How Not To Be A Groupie

Chapter Forty Seven: Rumble Rumble

"You ever been in the tube before?" Malcolm asked, leading me down the stairs to the underground train station. Truthfully, I hadn't been on regular trains let alone the subway. Motion sickness usually deterred me from any extreme modes of transportation. If one could call the subway "extreme".

"No," I said, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. Soon enough some light came into view and I gawked at the whole setup. Having never been down here before in 2024, I had nothing to compare this 1978 station to. I assumed they were rather the same. A huge, cavernous area illuminated by overhead lights. Concrete floors under benches that were backed against the wall. People in business suits with brief cases were waiting for the next train and the occasional child ran by with their parent hurrying after them. Before we could join them we had to wait for our tickets. 

Which proved to be a while since everyone in Sydney decided to take the subway today.

"We'll jus' take a quick spin," Malcolm said, handing me a ticket to....Sydney? I didn't have time to inspect it as Malcolm took on his usual quick pace and the crowd was growing heavy. He pushed through the turnstile and I followed, finally finding an empty bench to sit on. By the time I looked at my ticket, our train would be leaving in fifteen minutes. 

"Where is this place?" I asked. 

"It's jus' a suburb," Malcolm said. "Sydney's pretty fuckin' big, ya'd have to catch a plane or somethin' to properly leave."

In due time our train pulled in and we made for the doors. Malcolm hustled in like the best spot on the train was about to be taken and I hurried after him. I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat as I remembered subway trains seat their passengers sideways.

I prayed to God that Australian chocolate bar wouldn't be making an encore. 

Crowds poured in through the doors and Malcolm and I had to squish ourselves together to avoid being sat on. A woman stepped on with her tiny chihuahua on a leash that barked at everyone. 

The dog, not the woman.

"Shouldn't be too long," Malcolm said, pulling out his cigarettes. Ah, yes, cigarette smoke was just what I needed to calm my racing heart and somersaulting insides. "Unless of course, the train gets stuck."

"Stuck?" I asked, feeling my face lose color. Malcolm shrugged, pulling out a lighter. 

"Ya' know sometimes in the movies or whatever....train gets a bit stuck or the power runs out."

I stared at him, wondering why on earth he was so nonchalant about this. "You're telling me this now?"

"Was sort of kiddin', ya' know," he said and blew smoke all over the train like a dragon. "We won't get stuck, I promise." 

Oh, you do, do you, Malcolm Mitchell?

Taking deep breaths knowing good and well panicking would only make things worse, I occupied myself with figuring out how to tell Malcolm my secret. He was the only one left and the band would be leaving in a few days. Sure, one of the others could tell him. But after explaining things to each and every one of them personally, it didn't feel right to give Malcolm second hand news. Besides, he had to have known something was up by now. The band hadn't been exactly secretive when they talked about me around him. Once Malcolm came up behind Angus right as he asked me if going back to the past hurt. 

"Did what hurt?" Malcolm asked. 

Angus looked back and forth between me and Malcolm. I was scrambling for something to say while Malcolm grabbed a napkin for his overflowing coke bottle. "I....fell the other day," I said and Angus nodded. "Back in Stelle's room."

"Yeah, she uh....crashed into the tv an' knocked it over," Angus added. With Malcolm looking between us like we each grew a second head, Angus and I had a difficult time not bursting out laughing. Which I'm sure made Malcolm even more suspicious. "Nasty fall."

"Almost died," I said and Malcolm cocked his head. 

"She did die," Angus said and I let a laugh slip. "She's a ghost."

"Alright, I'm leavin'," Malcolm said. "Try to ease up on the booze, you two, you're losin' your minds."

Along with sighs of relief, we let out quite a chorus of laughter after Malcolm left our table. 

Another incident occurred when Stelle and I were sitting around during soundcheck and Stelle was firing her usual questions at me. "So, is this your first time, or have you done this kind of thing before?" she asked. "Seen other years in history?"

"This is the first time," I said. And who knew? Maybe whatever caused me to go to 1978 would visit me again and I'd end up some place else. Right then Malcolm sat down next to Stelle with his guitar and attempted a quick tune up. Stelle and I buttoned up and Malcolm looked at us.

"Don't stop on my account, ladies," he said. "Go back to whatever you were talkin' about." Well, we couldn't exactly do that so we paused for a minute trying to come up with something else. "Unless you were talkin' about me."

"Not at all, Mal," Stelle said, fixing her earring. "We'd never gossip about you."

"Yeah, I'm sure," Malcolm muttered, half paying attention. His guitar was a trifle more important and luckily we were able to escape detection. But the calls were getting too close. I had to tell him soon.

The train doors slid shut and everyone got comfortable either in their seats or hanging onto the poles for dear life. With a lurch forward the train rolled over the tracks, the station a blur outside the windows. 

Hey, if I could spend the night in a tour bus bunk bed without getting sick, this subway should be a cinch, right?

Malcolm's cigarette smoke hung in the air like fog. He waved it away with his free hand. Hard to imagine that anyone could smoke on public transportation whenever they wanted around here. A couple other people smoked too, one being the lady with the chihuahua. The dog in question sniffed everyone's ankles and growled until the woman picked him up and stuffed him in her leopard coat where he presumably fell asleep. Just the sight of the coat made me sweat. Summer was approaching fast. 

One passenger looked like the scruffiest biker I'd ever seen in my life. He was holding a bouquet of flowers with a yellow ribbon tied around it. Next to him was a mother with two children; a little boy who kicked his feet back and forth and a tiny sleeping baby. 

The subway tunnel was dark. The only lights came from the train itself and if the power went out like Malcolm joked, we'd be screwed. Something rolled across the floor of the train and I grimaced to see it was someone's half eaten burrito wrapped in tin foil. A man further up the train started snoring; his hand was outstretched like he had been holding something and dropped whatever it was. The little boy leaned over his seat to pick it up before his mother reprimanded him. The burrito lay there and a stowaway fly took advantage of the situation. 

I looked over at Malcolm and even he looked half asleep. Sighing, I let myself relax and tried to enjoy the ride. No use getting worked up over something I couldn't control. 

Yeah. Tell that to anxiety.