going and going. It was an exclusive gig, you gotta know your stuff to get in and gotta be hardcore as hell. This was the underground in its literal form, we were entering the very depths of hell.
***
OOC: this is still a draft, there may be typos and I'm definitely going to be adding and taking things out. I've outlined more of the story so yes there is more to come because nothing has really happened yet >.<