deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 70: a special skeleton

"i stand right next to a mountain,
and i chop it down with the side of my hand!"
-"voodoo child", jimi hendrix

Sam pressed the button on the other side of the tape recorder. She had filled the cassette full, and even though she hadn't really known all of the songs during the Cherry Suicides' set list, she knew that it would serve as a good example to send in to Aurora and eventually the label. The roar of the audience in front of her served as her work soundtrack, as she took the cassette out of its space and stuck it inside of the casing.
She held onto the casing as if it was about to get away from her, and she ducked back into the backstage area right as the four of them scurried back to their dressing room for the night. She hung there for a moment to make sure she had put her pen away in her purse and Zelda breezed past her with those big taped boots still on her feet.
"Good show tonight!" she exclaimed, even though the subdued applause behind them told a different story.
"I know, right?" Sam said with her arms out before either side of her. "You guys were so tight and so on top of it all!" They did a high five as Morgan and Minerva skipped past them.
"Look at them!" Zelda pointed after them. "Look at 'em skipping! I've never seen them skip!"
Sam clapped her hands and then she held up the cassette. "Where's Aurora, I gotta hand this to her—"
"I think she's down the hall here—" Zelda nodded up the corridor towards Anthrax's dressing room. "I saw her up there when I came back here."
"Alright, I'll be right back."
Sam bowed up the corridor towards that dressing room; she adjusted the strap on her purse with her free hand all the while. The door hung wide open and she heard Aurora's gentle laughter from the inside there. She leaned in to find her before Frank and Dan, both of whom were still cooling off after their set earlier that evening. Frank nodded in Sam's direction, and Aurora turned around for a look at her and her face lit up.
Sam showed her the cassette tape.
"You got it!" she exclaimed.
"Hit play the very second they took to the stage and filled the whole thing up," Sam replied and she stepped inside there. "There were a handful of songs I wasn't familiar with so you'll have to help me out with the track names on the listing part." She handed Aurora the tape and she looked over the white label on the inside there.
"That's okay! I'll listen through it and write them down for Jon and hopefully—just hopefully—we'll see the Cherry Suicides on record store shelves at some point."
Sam turned her attention to Frank and Dan with their backs to the wall behind them, and Aurora followed suit.
"Man, they went kinda long tonight, didn't they?" Frank remarked.
"Long and kind of thrashy, too," Dan added. "Think Chuck's boots might be doing something to Zelda a bit. Chuck's boots with Greg's duct tape."
"Yeah, they did have more of an edge tonight, didn't they?" Aurora grinned at them.
"It's all the hanging out with all the metal boys they've been doing lately," Sam pointed out. "Happens in art all the time."
"Did either of you two girls see where Joey ran off to?" Dan asked them, and they both shook their heads; Sam had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach and she hoped that Joey would keep his other promise and abstain from the booze. Dan hopped off of the shelf and he strode past them to the doorway; Sam then returned to Aurora and bowed her head a bit.
"By the way, I've been meaning to ask you this," she started in a low voice, "do you and Emile have any other plans besides moving in together?"
"Like what?"
"Oh, I dunno. But do you care to share, though? We are best friends after all."
Aurora squinted her eyes at her.
"We're not having kids," she scoffed with a shake of her head. "No way I'm putting him through that, either. After the difficulty my parents had raising me with the North Korean threat looming over their heads most of their adult lives? No way."
"You've got too much of a work ethic, anyway," Sam pointed out. "There's no way a kid can interrupt you at this point in your life."
"Right?" Aurora chuckled at that.
"You girls talkin' 'bout me?" Frank cracked.
"Not everything be about you, Frankie," Sam retorted, and Aurora laughed at that. The rumble of a bass pounded through the wooden floor behind them; the pop of a snare drum followed.
"Sounds like Testament is about to take center stage next," Aurora declared. There was that swirling riff once again, the one that Sam and Joey had heard in the venue before.
"Yeah, that's definitely them," Sam remarked. "I'm part of their fan club after all. Let's go see them."
"I have to listen to this, though," Aurora halted her.
"Oh, yeah, that's right—"
Sam returned to the corridor, where Zelda had changed out of her top and into nothing more than that spattered sports bra. She flashed her an excited grin.
"The other boys are about to get on it next," she said to Sam.
"It's a cherry sandwich!" she joked, and that brought a big bold laugh out of Zelda. Indeed, the kick drums started up in a steady metronome of a rhythm and the people out in the audience began clapping in sync with it. The two of them gathered by the edge of the curtain, from the same spot which Sam and Chuck had watched Anthrax earlier that evening.
