souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 101: pleasures of the flesh

Sam boarded that plane with Chuck, Tiffany, Alex, Eric, Greg, and Louie at about ten minutes to the hour.
On one hand, it almost felt wrong to do that when she should be on the plane back to Los Angeles. Bill awaited her and she knew that she would have to face the music with him at some point anyway. She figured that the sooner she would have to see him, the better, and as far as she knew, he had ruined his own house.
But then again, as far as she knew, he had ruined his own house. She would have to return home to nothing.
She settled back in the seat next to Louie, and right next to the window as well.
Given it was so early in the morning, she peered out the window at the stretch of mainland United States under the veil of darkness. Clouds dotted the lower part of the sky beneath them: the soft orange and pink shades that kissed the tops made her think of watercolor. Despite it being so early in the morning, she was still wide awake from that latte that Eric had bought for her. A three hour flight back to San Francisco and there was no way in which she could fall back asleep.
Louie stayed wide awake as well, and she realized that was the first time in literal months that she and him had been alone together as well. He turned his head and showed her a wistful little smile.
"Almost home," he said in a broken voice.
"Almost home," she echoed him; if nothing, she could make her way down the Central Valley into Los Angeles and then Lake Elsinore, but that was for another day when it deemed necessary. Louie sighed through his nose and turned his head back to where he stared straight ahead at the seats in front of them: Greg and Alex were right behind them and had long fallen asleep once again, while Chuck, Eric, and Tiffany were right across the aisle, all asleep as well.
"My dad's gonna be here eventually," she told him.
"It'd be nice to see him, wouldn't it?" Louie replied with a twinkle in his eye.
If only there was a way. If only there was a way she could convince him that he and Zelda belonged together, but if only there was a way she could tell him that he had a family in the background somewhere there.
"Absolutely. Especially after moving out here, too." She fell silent for a moment. "Have you talked to Zelda lately?"
"I haven't, no," he confessed. "I mean, we did see her and the girls back in Europe but I didn't really get alone with her and talked to her, though. Probably should, though, don't ya think?"
"Absolutely," Sam replied and she nestled down in the seat some more.
"You know, Sam, if I'm being perfectly honest with you—I love how concerned you are about these sorts of things."
"I just try to be a good friend," she confessed.
"Well—and this is something I've learned from being around Zelda, too—sometimes you have to let people live. Sometimes some things are just better left unsaid."
"What do you mean?"
"Well—" He turned his head to the row right across from them, and the three of them sound asleep. Neither Greg nor Alex made a peep since they left the airport. "I told you she got it out of me, right?" he asked her in a near whisper.
"How could I forget."
"I figured that there are times where it's better to keep secrets so no one can use them against you because that's—kind of what happened between me and her."
"Oh, really?"
"Oh, yeah. She told me that if the secret gets out between us—and that includes you, too—there will be hell to pay. If Testament is going anywhere in the world, and we probably will, just knowing these two fellas right behind us right and Chuck's searing vocals, there are some things that need to stay private."
"It's none of people's business anyways," she pointed out.
"Exactly, right! So that said, I hope to god that things will stay under wraps with us—you, me, and her. I trust you, Sam. I trust you and I trust Zelda, too. I trust that these things will stay between us."
Sam extended her pinky finger for him.
"Excellent," Louie remarked as he hooked his finger around hers.
"I should ask—where should I stay when we get back to the Bay Area?"
"You can stay with me," he offered her.
"For real?"
"Yeah, I'm kinda—by myself now."
"Aw." She tilted her head at that and he nodded with a solemn look on his face.
"Yeah—but I'll take good care of you, though. When we touch down there, I'll do the first thing I did for Zelda after I started frequenting Rhode Island more and I'll take you out to breakfast. I'll ask Thing One and Thing Two back here if they wanna join us."
She giggled at that.
"If there's one thing I couldn't do for my old girlfriend but I learned to do, though, it's that. It's treating you girls right."
"I just think of that sentiment Charlie told me when I was hanging out with Anthrax back home in New York: you guys embrace your female fans."
