souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 102: the dead of night

Sam stayed there on the side of the room, right in between Alex, Eric, Greg, and Louie, and the four of them watched Exodus take hold of the stage. Yet another quintet, but one that filled up the room with that chainsaw sound that Eric had talked about before then. At some points, she bowed her head so the intensity of it wouldn't hit her ears so hard, and yet Zetro's high pitched shriek of a vocal delivery filled up every inch of those rafters overhead. It was nothing like their shows at L'Amour where she, Marla, and Aurora could stand anywhere in there and they could hear everything and everyone at equal height: his voice was too harsh for that cheap microphone and the five of them sounded far too large for that small room.
"Yeah, their next record has to be a masterpiece after this," Greg was saying to Eric at one point.
"Absolutely. A little while longer and they should be back in the studio soon enough."
"Hey, after this, you guys wanna take a walk around the block?" Alex asked the four of them.
"I'd love to!" Sam replied as she glanced over at him. "I gotta get my jacket, though."
"Yeah, me, too," Louie agreed with a nod of his head. Zetro gave another loud shriek that filled the room and Sam wondered if that was it as the crowd erupted before them.
"One of these days, I'm gonna get my driver's license soon enough," Alex said in a low voice, albeit right into her ear.
"Please do," she insisted and he nodded at her and showed her a little smirk at that. She knew for sure that things were calmer between them at that point. In fact, she began to see Alex as a new friend to her. He wasn't at the best friend level like with Frank and Marla at that point, but she had her time and a place in her heart just for him right then.
Before Zetro could bide the entire crowd good night, the five of them returned outside to the cold evening, right as the sun had set behind the fresh incoming bank of dark gray San Francisco fog. She shivered and pressed her hands to the upper parts of her arms the whole way to the sidewalk.
"Just a short li'l walk to the apartment," Louie assured them, "we'll fetch our warm things and we'll be right back." He then snapped his fingers. "C'mon, Sam—"
"A little running will warm us up, too!" she proclaimed.
"Right!" he laughed over the noise of the street. The two of them hurried across the four lanes to that corner again, and she reached the front step of the building first. But then again she had to wait there a little bit before he showed up there with the keys ready. She shivered a little bit more as he pushed the door open and held it for her, and they made their way down the corridor back to his place.
The whole entire time he spent unlocking the door for her, she yearned to be under something soft and warm. She darted into the apartment and eventually the bedroom first and she opened her overnight bag. Given it wasn't that hot in Germany, but not that cold at the same time, she needn't her jacket: but the cold dry feeling that California left all around her was enough to bring more than a shudder to her skin and her spine. Once she zipped up her jacket, she clasped her hands to her arms again.
"Are you alright?" Louie asked her as he put on his coat as well.
"Yeah, just chilly," she replied, to which he chuckled at that.
"Our whole lives here in California and even I can't believe how cold it gets here."
"Right? I'm gonna leave my purse here, too."
"Good plan," he told her. She climbed up next to him and they doubled back out of there and into the corridor once again. He locked the door behind them before they returned out there to the cooled evening: more fog gathered around out there over the waters.
They rounded the corner again, and Eric, Alex, and Greg congregated together right across the street from them.
"So what do you guys wanna do?" she asked them once they returned within earshot of them.
"Just wanna show you the neighborhood a little bit," Eric told her. "Seeing as you might be here more and more with your paternal unit coming over here in the future."
"Might be," she corrected him.
"Regardless, we want you to get to know this place a little better," he declared, and a gust of wind blew his inky black hair up over his head to where it resembled to the wisps of fog themselves.
"Easy now," Greg advised him.
"Easy like the way it all just flows together like a sail," Louie cracked, and Alex let out a hearty bout of laughter. They were more comedic than Anthrax!
"So this is Hayward?" she asked aloud and she raised her gaze to the tops of the buildings around the block.
"Good ol' Hayward, yeah," Eric told her. "Chuck and Tiffany live this way, too. And I do, too, even though I drove here."
"You did?"
"Car's parked right down there—" He pointed down the block to the small black car posted up right behind the street corner itself. "Why not, you know?"
"Kinda need a car out this way, anyway," she noted.
"Exactly!"
