deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 3: the new guy

One of the things that Sam and her parents had gotten for herself was a phone for the kitchen. Once hooked up to the outlet there on the wall next to the stove, she made a note to herself to head on down to Frank and Emile's apartments for their phone numbers. There wasn't much they could bring into her apartment, nor could they find much for her at the time being, but as Ruben put it, it was enough to get her started and to make the place all the more like home.
"At least you have a place where you can sit down now," Esmé pointed as she took a seat on the end of the small soft blue couch which they had pushed against the wall right next to the entrance of the kitchen.
"And some stuff to eat, too," Sam added as she took her seat next to her mother. Esmé put her arm around her and sighed through her nose. Ruben then stumbled into the room with two water bottles in one hand and a single bottle in the other hand; he handed the two to them before he took a seat to the left of Sam.
"I'm glad we're in New York at the moment," he remarked as he unscrewed the cap from the bottle and took a sip from it.
"I am, too," Esmé added, "lots to eat around here."
"Lots to eat and everything is close by, too... I was thinking of driving somewhere but I think the three of us can take a walk down the block for a bite of dinner and then—" He turned to Sam right next to him there on the couch.
"—your mom and I'll head on back to the hotel for the night."
"Okay, Daddy," she told him. Indeed, the family remained there for a few moments before they returned to their feet and made their way downstairs back to the front door, and they headed out to the blustery night. The biting New York cold was going to be the biggest adjustment for Sam, but she knew she could live with it all. It was what she wanted, and everything she could ever possibly ask for.
Come midnight and after their dinner, Ruben and Esmé gave her hugs good night and then returned to their car. Sam saw them off right as the first snow flurries began drifting down from the orange sky overhead.
Actual clear cut seasons, compared to the dry as a bone nice days making up the West Coast.
She knew it was getting late, and thus there was no way she could talk to Frank and Emile at that moment. She returned to her new home and crawled under the warm covers for the night. The second she closed her eyes, the memory of the man with the bright white stripe in his hair appeared right before her. He was a bit more faint but she did recognize his hair and his big frightened eyes staring back at her.
And yet she wasn't afraid of him anymore: she kept her eyes closed and stared at him straight on. Like comforting a scared boy.
And even with him there, within time, she fell asleep. Unlike that previous night, she slept all the way through to the gray morning night. She awoke feeling refreshed and ready to face on the day ahead. She sat upright in bed and rose her arms high above her head.
Some breakfast and a cup of coffee, and then on down to Frank and Emile's places for their numbers. Once she walked away from Emile's apartment, and onward to the end of the hallway, the door swung open and Frank poked his head out right then and there. His hair appeared wet and he smelled like fresh powder.
"Hey!" he greeted her.
"Hey, I was just about to knock on your door and ask for your number," she said in a single breath.
"What you want my number for—you wanna hit me up in the middle of the night?" he teased her with a grin on his face.
"Oh, you know—just to have you at arm's length and whatnot. You know, so I don't have to walk on down from my apartment if I wanna talk to you about something."
"Makes sense," he said with a raise of his eyebrows and a nod of his head. He gestured her to come on into his apartment; she spotted a heavy black burlap guitar case leaned against the back of his sofa. And she put two and two together right there.
"Are you headed out somewhere?" she asked him as he scribbled his number onto a pad of lined paper with a little black pen.
"Yeah, I'm goin' to rehearsal down in Manhattan at the moment—well, I shouldn't say at the moment. It's going to take an hour to get down there. Charlie offered to drive me there because he lives around the corner here, but I told him we could take the subway down there."
"Charlie's coming over?"
"Yeah—he'll be here in..." He peered down at his black leather wristwatch. "...like any minute now." Careful to keep the paper pristine, Frank separated that single note from the notepad and folded it inward a bit to emphasize his phone number. He handed it to her with his one hand, and he tucked the pen into his coat pocket with his other hand.
"Would you like to meet him?" he offered her.