"Absolutely," he said. "We absolutely love our female fans—mainly because there's not a lot of you running around, especially with us and this... I wanna say it's a second wave of thrash coming out of the Bay Area in particular. There's us and Death Angel, and there's a few others—we'll have to introduce you to them once we land."
"There's Exodus, too," she pointed out.
"Exodus has been around almost ten years now," he corrected her. "Formed in the last gasp of the Seventies straight outta high school like us and Death Angel. And of course, Anthrax have some now, mainly with the help of the Cherry Suicides, but they've got some. I've seen a few women at our shows wearing Among the Living shirts and shirts with 'NOT' written on the front in big letters. I dunno if you've seen them throw that word around lately, but they have, though."
"Like a catch phrase of some sort?"
"Kinda, yeah. I don't know if you seen Scott with that word shaved into his chest hair before but it's kinda funny, actually."
"I don't remember," she confessed.
"And it's a select few women, too. Between you, the four of them, and Marla, I haven't really seen any for Testament aside from the odd small bunch over in Europe."
"Yeah, I probably counted all of five women in the crowd last night," Sam recalled.
"Exactly!" Louie chuckled.
Sam then reached down between her legs for her purse and she took out her journal, her pencil, and a couple of her pens.
"Ah, you wanna draw for me!" he declared.
"Well, I also wanna show you the thing I made for Greg last night on the night flight," she told him, and she flicked open to that one page. He gaped at the sight of the black ink on the page before him.
"Wow! What is it?"
"It's Joey and Alex on either side of one of the trees from the Black Forest. They're like praying to the tree together."
"Oh, yeah, that's Alex and the little bit of gray upon his head—and the one with the curls is Joey."
"It needs a little more touching up, but that's what I get for drawing so late at night and being partially asleep all the while, too."
Louie chuckled at that when a low guttural noise cut him off. Sam stopped right in her tracks.
"Was that you or me?" he asked her in a low voice.
One of them in the seat behind groaned in his throat: Sam craned her neck back at the sight of Alex shifting his weight in his seat. Even though he was still asleep, nothing could deny the pained look on his face.
"The young buck," she told Louie with a nod of her head back behind them.
"Aw—oh, yeah, he's not quite yet a full grown man so he's still suffering from that teenage hunger."
"You ever get that hunger where it feels like you're about to puke?"
"All the time! You ever get the kind that sneaks up on you? Like you're fine one minute and then all of a sudden, you're like, 'holy hell, I'm hungry.' I used to get it all the time even when I hit twenty years old. I had my daughter then, too."
"So that's why you were always struggling for money," Sam noted.
"Nah, I was struggling for money because there was no money to be made yet. Zelda was only making enough to pay our rent and buy groceries and that was it—no idea what they must be making now. There still really isn't at the moment, not with us. Our label isn't giving us squat and touring is only really keeping our lights on. Seriously, Sam, it's only every so often we can splurge on something like going out to eat—and in Alex's case, it's to keep him at his parents' house still. I figured I have enough for a cab ride back to my place and then I can get something to eat after that, but that's about it. Really, that's why we're all on this plane and not a private one like Metallica are."
"Metallica have their own plane now?" She was stunned by that, and Louie nodded his head and tucked a piece of flat hair behind his ear.
"Yeah. Surprised me, too. But as we were leaving Munich for the first night, Alex was talking to Lars over the phone and they had flown to Copenhagen via their private jet."
Sam brought her gaze down to the floor. To think Metallica were making enough money to have their own flight plan, and Cliff wasn't even there to witness it himself.
"Did he say how they got it?" she asked him.
"Nah, Alex was just like 'how in the world did you manage that one?' and Lars said they were just making enough money from their touring at this point that they were finally able to get it for themselves. Touring in the wake of losing Cliff, too."
Sam shook her head. There was no way she could hold it against them for making money off of their dead friend because it wasn't their fault. But at the same time, merely addressing that the thing was a thing and going no further than that left her unsettled.
