deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 16: from rhode island with love

Zelda smelled of old books and soapy perfume, something which made Sam reminisce about her old life on the West Coast. She had taken her seat on the arm of the couch, right next to Marla, and she let the toes of her shoes hover about an inch above the floor. She held the drum sticks in either hand and she twirled the one in her right hand. She dropped it at one point and she stooped down to pick it up from the hard floor beneath her.
She twirled the stick again, that time with two fingers. She had long, slender fingers which held and twirled the stick like a series of serpents: Sam took a second look at her hand to find deep dark green nail polish on her fingernails that shone under the daylight from the window across the room. The men in the front room burst out laughing at something and she tossed the stick in the air. She caught it as if she had twirled a baton. Zelda turned her head to the two of them with a glimmer in her eyes.
"Are you in a band at all?" Marla asked her with a bit of excitement to her voice.
"I am, yeah!" Zelda declared. "The Cherry Suicides, we're called. We're a tiny li'l gang of girls who play loud, raucous, and kinda sexy hardcore punk. Straight outta Narragansett."
Sam hesitated for a second.
"Rhode Island?"
"Correct a mundo." Zelda showed her a smile, one where her cheekbones actually resembled to ripe cherries right off the tree. She crossed her slender, toned drummer's legs as Billy emerged from the hallway once again, that time with little white cups in either hand.
"This is courtesy of Eric and Steve," he declared as he handed the cup in his left hand to Zelda. He handed the one in his right to Marla.
"I'll be right back for you," he continued with a gesture to Sam, and he ducked back into the hallway.
"Our goal at the moment is go on tour with either Black Flag or the Ramones," she continued as she tipped the cup back into her mouth. She knocked back whatever was in there in three large gulps. Marla cradled her cup in her lap. "How 'bout you ladies?"
"We're artists," Sam told her.
"Like, actual artists?"
"Yeah."
"She's waiting to hear back from the school people," Marla explained with a gesture to Sam. "I'm already in school."
"Oh, that's cool! Our lead singer and guitarist, Morgan and Minerva—they're sisters—they tried going to school a couple of years ago and Morgan said she hated it. Min survived the two years and said, 'fuck it, I'm a guitarist.' I thought of doing it when I got out of high school but at that point, I met Min and she invited me to jam with her and Morgan. We've gone through about three bassists already."
"Why's that?" asked Sam, to which Zelda shrugged.
"Our first bass player, Di—she didn't want to commit, like she wasn't comfortable with going out and touring, which I don't understand because that's the whole point of being in a band, if you ask me. Our second, Victoria, she had bad chemistry with both me and Morgan, like she called Morgan controlling—which is complete bullshit. Morgan's been my friend since high school and she's anything but controlling. And she called me enabling, which is... fucking weird."
Sam chuckled at Zelda's gratuitous swearing: the way in which she did it sounded so natural and fluid to her train of thought.
"And now our current bass player, Rosita, she's been doing real good with us."
"So third time's a charm?" Sam followed along.
"Apparently so! And it's funny you say that, too—what'd you say your name was?" Zelda knitted her eyebrows together.
"Sam."
"Sam! It's kinda funny you say that, 'cause we actually have a song titled 'Third Time's a Charm'. It's gonna be part of our demo tape."
Billy returned to the room with two cups in either hand again, and that time he handed the one in his right hand to Sam.
"Thank you," she said with a sweet smile.
"The speed metal paradox—the boys are inexperienced with girls and yet complete and total gentlemen," Zelda remarked.
"What kinda metal?" Sam asked her as she took a small sip of the cold water.
"Speed. Quick, to the point, sharp, and yet kinda... melodious. At least, that's what I always hear it being called in the past—year or so, since we started comin' to New York City from Rhode Island." Zelda turned towards Billy. "I assume that's what you guys are."
"Stormtroopers?"
"Yeah."
He shrugged in response as he brought the cup to his mouth.
"I guess? We're just Stormtroopers, if you ask me and Charlie."
"Charlie says Anthrax are just... y'know, Anthrax," Marla replied with a shrug herself.
"Labels are for cans of soup, not people," Sam declared.
"Yes!" Billy said with a point to her. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
"We just call ourselves punk because we like punk," Zelda explained as she twirled the drum stick in her right hand again. "We like punk—we like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, and I like to play fast like Charlie. But we don't really go anywhere beyond that, though, for the same reason."
One of the guys from Legacy, a slightly hefty boy with a round face and a sheet of lush curls spread down his face, emerged in the doorway right then with his hand up by his chest.
"Bill's in a room full of girls," he joked with a little nod of his head.
"At least we take care of him," Marla retorted, which brought a laugh out of him. He rested his large hands on the sides of the door frame for a second, and then he lunged for them.
