SIX

One evening Rich brought a hacky sack into practice. None of us had ever seen one before or even knew what it was, but his brother had just gotten back from a year at university in the states and apparently he’d gotten dead into it there so he’d brought one back for Rich.
“There’s like, five rules I think: 1) Don’t let it hit the ground 2) Don’t use your hands 3) errrrr Oh yeah! Don’t say sorry! I think that’s it actually, so maybe it’s three rules.”
I said “Huh? Don’t say sorry?” and he smiled and said “you’ll see!”

So we pushed the amps to the sides of the room and we shuffled the kit back a bit and moved the mic stands and kicked away the empty beer cans and Howard kicked one that had been serving as an ashtray for the past six months and the ash went everywhere and the carpet was damp from the beer that Rich had accidentally kicked over and there were bits of broken Pringles trodden into the carpet too but we managed to clear enough of a space. We stood in a circle and started to play hacky sack. Rich was right; it was incredibly hard not to apologise when you did a shit pass or dropped it or elbowed someone accidentally. We were pretty rubbish, but there was something compelling in it.

Tom arrived when we were a good twenty minutes into it.“What the fuck is this?” he said and he looked pissed off.
“Hacky sack!” I said, inviting him to play but he was storming over to his kit.
“Who the fuck moved my kit? Didn’t you even notice that the key to the hi-hat clutch was loose? Now it’s on the fucking floor somewhere in this shit hole!”
“Alright, alright, MATE” Howard said, “you’re the one who was fucking late anyway!”

The rest of the practice was a bit tense but we took a break in the middle where we played some more hacky sack though it was more difficult in amongst all the gear. Tom didn’t join in but sat smoking at his kit, staring at the wall.

At the end of practice I said “Hey Rich, are you bringing your guitar to hacky sack practice on Thursday!” and we all laughed apart from Tom who said “If you guys are gonna fuck around with a beanbag then I think I’ll stay at home” and Howard said
“Well I think we know who doesn’t need to bring their sticks to hacky sack practice then.”
and Rich was smirking but I felt a bit bad so I said tried to speak softly and seriously,
“Look Tom, I guess we meant to talk to you a while ago, we’re sorry it’s just...”
and Rich said “YOU SAID SORRY!! LOSE A POINT!!” and I went
“AHHHHHHH NOOOO!!!” and we all started laughing apart from Tom.