deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 55: among the living

"We have got to take you to see Iron Maiden at some point—they're probably our biggest influence. Iron Maiden plus Journey and Rush."
"Well, keep your eye on the tour dates, though," she advised him. "School just barely started, so if there's any dates for spring break or the summer time, or better yet—because my birthday is coming up—for that day, too."
"I don't think anyone we like'll be playin' for your day of birthage," he confessed, "but rest assured, I'll be keeping my eye open for you. You and Belinda and Marla and Aurora and Zelda, too. We like our girls."
It had been almost an hour since Joey and Sam had come to the cafe and at that point, the sun had begun to hang low outside. The snows were upon them once again and Sam wondered if she and Belinda could make it back home to the Bronx in time. If nothing, Joey could let the two of them bunk with him for the night. They both knew the way to his place now, and he had room there.
"I assume Black Sabbath, too," she added as she took a sip of coffee.
"Hell yeah! If we ever start getting big, like Metallica big, I hope we can weave our way into the world of Sabbath." Joey took another large drink of that warm beany coffee and then he ran his fingers through his pitch black curls. Tiny smooth ringlets caressed the inside of his fingers.
"What exactly quantifies 'Metallica big'?" she asked him as she held the mug by the base with both hands.
"They've kind of become the Scorpions at this point," he explained. "They're big in a sense that anyone inside of our circle and our scene knows exactly who they are. They're not like Madonna big in that everyone across the world knows who they are. If you go to like, San Francisco or Boston, and you mention Metallica to a regular ol' schlub, they couldn't tell you who they are. But if you saw a guy with long hair and mentioned them to him, he'd probably tell you who they are. Speaking of Boston, we gotta take you to see them, too. So much to do."
"So much to do and see and so little time," she remarked.
"Exactly!"
They fell back into silence for a moment so Joey could sip upon his coffee a bit more.
"So—Aurora told me of a newer band called Guns 'N Roses out of L.A.," she recalled.
"Mmm?"
"Yeah. She—" It was really hard to say it was her who said it and not Eric, and she cleared her throat. "—she said they're hard rock and kind of a refreshment from all the big hair."
"Cool—I oughta check 'em out the next time we're at a record store. Although—" He peered over his shoulder to the doorway and his expression turned serious. "—I think there might be one here in town, to be honest."
His brown eyes fixated on something on the other side of the room.
"What's up?" She turned to look and she recognized that long smooth dark hair as it fell down to the middle of his back. Smooth and dark and with a few waves embedded within: his coffee colored skin contrasted with the white of the snow outside. Right next to him was that full head of jet black hair wrapped up in a parka. For all Sam knew, Joey hadn't seen the gray stripe make a disappearance, but she also couldn't say that he didn't know it wasn't him.
She shifted her weight in her seat at the very sight of the serious look on his face. He dropped his gaze onto her and he sighed through his nose before he took another sip of coffee. She turned her head again and she gazed on at Alex as he adjusted the lapels of his big heavy parka; Chuck said something to him, but she couldn't hear a sound from him.
"Oh, yeah—forgot they were here with us," Joey grumbled.
"Who? Legacy?" She remembered the vow to keep it all a secret, especially since she, Aurora, Belinda, and Zelda were the only ones who knew about the name change.
"Yeah—you know, I don't bar grudges, so I have no problem with Chuck per se. But that boy, Louie—he looks like he's up to trouble, especially from his experience with Zelda."
"What makes you think that?" Sam had to resist breathing out a sigh of relief at that.
"The biggest stoics are often hiding something. I say that because I'm a stoic myself."
"So you're implying that you're up to trouble?" She couldn't resist a little laugh at that.
"Maybe. We'll hang out more and maybe I'll show you." He flashed her a wink and she raised her eyebrows at him. She returned to the two young men on the other side of the room; Alex peeled off his parka before he sank back into the corner there. Gray sliver nowhere to be seen, much to her relief.