"I didn't introduce myself, by the way—I'm Steve."
"Better known as Zetro," Billy added as they each shook hands; "if anything, he actually goes just by that. Everyone knows him as Zetro." His hand dwarfed Sam to the point it made her think of a bear paw.
"Why Zetro?" Marla asked him.
"It's been with me since I was a kid," he explained. "Let's just say I've got a thing for cartoons."
"Us, too," Zelda replied with a gesture to Marla and Sam, even though the three of them had only known each other for a few minutes.
"By the way, we're handing out cups of water because we have a couple of dudes runnin' around here who aren't twenty one yet, Frank and—"
"Oi! Zetro!" Another of the boys from Legacy emerged from behind him. He had smooth straight inky black hair, part of which spread over the side of his forehead and hid his left eye a bit, and a round little boyish face with smooth, slightly angled dark eyes. Even though Sam didn't want to think that, he looked as though he could have walked right out of the Chinese neighborhood of San Francisco.
"Zetro," he repeated as he flipped back his hair with a flick of his head.
"Yeees?" Zetro replied with a flick of his tongue.
"We're outta cups," he said.
"How are we outta cups?" Billy asked him.
"I asked Jon and he was like 'we're fresh outta cups.'" He nodded to the three girls on the couch. "So—keep those in hand, ladies."
Zetro gestured over to him with finger guns.
"Rhythm guitarist Eric Peterson," he introduced him.
"I'm half Swedish, half Mexican," he explained. "My dad came here from beautiful Sweden."
"Oh, wow, I feel dumb right about now," Sam blurted out.
"Why's that?"
"I thought you were Asian at first." Eric burst out laughing at that and smacked his knee.
"I thought you were Asian!" Sam insisted. "I feel so dumb for that now."
"Don't be," he said with a sharp gasp so as to catch his breath. "If it makes you feel any better, you're not the first person to think that."
Marla and Zelda glanced over at Sam with raised eyebrows and little smirks on their faces; the latter giggled a bit.
"Well," was all she could muster out from her lips. He was kind to her to top it all off.
"By the way, when's your gig?" Eric asked Zelda.
"At five," she replied with a toss of her drum stick.
"Are we all going together?" Billy folded his arms across his chest.
"Who, us an' you guys?" Eric gave his hair another toss back with a flick of his head.
"Yeah."
"Yeah, I think we are." Eric turned to Marla and Sam. "Would you girls come along? We're gonna see Zelda's band at this little bar down the block. We're all walkin'."
"At least we're walking!" Marla exclaimed.
"Yeah, I don't really wanna get back into the car again," Sam confessed. "I don't think Aurora does, either."
"Just goin' right down the block here," Zelda repeated Eric's words, and she dropped the stick on the floor again. "I'm gonna get ahead of you guys in a little bit 'cause I'm in the band, y'know."
"Oh, yeah," said Zetro, "it's imperative you've gotta. It's important. It's necessary. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's—"
"Yes!" Zelda cut him off as she picked up the drum stick. She stood to her feet and followed Eric out of the room. Sam and Marla climbed to their feet but they stood there for a second. Billy ran his hands over the crown of his head and he turned to them with a thoughtful look on his face.
"A metal show last night and now a punk show today," he stated, "I'm kinda jealous of you girls."
"And Aurora's comin' along, too," Zetro added as he followed Eric out of the room.
"The three of us and all you guys," Sam stated, "when we were driving together over here, I swore it all felt like a dream."
"It is kinda like a dream, isn't it?" Billy showed her a little grin. He led them out of the room to meet up with the huge group of guys, and they all walked together up the block to the little dark lit bar at the end of the block. Marla linked arms with Charlie and Sam and Aurora strode behind them right next to Frank; right in front of them, Zelda broke out in a run at the second cross walk.
Sam peered behind her to see Scott and Billy side by side, followed by the other two guys from Legacy. Meanwhile, behind them, bringing up the rear was the boy with the yarmulke. At some point, he had removed his yarmulke and he revealed that little plume of white at the right side of his head. She couldn't see it for very long but it shone under the afternoon sun like a little pearl. He ran his fingers through his otherwise jet black hair as she returned to a forward position.
It was implied he was the other one under twenty one, or so she assumed. He looked under twenty one with his boyish round face and slightly prominent little tummy at second glance back at him. When they stopped at the first crosswalk together, she glanced back at him again. Even with his little tummy, his waist was slender and almost delicate, and even with his blue jeans, she could tell his thighs were toned and slim. Aside from the little plume at the crown of his head, he was quite striking and even if he was closer to her, he could have stood out in that small crowd of people: he had a prominent aquiline nose and brow, sharp high cheekbones, and smooth sensual lips, and add to this, he was long and lanky; quite tall for a youngster.
