Rock Chick Reckoning

by Kristen Ashley

  Stella

  “This is like, ‘Beam me up, Scottie’. Fuckin’ cool!” Leo shouted.

  Leo was staring at my alarm panel and video monitor as if the concept of home security had been invented twelve seconds ago and I was on the cutting edge.

  “Gee-zus, but Mace sure don’t mess around,” Pong added, flipping the door down on the panel and starting to press buttons randomly.

  Visions of a dozen police cars and shiny black Explorers screeching to a halt in the driveway, spraying gravel, officers and hot Nightingale Investigation Team members alighting with guns drawn and shooting everything that moved flashed through my head.

  I leaped forward and slapped Pong’s hand.

  “Pong, don’t do that!” I snapped.

  “What?” Pong asked, looking innocent (or trying and failing).

  “No pressing buttons on the state of the art alarm system that cost Mace the moon and the stars and the promised enslavement of his firstborn children,” I answered. “Clue in, Pong, this is serious business.”

  “Jeez, take a chill pill, Stella Bella,” Leo said, laidback even in the face of imminent danger (likely because he’d just smoked a doobie) which the band had its share of even before Linnie was murdered and I was scratched onto a hit list. We could just say that we’d seen more than our quota of bar brawls, we’d broken up way too many possible statutory rape scenarios between Pong and/or Hugo and underage groupies and Leo had been found in possession of illegal substances on more than one occasion.

  I looked at the ceiling briefly. When I noted that instructions on how to deal with idiot band members were not written by the hand of God in fancy gold script on my ceiling (as they never were), my gaze shifted to Floyd.

  Floyd grinned, knowing my thoughts instantly (as was his way) and shook his head. “Whatever the time, you don’t want to do it.”

  Floyd was probably right. Perhaps I shouldn’t kill Pong and Leo.

  Still, maybe I wouldn’t get into too much trouble if I roughed them up a bit. Anyone would understand. I was under a lot of pressure and my defense attorney could make the jury sit in a room with Pong and Leo for an hour. After that, they’d let me off, no doubt.

  The entire band was over to pick up the equipment for the gig that night. Swen and Ulrika let us keep it in an unused room on the second floor. Usually I helped with the lugging and lifting but seeing as I was on some faceless crazy criminal’s hit list for once I was going to be saved this chore.

  “All right, boys. Let’s get loaded up so we can set up.” Floyd, thankfully, decided it was time to get down to business.

  “They really gonna pat down everyone that comes into the gig?” Hugo asked me, ignoring Floyd.

  “They’re going to wand them,” I explained.

  Hugo nodded then said, “They go for the pat down, I’m in.”

  New visions crowded my head. They were visions of Hugo patting down every female who came close to the door. Visions of Hugo’s brand of pat down made me shiver and not in a good way but in the kind of way I shivered every time I had to phone the bail bondsman, whose number, just for your information, was on my speed dial.

  “I think they’re gonna stick with the wands. They’re more accurate at detecting… stuff.”

  I was making this up. I had no idea which was more accurate.

  “I could be pretty accurate with a pat down,” Hugo offered.

  Sheesh.

  “Me too,” Pong put in.

  Good grief!

  Hugo turned to Pong. “We could lose the sax. Half the time I’m playin’ the fuckin’ tambourine and workin’ the crowd. If anyone’s gonna get to do the pat downs, it’s me.”

  “Drums aren’t that important. They do that MTV Unplugged all the time with just guitars,” Pong told Hugo then turned to me. “You could go unplugged tonight. Shake it up a bit.”

  Unplugged?

  Shake it up a bit?

  Okay, enough.

  I put my hands on my hips, narrowed my eyes and leaned in. “We are not gonna go unplugged and you two are not gonna do any patting down of anyone. Do I make myself understood?”

  “Shit, mama. Be cool,” Hugo said, putting his hands up, palms out.

  “Man, I thought you gettin’ back together with Mace would mean you’d be gettin’ it regular again and you’d go back to bein’ Sweet Stella Bella not Stella-on-the-rag,” Pong added.

  I turned to Floyd but kept my hands on my hips. “Floyd, hit the red button on the alarm panel,” I ordered.

  “Now, why would I do that?” Floyd asked, still grinning.