"I think it's interesting that Alex started wearing that skull ring, too," Louie continued.
"Why's that?"
"'Cause Cliff had one himself. Remember that?"
Sam paused for a moment. Even though she only got to see him a handful of times prior to his death, it was such a vague little detail for her to remember altogether.
"By the way, when's everyone's birthdays again?" she spoke again. "I know Alex's is on the twenty ninth of September, and you're two days after me in January. I remember Chuck and Eric telling me once but it's escaped me."
"Chuck is right after the summer solstice, June twenty third. Eric is May fourteenth and Greg is April twenty ninth."
"All of us born later in the month, my goodness!" she declared.
"I know, right? Us Aquarians know how to throw people, you know?"
"We bear the water, after all," Sam pointed out, "I bear the goat horns, too. I'm on the cusp."
"I ain't getting in an argument with you," Louie joked, "the goat horns and the bones, too."
She giggled at that, and then she remembered the skull ring in question. And she began to wonder Alex's exact intent as the sun's first rays followed them all the way back to California.
They touched down in the Bay Area, right as the first wisps of that thick fog gathered right outside of the coast, and Sam was eager to step outside and feel the fog on her face and the crown of her head. Greg and Alex trudged behind her and Louie all the way to the area outside of the gate.
"Hey, you guys wanna join us for breakfast?" she offered them as she adjusted the straps on her purse and her overnight bag. "Lewis here is gonna take me out in a few minutes."
"I'm ready for a nap," Greg told her.
"Yeah, I'm probably just gonna mosey on back home and curl up in my bed," Alex added as he rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. "Get on home and eat something, too. But I kinda miss my bed."
"Exodus is playing tomorrow night, though," Greg pointed out.
"Yeah, that's right!" Louie recalled. "Right across the street from me, too."
"Oh, well, lucky us," Sam proclaimed.
"Yeah, c'mon, Sam I am—I'll take ya home with me."
She followed him out to the parking lot and towards the sidewalk on the far side of the black top. And then she realized that he didn't have a car.
"Are we taking the bus or—?" she asked him, but then her voice trailed off as he raised his arm up for a taxi, and the little green car pulled up to the curb before them.
"You know, the entire time I've lived in New York, I've only seen a few taxi cabs," she told him as he held the door for her.
"Really? Well, you lived in the Bronx most of the time, though. Most of the cabs I've seen were down in Manhattan or over in Brooklyn. Like more so in the inner city part of it all rather than a straight up neighborhood such as that."
"Right, and we lived in Hell's Kitchen, too! Down by the water and it was more like that, too. I always either hitched a ride with Charlie and Marla, or I took the subway or the bus with Bel, or I walked places."
They climbed into the back seat together and Louie told the driver they were headed for Hayward.
"That's a name I haven't heard in ages," she noted as they got rolling along the streets.
"What, Hayward?"
"Yeah. All the names out here on the West Coast, actually. It's astonishing, really. A few weeks ago, Chuck, Tiffany, Alex, Greg, and I all went to see Death Angel in Alhambra and the four of them were staying in Corona. When Cliff and I were together, and we visited my parents in Reno, it was kind of surreal, almost like a dream of sorts. To see all the street names and all the old neighborhoods again. And it's like visiting an old friend to an extent."
"When Zelda and I split up, and I moved back here," Louie explained, "the exact same thing happened to me, too. Like, wow, I can't believe I'm actually telling someone to take the 880 Freeway down to Fremont and San Jose, and the 92 bridge across the Bay over to San Mateo. Like, it wasn't that long ago, I was looking up directions from Narragansett to Boston. We're going to be a block away from the cemetery, too."
The driver nodded in response: meanwhile, Sam peered out the window at the early morning fog as it collected all around the sky overhead. So much that Cliff hadn't shown her when he was alive, and at that moment, in the back of that cab, she witnessed it for herself. All the little shops that lined the streets and the small slivers of parks throughout the place all the way over to All Soul's Cemetery and the ramshackle apartment complex right across the way.
