Stacks of instruments and worn suitcases decorated the ground around a bright yellow Volkswagen van. The sun shone bright in the sky, and a fire crackled near the van despite the sweltering summer heat.

"Just about got it," Andy said. His dark, muscular arms were coated in slick sweat, and drops of it fell off his brow and into his chin-length black hair. He handled an iron pot with a pair of tongs, and in it was a boiling concoction that shimmered silver.

"Okay," Andy said.

Snare grabbed a box full of dirt from a wooden workbench that was attached to the blue siding of Andy's home. The white-haired boy set the mold on the ground by Andy, and he poured the contents of the pot into an imprint in the dirt — the mold. When the mold was full, the molten metal formed a large peace sign in the middle of the dirt.

"How long until it cools?" Carl asked.

Andy placed the cast iron pot and tongs by the fire and wiped his brow with one of his gloved hands. He said, "Less than an hour." The boys grinned and high-fived each other.

"Let's get everything into the van, then," Sebastian suggested. They all walked through a hole in Andy's fence to the van. Andy stayed behind to unhook his makeshift aluminum forge from his father's welding torch. He regrouped with his friends and helped them load his stack of things into the beds at the back of the van. When they were finished, they all stood back and gazed on their creation.

The van had its side doors open, exposing racks of nonperishable canned food. Inside, their belongings had been stashed underneath the red-and-green checkered seats. One of them folded back into a bed. Some of their things had been stuffed into the compartments around the fold-back bed, although a modest pile of instruments had been secured with bungee cords behind the front bench seat. Some of the upholstery was worse for wear, and the checkerboard floor was peeling up in places, but to them, the van was beautiful.

Andy checked his watch, then disappeared back behind his fence. The rest of his friends remained behind.

"I can't believe this is really happening," Brent said with a grin.

"I know!" Carl said.

"We said it would happen," Sebastian said, "and it's happening."

Snare grinned beside them. He had a ball of tangled nails in his hands, and he delicately tossed it up and caught it in a rhythmic pattern. The other boys chattered on like the birds about where they were going, who could drive the van, and where their first gig would be.

Andy soon returned, holding an aluminum peace sign in his hands. He had sanded away any imperfections, and it shone almost like chrome in his hands. There were three holes in it for screws to secure it to the van with. Snare was the first to notice Andy's return.

"Hey, guys!" Snare said, pointing to Andy, who was kneeling in front of the van, rummaging through a toolbox. Carl, Sebastian and Brent immediately stopped talking and walked over to Andy along with Snare. They formed a semi-circle behind Andy and watched as he first looked through his toolbox for the correct screws, then they watched while he screwed the symbol onto the front of the van.

Andy stood up and crossed his arms when he was done.

"Wow," Brent said while he exhaled.

The yellow van sat on the heat-baked mud of Andy's yard, proudly showing off the peace sign on its nose. The boys all stood around its front, admiring their work.

"We need to get an awning to put over the door," Carl suggested, pointing to an empty rod that was meant to hold an awning.

"Yeah, we'll get that once we get some money," Sebastian said.

Snare climbed onto the top of the van, sitting on the tarp they draped over the luggage rack that held their mid-sized Marshall speakers. Andy handed his toolbox up to Snare, and he placed it under the tarp with the speakers.

"Someone drive!" Snare yelled. Sebastian and Brent looked at each other, grinned, and raced to the other side of the van. Carl and Andy climbed into the back, shutting the doors behind them. Sebastian made it to the driver's seat first and grabbed onto the steering wheel. Brent laughed and gave Sebastian a good-natured pat on the back that sent the air flowing out of his lungs. Brent climbed into the passenger seat and Sebastian climbed in, shutting the door beside him.

"Oh I couldn't drive this anyway," Brent said. "I'm not very good with these kinds of transmissions."

"You drove my car before," Sebastian said as he held in the clutch and waited for the engine to turn over.

"You musta been too messed up to notice I killed it at every stop sign."

They all laughed. The engine clunked to life, and Sebastian put it into gear and turned onto the small side street that ran by Andy's house. They could all hear Snare yelling at the top of his lungs in joy as they turned onto the main road.

After a couple miles, they had pulled over and allowed Snare to crawl into the back of the van. His hair had been windswept back into a nearly-horizontal hairstyle, and he had had a grin from ear to ear. He had immediately reached his hands into the pockets of his jeans and pulled out a dimebag and rolled up a joint that passed around the van for miles.

