Free Tricky Business by Dave Barry

woman—Tobin’s wife and Wal-Mart colleague, Fran, who worked in the bed-and-bath department—pounced on Johnny from behind and clubbed his skull with a commemorative Jack Daniel’s ashtray that the police later estimated at two pounds.
    That was the finale of the Boots ’n’ Chaps gig. Johnny went off in the ambulance; Herb and Fran went off with the police. Wally, Ted, and Jock packed up their equipment quickly under the baleful glares of the Boots ’n’ Chaps patrons and left, unpaid. The bar owner told Wally that Arrival would damn sure never play there again. Wally said that he was sorry to hear that, because they’d really enjoyed meeting the original cast of Deliverance. The bar owner didn’t get it.
    When Wally, Ted, and Jock got to the hospital emergency room, the nurse behind the desk told them that Johnny was still being examined. They went out to the parking lot to smoke a joint, review the evening, and reflect on their cosmic loserness as a band. Eventually, they got around to the name Arrival, which they agreed had become a marketing liability, not to mention a nagging reminder of their pathetic adolescent fantasies of wealth and fame and incomprehensible amounts of nookie.
    By the second joint, they had decided that if they were going to fail as a band, they were at least going to fail with a better name. They were considering various candidates—including “Departure,” “The Original Kings of Apathy,” “No, We Don’t Play Hip-Hop; We’re Musicians,” and “We May Suck, But We Play Better Than You Dance”—when the emergency-room nurse, whose shift had ended, appeared in the parking lot, headed for her car. She stopped a few feet from the three bandmates and looked at them. Jock, obeying a reflex developed in seventh grade, stuck the joint behind his back.
    â€œYou guys want to know about your friend?” the nurse asked.
    â€œSure,” said Wally.
    â€œHe’s OK,” said the nurse. “Scalp wound, fourteen stitches. Some contusions. Nothing serious. He can go soon.”
    â€œThat’s great,” said Wally.
    â€œI thought contusions was serious,” said Jock.
    â€œYou’re thinking concussion,” said Ted.
    â€œNo, I’m not,” said Jock, although he had been.
    â€œIt’s not serious,” said the nurse, studying Jock, who was the member of the band women were most likely to study. “It just means bruises.”
    â€œOh,” said Jock, studying the nurse in return, and noticing that she was kind of attractive, in a mature-woman, Ann-Margret-ish, potentially-nice-rack-under-that-uniform kind of way.
    â€œThat’s great,” said Wally, again. “Thanks.”
    The nurse, not leaving, kept her eyes on Jock, who still had his hand behind his back.
    â€œSo,” she said, “are you gonna offer me a hit of that?”
    Twenty minutes later, the nurse, whose name was Sandy, and who was 43, and who had learned that very afternoon that her former husband was going to marry her former Avon representative, drove off with Jock in her Toyota Camry, leaving Wally and Ted to finish the third joint.
    Finally, Wally said, “Let’s go get Johnny.”
    â€œJohnny,” said Ted, suddenly remembering Johnny. “And his contusions.”
    Wally stopped.
    â€œJohnny and the Contusions,” he said.
    They looked at each other. Then they high-fived, and Arrival was no more.
    Three weeks, one wedding, and nine bar gigs later, at 6:30 A.M., Wally was awakened by his cell phone, which he never turned off.
    â€œHello?” he said.
    â€œYou with Arrival?” said a voice.
    â€œWhat?” said Wally.
    â€œThe band,” said the voice. “On this business card, where I got this number, it says Arrival, Contemporary Music for All Occasions.”
    Wally looked at his clock radio.
    â€œIt’s six-thirty in the morning,” he