souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 138: colors made of tears

Sam brushed away tears as she climbed back behind the wheel. She closed the door and buried her face in her hands, and yet every time she shut her eyes, she saw them in there with their arms wrapped around each other. She raised her face from her hands and she sobbed at the sight of the parking lot before her. She could hardly find her own keys with one hand, even though they were right there right next to her: she had dropped them into the center console when she climbed in there.
She buried her face in her hands again and she bawled so loud into the space below the steering wheel that she hoped someone in the parking lot would come to check up on her.
She should have stopped him. She should have made herself better known right then.
She should have done it all for him, and yet she never did.
He still looked past her to Krista and they still made it official between the both of them. Sam could hardly shake the sight of the ring on Krista's finger: that glimmering twinkling stone nestled in the bed of black. That was all she could see with it as well, and she need not see any more of it.
Still weeping, Sam lifted her head up from her hands and she peered up out of the windshield, fogged up from her own relentless sobbing.
How she yearned for rain right then, a torrential downpour all around her, all in place of the vast darkening pink and purple sky overhead without a cloud to be found, even with it being so close to Halloween and the heart of fall. She still loved Joey no matter what happened between the two of them, but her heart still ached with the heavy feeling inside. The feeling that there was no way she could have him back from that point onward.
She knew she was going to find an invitation to their wedding at some point, or worse: no invitation, given she ducked out of their own wedding. There was no denying the truth with him, and there was no denying the truth with her as well. Sam and Joey were no more and she had no way of bringing the two of them back together from that very moment in the airport. She pictured Krista getting pregnant and she would never see him again.
Sam sniffled some more and brushed away those tears once more. She stuck the key into the ignition and the car roared to life. She brushed away even more tears and shifted the car into reverse.
She had to get back to Hell's Kitchen soon enough for a shower followed by a cuddle with Genie. She had no idea if Marla and Belinda would return home from Scarsdale that night but she hoped that that would be the case. She craved that solitude, for someone else to not see her tears and experience her pain as well, but then again, she didn't want to walk into an empty apartment. Her best girl friends to comfort her in the best way that she knew from them.
She especially didn't want to see Alex and Zelda given she knew the very sight of them would make the tears come out even more. The very thought of them coaxed out more tears from her. Sam let out a shuddered breath as she backed out of the spot and then made her way to the driveway on the other side of the parking lot.
She gasped to breathe: she rolled down the window to let in that cool upstate air, which in turn billowed her highlights back from her face and her neck. She pulled up to the first stoplight and brushed away even more tears.
She had to go somewhere to ease her poor head, somewhere that she knew would give her what she needed right away.
It would be a bit of a drive, but she had all the time to carry it out for herself.
The light turned green and she lurched forward. She merged to the right lane and she turned towards that first on-ramp. Her sight had cleared up enough for her to see where she was headed, even though she continued to cry out with those hot broken-hearted tears. That familiar freeway that wound its way around the outskirts of the rim of the city: meanwhile, the inner part of the city loomed underneath her like a low hanging bed. A low hanging bed for the one who got away and his official love.
She brushed away another tear and she pressed onward to the northern edge of town. The sky overhead turned a deeper shade of violet and she knew it would be late by the time she returned home to Hell's Kitchen. But she had to do this for herself, however.
She spotted that next exit for North Syracuse and she drove on to that old familiar neighborhood by the lake. She need not let the whole thing get to her feelings about Syracuse, and in particular the northern edge of town. Too many good things happened out there and too many good memories associated with that whole area as well.
She sniffled again and wiped away more tears with the back of her hand, and she pressed on to the next exit. Everything appeared in the form of a blur all around her: the new tears that lined her eyes only added to the haste that surrounded her.
Sam caught the light green and she turned the corner. That familiar hockey rink. That little coffee shop there on the other side.
She pulled up to the curb before the glass front door and she recognized that sheet of wavy black hair as well as a swept over piece upon the crown of his head and his slightly stout body wrapped in a pale blue sweatshirt. When he gave it a little toss with the flick of his head, she recognized his pale round face. He awaited something in there, probably for a cup or a bite to eat, and she wondered why he was in there in the first place.
The barista in there handed him a paper cup in a holster and Eric thanked them before he stepped back outside. Sam unbuckled her seatbelt and she ducked out of the car as he reached the door himself.
"Eric?" she called out to him with a hard lump in her throat. He raised his eyebrows at her and then he showed her a little smile.
"Hey! Sam!"
"Eric!" she shrieked and she ran towards him with her arms outstretched before her. Even with the cup of coffee in hand, he still embraced her.
"Hey! Oh my god—" He gaped at her and the bloodshot quality to her eyes. "Oh my god, holy shit, what happened?"
She wept again right there in his arms. Using his free hand, he guided her back to her car and he set the cup of coffee upon the rooftop.
