deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 27: finger lakes

The guys were not exaggerating when they told Sam that the audiences were mostly men. For the next few dates, Sam and Zelda both stood off to the side to watch Stormtroopers of Death. Every night was an earful of orange styrofoam and a view to the sea of testosterone and moshing off to their right. Even after a few dates, Sam could feel a rigid schedule of sorts coming into fruition. Scott had barely written anything down but she knew what was to happen for the dates that made up the tour.
Every day it was wake up early and have breakfast, then walk around the town a bit, followed by a drive over to the next stop and a walk around there to check it out for themselves; some time in the middle of the afternoon, they made their way over to the venue, which was often within a few blocks away. Poughkeepsie was the only stop with a hotel: their next handful of stops as well as the one up in Albany, right up the road from there, had no hotel that was within their range.
"Which means we're gonna have to sleep in the car here," Sam concluded when Charlie and Marla posted up in the alleyway behind the brick building.
"We can lay there in the back seat," Marla suggested with her head turned towards him.
"Yeah, and I can lean back in the passenger seat there," Sam chimed in.
"As long as we don't put our tootsies on those glass doves back there," Charlie told them.
"They're hidden under the seat here, though," Sam replied as she reached down between her legs and she touched those doves; the tips of her fingers brushed against the edges of their white wings. She kept the glass doves she had bought for her parents wrapped up in a knit sweater and she kept it tucked under the car seat. Charlie vowed to keep it safe from the bumps and potholes that came along with touring, even if it was over the course of two states. It was a tight fit given the sweater as it protected them from the outside world and the rough rhythm of the upstate New York roads. She had faith that they were in a good spot there underneath her seat.
"I'm not gonna drink tonight," Charlie announced as he unbuckled his seat belt. "As much as I wanna to do that."
"Did you remember to bring the cup holders, though?" Marla asked him.
"What, the cup holders we bought in Schenectady?" he said.
"Yeah."
"Of course. There was no way I was gonna forget those. It was a stop over there, too, so it's not like I could forget 'em anyway."
"Okay, okay—I was just checking, you know."
"I'm gonna start calling you guys Mom and Dad," Sam joked.
"Why?" Charlie laughed at that.
"Because you guys act like an old married couple."
"Well, we've been together enough to resemble a married couple," Marla laughed along with him. Within time, they met up with Zelda, who had driven up there with Billy and Scott, and she didn't seem to mind bunking in their car with them despite Sam's offer to join her, Marla, and Charlie.
That was the night Charlie and Marla treated the both of them to seeing Motorhead and the Plasmatics after Stormtroopers' short set. The five of them congregated off to the side yet again as they watched Lemmy with that big fat bass guitar. At one point, Sam took a glimpse down at her top: a black button up shirt that hugged her breasts, even though she wanted to keep it when she moved to New York City.
She looked back over at Lemmy and those big thick dark mutton chops on the sides of his face, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his shirt unbuttoned all the way down his chest, down to the top of his stomach. She peered back down at her shirt yet again.
She was on tour with Stormtroopers of Death and she was about to start art school, and she fondled Cliff in a closet in the subway. She might as well let loose and go forth. She unfastened the first button, followed by the second and the third: her black bra and a sliver of her stomach were both exposed. Zelda gave her a thumbs up and then a high five. Marla turned around and she ran her fingers through Sam's dark hair to tousle it.
"Perfect and sexy little vixen!" she exclaimed over Motorhead's hard, fast, and abrasive power.
Following their set, Wendy O. Williams sauntered on with a blood spattered white camisole that looked to be falling off of her body and a mini skirt made of partially shredded, old duct tape. She had a short bob of bright platinum blonde hair with a little flip at the bottom and a tight snarl plastered across her face.
"Apparently the cops want me to cover up," she declared into the microphone in a big upstate accent, "I wanna give it forth to all of you even if it means I gotta wear tiny clothes."
