Words, Pictures and Music.

Nolan’s car was a run down, beaten up piece of crap, but it was pretty much the only mode of transport for him and his friends. It had a cassette player and usually a couple of cigarettes hidden somewhere under the seats, Nolan’s secret stash.  This was good enough for a bunch of twenty-somethings who usually spent most of their time shoveling something, painting something or cleaning something, mostly while slightly drunk.

Nolan was the only one allowed to drive his car. It didn’t help that usually he was the most inebriated of the lot, and his driving skills resembled those of a one-handed man with ADD.

And yet, he managed to smoke, take the occasional swig of whiskey from his dirty flask, and change tapes while driving.

A grunge band shouted out their hatred for the corporate world as Nolan pulled up in front of Elliott’s house, honking as he crawled to a stop.

“ELLIOTT! Get out here. Bring some water!” he bellowed, with his head out the window, terrifying an old lady walking her dog.

Elliott stuck his head out of his own window.

“I don’t have any. I have some, uh, apple juice, I think.” Elliott sprinted to his fridge, still visible through his window, pulled out a large tetrapak and ran back to the window.

“It’s apple juice, yeah, but something’s in it,” he shouted.

“DOESN’T MATTER, GET IT ANYWAY!”

“You don’t have to be so loud, you’re fucking fifteen feet away, Nolan!” Elliott slammed his window and walked out to the car, his old sneakers dragging along the pavement, on the verge of falling apart.

He handed the container to Nolan, who immediately polished it off and placed it on the dashboard, presumably to use as an ashtray.

“I think there was a bug in it, dude,” Elliott said, making himself comfortable in the front seat.

“Yeah? Damn.” Nolan wiped his mouth with his already colourful sleeve, and noisily drove to the pub.

******

Elliott and Nolan didn’t have many friends, but the ones they had kind of made up for the usual several different social circles that people immersed themselves into.  They had friends they could talk to about music, about sports, about life in general. The conversations about life in general usually dragged along for hours before they came to the unanimous conclusion that theirs sucked and nothing could really be done to change it. This would be followed by a few beers that no one really wanted to drink, but did anyway, because it would make them forget how tired they were.

Nolan got beers for everybody and sat down, loudly burping to announce his presence.

Elliott was lighting a cigarette for Shaun, the guitarist in his ‘band’. The band was Elliott and Shaun, and they had played one show at a nearby coffeeshop on their open mic night, and the audience’s reaction did not bode well for their future as a musical group. Shaun had spent the weekend following that gig trying to pull pieces of glass out of his forehead, while Elliott spent it writing entries in his diary about how pointless it was to try to express yourself anymore.

Shaun was the kind of guy who would tell you what he thought of you in your face. This was usually something along the lines of “You’re a fucking asshole,” or “You think you know everything, don’t you, you little piece of shit?”, regardless of how nice the person was.

He didn’t waste time with niceties. In fact, he didn’t waste time at all. He didn’t really speak to anyone except Elliott and a few others, and spent most of his time recording his guitar into a tape player, and playing it back repeatedly for Elliott till he wrote something down.

Tonight, he was carrying a Walkman, presumably to show Elliott the fruits of his labour over the week.

“I have like five songs on here. They’re all different. They suit what you write. All that melodramatic, sad shit. Although, if you have something remotely happier, I could write something more upbeat,” he said, looking very optimistic.

Elliott chuckled.  ”You never fail to cheer me up when I really need it, man. You’re awesome.  Have you ever wondered why my writing is so sad?” Elliott pulled out a cheap pair of earphones from his pocket, and plugged them into Shaun’s Walkman.

He inserted the earphones into his ears, and pressed play.

Meanwhile, Shaun’s girlfriend, Kim, was getting slightly flirty with Nolan, possibly because of the few tequila shots she had downed earlier while ‘celebrating’ her friend’s breakup with a particularly abusive boyfriend.  Nolan was particularly fun to watch (not for Shaun) while he spoke to women, because he had a strange sense of confidence in his conversational skills with women. It was strange because, from first glance, he would be the kind of person you would think women would avoid with question, but once he started chatting them up, they would be all over him. It never lasted, but to Nolan this was perfect because he ‘never really found anyone my type’ anyway.

Shaun was stuck now, stuck between figuring out if he should keep an eye on his girlfriend’s moves towards Nolan, getting more and more ambitious, or see how Elliott was reacting to the stuff he’d recorded.  It was impossible for him to do both because he wasn’t the most gifted one at multitasking. Or tasking at all, for that matter.

He decided to watch Elliott. It would probably work better in the long term, anyway.

Elliott’s facial expressions usually changed rapidly while he was listening to something new. Today was different. He had a static expression on his face, one that seemed like disgust, but Shaun found that hard to believe. Elliott was Shaun’s only fan. He always found Shaun’s stuff interesting, and he was one of the most honest guys ever.

Shaun watched till Elliott pulled out the earphones, let out a long sigh, and took a long swig of beer.

“It’s all the same, man. I couldn’t tell where you stopped playing the first bit and went on to the next one. Not to mention, it’s so derivative, it could be anybody.” Elliott took another long chug, trying to avoid making eye contact.

Shaun drummed his fingers on the table. He was used to dealing with this kind of comment, but it never came from Elliott, and the way he dealt with it usually, he couldn’t now. Because he wouldn’t feel good about smashing Elliott’s face into pulp.

Shaun bit his lip and picked up the Walkman, plugging out Elliott’s earphones and throwing them at his face. “I’ll go home and work on some more stuff. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He got up and walked away, as Kim’s appreciation of Nolan’s ear piercings faded away into the chatter of the pub.