"Hey, uh, we need gas," Sebastian said a few minutes later, tapping on the glass that covered the gauges. Snare told him they had passed a gas station not even ten minutes before, and they turned around and, ten minutes later, pulled into the gas station where they refueled the van.

Sebastian walked into the small entrance on the side of the gas station. Most of the building was a mechanic shop, and he could see over the shelves into the garage where two men were hard at work repairing something on a golden Buick. Instead of immediately disturbing either man, Sebastian took a round through the tiny, dingy space. He grabbed a box laying on the ground and grabbed as many Cokes as it would hold. He set his box down on the dirty counter, then pulled a road atlas off of a worn wooden shelf before ringing the bell on the counter.

One of the mechanics looked up, then waved at his co-worker. They shared a couple words before the black-haired one wiped his forehead with a towel and walked through the doorway to ring up Sebastian's things.

The mechanic talked to Sebastian about how not many people came by their shop, and it had fallen on hard times. It was quite a secluded place, and Sebastian suggested posting flyers up in nearby towns to get more business.

"Where are you going?" The mechanic inquired as he typed in the amount for the last Coke in the box.

"Around," Sebastian said while he fished his wallet from his back pocket. He glanced out the window and saw Snare's silhouette in the back seat. He was holding something in his hand, then it disappeared.

"I wish I coulda done that as a kid," the mechanic said while he retrieved Sebastian's change. "The war ruined it for me."

We're not going to let the war ruin us, Sebastian thought while he thanked the mechanic. He returned to the van and distributed Cokes to all his friends, then opened up the road map. After some adjusting and turning, they found that they were near the town of Pleasant Hill.

"Let's go to Chicago," Brent said, pointing at the city's blip on the map. "They've gotta live 'n exciting music scene up there. And then we can hit Route 66 when we've gotta following."

The boys all nodded and mumbled their agreements. Sebastian took a pen and drew their route onto the map. Chicago was seven hours away by the route he drew, and they would make it there by the end of the day. After telling his friends that he needed someone to navigate him, Brent quickly ripped the map out of his hands and held it sprawled open in front of him.

"If I'm sittin' here, might as well make m'self useful," Brent said. Sebastian smiled, then sent the van back out onto the road that was scorching with June heat.

They drove for about an hour through varying states of forest and fields, and at one point, Brent parted the windshield to allow extra airflow into the stagnant van. With the wind whistling all around them, the Kittens talked about their hopes and dreams, and how wild and groovy it would be for them all to be together, hoppin' along like the Rolling Stones. They'd have as many girls as the Rolling Stones too.

"So what's the plan?" Brent eventually asked, after being uncharacteristically quiet for about a half hour. The others stopped talking and turned to Sebastian.

"Go to Chicago, settle down for a bit," Sebastian said, downshifting for a traffic light. They were passing through a small town an hour outside of Fort Wayne.

"Yeah," Brent said.

"We'll wait for the war to blow over, we'll find a place that accepts us until then, play for 'em. Get a small following, then drive across the country with a caravan of chicks 'n reporters following us to all our gigs. The Alcoholic Kittens will storm the streets of San Francisco, and we'll all be famous!"

Brent shifted in his seat, then nodded and gave Sebastian a half-smile. He was seeming to hold something back, almost like he had been thinking too much. Sebastian recognized that in Brent, and after getting the van rolling back down the open road, he turned to his friend and gave him a warm smile from behind the beads hanging from his bangs.

"If Chicago won't take us," Sebastian said, "we'll find a place that will."

The sun was still relentless when the Kittens arrived in Valparaiso, a city on the outskirts of Chicago. They had stopped for gas, and the entire band was standing outside of the van, stretching their legs and smoking cigarettes while Sebastian filled the tank. Cars drifted by on the nearby highway, and people dream walked in and out of the gas station, carrying paper bags full of alcohol and cigarettes.

The hose clicked. Sebastian replaced it, took a mental note of the price of the gas, and walked inside the gas station. It was rather nice, and more of a convenience store than the gas stations back in Dayton. There wasn't a mechanic garage attached to it, like many of them back in Ohio. He did a brief cruise through the shop, and found refrigerated Cokes at the back of the store. A man in a checkered suit was tying his shoe in front of the fridge.

