deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 26: speak spanish or get the hell out

Sam set down her suitcases on either side of her before she locked the door. She had her sunglasses perched upon the bridge of her nose and she had changed into a little pair of bright yellow shorts. She recalled what Cliff had told her the month before, and thus she cleaned those shorts the week before and kept them hidden away at the bottom of her dresser drawer before she left for upstate New York.
The past few weeks have shown to be quite the contrast to dry, windy summers in Southern California: whenever Sam lay down to fall asleep, she would have to push off the covers despite having opened her window. When she took her seat at her desk to draw something, the heat from the hot summer sun beamed through her window: a single sliver of it next to her onto her desk was enough to make her sweat while she drew something for herself in her journal. A step out of the shower and she began to sweat at the mere feeling of the mist from around her.
And there she stood outside of her front door, with her key in hand and her things ready to go: she was to hitch a ride with Marla and Charlie to their hotel room up in Poughkeepsie. For all she knew, it would be the only hotel room they would be staying in for the duration of the tour: the two nights before, Scott had told her that they would go all over New York and then Pennsylvania, and the tour would just barely end in time for her and Marla to start school the first week in September. She hadn't told her parents about the tour at all, but she knew she would have to tell them about her life on the side to art school, especially since the last date took place up in Canada.
"I'll jet pack you both from Toronto back here if I have to," Charlie vowed to the two of them.
"Jet pack and then run like holy hell," Scott added.
Moreover, she remembered that she would be seeing Marla with a brand new color about her hair. When she called the night before, she told Sam that she didn't want to ruin the surprise but she hinted at it with the word "jewel". Sam dropped her keys into her purse, right next to her brand new passport, and she nudged it back a bit from her hip. She scooped up her bags and made her way down the stairs, where she noticed that Emile's front door stood wide open. He sat on the couch, right within her line of sight, and he leaned over a book on the coffee table.
She strode over to the doorway, and set one of her bags down, and took off her sunglasses, and knocked on the door panel. Emile raised her head and showed her a smile.
"Oh, hello, Samantha," he greeted her. He lowered his gaze to her suitcases. "Oh, that's right! You're goin' on tour."
"Not necessarily," she clarified. "I'm like one level below a producer. I have to be with them, though. Apparently they're gonna do some things and their manager wants me to be a part of it all. Me and also my friend Marla, who's with their drummer."
"Just a little cluster of kids hangin' out," Emile remarked. "At least, that's what it sounds like to me. When should you be back?"
"Some time before school starts," she replied. "But I'll still get rent to you, though. I'll be getting some money from this that—I won't have to sweat it for a little bit."
"But since you won't be home, I'll give you a little leeway with the power and the water," he told her.
"Oh, good, thank you!"
The front door swung open and Charlie poked his head into the front foyer. She turned around to face him.
"Hey!" she called out to him.
"Hey!" he retorted as he took off his sunglasses. "You ready to go?"
"I was born ready," she answered, and her heart skipped a few beats. She returned to the apartment as she perched her sunglasses back onto her nose. "Okay, I'll see you later, Emile."
"Have fun, young lady," he said with a warm smile upon his face. "Have fun an' don't stay up too late."
Charlie held the door for her and Sam padded out of the building into the hot New York sun. She wondered how the next month would fair for all of them as she made her way down the stairs to the car parked at the curb. She reached the passenger side to find that Marla had a head full of rich deep violet hair, the color of royalty.
"Oh, wow!" Sam declared: even inside the car, the violet shone under the glow of the hot mid summer sun like a tapestry. "That's an excellent color for you, Marla!"
"I was wanting it to be more of a light purple," she explained as she pushed her big black sunglasses up her nose, "but it's more of a grape color. I think it came out too dark."
"I like it, though," Sam said as she opened the door.
"Do you need any help?" Charlie offered her as he scurried down the stairs.
"Nah, it's just my clothes and things I can't live without," she told him as she stashed her bags onto the floor of the car.
"Like your journal?" Marla asked her.
"Like my journal, yeah!"
Without another moment's hesitation, Sam climbed into the back seat right behind Marla so she could look at that helmet of rich dark violet all the way up the road to Poughkeepsie. She wondered if she could see Joey again up there, especially since she hadn't seen him in well over a month, not since the Anthrax and Legacy show at L'Amour, although Aurora did call him in at one point and Sam caught a glimpse of him. However, she hadn't exactly interacted with him since that show.
She hoped he had taken it easy on the alcohol since then because the last thing he needed was more bad nights such as that.
