souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 99: crash and burn

"we can destroy what we have written but we cannot unwrite it."
-a clockwork orange

She knocked on the door panel. She had no idea as to what time it was, but he did tell her to visit him whenever she could during their stay there in Germany. Sam awaited there in the hallway in her pajamas and she wondered if he even heard her knuckle on the wooden panel. Her body felt as though it was about to weaken and wither away even more from her being wide awake at the dead of night: indeed, a slight chill settled over her shoulders even with it being not too cold there in the hallway.
She knocked again.
"I'm comin', I'm comin'," he called out from the inside the room. A soft click on the other side caught her attention and Scott stepped out of the room with his hair disheveled and his eyes squinted a bit. He tugged his Sam Kinison shirt down his body to maintain modesty, and then he bowed his head and rubbed his eyes.
"Scott?" she asked him in a gentle voice.
"Oh, hey, Sam," he greeted her as he rubbed his eyes again. "What's going on?"
"I need someone to talk to," she confessed.
"Um—okay. Come on in."
He stepped out of the way for her and she made her way into his bright lit room, a small space with merely one queen sized bed right in the middle of the floor: the bed spread had been bunched upon the floor right under the foot of the mattress. His suitcase stood upright against the dresser on the right side of the room. A small white bucket stood upon the table next to that, as did a crumpled up piece of tissue paper.
"Did you just wake up?" she asked him as he stepped around her and took his seat on the edge of the bed.
"I did, yeah," he replied. "It only feels like I just fell asleep, too." He cleared his throat and he ran his fingers through his thinning dark hair. "So what's going on?"
"Mind if I sit here next to you?" She gestured to the bed's edge right next to him.
"Not at all. Please do."
She took her seat right there next to him.
"I spent the day with Alex—and I more or less left him behind at the train station close to the East German border." Given it was so late, she drew a blank on the actual name of the place.
"What—What do you mean you left him?" Scott gaped at her. Even though he had just woken up, once the words left her lips he was wide awake and in total shock.
"Joey led me away from there because the train was leaving."
"Did you tell him that Alex was there with you?"
"No, I—I couldn't," she explained. "It's okay, though, Alex is back with us now. He's safe in the bed right now. But he was—he was pretty upset."
"Yeah, I would be, too." He looked on at her, horrified.
"I stood at the door of the train car and I called him when I saw him. He couldn't make it time, though."
"Oh, I see. The train was aboutta leave and you were calling to him. The fact you didn't tell Joey about it, though."
"Like I said—I couldn't. It was impossible."
"Not if he was right there with you."
"He was kind of away from me."
"You still could've told him. Seriously, Sam—being on the outside of Anthrax has taught me that Joey's a good listener."
"Well, it's just—" She cleared her throat. "—they don't really like each other much."
"So?" Scott shrugged his shoulders.
"So what?"
"So what if they don't like each other? It's imperative that you could've told Joey. Or at least you could've stayed behind."
"Thing is Joey dragged me onto the train at that point. But—like I said, Alex is back with us so it's neither here nor there at this point. I want to know how I can rectify things between me and him."
"Well—did you apologize once you saw him again?"
"Yeah, that was the first thing I did."
"And how'd he react to it?"
"He shouted at me and then he cried and ran back to the room. I stayed behind with Joey—"
"Good idea. You inadvertently gave him space."
"And then I went to bed early because I felt bad about it. I get in the room and I changed my clothes, and—since it's me, him, Greg, Chuck, and Tiffany, and there's only two beds—I got in bed right next to him and I tried to console him about it right there. I could tell he was awake all the while, too. Oh! I forgot to say that he likened me to Aurora, too. He said that I became the very thing I'm up against and that's what Aurora became."
"Wow." Scott raised his dark eyebrows in surprise at her. "How are things with Aurora?"
"Ever since she got married, she's been on such an ego trip. Spends all her time at home with Emile and—they had twins a few weeks ago, too. I mean, you were at Alex's birthday party last year and she announced she was pregnant."
"Oh, yeah, I was standing right there next to her. I didn't see anything wrong with it, though."
"But you know, she made his day all about her. And the last time I spoke to her was on the phone over New Year's and—I didn't even recognize her, even over the phone."
"Wow! So she got married and became a mother. She became a completely different person overnight it seems like."
"Yeah."
