deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 73: gimme fever

Zelda sat next to Sam the whole entire time there on the curb outside of the front lobby. Testament had already left for the airport, but neither of them need not see them off. Eric did apologize to Sam however, but nothing could change the fact that she felt as though she had done something wrong. She had pushed him away all for nothing more than who she was. She came on too strong; she thought of that piece of rice paper in her bottom drawer and she wondered if it was even worth it.
She considered taking the next bus back up to the Bronx and throwing that rice paper in the trash, but the bus had already left the stop up the block. There was no way she could do it now.
Zelda had a few tears in her eyes herself, and Sam thought about what she had said about Alex, and his breaking in new shoes for their tour. But as she bowed her head a bit, Sam could tell that the whole deal with him left the both of them baffled. Eric crouched down next to him, and his smooth inky black hair swept down off of his head like a curtain, albeit one that protected them both from the hazy gray morning light.
"I'm still gonna be with the fan club," Sam promised him, complete with a sniffle. "I can't do that to you guys."
"I'll talk to him, don't you worry," Eric vowed as he tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. "He gets kind of worked up about some things—don't worry about it." The last thing he did for her was put his arms about her: he did the same for Zelda as well.
"You guys have a safe flight," she told him in a soft voice.
Chuck embraced the both of them as well before he left after him: the soft aroma of incense riddled about his smoothed out brown waves. He peered down at her, such that the light on the ceiling shone down on his head so it resembled to a full crown.
"There's a little art shop somewhere around the block here," he told her, "can't remember where it is, but I did see it, though." And yet she had no desire to do anything at that point. She hadn't really known Testament very well, but it felt as though she had been betrayed by a friend. She lay her head against his chest for a few more seconds, and he patted the upper part of her back a little bit before he let her go.
Sam stood there on the sidewalk with her arms folded over her chest as she watched Chuck and Eric climb into the van in unison; the latter showed her a little wave and she returned the favor to him as the tears stayed brimmed upon her eyes. She watched them drive off; even once they had disappeared behind the corner, she stayed there and she brushed away a tear with the back of her finger. She then sighed through her nose and doubled back to the front lobby where Zelda awaited her once again with an embrace.
But Sam bowed her head so no one would look at her. It came on so fast and so suddenly, that she swore she wouldn't look at anyone for the rest of the day. Zelda lingered right next to her, also with her head bowed.
Someone next to her patted a hand upon her shoulder.
She looked to her left and the sight of those long fingers upon her, and Zelda, who had backed off a little bit. She turned her head again and Frank stood right next to her with a soft look on his face. She sniffled again at the very sight of him.
"Things will be okay," he promised her. She turned closer to him: even though summer was upon them, she knew he was warm enough to hold for the time being. She thought about that puffy sweater he had worn on that cold morning in which they rescued Joey from the snow. A warm late spring morning and yet everything was still cold as if a fresh blanket of snow had fallen around them.
"C'mere, Puff Daddy—" she begged to him with her arms outstretched for him.
"That's a nickname I haven't heard in like a million years," he noted with a smirk on his face. Frank held her close to his body. Someone else joined them from the side: Sam moved her head and she recognized Charlie's curls upon his head. From the other side, Zelda joined in as well.
"Nice li'l group hug here," Dan remarked from behind Frank.
"Group hugs and love," Charlie added as he raised his head for him. "Good way to start off our day off." Sam lifted her head from Frank's chest and she rubbed her eyes with one hand.
"C'mon, Sam I am—if it's open, we'll take ya all the way out to Coney Island," Scott offered from behind them.
"That's kinda far, though," Dan pointed out. "Be hell of a subway ride—take us all day just to get there."
Sam looked over to Joey, who sat right there at the table on the other side of the room with a cup of coffee in one hand. They were in the City and the drive to upstate was a little too far. But she needed to be in a place where she could be alone, in a place like upstate New York.
"Well, we've gotta do something, though," Zelda quipped. "Don't really wanna stick around here in the Big Apple with nothing to do, though."
Joey then turned to her with his eyebrows raised; he took a sip from his coffee and then he stood to his feet and cleared his throat.
"I know what you can do," he stated, and they all turned into his direction. He ran his fingers through his jet black curls and he gazed on at her with those large brown eyes.
"What's that?" she asked him with another sniffle. Joey picked up the cup once again, and he drank down the rest of the coffee. He ran his fingers through his curls again and then he gestured for them to follow him. Sam watched him walk towards the door right before them: he then turned around and gestured again for them to follow him outside.