Despite the hot summer sun that hung high in the sky, Sam and Marla kept their windows rolled down as they wound away from the City and pressed onward to the upstate part of the state. Charlie put up with it even as he strove to talk a bit all the way up the vast parkway.
"We're gonna be supporting Motorhead and the Plasmatics," he explained in a loud voice, "we're just gonna go nuts with the whole shocking thing."
"Shock and go nuts," Marla clarified with a gesture of her hand. "Like shock and then go nuts."
"Or go nuts and then shock," Sam called out.
"Both!" Charlie replied as they drove past the spot on the shoulder where Sam and Joey broke down. Even a few months later, she could still make out the sight of a burn mark on the sliver of pavement next to the guard rail. She rested her arm on the top of the door, and the wind fluttered her dark hair back from her head. The lush trees hung over them to protect from the hot sun, but she could still feel it upon her skin and her head.
It would be another hour before they reached Poughkeepsie given Charlie drove a little bit slower in comparison to Joey, and he also had no idea where their hotel was at first.
"I forget where we turn off at," he confessed as the signs for the other sides of town came within their line of sight.
"I think it's over here, Char," Marla told him over the roar of the wind; she rolled up the window so he could hear her. The handle squeaked every single time; but Sam meanwhile, kept her window down to relish in the whole experience. She sighed through her nose and closed her eyes: the hot sun beat down on her head and arms, but she didn't care. It was another new adventure her, to gain a taste of the tour life.
Charlie and Marla bickered in the front seat like an older married couple, or rather like her parents. She didn't tell her parents about any of her adventures over the past few months, at least since they visited her and met Frank. It felt a bit liberating, but she realized she had gone into unknown territory with that. She was close with her parents, and thus when she kept her lips sealed with it all, it almost felt like a betrayal.
And yet, since she kept her lips sealed, it felt as though she had it all to herself. Her best kept secret, her life with the speed metal music scene before she started school and launched into the art world. Two worlds at the same time, and her parents only knew of one.
Lucky for them, they reached the little hotel on the eastern side of town: the place needed a paint job on the outside and the stairs creaked under Marla and Sam's feet as they made their way up to their room. Even when they made their way towards the door, the latter could tell the room was barely going to be big enough for the three of them plus whoever Charlie invited along with them. Sam could see the chips of paint at the bottom of the door as they came within view, and she could also see that the door hung open just a little bit. It swung open and—
"Oh, hey, Zelda!" Marla declared. Sam recognized her head of jet black hair and she showed them a big warm smile.
"When I said I'd race ya," Charlie started as he reached the top of the stairs, "I didn't mean literally."
"Hey, you and I both said we'd be bunking in the same room," Zelda pointed out, and she stood out of Sam and Marla's way. The room was small, with nothing more than two queen sized beds and a heavy but faded nightstand all pressed up against the left wall. To the right stood a tiny television atop a table that looked as though it would topple over if an earthquake struck. No dresser, and the closet on the far side of the room looked to be part of the bathroom.
"Absolutely no privacy," Sam stated as she set her suitcases down on the hard, faded carpet, right next to the bed closest to the window.
"If you go in the bathroom, though," Zelda pointed out. "Although, I'm gonna tell you guys this right now—the shower in there kind of blows."
"Does it work, though?" Marla asked her.
"Yeah, it works. It's just—here, lemme show you." Sam and Marla followed her into the cramped bathroom: even though the two of them stood in the doorway, it felt so crowded in there given the sink basin hung right next to the doorway and Sam could envision Charlie banging his shoulder on the edge of it when he stood to his feet. She and Marla stared on at the shower head, about the size of a bottle of water color paint and the grayest of gray colors she had even seen.
Zelda turned the dial for cold water and the head spat out a fine mist at first, and it followed with a fine narrow stream of it.
"Oh, my god," Sam proclaimed.
"Yeah," Zelda said as she turned off the water. "I hope you ladies don't use a lot of soap to wash your hair because that's rough. Last hotel I was in, the head was about the size of my hand and it felt so good hitting me in the head after a hard night of banging around and makin' lots of racket."
"I'm not worried about us as much as I am about Charlie," Marla confessed with a bit of a chuckle. "All his thick, lush curls and everything..."
There was a knock on the door and Sam peered over at the other side of the room, and the sight of Scott and Billy as they poked their heads into the room.
"I wonderin' when you guys'd get here 'cause we were all supposed to be here by three," Scott confessed. "We couldn't've found a worse hotel, either."