"You know, when Marge and I got married, I started to feel like a completely different person myself. It's a rite of passage if you will. It's like walking through a hallway but you become a different person at the very end of it. I'm sure you feel like a different person now than you did three years. I'm sure you feel like a different person now than you did on the twenty fifth of September two years ago."
"I do," she said in a soft voice as Cliff entered her mind.
"But he likened you to her, though," Scott recalled what she said right before then.
"Yeah. He said I became the very thing I'm against. I just keep assuming he means the way Aurora's been behaving lately because I went with Joey—" She stopped right in her tracks. "He saw Joey on the train!"
"He probably did," Scott said.
"He told me he doesn't know what I see in him. But Joey's my boyfriend—I had to go with my boyfriend."
"There you go then. You answered your own question."
"There what I go?"
"You chose your spouse instead of your friend. You were all about standing up for him in the face of Aurora choosing her romance instead of her friendship. You wanted her to think of her friend instead. It was something you were advocating up until that point. They have a word for that, Sam. It's called 'hypocrisy.' From what I've seen with him—with Alex, I mean—he absolutely despises that. That's his biggest pet peeve."
"Is there a way to make it up to him, though? Is what I'm asking."
"Well, you have to show him that you mean business. That you mean what you say and that you say what you mean. Really show it to him, too. Spend another day with him and show him something that you genuinely feel solid about. Another thing that can help with this is something intense. Show him that you care about him by grabbing his hand and yanking him out of danger rather than merely saying it. At least that's how it works with marriage—I'm sure the same thing can apply to straight up friendship, too. In fact, that also applies to a work relationship, too. One of the last things I told Joey before I left was you better start throwing your weight around here more or I'm out."
"And he—didn't do it?" Sam was taken aback by that. Joey's playing his guitar felt like something that had been buried for so long and it took Scott's departure for him to realize that. It seemed uncanny in hindsight, that Scott had to leave in order for Joey to blossom as both a lead singer and a guitarist.
"Well, I mean, he kind of did. But I wanted him to be away from the hard drugs and the nonsense that comes with being a rock star. You know, when we were recording Among the Living, our producer kept wanting us to sound like Def Leppard?"
"Really?"
"Oh, yeah. The original playback was terrible, Sam. Charlie's drums were washed out, you could barely hear Frankie, and Joey's vocals bled out all over the place and it kept pissing me off all the while, too. Charlie was all like 'there's no way we can pull this off, Scott', like he was genuinely worried the record was fucked and we had to scrap it." He knitted those thick eyebrows at her. "Have you spoken to Danny—Danny Lilker—lately at all?"
"No! Why? What's going on with him?"
"He actually had to scrap Nuclear Assault's second record because the production sounded like total shit."
"Oh, no!"
"Yeah! When he told me that, I was like 'oh god.' So when Charlie and I were in the studio—all the way down in the Bahamas, no less—I was like 'oh, fuck, don't tell me we're gonna do the same thing Danny did with his record.'"
"So what'd you do?" Sam shuffled her feet underneath her and gave her hair a little toss.
"Turned off one of the microphones and turned up the distortion so there was more of a crunch to it. I told the producer about it and he goes 'okay', really slowly like that. Charlie was extra frustrated so he pounded on his drums extra hard. We were all pissed upon recording and it shows all throughout that record, too. But we saved our asses, though."
"You still wound up leaving, though," she recalled.
"Yeah—I was getting married soon and I needed to get away from the lifestyle Joey was living because he took it with him whenever we all got together."
"I tried to get him out of it, though."
"Keep getting him out of it," he advised her. "He doesn't need to be around that shit, and neither do you or I or anyone. I've tried playing guitar while drunk and it's just—it just doesn't work out."
"So you think maybe I should reach out to Alex in some way."
"Yeah, actually show him something. He won't believe it otherwise. That kid is smart, Sam—his bullshit detector is more astute than that of most older adults."
"Do you have any ideas?" she asked him, to which Scott shook his head.
"I'm afraid I don't," he confessed. "I've crossed paths with him a few times in the past and even though it's enough for me to come to a conclusion with him that he's perceptive, it's not enough for me to tell you that."
Sam sighed through her nose, and then she turned her attention to the dresser before them.
"You said you share a bed with them down the hall?" he asked her.
"Yeah. Me and him, and also Greg. I'm like nestled in between the two of them. I had to slide out from underneath the covers just to get out bed. You know, so I wouldn't to wake either of them up."
Scott snickered at that.
"What?" she demanded, and he snickered some more.
