deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 7: crab society

"Hang on, Joey—let's get some warmth into you."
Joey shivered and trembled under the blanket as he took to the front seat next to Frank. He kept the sunglasses over his face to guard his eyes from the glare of the snow outside. Sam slid into the back seat next to Charlie, who put his arm around her to keep her warm even though the car's idling brought enough heat to comfortably ride. Frank turned the dial on the heater and they were met with a strong blast of warm air. They drove off the side of the road and began towards the main freeway. Within time, the Binghamton skyline emerged through the windshield; Frank turned his head in Joey's direction: all Sam could see was the crown of curls upon his head.
"How you feelin'?" Frank asked him. "You getting enough warmth?"
"Yeah," Joey replied in a flat monotone. His shoulders shook under the blanket; he shuffled his feet on the hard floor.
"It's alright, man, we're almost there," Charlie assured him, even though Sam could tell they were a ways out of town. The snow capped trees lining the sides of the road made her think of gingerbread and sugar plums, to the point it made her teeth itch. He looked over at her with his eyebrows raised up into his bangs.
"Are you warm?" Charlie asked her in a low voice.
"Getting there," she confessed with a shudder of her shoulders. Frank peered into the rear view mirror for a second, and then again for another few seconds.
"How 'bout you two birds?" he called to them as they passed a few signs pointing to Syracuse.
"We're getting all kinds of cozy back here," Charlie replied.
"Speaking of cozy..." Joey started but his voice trailed off. Frank looked over at him for a split second before he switched lanes.
"What about being cozy?" he asked Joey.
"All the time I was tryin' to get to the nearest pay phone, right?" he cleared his throat. "An' when I got there, I was thinkin' about cannolis."
"Oh, man," Frank's face lit up at the sound of that.
"Cannolis straight out of the oven—all for me, y'know?" He turned his head towards Frank, such that Sam could make out the mischievous look on his face. "I was thinkin' of stoppin' over here for a bunch of cannolis for my parents."
Charlie turned back to her.
"You ever had fresh cannoli out of the oven?" he asked her.
"I don't think I have," she confessed.
"You'd know if you have," he said.
"Yeah, you'd know," Frank called back to her. "Crafted by like—mine and Charlie's grandmother, or Joey's grandmother."
"My grandma would make hers right from scratch," Joey elaborated; he adjusted the blanket over his shoulders and he snuggled further down in the seat. "I remember she had this little bottle of vanilla she brought over from Italy. There was just nuthin' like it."
"Our grandma does, too," Charlie added.
And then it all clicked.
"I'm a California girl in the same car as three Italian guys," she remarked.
"Yeah, you are!" Frank laughed out loud. Joey laughed along with him and then he shuddered again.
"God—God damn it," he muttered.
"It's warm in here," said Frank with a knitting of his eyebrows.
"I know, but—I can't get warm, though. It's horrible." Joey shuddered and rubbed his hands on his upper arms.
"Get this old boy some liquids," Charlie declared as they spotted a welcome sign on the side of the road.
"I want some cocoa," Joey said as he tugged on the blanket again.
"With marshmallows?" Sam asked him with a bit of a smile on her face.
"Ooh, yes! Those little tiny marshmallows the size of my thumbnail. And maybe a glass of scotch after that."
"Hot cocoa and then booze?" Frank was stunned. "Jesus Christ, Joey."
"At that point, you might as well have some Irish coffee," Charlie remarked. Sam wondered if they would in fact have a drink together later there in town; she was a year away from being able to drink in public.
"It's a little early to be drinking, too," Frank added as he changed lanes again. "I'd like a little bit myself at some point, but I think we should at least wait until noon to indulge a bit."
"Well, that's just kind of the day it is today, though, Frankie," Joey insisted. "My car broke down and now I'm gonna miss my parents when I promised them I'd be there. I need a drink."
"I'm sure you can find a way to get a hold of them," Frank assured him as they took the next exit into the downtown area. "You got a hold of me."
"Yeah, but I used the last of my change on it, though."
"I can help," Charlie assured him.
"Yeah, me, too," Frank added.
"I'll try to, too," Sam chimed in.