"What happened?" he asked her with a look of concern upon his face. He clasped his hands on her shoulders. She closed her eyes and bowed her head.
"It's Joey," she said in a broken voice. "He—He got away from me."
"He got away from you?" he echoed her in a gentle voice. "What do you mean?"
"I went to go talk to him when he got home," she explained with a sniffle, "but I was too late. He proposed to Krista and—" Her voice broke and she burst into tears again.
"Oh! Oh, god! C'mere—" He held her close to him and she buried her face into his chest and bawled. He put his mouth down to the crown of her head for a kiss and then he pressed his cheek against her head. She sobbed right into his shirt while he treated her to a soft stroke on her back.
It all came out of her right then and there. All the tears that she felt for Joey as well as Alex and Lars, and some more tears for Cliff as well. Lonely there at the top of the speak easy and even lonelier now that each of them were elsewhere.
Eric held back for a glimpse into her face: she peered up at him with tears still riddled in her eyes and a heavy pounding in her head. Through her tears, she could see he was crying as well: his milky white skin flushed into a deep pink color around his eyes and his nose, and the pieces of tears rested right on the rims of his eyelids.
"Come on," he beckoned her with a sniffle, "come with me." He reached to the cup of coffee on the car's roof and then he put his arm around her and guided her away from her car.
"Can I get my purse?" she asked him.
"Oh, yeah! Absolutely." Eric waited her as she doubled back to the car for her purse and also to lock the door, and then he led her up the street to his car. He had parked right next to that patch of grass where Joey pushed Alex that one time. She realized that was back when Testament still called themselves Legacy. It was that long ago when Joey did that.
Sam shuddered and shook at the feeling of the distant memory: meanwhile, Eric let go of her so he could take out the key from his pocket. He unlocked the passenger door first of his royal blue car: Sam turned to the rear window and she spotted the word "Grace" imprinted on the door panel in faint silver letters.
"Grace?" she read aloud in a broken voice.
"Oh yeah, that came with the car," he told her as he held the door for her. "Alex pointed it out when he first rode in this car, too. I didn't wanna get rid of it 'cause it just seemed nice to me. He told me I have grace protecting me at all times." She climbed inside the plush gray seat and set her purse down on the floor next to her feet. She wiped her eyes again as Eric rounded the front end and then got inside himself. He fixed the lapels on his sweater and set the cup in the center before he climbed in himself.
She sniffled once more and he reached over to her to comfort her as best as he could.
"Come on—I'll get you something," he said as he started up the car.
"No, Eric, you don't have to," she insisted, and he lifted up the parking lever.
"But I want to, though—I have to get gas, anyway."
He drove her up the street to the gas station on the corner, and he pulled into the spot closest to the door and the neon sign in the front window. She flashed back on when Alex rescued her from the side of the road, except this time around she wasn't headed back to her mother's house on Catalina Island.
"I'll just have some ice water," she told him. "I have a headache from all that crying."
"Okay—I'll be right back."
She watched him climb back outside and then run towards the neon lights there in the front. Even though it wasn't that cold outside, she shuddered and shivered from the cold feeling within her. Nothing left but her own thoughts and the sunken feeling inside of her chest. Joey had reached into her chest and ripped out her heart.
She told him how she felt about him and he still went to Krista. She thought back to what Alex told her when he picked her up from the side of the road, and she realized that she was in the right this time. It made no sense to her whatsoever. He ought to have known that she was telling him the truth. She couldn't even put her head around it, either.
But lucky for her, Eric surfaced from the little minimart with a cup of iced water for her in hand. He handed it to her with a sweet little smile on his round face and then he bowed back out to fill up the car. Sam stayed there in the front seat with the cup nestled in between her legs for a second and then she took a drink. The cold water hit her tongue and it felt good against her aching head.
She peered out the window to the lights across the street and she couldn't help but think about the time Joey invited her onto the ice for a round of hockey. She wished to do it again, but solo at that point. But then again, she had no idea if she could play a round of hockey, much less a round of hockey against Joey and those slender taut legs of his. He may not have looked it but she knew that man could play like his life depended on it.
There was a loud click on the side of the car and Eric tucked the nozzle back into the hold. She watched him head on back to the minimart to wash his hands, and all the while, she thought of Alex. He was always so clean and put-together, even when he sweated buckets during a show. She wondered about him and most of all, how she would tell him that she couldn't even as so much as speak to Joey about any of it.
And then she realized she hadn't heard a peep from him for about a month: Zelda never even gave a ring to her.