Louie to their right, as he took his seat behind his kit: he flashed the two of them a pretty little wave and Sam returned the favor to him. Greg slung his bass over his shoulder, and Alex and Eric entered in from the other side of the stage. Chuck rounded out the quintet with his own handheld microphone.
"I see the dudes from Death Angel," Zelda pointed out. Sam looked out to the sea of heads out in the audience.
"Where?"
"Right in front of us. I recognize Osegueda right there—you see him? Mr. Dread locks?"
Sam lowered her gaze to the man with the full head of fledgling dread locks right near the edge of the stage.
"Oh, yeah!"
"How ya doin', Boston!" Chuck declared into his microphone. "We are Testament—straight out of the Bay Area, California. Big ol' thank you to the Cherry Suicides—we love those girls, man. We've got some big shoes to fill after their set. This song is called 'Burnt Offerings'!"
"Oh, this song rules!" Zelda shouted, and Louie glanced over his shoulder with his tongue out at her. He hammered away at his drums, and Sam thought about what he had said to her the night before. He pounded away so hard at them that his kick drums made the floor shake and the snare sounded like a gunshot. Chuck leaned to the side a bit and let his hair fly about like a bullwhip. Greg did the same as his bass thundered forth, strong and powerful. Eric built an entire wall of sound with his guitar. But something was missing.
Chuck's voice seared through the room, with that big razor sharp snarl to it. Sam peered past Louie's drum kit and the back of Greg's head and she spotted Alex over his pedal board. She couldn't see what he was doing.
Several guys near the front of the stage stared on at Alex as he prepared for his solo. One frowned at him as he stepped forward. He strummed high up on the neck and set his foot on the pedal. Hardly any sound came out of his amp.
Sam's heart skipped a few beats at the lack of sound. He took a step closer to it, and feedback bled out from it rather than melodic notes.
"What's going on with Alex?" Zelda wondered aloud.
"I don't know," Sam confessed. There was another noise out there.
"Are they booing him!" Zelda demanded.
It was a soft hum over the thunder of Greg's bass and Eric's rhythm, but Sam knew it from the second she heard it.
"They are!" she declared with her mouth agape. "They're booing him!"
They glanced at one another, stunned.
"I don't think we ever got booed," Zelda confessed. "Always yelled at or told to get off the stage you stupid whores, but never booed."
Alex stooped down to adjust a dial but it was useless. He kept on with the wall of feedback. He held still with his fingers on the fret board: Sam couldn't see him but he appeared to be making use of it. A long loud whine and a blare that sounded as though it came through a tube, and yet even with that, he managed to change the notes. A slow, painful drone.
"What's he doing?" she asked Zelda, who shook her head.
"He's doing a Hendrix!" Louie shouted over his shoulder, and his voice drowned out against the feedback.
"Huh?" Zelda leaned in closer to him.
"He's doing a Jimi Hendrix!" he repeated, that time with his eyes closed. Zelda returned to Sam.
"He's doing what Jimi Hendrix did! Using the feedback for a solo!"
But the tone sounded as though his guitar was dying in utter agony: the way in which he plucked and moved his hand about the guitar neck was something to counter it. An ugly noise and yet he made it oddly beautiful in a way. Sam thought back to that day in the hole in the wall, when he talked about watching Miles Davis on TV one time.
He was improvising.
And yet no one in the crowd seemed to like it. Alex finally shook his head and turned away to let Chuck sing some more. He had his back to the audience so Sam could see the look of frustration on his round face. It kept on going for the rest of Testament's set, such that he shook his head when he left the stage, and he seemed more withdrawn than usual afterwards.
All five of them were silent as the audience out on the floor; Sam and Zelda caught up with the five of them.
"What happened?" Sam asked them, concerned.
"Swings and roundabouts, I guess," Chuck said with a shrug of his shoulders, and yet Sam could see the look of disappointment on his face. "Sometimes you have a bad night. We've been doing good lately, so that was—that was something."
"Let's get back to the room, though," Eric insisted as he picked up his guitar case; Alex stayed knelt down on the floor next to him. Sam then turned to Zelda.
"See you tomorrow?" she asked her.
"See you tomorrow," Zelda replied with a twinkle in her eye and they threw their arms around each other. If nothing else, at least the Cherry Suicides were on their way into a new chapter of their career. But at the same time, Sam couldn't help but think about how the crowd sounded when she recorded them. Their reaction to the four girls on the stage was lukewarm at best: it just took a malfunction and a misfire for them to give Alex an unwonted bad reaction. As she walked with the five of them back to their little room, she thought back to Anthrax's set. That had a very minimal reaction as well.
Not just a bad night for the other quintet, but for the crowd as well.