"Or it could be because he's a drummer," she pointed out. "Drummers know how to bang."
"Drummers know how to bang, exactly!" He showed her another little lopsided grin. She took another glimpse over at Alex and his staring up at Chuck as he said something to him. He was rather lovely and he stood out from a crowd, and thus it made very little sense to her. But then again, it was dark when he and Joey got into that fight, and so she knew he couldn't recognize Alex by those deep steely eyes like she could.
Chuck then turned away and he headed across the warm wooden floor. He looked in her direction and he showed her a friendly little smile and a little wave.
Please don't come over here, Chuck, she said to herself as she returned the favor. Please don't come over here, please don't come over here, please don't come over here...
And lucky for her, he kept onward to the counter in front of them. But then she returned her gaze to Alex as he set his elbows up on the top of the seat and showed off his chest. She thought about the joke that Belinda had said to her, but then she returned to Joey, who finished off his cup of coffee right there.
"I still owe you a drawing of you," she recalled.
"Why?" he asked her with a puzzled look on his face. "You made that painting of me—and by the way, I still have it in my car, too."
"I want to do it better, though. I want to get you alone for a long time and without a shred of an interruption between us. I want to do it on paper, too. Joey, I've been teasing it to you. I want to give it to you."
He ran his fingers through those ringlets again: she wished to feel his hair much like how she felt out Frank's hair in Charlie's closet. She turned her direction to the other side of the room again: those deep eyes watched her every move, or maybe he was looking past her to the wall behind Joey. She thought about the mysterious man in her dreams, how he seemed to watch her every move as well. The streak buried under the helmet of black and yet she could feel its ghost. Like the very dream himself.
A fever dream.
He nodded her an ever so slight nod and she showed him a friendly smile. It was the least she could do for him right then.
"Yeah, I kinda wanna," Joey piped up, such that it took her off guard. "Let's take a walk, too. I think the snow's stopped for a little bit."
"Sounds good," she told him.
Without another word, they slid out from there and the noise of the cafe returned to them. Alex turned his attention to something on the other side of the room so Sam was able to lead Joey out of there. The gray had covered the sky yet again and the snow was upon them once again, and yet she wasn't ready to head on back to the hole in the wall.
"Did not like the way Louie was looking at you back there," Joey confessed as they walked side by side to the corner.
"Why?"
"I dunno, it just made me uncomfortable. The way he stared right through you—like that undressing stare."
"What do you mean 'undressing stare'?" she asked him, baffled; a part of her wanted to laugh at the notion that Louie was undressing her, especially since that wasn't even him. And then she realized just how clueless Joey was, in that he was under the influence of white wine when Louie told her that he and Zelda were on good terms with each other.
"He was totally undressing you with his eyes," he pointed out. "It looked like he was undressing me a bit, too. I think his break up from Zelda's getting to him a bit. Although to be fair, I would've done the same if it were me. I can't imagine pain like that."
"You think a guy as good looking as him would be that desperate for attention?"
"You think Louie's good looking?"
"Yeah, I think he is." She had to resist even more laughter right there.
"Huh. Well, I used to know this guy when I was playing hockey—he was pretty handsome, even by my own standards."
"Oh, live and let live, Joey! I won't give you a hard time if you think another guy's good looking."
"Okay, he was pretty handsome, even for us funky looking hockey players. Never found a girl by the time I joined Anthrax and yet I could see it in him. He was getting desperate because all my other teammates were starting to get the eye from the girls in the neighborhood. Yeah, I can actually see it. Desperation comes in all shapes and sizes, you know. And the only other thing I know about it is it can hurt you. So I'd tread with caution around him."
He then turned his head to her.
"I mean, it only makes sense," he continued, "you're protective of me—I should return the favor."
Sam knew there was no point to it because it wasn't even Louie but she still gave him a smile. It was comforting to know that she and Joey could expound on their friendship from that point onward. Within mere seconds, they had reached the street corner and paused for a moment so as to look either way about the street.