Louie kept his promise and paid the fare for them.
The two of them stood on the sidewalk together and he groaned.
"What's up?" she asked him.
"The place I wanna take you isn't open yet," he explained.
"It is still pretty early," she pointed out.
"True, true." He led her up the sidewalk to the apartments: after he held the door for her, and she stepped inside, the fatigue of having traveled so much settled over her right then.
"We're just on the ground floor here," he guided her down the hallway to the fourth room on the right and he unlocked the door for her.
A cozy one bedroom apartment with a small couch tucked in one corner and across from that was a small television upon a milk crate. To the right of her stood a large wooden armoir that looked as though it hadn't been painted with a coat of veneer once in its lifetime. Before her was a short hallway that led back to the bedroom in question as well as a bathroom and a closet: to the left was the small kitchenette with a narrow shabby table that needed a paint job in and of itself.
"Well, at least this place isn't dirty," she pointed out.
"Yeah, I mean, it's just me here now—it's not like there's much to clean here anyway. You can set your things in my room if you wish."
"You're gonna make me sleep on the couch, aren't you?" she asked him.
"Nah, you can sleep head to toe with me in my bed," he offered her. "It's a comfy bed, I promise you that."
Indeed, Sam showed a little grin and then she made her way into that little bedroom so as to set her things down. In one corner of the room was a small pile of laundry: on top was a black T shirt and inscribed on the front, in swirled sparkled red letters, read "The Cherry Suicides". Right within the name was a pair of cherries with the stem split apart by a butcher knife: on the handle of the knife was a white bow.
"You have a Cherry Suicides shirt?" she called out to him.
"Oh, yeah!" he called back to her from the front room.
"I didn't know they sold shirts!" she declared. "All the times I saw them, there was like no merch to be seen."
"Yeah, Zelda gave that to me when we were going out," he explained as he stood in the doorway behind her. "She actually made that for me because they couldn't get a thing to make merch for themselves—well, they probably can now, but a few years ago, they weren't able to so she made her own. You can have that if you'd like. It doesn't fit me."
"Aw, thank you. Yet another sleep shirt." She picked up the shirt from the pile: indeed, she knew it would be a bit of a snug fit for her given she had far more curves than Louie at that point.
"I should ask you," he began again, "have you shown Alex that drawing?"
"I haven't, no. I haven't shown him any of my art so far."
"Oh, man, you should. You know those drawings you made for Charlie for this past tour? He was awestruck by them. Whenever Chuck and I asked him about it, he was like, 'dude, that's some of the best art I've ever seen in my life.'"
She gaped at that.
"But he couldn't put two and two together and realize that it was me who made them, though?" she asked him, to which Louie shook his head.
"Seeing as you're back out here on the West Coast, you ought to catch a moment alone with him when you can. Really show him your art, like do a demo for him."
"He was heart broken when Jean Michel Basquiat passed away recently," she recalled.
"Oh, I bet he was! He's more of an art nut than Lars and Charlie both. So you ought to do it for him. Anyways, I'm gonna change my clothes and I'll take you over to the place I want to take you for breakfast. You'll love this place, Sam. Best coffee and pancakes in town."
"We'll be the judge of that," she told him as she peeled off her shirt right there in front of him, much to his gasping. But she put on that homemade Cherry Suicides shirt for herself: the body hugged her breasts and her belly a little bit but it fit her as if Zelda had crafted it just for her. The neckline hung low upon her chest so it accentuated a bit of skin, and Louie nodded at that.
"My turn!" he said, and he took off his shirt as well. Sam kept her eye on his slender drummer's body as he stepped past her for a plain dark gray sweatshirt himself. He fixed his hair and then he gestured for her to follow him back outside to the restaurant in question.
Cozy and warm and a slice of life away from the deathly feeling right up the block from them, and Sam soon saw that he was right about the coffee and the pancakes: she helped herself to a large fat stack of five of them, each of them light and fluffy and loaded up with butter and a small kiss of fresh blackberries.