"C'mon," he insisted; his expression never changed from that of concern. Sam glanced back at them and Charlie nodded at her. She sniffled again and then she followed him outside to the sidewalk there. She peered over her shoulder at Zelda, Frank, and Charlie right behind her. Joey walked on towards the driveway when he stopped right at the edge there. He turned again and he gestured once more for Sam to follow him.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," she promised him as he took out his mirrored sunglasses, despite the veil of marine layer clouds over the sun. He peered up the street to the small piece of traffic, and then he crossed the street first. His black curls waved behind him like a series of streamers there at the back; Sam caught up with him as he moved at a brisk pace to the other side. Meanwhile, Zelda, Frank, and Charlie waited there at the corner for the rest of the traffic to clear out a bit.
"Where are we going?" she asked him over the noise of the street; they reached the other sidewalk and he slowed up for her to catch up with him. "Joey, where are we going?"
"You'll see," he replied. She thought about the art shop that Chuck had mentioned and she wondered if that was it. She also wondered what exactly was in there.
"We drove past this place yesterday," he confessed to her. "Surprised you didn't even see it yesterday when we first got here—although I can't really blame ya because it's kinda tucked around the corner here. But I had my eye on it the whole entire time you and Marla were helping out the Cherry Suicides yesterday—Danny and I even went in here yesterday afternoon because I knew it would be right in your wheelhouse. Did not disappoint, either."
"An art shop, right?" She grinned up at him.
"Not just any ol' art shop." They reached the next block up and there it stood on the corner in front of them. A large bay window stretched around the corner of the building so they were able to have a look inside of there. Through the glass, Sam spotted a pure white wall in the back, past the rows and rows of silvery metal shelves.
The light turned green and they walked onward to the front doors there. Joey held the door for her and they strode inside there: once they were inside, Sam could see that the wall was not what she believed. She spotted the gears upon the highest corners of the wall: a giant roll of blank pure white canvas suspended against the wall. Indeed, beyond the shelves stood a stretch of floor for anyone to come in and paint whatever they wish.
"So you and Danny actually came in here yesterday?" she asked him as they made their way over to it.
"Yep. We went full on—what's that artist who does the splatter paint? You've taken art history—I think you know who I'm talking about."
"Jackson Pollock?"
"Jackson Pollock, yeah. It's about eight feet wide so he and I were able to share it and paint all over it." They halted before the canvas and she gazed up at the roll suspended near the ceiling. Eight feet wide and ten feet high: not very big on its own, but the sheer size of it shrunk her down to the size of a pinprick on a tack.
The front door swung open again, and Sam and Joey took a glimpse back at Zelda, Frank, and Charlie as they entered the room themselves in single file: Sam looked beyond them to Scott and Dan, both of whom crossed the street and strode towards the shop. Sam returned to the blank canvas. Not very large, but it seemed to stretch on forever for her by the way of the roll and also on either side of her. She then turned her head back in Joey's direction: he held his sunglasses close to his chest in both hands for a moment before he tucked them into his shirt collar.
"So what is it that you want me to do?" she asked him as Zelda, Frank, and Charlie congregated behind them.
Joey turned to the table next to them, the one with the jars of used paint brushes, large bottles of paint, and a couple of pencils, one with hard graphite, the other with softer graphite. She looked over her shoulder to Zelda, who frowned at everything that was going on before her, and Sam shrugged at her. Joey took a step over to the table there and with one hand on his black curls to keep it back, he kept his hand over the two pencils there.
"Joey, what can I do?" Sam asked him, and he picked out the hard pencil and he returned for her, and he handed it to her as if it was a weapon. She parted her lips at the sight of it, the sight of the hard graphite tip at the end. She gazed back up to the vast stretch of canvas up on the wall, and then she returned to him. The whole room was silent, except for the noise of the morning traffic outside.
"This," he said, to which she shook her head.
"No—I don't feel like it," she confessed as the tears returned to her again.
"It's your greatest passion," he insisted.
"Joey—it's so big, though."
He bowed his head a bit, so he hung close to her face: some of his black curls brushed against the sides of her face so they somewhat blocked out the five of them behind them. She flashed back on the memory of sitting next to Lars in that dark room; but she still shook her head. The encounter with Alex earlier still left her rattled to the core; Joey swallowed and then he spoke again.
"It is what gets you up in the morning," he whispered, to which Sam shook her head once again.
"I can't," she stubbornly said, and she bowed away from him. "I can't, Joey. I can't—"
"Sam, please," he called after her. But she brushed past the five of them, back to the front door. The tears began to fall once more, but he caught her before she could open the door again. He turned her around so he could face her straight on; she tried to hide her face from him but he clutched both of her shoulders.