"Hey, there's that clearing you and I went to before when Stormtroopers toured up here," he noted with a nod of his head.
"Where?"
"Right over there."
Sam then looked off to the left at that clearing by the lake, now as black as the hair on Joey and Alex's heads.
"It's quite a crossing, though," she remarked.
"It's alright—there's no one comin'." And yet Joey still looked both ways before he set a hand on her shoulder and guided her across the dark, wet pavement. A smooth blanket of freshly fallen white snow had fallen onto the grass, and if her memory rang true, Sam knew it was a bit too deep for their boots. They hovered there by the curb, right next to that smooth snow bank: the trees next to them drooped a bit with large clumps of snow that made her think of gingerbread houses. The black waters of the lake made her wonder if it was frozen over a bit.
They stood there next to each other in complete silence, and she wondered if it would snow at any given second. The gray over their heads seemed to beckon it for them.
"So Kirk's getting married," he finally said, much to her surprise.
"What!" she exclaimed. "When?"
"Some time in March." Joey frowned at that. "Wait a minute. No one told you?"
"No!"
"Shit. Well, if it's any comfort to you at all, I only just heard of it myself. Charlie mentioned it and Scott was like 'oh yeah!' and that was how I found out about it. I don't even know if I'm invited at all, to be honest. I had no idea—I thought one of the girls told you."
"They didn't, no. Marla's got a packed schedule for this quarter so I can't really blame her for telling me if she knows about it."
They froze in place.
"Maybe we can ask them about it?" she suggested to him.
"Maybe. Maybe. I dunno, to be honest." He shrugged his slender shoulders at that and Sam huddled closer to his little body. He was wrapped up tight in a black overcoat but she could tell he was cold.
"I forget who it was—may've been Zelda who likened you to venom."
"My last name is Belladonna after all," he pointed out.
"You've injected me with your venom, Joey—I'm obsessed with drawing you now!"
"Now you know why Anthrax wanted me. I guess I really truly am unforgettable." He bowed his head and shrugged again.
"You know what, Joey?"
"What's that?"
"I have my art supplies with me. As does Bel."
He froze right in his tracks.
"What're you sayin'?" he teased her.
"What're you doing tonight?" she asked him.
"Tonight? Eh, I'm probably just getting some dinner and then crash out for the night. Why?"
"Let's go back there to the studio and grab Belinda. I wanna do something for you."
"Under one condition, though," he quipped.
"What's that?"
"You promise to share that painting of me with everyone."
"Of course, of course. Besides, Bel owes me forty bucks. I think we all have bets to pay off."
"Hell yeah, we do!"
"Well—" she nibbled on her bottom lip and she swore she felt a snowflake on her forehead. "—if I keep that promise for a bit longer, you have to tell me about your new album."
"Promise that Belinda doesn't tell anyone about it?"
"She's already sworn to secrecy about—some other things," she chose her words carefully once again. "So I'm sure she can for you."
She extended her pinky finger to him and he linked it up with her.
"Alright then," he said in a soft voice. "Now—let's get outta this snow. I feel it upon us."
"I do, too..."
Joey set his hand on her shoulder once again as they made their way back to the hole in the wall, where Belinda had stumbled outside with Zelda.
"The producer wanted us out," Zelda explained once they came within earshot. "It was getting too cold in there, too."
"Oh, I see," Sam nodded her head. "I assume Aurora's in there, too?"
"Yeah, she is," Belinda replied as she tucked her hands into her jacket pockets. "She's with the label and they just need one other person in there so she offered to take it up."
"Hey, Bel," Sam piped up again, "—how would you feel if I told you Joey and I wanna take you back to his place for a bite to eat and a bit of fun?"
"I'd love to! What're we eatin' and doing afterwards?"
"A three way," Zelda joked, and the three of them burst out laughing at that.
"I'll tell you when we get there," Sam promised her as she set a hand on Belinda's shoulder.