"I'm all the way up in Berkeley," Alex declared.
"Yeah, Alex is Mr. Long Runner living up in Berkeley," Eric joked as he smoothed down his hair again. "Greg is not too far from here in the next neighborhood, and—well, you know where Louie is, too."
"Right over there!" She pointed back across the cemetery. She shivered under her jacket. "I kind of want to see where Cliff was from, though."
"He was from—Castro Valley, was it?" Louie wondered aloud.
"Yeah, that's a ways away from here," Eric said, "little bit of a drive. But we can go up that way if you like and also go and visit the place where we scattered his ashes, too."
"I'd love to," Sam agreed as she rubbed her hands together.
"And seeing as we're right by the cemetery, we might as well have a moment to ourselves, too."
"Is it even open?" Greg asked him.
"Don't think so. The sun's already gone down..."
The five of them crossed the street yet again and they congregated outside of the iron wrought fence along the sidewalk. Sam shivered inside of her coat some more while Louie and Alex gathered on either side of her: the former ran his hand over the crown of his head and smoothed down his already smooth hair some more, but it was futile given the winds around them. Alex stuffed his hands into his pockets: all he had on was that button up shirt and nothing on underneath it.
Even though he had been on stage and ate a bunch of pizza before then, the shivering was obvious to Sam. With the passing lights of the cars on the street, she could catch a glimpse inside of the graveyard. She caught the sight of the tops of the tombstones in there: somewhere inside of there, closer to the far end there, she spotted something big, tall, and block shaped.
"Is there a mausoleum in there?" she asked Eric as they sauntered along the sidewalk.
"There is, yeah. We kind of are like a smaller, more nondescript version of New Orleans here. We're at sea level, we've got the fog, but we're missing the swamps, though."
"And the hurricanes," Louie added.
"And the hurricanes, too, yeah!"
"And the giant bugs," Greg chimed in.
"All the trimmings of New Orleans, but made for California," Eric declared. "Got our own culture, our own music scene, and we've got a mausoleum, too." Sam shivered some more and she adjusted the lapels of her jacket a little bit in order to better keep in the warmth.
"Yeah, that's a chilly breeze," Louie remarked as they continued on towards the mausoleum. A large truck passed that far end of the cemetery and she could make out the sign of a cross upon one of the grave stones in there. She pictured Cliff inside of there, as if he awaited for her arrival at any given point.
"I've always had the weirdest soft spot for cemeteries," Alex admitted to her in a soft voice, and right into her ear. The way in which he said those words made her think they sailed in on the wind at first. She turned her attention back to him and in the dim light, she made out the sight of the thoughtful look on his face.
"Yeah, I kinda do, too," she said, and in fact, as she stood there next to him, the deeper her appreciation for them became.
"Like how I have the weirdest soft spot for skulls, too." When the words left his lips right then, he flexed his fingers on his right hand and showed off that silver skull ring there on the third one. It's a reminder that I, too, am gonna rejoin Cliff one day."
"We all will, for that matter," she added, and he nodded his head. A gust of ocean breeze washed over them and he nestled closer to her. A little bit of space separated them from each other but she still thought of putting her arm around him merely to keep him warm from the feeling.
"No idea what comes after The New Order," he added, still with his voice down low.
"I'm sure you'll come up with something," she assured him, right into his ear.
"Well, our label says it has to be soon, though. We go back into the studio after the shows down in Reseda."
The five of approached the mausoleum and they gazed on at it from the side. The lights from the street bathed over the stone wall on the outside: even in the dim light, Sam could make out the soft white marble on the outside there. She thought of the flight over to England whereby she saw those curtains of the northern lights off in the darkness, far away outside of her window. Even though she swore that Cliff was gone forever and there was in fact no way she could bring him back, especially after that Day of the Dead memorial in the park in Brooklyn, as they stood there on the sidewalk, beyond the iron fence, that iron curtain, she swore for a split second that she still could have saved him and at the very least said good bye to him.
"Where'd you say Cliff was from, Eric?" Sam piped up in a louder voice.
"Castro Valley. Where we scattered his ashes was beyond that, though."
He turned his attention back to her.
"It's not too far from here, isn't it?" she asked them.