  “Because it’s a panic button and the police will come immediately. I figure they’d appreciate the novelty of being called before a crime occurred,” I answered.

  Floyd just kept grinning. What he did not do was hit the panic button.

  Whatever.

  “I think that’s our cue to go,” Buzz, for the first time since they arrived, spoke.

  “Man, Stella being targeted for murder puts her in a bad mood,” Pong muttered and, fast as a snake, Floyd’s hand moved and he slapped Pong upside the back of his head.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Floyd hissed under his breath.

  Hugo, Leo and I were staring at Buzz. Pong’s gaze swung to him as well. Buzz was white as a sheet.

  Okay, maybe I’d rough up Hugo and Leo but I was going to kill Pong.

  “Shit, sorry Buzz,” Pong murmured.

  Buzz looked at Pong a beat, did a little shrug and looked at me.

  “You gonna be safe up there tonight?” he asked.

  I bit my bottom lip. That was the sixty-four thousand dollar question.

  Then I nodded and said, “Mace has it covered,” and I prayed to all that was holy that I wasn’t blowing sunshine up my own ass.

  Buzz shook his head. “Ain’t gonna lie, I need the money. We miss this weekend’s gigs, I’m up shit creek. I need the music too. After Linnie…”

  We all held our breath.

  We knew what he meant. We needed the music just as much as he did. We all loved Linnie and music was what brought her to us.

  Buzz continued, “Anyway, it ain’t no good if you’re not safe.”

  I walked up to Buzz and put my hand on his neck.

  “Mace has it covered,” I repeated, this time softly.

  Buzz stared at me, then he nodded and the band took off. All but Floyd.

  I watched them go, assessing my motley crew (okay, maybe morbidly memorizing them in case I was shot or poisoned or some such before I saw them again).

  Pong was tall and skinny with a mass of thick, dark hair that he kept long, past his shoulders, and teased out in a wild mess for our performances. He also put on eyeliner which Hugo gave him shit about but even I had to admit it worked for him mainly because it made him kind of look like Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow. He had dark eyes, thick eyelashes, a heavy brow and a personality wilder than his hair (which said a lot).

  Hugo was a huge black man, skin like midnight, perfect and smooth. He had broad shoulders and muscular thighs the size of tree trunks. He shaved his afro close to his skull, dressed to the nines even though the rest of the band usually wore jeans, had an easy, wide, white smile that always reached his lazy, dark brown eyes and a deep, velvet voice that made Barry White sound like a pansy.

  Leo was slight of build, about an inch shorter than me and had an aversion to shampoo. He had messy, light brown hair, blue eyes and a mellow attitude that was induced through copious amounts of pot smoking. His clothes hung on him and had more than the allusion of being dirty. This was something for which he took a good deal of shit from both Pong and Hugo (Pong dressed rock ‘n’ roll, tight, low-slung jeans, ripped t-shirts and, on occasion, when the spirit of Steven Tyler flowed through him, Pong wrapped thin scarves around his neck; Hugo, as I already mentioned, dressed like he was torn from the pages of GQ magazine). Leo had no fashion direction and couldn’t care less. His grunge look worked for him, the girls dug it (mostly because girls
would dig anyone onstage wielding a guitar). Leo was more interested in getting stoned than girls which was another thing Pong and Hugo gave him shit for.

  Then again, Hugo and Pong didn’t really look for excuses to give shit, they dished it out regularly.

  Buzz was blond, blue-eyed and had a trailer trash Brad Pitt thing going. Tall and lean, (mainly because he didn’t have enough money to eat), he had a great body molded, not by working in a gym, but by the hand of a benevolent God. Buzz appearing onstage in a tight t-shirt and faded jeans caused an electric ripple of groupie girl desire to sweep through the crowd every single time. It helped that he gave off the vibe of a sensitive soul who’d worship the ground his woman walked on. He gave off that vibe because that was who he was, committed and monogamous. He’d given more devotion and energy to Linnie than, in the end, (even though now the reminder of it made me feel guilt) many of us thought she deserved.

  When the door closed behind them, I turned to Floyd.