"Sam, please," he begged her, "listen to me. You need to do it."
"No," she wept. "No! No!"
"Sam, do it," he declared; and she could hear tears in his voice as well. "Do it! Do it!"
She kept on shaking her head at him. Joey set her free hand on her shoulder and he bowed his head so he looked right into her face.
"Sam, listen to me," he persisted in a gentle voice, "you're all about protecting me from some horrible things. It only makes sense that I do the same for you. I need you to do what you love. I need you to go forth." He showed her the pencil. "Do it. Please. For me."
She looked up at him as a tear streamed down her face. Those brown eyes, cold and earthy like the venom he had injected her with before, now soft and riddled with tears himself.
"Please," he begged her in a single breath. She closed her eyes: he never let go of her, even though she wished for him to do that and let her go out to the street. The tears were almost too much to bear for her, but then she opened her eyes again.
"Please," he whispered to her. She sighed through her nose and she took the pencil from Joey's hand. He closed his eyes and sighed through his nose; he ducked past her to the group behind her. She gazed up at the white canvas up on the wall. She looked down at the pencil in her hand. There was one thing she could do with the pencil there on the canvas, but the canvas itself seemed so big and daunting before her.
She curled her fingers around the body of the pencil, and she lifted her gaze to a row of paint brushes. Up to that point, she had been a student. The student with two years under her belt, and yet there wasn't much to take from the whole entire time. She came to New York on a whim and a promise, and yet it felt as though she had learned hardly anything from those two years.
There had to be more. There had to be more within her.
She then tucked the pencil behind her ear, and she turned to the paints on the table. The bristles on the brushes were clean, albeit stained from a few colors, namely the Prussian blue, the cadmium red, and the veridian green. But she spotted a jar off to the side for a bit of a washing.
Just the pure paint, and the way in which she felt about everything up to that point.
She had made her friends and so much had happened in the past two years. Two years worth of everything, and it felt as though she had built up some kind of new armor all the while. Armor built up by living alone in the Bronx, and she knew it had toughened up a bit by the loss of Cliff and by being in class all this time. But then again, as she thought about the loss of Cliff, and the fact they were almost a year away from that accident, she wondered if it was even tough anymore.
The encounter with Alex earlier had opened a new notch in that armor, such that it felt as though it need not be in place anymore. Seeing Joey opened yet another notch for her. To see his brown eyes so soft and so watery brought on such a tight feeling inside of her chest. A tight feeling that only caused the hardest and most astute of armors to weaken in its wake. The very venom he injected her with had brought it all down to its most basic level.
Red paint first for a base. Like blood stains on the otherwise pure white canvas before her.
She thought about Joey and Dan in there the day before with the whole splatter method. She dipped the head of the thick brush into the mouth of the bottle and then she threw the paint onto the pure white canvas before her.
Blood on the canvas. Cliff's blood on the pavement, on that road in the heart of darkness, over in Sweden.
She did it again. Even more blood before her.
She reached for the black paint: that time she splattered some from the mouth of the bottle itself and she used the larger of the brushes for a smearing. The bristles split apart a bit at one point and she thought of Alex's hair. That jet black hair with the little sliver of gray over his forehead.
She moved it towards the red. Towards the proverbial blood, as if Alex had hit his head on the pavement alongside Cliff.
More black and red. That time around, she used the big brush and she employed shorter, much more shallow strokes. The brush resembled to a knife. She moved about more quickly and much harder over the canvas: if she could jump that high, she would cover the whole canvas with the violent feeling, the feeling of betrayal and wanting to inflict a knife onto him to teach him a lesson.
"Such emotion," Charlie whispered out at one point.
Harder. Faster. Just like the Cherry Suicides the night before. Her heart hammered inside of her chest. She moved about as if she was lighter than air. Alex's angered expression burst into her mind right then.
He pushed her and she was pushing back against him. The knife right into that boy's face. What he gets for being so cold and callous, even in the face of Cliff's demise. There was no way she could take it from him. No way. Not ever.
It was all shedding away from her, like the old skin from a snake.
"Looks like a grindcore cover," Scott remarked as she took one of the smaller brushes. A bit of yellow right smack in the middle of the canvas.
Hair first. Followed by the shape of his handsome face. Then the brim of his hat. That black hat he had given her. Right against the red and black, right against the blood and the pavement. She then painted a piece of rope from the base of his neck and she led the end of it to that first patch of red on the canvas.
Her boyfriend gone and all his band could do was replace him.
They replaced him. They replaced him! They replaced him before they could rise up through the clouds with him! Lars said it himself: he was their brother.
