Snickers reverberated from the corner room of the buffet room where Fieldy, Head, and David sat, trying to enjoy their breakfast. The manager of the catering service for the tour sat feet away, seemingly immersed in a newspaper. He wasn’t eating the food: not a good sign. Head and Fieldy noticed the same thing, and pointed it out. David told them to stop talking shit. He was hungry as hell from running the treadmill at five this morning. And not to mention kinda grumpy. Head and Fieldy were used to it, and so simply shrugged and tried to enjoy their meals.

"Is it just me, or do these potatoes taste like cum?"

"Huh?"

"What? Cum? What?" Fieldy asked, laughing and looking down at his plate.

"I said, these potatoes taste like fucking cum, man. Argh." Head tried the potatoes again, and winced at the coppery aftertaste. It had an uncanny likeness to—

"Huh?" Fieldy’s eyes darkened. "And just how do know what cum tastes like?"

Head looked them both straight in the eye as Fieldy grinned and David yawned.

"I don’t know…it’s just—creamy, that’s all," Head informed as lightly as he could. He concentrated on his potatoes; moved them around with his fork, searching for fluid or something to explain the taste.

They both looked at him doubtfully.

Head glanced up, saw them staring, and said, "It’s none of your fucking business how I know."

They continued to look at him doubtfully.

Might as well tell ‘em. "Well, when I was a kid…I experimented."

"WHAT?" Fieldy bellowed.

Head shook his head fast and held a hand up to shut Fieldy up, his braids whipping. Everyone was staring at them, and the three waited for everyone to return to their food. Head simply looked back at them both and said, "Come on, guys. Don’t tell me that you’ve never done yoga naked or anything like that—"

"Oh please. That’s quite enough."

Head grinned. "—I got real flexible." Shrug. "You wanted an explanation—"

"I think I’m going to be sick," Fieldy spurted. David was laughing. Head got serious again after they both stopped. "And these potatoes taste just like it. Swear to God. I mean, home fries should taste like home fries. I’m telling you: someone jerked off in these. See? This one’s a little mushed…"

"Oh, guh-ross, man!" David exclaimed as they all exploded in another fit of laughter. The manager of the buffet table remained transfixed. Head wanted to throw a potato at him. Almost did, until David asked him if it were just a joke. After his workouts he got as hungry as a racehorse, and the potatoes looked mighty tasty.

"I’m not kidding. I wish I were. I might just have fucking herpes now from eating my breakfast. That just ain’t fucking right." He looked around him as he pushed aside his plate and crossed his arms over his thin chest. He swiped his tongue over his teeth, and finally lit a cigarette when the taste would not go away. He hated sitting in shitty lockers, eating shitty food, and waiting for the time to pass just to play for an hour every night. Playing was all good, but the rest of it sucked.

It was hard to be on tour. Especially now that he had a little girl named Jennea. He had been on tour when she was born, but during the nine months he had been home he became very close to her. They looked exactly the same when she smiled. As he thought of her he reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture of her. And him. Sharing the same smile as they looked into the camera.

He would give anything to see her again.

But argh, that taste in his mouth. It tasted like meat juice in there, even as he puffed on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud. Nothing quite went right for Head. Ever. People thought that he was some fucking big shot, but he himself has said openly, "I’m not a rock god. I’m just some fat kid who started playing guitar and ended up here." He had gotten here with a lot of hard work. Part of the reason that he was so good was because as a kid he was the biggest loser ever, and he had a lot of free time on his hands to practice. That’s all him Fieldy, and Munky did. Practice. All their lives.

It was hard work. But it was sweet when the people who had called him a faget in high school were moshing to his songs and calling him a god. Who woulda known that a band named after a vegetable would change the world of music forever. And become millionaires in the process.

"Oh shit—uh, fuck—oggh, he’s not kidding!" Fieldy said as the tainted potatoes swished in his mouth. David’s dark eyebrows lifted as Head burst into laughter. "Oh, holy fuck—I think I’m gonna puke—"

"I told you. You wouldn’t believe me. I told you."

David took a double-take between Fieldy and Head, and gagged as half-processed cum/potatoes reappeared back onto Fieldy’s plate. Fieldy threw up until the buffet meal was a myriad of liquid food. David turned positively green. He decided he could wait until lunch to eat.

"Hey! Come here!" Fieldy waved over the buffet manager. Carefully, the manager folded his newspaper—buying time—and reluctantly approached the table where the three of them sat. Fieldy stood up and pointed to his food. "You see that? I hope you know that your potatoes taste like ass! I want this buffet closed right now! Head, can I--?"

"Sure, man." Fieldy had quit smoking years ago, but he took a cigarette from Head.

As a few large men covered in tattoos and body piercings hauled the manager away, Fieldy excused himself. He was going to get a hepatitis shot. And maybe brush his teeth while he was at it.

David decided to, too, even though he hadn’t even tried the potatoes. He was no longer curious.

Head watched in contemplative silence as he moved through his pack and as the buffet people were slowly commissioned to stop serving food. He looked at the guys serving the food and wondered despite himself whose juices it had been. He shuddered. There was only one girl serving food in the buffet line…She was hot…

Head was very faithful to his wife. Throughout the entire tour he loved her, held his vows to her dear as he turned down every offer, every day. Sometimes it was hard. He loved his wife, Rebekkah, more than he loved anyone else in the world. She was his everything. He could imagine her short blonde hair, her wonderful body…

He told himself to stop. It was too early in the morning to be thinking about that. He was usually good at forgetting her for the duration of the day. It was just when night came—and his dilated eyes glanced at the blank walls of the hotel, or the Kodaks of her had pasted to that walls of his cubby--that his yearnings surfaced. He had to dispense them himself.