"Castro's up the road a bit but—like I said, where he's scattered is pretty far beyond that, though. Why, you wanna go there?"
"I don't see why not," she suggested with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Gotta drive a little bit, but yeah," Louie followed along.
"My car is right there, anyway..."
The five of them crossed the street towards that little black car parked behind the corner and, once Eric unlocked the doors, they all piled in and they began up the road towards Castro Valley. The sky overhead had been painted a rich royal violet color with the impending nightfall. Sam pictured the northern lights in all of their bright neon green glory off to the north of there, right over the farthest side of California. She genuinely began to miss him right there for the first time in months.
They rolled along the freeway towards his old neighborhood in question but Eric continued onward, all the way up the road to where James and Lars had scattered his ashes about. That singular stretch of land tucked away in the hills that overlooked the side of the Bay itself.
Louie was right in that it was quite the drive, but it was more than worth it. Eric took the next turn off to that road, the one that she had a vague memory of right as the sun disappeared all the way behind the fog bank over the ocean and the full moon began to rise up over the eastern hills behind them.
She never recalled that road being so windy as they made their way up to that stretch of grassland in those hills, but she did in fact recall that afternoon where they all got together in Cliff's honor. All of them, including Death Angel when they were nothing more than strangers to her.
Soon, they reached that low building there on the side of the road and Eric took the spot closest to the driveway, and they all climbed out into the cool, crisp night. Autumn was upon the San Francisco Bay Area at that moment.
The ocean breeze sent a shiver down her spine right then, and that time she was glad that she had put on a jacket. They rounded the side of the building and there before them stood that familiar stretch of grassland. Cliff's ashes now a part of the earth.
Sam lingered there by the side of the building as the four scattered about the place. She watched Alex, who then took his seat on the grass right in front of her and gazed over at the rising full moon off in the distance.
The skull ring shone under the dim light, and especially the last glimmers of sunlight before them. Like a fleeting memory, and yet it hung so strong and bright within her mind as she thought about it. Cliff was so close and yet so far away from there.
Indeed, she could feel his presence amongst that grass, amongst those trees. His spirit was there with them, even as he had returned to the earth. Louie and Eric rejoined them there, both with somber expressions on their faces. She paid no attention to what they were saying as she thought about Cliff and only Cliff. How she yearned to feel him again, close to her, a part of her.
"James has it now, though, right?" Alex asked them.
"Yeah, he does," Eric replied. "Kinda ironic he wears it, though."
"How so?" Alex raised an eyebrow at him, and he then lay down on the grass again and reclined back on his elbows. Sam stood right above him, right above that slender body and those long lanky legs as he stretched them out before him. He gave his long black curls a toss with a flick of his head: she swore that he undid another button on his shirt and showed off more of his chest. She looked on at him and her breathing quickened at the sight before her.
Her legal husband was nowhere to be seen, and neither was her boyfriend. She could go down on him right there if she so wished, but she looked down on Alex's legs instead. Their shapeliness and the way his hips had a nice curve to them. Hips like that and a boy like him had a nice soft rear end. Not much of one so to speak, but a soft one nonetheless.
She locked her gaze onto his hips: if anything, they were slightly full.
She thought about Joey and his shapely hips as well. Those nice round hips that were nice to caress and run her hand down the times in which they lay in bed together. Those thick hockey player thighs that were even nicer to run her hands down, all the way down to his knees. But Alex spread his legs a bit and she pictured herself going down on him right there, once they were alone again.
She brought her gaze to his stomach and his chest: he had lost a little more weight, she could tell, as his shirt hugged his waist a little less than usual. She could still make out the sight of some extra flesh there however. A hungry boy indeed, but his otherwise slim body told her otherwise. His deep chest poked out from his black button up shirt, right out from under those undone pearly buttons.
The first gentle rays pale moonlight cast over his body only made him more sensual and even shapelier. It softened him, more so than that morning at the air base in West Germany. Here, he was on display for her, or at least that was what she thought at first. The woman on the train had the right idea: she had never seen a boy more beautiful. She felt that way about Cliff and Joey but Alex was on a whole other level right there.
"Sam?"
Louie's voice broke her concentration, and she shook her head a bit and she glanced over at him.
"You paying attention?" he asked her with a smirk.