"Sam!" Aurora exclaimed over the traffic.
"Huh?" She whirled around to find them crossing the street, and she clutched her purse even though she had slung it over the opposite shoulder.
"Hey, it's Joey," Frank remarked as they came closer.
"You sure that's Joey and not Zelda?" Aurora asked him.
"Zelda's not that tall," said Charlie.
"Well, Joey isn't, either," she pointed out.
But indeed, it was Joey as his thick black curls entered their view. Zelda meanwhile emerged from the side of the bar with a bottle in her hand. The men meanwhile, each showed the man there at the door way their ID cards: Sam gazed on at the boy at the back, and she knew there was no way he could get in.
"I should tell you ladies," she started in a low voice, "I can probably get you both in for no charges if you'd like."
"How's that?" Marla asked her. Zelda turned to the man at the front door and pressed her hands to her hips.
"I'm with the band," she proclaimed. "And these two chicas behind me are with me."
"Lemme see some identification," he commanded.
"Here's your identification—" Without hesitating for a second, Zelda lifted up her shirt part of the way up her stomach and he stopped right in his tracks.
"Okay, okay, but none of that in a little while, okay, sweet heart?"
"We'll be the judge of that," she sneered at him as she dropped the hem of her shirt, "and don't call me sweet heart."
"Wait, what about him?" Aurora gestured to the boy at the back.
"It's okay, Aurora—I'm with all those guys, too." His voice was even striking, like it didn't match up with his body. He looked so odd and he sounded so powerful, like he knew what he was doing and his body just dripped with testosterone.
"If you're underage, you can come in at least until nine—that's when the kitchen closes."
"Okay, good." Aurora gestured for him to follow them into the tiny but bright lit bar. The wooden floor looked as though it had just been polished and all the dark tables and accompanying spindly chairs looked brand new; at the right side of the room stood a small, cramped but bright stage with Zelda's drum kit already set up. Sam took another drink from her cup when Zelda herself darted across the wooden floor from the bar on the left side of the room.
"Morgan!" she called over the chatter of the gathering crowd in there. "Morgan!"
Joey, Frank, and Charlie had ducked over to the bar, as did the boy with the stripe in his hair. However, Sam watched him at the far end and by the mere look on his face, she could tell he wasn't asking for a drink like the three of them behind her. Aurora huddled closer to her and adjusted her bra strap with a jerk of her arm. Marla joined them and she gazed on at the bar herself.
"How old is he, by the way?" Marla asked Aurora; Sam followed her gesture to the boy with the stripe in his hair.
"Who, him?"
"Yeah."
"He's—" Aurora paused for a second. "—seventeen. I think? Seventeen or sixteen. I'm drawing a blank on his name, too—Eric told me all of their names, but I forgot to write it down because Jon was trying to talk to me at the same time."
"You had all that paper with you, though," Sam chuckled at that.
"That was all the legal, business nonsense," Aurora pointed out. "The stuff you don't see that comes when you're handing in a demo tape or a recording of literally any kind and signing to a major label. The stuff that's like totally mind numbing, but—you know, somebody has to sift through it. Anyways, of the five of them, all I know is Eric and Zetro because they talked to me first and the two of them did all the talking no less."
"I'm just—drawn to that little stripe in his hair," Sam confessed with a gesture to her head.
"Yeah, it's—it's—" Aurora ran her tongue over her top row of teeth.
"It's odd," Marla finished for her.
"It's odd and it's interesting, too," Sam added. "Like, why does he have it? And right there of all places?"
"My grandmother from North Korea had something similar to that," Aurora said, "like just a single part of her hair was gray and the rest of it was solid black, almost exactly like his. Except hers was—on the side of her head, like her temple, not over her forehead. It's a mutation, I think? According to my dad, she didn't have it show until she was like fifty years old, though, and that was when he fled the North and went to Seoul." She ran her tongue over her bottom lip and frowned. He just sat there at that little table with the yarmulke hanging out of his jeans pocket and the glass in hand: from across the room, Sam could tell it was club soda. He glanced about the room like the kid in the cafeteria whom no one wanted to sit with at lunch time. "Let's keep an eye on him—he looks lonely."
"Yeah, maybe we should," Marla added. "Poor guy's underage and he pretty much had to shout at the guy at the door just to get in."
"I think Eric is underage, too?" Aurora recalled. "He told me their ages and he told me he doesn't turn twenty one until the middle of May. But he's almost like a high school student, though. He's a sixteen year old baby."
"A sixteen year old baby who's already going gray," Sam said in a soft voice.
"Exactly!"
He glanced to his left and he brought the glass up to his lips; Frank came over to him to talk to him about something and his eyes sparkled under the warm lighting of the bar. Sam thought about the man in her dreams, and she wondered about him. Zelda breezed past them with one of the bar backs.