"I'd love to!"
"Also, did you eat something already?" he asked her.
"I did, yeah—I think my parents won't be coming until quite a bit later. Why? What ya wanna do?"
"Well, I figured that... since you're fully dressed, you could come along and hang out with us if you want to."
"I'd love to—I'd have to grab my coat real quick, though."
"Okay, well, you better hustle. Like I said, he'll be here like any given second."
Sam thanked him as she took the paper and held it out before her like she was holding a fabergé egg, all the way back up to her place to fetch her big black heavy peacoat, her boots, and her gloves. She locked the front door when Frank's voice floated up the stairwell. She walked at a brisk pace towards the top of the stairs to see him standing next to another guy with a head of big black curls and a little cleft in his rounded chin. They both watched her hold onto the banister and make her way towards them.
The guy on the left ran his fingers through the mop of curls crowning his head; his beady brown eyes locked onto her with each and every step. He towered over her and yet she grinned at him like he was a good friend she had known for years.
"Sam, this is my uncle brother Charlie," Frank introduced her, to which she giggled at the words "uncle brother."
"So you're the infamous artist," Charlie followed up with a point to her; he spoke with a little bit of a lisp and a soft voice.
"And so are you," she retorted. "I'd like to see some of your work."
"And I hope I have the chance to see some of yours at some point. Anyways, we're headed on down to Manhattan—Frankie doesn't really want to drive and I don't really blame him for it, either."
"So—the subway?" Sam suggested as she reached under her coat to fix the strap on her purse.
"It goes anywhere 'round here," Frank declared as he buttoned his coat up to his chin and rubbed his hands together. Charlie adjusted his gloves and then he extended his hand to the doorknob.
The three of them were met with the sharp, stinging cold wind accompanied with the first snow flurries of the incoming blizzard. Sam bowed her head into her coat collar to protect her chin and neck. Frank and Charlie huddled up on either side of her to keep her warm. She stared straight ahead, right down the block, and she spotted an iron wrought fence on the sidewalk.
"Is that a subway right there?" she asked them over the roar of the wind and the surrounding traffic.
"That's it right there!" Frank declared. They crossed the street from the corner and kept going on towards that fence in question; they came closer and Sam spotted a cement staircase right before them. They descended the steps into the terminal, which smelled of cleaner and cigarettes. Sam wrinkled her nose at the smell but she knew it was part of the deal of living in New York City.
Within time, the three of them stood on the platform in anticipation of the next subway. Sam shivered and kept her hands tucked in her coat pockets. The silvery train rolled up in front of them and screeched to a halt on those pitch black rails down below. The double doors in front of them squeaked open and the three of them bustled their way into the car; Frank lunged for the firm orange canvas seat next to the door, and then Sam and Charlie followed suit onto the bench. A few more people boarded after them, and then the doors slid shut with a soft squeak.
Charlie, who had taken his seat to the right of her, turned his attention to her.
"So, you work part time, or plan on going to school?" he asked her as he ran his fingers through his hair again.
"Well, not really," she confessed, "I really moved here to start a new chapter for myself, but I think going to school might be interesting, though."
"Well, you gotta live here for six months before you can sign up for it," he explained, "although I say go for it within the next few days so you can get the grants and whatnot for the autumn this year. I know that 'cause Frankie tried to go to school a couple of years ago so we all looked into that."
"Winter's just barely started," she pointed out.
"Exactly! So you can live here and gain some seniority, because I'd like to see you walking around a college campus of sorts. You know, it being the whole brave new world sorta thing and everything."
"Hey, Char," Frank called to him over the hum of the subway, "did you bring your pencils with you to the rehearsal space?"
"I always do," Charlie flatly replied. "You know I always do."
"Just makin' sure, y'know."
"When you said you met an artist and that she lives upstairs from you, you know I had to bring 'em with me when we got back to the space. We thought we were going to meet her."
"And here we are," Frank proclaimed with a gesture of his hands in front of him.