"What!" she scoffed.
"Nestled in between two boys," he chuckled.
"You know, Chuck and Tiffany made that exact same joke," she pointed out. "How I'm in between two boys."
"Kissin' all over ya and messin' around."
"Scott!"
"You know, more often than not threesomes consist of two girls and one guy. But that's—that's kind of hot, though. Blowing two dicks at the same time—or blowing one of 'em and have the other lick you up. Or handling one of them while one of them is kissing you."
Sam rolled her eyes at that.
"C'mon," he teased her, "—I'm just tryin' to cheer ya up! I know Joey would do the same for you."
"Yeah—you know, he would."
Scott gazed on at her with a thoughtful look on his face once more.
"I haven't even told Marge this," he began again, "but sometimes I think of going back to Anthrax. Like I think of calling Charlie and talking to him about it."
"What's stopping you?" she asked him and he raised his left hand to her. "Oh, right, right... you can still do it, though. Don't make the same mistake Aurora made, Scott."
He sighed through his nose at that.
"Hey—I have an idea. Seeing as it's hard for you to get back into that bed—would you like to sleep here for the rest of the night? It's late right now, too."
"I don't really wanna bore you being here, though," she pointed out.
"Why would it bore me?" he asked her.
"Well, because I'm just gonna go right back to sleep, though."
"You know, being bored to tears is worse than being baffled to tears." He patted on the bed behind him. "Come on. Come to bed."
She sighed through her nose and then gingerly, she crawled back to the headboard and she lay down close to the edge of the mattress. Scott crawled back towards her as well and he lay down next to her with about six inches between them.
"I'm not gonna bite, you know," he promised her.
She then remembered that he was married, and she was by legality herself. There was no way they would touch each other, or at least that was her assumption. She looked over at Scott and those thick dark eyebrows raised up a little bit to her. She sighed through her nose again and she inched closer to him. Still with a few inches between them, she lay there on her back.
"Besides, you looked like you were about to roll right off of the edge of the bed, too," he noted as he sat up and made his way across the room. He switched off the light and he hesitated for a few seconds so his eyes could adjust to the darkness. Soon, she caught the sound of the covers next to her rustling. She helped him pull them up to her neck and shoulders.
Even though she was legally married at that point, she realized that she never once climbed in bed next to Bill. She had a room all of her own, but she wasn't any part of his family however. He just had there because he needed someone else there with him.
And she left him there. She left him there at the house.
But she couldn't afford to care however, especially after how he sealed up the whole entire house the couple of days before. He had to be left to his own helm and if that meant burning his own house down just to get inside, then he would do it. She felt more at home in New York, anyway, especially since Marla still kept her couch.
Within time, she fell asleep, and she soon awoke to Scott laughing at something.
Sam rolled her head over the plush pillow to find him seated cross legged right next to her.
"What's going on?" she asked him in a broken voice.
"God, this daytime German TV is hilarious," he told her. "Can't understand a single word, but it's funny nonetheless, though. We even get channels from across the border, too, which is interesting."
And she couldn't help but think of Alex right then, there in the bed down the hall with his socks and his little shorts.
"Did you eat breakfast yet?" she asked Scott.
"Me? No, not yet. Why?"
Sam nibbled on her bottom lip and then she peeled back the covers. She climbed off the bed and almost fell face first on the carpet.
"Bring back some streusel, please?" he called after her.
"Sure—" she called back as she hurried out the door and into the hallway. She returned to the room down the hall where Chuck and Tiffany were just coming right out the door themselves.
"There she is," she said to Chuck.
"Hey, where've you been?" Chuck asked Sam as part of his good morning to her.
"I was just hanging out with Scott," she promptly replied, "do you know where Alex is?"
"He's in the lobby getting breakfast—we were just going there ourselves," Tiffany replied as she tucked a lock of golden blonde hair behind her ear.
Sam then doubled back to the lobby, and there by the window, all by himself, was Alex, with nothing more than a cup of coffee in hand. He flashed her a cold glare but he never moved from his spot as she came closer to him.
He held the cup down in front of him, with his hands wrapped around the base.
"Alex, listen to me," she started, out of breath. Fuming, he took another sip of coffee but the fact that he glanced off to the side meant that he wasn't in fact listening to her. Indeed, as she cleared her throat to say something more to him, he downed the rest of it and stood up.
"Alex—Alex—listen to me. Listen to me, please."
"Hey, Sam!"
