Rock All Night

94




Actually, things got a lot less grim after that.

Especially when, after my fourth shot, I decided it was a good idea to come clean and admit I’d heard her and Ryan in the kitchen.

“You BITCH!” Riley howled with laughter, and slammed back another drink. “I shoulda known. Did you hear everything we said?”

“I didn’t mean to…”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I heard you being mean to me.”

She laughed. “If I’d’a known you were listening in, I’d’a said a whole lot worse to your face.”

I did that little sideways head-bob that means, Yeah, okay, I can see that. “I was totally shocked when you agreed to do it.”

“Yeah, well…” She took another shot. “I’d do just about anything for that f*cker.”

“I didn’t realize you guys were that close.”

“Hell yeah. He’s like the older brother I always wanted but never got. After my sister, he’s probably my best friend.”

“You have a sister?”

“Yeah, but… I don’t get to see her much while I’m on tour, so it’s basically me and Ryan.”

I noticed that she raced past my question about her sister, but she was talking so fast – and I was already so drunk – that I let it slide without comment.

“When I first got to Athens, life sucked. I mean, sucked bad. I lost all my friends when I left New York. I had no f*ckin’ money, cuz I spent every last dime on the drive down. And I don’t know if you know this or not,” she said playfully, “but the chicks in Athens? Not exactly like New York. There were, like, ten lesbians in the whole f*ckin’ town, and basically all the little bi-curious college girls wanted to do was get drunk and kiss other sorority chicks. So I was gettin’ NO play at all.”

My memory of Athens – and the LGBTQ community – was slightly different. I remembered lots of crop-haired Women’s Studies majors all over the place. (Sorry to be stereotypical, crop-haired Women’s Studies majors).


But I doubted any of them were ready for the totally insane, perpetually drunk, walking tornado of an NYC punk rock drummer chick that was Riley Wojtalik.

Not that I blame them.

“So I was basically a mess,” Riley continued. “Really f*ckin’ unhappy. I probably woulda quit and gone back to New York, but Ryan was the reason I stayed.”

She laughed, and her eyes got a faraway look. “He kept bugging me to play cards. I was like, ‘Get the f*ck out of here with your cards. I came here to rock out, motherf*cker, I’m not here to play Go Fish.’ But he kept bugging me, and bugging me, and bugging me, until finally I agreed, just to shut him the f*ck up. And that was the first good night I had in Athens. We got drunk – well, I stayed drunk. He got drunk, but he’s a lightweight, kind of like you. Anyway, we were drunk and laughing and telling stories… and then we played cards every night for the next three weeks. That was before we were booking any shows. We’d practice during the day, maybe record some demos on Ryan’s equipment, and then we’d get drunk and play cards at night.” She smiled. “That was one of the best three weeks of my life.”

My heart swelled as I thought of Ryan befriending the lonely little punk rock girl. “You were the one who talked him into staying in the band, right?”

“Yeah. Well, just moving into the house is all. He was never gonna totally quit the band… he was just gonna stay in school and live with his parents and only do the band thing on the side. So, yeah, I basically guilted him into chucking the other shit. But once he went all in, that’s when things really took off.

“His parents f*ckin’ hated me for that, though. They totally blamed me for making him quit school. They love Derek – loooooove Derek, so they weren’t gonna get mad at him. Killian they’re totally panicked around cuz he’s a pothead. It’s like they think he’s gonna mug them or something, even now. But they don’t really see him as the evil f*ck who corrupted their son. Me, on the other hand… not only do they not like the whole mohawk and tattoo and lesbian thing, they think I took Ryan away from them, too. But… I can’t say I blame ‘em. If I was like them, I probably woulda blamed me, too. I’m just glad it worked out so he could say, ‘See? I did the right thing.’”

I was struck by the lack of rancor in her voice. For somebody who was so angry at the world – all of the time – she sounded remarkably philosophical. Even compassionate. I remembered her in Los Angeles, watching Ryan’s family from a distance, and what she had said:

They’re good people. They really love Ryan.

And the line that had really touched me:

It’d be cool if somebody came across the country to watch ME like that.

I hadn’t understood it at the time. But after hearing about Mr. Hopkins and the multiple foster families, I thought I was beginning to.