souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 105: black and silver

"Wow, what a story, honey."
Sam had arrived into the harbor outside of Avalon right as the rains completely arrived, and she traded in a dollar for four quarters so she could call her mother and give a follow up as to what was going on with her. Once she had arrived at the harbor and took her back to her brand new house, Esmé thus treated her to a nice warm cup of a fusion of chai and black tea: it was tea time at the point anyway.
The house was a cute little cottage nestled in the low hillside that overlooked Avalon and most of the harbor right under a rouse of ponderosa pines and a palm tree: the small yard was decorated in small lush chaparral shrubs and bushes of bright pink pearly Catalina manzanita. Warm heavy wood lined the living room floor and the floor of the small but cozy kitchen; the wall behind them and the small comfy couch was a rich royal blue and carried a couple of framed photographs, one of which was Sam herself as a five year old girl. To the right stood the hallway which extended to her bedroom as well as the guest room and the spacious bathroom. Everything in that house was a warm amber or a royal blue, such that it reminded Sam of the shows in Boston and Providence.
"If I didn't know better, I'd swear we were in New England," she confessed to her.
"Always wanted to live on Catalina," Esmé told her as she lifted the tea bag out of the dark blue silver lined tea cup to ensure that it had completed steeping. "And I had a feeling you would like it, too. But the whole thing with Bill, though—that's—" She swallowed and Sam could see the agony in her face. "—I feel like I could've done something had you said something about it to me."
"Well, see, that's the thing, though, Mom, is—I had no clue what he would do," she confessed with a shake of her head. "He threw a glass at Belinda's head when they were getting me out of there. Missed her but he threw a glass at her, though! He actually locked me into the house at one point. The boys actually had to bust through a window just to get me out of there. They were about to go over to Germany, too—I'm glad they did because I know that man would've been furious about it. Surprised he never addressed it to me."
"What's Germany like, by the way?"
"Beautiful. Just gorgeous—like Catalina or upstate New York but cleaner and a bit homelier, though. We were there for a week, and so Alex and I hung out for a full day together at one point. Went through the Black Forest and had authentic European beer on the train, too." She dared not tell her mother that she left him there at the train station nearby the border to East Germany.
"I'll have to introduce you to him, though," Sam told her as she held the cup of tea close to her chest. "He's really sweet, Mom."
"As sweet as Joey was?"
"Sweeter. As kind as Joey is to me, I feel like there was something missing between us, like there needed to be something more there with us."
"Did you feel any chemistry between the two of you?" Esmé asked her.
"Yeah, I did," Sam replied. "But—I'm not sure how to explain it, though. All the touches and the little grins he'd show me—you've seen his crooked little smile."
"Oh, yeah. Just like the man I used to know when your father and I were together at first."
"Speaking of which... did you ever find him again?"
Esmé shook her head.
"I haven't seen him since your father and I got married," she confessed. "And he was about to head back up to the northern half of the state, but that's—that's where it starts and ends, though. I couldn't exactly say where he had gone off to or what he planned on doing afterwards."
The tag on the tea bag dangled off the silvery edge of the cup as she took a sip.
"Mmm—have you tried this tea, Sam? Locally grown. Practically everything here is locally grown and supported. We get things from the mainland, but it's rather endemic, though. It's especially the case over in Two Harbors."
"This past summer, Louie and I took a road trip from the Bay Area back to Elsinore, and we went all along the coast, along the Pacific Coast Highway and the 1—and he showed me that one part of the Salinas River, right before it gets to the ocean."
"Oh, I love that part of the state," she told her, "all along the coastline. I considered moving to outside of Ukiah, right up close to the coastline up there but this place here on Catalina came up and it was an offer I simply could not refuse."
"Nice little boat ride, too," Sam added.
"Oh, yes. It's not often, though. Things are pretty self sustainable around here. I figured if it's really something that you wish for, like it's imperative that you return to the mainland, that's probably the one time you go across the Channel with the boat or with the sea plane. Some forty years ago, eight inches of snow fell on the mountain right over here."
"Wow," Sam raised her eyebrows at that.
"Yeah, you don't really think of an island off the coast of California as having snow," Esmé chuckled. "But it happened. Hawai'i gets snow every so often, too, so does Seattle. And coincidentally, so does the Bay Area. It's nothing like Elsinore or the San Gabriels or northern Nevada, but it does happen every so often, though." She took another sip of her tea and then shook her head and closed her eyes at the flavor. Sam took a sip herself: rich and subdued at the same time, and almost minty as well, and with a kiss of sugar to augment it a bit.