She turned her head the other way and Frank and Joey waved at her from the lobby's entrance. But the boy who walked away from her was more important at that moment.
"Alex!" she called after him, and he kept on walking out of there through the other way. "Alex, wait—"
She chased after him even as he picked up the pace. But before he reached the door, she reached out to him and gently touched his arm. He tore around and glared at her, furious.
"Alex, please listen to me," she begged him.
"I'm listening," he snapped, disgusted.
She thought about what Scott had told her in those early hours. Her bottom lip trembled at the sight of him before her, so cold and hard. Colder than she had ever seen him before then.
"For crying out loud, speak, woman!" he barked.
"I wish there was something I could do to fix things," she blurted out.
"Like what?" he demanded as he folded his arms across his chest.
"I—I don't know," she stammered, and yet she couldn't cry. He closed his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. He then shook his head and turned away from her.
He kept on walking to the glass front doors of the lobby, still with his arms folded across his chest. Sam's eyes were as dry as bone even as she watched him go onward to the curb. She stood there with her arms down by her side.
A pair of hands covered her eyes from behind her right then.
"Hi, Zelda," she said.
"What the fuck! How'd you know it was me?"
She lowered her hands and set them on Sam's shoulders. Zelda peered into her face with a big beaming smile.
"How'd you know that was me?" she asked her again.
"I had a hunch of sorts," Sam replied with a shrug and Zelda burst out laughing at that. "Are you ladies playing at Monsters of Rock?"
"Nah—I wish, though! We're just passing through here—playing in Dusseldorf tonight and tomorrow! And then we're gonna be in Amsterdam on Friday."
"Aw, cool!" Sam stepped out from the doorway and she faced Zelda straight on.
"And then there's going to be a big air show not too far from here. Min and Rose both wanna go to that, but we're happy to treat all of youses to it."
"An air show? Like, at a military base?"
"Yeah! Joey actually suggested it to us but the two of them were like, 'yeah, let's do it!'"
"When is it?" Sam asked her.
"Um, Sunday, I think? It's the morning before Anthrax and Testament have to take the stage but I think they can make it, though. Even though we're not playing at Monsters, we'll try and catch those two shows, though." Zelda winked at her.
If nothing else, Sam could be treated rather well by everyone else there in Germany.
In fact, Chuck, Tiffany, and Eric all treated her to a road trip up to Dusseldorf to see the Cherry Suicides as they opened for that one band out of Seattle that Alex had spoken about that night in Providence: Soundgarden.
It was the first trip over to Europe for both bands nonetheless, and while the Cherry Suicides were as tight and big as ever, the second band was just as interesting. The bassist, an Asian man with long fine black hair past his shoulders, and the lead guitarist, a brown skinned man with a long dark beard upon his face, stood in mirrored positions from each other on the stage. The lead singer, meanwhile, had long luxurious jet black curls sprawled over his chest and shoulders, such that the mere sight of him made Sam think of Joey: the big soaring voice only added to the feeling as well. And all the while, she could hardly see the blond drummer in the back: but every so often, she caught a glimpse of that rich blonde wave back there.
Where the Cherry Suicides were powerful, fast, and toeing the line of thrash, they seemed to bounce and meander around, much like the riff that Alex had played for Greg and Eric in the hallway.
And also where the Cherry Suicides were obviously girly and feminine in their prowess, Sam almost expected these four men to have big thick muscles on their bodies. These four strong men with stoic expressions plastered on their faces.
"These guys are loud," Tiffany shouted over the wall of noise they were making; they stood at the back of the room and they still had to yell at one another.
"Good loud, though," Eric shouted back, "you know, there's good loud and shit loud."
"The girls are good loud!" Sam joined in.
"Yeah, and Testament is, too!" he laughed at that.
Something about them baffled her as well. They were called Soundgarden, and yet the name didn't seem to fit them. They were different and yet they could fit a bill with Metallica, Anthrax, and Testament. Given both bands were playing for two nights, Zelda offered to let the four of them stay in their van with them overnight but Chuck talked her out of it.
"We'll see you ladies in a couple of days, though," he assured her with an embrace. If Sam had to fall asleep in the back of the van, she would, just so she wouldn't have to see Alex in bed next to her that night.
A six hour van ride back down to Munich and she indeed fell asleep next to Eric there in the back seat. If nothing else, she would spend the whole day with Joey instead, and she knew she would have to as well given their lack of a date following her return from Schweinfurt.
