Lulu was a phenomenally good drummer. She never played too loud, the fault with most punk drummers, but she never failed to kick in hard when required. She was small, just over five feet tall, and compact, but she was powerful.
"You make Keith Moon sound like a limp-wristed faggot," Ginger said, to a laugh.
"So— I'm too loud?"
"No way," Mary said. "If you were any more perfect, you couldn't be bothered with us."
"I love your music," Lulu said. "I can't make up my own, just thump and bump and boom. You give me something good to work with. Can't do without that." She stood up behind her drums and bowed.
They bowed back, meaning it. Besides her drumming, she'd brought a sweetness of spirit back to the band. Mary bathed in it, the beauty and the heat, during practice. And after, she slept without dreams.
Could music save your soul? Perhaps.
They plotted gigs. The place they'd played before, the Gilded Dildo, was dismissed by Lulu as a poser bar. "No real punks go there," she said with a sniff. Instead, she wanted to book the Temple Square Tavern, a gay bar that wasn't anywhere near Temple Square, on a weekend, when the hardcore punk fans mixed with the gays, and danced themselves sick. There were other hot spots, but that was the hottest. "Trust me," she said.
It was a dump. The floor was unswept. It smelled weird. Half the outlets on the stage were dead, and the lightbar kept buzzing and cutting out. But once it filled up, with a crowd and the roar of the Feral Sluts, it was a shortlived heaven. Lulu and Ginger thundered. Mary's guitar struck lightning, her singing desperate and flawless, while Krista arpeggiated fiery clouds. If the crowd expected the usual stuff, they got something else: punk squared, punk cubed, flashy, brilliant, vicious, and rude.
Or so read the review, in the punk 'zine of report.
"We are the champions, We are the champions," Mary sang, 'zine in hand, doing her best Freddie Mercury riff. "What a great review!"
"The blow job was definitely a good investment," said Lulu.
"You're kidding," Ginger said. "You bitch! Tell me you are."
Lulu grinned. "You'll never know," she said.
YOU ARE READING
Sowing on the Mountain
Mystery / ThrillerA Consolata Mary Browne mystery, the second in a series. (To get the most out of it, first read The Feral Strut, which establishes the main characters and background.) After her near-fatal encounter with a grizzly bear, Mary goes to college in Sa...