"Ooh, that's nice," she remarked.
"See?" Esmé smiled at her and she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "So what are they like? The other band you're friendly with now?"
"Testament? They're dark but they're not like... satanic, though. They've got skulls and things surrounding them and their image, but I promise you, they're not satanic, Mom."
"What are they called again?"
"Testament. I mean, it's even in the name. It should be indicative that they're not satanic."
"Sounds more like they're about to preach a sermon of sorts," Esmé confessed. "Like I think of the Old Testament."
"Preach and give us what for—but not in the way in which Bill did with me, though. Their church is one of—guitars and hard fast music and having fun, too. Having fun with all of us ladies, too."
Esmé laughed at that.
"Oh, god," Sam declared and she picked out a delicate pink petit four from the plate on the narrow coffee table next to them, "one time—this was last summer, actually—we were all touring over in Boston and a few ladies were walking past us on the sidewalk and they called the four of us—Marla, Belinda, Zelda, and me—all satanic for hanging out with a bunch of metal boys. And Zelda was like 'yeah, a band called Testament is satanic!' and Marla and I both laughed out loud at that."
Esmé herself chuckled in response to that as she held her tea cup up to her lips once more. Sam took a bite of the little cake in all of its light fluffiness, and then one more bite of it.
"What are they called again?" she asked her.
"Who, Zelda's band? The Cherry Suicides. It conjures the image of a human sacrifice—like a virgin giving herself up—or simply a woman stabbing herself in the chest."
"So violent," she remarked with a shake of her head.
"But that's what makes them so awesome, though. That same night, we were in Boston, and they were allotted right before Anthrax and Testament's sets. They did this song called 'Dead Witches', it was like a seven minute long jam. One minute of hardcore punk and then their guitarist Minerva just launched into this big long solo. Given they're a punk band, their songs are usually only a couple of minutes. But right there, they just showed that they're as a big of a power house as the boys themselves, too." Sam sipped on the tea again so as to wash down the petit four.
"They're all real nice, too. These four tough looking chicks all the way from Providence, but they're so kind, though. They love their fans and they're easily some of the most polite people I've met."
"They've been through a lot, too, you said."
"Yeah, they have! All the break ups and the drama with the record labels and—" Sam shook her head as she thought about Aurora. "Long time coming for them, though. I hope I get to see them again."
"You're gonna have to go back to the mainland anyways," Esmé pointed out.
"Yeah, I promised Alex I would."
"You said he's sweet."
"Yeah, he is. He's funny—he's the kind of guy you don't really like at first until he finds a way inside of you. He's got this little bit of gray hair over his brow, too. He turned twenty back in September."
"Twenty years old and he's already going gray?" Esmé gaped at that.
"He's been going gray, though," Sam pointed out. "I remember him telling me about it but I don't remember the full details, though, except he's had it since he was like fourteen. When we first met him, it was like this little sliver over his brow and now it's this little tuft. It's weird, too, like it's just this little tiny bundle of gray hair on that part of his head, and just that part of his head, too. The rest of his hair is completely solid black."
"Huh."
"Aurora told me her—grandmother, I think it was—had something similar to that. No idea what causes it, either."
"Maybe it's a birthmark. It's a long shot, but it is possible, though."
"Could be, but—who knows, really." Sam shrugged her shoulders. "He's been dyeing it, too."
"Can't blame him," Esmé admitted. "A boy his age going gray so early—you might as well keep your hair uniform."
"He says it ages him."
"And it does, too. I remember the very day your father initially went gray—and yes, it aged him several years. I remember the day I started going gray, too. Can't imagine how it makes him feel."
They sipped on their tea in unison and the rain outside fell even harder on the rooftop and porch outside.
"I'm gonna assume the other reason why you moved here," Sam started again, "and not the coastline is because this feels like the quintessential place to write a novel."
"Exactly!" Esmé declared with a laugh. "There's only a couple thousand people here and no one to bother me, either."
"Except me of course," Sam pointed out.
"You're not bothering me, sweetie. You never bother me—if there's anything I can genuinely take away from you living so far away for a few years, it's that I miss having you around."
"Well, even though I consider New York as my home, I can always ensure a trip out here. I might as well ensure that, anyways: I've got friends out this way."
"So nice of them to bail you out of there, too."