"So where are we seeing Exodus at tonight?" she asked him as she mopped up the rest of the blackberry syrup with a final bite of pancakes.
"Right over there—" He pointed out the window to the block on the other side of the cemetery, where she spotted a low but bright lit bar with dark stained glass windows. "Doors open at about five o'clock so we'll be meeting Alex and Greg over there around then. Since we're friends of Exodus, we get in for free. You'll probably have to pay five bucks, though."
"Sounds good, though," she assured him, and then she raised her coffee mug for him and they made a toast to one another. "Wait a minute, it's a bar, though," she pointed out. "What's Alex gonna do there?"
"They sell food until about eleven," he told her. "So he can go in there."
"All the food his tummy could ever wish for," she said as she took another sip of coffee. After breakfast, Sam settled into the apartment for a few hours with her journal and her pencil until Louie put on his Chuck Taylors and then his watch. She figured she had enough to not enough to cover the way into the bar as well as a drink for herself. She ran a brush through her hair and then she followed him back outside to the cool afternoon: most of the fog had burned off at that point, but a few wisps and thick clouds dotted the otherwise rich blue canopy overhead.
"The girls also played there," he told her.
"Really?"
"When Zelda and I were first going out and I was trying to hide my old life from her, yeah. That was where she treated me to a show and she offered to take me home to Rhode Island with her."
"So this is like coming full circle here," she followed along as she put on her sunglasses; even though they weren't going very far up the street, she decided to wear them regardless of anythin g.
"Exactly! Right up the street, too, so it's oh so close to home."
He led her up the sidewalk and all the way around the circumference of the cemetery, to the furthest point and under a row of tall oak trees. She thought about that night in Brooklyn and the Day of the Dead ceremony. She knew she would have to do it again for Cliff as they crossed the four lane road together: he reached the sidewalk first. A gust of cool oceanic wind sent a shiver down her spine but she figured the pancakes from that morning would keep her warm enough until they reached the bar.
"Hey, there's Eric!" Louie pointed out. Up ahead, wrapped in thin black leather and with his inky black hair down so it freely twirled in the wind, Eric lingered outside of the front door of the bar and shuffled his feet about. As they came closer to him, and Sam realized she had made a mistake by not bringing a coat with her, he flashed them a grin.
"Not in the Big Apple anymore," he declared to her. "Bitchin' shirt, by the way."
"Not even close," she said over the whistle of the winds, "I literally forgot how cold and dry California is, even up here. And thank you! This is courtesy of Zelda herself."
Eric held the door for them and she stepped into the big spacious room first. Given they were right across the street from a cemetery, small sugar skulls lined the walls around them. Old names from years and decades past there in the San Francisco Bay Area lined the phony bricks that were plastered upon the main wall to the left, all in thick calligraphy and block letters like the names in obituaries. Posted up at one of the tables by the wall was Alex and Greg, the latter of whom waved at her. Meanwhile, Alex adjusted the skull ring on his right hand and leaned back in the chair. He had dyed his hair jet black once more, albeit with a bit of haste, however this time around, it was hard to tell that he even had a gray streak there over his brow to begin with.
"Really, who says you can't be girly and badass at the same time?" Greg asked her as part of his greeting.
"I thought being girly was a part of being badass, dude," Alex pointed out.
"It's badass to be manly, too," Sam assured as she took her seat there next to him.
"Right?" He clenched his fist to show her the silver skull on his ring finger.
"I'm gonna check on the guys," Louie told them.
"I have to pay the cover charge," she retorted to him.
"Oh, yeah, do that," Alex advised her.
But lucky for her, she found out that she could have half price for a drink, and thus she treated herself to an Irish coffee. A thick frosted glass of that light brown coffee with a thick foam up top and so early in the evening to boot, and she knew that the party would start. She returned to Alex and Greg, right as the former put his hands around a glass of root beer and the latter sipped on some actual beer.
"Why would you do that?" Alex was asking him once she returned within earshot.
"Why not? I could probably do it with one ball first and then work my way up to two."