"See? You've got people looking for ya, Joey. Don't sweat it."
Within time, they rolled into the cozy downtown part of Binghamton and Frank pulled up to the nearest coffee house there on the main block. Joey kept the blanket wrapped around his little body as the four of them strode inside for a round of hot cocoa and some other things. Sam huddled next to Joey there in the far corner of the room, but she never touched him; she had left her journal in the car. He took off his sunglasses and set them down on the table in front of them. Charlie had disappeared into the back of the coffee house for the bathroom and to search for a phone.
"My friend might have hypothermia a little bit," Frank told the barista behind the counter.
Joey turned to Sam and a few disheveled strands of inky black hair fell down over his forehead towards his large brown eyes. She eyed the tip of his nose, which was almost perfectly straight. Complete with the heavy woolly blanket over his body, he actually resembled to a little Native American boy hailing from the Great Lakes area.
"I wish there was something I could do," she confessed to him.
"I'll be okay," he promised her with a small smile on his narrow face. "Thank you, though."
She lowered her gaze to Joey's legs, which jutted out from underneath the hem of the blanket. She recalled what Aurora had told her about his checking her out when they were in the room together about to eat breakfast. She examined his knees and his lower legs: the dark denim of his jeans accentuated the delicate shape of his legs. He was nice and thin, not too thin but elegant and lovely; even from underneath the blanket, she could make out the sinewy shape of his thighs. They were tight and toned but not overly so, and they tightened up even more as he huddled down even more against the warmth from the heater vent over their heads.
Frank strode over to them with a cup of hot chocolate in either hand for the both of them. Joey reached out from the under the blanket for the cup on the left, while Sam took the one on the right. He was eager for a sip; Sam took a second look to find a few of those little marshmallows at the top of the chocolate.
He set the cup down for a second and he shuddered again.
"I can't get warm—like internally," he confessed.
"Just drink the cocoa," she told him in a soothing voice. "Drink it up slowly."
Frank had returned to the counter for a poppy seed muffin for himself. Charlie emerged from the back of the coffee shop.
"Joey, there's a phone over here," the latter announced once he was within earshot.
"Okay..." Joey took another sip and shuddered again. He then looked at Sam out of the corners of his eyes. A couple of inches of clearance separated the two of them. A voice in the back of her head told her to put her arm around him to keep him warm, much like how Charlie did that for her in the back seat. But he kept on sipping at the cup of hot chocolate, and that time, he did it at a slow pace much like how she advised him.
She blew on the top of her cup and took a sip for herself. It was warm and soft, and the marshmallows added to it to keep her warm. She looked across the table at Frank, who picked off pieces of his muffin and slipped it into his mouth. Charlie took a seat next to him and ran his fingers through his black hair.
"You didn't get something?" Sam asked him.
"Nah. I'm good." His cheekbones filled out and the cleft in his chin accentuated when he smiled. She returned him a smile as well. Even after having lived in New York for not very long, she clicked with Frank and Charlie as if she had known them both for years. But then there was Joey, the man on her left and a blind spot of sorts.
She turned her head to him to make out the shape of the curls on his forehead and the side of his head. His skin was smooth and even silken in appearance; she had no idea if he was even welcome to the feeling of an arm around his shoulders to keep him warm.
"How're you feeling?" she asked him in a low voice.
"Still cold," he replied without changing his expression. He took another sip of hot chocolate and that time he sipped down one of the marshmallows. "Hot cocoa's good, though."
"Oh, yeah." She turned to Frank. "How's that muffin?"
"Little dry. But—" He shrugged. "—it was all they had there in the case." Sam turned back to Joey to look at his hair again. Little tight tendrils made up his bangs; stray locks jutted out from the side and crown of his head. She could run her fingers through his hair and feel the tightest of curls: she wondered about the tightness of the roots down at his scalp. Those curls looked silky and coarse at the same time.
She knew it would be a challenge to draw, and perhaps one with black ink.
"So you wanna get cannolis still?" Frank asked him.
"Nah—I think I'll help my grandma make some when I get to their place," Joey confessed at a reluctant rate.
"Your grandma's still alive?" Sam smiled at that.