"Yeah, I mean—Greg got me out through the back window the first time around and we got down to Alhambra without sparing any expense. And then Eric literally busted through a window to get me out of that house. And then they took me to Germany for a week."
"And you like the Bay Area, too."
"The Bay Area is stunning. They took me to the place where Cliff's ashes are spread out—and it just felt like a—a—a pilgrimage of sorts. Eric showed me where he was from. Louie and I took a road trip together down the coastline."
"And Alex took you home."
"And Alex took me home, right," she echoed, that time in a soft voice. "And he was in Aurora's wedding, too..."
Maybe she had in fact been far too hard on him as she sipped on the tea some more. She thought of him over there on the mainland, with the guys all around him. She hoped that, since she was on Catalina with her mother and not over there with them, that Bill would keep his distance from Reseda. She knew that he was far and away from there, and yet that fear still lingered over her.
At the same time, she began to think about Joey again and moreover, how in the world he managed to find a new woman to substitute her back home back East. The only way he would have found out is if someone back there told him, and as far as she knew, Louie never approached him once. In fact, the more she thought about it, the less sense it made to her. The only way she could even so much as find out about it is if she sought answers from the man himself, and it would be a little bit before she got to see him again in Long Beach.
That is if she could.
Afterwards, Esmé treated her to a bite of dinner at one of the cafes there in Avalon. Given it was raining, they retreated inside of there and shared a pina colada, even in the middle of December and a week before Christmas.
If nothing, Sam was glad to be around her mother again, even if Ruben was up in the Bay Area from that point onward. If nothing, it would be a rather interesting Christmas there on Catalina with all of the manzanita and all of the endemic plants about there, much like on her road trip with Louie: her mother joked about having a small palm tree in the front room of the house for the tree, although it made legitimate sense to Sam.
She knew that she would have to get used to the idea of having a split household from then on: divided over the entire state of California and she considered on returning to New York when all was said and done. However, she had her doubts about that, especially with Joey having his hands on another woman.
She took a warm shower to rid of the feeling traveling had given her and then she curled under the covers in her old bed tucked away there in the guest room. All the while she thought about Joey himself. She pictured him with his hands all over that other woman and she wondered if Frank genuinely saw them hold hands with one another or if he caught a fleeting glimpse of them and put two and two together. But she couldn't help it: she pictured him with a long and lanky supermodel, not a stubby little dark haired woman such as herself.
She rolled over onto her back and she wondered if he would return to her if she was a supermodel herself. Long narrow legs with big stiletto heels. The perfect hourglass shape to her body and her breasts so perky that no one could resist them. She could have the boys all to herself if that was the case with her.
If anything, as she thought about it more, she wondered as to why all of the guys even liked her in the first place because with every glimpse in the mirror, especially when she stood there after her shower and examined her nude body, she just saw a plain young woman with dark hair and dark eyes. She looked just like every other woman on the street as far as she could tell.
Nothing discernible as far as she could tell, either: nothing like doll-like features with Belinda or ever changing hair like Marla, or even something interesting like premature grays or having parents who hailed from both sides of the Korean peninsula.
And she bounced around with her weight as if it was the easiest thing in the world: but at least this time around, she was on the downswing. She glanced down at her body as it lay underneath the covers: the tips of her feet pointed up down at the base of that narrow mattress. She let her hand slide over the sheet, towards the right side.
She could still feel Cliff there next to her. She could still feel his presence, even with his smell gone away from her olfactory memory and even with the feel of his body vanished from the caress of her hand.
She could also feel Joey next to her. They were so close a few times. She actually got to put her lips around him not once, but twice.
And then, just like that, he went off with another woman all because she didn't resemble to a supermodel.
So many questions and all she could do was fall right into a dreamless sleep.
It wasn't until she awoke the next morning to the dense marine layer and the feeling Christmas was upon her when she realized she hadn't seen the mysterious man for months, as if he had vanished from her dreams forever.
After breakfast, Esmé drove her back down to the harbor for the next boat ride back over to San Pedro.
"I'll be waiting for you, sweetie," she vowed to her as she held her in her arms away from the rain.
"No idea how long the show will be, though," Sam confessed as she ran her fingers through her dark hair.
"I'll be waiting for you regardless of it, though." She flashed her a wink and blew her a kiss before Sam boarded that little blue and white boat with her purse on her shoulder and her questions ready for Joey; she also had her explanation ready for Marla and Belinda, even though she had faith Alex had told them about it. She took her seat on the starboard side and peered over the edge to the gray ocean waters down below.