"Excuse me, sir," Sebastian said. The man looked up, finished tying his shoe, and stood up. He immediately extended a hand in greeting, and Sebastian took it.

"I'm Alton Sullivan," he said. "It's a pleasure to meet you! Wow, you look like you're on your way somewhere. What're you doin' in little old Valparasio?"

"My buddies and I are passing through on our way to Chicago." He turned around and opened the freezer. Ice cold steam rolled across the dirty tile.

"Chicago? What're you going there for? No offense, but you do not look like a Chicago cat, my boy."

"We're all a band. We got a saxophone, some drums, a guitar and a singer. We do some stuff like the Rolling Stones and Beatles if you've heard 'em, an' we call ourselves The Alcoholic Kittens."

Sebastian reached into the freezer and pulled out a cardboard carrier of eight Coke bottles. The door shut beside him, and he began to walk to the cashier counter. A hand on his shoulder stopped him, and he turned around to face Sullivan.

"Hey, Kid, I own a bar, and our live music tonight cancelled," Sullivan said. "Would The Alcoholic Kittens be willing to play at KATZ Lounge?"

Sebastian felt the grin spreading on his face. Flittering nervousness filled his chest and stomach, and he could have hugged the man. Instead, he thrust his hand out and said, "Absolutely, Mister Sullivan. We would be honored!"

The dark-haired man was quick to accept the handshake, then pulled a card out of the pocket of his suit and handed it to Sebastian. It was a piece of cardstock that had been roughly cut out and typed on by an everyday typewriter. It had the address of the bar on it, and Sullivan handed Sebastian a pen to take down the gig time: seven in the evening.

They talked for a few more moments about whether or not there was a light guy or sound guy and if Mister Sullivan would have their drinks paid for that night, and whether or not they would be paid. Sullivan was quick to dismiss any ideas of payment, but the Kittens would have their drinks paid for. Sebastian decided there could be a worse place to pay for, and was happy to accept Sullivan's offer for the band to play. After promising Sullivan that they would see each other in a few hours and paying for the eight-pack of Coke, Sebastian walked outside with confident strides and stopped by his friends, who were still smoking and laughing outside the van.

"We got a gig!"

The Kittens all yelled and pushed each other, laughing and grinning like heathens until the manager ran them and their van off of the lot. They all piled in and fled the scene, lighting up a joint and filling the interior with the scent of marijuana as they passed it between each other.

"Where're we gonna stay?" Brent asked after he passed the joint to Sebastian.

"This place looks as good as any," Sebastian said, then turned into the cheap-looking motel after toking at the joint. He passed it back to Snare, who put it out and hid it with the others. They parked, and Sebastian went in and ordered a room. He returned minutes later and pulled the van out in front of their room, which was on the bottom floor of the run-down establishment.

"Who wants the room?" He asked. Brent immediately rose his hand, which was followed by Carl's. Sebastian threw the key at Brent, who nimbly caught it.

"We all gotta share the bathroom while we get ready," Sebastian said after them as they ran to open the door. Snare and Andy went to pulling luggage out from underneath the seats and out of the stow-away places, pulling combs and toothbrushes and toothpaste out of everyone's bags. Sebastian sat by with a yellow notepad in hand, scribbling down potential line-ups of their music while his friends ran in and out of the hotel room, changing clothes and combing their hair in the wildest styles.

"Will this hit it off with the ladies?" Brent asked Carl, holding his hair high above his head. Carl laughed, then tugged on his yellow jacket. He commented on how it was jackets that got the ladies, and grease in the hair — he did indeed wear his hair in a greased-back ponytail.

"What are you thinking on the lineup, Sebastian?" Snare asked. Sebastian turned his notepad toward his friend, who immediately started tapping out rhythms against the side of the van. Sebastian motioned for everyone to come around him, and they did.

"Sullivan didn't tell me how long our spot is," he said before launching into his lineup. They would open with "Good Vibrations"'s intro into "You Really Got Me", which would slow down into "Paint it Black" and "House of the Rising Sun" after Carl welcomed in the audience. They would fall into a Kittens original song, "Toking on Main Street", and end with "You're Gonna Miss Me". There were many more songs between "Toking on Main Street" and the last song, to be played depending on how long they were supposed to play.