Something about her made Sam uncomfortable, and yet it made her wonder as she knew her parents weren't around. She could be free for real there on the East Coast. She could have that devil may care attitude herself, much like Stormtroopers but taken through her own. It was like an epiphany of sorts as Wendy shrieked into the microphone and riled everyone up once more.
"Lemmy!" she shouted at one point. "Lemmy! Get yer ass up here an' sing with me!"
Sam watched her and Lemmy perform a hard and loud rendition of that song "Stand By Your Man" together, complete with Lemmy's guttural bellowing and that fuzzy bass with a neck that extended out further than that of Frank's bass. At one point, Sam glanced over at Zelda, who raised her eyebrows at her.
"Life goals right there!" she yelled over the wall of sound.
"Oh, yeah!"
"That's the real Mom and Dad, by the way," Marla chimed in right next to them, and that in turn brought a laugh out of Charlie.
Wendy disappeared into the darkness and the four of them returned to their beds for the evening right outside of the club. Sam ducked into the front passenger seat, and she kept her purse down by her ankles. At least it was a warm summer night there in Albany; she nestled down in the seat and put her knees closer to the dashboard, but she didn't exactly press them against the hard plastic.
Charlie and Marla slipped into the back seat, but she couldn't exactly see what they were doing.
"Right there, Char," Marla murmured. "Just—yeah. Like that. There we go!"
Sam heard something rustling back there in the back seat.
"Can I lean back now?" she called back to them.
"Oh, yeah," Charlie replied, "there's about six inches of clearance between the back of the seat and us."
"Oh, yeah, you could've done it anyway," Marla added.
Sam reached down and lifted the lever, and she let the seat lean back in the darkness. Behind the alleyway and around the corner was Scott, Billy, and Zelda in the second car, and then Dan in his car by himself; she shifted herself around onto her side and pulled her kness closer up to her chest so she could feel comfortable. Lucky for her, they were in a pocket of complete darkness against the capital city lights. A sole orange glow from over the club's roof acted as a night light of sorts for her.
Even though she lay in an odd position and in the front seat, she closed her eyes and relaxed right there. She kept her shirt unbuttoned and thus she acted as though she was under a thin little blanket. Sam sighed through her nose and she brought her hands up closer to her head to give herself a touch more comfort.
Sam thought about Wendy and Lemmy, and the way in which their voices twined together with so much perfection. There was a part of her that wanted to be as brazen and expressive as her as well as Stormtroopers. She was a part of the whole shebang after all, to fully express herself come the first day of art school. Every time she closed her eyes, Lemmy's mutton chops or Wendy's bright blonde hair appeared on the backs of her eyelids, and every time, it couldn't make her go to sleep.
It felt like forever for her to fall asleep but she managed to do so despite the strange, cramped setting.
She found herself in a forest, albeit one that was filled with trees that ranged from being as tall as her to as high as the sky. The stumps were all solid black incomparison to the misty, hazy sunlight against the sky. She took a step forward and her foot sank down into the marshy ground. She moved back to her spot and she looked around the clearing.
Behind her was a line of bright green shrubs about the size of bread boxes; she peered up at the trees as they extended high into the sky.
The whole entire forest felt wet, as though it had just rained there. She tried to move about the soft wet soil but it all made her sink.
"Sam?" His voice echoed over the ground in front of her. She turned her head and she saw him walking towards her. His hair was as black as a hole but his face was shrouded in shadow. She couldn't even see his eyes or the tip of his nose, and yet the streak seemed so familiar to her. It extended back from his dark face and yet she couldn't tell if it was black or white, or of a different color. But she knew it was him.
Something hit her hand. She shook it about and brought it closer to her chest. She wanted to run, but she couldn't because the earth was too soft. The very sight of his hollow face was enough to make her shudder and shake. But he approached her in complete silence like a ghost.
His voice echoed and rang about the forest.
"Sam—" His voice was so distant and yet it crept over her like the legs of a spider. "Sam—"
"Sam!"
She opened her eyes and Zelda hung over the driver's side window. She gasped at the sight of her and then she recognized her dark hair. The sky was still dark but melded into a soft light purple with the sunrise.