Twenty two miles across those waters and with the marine layer overhead, and soon the edge of California emerged in view: the coast seemed to extend on either side of them for as far as the eye could see. Sam thought about the Highway 1 on her road trip and how it all felt so endless and eternal at the same time, even if it was obvious the end of it came soon enough.
As the coast became clearer and clearer, she spotted that car in the parking lot before the dock. Even from a whole mile away, she recognized his tall body and those jet black curls. She didn't even have to see that little tuft of gray on his head to know that it was him there.
They reached the dock and Sam bolted off of the boat first and she hurried up to him.
"It's the damnedest thing, I can literally see you a mile away," she told him as part of her greeting to him.
"You wanna know something?" he asked her as he set a hand on her shoulder.
"What's that?"
"I can, too. A mile out and I saw you peeking over the edge."
"You could literally see me?" she chuckled.
"Yeah! Anyways, come on—the doors don't open until way later but—you know the drill."
Alex drove her up to Reseda with nothing more than the side streets. He was silent the whole way and she could only assume that he had told Marla and Belinda what had happened. But she could only assume regardless of it all.
They reached the club in question and he parked around the back in the alleyway, much to where Sam thought she was about to bow headfirst into the dashboard in front of her.
"Sorry—I'm still trying to get used to it," he confessed with a shrug. She let out a low whistle.
"Well, at least you weren't speeding," she pointed out. He climbed out first; she followed him up to the back door there. All the memories of the Stormtroopers of Death tour returned as he held the door for her. She walked into the back hallway there, where two women congregated around Greg and his bass guitar. He nodded at her and Alex, and they both turned for a look back at them.
So he didn't tell them because they just got there themselves.
"THERE SHE IS!" Marla declared at the top of her lungs.
Belinda's snake pendant glittered under the pale lights with each and every step of the way. She threw her arms around her first and then she gaped at Sam. Marla shook her head and gaped at her.
"What the hell, Sam? Why'd you bail on us?"
She was taken aback at that. "I did?"
"Yeah," Belinda followed up as Greg joined them there at the back door, "after you got the news that Joey had left you for another woman, you just sorta—went rigid and then you disappeared out of the cafe and just started walking up the road. We tried to get you back with us, but you were like 'no! I'll get there on my own!' Didn't even tell us where you were going, either."
"Wow." She slowly rubbed her hands together at the sound of that. "I—I don't even remember doing that. I can't believe I did that to you."
"You must've just blacked out," Greg explained. "Like it hit you so hard that your mind went completely blank."
"Yeah, I was thinking about that yesterday after I dropped her off at San Pedro," Alex followed up, "like—it sounds like she just completely blacked out."
"Yeah, you were completely checked out at that point," Belinda added. "I couldn't even get you to pay any attention."
"Well, yeah, I mean—Joey is my guy. At least, I thought he was." Sam stopped herself because the tears were coming back to her. "Did—Frankie give any more explanation as to why he went with another woman?"
Marla and Belinda glanced at one another, and then the former shook her head: her neon green hair shimmered about under the bright light of the backstage area.
"No, he just said, 'tell Sam that—I spotted Joey with another woman, and they look in love, too. Probably more so than the two of them.'"
Sam closed her eyes and bowed her head a bit.
"If we see him, we're gonna have a long talk with him," Belinda vowed.
"The three of us or just me?"
"We'll help you," Marla promised her. "Aurora's not here right now—obviously—so she's way out of the loop."
"Push comes to shove, since he took your heart from you—we'll take something from him," Belinda added.
"We won't go that far," Marla told her off. "Especially since there's more than likely a good explanation behind it." She fetched up a sigh and shook her head again. "San Pedro, you said, Alex?"
"My mom lives on Catalina now," Sam pointed out. "Remember?"
"Oh, yeah, that's right! Okay, so you went to your mom's house."
"And Alex drove you there, too," Greg added with a nod.
"I was driving down yesterday and there was traffic on the freeway when I got to Bakersfield, and I was like 'ah, jeez.' So I took a detour all through some farmland and I saw her walking on the side of the road. I was like, 'is that Samantha? Oh my god it is!' So I pulled over and got her in the car with me and I drove her there before the snow hit the Grapevine."
"Drove me all the way down to the docks," Sam added in a soft voice; something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, and she spotted a man with his back turned to them. But she remembered his head of thinning black hair, still long and down past his shoulders. He was talking to Louie as she approached him from behind and tapped on his shoulder.
