We’re Going! They Invited Us!
When Phil asked Bonnie and me to go to Worcester, Massachusetts with them, we nearly spontaneously combusted.
“Okay!” we shrieked. “Let’s go!”
But I had a nagging suspicion that I should be doing something first.
“We need to grab our stuff!” I said. “How long can you wait?”
“We’ve got to tear down,” Phil said. “Just hop on the bus when you’re ready.”
I don’t think he understood: I needed to drive to my parents’ house – a good 30 minutes from downtown – and pack for an indefinite stay, and Bonnie needed to condense her stuff from Ohio.
We needed to move fast.
Driving at breakneck speed (only slightly buzzed since we’d had nothing since before the concert) we pulled up outside my parents’ house in record time, thundered inside and up the stairs.
As always, my mom was awake. I think. Maybe the thundering assisted her awake-ness.
“The Firm invited us to go to Massachusetts!” I screamed. “We’re going to Massachusetts!” I could not pronounce “Worcester” for the life of me.
Mom nearly combusted, too. “What? You can’t do that.”
“Yes we can!” I said. “We just came home to get our stuff! Can you drive us back downtown?”
“No,” she said. “You cannot go to Massachusetts with a rock band.”
The conversation may have been a bit more heated, but my mother appeared substantially calmer than me. In my view, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. We were going to party with world-famous rock stars, travel the world, and leave the doldrums of college behind.
“We have to go!” I screamed. “We just came home for our stuff! We’re going! They invited us!”
Bonnie – who generally stayed quiet when my parents spoke – nodded. “They want us to go!”
My mother went to discuss the situation with my dad while Bonnie and I started piling shirts and makeup into bags. We were generally spinning in circles around the room, not knowing what was important and what wasn’t.
“She has to fucking let us go,” I said. “They have to let us go!”
Bonnie agreed. “They will. This is our life! And we’re adults! They have to know how fucking huge this is.”
My parents knocked on the door, which I’d closed so we could swear freely.
Very carefully my mom spoke: “If you go to Massachusetts, you would be going against our advice. We think it’s a terrible idea. If you decide to go anyway, we don’t want you coming back here. You won’t live here anymore.”
I dropped all the stuff in my hands, along with my jaw.
“WHAT?!? You’ve got to be kidding! We will never get this chance again!”
“That’s our decision. If you go, don’t come back here.”
My parents went back into their room and closed the door.
I started to cry. I sobbed, in fact. I didn’t want to move out. I didn’t want to lose the comfort of home. I didn’t want to lose my parents, my family, my whole life.
But more than anything in the world, I wanted to travel with The Firm.
“I can’t go,” I said. “I can’t fucking go.”
“Let’s go anyway,” Bonnie said. “They’re not really going to throw you out!”
“They will.” I said. My parents had never threatened anything so serious.
“Well let’s at least go back and tell the band we’re not going,” Bonnie said. I knew she thought I’d change my mind if I stepped foot on that tour bus.
So we got back in my parents’ car and drove back to the Civic Arena.