"She was lookin' at the Skol-man over here," Eric quipped with a straight face.
"Like what you see here?" Alex teased her with a gesture to his chest.
"I don't not like it," she said, to which Alex and Eric gaped at one another.
"Had a feeling Sam was a li'l vixen," Louie remarked. "I mean, who the hell else is gonna wear a Cherry Suicides shirt that easily?"
"Besides you?" she scoffed.
"Besides me, right," he said with a straight face, and she giggled at him. She had had a glass of Irish coffee and had a stroll through a cemetery before then. Something in her opened up. They were alone together there in that field. Alex ran his tongue along his bottom lip and then he leaned forward, albeit with his head tilted back so as to show off his neck to her. She knew that he was teasing her and playing around, but it was a decadent sight to see nonetheless.
"An excitable boy," she declared as she pressed her hands to her hips.
"If you make out with Alex right now," Eric challenged her right then, "I'll give you fifty bucks."
"Fifty bucks?" She gaped at him.
"Yeah. Fifty bucks cash right out of my pocket, right here."
"Double or nothin', she takes my shirt off," Alex joined in right then.
"I take your shirt off?" she laughed at him.
"Be cautious with it, though—these buttons are hard to undo. Well, and I have big thick fingers so it's hard for me to things that are delicate and feminine."
She chuckled at that, and she returned to Eric.
"You will sincerely give me a hundred dollars?" she asked him.
"I'll start with fifty and if you really do take off his shirt, the next paycheck we get on Friday, I'll split fifty more off of it."
"Deal," she proclaimed and they shook hands right there. She turned her attention to Alex, who had lifted himself into an upright position there on the grass. "C'mon, big boy."
"Ohhh, snap!" Louie cackled; she bowed away from there and Alex chased after her. She led him to that low building where they held the reception for Cliff's memorial, right around the corner and within range of where Alex and Lars sat there together at the door step.
She backed away from the wall so he could have his back to the wall for himself. But he stood there with a thoughtful expression on his face rather than an aroused one.
"You wanna make some free money from Eric?" he asked her as he leaned back against the wall.
"You mean—?" She stopped right in her tracks.
"Samantha, you're a legally married woman and you have a boyfriend. You know my feelings about it all. I don't wanna be caught up in all that."
"Well, we're here right now," she pointed out. "What do you wanna do?"
He gestured for her to come in closer to him. She ambled closer to his body to where she could smell the cologne on the side of his neck.
"So—wait, you wanted to do it here?" she asked him in a low whisper, to which he shook his head.
"Nah, I just really wanted them to stop looking at you like that," he confessed, to which she was taken aback by that.
"So you wanna just chill out here for a few moments?"
"Well, we've got to make it obvious, though," he pointed out. "You know, make it obvious that we messed around back here."
"And how do we do that?"
He unfastened the pearly buttons on his shirt and revealed his body to her. She raised his eyebrows at his milky skin underneath that soft black fabric.
"Don't get too excited now," he said with a crooked little smirk on his face. He let his shirt hang loose around his body and then he pushed his jeans down his hips so as to show more of his belly.
"Want me to take off my shirt?" she asked him.
"Is that a serious question or are you just jerking me?"
"A serious question."
"Please," he replied with a straight face. She held onto the bottom hem of the homemade shirt and peeled it off of her body. When she took it off of her head and she looked on at Alex and his raised eyebrows.
"Now, I have a question for you," she started again as she took a glimpse down at her chest and the black satin bra that hugged her breasts, "do you like what you see here?"
"You really wanna know the answer to that?" he asked her, and in the dim moonlight, she could make out the sight of his bottom lip trembling.
"That's depending on the answer to my next question for you."
"And what would that be?"
"What did you say to me in Russian when we were at the back of the ambulance?"
"You really wanna know the answer to that?"
"Please, Alex. Bitte, I should say. Bitte, s'il vous plait—"
"If it pleases me? It just might please me."
"What's going on back there?" Eric called out from around the corner.
"We're getting close, Eric!" Alex shouted over Sam's head, that big booming voice which made her ears ring a bit. He then returned to her.
"What was it?" she asked him.
"I—can't remember it now," he sputtered, to which she rolled her eyes at that.