"Hey, Scott!"
"Hey!" He put his arms around her. "How've you been?"
"Been over at my mom's house—she lives on Catalina, now. Twenty miles off the coast."
"Wow." He raised his thick eyebrows at that. "So how's life in Elsinore? I heard some things about that."
"I don't live there anymore. Marla and Bel got me out of there. I might find my way back to New York officially soon enough."
"Cool!" He gave her a high five at that.
"By the way, how'd you find out about my living in Elsinore?"
"Marla. I saw her running down the street a while back and I asked her what was going on, and she told me to take her over to your old school—I was driving. She did some things in there and then she came back out and she told me what happened to you. She asked me to keep it between us and so I did."
Louie raised his head and nodded at her.
"Hey—poison garden," she greeted him. Louie hesitated and then he laughed at that.
"Poison garden!" He bumped fists with her and Scott looked at them both, confused.
"It's—a long story," Sam told him.
"It really is," Louie added, and then he laughed at something behind her. She turned for a look back at Greg and Alex with Marla and Belinda: Greg slung his bass over his shoulder and then he let it rest right onto his back.
"You're gonna do what Joey did, aren't you?" Louie joked as the three of them walked on over to that side of the backstage area.
"Nah—just wanna see what the crowd's gonna be like out there." He poked his head out from behind the curtain for a better look out to the front row of the crowd: Louie and Alex joined in, as did Sam and Marla right behind them. They were met with a sea of heads, a few of whom near the front had little elephants on their sleeves. It took Sam a second to realize that those were the Republican elephants with their red make up and the little white stars on their feet. Alex had his eye on all three of them and he frowned at the sight of them.
"What's up?" she asked him.
"Yeah, this new album is definitely gonna be titled that," he assured her. "Practice What You Preach."
"This is bringing back all those memories of when we were first starting out," Greg added, "we were playing in clubs up in the Bay Area. And there were a bunch of people who were talking about Reagan and we weren't having any of it."
"Oh, yeah, it's definitely gonna have that title."
The bunch of them backed away from there and Alex snapped his fingers.
"What?" Sam asked him, and he gestured for her to follow him. But he only led her to the little table tucked in the corner right behind him where he had set down a black backpack for safe keeping.
"I forgot to show you this, by the way," he told her as he unzipped the front pocket, "—when I took you down to San Pedro yesterday."
He flashed her a Polaroid photograph of a silver menorah on a table somewhere. All around the base stood a series of little yellow marigolds: each of the eight candles were lit with those pure yellow flames.
"Candles—lit for me?"
He opened his mouth to say something but he was cut off by Greg singing off key to something. Alex turned his head in his direction as Greg slapped and plucked at the thick bass strings.
"What's all this?" Alex demanded.
"Nana na na na! Nana na na na!"
"Greg!"
"Huh?"
"What're you doing?"
"Sorry, I was just singing. We are getting paid to do this, you know, Alex."
"True."
The back door swung open again and Alex set a hand on Sam's shoulder so as to get her out of the way. Chuck and Tiffany stepped inside, away from the fine drizzle that began to fall over Los Angeles.
"I saw our pals from Slayer in the crowd here," Chuck pointed out.
"Where's Slayer?" Sam wondered aloud. "Where's Slayer? Where's Slayer?"
"I didn't see them, either," Marla added.
"They're there, though," Tiffany assured them, and Chuck's face lit up at the sight of Sam.
"Hey, Sammich! C'mon over here. I got something to give you."
"Well, it's from me and him both," Tiffany corrected him.
"What is it?"
He kept his hand behind his back and he showed her a thoughtful look on his face.
"Close your eyes and hold out your wrist," he told her. She did just that and she felt something smooth brush against her skin. He tied something right atop his wrist.
"Okay," he told her, and she opened her eyes. He had given her a bracelet of black onyx beads and fire opal sugar skulls.
"Oh my god, Chuck, it's beautiful!" she gasped.
"It's a friendship bracelet. I got one, too!" He showed her the twin bracelet on his wrist as well and she threw her arms around him.
"Thank you," she whispered right into his ear.
"And thank you," he whispered back to her.
"Hey, if nothing, we can name our new album Poison Garden," Louie joked to Greg and Alex.
"No!" Sam whirled around and she pointed over at Louie himself, and he lunged back a bit as a result.
"No?"
"That's 'not' to you!" Scott called out from across the floor and Marla and Belinda both cackled at that.