She tilted her head back against the headrest as she assumed the worst: not their disappearing from the face of the earth but going a step further than Joey and Krista, but making it all official without a ring and a marriage license, especially since Alex still lived in California. But then again, she remembered: Alex still lived in California. No way they could make it work, especially with Zelda's proximity to Rhode Island. She dared not think those things however, especially once Eric returned to the car with that alcohol smell on his hands. He closed the door and turned to her with a flabbergasted look on his face.
"Wow," he breathed out, and he shook his head. "God, just—wow. That's fuckin' rough."
"Yeah, you're telling me," she said in a broken voice. She tipped the cup of ice up to her mouth. Her head still pounded with that intense ache right at the front and within her temples, but the water had already begun to help her.
"You know, I still owe you a date," he pointed out as he tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. He took a hearty sip of his coffee.
"Well, we're here right now in Syracuse," she told him and she sniffled. "You wanna have a go at it?"
"You really want to?" he asked her with a sly smirk on his face.
"Well, I do still need to go through with it with you," he insisted with a shrug of his shoulders. He started up the car and they rolled towards the driveway.
"Where did you want to take me, by the way?" she asked him with another sniffle: at least she stopped crying, but then again she had no idea if her eyes could shed any more tears. He drove to the next on-ramp to the freeway and then they zipped along that right lane. He sipped on his coffee some more and then, with one hand, he merged lanes.
"Well," he began again, "seeing as we're in upstate New York..." He turned to her. "Have you been to the lake yet?"
"The big lake?" she asked him. "No."
"Oh man! When we—Testament—first came up here, back when we first met you and we were still called Legacy, one of the first things we did was come here to Lake Ontario, just to see what it was like. Alex and Chuck loved it and Louie made a joke about swimming in it even though we were like 'no way, man! That water's gotta be freezing!' And seeing as we're here before the first round of snow—'cause you know, they get the lake effect up here—there's something I wanna do with you, now that we mention the date I wanted to give to you."
Sam sighed through her nose and hunkered down in the seat. It would be another hour through those lush dark trees and the farmhouses and shacks tucked back away in the shadows before she made sight of the string of lights on the horizon. The black sky overhead made them even more endless than they appeared to her and Eric both.
"I guess this is where Joey was born and grew up," Eric remarked. "Oswego."
The faint glimmer of a lighthouse shone in and out on the far right side of the town's skyline. Sam realized that it did in fact sit on the lake's edge, especially once Eric rolled down the window and they were met with a cool damp slightly swampy breeze.
"It literally is on the lake's edge," he told her as took one final gulp of his coffee. He then slowed them down a bit: she peered out her window and she realized they were surrounded by the dark embankments of a golf course. She stared straight ahead to the low houses that dotted the area before her: way off in the distance, in the hills, she spotted a series of golden lights upon some buildings that resembled to factories.
"Let's see—," he began again as he leaned over the rim of the steering wheel, "there was a place that we went to and I thought, 'this would be perfect to come to. To just come up here solo and turn off your mind for a little bit.' I'm trying to figure out exactly where it was..."
"What are those lights over there?" she asked him.
"Those golden lights in the hills? That's a power plant. We saw it coming into town the first time and it was surreal to see because we didn't see the cooling towers until after we left. It's pretty far away from us, though. It's not like it's going to hurt us."
But Sam still grimaced at that. The mere thought of Joey growing up so close to the power plant sent a shiver down her spine.
Eric then slowed to a stop in the center lane and then he hung a left. She paid close attention to the road before them and she had a tugging sensation in the pit of her stomach. The road rose up to a low plateau lined with large dark scraggly trees and Sam wondered what this place was like to her. Yet another quiet place to hang out in, but then Eric pushed the dial on his side of the stereo and they were met with the loud fuzzy distortion of a guitar.
"There's a sound you don't hear often," he said.
"What, a guitar?"
"Distortion. Been hearing it a lot lately, too. All this alternative stuff is taking a page out of Neil Young and shoegaze's books and distorting their sound like crazy."
"Reminds me of that big wall of sound that we would hear during a show," she said.
"Oh, yeah, that noise barrier? Except I find it more like a wall of noise, though. A wall of noise is what I'm thinking of. A wall of noise like in shoegaze as it's called—or from Phil Spector."
They reached the top of the plateau and the end of the road. He slowed down at the sight of the narrow little nook at the end there. Eric brought the car to a near idle as he reached the edge of the nook. He pulled the parking brake and switched off the car except for the radio: meanwhile, Sam peered out the windshield to the edge of the nook as it overlooked the skyline. Beyond the town, she made out the faint glimmers of the lake waters, more elusive than the ocean.
"Eric, this is glorious," she declared in a hushed voice.
"Watch this—" And then he stopped as the next song came on the radio.
"This is Pearl Jam," he told her as he turned the dial on the volume. "I heard this song the other day before I left for New York and I was like, 'wow, this is totally badass.'"