"Blame the promoters, Scott," Charlie pointed out as he took a seat on the edge of the bed closest to the bathroom. "Jon and Marsha wanted us to be in a nicer place about a block from here but I guess that was too much." He shrugged at that last part.
"Second time in a row we got fucked around by promoters," Scott said with a shake of his head; Sam and Marla ducked out of the bathroom to let Zelda out.
"Hey, Zelda!" Billy called from the doorway.
"Hey, Billy!" she returned the favor. "Where you guys stayin'?"
"Right next door," he replied with a gesture of his head. "Frankie's with us, too. What were you all doin' in there?"
"Showing Sam and Marla the shower."
"Damn, at least you girls have a shower." Billy folded his arms across his chest, to which Scott shook his head.
"I can't believe we're being dicked around like this," he moaned. "It's all so fucking stupid!"
"Zing," Billy replied with a straight face.
"Needs a double zing, Bill," Charlie added. "'Cause we already got a record and a limited press out, too."
"As Anthrax, though," Billy pointed out. "Not as Stormtroopers."
"Still doesn't really make sense, though," Zelda said as she leaned against the wall and folded her arms across her chest. "I'd understand if it was Legacy or my band but you guys have done a bunch more than all of us, though. It'd be like Exodus making it big and then getting relegated to sump'n like this." Sam knew she did that because of Zetro's departure. She looked over at Sam and Marla with a thoughtful expression on her face.
"So how're we gonna sleep tonight?" she asked them.
"I'll sleep closest to the window," Sam suggested.
"And Marla—I assume you're gonna sleep with your boy here?"
"I might as well," she replied with a chuckle.
"You wanna do head to toe?" Zelda asked Sam. "I've done it with Rosita a few times before. She tells me I sleep like a board."
"Yeah, let's do that." She might as well go along with it given the smallness and dinginess of the room. Scott looked up at Billy, who still stood there in the doorway with his thick arms crossed over his chest.
"Gonna be fun with us," Scott proclaimed.
"Yeah, you, me, and Frankie," Billy laughed.
"At least my girlfriend isn't with us..." Scott's voice trailed off, and he turned his head for a look over at the three girls posted up on the side of the room.
"You ladies wanna go and walk around?" he asked them.
"Don't see why not," said Sam.
"And the three of us plan on lookin' around for a shower, too," Scott told her.
"Oh, come on, you're men!" Zelda joked.
"We're men but we're with you girls, though," Scott insisted with a bit of a laugh. "When we go to the next town, we gotta be good as a means of separation from the act of Stormtroopers."
"Sharp dressed men spewing out a bunch of shit," Billy said as he moved out of the way for them.
"Squeaky clean but your mouths tell a different story," Marla followed along in a singsong voice. Sam adjusted the strap on her purse even with it slung across her chest, and she put her sunglasses back on even though they stood in the shade for a moment.
"Remember, we're number seven," Zelda declared with a gesture to the faded brass number next to the door frame.
"Lucky number seven," Sam added; meanwhile Billy leaned his back to the inside wall and Scott made a joke about Philly cheese steak.
"Hey Sam, check it out," Zelda pointed across the street. She turned around and followed her gesture to an art glass shop there nestled in between a book shop and a haberdasher shop.
"Oh, cool!" she declared and her heart skipped a few beats.
"There's a whole bunch'a those over in Providence," Zelda explained, "I dunno about California but—those are so common over there. They're real cool, too."
Quickly, Sam made her way down the creaking stairs and she reached the hot crumbling blacktop first. She was eager to reach the sidewalk first, and she awaited Zelda and Marla, both of whom slowly walked against the hot, bright sun.
"Born artist here," Marla remarked with a grin on her face, and Sam could hear her over the low noise of the traffic. The three of them hurried side by side across the street to the shop; Marla held the door for Sam and Zelda, and they were met with a blast cool air from the vent on the ceiling.
Sam glanced about the front bright room as if she was a kid in a candy store. On the right side stood a vast row of shelves, all of which were full of sheets of glass consisting of all colors of the rainbow. Before the shelves stood a series of glass making tools, from cutters to pliers to pieces of lead to make windows with. Meanwhile, on the left side of the room was a gallery of blown glass. She recognized the head of lush, dark hair down past his shoulders as he stood before a sculpture that looked like a sunflower close to the wall.
Sam made her way over to him while Zelda pointed to something on the right side of the room. She stood next to him and he turned his head towards her.
"Hey, Frankie," she greeted him.
"Hey!" Frank grinned at her, and she spotted a piece of gum tucked next to his lower teeth.
"Funny to see you here," she admitted, "given Charlie's the art guy."