Charlie and Marla were still sound asleep in the back seat together, but Sam lifted her arm out from underneath her and shook her hand about to get the blood flowing once again. She reached to the window handle: it was awkward, but she mananged to roll down the window for Zelda.
"What's up?" Sam called to her in a broken voice: even though she didn't have a drop of alcohol the night before, her parched and dry lips and mouth made her cough a little bit.
"Danny couldn't sleep," Zelda told her in a near whisper, "so he got donuts and coffee for us all."
"Oh, good! I'm dying of thirst right now."
"Are they still asleep?" She leaned in closer to the window pane.
"Oh, yeah. I'll join you guys, though."
Careful not to wake up Charlie and Marla, Sam climbed out of the front seat and stood in the warm, crisp early morning breeze for a second. She reached her arms over her head and stretched as best as she could. The buttons on her shirt hung loose over her chest and the upper part of her stomach. Zelda stood at the trunk and stretched for herself.
"You oughta just undo the rest of the buttons," she suggested in a low voice. "Be like Wendy."
"I'd have to take my pants off, too," Sam added.
"And belt out an old country song with Cliff at some point!"
She brought a hand to her mouth to keep her laugh from waking up Charlie and Marla. And then she turned her head towards the sidewalk, and the street which stood empty and deserted behind them. Sam made sight of the mere edge of the fender behind the building's edge, and she ambled over there.
Indeed, Dan stood next to the door with a little white cup of coffee in hand, and a cardboard holder rested atop the roof; and he showed her a friendly little smile.
"'Mornin', Sam," he greeted her: the early morning breeze fluttered his long dark curls.
"'Mornin', Danny," she returned the favor.
"Would you like a donut and some coffee?"
"Pretty please." Zelda joined the two of them, and Dan handed her a cup of coffee for herself.
"I have no idea how you girls take your coffee, so I grabbed a little bottle of cream." Scott was still asleep in the front seat of the car next to them, whereas Billy had disappeared.
"Where'd Bill go?" Zelda asked him.
"Went lookin' for a little boys' room," Dan said with a straight face, and that brought a big laugh out of her.
"Shhhh!" Sam hissed, given Scott, Charlie, and Marla were all still asleep. Zelda clasped a hand to her mouth and she giggled instead as a result. Sam poured some of the cream into the black coffee and she stirred it with the little wooden stick. Dan offered them a donut from the white folded box, which he had placed on the hood for a moment.
Sam took a Boston crème donut for herself while Zelda took the vanilla one with rainbow sprinkles on top.
"Thank you, Danny," Sam told him.
"Yeah, thank you for this," Zelda added. "I just woke up and saw you walking back here with the box of donuts and the coffee cups."
"I wanted to get you girls some coffee," he confessed with a shrug of his shoulders. "Something for myself and the three of you. Billy said he was gonna look for a bathroom and then something for himself, so—I didn't have to worry about him. He did want a donut, though."
"What about Scott and Charlie?" Sam asked him as she took a small sip of coffee: she peered up at the sky as the soft violet gave way to yellow and orange. The sun was about to rise all the way up over the vast, sleepy side of upstate New York.
"Eh, we'll think of sump'n for 'em," Dan replied as he tucked a lock of dark hair behind his ear, and that brought another chuckle out of Zelda. He turned his attention to the alleyway behind Sam. "And there's Marla!"
Sam turned to find her walking towards them with a little bit of bedhead and a shake to her step.
"What's goin' on?" Marla asked them as she rubbed her eyes.
"Breakfast," Zelda replied with a raise of her cup. "Courtesy of Danny."
"Oh, fantastic—" Marla fetched up a yawn, and Sam handed her the fourth cup of coffee.
"How do you like yours?"
"I can drink it black or with a bit of sugar," she replied as she rubbed her eye again. "I just like coffee." Marla took the lid off of the cup and took a sip of the straight up black coffee. She let out a low whistle. "Oh, that hit the spot."