Sam glanced back and forth between the two of them. They might as well have been brothers, and she could sense that they argued like a couple of siblings just from sitting there in between the two of them. She sighed through her nose and leaned back next to Charlie, who closed his coat to keep the chill of the subway off of his neck and collar bones.
"It's kind of a long way down to Manhattan from the Bronx," Frank explained to her, "like sometimes—when he and I would go down that way in my mom's—his older sister's—car, we always saw it as a little road trip of sorts." He leaned forward to look at Charlie.
"Remember that? When we were like ten years old, Mom would drive us down to Manhattan and we acted like it was an adventure?"
"Oh, yeah! You and I were like peasants, like Hobbits, a couple of travelers, and she was the black knightess, or something like that. I don't remember the whole shtick, but it was this whole fantasy world we came up with together. It was real cool, too!"
"I remember Kiss was in it, too," Frank recalled, which brought a laugh out of Sam.
"Typical kids back then," Charlie followed up with a shake of his head, "we were all into Kiss as if they were going out of style."
"Remember when Mom helped us paint our faces with the black and white make up?" Frank laughed.
"Oh, yeah, and she put the black star over her eye!" Charlie gestured over his right eye. Sam found herself glancing back and forth between these two guys, these two pseudo brothers, and she could only wonder about the rehearsal space they had set up at down the line.
Indeed, the trip down to Manhattan was a long one: every so often, they arrived at a terminal, which shone its bright yellow lights through the windows before them, and because of that, they spent what felt like an eternity on the subway train. But she was more than elated to be there in between them.
"So there's Joey," Frank started again at one point, "you already met him."
"Of course," she replied with a smile on her face.
"There's also Scott and Danny, our guitarists—founding and lead in that respective order."
"You mean rhythm guitarist," Charlie corrected him.
"Right."
Sam giggled at Frank, who then sighed through his nose and bowed his head as if in shame. He then rose his head, right in time for a light above their heads to show them their next stop, right into the heart of Manhattan.
"Hey, that's us!" he proclaimed with a gesture to the light.
"This one's us?" Sam's face lit up. "Oh, boy!"
The three of them stood to their feet in unison; she clung to one of the rungs overhead to steady herself. With her other hand, she held onto the strap of her purse. The butterflies danced about her stomach as the train slowed to a stop. Frank hung close to her to steady himself. Charlie almost lost his balance but he caught himself on the pole in between them.
The doors next to them squeaked open and they bustled out of there and onto the platform; she almost ran into the little Asian woman in front of her but she caught herself right on the steady concrete. Frank and Charlie gathered behind her; the latter ran his fingers through his thick curls again.
"So which way do we go?" she asked them, to which Frank raised a finger and gestured for her to follow him. She spotted a smooth tiled staircase to their right; it led them outside to the vast block, lined with neon lights and big bold colors and skyscrapers which rose strong and high over their heads.
And then she realized they were a block away from Time Square.
"Oh, my God," she muttered to herself.
"Gorgeous, isn't it?" Frank remarked to her with a grin on his face.
"Stunning," she told him.
"We're right over here, Sam I am," Charlie declared; she followed his point to the brick building across the vast dark street. They peered both ways first and then hustled across the pavement to the sidewalk on the other side. A lot like Los Angeles, but there was something else. Frank pushed the door open first and held it for her and also Charlie.
Sam was met with a hallway, the left side of which in turn took them to a vast room; at the end of the corridor stood a door and something that resembled a water fountain. A short man with long dark hair and thick straight eyebrows emerged from the room on the left.
"Hey, fellas, Frank and Charlie are here!" he called back into the room in a big Queens accent; he returned to them, and then he dropped his gaze to Sam and his face softened. "With a girl," he added with a slight grin.
"Something you don't see often?" she asked him as she eyed his Judge Dredd shirt, baggy black jeans, and big scuffed Doc Martens.
"In our crowds, not really," he confessed.
