souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 140: boys don't cry

By the day's end, Scarlett locked the front door of the gallery and Sam and Alex walked back home to that apartment in Hell's Kitchen together. The next day would be a half day for Sam, and then they would begin the process of retooling after that. He had stayed there in the gallery the whole rest of the afternoon, up near the door to the rooftop so he would be out of sight until closing time. At one point, Sam suggested that he came down to see everyone but he promised her that it was best for him to be alone up there, especially once he returned from his hotel checkout with his overnight bag over his shoulder.
He held the door of the building for her once she unlocked it, and the late afternoon sun treated her to a kiss of golden light: it spread over the light patch upon the crown of his head.
"What would you like to eat tonight?" she asked him once they reached her place and she unlocked the door there.
"I'm kinda feelin' Chinese," he admitted.
"Well, it's just you and me tonight so whatever I get we'll split between the both of us."
Indeed, later on that evening, she ordered them some cashew chicken, green beans with mushrooms, and fried rice, much to his delight. Alex pitched himself there on her couch, and right in the spot where Cliff used to sit no less, but she didn't mind in the least.
She gave him a plate full of food and he kept it there on his thigh as if it was one of his guitars and he leaned back into the couch cushion. The whole time she kept there next to him and every so often she took a glimpse over at him and the blank expression on his face. He had undergone two major shifts, between his break up from Zelda and the record label going ahead and releasing him from Testament, and yet he seemed rather nonchalant about both things. As long as he was there with her for a couple of nights, Sam had to find her way into his mind.
A notch in his armor. A means of touching him that neither Zelda herself nor even his mother could do with him.
Within time, he returned to the kitchen for seconds and then a third helping of rice and green beans, much to Sam's surprise.
"My goodness," she remarked as she took a drink of water to wash down the taste of cashews and soy sauce.
"What?"
"You were hungry," she said, to which he shrugged.
"I like to eat," he told her as he picked up a forkful of rice and showed her a little smile. "I'm sure you know by now."
"Yeah, you and your cookies," she teased him.
"Might as well relish in it before I start getting the Skolnick belly," he declared. "You saw it on my dad after all."
"I did!" She pictured Alex even a little bit, a few pounds heavier and a slight chill ran up her spine and it made her heart skip a few beats. "By the way, have you told your parents about it?"
"I have—it was like the first thing I did once I checked out of my room was call them up and tell them what happened to me. I told my mom don't worry about me and she told me that if push comes to shove, I've got my old room back there." He took another bite of rice. "You know Chuck and Tiffany are wanting kids."
"Already?" Sam was stunned.
"Yeah. Took me aback, too, because it's not like Testament was making a lot to start with but it's what they both want, though, especially once this tour in support of the new album is up. I'm getting a paycheck for the album and that's it—I'm not even getting paid for the tour dates I participated on. Granted, it was before the album was even put down in record form, but still. And Eric and Greg have no clue what they're going to do once the tour is up, other than going forth in a new direction for the music."
"Did you talk to them?" she asked him.
"Oh, yeah, I saw Eric when I came back and the poor guy was in tears, so I hugged him and I promised him I was gonna be alright. You know, it's not like I'm going to be living on the street."
"I don't want it to come down to you living on the street, either," she said with a pat of his knee.
"He also said he'll be coming over in a few days time, too, just to see you're doing. And Greg told me that if I need anything I'm welcome to give him a ring."
"Well, that's good! At least you're still in contact with the two of them. What about Chuck and Louie?"
"Chuck's off in his own world and I haven't heard a peep from Louie since Zelda and I broke up."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It was weird, too, like he came into the studio to lay down the drum tracks and then that was it. Barely said all of ten words to me and our producer, too. Eric doesn't even know what's going on with him."
"Huh." She stopped and then she gazed off at the wall before them for a moment, and then she returned to him. "You don't think your being with Zelda has anything to do with it?"
"Well," he started again, and he kept his hand down on his other knee; Sam could tell he was getting full, "I thought about it, and no, I don't think so, because when she and I were together, he was asking me about her all the time. You know, like how's she doing? And you guys are not running into the same problems she and I had and all that."
"Well, that's sweet of him."