"There's Billy," Zelda pointed out behind Sam. "If there's a boys' room, there's a girls' room nearby, too." She darted down the sidewalk to go talk to Billy; Dan took a raspberry jelly donut out of the box, but Sam kept her attention on Marla.
"Had the weirdest dream before I woke up," she started as she tucked a lock of violet hair behind her ear. The first rays of sunlight shone upon the crown of her head to give it a nice little sheen against that deep violet; a golden shine appeared upon the roof of Charlie's car.
"What was it about?" Sam asked her.
"I was laying on top of a target and it was spinning around in circles," Marla explained as she brought the cup of coffee closer to her chest even though it wasn't cold. "Some guy kept throwing stuff at me. Not like knives or anything, but it was kinda nerve racking, though."
"I've been having dreams about strange men with funny hair," Sam said. "And then I met Cliff."
"Oh, I've had those dreams before," she explained. "Dreamed about a single guy in weird positions, and then I met Charlie and I had this weird like... deja vu feeling. I told someone about it after I met him, and she told me it's a sign that my life is going to take a turn for the better." More brand new rays of the sun shone upon her hair so it looked as though it was made of a whole multitude colors besides that deep violet.
"Were they at all dreams about someone who resembled to Charlie?" Sam asked her, and Marla shook her head, but then she hesitated.
"Like—I dreamed about someone who looked like him, you mean? Actually—I have, yeah. There was a point I also thought it was Joey, too, given the curly hair. I actually dunno, though, now that I think about it. All I remember was a few times I dreamed about a boy with long pitch black curls down past his shoulders like the two of them. I dunno if it was either of those two guys, though."
Marla took another sip of coffee and she kept her eyes fixated on the box of donuts.
"What kinda donuts we got?" she asked Dan, who lifted the lid.
"There's a couple'a chocolate ones in here if you'd like, Mar. Like there's one with nuts on top."
"Ooh, I'll take that one!"
Within time, Billy and Zelda returned, and Charlie and Scott awoke for donuts for themselves. At that point, the sun had risen a bit over the horizon, and Charlie wasn't too pleased that Dan hadn't gotten him a cup of coffee.
"Alright, gang, this next stop is gonna be in a place called Ithaca," Scott declared from the driver's seat of the car. "It's a three hour drive so we better prepare ourselves and give ourselves some closure before we hit the road."
But Sam was eager to get going given the promise she made to Joey in Poughkeepsie. She had downed her cup of coffee the hour before but she awaited in the back seat of Charlie's car with her hand down between her legs once again. She touched the edge of the doves' wings once again. She thought about packing it in to a little stout box to keep them in place.
If Zelda, Charlie, and Billy all vowed to protect it, she wanted to further protect it from the harshness of the following road before them.
Three hours on that road all the way over to Ithaca. Charlie led the way and he swore he knew the way to the venue by heart.
Either side of the road was surrounded by lush forest and tiny pockets of houses nestled back away from the ribbon of highway. The whole place reminded Sam of the California coast line, especially the more forested part just prior to the ocean's edge. Granted, the California coast line had far more hills and scraggly shrubs before the ponderosa pines and vast beaches, but the whole feeling through the rolled down window reminded her of her own roots.
The minute buildings of Ithaca appeared from thick green trees while the smooth glassy dark waters of the closest of Finger Lakes emerged from right behind them. Charlie wound his way to the heart of town and the little venue that awaited them again.
"I dunno if the Plasmatics will even be there," he confessed at one point.
"Why's that?" Marla asked him.
"No idea. But right before we left Albany, their manager told me we were gonna be going with Motorhead for the remainder of the tour. It's only for about a couple of weeks, but still."
"So it's Ithaca now, and then after that?" Sam chimed in.
"Ithaca and then—" Charlie hesitated for a second as he peered out the windshield to check out the intersection. No stop light, but half of a sign on the corner next to them. "—then we go to Syracuse, followed by Rochester and then Buffalo, and then we double back to Pennsylvania for a bit, and then—"
"School!" Marla declared.