"We better hustle, though," Joey advised them with a rub of his nose. "The snow's coming."
"Okay—you gonna be alright, Zelda?" Belinda asked her.
"Oh, yeah. I'm tough, Bel."
"Tough little Rhode Island girl," Sam added with a wink.
"I've gotta get sump'n for Rose, anyway," Zelda assured them.
Joey, Sam, and Belinda climbed into the latter's car and they headed back to Camillus. As they skirted around the edge of Syracuse, the lake effect snow began to fall over them. Belinda tapped on the brakes a little bit as the freeway widened out to four pitch dark lanes.
"I'm used to the bad snows up here," he confessed at one point, "but I don't blame ya for going kinda slow, Belinda. I would, too, 'cause I got a couple'a girls with me."
Sam nestled down at the front seat at the sound of that. She relished in the blast of warm air from the heater vents: she knew she could go into her twenty second year on earth with a good feeling inside of her and with Joey right next to her. If nothing, they could be friends forever much like herself and Frank. And yet, every so often, he took a glimpse over to her with that little lopsided smile on his face.
They slept across from each other in the cabin and she had seen him naked. Such a strange place to be but she assured herself that it was strictly friendship. But she was about to see him in the buff yet again, or at least that was her hope.
They soon rolled up to that usual parking spot around the corner from his apartment. Snowflakes rained down over them and dusted the crowns of their heads: the highest curls upon Joey's head somewhat resembled to the buried streak over Alex's forehead. Once he unlocked the front door and stepped inside, he shook his head about so the snow fell onto the carpet before him. He peeled off his coat and lay it over the arm of his couch; he ran his hand over the crown of his head again to get rid of the rest of the snow.
"Don't you wanna hang up your coat first?" Sam asked him as she took off her coat.
"And lug it up them stairs?" he joked to her as Belinda shut the door behind her.
"It's just going up the stairs and then coming back down. Take ya a minute."
"Wow," Belinda breathed out once they were inside there.
"What?" Joey raised his eyebrows at her.
She crouched down for a better look at the record collection there on that side of the room.
"Oh, yeah, his little library of records," Sam declared.
"Wow!" Belinda breathed out as she smoothed her blonde hair back over her shoulder. "Some of these I haven't really seen before! Like that Cheap Trick album."
"Got that for a nickel at a little place over in Schenectady," he told her as he kept going into the kitchen. Sam then turned back to Belinda.
"Is the car still unlocked?" she asked her in a low voice.
"Yeah." Belinda raised her gaze to her. "Why? What's up?"
Sam crouched down next to her and lingered close to her face so it looked as though they were talking about the records.
"I made a promise to Joey to draw him," she whispered to her.
"Oh. Why are we whispering?"
"Because I didn't tell him when I'd do it for him. I want it to be a surprise."
"Oh, I see. Are we talking watching him to draw him or are we talking having him in the buff?"
"In the buff?"
"Oh, shit—"
"Hey, what would you girls like?" Joey called to them from the kitchen.
"For dinner?" Sam called back to him.
"Yeah. We can just order some take out because I don't really have much."
"Oh, yeah, that's right—you guys had been on the road."
"Exactly, and the label isn't paying us diddly squat, either."
"Well, we don't really have much on us, either," Belinda pointed out as she stood to her feet and peeled off her coat. "I have yet to get my grant dispersement."
"Yeah, me, too—and my counselor Bill isn't telling me anything," Sam confessed.
"He won't tell me shit, either."
Joey stood at the counter with a hand on a glass of water.
"Sounds like we're all struggling," he muttered.
"We've got each other, though," Sam recalled what Lars had said to her. "By the way—I didn't tell Belinda this yet but—whatever we do for dinner, even if it's nothing, because I have to admit that I can't stop thinking about this, Joey."
"What's that?"
Sam took a glimpse over at Belinda, who then raised her eyebrows back at her.
