Chereads / XIEEIEKR 2 / Chapter 23 - 3

Chapter 23 - 3

As Addy and you break the news to Anuja about Barry's dad, you watch as her jaw clenches and her hands squeeze her arms harder and harder. Kirill and Diego are silent as you relay your suspicions.

You wait for Anuja to say something. She doesn't.

"You don't have to come tonight," Addy tells her. "We can do this and report back to you. It might not even be a good idea for you to come. If Barry knows who you are, he might not talk."

"I'm coming," Anuja says. "I'll stay in the background. He'd probably know who I am. I mean, he'd have to be an utter moron not to, how many Indian families are there in Arbor Isle?"

"All right, we're all going then," you say. "Let's see what we're working with. Diego, can you look for videos of Wet Dream playing in local bars?"

Diego balks at you. "Excuse me?"

"It's the name of Barry's band. I know," you tell him.

Diego cringes as he searches for some online presence of the band. "There's like, one video of them playing at Pinchers a few months ago."

The video is very shaky, and the sound quality is pretty bad. That might be a blessing though, considering what you can hear of the performance. Barry is on guitar and singing backup vocals, another guy with a guitar is supposedly the lead singer but is mostly just screaming off-key, the bassist is standing completely still looking somewhat petrified, and the drummer, you're pretty sure, has only just started learning how to play.

"What would you call this genre?" you ask, trying to figure out how the hell you're even going to begin to do PR for this.

"It's like, kind of punkish?" Diego suggests.

"In the way that punk bands are notorious for not being able to play their instruments," Anuja says.

"Maybe it's experimental noise rock," Kirill says. "But less experimental and more…noise."

"It's like if post-grunge and screamo were raising the love child screamo had with hardcore punk," Addy says.

"I think that's even giving it too much too much credit," you say, already feeling defeated as the song plays on.

"So how are we going to get people to show up to this travesty of a band's show?" Addy asks.