"That sounds great," Carl said.

"Yeah, good job, Sebastian!" Brent said.

Sebastian smiled, then climbed back into the van. The rest of the Kittens piled in, and they drove around looking for KATZ Lounge. They discussed what the possible meaning for "KATZ" was while the sun set quickly on them. Snare suggested it meant "Kid At The Zoo", and since no one else could think of anything better, they decided that that was what it meant. About that time, they came across the bar itself. It was a small building crammed into a slummy residential area. They parked the van behind the building, and Sebastian went in to find Mister Sullivan while the Kittens unloaded the van.

The inside was no better than the outside. It was dirty and had only one or two people inside the dimly-lit place. Sebastian weaseled his way around a poorly-placed pool table, and knocked on the door labelled "manager". Sullivan answered it with a grimace, but immediately brightened up when he saw Sebastian's face.

"I was worried you wouldn't come!" Sullivan said.

"Hey, we keep our appointments," Sebastian said. "How long're we playin'?"

"You got until midnight. Drinks on the house, like we negotiated."

There was no light guy or sound guy. The "stage" wasn't even big enough for lights; it was just a slightly-uplifted circular step shoved off into the corner somewhere. It was right by the back door, though, and Sebastian shoved open the back door when he was done talking to Sullivan. They hauled in all their equipment, and as their time to play got closer, people started to trickle in.

While they were tuning their instruments and doing sound check with Andy as their makeshift sound guy, there were a total of twenty heads in the now smoke-filled bar, and none of them were paying attention to the Kittens. After all the instruments were tuned, Andy came on stage and grabbed his bass, tuning it by ear to the rest of their instruments.

Carl started off their first song with a strum of his guitar. Soon, the entire band was chanting, "Good vibrations." Carl started in with the lyrics, and with Andy and Snare's expert time-keeping, they slid easily into "You Really Got Me".

Heads turned while Carl and Brent's guitars screamed out the riff, with Sebastian's alto saxophone right along with them. The lively music brought one of the two women in the bar onto the small dance floor in front of the band, and she began dancing along to their tune.

"Girl you really got me goin'!" Carl yelled, his fingers flying over the freeform notes flying over the bassline. Sebastian's saxophone screamed in harmony, and Brent backed off his sixteenth notes and kept to the original score while Carl sung. Andy and Snare backed off their instruments when Brent did, leading into a small decrescendo that softened until the end of the verse. They started playing at their former volume, with Snare letting them set their own tempo by expertly accenting their trio with beats. Once the second verse was done, Snare led Andy into the next song, and the rest of the instruments followed in their back-and-forth communication of harmony.

They got quieter for "Paint it Black" and hammered the dynamics home. More and more people gathered on the dance floor in front of them, until well over half the bar was there by the end of their guitar solos in the Rolling Stones song. The volume dialed back a punch at the end of the song, but Snare still whispered to the other musicians with his hissing snare drum and quiet, steady bass notes. Sebastian played low, quiet notes on his saxophone, and the guitarists plucked small sentences at each other while. Carl leaned into the microphone.

"Hello Valparaiso, how are you tonight?" Carl asked. He got some "whoop"s from the audience. "We're The Alcoholic Kittens, and we're standin' in for whoever was supposed to be here. Here's one you should all know...!" He led the riff into "House of the Rising Sun", and the other Kittens wholeheartedly followed.

The gig went on smoothly, with people leaving and bringing more people in. By the end of the thing, Sebastian's saxophone case was full of cash and change, and the band all had sweat hanging off their hair like they had just come from a sauna. They finished grandly, with endless applause from the audience.

"Thank you, thank you! We're going to have some drinks now." Carl told the audience. They all carefully lifted their instruments from their persons and sat them on the ground around the stage. Most of their audience went and sat down, but some lingered to speak to the band. Carl and Brent ushered them and all their questions over to the bar, where they talked until closing about instruments with the band's first two fans.

Sebastian sat back, sitting by his saxophones, and sipped away at his whiskey. He still felt strange and floaty, like the music was moving through his veins. Without his saxophone, he felt like he was left without a vital communication mouthpiece. He ran his hands over the instruments' brass keys, each one clicking softly as they were touched.

music is "absolutely free" by frank zappa and the mothers of invention // cover by cartwheelsarefun