"Oh, yeah. In my time with Testament, Louie was probably the one guy I always turned to whenever we were on the road. Yeah, Eric, Chuck, and Greg always are easy to talk to, too, but Lou—he was special. I think it's because he and Greg are both closer to me in terms of age: he's twenty seven and Greg's going to be twenty six here at the end of April, whereas Eric's going to be twenty eight in May and Chuck's looking at thirty right on the summer solstice. I didn't tell you this, either."
He picked up his fork again for another bite of fried rice, complete with peas and carrots.
"What's that?" Sam asked him.
"I think it could just be from Chuck looking at the end of his twenties—and the fact we lost his trailer, too, although he hasn't admitted to that yet—but he, Eric, and Louie have been butting heads."
"Oh, really?" She raised her eyebrows at that.
"In fact, you know what?" He shoveled in the rest of the green beans in a single bite and then he gazed up at the ceiling. "I think that actually might explain as to why Louie hasn't been very vocal lately. He doesn't want to be around Chuck and Eric for whatever reason. That's a total guess on my part, but it'd make sense. Because—now that I think about it, when we toured for a bit this past fall, I heard Chuck and Louie arguing about something in their hotel room. I was right outside the door when I heard it, too. Like I went next door for some ice from Chuck and Tiffany and I heard them."
"What was it all about?" she asked him.
"I have no idea," he confessed. "The next day Eric and Louie were talking about something—right outside my room door, too. I remember it woke up Zelda and she just about got into it with them."
"Wow!"
"I asked her about it and she was like, 'I have no idea what they're doing out there.' That was one of the nicest things she did for me, actually, because I was still in bed and I didn't sleep very well that night."
"So—it's actually kind of a good thing that you're out of it," she concluded.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that," he said with a little smile on his face, "I still worry about the four of them, though. Whenever drama crops up, it's usually a sign that something has to change within the chemistry, or else."
"Or else you get Joey Belladonna taking a separate plane home," she added.
"Or else you get Joey Belladonna taking a separate plane home, yes!" he echoed, and he took another bite of rice. "You get Joey Belladonna on a separate plane home or you get what happened to the Beatles." He took one late bite of rice and then he tilted his head back to the top of the couch.
"Had enough?" she sweetly asked him and the look of utter euphoria on his face.
"More than enough—" He set down his fork on the plate and then he set his hand on his belly, still very flat despite the sheer amount of food he had put away right then.
"Hope you have room for a fortune cookie," she said as she picked up the cookie from the coffee table right before their legs. He lifted his head as she dropped it in his lap.
"I'm always up for cookies, you know," he assured her as he opened the little plastic wrapping around it. "I could eat a whole entire feast and I would still ask for a cookie."
She opened the wrapping around her cookie, and they cracked them at the bent in unison.
"Three thousand years ago, the Chinese were performing brain surgery with natural anesthesia," Alex remarked as he munched on the one half of cookie. "But a good dessert outside of a plain cookie and orange slices? Nah, no way."
"More focus on brain surgery," she pointed out. "It's either one or the other, you know, Alex."
"Yeah, but the French were making leaps and bounds in the world of dessert and cuisine in general and yet they also had the origin of pasteurization there."
He popped the other half of cookie into his mouth and then he held the little fortune before him.
"What's it say?" she asked him.
"'You will find love at the start,'" he read it aloud, and he turned his attention to her. "The start of what?"
"The... start of... the year?"
"It's the middle of March, though," he pointed out as he folded it up and tucked it into his jeans pocket. He then held still there in the seat.
"What's up?" she asked him.
"I think I ate too much," he confessed. "I feel all big and heavy inside." She reached over and gently patted his stomach. "Ready for a nap, too." She peered down at his wrist watch, even if the face was upside down.
"It's only eight o'clock," she told him, and then she paused. "You wanna watch TV, don't you?"
"Watch TV or play you something."
"You brought your guitar with you, didn't you?" she asked him with a knitting of her eyebrows.
"Yeah, it's right over there." He nodded to the end of the counter before it rounded right into the kitchen. He lifted himself off of the couch and then he lost his balance and sank back down again. "Yeah, I ate too much."