"Yeah, she's—kinda old, but yeah. Nothin' beats her cannoli, anyway." He took another sip of hot chocolate, albeit a larger one that time. He let out a long low whistle and held the cup down to his chest. He was hiding something. That cold stony demeanor hid something from the rest of the world. She could sense it; she could see it in his eyes.
Sam took another sip of hot chocolate and downed a few of the marshmallows all the while. There was a way in there.
But there was Frank and Charlie right before her. Perhaps she could separate the drawing of them from her sketchbook: the pages were perforated after all. Or she could find another piece of paper for the drawing of them.
Once he had drank down half of his chocolate, Joey stood to his feet and, once he fixed the blanket around his body, he rounded the side of the table. Charlie gave him a bit of change; once Joey thanked him, he ambled across the floor towards the other side of the room. He looked like he was carrying a cape as he made his way over to the phone behind the counter. Frank and Charlie gazed on at her.
"So—what'd you do with your journal?" Frank asked her.
"It's in the car." She squinted her eyes at him. "Why?"
"Just curious." He showed her a little smile, and his two front teeth shone in the lights of the coffee shop. He had star's teeth, even as a struggling musician. She returned to Charlie, who sat right across from her.
"You got any more sex stories?" she asked him, which brought a laugh out of Frank. Charlie's face flushed with embarrassment.
"I'm afraid I don't," he confessed with a shrug of his shoulders. "Although when Jaws came out, Frank and I stood in line at the theater to see it and we saw these two lesbians making out on the other side of the street."
She gasped at him.
"I was like ten," said Frank in a low voice. "He was—how old were you, Charlie?"
"I was twelve," Charlie answered. "Yeah—" He cleared his throat and glanced about to make sure no one was eavesdropping; they were the only ones there in the coffee shop as the barista had disappeared into the back room. "—you and I got exposed to sexuality at a young age. We watched it happen from across the street."
"I couldn't get it out of my head for like a week," Frank added as he put in a few more bites of muffin into his mouth. "These two women on the other side of the street making out with each other and you and I looked at each other in shock."
"We didn't tell our parents, either," Charlie continued with a brief glimpse over at Sam.
"I mean, there was just no way we could," Frank admitted once he swallowed down the bites. "Like, how do I say to my mom—and how do you tell your sister—that we saw two gay women together like that? We saw actual porn in broad daylight together!"
"It was something that we experienced as like pseudo brothers. I couldn't get it out of my head for days on end."
Sam nibbled on her bottom lip. She was at a loss for words but she knew she could find her way with the two of them and that photograph Frank had lent with her. Joey surfaced from the counter, still with the blanket wrapped around his body and still with a disgruntled look on his face.
"How'd it go?" she asked him; he returned to his seat and set the cup down on the table. He huddled down next to her, still a few inches next to her.
"My father was like, 'well—it's not the first time I've lent you money to do something, son.'" He sighed through his nose and bowed his head.
"Well, at least he's willing to give you some for gas," Frank pointed out as he stuffed the remainder of the muffin stump into his mouth.
"Yeah, but..." Joey's voice trailed off.
"But what?" Sam asked him.
"I don't wanna talk about it," he said almost under his breath. He downed the rest of his hot chocolate right there. She turned to Frank and Charlie, who glanced at each other with looks of concern on their faces.
"We were also talking about Irish coffee earlier, and now I'm wanting some," he confessed.
"It's not even noon yet," Frank remarked.
"Yeah, I know."
Sam knitted her eyebrows together. He was definitely hiding something.
She downed the rest of her hot chocolate and the four of them stood to their feet in unison.
"So what's gonna happen?" Frank asked Joey as he adjusted the blanket around his body.
"Well, my dad was gonna go out anyways," he explained in a low voice, "—he's gonna swing by here and take me to the gas station up the street here for me. He's bringing a gas can with him, too."
"How you feeling?" Sam asked him as she handed him his sunglasses.
"A little better—the cup of cocoa definitely helped a bit. But it's gonna be a little while before I can fully feel warm, though." He clutched onto the blanket with one hand as he opened the sunglasses with his mouth and then slipped them on over his eyes.
"You guys can go back to the City if you'd like," he said.