"You do that, it's just throwing a single thing in the air," he pointed out.
"You're still doing it, though," said Greg.
"No—?" Alex chuckled at that.
"What're you guys talking about?" she asked them with a bit of laughter herself.
"Juggling," Alex replied, "apparently, he wants a shot at it. He wants to start I tout with one object, too."
"That's not juggling, though," she pointed out.
"See what I mean, dude?" He took a sip of his root beer when Eric returned with a plate with a slice of pepperoni pizza.
"Oh, yeah, you get pizza and I just get root beer," Alex scoffed at him.
"Courtesy of the guys, little man," Eric advised him and he gestured to the other side of the room behind him.
"I'll be right back," Alex told the three of them and he bowed over to the table there by the bathrooms, where Louie was helping himself to a plate full as well. Indeed, Sam brought her attention over there and she spotted the man right in front of Louie. She almost didn't even recognize him from his now shorn hair and the fact his face looked as though it had been boiled in a vat of water.
"Oh, man, Zetro doesn't look good," Sam remarked.
"I guess they haven't been doing too well," Eric told her as he covered his mouth with one hand. "This last record they put out—last October, I think? It was a total flop—I thought it was pretty good, though. The guitars sound like chainsaws and Zetro's vocal delivery is just not for the faint of heart. I mean you heard him, when he was with us."
"Oh, right, right! Real screechy, high vocals."
"Indicative of thrash! But yeah, everyone hated it upon release, though."
"Do you think maybe Zelda might have something to do with it?" she asked him.
"No clue, to be honest. Could just be nerves—you know, the sophomore slump thing, but who knows, really. That is a possibility, though, 'cause he was a wreck when she and him split and she made amends with Louie. One can only hope that their next one will be a bonafide masterpiece."
Within time, Alex and Louie returned with plates, for themselves and for Greg and Sam in that respective fashion.
Within the hour, more and more people filed into the bar and Exodus prepared to take to the stage. Eric and Louie made their way over to the stage to check in on the band themselves, and Greg had gone off to the men's room. Thus, Sam and Alex were left alone yet again, that time with empty plates before them. He lifted his glass of root beer to his lips but he didn't take a drink for himself.
"Samantha, when you turned twenty, how'd you react to it?" he asked her.
"How'd I react to it?"
"Yeah, like—what was going through your mind then?"
"I just kind of—resigned to the fact that I was going to be twenty years old soon, like I wasn't going to be a teenager anymore."
She dropped her gaze to his fingers as they curled around the base of his glass of root beer. She wondered what was going through his mind right then.
"Why?" she asked him as she leaned her head in closer to him. "Alex? Is there something you want to tell me?" She peered over her shoulder once again. They were alone yet again; she returned to him. "You can tell me. You are my best kept secret—you can tell me if something is troubling you." He sighed through his nose.
"I'm just—kinda—realizing the fact that I'm not a kid anymore," he confessed, to which he knitted his eyebrows together. "I haven't really felt like a kid in a long time, either. You know? I feel like I've had to grow up a great deal in the past six years. Hell, the past three years, I feel like I've had to grow up a great deal."
"Well—you're still Alex, though," she pointed out in a low voice. "You're just—a little older is all. My mom told me that when I turned eighteen in fact. She said, 'you're still my little girl regardless of how old you are.' So to that, you're still little boy Alex to me. You're still that chubby sixteen year old with the yarmulke, the one whom I first met in New York City."
He raised his head at that and he raised his eyebrows: the softest she had ever seen him at that point.
"You think so?"
"Yeah. I bet your parents feel the same way about you."
He paused for a second. "They do, actually. In particular my mom. They did a lot for me—they still do, actually. My mom helps me do laundry and sometimes there's just something about coming home and feeling her hug me. Feeling my dad hug me, too. You know?"
"Oh, yeah! That's one thing I miss about living close to my parents is hugs from them, especially my dad."
He ran the tip of his finger around the rim of his glass.
"So do you know at all when he's coming out here?" he asked her.