"Let me get it for you," she said, and she got up and walked on over to the black canvas case leaned against the side of the cabinet. She returned to him and his arching his back to ease the big feeling in his stomach.
"I dunno, Samantha—I'm not really feeling up for it," he confessed.
"How 'bout before breakfast?" she suggested.
"Good by me!" He shifted forward and stifled a belch in his throat, and then he set a hand on his stomach again. "Ooh, that felt good."
She stood over him with his guitar case in hand and she couldn't help but giggle at him. He showed her a sweet little smile.
"Do you need a little help?" she suggested to him with a little tilt of her head.
"Yeah, could you help me up, pretty please?" he asked in a small voice. She leaned the case against the side of the table and then she reached out for him with both hands. Careful not to fall on top of him, she pulled with all her might and lifted him off of the couch. At least he hadn't any sort of booze that evening, even if he staggered forth a bit. She caught him with her hands pressed onto his chest. He held still to steady himself and then he let out a low whistle.
"Remember when we were at my mom's house and you had indulged a bit?"
"Yeah, and she kept wanting to rub my butt, too," he recalled, much to her laughter. He then turned to their plates on the coffee table. "I was wanting to help you clean up, too."
"Oh, no, don't worry about it!" she declared. "Besides, you need to relax for a bit, even if you're my guest." She lingered right next to him as he made his way to the guest room there in the short little hallway next to the couch. She flicked on the overhead light which in turn revealed the little twin bed right in the middle of the floor and underneath the window as well as the low bookshelf.
"This was my old bed," she told him.
"Thought it looked familiar," he remarked as he ran his fingers through his dark hair.
"I got the other one right after I moved in because the mattress is a little bit harder."
"As long as it's not my bed," he quipped back at her with a little shake of his head. She smirked at that and he took his seat there on the edge of the bed, and even with the feeling in his stomach, he still pried off his shoes: his feet sat flat on the floor where she all but dangled her legs over the edge.
"I should probably tell you that you are more than welcome to come here as much as you'd like, Alex," she declared.
"That's—really sweet of you, Samantha," he told her as he sat upright there on the edge: his black hair tousled over his shoulder and onto his slender chest. She eyed the veins on his forearm, prominent and oddly beautiful, from all the years of playing such fast and technical guitar. She thought about the drawing of him in her journal and she wondered as to when she would show it to him, if ever.
Still with his socks on, he lay down on top of the comforter on the bed, flat on his back and with his hand on his belly. He then reached down and unbuttoned his jeans.
"Oh, man... ohhhhh..."
"Feel better?" she teased him.
"A lot better, actually!" He shifted his hips a bit. "This bed is soft. I'm gonna sleep well tonight, that's for sure." He rolled his head over on the pillow and his eyes drooped closed. She had never seen him so full and sleepy and comfortable before, not even when they spent the night at her mother's house on Catalina.
"Hey, Samantha?" Alex called out to her. She stood there in the doorway and he nudged his hair back from his face, the look of sheer utter bliss on his face and in his deep eyes. He then tucked his hands behind his head; all the while, the hem on his shirt lifted up and revealed a strip of the pale silky smooth skin on his lower belly: since he had undid his jeans, she spotted the very delicate skin right underneath his trim waist. A voice in the back of her mind told her to feel that skin against her tongue and her finger tips. Another little vampire bite there next to his belly button. Just another one for the taking. "Thank you."
"Like what you say, I'm just doing what I can," she told him. A part of her wanted to step over him and run her hand over him to relax him a bit more, but instead, she kept her hand over the light switch. "Want the light off, sleepy boy?"
"Please," he said with a bit of a slur to his voice. She switched it off and he in turn was under a blanket of darkness. Meanwhile, she picked up their plates and set them on the counter. She would have to tend to them in morning herself as the sight of Alex there on the bed made her drowsy as well. It wasn't that late at night, and yet she still wanted to crawl under the covers of her bed. Sam switched off the lights and she headed back to her room for the night.
Given she went to bed early in the evening, she awoke early the next morning and to the gentle sound of metallic strings plucking. She rolled over in her bed and she knew Alex was jamming a good morning to her. By the pale gray light from outside, she padded out to the hall and the sight of the door slightly ajar. A stripe of yellow overhead light filtered onto the floor there; behind the door, she saw his elbow moving. She nudged it open and there he was, with his pants off, perched on the edge of the bed with his leg up before him and his other dangled down to the floor, and his guitar cradled right in between his thighs.