They filed into the cool, welcoming room once again, and Sam returned to her spot on the bed in the far corner of the room. Alex had lingered behind them all the way back; when he came in last, he shut the door behind him and ran his fingers through that jet black hair. He was silent as he made his way over to the spot on the floor before the bathroom door.
"Jesus, that crowd fucking sucked," Greg lamented.
"Yeah, they sure did," Chuck agreed.
"I mean, they booed our lead guitarist!" Louie exclaimed as he plopped down on the edge of the bed. Meanwhile, Alex just sat there on the blow up mattress with his back to the wall and with an empty look on his face. He didn't look stern, but rather as if his mind was elsewhere. "And he did what he could, too. And they still got all up in arms about it."
"Need anything, Alex?" Chuck offered him, and he shook his head.
"They couldn't be bothered by the girls, either," Sam added. "And they were on fire tonight!"
"Oh, yeah, they were crazy tonight!" Eric exclaimed, but he kept his eye on Alex, who looked as though he had mentally checked out from everything. If only she could tell him that it wasn't his fault, she would. But he seemed uninterested in everything else that night that he lay down on the mattress and rolled over onto his side. He fell asleep within a matter of seconds, and then Greg lay in the opposite direction next to him.
Louie took the spot next to Sam and that time around, he lay flat on his back. Eric turned out the light and the darkness swept over the six of them. Even in the dim light, Sam made out the sight of Louie's eyes still wide open despite it being late at night.
"Are you feeling okay?" she whispered to him.
Louie sighed through his nose and then he rolled his head over the pillow for a better look at her. He gazed on at her through the darkness. Even shrouded in shadow, she could make out the anxious look on his face. Alex was long gone at that point, and Chuck and Eric had fallen asleep next to them; but he still looked nervous to her. He sighed through his nose again.
"Can you keep a secret?" he whispered back to her, and she swallowed.
"Yes," she replied. "Especially if it's that dire."
"It is."
"Okay. Go ahead."
He sighed through his nose a third time.
"I had an affair," he whispered, and Sam raised her eyebrows at him.
"What," she sputtered, "do you mean, you had an affair? With Zelda?"
"No. I mean—Zelda was the affair."
She gaped at him.
"Louie," she breathed. He rolled his head back on top of the pillow so he gazed up at the ceiling overhead.
"I had a girlfriend before I met Zelda," he explained, "—I even had a baby with her. But I never told Zelda about it when we were together. That's why I took a year off from Legacy, besides—living with Zelda. I had a baby—"
"But your heart was elsewhere," she whispered back to him.
Louie pursed his lips and then he shook his head again: Sam could see he was disappointed in himself.
"Zelda was my release," he continued. "I wasn't happy at home, and I told Eric and Zetro that I needed some time off to be with my daughter. But I wasn't happy. I met Zelda and all of a sudden, all bets were off."
"Back up, you told Eric and Zetro that you were having a baby and they knew about Zelda, too?"
"They thought Zelda was the mother," he clarified. "That's why they love her so much. They think she's that tough because she pushed a watermelon through a straw. No, she's just tough because she's a tough punk chick from Rhode Island. I've been living a lie this whole time." He then returned to her. "But now I have someone to tell it to."
Sam swallowed and she shifted her weight in her spot there next to him.
"Promise you won't tell anyone," he whispered, and she nodded her head.
"I just have one question," she started.
"What's that?"
"Does Zelda know?"
And he shook his head.
"Nope. Never told her about my baby or my baby mama, and I don't think it even crossed her mind for a second. At least, that's my assumption."
He closed his eyes and brought his gaze back to the ceiling overhead. Sam fetched up a sigh and she lay there in silence for a second, unsure of what to believe. On one hand, it all made sense as to why Louie always seemed so distant to her. Add to this, he dropped this on her as if it was nothing. But then again, it raised more questions for her, in particular why didn't anyone ask Zelda about a kid one time before, or why no one questioned her behavior before. There were too many holes and too many layers to unravel, and Sam herself was too tired to even so much as consider any of it for herself.
She fell asleep right next to him once more.
The mysterious man in her dreams appeared above her that time, and that time, he drifted in closer to her body. He lay on top of her, and he ran his fingers down her chest. The streak in his hair was high and bright despite the darkness that surrounded them: his eyes seared right into her soul as he felt her up and all over her body. Her nipples tightened and her stomach sank inward. His tongue slithered out from his mouth, right onto her lips.
"You know you—" he whispered to her. "You know—"
"I don't," she confessed back.
"Let's—" he insisted, and he held onto her hands and led the way. He slithered and writhed all about her body like that of a snake. He was cold and dark, like a thick jet black curl on the crown of a head. He was between her legs. His movement caused her chest to seize and her breathing to quicken. Right there. Right next to Louie and with the whole world watching.
