THE FERAL STRUT

Chapter 14

Mary was driving the van back from SLC, swooping up the curves of I-80. Ginger rode shotgun with the others asleep on the back seat.

"So, girlfriend," Ginger said. "What's all this stuff about Indie Execs?"

"No idea. I wouldn't recognize one if he sank his fangs in my leg."

"Really, truly? So what's up with all the buzz in the punk 'zines?"

"You know the guys who come up and B.S. between sets? Hey, sweetheart— I can get you a record contract and by the way, how do you feel about oral sex?"

"Yeah— they hit on me, too. Are those the Indie Execs?"

"I guess they must be. Not exactly David Geffen."

"You're not exactly Joni Mitchell."

They'd gotten in just before dawn, dropping Wire at her aunt's trailer south of town, then parking the loaded van in Cogwill's garage. Parking it on the street with the band's gear inside made Mary paranoid. She and Gin stopped for breakfast in town, then drove woozily out to the Village, half-blinded by the brilliant light that bounced back from the steep snowcovered mountain front.

Both of them slept past noon, then grumbled around in their pac-boot liners, spilling coffee and trying not to piss each other off.

"What time do we unload?" Gin said.

"'Bout three. Better take your car— I've got a date."

"A what? With a guy?"

"No— a grizzly bear. A female— sort of a butch-dyke interspecies thing," Mary said, with a smirk.

"Yeah, right. So who's the guy?"

"Slim— the deputy from the Climbing Gym gig."

"Oh, him. Can't remember what he looks like."

"That's your fault, Beanpole. But you're making up for it lately. I appreciate that. So do Krista and Wire."

"Gee, thanks, Captain Straightedge. So what're you going to do? Go for milkshakes?"

"House party. Sort of a Jackson High reunion, I think. Slim said there'll be music— I should bring my acoustic. Wanna come?"

"Thanks— not my crew, exactly."

"Too proletarian?

"Pro-la-what?"

"Working class."

Ginger shrugged and got back in bed with her coffee mug.

Mary didn't know what to wear, so she settled on Low-Punk: black jeans, mildly ripped, Minor Threat tee under a faded flannel shirt, and black Doc Martens. One skull, left ear, and one cross right, with plain studs otherwise. No nose ring. She didn't expect to fit in, but then she never did.

They went to Cogwills' to unload, and Slim picked her up there.

The party was fine, except for the music— bluegrass. The high, whiny trumped-up harmonies really set her teeth on edge, and to hear that nasal-Jesus twang from people who didn't even talk that way drove her stark raving.

In Rock Springs, she'd grown up around people who did: Texans and Okies and Mudcats who'd come north to work the oil patch. They didn't much care for that frozen, arid, windy part of Wow-Ming, as they pronounced it, except for the big-game hunting. And poaching. To knock off a couple antelope or a deer, on the drive back from the rig, and then butcher by night was standard practice. From the grisly relics and beercans scattered around the next morning, fingerprinted with blood, you'd have thought there been a massacre.

Instead of champagne and flowers, her Mom's boyfriends would bring whisky and packages of frozen meat. Mary had snagged a wild game cookbook at a rummage sale, and learned to like the stuff. The Momser never did. "That's why God invented ketchup," she'd always say.

Anyhow, Mary sat and strummed chords, biting her lip until she got sick of the whangy-twang. Then she called for a song, not bluegrass but country, by Merle Haggard: "Silver Wings." Not the easiest song to sing, but a few of the players knew it and came in with harmony on the choruses.

It felt good to sing something that loose and supple, like an old bathrobe: comfortable, she thought.

When it was done, there was a hush. The drinkers had stopped drinking and the talkers stood silent, listening. Then they actually started to clap. Weird.

Feeling conspicuous, she nodded thanks and propped her guitar against the wall, grabbing a Coke and heading out back. Slim sidled up, his head close to hers.

"That was beautiful," he said. "No joke."

"You heard me sing before— at the Climbing Gym."

"Yeah— sorta loud for me. Plus I was so busy trying to keep trouble from happening that I wasn't paying attention."

"That's why you kept winky-blinking at me?"

"I was paying attention to you. But I'm just not all that musical. I mean, I like music . . . some kinds."

She was looking him up and down.

"I'd better shut up," he said, "before I say the wrong thing."

"Good idea. I can get pretty irrational about music."

The bluegrass restarted inside. Mary scowled. "For instance, I can't stand that fake hillbilly shit."

"Maybe we should. . . go," he said, and gave her a look that made her shiver. Pleasantly.

But then, in his car, it felt wrong.

She'd watched her Mom go through so many men, most of them losers. She was sort of allergic to it— the slurping and pawing. And the smell of beer on his breath.

Sex was okay— but she hated the romantic shit. Having had to listen to virtually the same drunken courtship repeated— how many times— between her mother and whatever dirtbag she'd brought home from the bar, she couldn't stand to see herself in that same sort of muzzy clutch. It made her feel radioactive.

She didn't try to explain, and he was hurt. He barely said a word all the way back to the Cogwill house.

"Thanks— it was great," she said.

"Yeah, right."

"Later."

He drove off and she felt suddenly sorry.

He's a good one, she thought. She watched his car swing onto the pavement, wishing he'd turn around. But he didn't.

Blew it again.