Prolog for Heart Beat

This is the prologue to a series of stories I'm writing,1

there is some grammar issues but read on2

Nate Sandburg3

So, the way I see it, it that every story begins when a bunch of other stories combine. Stories of other people living their crazy lives magically intertwine to create a bigger story, a newer story, a different story. Well I guess this one is no different, except that is a different story. It begins with five guys, and their dream, to be the best rock band in the world, and that hasn’t happened yet so we’re still working on it. And I’m rambling.4

Something just clicked. I met The Hood when I was ten and I moved to this suburbia from the big city. My dad started a new law firm and my mom was pregnant with my little brother, Adam. I don’t know how I met Hood, he never talks, I think it was sometime around Hanukkah when I was coming out of synagogue and he pointed at me and said “Jew”. We’ve been friends ever since.5

The Hood had this little ukulele that he tried jamming metal chords on and I had a piano. When I asked for a bass for my eleventh birthday my parents got me this big violin type thing. When I showed them a picture of a bass guitar, they laughed and shrugged off my desire like they did with many things I did. I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was five and they laughed too. I’m rambling.  When Hood’s mom got him a fender strat for his tenth birthday I was insanely jealous. I managed to convince my mom that electric bass guitars aren’t for the devil and she got me one the following year. Both of us self taught, jammed, just the two of us, every day until I was fourteen, then we met Ronan. 6

Ronan worked at Betty’s Buns, a local diner in the center of town. Every Friday night they had open mike. One night we were there, “the grill dude” got up and sang “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns n Roses. We were impressed. He wanted a band, we just wanted to jam. His slut girlfriend just had his kid and left. His newborn, Brody, didn’t have a mom, instead she got three dads, four shortly after that.7

After one successful jam session that put the baby to sleep, we left my house and went to get something to eat. We were pissed that Eat Now, another local food place, moved. In its place was this new age shop called The Hippie Store. I was the only one that seemed excited about a new age store in town. I forced the other three to come in and check it out with me. To make a long story short, we went in with no money and came out with a drummer, a young one, twelve, by the name of Robin. He was a short little thing, scrawny, often the object of our ridicule, but he was amazing. We had a band. No name for it, but we had a band.8

The Hood9

Nate Sandburg is a Jew. Jew. JEW JEW JEW JEW JEW!10

Robin (Rob Tucker11

My last name is Tucker, but I am not gay. My parents were what was left of the hippie generation. By the time we were born in the mid-late 80’s, they were still potheads, still saw love as a free for all, and were still crazy. My sisters and I are triplets. I was the first born and to this day I’m the normal one. Beatnik was second and yes that is her real name. Sunshine aka Sunny, was the last.12

After my parents put down the J, they put their college skills to use and after years of slaving away in the retail industry, they bought commercial property and opened up a shop. Two years after, they moved their shop to the town we currently live in. That’s how we got here.13

Beatnik Tucker14

Except what ROBIN makes out as the REAL story is just a cut version. It sucks having your parents as hippies. Sunny and I were constantly being dressed in floral print, where as rob got his first pair of Birkenstocks when he was three. All our lunches where made of organic food, and the closest thing we ever got to sweets was graham crackers. Our parents didn’t grow up until they moved here, where as since we were “rich” they had to act like adults.15

Sunshine (Sunny) Tucker16

I liked my floral print dresses! They made a swish and looked pretty!17

Ronan Leone18

I was weeks shy of sixteen when Brody was born. My life in itself had just started. I wanted to have fun, go to concerts, get trashed, fool around. I didn’t want to be a father yet. But when Deia (pronounced Day-a) was pushing to have an abortion, I couldn’t let her. My parents where always saying “ Ronnie, there are no second chances, you live with your actions and take full responsibility of them”. Deia was going to leave me anyway, I was at the pits, I had nothing. I took full responsibility. I let her parents curse me to hell, I let her bitch about her morning sickness, and when she said she didn’t want anything to do with the baby after it was born, I had my parents sign me total custody. I lived nine months of hell prior to Brody. 19

I remember the day she was born like one would remember their favorite scene, of their favorite movie, after they watched it over and over again. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. It was pouring rain and I was working grill for the few customers that managed to stop in for lunch at Betty’s Buns. I got the phone call from Deia’s mom. She said20

“You kid is gonna be born soon you little fucker, you might wanna get your sorry ass down here!”21

So I did. I called my dad up, who must have run a bunch of red lights to get to my job in the time he did. I don’t know if he was excited or worried sick except he kept telling me he loved me the whole way to the hospital. What felt like nine hours, was nine minutes and ever other one was welcomed with an “I love you, son”. When we got there, he waited in the waiting room, I went in. I’m glad I did, though I wish I didn’t. I never felt so hated in my life. Then she was born. Seven pounds, 3 ounces of the best thing that happened to me. I took one look at her and thought “Brody” , hence her name, Rene after my mom, Leone. Brody Rene Leone.22

I haven’t seen Deia, or her family since then. I met the boys shortly after that. The full line up of the band has been together for, I think, a year now. Brody is three.23