Catch the previous episode: http://theinnerscience.newgrounds.com/news/post/866942

Also, my other works: http://theinnerscience.newgrounds.com/news/post/857803

“What are you up to?” Kris asked warily.

Dave answered with a voice as sweet as sugar, as smooth as silk, and as alluring as a siren’s mating call. Tori had just barely been able to restrain herself from cooing again.

“Well, you know how it seems we have been in a bit of a rut lately?” Kris and Rj nodded in unison. “Alright, and you know how it seems that all the good gigs recently have all been given to those jerks, Dodging Bullets?”

This time Kris and Rj gave each other a quick glance of annoyance at the thought of their long time rivals before responding to the rhetorical question with a harsh, “yes!"

Dave smiled at the energy of their response, but just as he was about to make his point, he realized something was missing. His mind mulled it over for only a moment before he realized it. Torina! Dave looked back around and quickly discovered Torina seated in her usually area, staring blankly at the boys as they talked.

“Get over here, Tori,” He said with enthusiasm. “You need to hear this too!”

Grinning broadly she hastily stood to make her way to his side. Standing next to Torina, Dave’s chin came comfortable up to Torina’s shoulder. As tall as she was, this was something she had grown rather accustomed to.

“Okay,” he continued dramatically. “What would you guys think if I said that I got us a gig that paid two-fifty!”

To Dave’s dismay, he did not get the reaction he was expecting. In his mind he saw wide eyes and shouts of joyous disbelief. Instead he was greeted with silence and blank stares. Torina had wanted to show her excitement at the proposal, but thought it was the wrong time since no else seemed to feel the same way she did. She carefully glanced at Dave and bit her lip once she noticed the disappointment on his face. Torina wanted him to see she was happy about his newfound job offer, but the thought of being the middle of a socially awkward joke terrified her.

“Well,” Kris began. “Are you saying that you got us a gig that paid two-twenty?”

Dave’s smile returned as he nodded slowly. Kris was on his feet within a matter of seconds as he jumped from the sofa with Rj right behind him. Kris leaned in and spoke in the most serious tone he could muster.

“You got us a ‘for sure’ gig for two hundred and fifty dollars?”

“Yes!” Dave was nearly frantic now. “Yes it is ‘for sure’! …..Well-” His sentence had quickly trailed off.

“What was that?” Kris asked inquisitively.

“What was what?” Dave answered innocently. Kris suddenly saw what was going on. Dave was avoiding something.

“What did you say!”

“Well,” Dave shrugged as he gave a short forced laughed. “Maybe the gig isn’t entirely ‘for sure’ yet.”

“Dave, that makes no fucking sense.”

“Yeah it does! You see, I found a wanted article in today’s newspaper for a band and it required that the band call to make an appointment for an interview to get the gig.”

“Alright,” Kris’s patience was beginning to become strained and bent. “I have a few questions, Dave. I assuming you have already made the appointment?”

“Of course!”

“Of course. Well, given our successfully fucked history, what makes you think that we can even get this gig over the other shit ton of bands in this city?”

“Well that’s the awesome thing about it, no other band has tried to get this gig!”

Kris’s eyes widened with dread as Rj burst into fits of laughter.

“Okay, maybe I should have lead with this question. Where the hell is this gig!”

Two minutes later….

Kris lowered the newspaper as Rj and Torina read it in glances of his shoulders. Dave leaned against the dining room table with a triumphant smug expression planted upon his face.

“Well,” Dave started. “What do you think?”

Kris slowly looked up from the tiny gut smeared article with an expression of disbelief.

“You have to be fucking joking!”

“I fear this change of direction could really damage the image our group,” Rj added. Kris shook his head before he continued.

“Right… I don’t see how the hell you would think a gig at a sweating rate hole dump, that only attracts all of Paradises’ inbred, cousin-molesting drunks, would be a nice scene for us.”

As each of Kris’s words of disbelief crawled into Dave’s mind, a strange and frightening transformation came upon the band’s cheery and optimistic front-man. Dave’s smugness turned into a stony coldness that seemed to mask a harsh contemplation that absorbed everything Kris was saying.

“See? Tell me something, Kris.” Dave’s voice had become somewhat deeper and almost threatening. “Look into your back pocket and pull out that fancy leather wallet of yours, then tell me what you see, or to better express my point, what you don’t see.”

Kris shrugged as Dave’s statement stung him, but sadly, it was too true. The youths were as broke as a blind hobo who had tumbled off a twelve story building and had landed right on his face.

“Point expressed,” Kris muttered. With that admittance, Dave’s satisfaction returned tenfold.

“Look guys, I know things have been really cruddy lately but we finally have our chance to make some noise and to shake up the pool of all those wannabe bands out there. Not to mention we need to start pulling in more revenue so we can put bread on the table.”

As if in response, Dave’s stomach produced an obnoxiously loud animalistic growl. His friends, in unison, raised an eyebrow to Dave.

“Dude, when was the last time you ate?” Kris asked.

“Well-” Dave looked over his shoulder to see that his beautiful waffle shrine had turned cold, hard, and icky. Not to mention that there was a damned fly creeping about it in absolute bliss. “It is Tuesday today, so I think about a day or so ago. I don’t honestly know.”

“Dave….. You know it’s Saturday, right?”

Dave swirled back around.

“Really? Wow, that’s a little weird.”

Brushing past a wide-eyed Kris, Rj put a comforting hand on the shoulder of Dave.

“The substance of ones body fuels both mind and spirit.”

Dave squinted suspiciously at Rj while Kris and Torina did their best to hold back a fit of giggle that tickled their ribs with light fingers.

“Seriously, what have you been smoking lately?”

One epic meal late…..

Carl Marx, or “Mad Marx”, was a moving portrait of an aging, decrepit, and repulsive man in his mid forties who reached his peak long ago. His cheep corduroy suit reeked of the discount alcohol he would drown himself in every night. His once shiny and greasy hair has mostly fallen out, leaving only enough to comb over his balding dome.

Carl’s dull eyes now shifted from his young brownnosing assistant, who is also his nephew, to a group of young punks that looked to him as if they had just been shitted out of the deepest recesses of the educational system’s diseased and dying bowels. The smooth talker throwing around the most words surprisingly reminded Carl of himself at that age, except extremely handsome and actually good at sweet talking. It made Carl a little envois of this charismatic youth.

To the youth’s right was some tough guy wannabe that seemed too typical in this generation of teenage men. On the left was some negro boy with bloodshot eyes and neat cornrows pulled back into a ponytail. Great, another pothead. But then he noticed the top of a fourth’s head from behind the group. When he finally caught a brief glimpse of the teenager, he saw one of the pretties young Feligen he had ever laid eyes on. She quickly shied away from line of sight like a scared little child.

Though first impressions usually said everything, Carl now had to ask:

“And just who the hell are you guys supposed to be?”

Dave’s face lit up like a Roman candle under a midnight sky.

“Well sir!” He did his best to sound dramatic as his voice filled the dirty and dank office. “We are the one band that has the sound to surely get the audience on their feet and roaring with excitement! We are the enigmatic, fantastic trio of four know as RAG MEAT!”

In Dave’s mind, he heard the mountain crumbling call of golden trumpets singing out to the farthest reaches of the heavens and echoing in the eardrums of God. But in reality, there was only an intensely awkward silence that left everyone else feeling very uncomfortable.

Carl blinked absently before looking at his reddened face nephew.

“Tim, this was exactly the reason why I did not want you to buy that fucking ad space! When you offer two-hundred dollars just for schmucks to make some noise, all kinds of asinine acts will come crawling at my office door!”