"Oh, come on, you said it to me loud and clear. It was like a full sentence."
"Yeah, and I can't remember it now," he admitted and he drooled on himself a little bit.
"Well, let me ask you something else now," she continued.
"Does it involve that?"
"No."
"What does it involve?"
"Can I at least touch your chest?" she asked him in a soft voice.
"Touch my chest? Uh—yeah? Sure? It's not much but it's skin nonetheless."
He stood there before her with his arms down by his sides and she slung her shirt over her shoulder so she could use both hands on him. Gingerly and with a soft touch, she ran her fingers down his chest. As smooth as it looked and he shivered at the feeling as well, such that he lunged back from her.
"What's the matter?" she asked him. "Does that tickle?"
"Kinda."
She thought about her encounters with Frank and Joey, and of course the one with Cliff in her apartment in the Bronx. She got to feel the each of them up but it was all for the sake of art however. But the beauty of it was as far as the three of them on the other side of the building knew, they were touching each other without the sake of the arts around them. Thus she caressed his chest, but she never told him about her artistry prior to then.
So as far as he knew, she was touching him to fool them out of a free pass.
Alex shifted his weight and he sucked in his stomach a little bit.
"Don't," she told him.
"Don't what?"
"Don't suck in your belly."
"I'm not," he scoffed.
"Yeah, you are—look, you still have a little roll there around your waist. A little chubby roll—" She reached down for a pat there but he flinched backwards. "Come on, Alex, lemme touch you!" she declared aloud.
"What?" Eric shouted right then, and Alex clasped his hands to his mouth. Even in the dim light, she made out the sight of the soft blush in his face: that pale skin with a soft bloom of pink all over.
"Let me touch you," she insisted, that time in a lower voice. She moved in closer to him and that time he never moved a muscle. "Let me just—let me just—" She reached down to his waist again and she ever so gently patted him there.
"See? Not so bad." She showed him a smile and he swallowed and bowed his head a bit. "What's wrong?"
He never replied. Instead, he kept his head bowed a bit and he looked down at the ground.
"Is everything alright?" she asked him in a gentle tone of voice.
"You didn't have to yell," he said in a near whisper.
"I just wanted to touch you," she told him and she gently patted the side of his face. "You know, I've touched you before."
"Yeah, you have. At the air base. One of the best hugs I've ever had in my life, if I'm honest."
"One of?" she echoed him, and she frowned at that.
"Yeah. It was unexpected but it was comforting, though. Granted, it was my mom but it was better than nothing, though."
She stopped and frowned at that.
"What are you saying?"
"You helped me," he stammered, and she could see it on his face that he had said the wrong thing. "And it—was wonderful. I'm not saying I didn't like it."
She shook her head. She really didn't understand him right there.
"Samantha," he insisted, "listen to me. I didn't mean it to inflame you or anything. I didn't mean it like that."
"Well, what did you mean it as?" she demanded as she pressed her hands to her hips.
"It was one of the best hugs I've ever had in my life," he said, "that's it. That's the sentiment right there."
"But you compared it to your mother, though."
"Yeah, 'cause nothing beats a hug from my mom. We even both agreed on that earlier."
"Yeah, but in a different context, though, Alex," she pointed out. "I protected you from a big fireball that would've taken all of us had we been there sooner."
"You guys done over there?" Greg called out right then.
"Just about, Greggy!" Sam called over her shoulder, and she returned to Alex with her hands pressed to her hips.
"Guess we better pack it up then," he said in a low voice and a shrug of his shoulders.
"Guess we better." She was cross, and she scooped her jacket off of the ground. He buttoned up his shirt and left open those top two buttons still, but she didn't feel like redressing right then because he still had some explaining to do.
"But really, thank you for that, though," he insisted.
"For what?"
"The hug. Back in Germany. I thanked you for that and I'm thanking you again for it, because you—you made me feel soft again."
She frowned at him. He left her feeling all too confused to even so much as concentrate on anything else. She closed her eyes and shook her head.
"What?" he asked her. Maybe she was overthinking it but it had escaped her lips at that point.
"What is it?" he demanded.
She bowed her head right then.
"What is it, Samantha?" he demanded, more stern that time around.