She lifted her head and she peered out the van window at the royal violet early morning sky over the top of Munich. She turned to Eric, who had leaned his back against the wall of the van and folded his arms across his chest. He was another one whom she never got to hang out with all that much, and yet she still managed to fall asleep right next to him in the back space there.
She knew Joey wasn't awake yet and thus she stayed back there for a little while longer with her eyes closed and the back of her head pressed flat against the van wall. Soon, the first rays of fresh sunlight shone into the windshield and Eric groaned inside of his throat.
Chuck and Tiffany had gone off somewhere from there; but she finally opened her eyes and she gazed on at the column of amber sunlight as it shone through the glass before her. She thought of that morning back in New York when Cliff was alive and they enjoyed a fresh cup of Mexican hot chocolate together. She thought back to Joey's birthday whereby they stayed in that cabin together.
If only there was a way. If only there was a simple way she could make it up to Alex and tell him that she never meant to upset him or leave him there close to the border. A simple way in which she could snap her fingers and bury the hatchet between the two of them. She sighed through her nose and she looked over at Eric and his slumbering face.
For all she knew right at that very moment, it was close to being hopeless. She need not get worked up about a lost cause such as him. She could just go back to Joey from that point onward.
Careful not to wake him, she opened the side door of the van and she climbed out to the pavement. She left it slightly ajar so Eric could get out himself by the time he woke up.
Even though she spent the morning with Joey and they took a walk about the streets of Munich together, she still had Alex in her mind. All alone there in the hotel room and with no one to talk to given Greg always left the room and Chuck and Tiffany were doing as many couple things as her and Joey. Even though she crawled into bed next to Joey back in his hotel room, she still wished for a way on the other side of that wall, just so she could speak to Alex.
Show him. Give him her word, just like how Scott had told her.
She put her arms around Joey's slender waist and she lay her head against his chest. She took in the smell of his cologne and the soft soap that riddled his rich, sunbathed skin. She kissed the side of his neck before she tucked her head right underneath his chin. She slid her hands down his back and onto the backs of his thighs to feel his softness.
There had to be a way. There had to be a way as she fell asleep in Joey's lanky arms.
And for all she knew, the show the next day could be one to remember.
Indeed, when she and Joey awoke the next morning, and he was all eager smiles, she had to force herself to smile back at him. If only she could tell Joey what she was feeling right at that moment, about him and about her friendship with Alex, that is if she had a friendship with him anymore.
Joey told her something about the new album being dedicated to her and Marla for being such good friends to them, but she never properly paid attention aside from the mere nod of her head and a void smile. She stood there off to the side of the stage as Anthrax performed another brand new song for the German crowd before the large dark castle. They called it "Now It's Dark" and it felt so appropriate once the sun had set over them.
Within a few miles of the East German border and she knew the darkness had settled all around her. If only she had her journal there with her so she could craft out a piece of art so as to demonstrate her feelings at that moment. All the black ink and the cold swirls in the wake of Anthrax's darkness. In the wake of the psychedelic darkness that Soundgarden had bestowed onto her.
So much great art she wanted to make right then and yet all she could do was stand there and watch the four of them perform all of those German people.
Soon, Testament took to the stage. Alex stood on the far end with that little red guitar pressed against his body and those jet black curls sprawled down over his face so she couldn't look into eyes. Chuck's vocals never sounded so strong and it was obvious that Louie and Greg had taken notes of tightness from Rosita and Zelda.
They, too, performed a new song, and one that was new to her given she hadn't listened to The New Order yet, called "Trial By Fire."
Her mouth dropped open as Alex put his foot up on the amp and appeared to perform black magic upon the red guitar. The disgruntled look on his face and the way in which he tossed his hair back with a flick of his head.
He was giving his all right then and there for them. He was giving his all right then and there for her.
Indeed, he turned towards her side of the stage and walked towards Greg, but her eyes locked onto his for a few seconds. And yet it was more than enough for her to feel his wrath. Those deep eyes as cold as the California mountains in the winter time. Colder than she had ever dreamed of before.
Colder than she had ever imagined and yet burned into her memory even as she made her way back to the room with Joey.