The drums were prominent and clean. The bass rolled and twisted in that smooth flow of a fretless neck. Those guitars carried a healthy dose of that distortion in question. Then the voice soared onto their speakers. No way for Sam to describe it other than it was the voice of a man. The low warbling voice of a man unsure of himself, but he sang regardless of his own fears.
"Wow," she gasped. "Aurora told me about them about a month ago and she described as like hard rock you guys used to listen to when you were growing up, but more."
"That's putting it mildly," he said with a straight face, and he pushed the button underneath the heater dial. That in turn opened the roof window and revealed a wide rectangle of the inky night sky out there. He turned the knob on the bottom of the seat and reclined the back as far as it could. Once he lay flat on his back, he tucked his hands underneath the back of his head. Sam followed suit in the passenger seat and they gazed up to the black sky while the music washed over them like a relaxing wave.
The black sky was filled with those twinkling stars.
"Oh my god, Eric, this is ethereal," she proclaimed.
"This is my quiet place," he said with a bit of glee to his voice. "Music going, the top open and the seats tilted back... the only thing to make it better is if we had a full moon and it was the middle of summer."
She thought about the time Joey sat with her on the shore down at Finger Lakes and the moon washed over them with that pale milky light. Another memory that felt so distant and from such a different time period and a different world.
Eric shifted his weight in the seat and it took Sam a second to realize he had rolled over onto his side.
"Do you wanna have a little fun?" he offered her. "You know, I just think about everything you've been through lately and I feel like I can do something for you."
"Like what?" she asked him, and his fingers stroked over her shoulder. "Oh I see."
"That is, if you want to—I don't wanna force you to do anything you're not comfortable with."
She nibbled on her bottom lip even though she knew he couldn't see her. One thing that Lars did for her was be present with her when she needed to feel that next to her. Eric did in fact look soft and round, even through the darkness and the dim light of the town skyline outside of the car.
"We're not really in the best place for that, though," she confessed in a low voice. "You know, you would have to reach across."
"We can get in the back seat," he suggested. "Pull up the seats and climb back there and—do it."
"I just kinda feel like cuddling, though," she confessed. "I don't feel like rocking and rolling."
"I do like to cuddle, too," he said in a soft voice. "It gets cold up here, too. Although—" He stopped right in his tracks.
"What?"
"I don't think I have a blanket in the back seat, though," he admitted.
"I have a question," she said.
"Go ahead."
"Do you have a place to sleep tonight?"
"I'm afraid I don't. I came here and I was supposed to be on a plane back to San Francisco but I ran into you, though."
"You wanna make the drive back to Hell's Kitchen and spend the night? I don't think Marla and Belinda are home."
"How long is it?" he asked and he cleared his throat.
"About four hours."
"What time is it now?"
"Six o'clock. I think."
He sat up a bit for a better look at the clock on the radio.
"Yeah, it's a quarter after six. Ten o'clock by the time we get back there, but it'll be worth it. I got a cup of coffee in me—we can do it."
He shifted the seat back upright and she followed suit.
"Let's come back here when there's a full moon," he suggested as he buckled up and set a hand on the key.
"Good plan," she said as she nestled down in the seat. "I was wanting a shower tonight anyway."
They rolled out from the spot and back to the road on the plateau, and soon they returned to the highway. The dense forests all around them guided them all the way back to Syracuse and then across the spine of New York. Indeed, it was ten o'clock by the time the lights of the city and on the Twin Towers appeared from behind the horizon. Sam talked him back to that neighborhood and at that point, they were both ready for bed.
She was quick to take a shower and then change into clean pajama bottoms and one of her Death Angel shirts, much to Eric's surprise.
"Wow, when's the last time you wore one of those?" he asked her as he hung his sweater up next to the front door.
"Not long," she assured him. "You sure you want to get in bed with me while you're like this or do you want to take a quick one? I can wait for you."
He showed her a little smile and then he peeled off his shirt: his pale skin was akin to cream in the very coffee he had drank down earlier.
"Five minutes," he told her in a soft voice.
With her hair still wet, she switched off the lights and she headed for the comfort of her bed. Indeed, in five minutes time, Eric surfaced from the bathroom with his skin even smoother and softer in appearance and his hair wavy and extra dark.  She inched over for him and he crawled under the covers close to the lamp.
"By the way, if Aurora fires Alex, tell her that she's not gonna hear the end of it from me," he told her in a single breath. He turned off the light and then he lay down next to her. He rolled onto his side so he could hold her.
She lay back down on her bed and closed her eyes with Genie curled up behind her legs and Eric cuddled up next to her. And she knew that the first thing she would do when she awoke the next morning, besides put on a pot of coffee for herself and Eric, was call up Lars.
She had made enough money in the past four weeks that she could seriously consider a new place for herself. She needed all the help she could get her hands on in the meantime as well.