"I want my boyfriend back," she blurted out.
"Huh?"
"I want my fucking boyfriend back!" she snapped at him and he held back right there. She fumed at him and the bewildered look on his face. "I want Joey back. And I want Cliff back."
"Hey, I do, too," he pointed out. "He was a good friend to all of us. He died way too young and Metallica just left all of us behind, too."
"He was my boyfriend, though," she insisted. "He was my boyfriend and I barely knew him. And all of you barely knew him, too." She turned away from him right then. It didn't matter: she wanted to be back at Louie's place and then she would make her return back to Elsinore, and then hopefully, her way back to New York. It was the perfect plan to merely leave them there in the Bay Area and have them as nothing more than another piece of mail in her mailbox. She could easily find her way back to Joey's arms in no time.
"Samantha," he called after her, and she whirled around to face him and the look of pain on his round face. He stood there with his jet black hair sprawled down over his shoulders. "Our new album's gonna be called Practice What You Preach. It's a sentiment that I wish more people would do, including you."
She rolled her eyes at that.
"And I wish you would look before you jump," she scoffed and then she turned back around and stalked away from there before he could say anything else, and she doubled back to Eric's car, complete without answering any questions. No one dared ask her any question as she climbed into the front seat and put her top and her jacket back on.
The ride back to Louie's place was so quiet that she could slice a knife through the silence, a knife right down to the throat. The money that Eric had bet her meant nothing at that point. If anything, he could keep his money.
Sam climbed out of the car first and she clambered up the steps faster than Eric could bide her a good night.
"Thank you, Eric," she heard Louie say right behind her but she wished she could be inside there and away from it all. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."
"You, too, Lou," Greg told him. Louie turned around and made his way up the stairs to the front door of the building. He never said anything as they returned to his apartment there on the ground floor.
Sam made her way over to the couch and plopped down hard on the cushion closest to the corner. She folded her arms over her chest and glanced off to the side.
"Hey, take it easy on that thing," Louie advised her, and then he stopped when he noticed the annoyed look on her face. Annoyed at Alex, annoyed at herself. "What's with you?"
"Just—" she started, but she could barely talk. Maybe she was too hard on Alex back there, but it was behind her at that point. She needed to move on from that.
"Huh?"
"Just take me home tomorrow," she commanded him, and he looked on at her stunned.
"Back to—Elsinore?" he stammered.
"Yes. Take me home tomorrow. First thing in the morning so we get there by dinner."
"But—what about your dad?"
"He'll figure it out," she insisted, heated; "just take me home, Louie. Take me home tomorrow morning. Put me on a train, drive me there... doesn't matter. Take me home tomorrow."
He swallowed and then he nodded his head at that. He stepped out of there and into the kitchen for a glass of water. She closed her eyes and shook her head, and the dull pain emerged right in her forehead. A pain that hadn't happened before.
She would have to sleep there on the couch that night, but it didn't matter to her at that point. She had nothing more than her jacket to keep her warm in Louie's temperate apartment. He drank down his glass of water and he gazed on at her with a wistful look on his face once again. But she had taken off her shoes and then lay down flat on her back on the couch: nothing more than the little throw pillow there to cradle her head. It didn't mean anything at that point.
"Would you at least like a blanket?" he offered her, to which she shook her head. He sighed through his nose and he stepped over to the light switch on the wall. "Good night, Sam."
"Good night," she flatly retorted back to him. Darkness engulfed the room right then: her eyes adjusted to it and she gazed up at the ceiling right over her. Stray pieces of light washed over the rough cottage cheese pattern and she thought about her triumphant return to New York.
Indeed, there was nothing more she wanted right at that moment, right at that point, than to be reunited with her Joey again. To feel his slender sun kissed body in her arms. To feel the soft coarse ringlets against her fingers. To feel his presence again.
There was nothing more she wanted right at that moment, right at that point, than to be reunited with Cliff again. To feel nothing more than his very presence by her side once again. To make her way back to that mausoleum and welcome him back to the earth once more. The thought of him right next to her brought tears to her eyes, but she couldn't so much as shed them for him. Nothing she could do at that point in time.
Nothing more she wanted and she fell asleep on Louie's couch with that thought firmly lodged in mind.