Venus Bloodline in Vignettes

Our band name was Venus Bloodline. Since there were four of us and we were all musicians, it was inevitable. It was 1996 and I was 13. My older brother Joe had already graduated the previous year. Being mostly disagreeable, he insisted on being in charge.
Most of our songs were filled with bad 90’s rock innuendo and inevitable guitar solos. Joe was usually the front man, moving over on occasion for my brother Peter to sing a song or two. We were scheduled to play later that year for the talent show, a time which I was especially looking forward to. I thought that maybe if people saw me playing with a band, it would some how make me cooler .
It was merely weeks before, and tension between Joe and Blinkey was growing unstable. Joe always got on him for slowing the beat down, and it would cause a fight. Blinkey would get mad and leave, and practice would be over. We got a phone call that Blinkey had flipped his car into a ditch, breaking his arm. All at once that was the end of it. No talent show, no band, and I was still a loser. It must have been fate.