"Anti-Flag / Chumbawamba / Against Me!" by Johnny Ostentatious

The straight-edge guitarist/singer/songwriter struck the last chord of the evening on his Gibson Les Paul. He looked out into the sold-out club. One thousand faces screamed and cheered. The singer focused on one member of the crowd in the first row of the balcony. His little brother. He winked at the ten-year-old.

Turning on his heel, the singer handed his guitar to a roadie, then strutted off the stage. His three bandmates followed. The crowd’s cheering grew fainter. They would disperse without protest. The band’s three encores should have satiated them.

The singer led his band to the backstage area, to the dressing room that was bigger than a Warped Tour mosh pit. He swaggered up to the bar, his wallet chain jingle jangling, and grabbed a bottle of spring water from a bucket overflowing with ice. His ears still rang from performing. Also, his senses were heightened, which made him notice that the air-conditioning was set on high and that almost every groupie in here wore a different potent perfume.

"Great show," said the tattoo-laden bass player. Almost everyone in the room—band members and hangers-on alike—reiterated this fact.

In the corner, the drummer, his surfer arm around a fourteen-year-old groupie, shouted, "Rock ‘n’ roll!"

The only one who didn’t join in on the self-congratulatory games was the singer. He sat on the couch, water bottle between his legs, and thought about how well things were going. His band’s latest album had sold 100,000 copies in the first six months of release, and he was still on an independent label. Granted, it was a faux-indie label, owned by two old-school punkers who bragged how anti-establishment they were, even though they advertised heavily in Spin and Rolling Stone; promoted new releases through mainstream websites like AOL and MySpace; and aimed for each new release to be carried at Best Buy, Hot Topic and Tower Records.

Yes, life was very good. And it was nice to have some level of success and still be self-managed.

Currently, the band’s effeminate rhythm guitarist sat on the couch next to the singer. The rhythm guitarist had only been in the band two months—still on probation. A few months ago, the singer had reservations about bringing the rhythm guitarist onboard, mainly because he worked into almost conversation how great conservatives were. But the rhythm guitarist had been the only one the band auditioned who’d been willing to drop everything and go on tour the next month.

"So," said the rhythm guitarist, putting his arm up on the couch cushion behind the singer, "think about what I said?"

"What’s that?"

"About starting a 401k."

"Dude, I’m only twenty year old."

"I know, I know," said the nineteen-year-old rhythm guitarist, "but it’s never too early to start saving."

The singer formed a fist. If his rhythm guitarist uttered the phrase secure your future, he was going to clock him so hard, his grandchildren wouldn’t know the difference between a pick and a drumstick.

"If ya ever change your mind," said the rhythm guitarist, "just let me know—my cousin’s a great financial manager. He’s got a real impressive track record." Lick of the lips. "’Cause the band ain’t gonna last forever, you know. It’s like what Dick says, ‘Ninety-nine percent of bands wind up having to get day jobs at some point.’"

Dick was one of the label owners.

Before the singer could tell his rhythm guitarist to piss off, the young Republican slid off the couch to answer his cell phone.

The singer sipped his water and sulked. God, how he hated the business side of being in a band. Sometimes he wished his band weren’t one of the most popular acts in punk rock. He sure did have fun when they simply played basement shows and put out seven-inches on a variety of labels.

Suddenly, the door to the dressing room banged open. There stood a seven-foot-tall man of average build in a black leather trench coat. A shiny black fedora obscured his face. He reminded the singer of the Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

"Everyone out," the Nazi said in a husky voice reminiscent of a mafia enforcer.

A gaggle of groupies giggled.

The bass player said, "Get the fuck out of here!"

The Nazi extracted from his coat a pair of black nunchucks. One of the hangers-on moved away from the wall he leaned against. He wasn’t as tall as the intruder, though he was brawny.

"Now listen, buddy," said the pacifying hanger-on, "we don’t want no trouble here."

The Nazi kicked the hanger-on in the solar plexus, and quicker than a chord change, he threw the nunchucks over the pacifist’s head. The intruder used the chain to raise the hanger-on off the floor. The pacifist’s face flushed purple. The Nazi tossed him into the hall.

Everyone in the room was on their feet now, including the singer. He saw the two beefcake security guards lying on the floor in the hallway—facedown—one over the other, their yellow shirts with black lettering, SECURITY, shouting through the dimly lit hallway.

"You fuckin’. . . ." The bass player charged for the Nazi.

The singer observed that the pot the bass player had smoked before the last encore still dulled his reaction time. The Nazi whopped a karate chop on the bass player’s side. The singer’s bandmate went down. He wheezed around on the ground.

The Nazi stepped over the bass player and held open the door. It creaked. The band, groupies and hangers-on rushed out of the room. The singer was in the rear of the exodus. In front of him was his rhythm guitarist, who grabbed the bass player’s ankles and dragged him out of the room.

The Nazi slapped a black-leather gloved hand on the singer’s chest. "You stay." The intruder reeked of garlic and propane.

The rhythm guitarist moved to close the door. The singer stared into the hallway. For some odd reason, he zeroed in on his drummer, whose tan face was ashen, as if a real-life version of Edvard Munch’s Scream painting.

The Nazi rubbed his gloves together, sounding like sandpaper scraping cement. "You know why I’m here?"

"Got a pretty good idea."

For the past year, major labels pursued the singer’s band with the ferocity equal to lobbyists thwarting campaign-finance reform.

"Which label you with?" the singer asked.

"Doesn’t matter." From inside his trench coat, the Nazi pulled out a felt-tip pen and a 100-page contract. He flipped to the last page. "If you’ll be so kind."

The singer took the contract, which was heavier than Green Day’s back catalog. "I’ll have to read through it. When do you need it by?"

The Nazi slipped the pen in his coat’s chest pocket and sprang forward. He gave the singer a palm beach (his gloved palms slapping the singer’s cheeks simultaneously).

The singer reeled back, stumbling. He tripped over his feet and crashed on his butt. What the. . . ? His back leaned against a couch arm, his vision blurry due to eyes watering.

The Nazi handed the pen to the singer and smiled like a gremlin on amphetamines.

The singer’s eyesight cleared. He fiddled with the pen. "And what if I refuse?"

"For starters," the Nazi said, "your little brother will suffer a most unfortunate accident. Maybe he’ll live, maybe he won’t. . . ."

The singer signed the contract, his arm shaking.

"Thank you kindly," the Nazi said.

The singer glared at him. He felt his heartbeat thump to a thrash-core beat.

The Nazi paused at the door. "We’ll be seeing you." He exited.

Not two seconds later, the singer’s bandmates, as well as the groupies and hangers-on, flooded back into the room.

"What happened?" the drummer asked.

The singer reached for a bottle of red wine and took a long pull. "Fell down."

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