"That's not to say I don't have an interest in art myself," he pointed out. "I mean—you did draw us after all."
"True. And you wanted me to get into art school, too."
Frank returned his attention to the glass sunflower on the wall. Sam looked on at it with him: the head of the flower consisted of layered dark red and orange fused glass, while the petals were a rich amber color. She eyed the points of the petals all around the head, but then she lowered her gaze to the stem, a braid of three different green glasses fused together.
"Damn, look at the workmanship on this," she told him.
"Yeah, it was the first thing I saw when I walked in," he said as he chewed that piece of gum some more. "I was like 'wow. That's absolutely incredible.' I hope you and Marla do something like this at some point. Also—" He peered behind him to ensure they were alone on that side of the room.
"There are two things that are going through my mind right now," he lowered his voice to a near whisper. "The first thing is I can envision you cock blocking you someone with your artistry—"
"Frankie!" she hissed, but he kept going.
"—and the second thing is you getting something here for your parents." And that stopped her right in her tracks.
"You know." Frank turned his head to her. "I kinda miss your parents. I only saw them that one time but I miss 'em, though. Ruben and—Esmé, is her name?" She nodded at him. "Do you miss them?"
"Yeah, of course," she replied as she thought about how she didn't tell them about the tour. "You know, I'm way the hell over here on the East Coast and they're still back out west, too."
"You know, I didn't really have a father figure growing up," he told her in a low voice. Sam gaped at him. "My dad left all five of us kids when I was real little. And Charlie didn't have a dad, either: his died when he was a five year old."
"No wonder why you guys are like brothers," she stated.
"Exactly. Our moms moved heaven and earth for us—I was talkin' to him about it yesterday and we both came to a conclusion that that was why we like you so much."
"Why didn't you say anything before, though?" she asked him. "Especially since you guys embrace your female fans so much."
"'Cause we're boys—we aren't really obliged to talk about feelings," he confessed with a shrug of his shoulders. "I also wanted to tell you that once we got to know each other better. All my dads were metal bassists." He shrugged his shoulders again. "So—I say get something for your dad. Both your dad and your mom. Given we're in a place full of just absolutely beautiful glass, I know he'll love it and you know—and it'll make me real happy, too."
He winked at her when he said that. She then snickered, and he looked at her confused.
"What?"
"I'm just thinking about that first thing you said," she confessed.
"Cock blocking someone with your art?"
"Yeah."
"I dunno who—but I can see it happening, though. Just seducing someone with paint or glass or—something. But I can just feel it in my bones."
Sam dropped her gaze to a pair of fused glass white doves on a lower part of the wall. The olive branches tucked in their beaks made her think of serpents, given the leaves actually resembled to the heads of snakes. She reached for the doves for a second look: their wings and tails twined over each other. Her fingers tingled over the milky white glass. It made her think of both of her parents and everything they had done for her.
"Oh, that's cool!" he declared, and she turned it over to check the little tag at the bottom of their extended wings.
"I got money now," she said as she lifted her head to him. "I brought all my clothes with me, too, especially my sweaters."
"Protect that thing with one of those," he advised her. "It's only gonna be a handful of dates, but still."
"It's gonna be strewn across two states," she added.
"Exactly!"
Sam doubled back to buy the doves, and she had no doubt she made a good choice. Even though the two of them walked out of the glass shop empty handed, Zelda picked out a wide brimmed black hat for herself at the haberdasher next door. She angled it towards the very top of her head.
"Reminds me of Rosita's hat," she said as the brim accentuated her bangs.
Once they returned outside, Frank peered down at his watch and grimaced.
"Shit, girls—we gotta get goin'!"
"Scott said we had to be here by three, too," Marla recalled. The four of them sprinted across the street to their shabby hotel to fetch Scott, Charlie, and Billy. Sam had no idea where they were headed but she placed the glass doves in the drawer of the nightstand with any sort of protection aside from her purse.
"I won't drink tonight," Billy promised her as he eyed the milky smooth glass before it went into hiding.
"I won't, either," Zelda vowed. "Well, I don't really drink anyway, but I'll protect that with my life, though."
"Thank you, Zelda," Sam said with a grin at her, and they headed out to the venue.
It wasn't too far from the hotel but she thought it to be in a whole other world altogether. The dark floor felt as though it wasn't nearly as big enough for everyone in there. Sam and Zelda pinned themselves to the wall, right next to each other, off to the side from the stage so they were out of sight from the audience. The foul smell of alcohol made Sam's eyes water.
"Jesus, this is nuts," she muttered.
