Me & The Fertile Band Part One - The Rules

I'm Jonah Kaye. I sell t-shirts.

For two years I've been the merch guy for Vicious Habit — five women, five instruments, one punk rock band that sells out every room they play. I fold the shirts, count the cash, and keep my head down. They're my bosses. I'm the furniture.

Then I get dumped. Personal reasons. Amicable. I don't talk about it, because I don't talk about things like that, especially not to five women I work for.

They talk about it, though. They talk about a lot of things I'm not supposed to hear. And apparently they've been having an argument — a specific, ongoing, very personal argument — that they've decided to settle once and for all.

They need a volunteer. Someone single. Someone discreet. Someone who won't be weird about it afterward.

They checked with my ex. My ex told them things I didn't even know she knew.

Now all five of them are standing in a green room in formation, reading me rules off a phone, and I'm holding a box of medium t-shirts and trying to figure out how my life just became something I don't have a framework for.

They picked the merch guy.