Read The Wild One for Free Online Page B

don’t.
    But I have to, I remind myself strictly. It’s the first step toward being the new me. The wild me.
    I’ve walked by Potstill a hundred times and never gone in. In the rich and varied landscape of Brooklyn bars and, more specifically, South Brooklyn bars, Potstill is … well, it’s a dump.
    It’s dirty, for a start, with dusty smeared windows and cracked windowsills, and not in a charming Wild West kind of way, just in a forgotten kind of way. I don’t think it’s changed since the early ’80s, at least. Most places around Gowanus have been hipsterfied by now, but Potstill is still—almost refreshingly—a total dive.
    The front part of Potstill is very narrow, opening up to a weird cavernous space at the back where Madeleine’s band is setting up. There’s a bottle-crammed bar along one wall, and the whole thing is lit by harsh fluorescent bulbs, making everyone look sallow and dull. The walls are green and entirely bare apart from a handful of askew photos of the bar in its heyday thrown up haphazardly in cheap rusted frames.
    We walk into the bar and pause, taking it all in.
    â€œWhat a dump,” comments Angie.
    â€œMaddy, shouldn’t you go help the band set up?” says Julia.
    â€œI can’t…” Suddenly, Madeleine can hardly speak. “I’m so nervous. All I can do is drink coffee, but I think I overdid it. Look.” Madeleine holds up a visibly shaking hand. “Ugh. I feel sick.”
    â€œEat some salty potato chips,” says Julia. “Sodium works to counteract the caffeine, and the carbs release serotonin to calm your adrenals. They have some in the bodega on the corner.”
    â€œIs that true?” asks Pia, as Madeleine runs off to the bodega to find potato chips.
    â€œI made it up,” says Julia. “I figure it’s probably all in her head, right? So if she thinks she’s calmer, she’ll be calmer … anyway, fuck, potato chips won’t kill her. She’s too goddamn skinny.”
    Madeleine’s band is called Spector. It does hard rock covers of girl group classics from the 1960s, you know, stuff from the Supremes and the Ronettes. Maddy was with another band, but after she stepped in to help out Spector at a gig a few months ago, they recruited her, and that was that. Kind of funny how she’s an accountant by day and a singer by night, huh? It’s like she’s leading a double life.
    â€œI feel so much better,” says Madeleine when she returns, stuffing chips in her mouth. “Maybe that was just nerves. The owner of this place, Gary, also has two bars in Williamsburg. If he likes us, we could get a regular gig with him. But I bet no one even turns up … Amy is going to be pissed. ”
    Amy is the guitar player and unofficial leader of the band, a tall girl with pink hair and black-red lipstick who scares the crap out of me. She’s been over to Rookhaven a few times to rehearse with Madeleine.
    â€œMad! Thank God! I need you!” calls Amy, and Madeleine skips back to where Amy is setting up with Hoff, a stoner/guitar player that was in Maddy’s old band too, and Drum, their imaginatively nicknamed drummer.
    â€œWhere the hell is the bartender?” says Angie, sitting down on a rickety barstool. “And how shitty is this joint?”
    â€œVery,” says Julia, taking a seat next to her and pulling a mismatched stool over for me. “Shitty McShitterson.”
    Looking around, I frown. I don’t think it’s that shitty. The actual bar itself, you know, where the drinks are mixed, is kind of cool. Very old but beautiful wood, with cracked varnish worn down from years of drinking. It’s the crappy green walls and the falling-down plasterboard ceiling that’s the real problem. It’s just a bit dirty, and not cozy or welcoming. And it’s too hot and the lighting is just way too bright and white to flatter