"This reminds me of the Cherry Suicides' biggest show," Zelda told her in a loud enough voice; she reached up to fix her hat. "We played in a club in Naragansett and they oversold the place such that we had people coming on stage with us."
"Oh my god," Sam gaped at her.
"Yeah." Zelda raised her eyebrows at her. "It was—just crazy. I was ready to start throwing people off of the stage but Min was like 'let's get out of here—they're gonna torch the place.'"
"Did they?"
"Oh, no—but the four of us just bolted, though. Some creep grabbed my ass before we got out of there, too. I didn't see him, though, otherwise I would'a punched him."
Something out in the dim lit room caught Sam's eye. She lifted her gaze to that familiar head of jet black curls near the front of the crowd.
"What's up?" Zelda asked her as she took a glimpse for herself.
"Joey!" she shouted. "Joey!" Sam darted past Zelda and she surfaced from the side of the stage, past a bouncer. Joey, who held a glass of stout in hand, turned his attention to her and showed her a friendly lopsided smile. The dim light of the club made his skin appear darker than normal, but she knew it was him.
"Hey, girly," he greeted her and he put his free arm around her to embrace her.
"I wasn't expecting you here," she said in a loud enough voice for him to hear.
"I'm here with some friends," he told her. "I told 'em that Stormtroopers were gonna be upstate for a few weeks before they go to Pennsylvania so—here I am!"
"You gonna be at the Buffalo show?" she asked him.
"I just might be at that one plus the one out in Ithaca, too," he replied as he brought his glass closer to his body.
"We get two days around that one."
"Yeah, so I might take ya to Finger Lakes, too." He winked at her as he took a sip of the stout. Someone behind him called his name.
"Ah, shit, I gotta go," he told her. "I'll be waitin' for ya in Ithaca."
"I'll look for you!" she promised before she headed back to Zelda at the safe spot next to the stage. The bouncer then stopped her in the tracks.
"I'm a very important person," she insisted. "You saw me go over to him." But the guy shook his head and folded his arms at her.
"I'm with the band," she declared.
"I am, too," a guy next to her added with his hands pressed to his hips. The bouncer nibbled on his bottom lip as he glanced between the both of them; Sam looked to her right to a tall dark skinned man with long black curls. For a second, she swore it was Joey, but he was quite a bit heavier.
The bouncer then nodded and stepped to the side to let them into the safe spot next to the stage. Sam rejoined Zelda but she returned her attention to the mysterious man.
"Who are you?" she asked him.
"I'm Chuck," he replied as he flicked a stray curl back from his brow. "Legacy's new singer."
"Chuck Billy!" Zelda declared.
"How'd you know about me?" Sam asked him.
"Aurora and also just the guys all told me about you," he explained. "I heard about this show and this little tour with Motorhead, too, so—y'know, I wanted to join in on the fun. Jon and Marsha invited me to come along." He showed them a friendly little smile: Sam could tell that he, too, had some Native American blood in him from those thick dark curls and that sun kissed smooth brown skin. He lacked those large hands that Joey had but he had that same serious, stoic expression in his dark eyes.
"Sounds good," Sam told him as she pressed her back to the wall. Chuck pointed at Zelda.
"Zelda Carr, right?" he asked her.
"Carmichael," she corrected him as she and Sam both tucked ear plugs into their ears.
"Carmichael, that was it! Zetro told me about you, and I've only just heard of the Cherry Suicides so I'm still learning names—totally dig the hat, by the way—"
He was cut off by Charlie already thumping his kick drums, and he nestled up against the brick wall next to Sam.
"Never noticed how rough their lyrics are," Zelda remarked as Billy barked into the microphone. "Really, it's—it's—it's kinda funny, actually. It's like punk in its truest sense. It just doesn't give a shit."
Speak English or Die.
Sam thought about a spin off to that, called "Speak Spanish or Die."
"Hey, how's this sound—'Speak Spanish or Die'," she suggested.
"'Speak Spanish or Get the Hell Out,'" Chuck quipped, and the two girls burst out laughing at that. She had no idea if it was the new venue, but Stormtroopers sounded louder and stronger than they did back at L'Amour. Billy's vocals seared through the room like a lightning bolt and Scott and Dan were tight like woven corduroy. Charlie's drumming felt like that of a machine. They couldn't hardly hear anything, even with the plugs nestled within their ears. The crowd to their right pulsated in sync with their power and their devil may care lyrics.
It was overwhelming this time around.
"This is fucking nuts!" Sam shouted over the wall of sound, even if Zelda and Chuck couldn't hear her.