"I've had this riff stuck in my head for about a week," he told her in a broken voice. "I was laying here and it was just driving me nuts."
His fingers moved about the fretboard as if it was so easy. To him, it was easy, that wandering meandering riff that didn't sound like anything Testament had ever done before.
"I might throw this out to the guys in The Urge or I might do something else with it, I dunno yet."
The very sight of him there made her laugh. She stooped down and pressed her hands to her knees, and she couldn't help but laugh.
"What?" he chuckled at her and he pressed his fingers across the strings to silence it. She kept laughing even as she stood upright and she saw he was laughing, too. "What?"
She didn't answer, and she kept on laughing. He laughed with her even if he didn't know what she was laughing at.
"Just seeing you here in your underwear and your socks," she chuckled, and she ran her fingers through her highlights. "And the one leg up on the bed."
"My knee hurts a little bit," he said as he still laughed with her, "and it only helps when I put my foot up like this. Hey, at least I'm not laying back on the bed or we're in trouble." She burst out laughing at that and he set the guitar down on the bed behind him, which in turn gave him a nice view of right in between his legs.
"I see," she chuckled, and she pushed her hair back from her face. "Um—well, since both of us are up, would you like some coffee?"
"Oh, yes please!" His face lit up at that.
Within time, she had brewed them a fresh pot of coffee and the sun had begun to peek up over the New York City skyline. With the sunrise came a knock on the door, much to Sam's surprise. She hadn't a bathrobe and thus she answered the door in her pajama bottoms and her camisole: she flung it open and revealed a flustered Ruben. She gasped at the sight of him.
"Hi, honey pie," he greeted her, "good morning."
"Hey, Dad!" she greeted him and she put her arms around him once he stepped into the apartment. "What're you doing here and so early no less?"
"I came over early before you went to the gallery because I wanted to ask," he started, and then his face turned serious, "what on earth is going on down at HQ right now? At the boys' HQ? I went down there to talk to Jon about Testament's new music video and he told me to have their new lead guitarist ready by Friday."
He turned and spotted Alex there next to the couch, still in his little shorts and socks.
"Hey, Mr. Shelley," he greeted Ruben. "I—kinda got fired."
Ruben gaped at him. "You got fired! Well, why didn't you guys say anything to me about it?"
"It was so quick," Alex said as he took his seat there.
"Eric was just a mess after it, too," Sam added. "Still kind of is, too."
"Wow!" Ruben pressed his hands to his hips. "So now I have to help them find a new guitarist as well as find out what's going on with the music video."
"Which song is it for?" Alex asked him as he leaned back and put an arm up on top of the couch.
"'Return to Serenity', I think," he replied. "I'll have to ask Chuck about it."
"Ugh, I loved that one, too," Alex said with a shake of his head.
"I also came over—since I'm here in New York—to tell you both that I'm moving to a nicer place out in the Bay Area. I'm going near Marin Heights."
"Fancy," Alex remarked. "That's like—right near where the rich people live. The ones who aren't in the inner city part."
"And near where we spread Cliff's ashes," Sam said.
"I'll keep you both posted about it, too—" She could tell that by the sight of Alex there in his underwear that he was uncomfortable. "—but for now I have to make some calls and talk to Eric and maybe see if I can console him a bit before we go into it." He reached over for a shake of Alex's hand, who treated him to that trademark slap, and then he turned for an embrace from Sam.
"I'll leave the porchlight on for you kids," Ruben assured them. And without another word, he bowed out of the apartment and Sam turned back to Alex as he crossed his legs and kept his hand up to the side of his face.
"It's weird, I was just thinking about your dad," he confessed to her. "Like, what's gonna happen to him now?" He then glanced down at himself. "I also probably should've put my pants on, too. Oh, well." He glanced off to the side and sighed through his nose. He was still rather nonchalant about the whole thing, and Sam wondered if he had done any sort of real work on his part.
She was about to head into the kitchen for a pair of clean mugs, but she instead took her seat next to him.
