I asked out the girl who worked in the record store that only sold independently released albums. Her name was Stephanie. She said yes and I drove into the city the next night to pick her up and take her to a club where her friend's band was playing. When I pulled up in front of her building, she was waiting outside in vinyl pants and a tight-fitting pink tee shirt with a crudely illustrated kitten head and jellies on her feet to boot around her apathy as if fashion cared about her.

As usual, the car radio was tuned to the city's most popular rock station. I like most of the songs they play but she didn't seem too impressed, constantly making the proclamation that "their old stuff was so much better" whenever I asked her about the bands they were playing. She said she used to
listen to these bands but thought their new stuff was too commercial. One song came on and I asked her what she thought.

"Their old stuff is so much better," she said. "This is just cheesy pop-rock."

I pointed out that this song was off their debut album. She said that she had heard some stuff from the lead singer's old band. I said that that the lead singer didn't have an old band. He, as well as the rest of the band, were children. They only learned how to play their instruments after they got their recording contract, which lasted until the lead singer hit puberty. She said that she heard a bootleg of his mother's ultrasound from when she was pregnant with him.

"Really?" I said. "How did you get a hold of that?"

"This friend of mine," she said.

The next song had a catchy funk guitar line and a vocalist singing in a Jamaican accent. "I have this album," she said mildly surprised. "I didn't know they were playing this on the radio."

"Do you want me to turn it up?" I offered.

"If you want," she said shrugging. I looked over and she had pulled a clipboard and a pencil out of her glossy bag. She was scribbling on it as if she was crossing something out. "The Llama Kings," she said slowly to herself as she scribbled.

"Who's that?"

"That's the name of this band."

"Where are they from?" I asked

"Long Island."

After a while she got tired of the radio station and asked if she could put in a tape. "Sure," I said. "Who is it?"

"Monkey Bitch."

"Monkey Bitch," I repeated.

She nodded and pressed rewind. "Yeah. The band we're going to see tonight." In a few seconds the first song came on. It had loud guitars and a catchy pop chord progression; the same one, it seemed, as the song by the prepubescent kids. I pointed this out to her, but she didn't acknowledge me. She nodded a little bit, but that may have been to the beat of the music.

In the second verse, I heard someone trying to talk above the music. It was a woman's voice and it persisted throughout the rest of the song. Eventually, I was able to discern what she was saying: "Why are you so rude to your uncle? It's embarrassing to me. Why can't you be more polite to Morty?"

"Who is that talking?" I asked her.

"That's Roy the singer's mom."

"Where did they record this?"

"I don't know," she said still nodding her head to the beat and half staring out the window. In the next song you could hear Roy's father telling him that he should be more polite to his uncle, that he should be more considerate of others' feelings, and that he should stop being so goddamn selfish.
"This is the band we're going to see tonight?"

"Yeah," she said. "What do you think?"

"They're all right," I lied. The next song got cut off when Roy's sister spilled her Italian ice on his distortion pedal.

I paid $15 to get into the bar where Monkey Bitch was playing. Stephanie got in with a free pass that one of her friends in the band gave her. Walking through the crowd, she said hello to just about everyone we passed by, holding both their hands and giving them an air-kiss on each cheek. "Let's go to the bar," she said taking me by one hand and leading me across the room. On the way there she said hello to twenty-five more people. All of them were happy to see her and asked how things were at the store so I assumed that's where they had met her. "Ya know," she replied to all of them. Apparently, they did because they all nodded and smiled. When we arrived at the bar thirty minutes later, Stephanie gave the bartender two air-kisses and he gave her a free drink. She turned to me with the thin straw from her drink on the edge of her lower lip and looked up from beneath her lashes. "You gonna order a drink?" she asked. I looked up and past her at the bartender who was impatient with me and indifferent to the fact that I was with Stephanie.

"Uh, yeah," I said. "I'll have a Heineken." He reached under the bar by his knees, pulled out a bottle and twisted the cap off before placing it on the bar.

"Four dollars," he demanded. I looked down at Stephanie and she was still looking at me from beneath her lashes with the thin straw on her lower lip. She didn't say anything so I took a five-dollar bill out of my wallet and gave it to Stephanie's friend the bartender who took it and assumed the dollar change as his tip. A few moments later, Monkey Bitch took the stage. The bar was fairly crowded and I judged most people were there to see them by the slow non-committal push towards the stage when the band members appeared. People in the crowd swayed their shoulders and nodded their heads to the songs, even though they were fast paced and catchy. I think one of them might have been a cover of "Hang on Sloopy." The third song I recognized from the tape Stephanie played in the car. It was the one where the lead singer's mom was yelling at him about his
Uncle. I was remembering this and laughing a little bit, but then during the second verse, Roy's mom came out on stage with a microphone and started shouting at him about his Uncle.

"Why can't you be more polite to your Uncle Morty?" she nagged just like on the tape. "It's embarrassing to me." Roy had his head down and his eyes closed and he was nodding to the song's driving rhythm. The crowd seemed amused.
They clapped and made high-pitched "whooping" sounds. Roy's dad came out for the next song and yelled at him just like he did on the tape. Like Roy's mother before him, he didn't look at Roy. He came out on stage with a microphone and faced the crowd like the rest of the band. He closed his eyes when he yelled at Roy and looked deeply affected by what he was saying.
Halfway through the next song, a nine-year old girl came out. With her beaming white-toothed smile reflecting the audience's adoration, she dumped an Italian Ice on Roy's distortion pedal. Roy chased her off-stage, turned to the crowd, said "Yo, thanks for comin' out", and that was the end of their set.

I turned to Stephanie. "That's it?"

"They do another set at 12:30," she said.

"They're going to do this again in a few hours?"

She nodded and shrugged then tugged at my sleeve playfully. "You want to get out of here?" I nodded and shrugged. We walked around for a few hours, stopping in bars here and there. Stephanie knew the bartender, owner, bouncer, DJ, and every customer in each bar we stopped. Lots of air-kisses. Lots of free drinks. None were for me. Walking between bars, she told me about all the people she knew; where they worked, what bands they were in, what they pierced, who they pierced, etc. I felt naked with only a hoop in my left ear. We stopped at a newsstand to pick up a pack of gum. Stephanie knew the guy working there and he gave her the gum for free. At the coffee shop, Stephanie knew the waitresses, cook, owners, most of the busboys, and every customer sitting in the back of the restaurant. She got a free coffee and buttered bagel. I paid $4.50 for an omelet. She talked more about all her favorite bands. I had never heard of any of them but she assured me that I
would like them all. We stayed in the coffee shop until 5:00 AM, then walked back to my car. When I dropped her off, she air-kissed me good night and went inside.

That was our first date. I t might not sound like much, but I married her anyway because she's so goddamn cool. We live in the East Village and I go to see bands play every weekend. I know a lot of the people in the clubs and get an occasional free drink. One day we were driving and listening to that very same radio station from the night of our first date when Monkey Bitch suddenly came on. I was excited and pointed it out to Stephanie but she just shrugged and took out her pencil and clipboard. Four months later Monkey Bitch was a major national act and every hit single on the radio featured one of the band
member's parents yelling at them.