The Cherry Suicides kept their promise and treated them to that air show the morning before Anthrax and Testament took to the stage again later that night. Sam tied her hair up in a tight ponytail and she wore her best low cut white blouse for Joey, who in turn put on a bright yellow Anthrax shirt and a little pendant in the shape of a music note. He held hands with her as they walked right behind Chuck and Tiffany to the air base together: Alex was right in front of them, all by himself still, while Zelda and Rosita were laughing it up with Eric and Greg at the back of the line. They strode past a chain link which closed off the base from the main road; far across the field was a stretch of field where all the spectators gathered around. They were running late, or least that was according to Rosita, but then again, neither of them wanted to turn something like this down, especially since Joey himself recommended it to them.
Despite Joey's soft hand and the memory of holding him whilst they lay in bed together was still fresh in mind, she still kept her eye on that head of jet black curls before them. Once in a while, he turned his head and she spotted that little plume of gray over his brow.
Joey squeezed her hand and then he lifted it up and kissed the back.
"Quite the date, don't ya think, babe?" he asked her with a big beaming smile on his face.
"Yeah, definitely," she replied; she gazed beyond him to the protective metallic awning across the way and she wondered really how many people were going to be there that day.
At one point, Alex turned his head and he pointed at something.
"Oh, hey, yeah," Chuck said. Sam looked off in that direction as three planes took off, one right after the other. They had to hustle if they wanted to see the main attraction.
But if only there was a way. If only there was a simple way she could make it up to Alex, even with Joey right next to her. A simple way in which she could snap her fingers and make everything better between the two of them. She sighed through her nose.
For all she knew it was hopeless. She need not get worked up about a lost cause such as him.
She could in fact just go back to Joey from that point onward—
BOOM.
The group halted right in their tracks right before the air field.
"What the hell was that?" Tiffany wondered aloud.
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" Chuck pointed up to the sky, at the planes as they crashed into each other on the far side of the air field. Shards of metal sailed over the field. The group ducked back from the fence all the while.
Sam felt something hold onto her arm.
Alex yanked her down to the ground to get her out of potentially harms' way. Metal tore and shattered apart behind them, and Alex yanked her away from there. Horrified, Sam covered her eyes. There was another crashing sound and that time Alex yelped out like a frightened dog.
"OH MY GOD!"
He almost stumbled onto the sidewalk. She felt someone grab her arm: she uncovered her eyes to see Eric and Louie guiding them away from the scene of the accident. Sam's ears rang and thus she could hardly hear what Eric was yelling back at her.
They ran away from there and across the street to the awning and the hangar: Sam clutched onto Alex's shirt sleeve and she dragged him further away from the fence.
"Get away from there!" Eric sounded as though he spoke through a metallic tube. "Let's get the hell away from here!"
She peered back in time at the sight of the massive bright fireball as it fell right into the crowd near them, right before their eyes. All those people. Sam turned away from the sight so she wouldn't have to witness it, but it already burnt itself into the backs of her eyelids.
And it was right then she realized what the mysterious man in her dreams meant when he said that the clock was her friend.
That could have been any one of them in the crowd.
That could have been any one of them on the bus.
Their touch before her. The last time she could've have touched them.
Cherish every moment, every touch.
Alex panicked right then and there: his chest heaved from the horror behind them. Sam stood before him with her hands clasped onto his shoulders. The tears in his eyes. The way the color washed out from his face. It was so close to them and yet they were so far away from it, and yet he panicked anyway.
"Oh my god—are you okay?" she asked him. He looked on at her with a look of fear in his eyes. Big like marbles. His brow tightened up with alarm. His face twisted with sheer terror.
"Are you okay?"
She never saw him this vulnerable before.
She put her arms around him and held him close to her. He buried his face in her shoulder like a scared little boy. He wept at the sight: indeed, every time she blinked her eyes, she kept on seeing it there. Even as the fire ball dissipated and vanished into thin air.
"It's okay," she gently cooed right into his ear. The distant wail of sirens caught her attention. "It's okay—I got you. I got you. You're okay."
He shuddered and shook in her arms, but she still held his body close to her. She stroked his back and gently rocked him.
"It's gonna be okay," she assured him in a near whisper. "Everything is gonna be okay. Help is on the way—it's okay."
Sam held Alex's head close to her chest and he closed his eyes all the while. Eric and Tiffany surrounded them and Chuck stood right before them; the crown of Alex's head smelled clean and soft, as if he had just washed his hair. His hair meanwhile felt as soft as the fur on a teddy bear. Indeed, it was like holding a little teddy bear.
Even though she had no children, she had to hold him as if he really was her own.