"What is it?" he asked her.
"Are you okay?" she started.
"What do you mean?" He frowned at that.
"You've been awful—casual about all of this. I kind of wonder about you, like what's going on in that head of yours."
He shrugged. "There's not much to say other than what's already been said," he confessed with a raise of his eyebrows. And yet she could see it in his eyes. They were alone in her apartment and she had plenty of time before she had to get dressed and check in with Scarlett.
"You have to cry for me, Alex," she told him. "When's the last time you had a good cry? Like... hot tears and so many of them to the point you had a headache and you were a sloppy mess afterwards?"
He paused for a moment.
"I cried to make my parents to take me to go see Kiss," he said in a single breath. "I was like eleven, but still. That's the best one I can think of off the top of my head."
She stroked his shoulder and lingered closer to him.
"Broke up with your girlfriend and lost your job... I haven't seen you cry one time since we've known each other, either. You need to cry. Just let loose and bleed for me."
She lay a hand on his forehead and spread the bangs off of there for a better look into his deep eyes. His dark sharp eyebrows only made them appear deeper, but she gazed into those bright blue irises as if she was looking straight up to the sky.
"Has anyone ever told you you have the cutest eyebrows?" she asked him in a near whisper.
"The cutest eyebrows," he stated in a flat voice.
"You do! They're almost like little pyraminds and they hug your eyes so they make them stand out more. I've always thought that you could go completely gray and I would always recognize you by your eyes by their depth and how clear they are."
She let his bangs fall into his eyes again, and all the while, her thumb stroked over his forehead: his skin was smooth, almost like glass.
"You need to get angry, too," she continued. "Getting angry will help you. At least, that works with me."
He glanced down at his lap and then he scrunched up his nose.
"What's that all about?" she asked him.
"Trying to get angry."
"You look like you smelled something rancid, though. It's not really anger."
"Well, what would be?"
"What would you say if I refused to give you coffee?"
"I'd probably freak out."
"Or your guitar?"
"Please don't." His expression turned blank. She was onto something. That anger was in there: she had seen it before a few times, but this time it was for his benefit.
"Just—take it and stash it in my room," she continued.
"I'd probably get it out before you locked the door," he challenged her.
"I'd give it away."
"Don't you dare," he said, and his voice lowered to as low as she ever heard it.
"And if the person brings it back I'd burn it."
"No," he firmly said, to which she gasped. He held back a bit.
"Where'd that come from?" she asked him.
"I dunno but..." His eyes glanced down at his lap. "...it did something, though."
"Your guitar is your saving grace," she told him in a soft voice, "the one thing that separates you from life on the street. The one thing that keeps you going and keeps you from a life of reckless nonsense, nonsense that can kill you."
He then parted his lips at her.
"You're not saying..."
"A part of me wants to get rid of you," she said, even though she knew in her heart she would never do anything like that, "to banish you from this apartment. Especially since you take my offers for you to stay with me as if they're nothing."
"They're not nothing," he insisted with a stern look on his face, "they're not nothing at all, Samantha. I just—I just—I don't want to be a burden on you."
"Well, refusing my offers is a burden on me," she continued. "After all I've done for you, it's—it feels like I'm doing something."
"You're not!" he declared. "You're not, Samantha, you're not."
She shrugged her shoulders and leaned away from him.
"It's either me or life in a shelter, Alex," she told him, "I don't know if I can do this."
"I... I don't get it." He knitted his eyebrows together. "And all of this is... just... confusing me."
She watched him turn his head away from her. The look of sheer disgust on his face was one that she wanted to see. His lips trembled and then he reached up to his eyes.
It worked.
"What's happening to me," he said in a broken voice. "What the hell is happening to me..."
He gasped and then he turned to her with bloodshot eyes. She pursed her lips together when she realized that it was the real thing. She then opened her arms.
"Come here, baby," she coaxed him and he planted his face in her chest. She put her arms around him and that was when his body shuddered and shook. She could feel him growing warmer to the touch: he brought his arms up to his chest as if he was about to lay into the fetal position. She nudged his bangs out of the way for a better look at his face; underneath those bangs, she saw him pinch his eyes shut. A single tear streamed down from his right eye.