Their brother and yet they still replaced him.
Breathing heavy and with a bit of sweat that ran down her back, Sam finished the little thick rough portrait before her. She then backed off so as to catch her breath and to let her heart calm down from the feeling. She held her arms out on either side of her like a crucifix: the paint brush in one hand and the bottle of yellow paint in the other. She gazed on at the scene of violence before her, something that she had never done before, not even in her wildest dreams. All of the art she had done before then was so calm and serene, but this had no restraint whatsoever.
The walls had come down before her and she could finally shake off the remnants of that broken armor. All those dark thoughts before her on canvas. Those dark thoughts of which she swore she had buried had made their way out before her.
"Is that—" Frank swallowed; Sam looked back at him and the tears in his eyes.
"It is," she told him in a light whisper. He lingered closer to her and they both looked on at that rough painting of Cliff together. She then felt a hand on her shoulder once again: she turned her head to find Joey right next to her. He hadn't tears in his eyes anymore, but he did have a soft reassuring look upon his face for her.
"C'mon. Let's take this with us and then we'll go back to the hotel for a li'l sump'n else."
"Like what?" Sam asked him, and he turned to Zelda, who raised her eyebrows at that.
Neither of them answered Sam as the clerk in there helped them cut down that piece of canvas for themselves: once they were sure that the paint was dry, she and Joey rolled it up and then he tucked it underneath his arm before they each pitched in to pay for it. The bunch of them returned up the block to the hotel: Sam was about to take the canvas back upstairs to the Cherry Suicides' room, but Joey gestured for her to follow him.
"I'll take that," Zelda promised her. "I'll take it and take good care of it—don't you worry 'bout a thing." She flashed her a wink as Sam handed her the rolled up canvas; Joey led her past the front lobby towards a door on the far side of the room. He held it for her, and she was met with a cozy dark room lit up by a series of candles in red jars. A low bar stood before her and she turned back to Joey, who had a smirk on his face.
"No," she told him off.
"It's okay—I promise you. Yesterday, Danny and I came in here and we had Shirley Temples."
She breathed out a sigh of relief as he guided her towards the middle of the bar. He tugged on the stool to his left, and he gestured for her to have a seat next to him.
"Bottle of wine for me and my lady here, please," he announced to the bartender, to which she gasped at him.
"Joey!"
"What? You're obviously lookin' better now—we gotta celebrate. Besides, Frankie told me that wine is healthy and easy to digest. It's not like we're drinking beer."
But she still shook her head at that.
"Please don't," she begged him.
"It's just a single glass, though," he pointed out with his eyebrows knitted together in sober seriousness. "I promise you—it'll just be a single glass. One for you, and one for me."
"Yeah, but—a single glass turns into a whole bottle of wine."
"It won't this time," he promised. "Trust me."
Sam nibbled on her bottom lip as the bartender handed them two crystal clear wine glasses. There was no way Joey could keep it one glass, especially once that lush red wine poured inside of those two basins, one right after the other.
"Cheers to us," Joey proclaimed with a raise of his glass; Sam followed suit. A little sip of that red wine was all it took for her to know that it would give him a rush. She turned to the bottle, which the bartender left there on the bar for them. If Joey wanted more, then he would have to fight for it himself.
"Gimme that," she pleaded under her breath. She swiped the bottle and poured herself more, and then she drank it down in a few large gulps. The alcohol was bitter, but the wine itself tasted rich and full with those dark grapes. As dark as Joey's eyes.
And yet, when he downed his glass, she hesitated before him. He then reached for the bottle himself. Before, she would have tackled him or at least slapped his hand, but that was all within her mind.
"Eh, why the hell not," he said.
"Hang on, I thought you promised to only drink one glass of wine," she pointed out.
"Yeah, but—it's so good, though." He offered to pour her another one, and she took the offer.
"Isn't it?" She downed it right there.
"It is. Very much so."
She was two drinks in already, but she felt as though he was onto something. A big fat painting on the wall and now they treated themselves to a whole bottle of red wine. On the other hand, she was glad that he had taken a glass of wine rather than a bottle of beer or vodka for that matter. The red wine filled the whole basin of Joey's glass; he set the bottle down between the two of them and then he brought it up to his dark lips once again: the rich blood red color was warming and welcoming, even from the outside looking in.
Warm and welcome, even with the alcohol within there.
Sam's eyelids drooped a bit from the feeling within her. Two big drinks in and she already had a blush upon her face. A bit of fever brought on by the paint, the pain, and now the wine. She held still there with her hand on the glass as Joey poured himself a third glass.
And then she forgot everything after that.