And yet she felt nothing from him. Absolutely nothing.
Sam jarred herself awake. She still lay there next to Louie, who had rolled over onto his side, away from her. The man was gone: in fact, he never even touched her.
She let out a sigh of relief and she decided it would be best to find herself a cup of coffee and some breakfast, and then bring it back for the five of them.
Careful not to wake Louie or Greg, she climbed out of bed and slipped her shoes back onto her feet: her travel bag was still in the back of Dan's car. She ducked out of that cool hotel room and softly closed the door behind her. The marine layer hadn't come in overnight and thus she stood in a column of bright, slightly warm golden sunlight courtesy of the low apartment buildings across the street from there.
She adjusted the strap on her purse and began up towards the street corner, alone. She stood there for a second when she swore she heard someone call her name. She peered about the street for any signs of life, but then she glanced down the block and there was Anthrax and their little dumpy white van. She recognized Scott and Frank from all the way up the street; she held onto her purse and hurried down the sidewalk towards them with the morning sun at her back. With a quick glance about the place, she hurried towards them there at the curb; Frank held two cups of coffee in hand and he had a twinkle in his eye as if someone had just told him a dirty joke.
"Hey, there's our girl," he proclaimed once she came within earshot.
Dan poked his head out from the back doors of the van right then.
"Hey, it's li'l Sam!" He then pointed up the street. "My car is parked right up the block here so if you want to get your things, you can just run up there and swipe them."
"I'll probably be hitching a ride with you anyways," she confessed. "I just got to hanging out with Testament because they needed to be hung out with."
"Right?" Scott chuckled at that; he took a sip of his coffee and then nodded with his tongue out from his mouth like that of a dog. "Spectacular."
"What, you got coffee and didn't get any for me?" Sam joked with him, complete with a false hurt look on her face.
"I'd give it to ya any time of the week, sweet heart," he retorted to her, and Frank whistled at that.
"Damn!" Joey poked his head out from the back of the van alongside Dan.
"Hey, you!" Sam exclaimed.
"Hey, you!" he echoed her with a raise of his eyebrows. She made her way over to him, and Dan sank back behind him to give them a bit of privacy. Joey had a little twinkle in his eye, and the wet curls on his forehead only accentuated it.
"You were amazing last night!" she declared, and he flashed her that lopsided grin once again.
"You thought I did good last night?" He nodded at her. "With the feather headdress all about my head?" He gestured about the crown of his head.
"The feathers sealed the deal! And—" She leaned in closer to him. "—thank you for keeping your promise, too." To which he shrugged.
"Just doin' what I do best," he assured her. His brown eyes seemed a lot more clear than normal, which meant he had stayed away from the alcohol overnight.
"Speaking of Testament, what was going on with them last night?" Frank joined in out of the blue.
"Like what was going on with Alex's guitar?" Sam knew that the very mention of Alex would undo everything Joey had done for himself at that point, but she had to fill in for those five guys.
"Yeah."
"I dunno. He seemed to be having some kind of technical trouble." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Joey bowing his head a bit, away from the conversation.
"But then he did that feedback thing and made good use of it," Scott recalled. "That was genius, if you ask me. I wouldn't know what to do if it were me."
"Me, neither." Sam shook her head, and she adjusted the strap on her purse once more. "You guys know where I can get coffee and breakfast from around here?"
"We got our coffee from across the street," Frank pointed to the cafe across the way. "But I haven't seen a donut shop for blocks, though. Maybe when we get going we'll find something."
"'Cause I was thinking of getting coffee and breakfast for those guys when I got up earlier," she confessed.
"Aw, that's sweet of you!"
"They had a rough night last night—I wanna do something nice for them."
"Could at least get coffee," Scott advised her. "'Cause we plan on leaving in about forty minutes so—better hustle."
"Okay." She then returned to Joey, who pursed his lips at the mere mention of them. He held the coffee cup close to his lips, but he never took a sip. She had to keep up the streak. The streak.
"Can I ask you something?" she began in a low voice to him, and he lifted his gaze to her without a turn of his head.
"Yeah."
"I really liked those feathers," she said.
"I do, too," he replied, and that smirk returned much to her relief. "And to be honest, I think that's gonna be a regular thing—I really like singing that song, too."
"Well, and they were kinda... hot, too," she continued, to which Joey showed her a smirk. She thought about that dream she had had, and how she felt nothing as the mysterious man was on top of her and feeling up her entire body. But she was sincere when she said that, and she knew that there had to be something more between her and Joey from that point on.