  Floyd had thick head of gray hair he kept fashioned in a greased back ‘50s pompadour. He was mostly thin but sported a slight beer belly, wore glasses rimmed in black like Buddy Holly’s, had a quick grin, a sweet chuckle and long-fingered hands that were magic on a piano keyboard. His sense of contentment for life, family and music glittered around him like an aura. He drew people because he was kind. That kindness was etched into him physically, in the wrinkles around his bright, dancing, hazel eyes and the grooves around his mouth. Floyd was just the kind of person you wanted to know.

  “Let’s talk about you,” Floyd said to me.

  Oh dear, here we go.

  Okay, I decided in that moment that Floyd was not the kind of person I wanted to know.

  I turned away and walked to the platform where my guitars were. “Nothin’ to talk about.”

  “Bullshit, Stella Bella. You aren’t pullin’ any wool here, girl,”

  I stopped on the platform, opened up a guitar case and grabbed one of my electric guitars.

  I’d known Floyd a long time and I’d never, not once, been able to pull any wool with him. And believe me, I tried.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I tried an evasion tactic.

  “Well, I do,” Floyd returned. “Not to mention, Emily is scared shitless.”

  My tactic failed.

  Shit.

  Floyd had two grown daughters. Therefore Floyd was the Master of the Guilt Maneuver and was not afraid to use it.

  “Let’s start with Mace,” Floyd pushed.

  “Let’s not,” I replied, placing the guitar in the case carefully and then closing and locking the lid.

  I heard Floyd’s boots on my floor then I felt Floyd’s fingers curl around my upper arm. With no choice, I stopped what I was doing and turned to him.

  “Girl…” he said low, his voice both steely and sweet, something which I was sure worked for him with Emily and his daughters. I was sure it worked for him because it always worked on me.

  “He thinks we’re back together,” I told Floyd and his hand dropped away as his eyebrows went up.

  “He thinks?” Floyd asked.

  “We’re not,” I answered.

  This wasn’t altogether true as I’d been sleeping with Mace for days. Not to mention, I’d had sex with Mace twice. Good sex. Sex some would even define as “getting back together sex” (though, if I was honest, sex of any kind could be defined as that). And further, not two hours ago, Mace had dropped off two big, stuffed-full gym bags and two boxes of crap at my apartment. Then he grabbed me, kissed me hard and took off saying he’d see me later that night at the gig.

  “Why not?” Floyd prodded, cutting into my thoughts.

  “How many reasons do you want?”

  “How many you got?”

  “Seven thousand, two hundred and eleven,” I retorted sarcastically.

  “Well, I got seven thousand, two hundred and twelve why you should let him back in.”

  I felt my eyes go round. “Are you loco? Were you not around when he broke up with me? Were you not there when I went through two boxes of Kleenex in your and Emily’s living room? Hello? Mace came into my life, settled in a way I thought was forever and I liked it. I liked it a lot. I liked it too much. Then he ripped us apart and walked away. I’m not going through that again.” I shook my head. “Unh-unh. No way.”

  “Emily left me,” was Floyd’s reply.

  This time, my eyes bugged out and I felt my mouth drop open. I figured my mouth dropped open in an effort to give my body oxygen but it was an impossible feat. My lungs had turned to stone.

  Emily and Floyd were solid. Emily and Floyd were strong. Emily and Floyd were everything. This was impossible.

  “Not recently, seventeen years ago,” Floyd went on and I felt the trembling world under my feet grow steady again. Floyd kept talking, “She left me, took the girls, moved in with her parents back in Michigan and was gone for ten months.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, thankfully breathing again.

  “Don’t know why, even to this day, even though she explained it. Whatever it was, we weren’t working. Not for her. It didn’t matter. Only thing I cared about was she came back.”

  I staggered back and sat on the arm of my mauve chair, feeling the weight of this news settling on me like a boulder. I’d always thought that Emily and Floyd were the end all, be all of relationships. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this information.

  Juno trundled over to me and butted my hand with her nose until I started scratching behind her ears.

  Floyd crouched in front of me.

  “What I’m sayin’ is, shit happens to couples. In any relationship there’s ebbs and there’s flows. You want that relationship to work you put on your life jacket and ride it out.”

  I shook my head, not feeling much like going in the conversational direction he felt like taking me but Floyd kept talking.

  “You gotta learn to give, Stella. I’m not sayin’ this to be ugly but you’re bound up tight. That boy walked into your life and you didn’t give him a fuckin’ thing, ‘cept your music. I watched, hell, we all watched and we knew he was ready to lay the world at your feet, all you had to do was let him in. You never let him in.”