"Sam, this is our man, Scott," Charlie introduced him, and Scott extended his hand towards her.
"Samantha," she told him, "but I go by Sam, though. Or Sam I am as they—" She nodded back to Frank and Charlie. "—like to call me."
"Sam I am, I like you already," Scott declared as they shook hands; his grip was firm and strong, but not overly so.
"She's moved here all the way from sunny California," Frank added.
"California! I'd like to tour over that way some day," said Scott and he ran his fingers through his dark hair.
"I actually lived in Carson City, Nevada for a few years before I came here, though," she clarified, "but I grew up near the L.A. area."
"You should fit right in here then." Those thick dark eyebrows only accentuated the smile on his face. Joey emerged from the room behind him in a little black fitted leather jacket, snug black jeans, and black, tightly laced Chuck Taylors; a short guy with a head of smooth brown hair joined him.
"Hey, there she is!" Joey declared with a little break in his voice, and a twinkle emerged in his brown eyes. Sam had her eye on the guy behind him: he had a feathery crown of hair atop his head and brilliant hazel eyes that seemed to slice right through her. She thought back to the man in her dream and yet she knew it wasn't him.
"You must be Danny," she said with a nod of her head.
"The amazing Dan Spitz." Joey put his arm around him which brought him close to his body.
"I wouldn't say that," he said with a shy little smile and a slight blush on his face.
"You are amazing, Danny," Frank insisted, and he turned to Sam with a twinkle in his eye. "You should hear his guitar tracks on the new record."
"I'm more than eager to hear!" she declared.
"We're just about there with it," Scott told her. "Joey just has to put down the rest of the vocals and then it goes into mastering and mixing, and then it goes out to the world." And then his expression turned serious. "Now since you're here, you've gotta promise us you won't tell anyone about this. Like we're under agreement to not share these sorts of things with the outside world. But since you're here with us, you've gotta keep that promise, too."
"Of course," she said, "in fact, you wanna know something? I'll take secrets to the grave with me."
"That's—fantastic," Joey remarked as he let go of Dan.
"Uh, yeah," Charlie added.
"Alright, so—I say we show her the ace up our sleeve," Scott concluded with a flick of his hair back from his neck. He then led them into the vast room, which Sam soon realized was where they jammed together: tucked in the far corner of the room was the drum kit and a tower of speakers stacked on top of each other. The top two speakers had camouflage covers tacked onto the fronts; next to those stood a rack of guitars much like the one in Frank's apartment. And then next to that, there was a pair of bass guitars rested upon stands. Right in the middle of the floor was a microphone stand.
She turned her head to find Charlie taking out a pair of pale wooden drum sticks from the inside pocket of his jacket. He ducked behind the drum kit: the crown of his dark hair rose up over the toms and highest cymbals. Scott scurried over to the rack for one of the guitars, an ivory white flying V with the word "NOT!" inscribed on the body; Dan took another guitar for himself. Before Frank picked out one for himself, he turned to Sam.
"Been meaning to ask you this—how old are you, by the way?" He lowered his voice to a low tone so none of them could hear him.
"I'm twenty as of the twenty first," she said, "last Wednesday."
"Oh, cool! Dan turned twenty two just yesterday. I'll be twenty in July, and Joey turned twenty four back in October."
"Aw, so we're all kids," she remarked.
"Every last one of us," he added, and he lunged for the bass closest to him. He slung it over his head and shoulder, and lowered it down to his waist. Joey stepped up to the microphone.
"Is this thing on?" he asked into the gray head: his otherwise soft voice echoed through the room.
"You might wanna stand back," Scott advised her. "This is gonna be loud."
Joey pushed back a few locks of his jet black curls from his neck and his full face, and then he slipped his thumb into the belt loop of his jeans, the one closest to his hip. He cleared his throat and closed his eyes.