"Well, we gotta at least keep you company, though" she insisted.
"Nah, that's—that's real kind of ya—" He raised his eyebrows from behind the mirrored lenses. "—but he told me he'll be here in like ten minutes."
She turned to Frank, who shrugged his shoulders at her, and then to Charlie, who hovered closer to her with his hands tucked into the pockets of his sweat pants. She swallowed and nodded her head.
"Okay," she finally said. "Stay warm, okay?"
"Of course," he said with a little glimmer of a smile at her. "I'll see you guys soon."
She wanted to crack that cool demeanor if no one else did already. Frank and Charlie led her back to the car, and in turn left Joey there alone in the coffee shop in anticipation. As she huddled down in the front seat next to Frank once again, she looked on at her journal upon the dashboard.
"I hope he's gonna be okay," she confessed aloud.
"He will," Frank assured her as he fired up the car again. "He's an upstate boy who's half Italian and half Iroquois Indian. He might look like a little guy but he's tough, though."
"He was a hockey player before he showed up with us," Charlie added.
"Really?" Sam peered over her shoulder at him with her mouth agape.
"I dunno the full details but yeah. When our producer brought him down from this town way upstate called Plattsburgh, he told us he played hockey pretty much most of his life."
"And I think it's just cold getting to him, too," Frank pointed out; he reversed the car out of the spot and then he almost drifted to the driveway. "I know I'd be miserable if it were me in his position. Car broke down right before you get to civilization and you use your last bit of change on a lifeline, and you totally freeze your ass off waiting for them."
"Doesn't he have other friends, though?" Sam asked them.
"Oh, yeah. But I guess that—since it's still kinda early and it's a little out of the way—he thought we—or at least, I could come and get him."
"It also builds a relationship with us, too," Charlie added.
"Yeah, he is the new guy after all," Frank recalled as they rolled out of there and returned to the freeway. "Or maybe he did call up a friend of his, and they couldn't come, and we were like a last resort of sorts. I dunno—like I said, I think the cold was getting to him. He wasn't his usual bright and plucky self."
"He did use his last bit of change after all," Charlie pointed out. "He's kinda anal about spending a lot of money."
"We are, too," said Frank.
"Kinda have to be," said Sam.
"Yeah, right! We kinda have to be when we're still just starting out and there's not much to work with."
They drove past a tailor shop, one with red blazers on display in the front window, and she flashed back on that dream she had had the night before. She could only recall the man next to her in the water as they held onto the nose of the plane together, and she could only recall the look of fear in his eye.
They reached the onramp and they sped up the freeway, back to the cut off and the way back to New York City. Another few hours and a few hours whereby Sam thought about what to put into that journal, which she had eventually lay down on her lap to keep the heat coming out of the vents. The three of them sat in silence all the way down to Monticello, when Charlie finally spoke.
"I think Scott wanted to tell me something."
"Something about what?" Frank called back to him, which he accompanied with a glimpse in the rear view mirror.
"I dunno—just something about something."
"Something something something?"
"Something something something, exactly!"
"Care to share?"
"Can't."
"Why not?"
"I just can't, Frankie."
"Why? We're related and we're in the same band together. We should be able to share secrets with each other. We shared Spreading the Disease with Sam here, and we kept the whole lesbian thing between us for almost ten years."
"Scott just doesn't want me talking about it yet," Charlie tersely said.
Frank fetched up a sigh and he glanced over at her.
"Alright, fine."
Sam frowned at that. They were related, and so close in age that they passed off as brothers. She could sense it: they fought like brothers, and yet they kept it at bay because of her being there in the passenger seat. She glanced down at the journal on her lap and she stroked the hard cover with the pads of her thumbs.
Within time, the Twin Towers emerged from the gray sky, and the rest of the skyline followed suit.
"I'm sure Scott'll understand that we had to rescue Joey," Frank said with another sigh.
"Yeah, it's gonna be—it's gonna be a while before we get there," Charlie added.
Indeed, the freeway brought them back to the Bronx and they meandered their way through the heart of New York City. It was a little trip in and of itself, even with it being a stretch of freeway that led them all the way down to Manhattan. Frank took the next exit and they reached that familiar block. Sam wondered if Aurora was in at work that day, and she thought about having another round of pho with her at some point.