"School," Charlie echoed, and they lunged forward.
The venue was nothing more than a bar about the size of a shipping container, nestled back in the trees right across the street and from the water's edge. Charlie took the first spot in the back parking lot, right in front of a cluster of tall trees, and Scott and Dan followed suit in the slots next to them.
Sam climbed out of the car and she peered up at the trees: she thought about that dream she had had the night before. Marla said something to Scott and Billy, but Sam only brought her attention to the driveway. She let her eyes wander across the pavement and then the water's edge. Charlie and Marla made their way towards the back door of the bar, while Zelda chatted with Dan about something.
That was her chance.
She never made a call to him, but she knew he was there.
Sam hoisted her purse over her shoulder and she headed down the driveway to the strip of dirt that lined the side of the pavement. The soles of her shoes crunched over the fallen pine needles and she caught a whiff of the pine itself. Pine followed by the breeze from the lake. She waited for a few seconds at the corner, and then she hurried across the dark pavement to that bare patch of dark earth. The waters glimmered under the late morning sun, but the sight she paid more attention to was the crown of curls that awaited her at the shore. She sauntered over to him and stood next to him, who had taken his seat on a smooth little piece of rock.
"Hey, Joey," she greeted him. He lifted his head and he squinted his brown eyes against the late summer sunlight.
"Hey, li'l lady," he returned the favor in a hoarse voice. His dark lips were smooth and silken, and his sun kissed skin had not a single blemish. His hands were empty, much to both her joy as well as disappointment.
"You're looking good this morning," she told him.
"So are you," he replied, "even after your first tour." He showed her a little crooked smile. She gave her hair a toss back with a flick of her head and she gazed on at the sheet of lake waters before them.
"So this is Finger Lakes," she remarked.
"Beautiful Finger Lakes," he echoed with an extending of his arm out; he beheld the vast view of the glassy black waters before them. Despite it being the hottest part of summer, Sam shivered at the feeling of the gentle breeze on her head and shoulders. "Well, one of 'em, anyways. There's five of them."
Sam tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear: even a gentle touch on her hair was enough for her to feel the oil and the dirt. She hadn't showered since she left New York City, in almost two weeks. She turned her attention to Joey.
"I am in need of a shower," she told him, and he lifted his head to her. "Like—this is dire. I never noticed it before because I've just been with a bunch of people who hadn't showered in that long, either."
"You literally haven't been able to shower," he stated, and she shook her head. He nibbled on his bottom lip and then his face lit up.
"You know, it's a little bit of a drive—not nearly as bad as it could be—but I can take you over to my parents' place and you can use their shower. They're not home right now—they're over in Rochester visiting my aunt, but I can get ya in, though, if you'd like. What's the date after here?"
"Syracuse and then Rochester, then Buffalo, and then we go down to Pennsylvania," she recalled what Charlie had said verbatim.
Joey returned his attention to the waters before him. He was silent for a long minute before he spoke again.
"I can get you back here quick," he told her as he stood to his feet.
"You sure?" she asked him.
"Yeah, positive. I grew up around here so I know this whole part of upstate like the back of my hand." He brushed off the seat of his pants. "Sam, I've gone a whole week without showering and I couldn't hardly stand myself. I'm taking you there—but tell somebody over there where you're going, though."
Joey led her away from the water's edge and towards his car posted up the street: she could see the sight of the partially collapsed curb.
"There's Marla," Sam pointed out as they reached the street and she recognized her head of violet hair near the front door of the bar.
"Go tell 'er about it," Joey encouraged her. Sam ducked across the pavement with her hand clutched upon the purse's strap; Marla hesitated for a moment to await her.
"What's going on?" she asked Sam once she came within earshot.
"I am in horrible need of a shower," she stated, "so Joey's taking me over to his parents' house for one. No idea how far it is from here but I just can't take it anymore, Marla."
She nodded her violet head and showed her a thoughtful look.