The sirens soon approached them to tend to the fire and all those spectators who had been vaporized by it.
Her memory faded a bit from the feeling, and the next thing she knew, she was seated right next to him at the back of the ambulance. The medics had draped blankets over their shoulders and gave them hot cocoa even though it was warm, late August day. Joey took to another ambulance with Chuck and Tiffany while Eric, Zelda, Rosita, Minerva, and Morgan gathered with a few of the medics. Alex sipped on his cup and he sighed through his nose.
He then cleared his throat.
"Thank you for that, by the way," he told her in a low voice, and she turned her attention to him.
"It was all I could do for you right then," she confessed with a shrug of her shoulders, "was get you away from the fence and to safety. We were a ways away from it, but—still. We needed to get away from there."
His fingers quivered a little bit on the side of the cup.
"Hey—" she started again as she realized what she had been given right there. He glanced up at her.
"I really meant it when I apologized to you the other night. I didn't ever mean to leave you behind at the train station."
He shook his head.
"Nah—the next train was coming in about an hour so I just hung out there until then. The conductors and the workers in there were all real nice to me because, you know—ich bin ein Amerikanischer. Right?" He showed her a little smirk.
She giggled at that and then she gasped in amazement.
"That was good," she remarked.
"The guy in the ticket booth taught me that one. Anyway, they told me to stay there because those soldiers were literally around the corner there. It was pretty nerve racking, though, to be there near the border of East Germany. But I'll tell you this."
"What's that?"
"It was... actually kind of cool. I remember thinking, 'holy hell, I am literally a stone's throw from the Soviet Union. Li'l ol' me, of all people.' I never thought I would be that close to it. And like I said, that wall over in Berlin is going to come down some day. When I was talking to one of the conductors—I guess they want nothing more than for Germany to be a single country again. Apparently everyone in East Germany does, too."
"So it's a matter of 'when'," she followed along.
"Right!" He sipped on his hot cocoa and gazed down at the ground.
"One of the guys in there also taught me a little Russian. You know, just being within range of it."
"Oh, yeah?"
"'Thank you' is spasibo—'thank you very much' is bol'shoye spasibo. 'Where's the bathroom' is gde vannaya and—I actually just asked him this for the hell of it."
He turned his attention to her with his eyebrows raised and she stayed still there in anticipation. He cleared his throat.
"Ya khochu—" He lifted his gaze a bit as he recalled it. "—chtoby ty potseloval menya."
"Come again?" she asked him, and he shrugged his shoulders at that. "Alex, what was that? That sounded dirty. Come on, you are my best kept secret after all."
"Weird that you assume that," he teased her as he took another sip of cocoa. "He goes 'little young man from America! We keep you safe from danger down street.'" He imitated a Russian accent at that and Sam giggled some more. They fell back into brief silence until she cleared her throat.
"So—second show tonight?"
To which he nodded.
"Yup, second one and then—we go home. Anthrax keeps on going, but we skedaddle back there." He paused for a few seconds. "You know, it's funny. I don't really wanna—I don't want to leave."
"I don't, either," she admitted. "I kinda like Germany."
"I do, too." A little smile crossed his face right then. "I liked England, too."
"I loved England," Sam recalled. "Marla and I both loved it."
"You know what's the one thing you and I still hadn't done yet?" he asked her, complete with a thoughtful expression across his face.
"What's that?"
"Visit Copenhagen." She paused.
"Oh, damn!" She remembered it, too, and she tilted her head back and groaned in her throat at that.
"I was talking to Lars just yesterday over the phone," he continued, "and I guess they're up there right now. He told me he'll send us Danish ice cream. Real Danish ice cream, too."
"I suppose you wanna give me some of that," she teased him, to which he shrugged.
"If you want. I asked him, 'why can't you just give it to us now?' and he goes 'because I'd have to drive down to Munich from Copenhagen and by then it'll be all melty' and I was like 'alright, alright.'"
She giggled at him again as he took another sip of cocoa. Joey's words from the night of her birthday rang through her mind at that moment. Soon they would have all the ice cream at their helm. She knew Alex would have all the ice cream he could ever ask for, especially if last night's show was anything to go by.
The only thing she could hope for was if everything went well.
Anything could happen. One of them could have a fatal bus crash on a road somewhere. One of them could burn up in a fireball near an air base somewhere. One of them could have no time left.
The clock was her friend, and she hoped to keep it that way, just how she hoped to keep Alex her best kept secret.