Alternative Trio Pt. 1

In the middle of my tenth grade year in high school, my family moved to a new town. My
Dad got a promotion, and we could now afford to live in an area that was a little more affluent. I
was glad to leave the redneck area I grew up in, where my style and tastes just didn’t fit in .
I had few friends, and most of them didn’t really share my interests. And what’s more, I
had no girlfriends there, and was still a virgin.

I walked into my social studies class that morning; got a few nasty looks from what looked to be the
“popular” jock crowd. I was wearing my Sonic Youth t-shirt, and heard someone comment, ‘oh great another
one of those punk rock weirdos”. I now thought that this move sure hadn’t changed anything for the better.

I found a seat in the back near two sort of goth looking girls. Both were quite pretty, but seemed like the other outcasts in the room. “Great shirt man”, said the taller thin one. “Daydream Nation is awesome. I’m Deirdre, and this is my best friend Kathy” .

Deirdre had shoulder length black hair, a red skirt with fishnet stockings and combat boots on her long, slender legs. Kathy was short, just slightly plump. Her black hair was shorter, kind of a 1920’s flapper kind of style. She wore a Bauhaus t-shirt with black jeans and red Doc Martens .

“I’m Rick, just moved here”, I said kind of shyly.

When the bell rang and class was over, they asked me what other classes I had, and when I went to lunch. Kathy said, “so you like Sonic Youth, do you play ?”

“A little”, I said. “I have a bass and an amp that my uncle gave me when he quite playing. I fool around with it from time to time”

“Cool”, said Deirdre. “Kathy writes songs and plays guitar. I play drums. We need a bass player to have like a real band. Do you want to try playing with us someday”.

“Sure”, I said. “But I’m not real good, still learning”

“Well so are we”, Kathy said. “We have fun. You are probably the only other person into punk in this stupid jock and Barbie girl school.”

It turned out that we had lunch at the same time. We were the only three people seated at a big cafeteria table. The popular crowd looked at us from time to time and snickered. But we didn’t pay much attention. We talked more about getting together and playing. We made plans to get together one evening in Kathy’s basement. Her house was a few streets over from me.

We got together and played a couple evenings each week and it was fun. At lunch one day Kathy said, “You know with the school year ending , we’ll have a lot more time for playing. We could rehearse every day while my parents are at work, and not get yelled at to turn it down and shit.