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LORI SUBLETT

Lolla

The sickly-sweet tar smell of cheap weed perfumes the humid air. My hair drips, the sweat running in uncomfortable rivulets down the length of my back. The bare skin exposed by my tank top and shorts feels dry and too tight, bypassing the normal redness that comes from Chicago in August, settling instead on a light, leathery brown. The plastic entrance bracelet sits loose on my wrist, scratchy and slick. I'll wash layers of grime, dirt, ash and exhaustion down the shower drain tonight but there will be a thick white band around my wrist where that bracelet has sat for two days already.

My sunglasses are thick and tinted dark, but they barely cut the glare as the sun bounces off the steel girders of the stage. I close my eyes to the late afternoon sun and listen to the quiet murmuring of a throng of people quivering in anticipation. My throat is raw, swallowing has become a chore I'm not accustomed to. The water bottle in my hand is empty, as are the other two I'd stashed in my backpack earlier. There's a water fountain about 20 feet to my left and a beer stand, that also serves the Sweet Leaf Tea with lemonade I've learned to crave, somewhere behind me. It doesn't matter. There's no way I'm getting to either place for the next few hours. There is no leaving, barely room to shift around. I am alone in the middle of a crowd of thousands.

I don't know if she's here yet, if she made it. I don't know if I really care.

Cage the Elephant is about to go on and they're one of the reasons we're here. This year's Lollapalooza has a heavy lineup with some amazing bands. We've seen Cage before, met them several times. It's become a thing with us, having Matt draw more and more pictures on a single t-shirt, creating a collage of random memories etched in permanent ink. I scan what I can see of the crowd, but I don't see the distinctive yellowy-orange hair of her dye-job gone wrong.

My cell phone is a heavy, pulling weight in my pocket, reminding me that I have a lifeline to my sister if I choose to use it. I pull it out and flip it open. The bright blue T-Mobile background stares at me. The screen goes dark, conserving energy; I've waited too long to do anything. I slide the outdated flip-phone she hates back in my pocket, right beside my blue plastic Metra Pass, the key to Chicago's Mass Transit.

I didn't really know what we were fighting about. I'm not sure she did either. Months of anticipation, weeks of excitement and days of forced togetherness had all blended into a maelstrom of emotions with nowhere to go but between us.

Our non-smoking hotel room had reeked of cigarette smoke and bleach. I sat on the scratchy red-striped bedspread and watched her tiny body vibrate with misplaced anger. One pale grey backpack strap slipped slowly down her arm. I watched it descend until it caught in the crook of her elbow, nowhere left to go. Her diminutive hands were clenched as tight as her jaw. She wanted to say them, the words she held on her tongue.

She just stood there, rigid and inflexible, outlined by the frame of the door. I didn't know what to say, I thought that we'd already screamed it all to each other. So, I said the only thing I could: "I don't want to fight with you."

I don't know what she was expecting from me. Clearly that wasn't it. She reached into the pocket of her shorts and withdrew two Metra Passes. She threw one at me, along with a muttered "Fuck you," lowered her bright green and blue framed sunglasses over her eyes and stormed out into the lobby. There was nowhere else for her to go. The shuttle from the hotel to the Metra station only came once an hour and there was still 20 minutes before 10 a.m.

Suddenly, I wanted to go home. I wanted to lay in my own bed, complete with the cat hair I'm sure my tabby had shed all over it in my absence. I wanted to go out and do something with someone I wasn't related to and hadn't been with every hour for the last several days. I just wanted a break. But Oklahoma City was more than 800 miles and 13 hours away. And she had the keys to the car.

I waited a bit before heading out to the lobby, trying to cool off. I might as well have waited an hour. When I got there, the shuttle had come and gone, taking my sister with it, more than ten minutes early. She hadn't said anything, stopped them, let me know. She'd left.

I wasn't going to stay in our dingy little hotel room, alone. I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that she'd gotten to me. My body buzzed with an unleashed energy looking for an outlet. And I had just the ticket.

There was an entrance to the Metra that would have been within walking distance if it hadn't been surrounded by the entire O'Hare airport. I snagged a ride with a guy that barely spoke English, though he seemed nice enough. I hopped aboard the Rosemont entrance and rode the blue-line train down the middle of the freeway to the Jackson stop.

A couple of hours after she'd stormed off and I'm here, waiting for Cage to come on. The roadies are finished setting up. Lincoln and Brad have come on stage to tune their guitars. Jared and Daniel are stage left and everyone is waiting eagerly for Matt so the show can begin. When he finally emerges from the sidelines, his face is already red and his burgundy shirt has faded purple where sweat makes it cling to his body. It doesn't matter how hot it is, they've come here to play and we've come here to rock. The ground trembles with the first pulse of the bass, rolling in swells across the flattened grass. Suddenly, it's loud and raucous and there's no standing still in this undulating wave. There's an elbow digging into my side and the chick behind me is pulling my hair but it doesn't matter. Because there's a rhythm to the chaos, underlined by the hypnotic beat of the drum and the riffs of the double guitars, and we've found it, jumping, soaring, flying on the melody. The people around me have become my new best friends; we're sharing this experience, this closeness, this utter excitement, passing it back and forth like the weed that's still circulating.

I can't hear my phone beep, there's no way I feel the vibrations. But I sneak my hand in my pocket and pull it out. It's blinking. There's a text that wasn't there a minute ago. It's got her name on it. I open the message up and read it, not the easiest thing to do while moshing in the middle of a pit slightly smaller than the size of a football stadium.

Where R U? I'm @ Budweiser watching Kaiser Chiefs. I'm thirsty.

It was as much of an apology as I was going to get. My fingers were slick with sweat, sliding slippery on the keys as I texted her back.

I'm @ Citi Stage. I think there's a Pepsi vendor on this side.

It was as much of an apology as I was going to give.

Oh. Meet me here when ur done. Bring Pepsi.

I put my phone away and dug out my digital camera. I turned the video on to record the rest of the set. She may not be here, but I wouldn't let her miss out. I knew she'd be doing the same for me with the Kaiser Chiefs.

I'd meet her at the Budweiser stage, Pepsi in hand, as soon as Cage was done and I could make it to the North End of the park, three blocks away. Then we'd head to the F.Y.E. tent, complete with t-shirt and CD cases, to meet the bands and get autographs. Until then, I'd stay here, sweating in the middle of this pit, and listen to the music that surrounded us.





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