Spun.

He's there, every Friday night, for the twelve to four shift.

Of course, he's been offered the eight to twelve, the prime slot, the best exposure, but he declined. In my mind's eye, I can almost see how the conversation must have went; a polite smile, a little shrug, and a cheerful, "Nah, thanks for the offer, man, but I really am a night person, ya know? The late shift works best for me."
They have equipment for him to use there, but he always insists on bring his own. He can't seem to part with the same camouflage headset he's had since high school. There's a level of sentimentality to it, you can tell just by the way he handles them, but he'd never admit that.
"They just don't make quality stuff like this anymore," he would say when questioned. "Besides, did you see the shit they were giving me to use? The guy before me sweats so had the padding is fucking soaked through, it's disgusting!"
The best part of it, I think, is that he doesn't even do it for the money, he doesn't need to. He does it because he loves it and it makes him happy.

They're there every Friday night, just for the twelve to four shift.

They're a little flock of bone-thin bottle blondes and fake redheads, barely dressed and more than slightly drunk by the time he gets there. They have names like Heather and Tiffany and even Bambi [and good lord, why would her parents do that to her?] and they swarm the DJ booth like bees radiating towards a can of soda sitting open on a picnic table on a warm summer evening.
They giggle and they flirt with the man behind the decks, who barely glances up at them as they press their chests against the booth and try to get him to look. They don't even realize, but he's not really there. He's a million miles away, in a place only he knows, where it's just him and the music and nothing else matters.
When I bring him his drinks they glare at me, furious that some plain girl would dare to interrupt their one-sided conversations with the object of their affections. Just for a moment he comes back from that secret world of his, to take his drink from my hand and nod discreetly at his groupies, rolling his eyes.
I laugh and smile as he mouths a silent thank you – not bothering to say the words, knowing I'd never hear him over the pounding bass and the chattering of his fan club. When I walk away, he plays my song, and I have to turn back and smile at him. He winks back and sets off another round of dagger eyes and rude remarks from the women flocked around him.

I'm there every Friday night, just for the twelve to four shift.

I bring him his drinks – the ones he orders himself, the ones the bartenders know to make for him every half hour or so, because its so hot up where he is, under the lights.
I bring him his drinks and I watch him spin, so amazed that any one human being can be so in tune to the beat, like it were a part of him rather than something he was creating.
Fuck anyone who says that this isn't art.
They need to watch him, just once. Then they'd see.
Mostly, he drives me home, and we make fun of the girls who had been fawning over him all night long, laughing at the one who can't keep her balance in her stilettos and wondering when the bleach will start to make their hair fall out, and GOD, how pathetic are they?
Sometimes, when his fan club has been bringing him drinks all night – they see me do it, and assume I'm just some sad little groupie like them who got closer by being his waitress, and bring him expensive beers and shots that he doesn't really like, only drinks to be polite – he'll hand me his keys and say he'll just crash on my couch, if I don't mind.
I never do mind. It's sort of become a routine with us.
But sometimes, just sometimes, I take a cab home, alone.
Because he leaves with Heather or Bambi or Tiffany or whatever other girl managed to catch his eye that night, and I sit in the back of my cab, telling myself not to cry and trying to pretend like it doesn't even bother me.
I think of the time he crashed on my couch, and just before he passed out, he kissed me. I still wonder whether he really knew it was me, or was just thinking of one of those other girls.
I think of all the things I've said and thought about those other girls, about how sad and pathetic and skanky they were for hanging all over him.
And then I think that no matter how many times I tell myself I won't do it, and how much it hurts to be riding in that cab alone, going back to an empty apartment and wishing desperately that he were there with me, if only to pass out on my couch, in spite of all of this, I still know that next Friday night, I'll be there.
And I think, god.
How pathetic am I?