  I felt a queer sensation, like someone had reached a hand in and started squeezing my heart.

  “I let him in,” I said softly but I knew that wasn’t altogether true either.

  Floyd put his hand on my knee and looked into my eyes.

  “You got more to give than your music, girl.”

  Direct shot, right to the gut.

  But he was wrong.

  “I don’t.”

  “You do,” Floyd said firmly.

  Okay, wait just one damned minute.

  I wasn’t going to take the fall for Mace giving up on me. That was not going to happen.

  “He wanted it, he should have asked,” I said to Floyd. “He never talked to me. Looking back, we didn’t know each other at all.”

  “You ever ask him? Did you ever talk to him? Did you ever try to unlock whatever demons that boy has trapped in his mind?” Floyd asked.

  This threw me. It threw me so much, to hide it I gave a sharp laugh, a laugh that didn’t even sound like it came from me and I shot up from the chair. Floyd came up from his crouch.

  “Mace? Demons?” I asked.

  Hardly.

  Mace was…

  Well, just Mace, super cool, super hot, super job, super good at everything he did, just all around super.

  Floyd was staring at me, doing it so intensely it made me uncomfortable.

  My body prepared for another blow because something weird was happening here.

  Super weird.

  And I didn’t get it.

  And furthermore, I didn’t want to get it.

  “You don’t see it?” Floyd asked.

  “See what?”

  Floyd’s face shifted and I could swear for a moment he looked disappointed right before he hid it.

  Then Floyd got
close.

  “Stella, I wouldn’t…” He stopped, shook his head, and I could tell he was warring with something. Then his hands came to my upper arms, his long fingers curling around them and he squeezed. “I wouldn’t have expected this from you. But here it is, right in front of me. So I’m gonna say it straight. Get out of your fuckin’ head and look around you. First thing, look in Mace’s eyes. That boy’s got pain there, plain as day and deeper than anything you’ve experienced in your whole fuckin’ life.”

  All of a sudden, saliva filled my mouth and I feared I might vomit.

  Quickly, I swallowed it down.

  “What?” I asked but that one word sounded shaky.

  “You’re so busy wrapping yourself in cotton wool so no one will hurt you that you don’t see the world around you. You got a reason, I know. Your Dad was a schmuck, your mother, worse, ain’t nothin’ worse than a woman who uses her own child as a shield.”

  My body got tight.

  “You don’t know how it was, Floyd,” I said somewhat sharply.

  “I don’t care how it was. You blame your Dad; you make excuses for your Mom. They’re both guilty as sin for doin’ what they did to you. But now, you’re guilty for letting them control your life years after you left them behind, built something good and became a decent person. Not everyone is like them, Stella Bella. Not even close. You know that. You gotta realize that in the battle of your early life, you won. But you aren’t lettin’ yourself enjoy the victory. You just keep preparin’ for the next battle, a battle that might not come.”

  I pulled away and put distance between us, to get away from Floyd but also to get away from his words.

  “Floyd, you’re telling this to a woman who got dumped for no good reason. Okay, I didn’t let him in but he didn’t let me in either. And he didn’t talk to me about it. And he left because of all the things I am.”

  “God damn it, girl, you’re not the band,” Floyd shot back, losing patience.

  “I am the band,” I shouted, because, let’s face it, it might not be right and it might not be good, but it was true. I went on, “And, let’s not forget, if people are so loving and caring and deep and giving, why is Linnie dead? Hunh? Why? Why do I have to live in fear of being murdered even though I didn’t do a damn thing but fall for Mace, like, ages ago? Why do I have to worry about more of my friends getting murdered? A battle that might not come? It’s not only going to come, it’s here Floyd! This is my life. It’s always been my life. Battle after battle. Time after time. Day after day.” I threw my hand up when Floyd opened his mouth to interrupt me. “No. No, don’t say it. I see where you’re coming from but you aren’t me. You don’t know. You don’t have to live in my head. I have to take care of myself, you, the band, the music, it’s all I’ve got. It’s all I ever had. Anything good came in, like Mace, it went away. I can’t reach for more. I tried but couldn’t keep hold. I learned my lesson. I can live with what I’ve got and be happy.”