"You might wanna close the door, too," Dan added, and she leaned to the right to close the door. Locked inside with the five of them. Scott then plucked the strings of his guitar at a quick pace. Loud and crunchy, so loud in fact that Sam backed up to the wall behind her.
Dan then followed suit behind Scott's playing, followed by Frank: the bass was big and full in tone, too big for that room, and so big in fact that it made her bones rattle. It felt like she was being tickled from the inside. Charlie's drums thumped inside of her chest and her stomach.
Dan's guitar shrieked so loud that she brought her hands closer to the sides of her heads. Joey bowed his head and gripped onto the microphone with his right hand; he held onto the stand with his left.
"White coats to bind me, out of control..." His voice was high and soaring, quite the dissonance from his soft upstate drawl. And yet it was exhilarating and smooth, almost operatic. He was obviously made to sing. "I live alone inside my mind... world of confusion, air filled with noise... who says that my life's such a crime?"
She brought her hand to her chest because his voice was such a force in and of itself, such a dissonance compared to his little slender, lanky body. A big powerful voice to contrast with such ferocious sounding music. He held the mic stand into his hip and took a step forward. His brown eyes gazed right back at her.
"Trapped in this nightmare, I wish I'd wake... as my whole life begins to shake." His vibrato was smooth, almost delicate. "Four walls surround me, an empty gaze... I can't find my way outta this maze. And I don't care, fall in, fall out..." She watched his left hand move in closer to his stomach.
"Gone without a doubt—"
Frank and Scott followed up with "help me!" in a synchronized shout.
"I can't take the blame, they don't feel the shame..." He started laughing at the sight of her. Scott and Dan set their hands down on the strings of their guitars to silence them. Frank kept going a little bit with the bass until he looked on at her, too.
"You okay?" Scott called to her.
"Yeah—" Sam breathed out with her hand still on her chest. "Oh my god."
"Told ya it was gonna be loud," Joey told her through his microphone.
"He's a bomb singer, isn't he?" Frank called to her.
"He's amazing!" she declared. "Just a gorgeous voice!"
"Aw, shucks, I try my best," Joey said with a shrug of his shoulders. "It's what I get for wantin' to be like Steve Perry from Journey."
"Hey, Sam!" Charlie called out to her, and he gestured for her to come on over to him.
She padded across the floor, past Joey, Dan, and Frank, to find Charlie stooped behind the speakers for something. She stood right behind his rear end, and he peered back to her.
"There are some earplugs back here," he told her, "I can't really reach 'em, though."
"You want some girly hands to help you?" she teased him.
"Yes, please!" He ducked out of the way for her.
"Right under there," he told her.
"Under here?" She knelt down on the carpet and reached for the box of orange ear plugs underneath the speakers.
"You see it?" he asked her.
"Yeah—" She grunted inside of her throat, and her fingers brushed against the edge of the box. She could feel him right over her body. She held onto the rim with her finger tips. His breath spread across her neck.
"Charlie..." she muttered to him.
"Huh?"
He peered down at their bodies. His hips hung close to her lower back. He kept one hand pressed onto the wall, right next to her side. If he moved his hand in closer, he would have touched her. His wrist remained right over her hip bone.
"Oh—sorry." He backed off to let her back up. She took the box out of its hiding place, and then opened it for a pair of those orange ear plugs.
"Want some help with those?" Scott offered her.
"I got it," she promised him as she held onto the rim of her left ear and slipped in one, and followed it with her right ear. Charlie had climbed to his feet and hung right before her face: the crotch of his jeans was right over her head.
"Charlie!" she said in a loud voice.
"Huh?"
They held still for a second, when Charlie backed off a bit and held out his hand for her. She stood to her feet and adjusted the plugs in her ears.
"Let's try this again," Joey sounded as though he stood down the block from them. Sam hurried back to the other side of the room and stood with her back to the wall once again. They tried it again and that time she held onto the strap of her purse.
Even with the ear plugs, she could hear them perfect, especially when Joey reached the chorus: "it's a madhouse!"