They hung a left and that rehearsal space entered their view. Sam looked around for Aurora's car anywhere on the block, but it was nowhere to be seen. She did recognize Scott sitting on the front step: he was wrapped in a black leather jacket, snug denim jeans, and those big black Doc Martens, and he had hunched his shoulders against the cold of the day. They parked at the curb right in front of him. Charlie climbed out of there first to talk with him; Sam followed suit, and then Frank.
"We had to rescue Joey," Charlie told him.
"From what?" Scott chuckled.
"He ran out of gas outside of Binghamton," Frank joined in, "and he didn't really elaborate much, but we can only assume that he called someone and they couldn't come, so he turned to us." Sam huddled next to him, and thus the three of them congregated before Scott there on the front step.
"Brought the girl along, too!" he proclaimed with a grin and a raise of his dark eyebrows.
"Yeah, I just happened to be there when he called," she shrugged, "I didn't wanna be alone, either."
"So, what'd you wanna—tell me?" Charlie asked Scott.
"Huh?"
"You know—that one thing you wanted to tell me."
Scott's eyes darted about, and then his face lit up.
"Oh, that!" He stood to his feet and he led them into the building. Frank shut the door behind them, and he and Sam stood side by side on the edge of the room.
"Apparently we got finished with the recording process ahead of schedule," Scott explained as he strode up the hallway, "like way ahead. Jon told me we've got to do something the studio time. So I brought a surprise for you guys—" He ducked his head into the room there at the end of the hallway, and he said something. He leaned back out so the guy could come on out of there.
"Dan!" Charlie declared.
"Dan?" Sam asked.
"Dan!" Frank said.
"Dan," Scott echoed from down the hall.
He was like a tall lanky version of Scott: a round faced boy with a thick head of jet black curls, and eyebrows as wide as a frozen fish stick over bright eyes. He wore a heavy dark sweater and snug leather jeans. He raised those eyebrows at her as if he was taken aback by her.
"Our old bassist Danny Lilker," Scott announced; "Danny, that's Sam from California." He ducked into the room there.
"Bright and sunny California." Dan's voice was gentle and smooth. "What brings you to New York City?"
"A new chapter in life," she said; Charlie disappeared into the room closest to them.
"That's cool! I know what it's like to start over."
"That's—what I've heard." She glanced over at Frank, who fiddled with the zipper of his puffy jacket. "So what's gonna go on here?"
"I dunno. All I know is Scott said he had an ace up his sleeve and one that he wanted Charlie and some other guy named Bill to join in on together."
"Bill," Sam echoed.
"Bill—Milano, I think is his name? I dunno, that's what Scott told me. He knows more than I do."
Scott emerged from the back room with a composition notebook tucked under his arm. Dan turned around to look at him.
"Seeing her," Scott gestured to Sam, "and knowing that she's gonna do the whole art thing—it gave me an idea to make my own art." He opened the journal to show her the drawing on the first page: a large grotesque skull looked to be made of splinters with deep set bulging eyes, a partially burnt cigar jutted out from its mouth, and a dark green army helmet atop its head. Underneath the skull read: "Sargent D. I'm not racist; I hate everyone. Speak English or die."
"Wow," she remarked, unsure of what to believe.
"I scribbled this down after I lay down the guitar tracks," he explained, "I showed it to Charlie and he laughed and was like, 'dude, we should do something with that!' Told Danny about it and he had the same reaction. We started throwing around the name Storm Troopers of Death and he decided to come along."
"So we're gonna do this?" Dan asked him.
"Yeah—if Charlie's gonna be onboard with it, anyways."
"I'm in!" Charlie himself called out.
"So what's this mean now?" asked Sam.
"It means tacos," Dan teased her. "Nah, it means we gotta get our asses back upstate 'cause that's where the recording studio is. And where another buncha demo tapes called Crab Society are—I'll explain it later. You can come along if you'd like—that is, if you're not doing anything."
"I'm not doing anything. So we're gonna say hi to Joey again."
"We're gonna say hi to Joey again, yes!"