"Who, my dad? I don't, no." She paused herself. "Why, you wanna meet him?"
"If it's not too much trouble," he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "I always introduced my friends to my parents growing up. That was actually the first time I really heard the word 'meshuggah' was when I brought one of my friends over to jam guitars with. My dad was like 'my kid's meshuggah!' to their parents. And I mean—you know, it's all of us out here in the Bay Area together now—it just—kinda makes sense that we all get together and hang out together when we're not on the road."
"Which is quite often," she followed along.
"Oh, my god, yes! We're supposed to be back in the studio soon, too. And we've got those shows down in Reseda before Christmas."
"By the way, when's Hanukkah this year?" she asked him without a moment's hesitation.
"Hanukkah? Oh, god, I dunno. I do know Rosh Hashana is coming up here in like two weeks or something like that, but that's where it starts and ends with me, though. I couldn't tell you when Yom Kippur is or even—almost twenty years old and I know for a fact my mom's gonna take me over her knee and I'm gonna get spanked for this—Passover. Besides my family's non traditional Jewish. I don't always wear my yarmulke or my Star of David."
"Still a Jew boy, though," she pointed out with a giggle.
"Oh, yeah. This last name is definitely indicative of that. There's not a lot of us running around but it's there, though. I mean, if my dad utilizing a word like 'meshuggah' isn't enough indication, I dunno what to tell ya."
He shrugged his shoulders and rolled those deep eyes a bit, and she giggled some more at him.
"Do you celebrate Hanukkah at all?" she asked him.
"We did when I was little! Like when I was a toddler and when I first started school, but like I said, my parents are non traditional. So it doesn't bother them in the least if we miss any of the holidays at any given time, and they usually do, too." He picked up his glass and sipped on the rest of his root beer, and then he turned his attention back to her, that time with a thoughtful look on his face. "We do have a menorah, though," he said in a low voice.
"A real menorah?"
He nodded.
"Oh, yeah, it's as real as the black dye on my head right now." She giggled at that. "And I'll tell you what. When Hanukkah starts—whenever it does this year—you ought to come on over. We'll light up the candles for each of the eight nights, and I'll do it for you, too."
Someone up on stage laughed out laughing right at that moment.
"It's not that funny," Sam cracked, and Alex cackled at that. Someone else up there addressed Alex by name, and he turned his attention towards them with a twinkle in his eye.
"I dunno, man, why you asking me!" he called out in that big bold voice, and Zetro made his way to the middle of the stage with the microphone in hand. He pointed in their direction and Sam sank down away from the look of mischief on his face.
"I see exactly one Alex Skolnick out there in the audience," he declared and his speaking voice filled up the entire room, "—twenty years old in a few weeks time—you know, he's only in here 'cause there's food."
People in the audience chuckled at that. Alex bowed his head and closed his eyes, to which Zetro stuck out his tongue and flashed Sam a wink. She peered over at him and before she could even so much as put her hand on his arm, Zetro spoke again.
"Anyways, come on up here, little man—come on up here and give us a li'l kick in the ass and give the cherry a good poppin'. We could use it right about now to start us out."
Sam and Alex glanced at one another, and she shrugged her shoulders at him. He rolled his eyes and downed the rest of his root beer, and then he stood to his feet. People applauded him as he took the walkway on the other side of the room. Soon, over the small sea of heads, Sam recognized his head of jet black hair against the overhead lights. One of their stage hands gave him a big white flying V guitar, much like the guitar which Dave gave Joey for auditions.
Her jaw dropped as she watched him take center stage next to Zetro.
Alex absolutely dwarfed the five of them. He didn't even need the gray streak upon his head for Sam to recognize him from clear across the room: he had that handsome oval face and those prominent features. Indeed, there was that indication she had for him: his hair could turn completely gray and she could still recognize him, but she made that sentiment when she locked eyes with him. But as she watched him up there on stage with Exodus, she realized that it was more than that.
