Hair Trigger 2.0 Issue One

“I forgot to give you your coat back at rehearsal.”
“Thanks.”
“Did you order food for us all?” Devin asks.
“Only food. I didn’t know what kind of beers you’d want.”
“Looks like a fun place,” says Johnny, a tall Chinese kid wearing red-tinted prescription
glasses, nodding his head and settling his lanky limbs into a chair on Lee’s left, across from
Adrian. As he sits, Johnny’s face tilts into a beam of light and Lee sees the outline of his warm
eyes, his large, enthusiastic grin, and the scars on his ruddy cheeks from a serious bout with acne
during adolescence. He wears a perfectly sculpted black flattop haircut, a grand red-tinted
cowlick sticking up out of it and accenting his high forehead.
With a quick, fluid motion, Devin, the singer, lights his first cigarette, his eyes roving
carefully around the room from behind his clear, tortoise-shell glasses. His head looks quite round
against the light on the wall behind him except for his pointy chin sticking out, unshaven and
stubbly. His short, tightly curled hair and clothes are black. “I need a drink,” he says smiling
suddenly—like he always does—as if he were ashamed because he had noticed you there looking
at him, or as if saying something were some sort of mistake for which he needed to apologize.
Adrian lights a cigarette as well, looking impishly at his three band mates, his eyes blue,
green, and lively.
The waiter comes back, wondering what everyone wants to drink. “Bass, a pint,” Adrian
says, lowering his cigarette to the ashtray by laying his arm flat against the table. He gives the
cigarette a quick tap to its underside with his thumb and the ashes scatter into the air and settle
into the ashtray’s amber glass circle.
“Yeah, the same,” Devin says, his eyes flowing around the table, his voice deep, sad in a
resigned but also awkward way, as if it were always looking for something, going somewhere.
Adrian says, “Yeah, I’ll have what they’re having,” without looking up.
“What’s that you’re drinking, Bass too?” Johnny asks Lee, pointing at the pint in front of
him.
“Yeah, it’s good stuff.”
“You’ve had it before?”
“Uh-huh,” Adrian jumps in, impatiently, at once annoyed at Johnny’s indecision and smug
about knowing exactly what he wants.
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