“Garbage, what the shit is this?” Aea grasped a thin toothpick and lifted a purple ice-cube off the paper plate proffered by their mullet-laden roadie.

“Check it, so it’s codeine, vodka, and grape kool-aid. Only fifty cents each, can you believe it? This is going to be the best fucking show ever.”

Aea dropped it back on the plate and it slid into the one next to it. Kaia asked him to get vodka. Aea asked him to get a popsicle. Nobody asked him to get codeine.

“Give me the money back,” Aea held out her hand, “I’m getting the shit.”

“But…” Garbage glanced at the plate, then glanced back at Aea, “I already spent it.”

“Goddamnit Garbage, give me my money back!”

The back of the stage was directly behind them, roadies and techs scrambling to and fro as their bands arrived and left and got ready to go on. Rival Offspring wasn’t on until later, which meant there was a bit of time for them to fuck around. After, Aea would probably go to the beach or maybe tent city to catch a nap before she inevitably ended up at one rave or another that night.

The music on stage was deafening, the shrill cries of the crowd almost as loud as the kick of the bass and the thrum of the vocals.

“Look man, I totally would, but—” Garbage placed the plate on the open floor of the van and turned out his pockets. “I got some weed, some old gum, some lint, but no cash.”

So fucking useless. Why in the fuck Garbage existed was a mystery. Why in the fuck they had to run into him out of every dude who could possibly unloaded a van and tape down chords was an even bigger mystery than that.

Aea huffed and turned away from him without answering, facing the van instead. The Grape Van was an old Chevy Express cargo van with a cartoon grape painted on the side to cover up ‘free candy.’ Unfortunately, somebody—Garbage or Dani, probably—just spray painted it on the side again anyway.

Aea threw the passenger door open and hit the dash with a balled fist. The glove box fell open and a wad of parking tickets and receipts exploded out of the compartment like confetti—also Garbage’s fault.

Aea pushed the remaining paper wads out of the way and dug through the small box until her hand collided with the emergency-fund baggie. She closed her eyes and counted to ten, hoping that when she pulled it out, she would see green. On ten, the zip-lock bag was out and dangling between her fingers. Two twenties were inside instead of four.

“Garbage, what the fuck?!” She looked over her shoulder and Garbage was standing there with sunglasses sitting low on the ridge of his nose, his eyes riveted to her ass, and a fresh blunt hanging out of his stupid mouth.

Aea slammed the glovebox shut, pulled down the hem of her shorts, and whirled around to face him. Garbage pushed his sunglasses up his nose until his eyes were covered, then put both his hands on his hips with his legs spread wide like a superhero. “Yeah, so, I took the liberty of getting some more weed. You’re welcome.”

“That was emergency money!”

“Look man, if you get to spend the emergency money on liquor and ice cream, I get to spend it on weed.”

She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of telling him that it was a somewhat reasonable argument because the principal of the matter was that he’d gone into emergency money for weed without telling anybody. That was money for gas and food when they didn’t have enough cash in their wallets to start the van or keep starvation at bay.

Aea pocketed a twenty and slammed the door shut. “You’re the fucking worst. If you see Kaia and Dani, tell them I went to get alcohol.”

This was punishment for graduating with a degree in philosophy instead of physics. Aea should have listened to her parents when they told her it was a stupid idea. Fucking que sera sera, she guessed. She marched away from the van, shoulder-checking their hillbilly roadie for good measure.

“Enjoy your codeine,” she murmured.

“Will do! Enjoy your roofies!” He called to her back.

Aea huffed and buttoned her red flannel to cover the black bathing suit top underneath as she walked. Her heavy black boots flattened the sparse grass underfoot as she advanced from the back of the stage to the side. It was easy to avoid the crowd congregating at the stage by rounding them, giving the audience plenty of room to not ram into her.

She slid her aviators from the top of her head to her face and went hunting for the nearest alcohol dispensary. Aea found a stall among a large area of sand that stood independent of all other stalls and stood in line with her arms folded. Ten minutes later, when she finally got to the counter, her eyes widened behind her sunglasses.

Beer was three dollars, a mixed drink was six, and food...fuck it. Aea flashed her wristband to show she was over twenty-one, handed over the full twenty and got three beers, one mixed drink, a popsicle, and three dollars back.

Aea drained one of the beers, then another, then popped the berry-flavored frozen treat in her mouth. Dani and Kaia could drink the other two drinks and Garbage could go fuck himself.

She balanced the plastic cups between her fingers with the practiced ease of someone who used to tend a bar. Back when she was trying to figure out how to pay rent, she worked overtime serving drunk college kids that had a lot more money than she did and they still tipped like shit. It worked out though. Turns out, living in a van only required that she made enough to cover gas and food, and although they didn’t get paid an astronomical amount for shows, they made enough to cover the basics.

The payout for the festival should be enough to get a decent hotel room—a rare luxury. If they did, Garbage was sleeping outside because she was not bunking with him again.

Aea kicked up sand with her black boots as she made the journey back to the van parked with all the other dingy vans behind the stages. The big headliners had RVs and tour buses, but they were parked farther back and didn’t bother themselves with the plebs.

She made it as far as the back of the crowd before she stopped to watch. It had been a while since she was the one in the crowd and not on stage. Sometimes she missed the simplicity of throwing ten dollars away on a night of sweating and trying her best not to get crushed between bodies. Festival shows were shit for chicks, though. Last time she went to one, some drunk dude behind her wrapped his hands around her neck and wouldn’t let go until she mule-kicked him in the dick.

Something happened to people at festivals. It was like they lost their fucking minds as soon as they stepped past the border of society into hedonism, and even though these were totally normal people, they dissolved into PCP-smoking maniacs when they were let past the gates. Once, she’d seen a naked guy climb on top a row of porta-johns, screaming and swinging a knife while he ran up and down the line to avoid the police trying to catch him. They got his crazy ass when he kicked over one of the toilets and fell into the slosh that came tumbling out.

Aea tucked her drinks in the crook of her elbow to slide the popsicle from her mouth, her eyes tracking the band across the stage. Sunburned arms were lifted high, bodies jumping up and down and stirring up the middle in a mosh pit. The sun was bright and bearing down on the crowd, but the cool wind from the sea blew against them and made them forget just how hot the sun was.

Maybe she would go in, just for a minute, but then she’d have to drain Kaia and Dani's drinks as well which would be a fucking travesty. Or maybe one of them would show up and they could have fun stirring up a little chaos before they went on.

Aea, herself, was not opposed to lowering her inhibitions and acting like tomorrow didn’t exist. It was a festival, so it wasn’t like throwing a dead fish at some dude or picking a pocket was going to get her arrested this time.