Like a wounded, scared little boy.
"It's okay," she cooed to him, "everything is gonna be okay."
He wept right into her camisole, the loudest and hoarsest she had ever heard him before: the very sound of him alone was enough to coax some tears out of her as well. But it was all worth it for him, and for her as well. He gasped for air and lifted his head for a look into her face. She brushed his bangs out of his bloodshot eyes, still blue despite the tears.
"This is literally the softest I've ever seen you," she told him in a gentle voice, "soft sweet baby boy."
"Please don't let me go," he begged her. "Please, Samantha—I need you! I'm scared to death, I need you!"
She put her arms around him again and then kissed his forehead.
"You are always welcome here," she whispered into his ear, and she brushed a tear away from her eye right then. She gently rocked him as he cried out all those tears.
She sat with him for a full twenty minutes, all the way until the sun rose all the way up over the skyline, and at that point, he lay his head down on her lap and she stroked his hair. Her fingers caressed over the light patch: at the roots, she spotted glimmers of silvery gray. He closed his eyes for a moment and then he opened them again.
"Can we have coffee now?" he asked her in a hoarse voice.
"I was just going to offer you some," she confessed with a smile, and he sighed through his nose. She gently patted his shoulder and then he sat upright, and he leaned back into the cushion.
"Would you like some cereal?" she offered him.
"Yes, please."
She kissed him on the side of the neck before she made her way into the kitchen for a bowl of cornflakes and blueberries. He took his spot there at the counter and she handed that plus a cup of coffee to him.
"I only have soy milk," she confessed with a shrug.
"That's okay—I like soy milk better, anyways. Easy on the stomach."
She then cleaned off their dishes from the night before and no sooner had she poured herself a cup of coffee when the phone rang.
"Ah, you got one of those cordless ones," Alex remarked.
"Oh, yeah!" And she picked up the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Sam."
"Who's this?"
"Lars."
"Oh! I should've known by your accent."
He laughed. "Oh, it's okay! It is starting to go away a little bit just from being here in the States for over a decade—that's according to Dave, anyways. Um—is Alex there?"
"He is—" She turned and she peered back at Alex there at the counter's edge with the spoon in hand and his mouth full of cereal. He raised his eyebrows at her. "Why, what's up?"
"May I please talk to him?"
"Yeah, sure." She handed the phone to Alex. "It's Lars. He wants to talk to you." He swallowed and took the phone from her.
"Hello?" His face lit up. "Hey!" He paused. "Oh?" He raised his eyebrows again. "Oh, do you now?" He glanced up at Sam. "Really?" That lopsided grin crossed his face and he held still for what felt like an eternity. "Yeah, I... I think we can do that. When?" He glanced off to the side. "Sure thing—I'll tell her. Talk to you soon—" He pressed the button and hung up.
"What's going on?" Sam asked him.
"Lars just asked me to get together with him, Dave, and Joey of all people for a jam," he told her.
"You, Lars, Dave, and Joey?" She gaped at him.
"Yeah, totally surprised me, too. He says it's mainly to get the three of us going again. Not sure why Dave's wanting to get involved, though, because Megadeth is doing fantastic—and Joey's still in Anthrax, too." He then stopped.
"Wait a minute," she said with a raise of her hand.
"Yeah... I wonder if Joey himself actually knows now," he confessed with his eyes wide: the tears had cleared out and the irises had returned to that bright steely color. "That—that's in the cards. It happened to me, and I overheard it probably happening to him."
"Well, if he does and—not to make light of it but—you guys ought to call yourselves 'Fired'," she suggested.
"As an exclamation, too," he added with a chuckle and he took another bite of cereal.
"Like, 'we're Fired! We got fired, people!'"
"Exactly!" he laughed once he swallowed down that next bite. "That still makes me wonder if they told him yet, though."
"Yeah. Like—if they haven't told him yet—"
"You and I should," he suggested, "you know as a head's up."
"Might have to hustle, too," she said, "I have a half day today—I go in at ten and then get out at two—so we're gonna be pushing it if they've got a set time."
"Gives us time to drink our coffee, though," he pointed out as he took a sip from his mug.
"That's true."