"Okay. Uh—I'll tell Charlie about it. Just so long as you guys get back here by the middle of the afternoon."
"He's an upstate boy so he knows this way better 'round here than I do," Sam pointed out with a shrug of her shoulders. "I can promise you he will."
"Okay, we'll be waitin' for you." Marla flashed her a wink and Sam doubled back to Joey and his car.
He held the door for her and she bowed into the comfy front seat, and he took to the driver's seat.
"It's only an hour drive," he told her. "So we'll be back here in time for the whole set up session." He shut the door and he hesitated. "Oh, yeah."
"What?"
"I feel like such a complete and total dick sayin' this but—I've smelled locker rooms that smelled better than you, Sam," he confessed.
"Yeah, I feel like a locker room," she added with a shrug of her shoulders. "The floor of a locker room."
"Alright, let's get going." Joey almost fumbled the key but he fired up the car and they left the side of the street. They rolled down the windows so they could take in the late summer sunshine and the freshness of Finger Lakes. Even though it was an hour drive to his parents' house, a drive past the lakes and into a strange part of the wilderness, every minute felt like an hour in and of itself as the dirty feeling settled over her. She never exactly paid a lot of attention to it before given she was exposed to a few people just like her, but as she sat there in the front seat of Joey's car, it only made her realize things. The crown of her head and her skin all itched from the feeling.
Two weeks without a shower. Two weeks in only two different pairs of underwear. She wondered if Zelda was used to it all, and she wondered if the guys in Legacy had problems with it themselves.
"It's okay, we're almost there," Joey promised her as he brought them to the middle of the road for a few seconds. "We're literally almost there." He hung a left and they headed down the narrow little cul de sac there. He pulled up to a little one story brick house surrounded by more of those same lush trees on the right side.
"This is your parents' house?" she asked him with a smile.
"Their new one, anyways. I grew up over in Oswego, which is literally a straight shot from here. And we're actually not too far from Syracuse, either. But anyways—" He was quick to unfasten his seat belt and he led her up to the front step. He unlocked the front door with the spare on his key ring and Sam was met with a cozy front living room that smelled of soup and fresh new fabric.
"Okay, I think my mom has towels in the linen closet—I'll pick out one for ya. Just go down the hall and you'll see the bathroom right there... she has really nice soap and shampoo in there. It's a nice big bottle so you can probably take a tiny bit and it wouldn't make a difference." Sam set down her purse on the coffee table and she jogged down the narrow hallway to the cozy bright bathroom with an olive green rug. She couldn't get those clothes off of her quicker. She couldn't switch on the water faster.
Such bliss!
The lavender in the soap nourished her while it washed away all the dirty feeling from her skin. Given he wasn't joking about the size of the shampoo bottle, she washed her hair twice with a bit the size of a dime every time. When she switched off the water, she breathed a sigh of relief. She was about to climb out of the tub when she realized something. All of her clean underwear awaited her in her suitcases in Charlie's car. This was his parents' house, but she couldn't take it anymore.
She bowed her head out from behind the curtain and she tucked the pair of underwear into the wicker basket next to her tub. She even buried it underneath a few wads of tissue and washed her hands from the tub faucet before she called Joey in for a clean towel.
She kept herself tucked behind the curtain as he stepped in there.
"Just the best feeling, isn't it?" he asked her and that crooked smile never faded for a second. She took the towel and dried off her head and shoulders before she moved onto her body. It was going to be awkward, but she had to tough it out for a little bit longer across New York and Pennsylvania before they returned home. She did have a skirt if push came to shove for the first day of school.
She slipped on her jeans over her bare legs and then she put her shirt back on. She ruffled her hair with the towel once more before she slipped it into the hamper at the end of the hall.
Joey handed her her purse once she returned to the front of the house and they headed back outside. Just in time.
"Joey?" she started as he locked the door; he peered over his shoulder at her. "Thank you."
"Just doin' what I can," he said, and he tucked the key into his jeans pocket. "Just doin' what I can to help. C'mon—let's get ya back there."