"I told them I was going to get them into the club—" Sam couldn't hear the rest of it given she fell out of earshot. She watched Zelda weave her way through the crowd once more; she disappeared behind a large black speaker, and Sam caught the abrasive sound of a downtuned guitar in that direction. Several more patrons gathered around the stage and all around right in front of them: the three girls stood at the back of the crowd.
Every so often, Sam glanced over her shoulder at the boy at the far end of the bar. At least he was talking to Frank, who was underage himself. But he still looked so out of place there: out of place and alone.
Within time, Joey and Charlie joined them with drinks for themselves. Joey showed her a little grin and a raise of the brown bottle; he did the same for Aurora and Marla, too. Charlie meanwhile put his arm around Marla's shoulder and offered her a sip from his bottle.
"Quite the place to be, isn't it?" he asked her over the roar of the crowd.
"Absolutely!" she replied with a smile and an adjustment of her purse strap. He tipped the bottle into his lips and she thought about the night before. She was about to ask him what he had done upon leaving her place when that distorted guitar sliced through like a knife. Lead guitarist Minerva and lead singer Morgan were both little black girls with short bobs of black dread locks: Minerva had bright white dyed shocks that dotted her hair and a little red star tattooed on her shoulder. Morgan meanwhile had a big red ring on her right middle finger and long red and white striped acrylic fingernails, and she wore nothing but a black lace brassiere and a black leather mini skirt. Bassist Rosita had long black hair down to her waist and wore a black satin camisole over a pair of black leather jeans and matching black leather boots: before she took to the stage, she set a big floppy black hat atop her head and Sam could see a blue rose and a fiery red rose embedded at the brim.
The Cherry Suicides were loud and fast, and powerful, and yet they were straight to the point. Morgan had an abrasive voice that filled out the whole room: Sam was mesmerized by her and the way in which she ran her fingers through her dreads and down around her chest, and the way she closed her eyes at certain points. At one point, Rosita put one foot up and she showed off the inside of her thigh and the bell shape of her jeans. She had big narrow heels on her boots that resembled to knives. Zelda, meanwhile, was the only white girl up there and she barely moved her arms when she drummed.
Sam noticed a tattoo of cherries on stems on Morgan's right hip. Cherries on stems that looked to be bleeding. The Cherry Suicides.
She turned her head again and the boy with the little pearly stripe in his hair stood on the far side of the room with a little glass in his hand. He looked so out of place there in that club, given he was so young and the look on his face was one of confusion. Sam turned her head to Marla and Aurora, both of whom were in awe by the sight of them.
They began that song Zelda had talked about before, "Third Time's a Charm", which was slower and a bit more heavy in comparison. Morgan crooned out about wanting to make her lover climax three times after he tried to use a knife, and that the third time was a charm.
Sam turned her head yet again, and for a fleeting moment, she pictured herself pressing her lips onto those smooth sensual ones. She shook her head at that thought.
No, she thought. No, no, no. Bad Sam. He's only sixteen!
He took a sip from his glass as Zetro and one of the guys from Legacy joined him so he was a little less lonely, or so she assumed. They huddled near the corner of the room like three boys in a strange place.
Third time's a charm after a dance with the knife. Third time's a charm after a dance right with your wet cock...
Joey, who stood on her left, took a swig from his bottle and flashed her a wink. She had no idea if he was tipsy yet, but he had already been loosened up from that single bottle. It was such an odd place to be right at that moment with the lyrics coming out of Morgan's cherry lips; Marla, Aurora, Charlie, and Joey on either side of her; and that boy with the plume in his hair, right on the other side of the room.
Zelda gave her right drum stick a twirl and she caught it between her thumb and her index finger as a final touch. Sam and Marla glanced at one another in awe as the crowd before them erupted into applause.
"They were badass!" Aurora declared.
"Loud and not giving a single fuck," Charlie added, "that's pretty rock n' roll if you ask me."
"By the way, you ladies want get something to eat?" Joey offered them. "I was talking to Kirk a little bit ago and he offered us to go and meet up with Metallica across the street."
"So," Charlie added, "again, we won't have to drive anywhere."
"Big ol' party," Marla remarked. Zelda emerged from the crowd in front of them with a glass in one hand and a soft blush in her face.
"Didn't even break out a sweat!" Sam said.
"Not even feelin' it, fellas," Zelda boasted as she took a big drink from the glass.
"Wanna get sump'n to eat?" Joey offered her.
"Oh, definitely—I could use a bite to eat. I'll ask the girls, too."
"From Rhode Island with love?" Sam asked her.
"From Rhode Island with love, kids," Zelda echoed with a raise of her eyebrows and a raise of her glass towards them.