Yep. Being on tour sucked for more than one reason.

Munky meandered to the corner where Head sat with a scarcely-filled plate. Last night had been a turmoil of despair, an unending oblivion from which there was no escape. That night in his cubby he had cried on and off, as he drifted into empty sleep, only to be startled awake by unfitting nightmares. Some of them were of him with other women, which he never felt guilty about. Until now. His eyes sagged; drooping dreadlocks scratched his face and morning stubble. This morning he hadn’t bothered to shave, wash, or brush his teeth. He had just thrown his clothes on and caught the buffet before it closed. He thought it a bit odd that the buffet would close at nine-thirty, but he didn’t honestly care whether he ate. He could only care about Kaitlin. If he died, he wouldn’t care.

And the scary thing was that, perhaps, neither would she. Their relationship was up for grabs ever since that fucking phone call. He had no idea where they stood now, had no idea where they were headed. If she left him, he would have no one.

Jimmy would know why every woman wanted him. Jon had divorced his wife about a year ago because he wanted other women. Sure, he still a got a lot of ass. That wasn’t the problem. It was just that every young woman he got knew how he was, knew how they thought he was: they didn’t know the real Jon. They knew the Jon they saw onstage, in interviews. They saw the intelligent and troubled young man. They didn’t see him in his darkest moments, when he hit women and drank his own puke and asked the other band members to—in his darkest moments—

Out of the corner of his eye, Head watched Munky. The words lingered on his lips, just out of Head’s reach.

"I think Kaitlin and I are breaking up. I mean, I fucked up real bad."

"What did you do?" This was news.

Munky dropped his fork, and it clattered into the tainted potatoes. He held his hand on his forehead, sighed, as the breakfast goers slowly migrated from the cafeteria to set up for the performance that night. Head read the fatigue and sorrow in his eyes. A quiet hum had replaced the dull roar of speech as people left, and so Head told him to meet him in the dressing room in five minutes. There they could split a couple of forties and talk in private.

Munky wasn’t late.

He nearly finished his first beer in the first swallow; the next one was close behind. A bit light-headed, he took a third beer and snuggled it like a lover as he leaned into the couch. Head watched him the entire time in odd silence as the fragrant smell of B.O. from their various stage outfits filled his nostrils with their reek. They sat on the leather couch in the middle of it all; there was a row of lockers set up, each one decorated with Korn memorabilia. Munky had a beanie baby named "Munky" taped to his, and Head had an official cartoon decal of himself on his; the other members of the band had their own identification. Before their feet was a neutral, knotted gray rug and to their left was where Jon changed privately. He had a squared-off space for himself as he changed in and out of his "Tommy Lee Short-Shorts" and Puma skirt, because he was so fucking paranoid; he couldn’t be around a lot of people. Not even around his own band members anymore. Besides, he hated the way he felt when the others asked him to go away when they dressed…

On the outside of the room read a neon yellow sign with the words:

BUTTSEXY

Head’s idea of humor.

"Me and Kaitlin are breaking up because I got drunk and cheated on her," Munky choked after another swig.

"What?!" was Head’s initial reaction. And then came the thought, looking at Munky, torn, Oh God Oh God, Rebekkah, I hope this never happens to me. I hope I never fuck up and give in…

"You heard me."

He had, and Head felt his brother’s pain as it seeped into the room, dispensing all repulsive smells with the bittersweet taste of self-despise. Munky hated himself, and for more than a couple of seconds, Head hated him, too. She was such a sweet girl. She had given up everything for Munky. They had been high school sweethearts, and she had turned down a full scholarship at Harvard to sleep in a garage with him while he struggled to get their band off the ground. The two simply couldn’t get enough of each other: it was as simple as that. Ever since the moment they first met, they were hugging, kissing, planning, loving. They were more true to each other—with the playfulness of best friends and the passion of lovers—than anyone Head had ever seen.

Jimmy was taken with her ever since he first saw her. He wouldn’t shut up about the new girl that roamed the hall aimlessly on the first day of junior year. She had stopped to ask him where the Home Ec room was, and he had told her…oh God, had he told her!! Head would never forget the light in his eyes. The yearning in his eyes for a love he could never guess at. A love Head had told him of, a love that Head had experienced once before. Jimmy had gotten that love. He had thrown it all away for some cheap crackwhore and a six-pack of Bud Light.

Goddamit, what a fucking loser.

"You called her and told her this."

"Yeah. That’s why I was so fucked up last night."

"You were stupid," Head insisted, quite coldly. "You should have told her face-to-face. It’s bad enough when she freaks. You don’t give people time to plan how they’re going to freak."

Munky’s dark eyebrows cringed at Head’s bitter words. He stood up and slammed the empty Bud Light onto the table with a hard smack. "Fine. I thought I could come and talk to you, man. But you’re just being an asshole. You don’t even know how I feel right now—"

"—Yeah, I do."

"Screw you," Munky said as his voice melted into a high whine and he covered his eyes with his hand. As he turned he felt Head’s large, boxy hand on his shoulder. Jimmy hugged Brian. The contact was simple and direct, an act between two friends, but it was so much more than that. It was exactly what they both needed…

They pulled away from each other, looked away casually. Munky wiped his clammy hands against the back of his tan cargos. He looked up when Head said, "You know, if you guys really love each other and you really want to change it you can probably pull through." Another convincing pat.

"You really think so?" His eyes were bottomless, hopeful.

"Well, yeah." Head was a good liar.