The kid literally stood out like a monolith. Long lanky legs wrapped in those fitted black jeans and his slender little body accentuated by that black button up: at some point on the way up there, he had undone the top two buttons and revealed a sliver of his chest to the audience. He ran his fingers through his inky black curls and showed off a bit more of his neck.
She had never seen him like that before, such that it was almost too much for her to bear right then. She wanted another slice of pizza but she wanted to pay more attention to him.
Thus, she climbed off the stool and almost ran right into Greg, who gasped at the sight of her.
"Oh, my—hi," she muttered to him.
"Hi," Greg said back to her. One inch of clearance separated them. "Do you know where Alex is?"
"I don't, no—I was—I was just gonna ask you." Sam peered down at his narrow legs and his belt as it poked out from underneath the hem of his shirt. "Oh, no, wait, he's up there with them."
"Oh, yeah!" Greg clapped his hands over his head as Alex let his fingers do the talking on the guitar's fret board.
"Oh, my," she muttered, to which she fanned herself.
"Practice it, man!" Zetro bellow into the microphone.
"Yeah, practice what you preach!" he shouted into the microphone right behind him, and his voice was even bigger for that room in comparison to that of Zetro. All Sam could think about right then was Soundgarden, the Seattle band at the show in Dusseldorf.
Her heart fluttered inside of her chest all the while. The way Alex stood there with that white guitar pressed against his body.
"Watch my purse for me, Greg?" she asked him.
"Sam, I will walk up and down the street with your purse over my shoulder if I have to," Greg replied, and she bowed away from there, but then she doubled back for her glass.
The fact she was legally married to a man and the fact that she had a boyfriend back home in New York. It was almost too much for her to bear.
Sam shook her head. No amount of Irish coffee could soothe the warm feeling in her face: if anything, it only added to the feeling within her. That fluttery feeling in her chest and the way her hips wanted to sway about with his rhythms.
She sipped on the glass again and then she bolted from the table.
She couldn't even make it to bathroom when Alex himself bumped into her there at the corridor's entrance.
Not again. He hadn't even broken out in a sweat for a second. But his body lingered there before her, all big and tall and with two buttons undone, as if he had done it all for her.
Not again.
"Oh—hi," she sputtered and he raised his eyebrows at her.
"Hi," Alex retorted back to her. One inch of clearance separated them, just like with her and Greg. "Uh—I need a drink of water, I'm like dying of thirst right now."
"And I gotta use the ladies' room—" He tried to bow past her but she went in the same direction as him. She went the other way and he followed her as well.
"Damn it—" he chuckled at that.
"Pardon me," she told him as she finally bowed past him and into the women's bathroom. She shut the door behind her and she peered into the mirror in front of her. A light touch of pink crossed her face. She shook her head about and let out a long low whistle, even though that did nothing to settle the nervous sensation in the pit of her stomach.
Yet another moment where she hadn't seen Alex without that stoic expression on his face.
She didn't even have to use the bathroom but she needed to be away from the table, away from Greg's prying eyes. She washed her hands and splashed a little cold water on her face before she returned back out to the bar. Greg had gone off, and Alex was back in his spot there at the table. His face was flushed and he pushed his bangs right off of his face so as to keep himself cool.
"Are you okay?" she asked him once she took her seat again.
"Yeah. I just—wasn't expecting to see you over there."
"I see."
"What about you? You look like you're about as red as a cherry tomato."
"It's this Irish coffee," she told him with a tap of the glass. "I almost wanna Jew it up."
"Jew it up?" he echoed her. "Why would you wanna Jew it up?"
"What's wrong—with Jewing it up?"
"You Jew it up, you make it kosher and dry. And you don't wanna do that to coffee."
"Maybe I do," she teased him. "Make coffee nice and dry."
Alex shook his head and stuck out his tongue at that, and then he gave her that hearty laugh once again.
"I don't think I'm ready to understand you, Alex Skolnick," she teased him once again.
"A lot of people don't," he promised her. "I'm just gonna tell you this right now—really, listen to me, Samantha. A lot of people don't understand me, especially my parents."
And yet a part of her told her that it was only just the beginning with him.