"Strip for us, Joey," Sam told him, and Belinda herself giggled at that. Joey gaped at her, but she snapped her fingers twice at him.
"C'mon, c'mon," she coaxed him, and a soft pink bloomed in his otherwise dark face.
"She obviously wants to do it, Joey," Belinda said with one hand up to her mouth. He swallowed and then he reached down to the waist of his jeans.
"Come on, big boy—let's do it."
"Whoa, where'd this come from?" he chuckled at her as he adjusted his belt a bit.
"Hey, you said it yourself—I'm a girl with a man's name next to a girl who slithers about. Get on it."
"Well, I gotta actually strip for you," he pointed out.
"Do it, Joey!" Sam exclaimed with a clap of her hands.
"Yeah, do it, Joey!" Belinda joined in.
He sighed through his nose and drank down the rest of his water. He set the glass down on the counter and he held onto the bottom hem of his sweatshirt. He peeled it off and showed off his slender dark skinned body. Sam thought back to when they were at the lake and it was just her and him. But this time, she had Belinda next to her.
"Want me to get our stuff?" she asked Sam.
"If you don't mind at all," she replied, and she couldn't resist the grin on her face. Belinda then clapped her hands and she ducked back outside to the snow and the cold gray. Sam brought her attention back to Joey, who had lay his shirt on the other arm of the couch.
"Didn't have to get a bit of booze in you at all this time," she remarked.
"Don't really need it," he told her, again with that lopsided grin on his face. "I know I can trust you now, Sam I am."
He unfastened his belt and his jeans and he let them fall to the floor around his feet.
"Speaking of trust, if I get naked again for you two girls, do you promise not to tell anyone about the new album?"
"Joey, I'm an assistant to Aurora—you know I'm not gonna do such a thing," Sam scoffed.
"I'm more concerned about her, though."
"Joey, I assure you Bel's secretive. She can keep it all under wraps."
He nibbled on his bottom lip, and he stepped out from his jeans and towards the chair in the middle of the room. He held onto his underwear in anticipation of Belinda returning with the paper and the ink pens. Sam held onto them for her so she could take off her coat and lay it on top of Joey's coat there on the arm of the couch. It seemed so easy to her to just run upstairs and hang them up, but it was better to leave them there because the real important thing was right in front of them.
Sam and Belinda then took their seats with their drawing pads and their pencils in hand.
"Go ahead, Joey," the former coaxed him, and he sighed through his nose. She could tell he was hungry from the faint pale tone to his otherwise dark skin. But he slid down his underwear and Belinda raised her eyebrows at him.
"Okay. We're calling it Among the Living and we're dedicating it to Cliff. That's as far as I know. Scott, Frankie, and Charlie all wrote up the songs—I just haveta sing 'em."
Sam gasped at that. She set down her drawing pad on the cushion and she lunged for him with her arms wide open. She held his nude body close to her. She couldn't resist the tears from falling right there. Her body shuddered and Joey gingerly ran his hands up her back.
"Do you like it?" he asked her in a muffled voice; he raised his head from her chest and spat out a piece of lint from her sweatshirt.
"Do I like it? It just made my life!"
"Easy now—you just might make another life right there," Belinda warned them, but Sam still held onto Joey. She didn't want to let him go. She wanted to feel every inch of him. Feel every inch and draw every inch for the world to see. She wanted everyone to know that she loved Joey and she loved him far more than she had ever dreamed of.
But she let go of him and she brushed away a tear, and he sat back down on the chair. His toned thighs spread out a little bit and his slim waist was still slim and delicate.
"I like that name, too," she told him in a broken voice, "what is it again, Among the Living?"
"Among the Living, yeah."
"It's like we're living in a world that Cliff didn't get to see," Belinda noted.
"A brand new chapter of sorts," Joey added. "Kinda roundabout, but yeah."
"I hope you can hold up for this round, Joseph," Sam admitted, "I'm starting to feel really hungry now..."