Within time and the end, she found herself singing it with him. He banged his head a bit so his black curls tossed about like the tentacles of an octopus; and by the song's end, he bowed down onto his knees and extended his arm for her. She ran towards him and took out the ear plugs all the while: even though the room was quiet again, her ears whirred and stung with the contrast.
"Oh, my god, that was amazing!" she exclaimed.
"That's gonna be our first single," Scott told her as he slung the guitar strap over his head again.
"I gotta put the vocals down for that," Joey added, "I also need a li'l help up." Before Sam could give him a hand, Scott reached over and helped him onto his feet.
"I think Jon might be here," Charlie warned them, to which he put his coat back on and picked up his drum sticks.
"Jon, our manager," Frank clarified for her as he returned his bass to the rack.
"Yeah, I wouldn't wanna be caught in here," said Scott; he led them out of there and back into the hallway. Dan closed the door behind them, and it took her a second to realize they were still alone.
"Guess Jon's not here," Charlie concluded as he flicked a lock of hair back from his face.
"I don't think we were supposed to be in there anyway," Scott pointed out. He then turned to Sam next to him. "You hungry?"
"I am, yeah."
"This room over here has a little hot plate and a fridge—although, unless you're willing to wait, Marsha—Jon's wife—can make us something to eat later on."
"I think I can wait," she assured him with a nod of her head.
"I could use a drink of water, though," said Joey with a lick of his lips. He headed on over to the next room, and Scott followed, and that was when Sam caught a glimpse of a few posters on the wall. The one closest to her showed off five guys, each with long dark hair themselves. They looked like the kind of band that would jam alongside them. She wandered over to it for a better look.
"Who are those guys?" she asked Charlie.
"Who, them?"
"Yeah."
"Uh, they're called Legacy... I think? Yeah, Legacy. They're kinda new—well, new in comparison to us. They started a couple of years ago where we started five years ago. Although I think they should change their name soon, because I swear, there's another band with that name. Our manager said they're going to tour with us at some point."
"They're from California, too," Dan added.
"Yeah, that's right! They're from—somewhere in the Bay Area, I think." Charlie turned to her. "You might be more familiar with the Bay Area than us."
"Oh, yeah. Love San Francisco."
The front door swung open and the Asian woman from the subway stepped inside.
"Hey, it's our new tech," Frank declared as he stepped into the next room after Joey and Scott.
"Lots of girls for the boys!" Sam joked.
"Is Jon here yet?" she asked Charlie and Dan.
"Not yet, no," Dan replied.
"Okay. Guess I can wait." She adjusted the purple shawl about her shoulders and folded her arms across her chest. She eyed Sam, who then ambled over to her.
"You're working for them?" she greeted her.
"Yeah, I'm supposed to be a tech for Dan over there and also Frank." She spoke with a low voice and like she meant business. "I start today and—I got kind of lost on the way over here. Gotta remember, it's the brick building!"
Sam chuckled at that.
"I'm Aurora," she said with an extending of her hand.
"Samantha—I go by Sam, though. Frank and I are new neighbors."
"Oh, that's so cool! You just move here?"
"The other day from California."
"Really, I—moved here from San Diego just last week."
"I grew up near L.A. but I spent the last four years in Carson City. Where do you live?"
"Down in Brooklyn. How 'bout you?"
"Up in the Bronx. How cool is this?"
"Quite cool—" Aurora leaned her head to look past Sam, who turned to find Joey walking towards them with a glass of water in one hand.
"Aurora Borealis," he said, which got a laugh out of the both of them.
"That's me. Joey Beller donner."
"And—ya got me there." Sam and Aurora both giggled at him as he took a sip of water.
"Do you know when Jon's gonna be here?"
"I don't, no," he confessed as he held the glass before his chest. "I'm the new guy myself, havin' joined a couple of months ago—I'm tryin' to get to know these guys and everything."
And it was right there that Sam knew she could fit right in with them.