by Su Williams
“Effing bangover, dude,” I whined to the room in general. All of them had experienced the repercussions of over-exuberant head banging during a concert. My complaint was met by knowing nods and shrugs of ‘whatever.’ Jack bolstered my mood by comparing me to something nasty in the toilet, so I snarled and flipped him off. I didn’t even have the energy for a smartass retort. Not today. Not after the nightmare from last night.
Chapter 3 Stand Up (Let me see your hands up)
Mid-day found us winging away toward the Emerald City for a quick gig before the short hop over the mountains to home. Seattle was tolerable, if it wasn’t raining, which it was most of the time. I was grateful to have a driver, as the city always left me feeling upside down, with all its ‘slight rights’, this-highway-North and that-highway-South, and this street North not to be confused with the same street Northwest. I nodded off as we flew toward the Cascade Mountains.
The wind blew the world sideways. Overhead, trees swayed precariously, branches heaved and popped. Leaves skittered like small animals across the path. My horse, a young stallion procured from an injured farmer as payment for services rendered, snorted and tossed his head; his body vibrated beneath me. His steps were tentative, his muscles rigid. Something small and grey scuttled across the path. The tight-wound steed stopped, danced nervously from foot to foot, and blew jets of breath from his nostrils into the cold night air like an Arthurian dragon.
“Just a leaf,” I told him, and patted his neck in reassurance.
I found shelter for the night in an overhang of rock, and loosely tethered the stallion to a tree. Sleep came hard. I was agitated and restless. Every flash of lightning lit the woods daytime bright. Agitation crawled over me like a nest of ants, and my muscles spasmed with restlessness.
I must have finally dozed off because I was suddenly awakened by the blinding light of morning and the snap of a nearby branch. Probably just the horse, I told myself. But the telltale sound of the hammer of a gun being cocked, destroyed all hope. Then, a familiar face stepped from behind the trees and he aimed a shotgun at my chest. I raised my hands in surrender.
“William. I can explain. Please. I didn’t kill her,” I pleaded with the man with a weary scowl and dark circles under his eyes.
My ears popped and my nose stopped up, as we descended toward SeaTac. The pain extracted me from the dream, but all of the dread remained. I thrashed in my seat.
“Whoa! Whoa! Get a grip chica!” Kylen grabbed my arms to calm me.
“He’s gonna kill me!” I rasped.
“Who? The guy from the show? No sweat, Sweets. He’s long gone.”
“No…” Realization of where and who I was flooded my mind. “Oh, it was just a dream.”
Kylen released me. “Yeah. Some helladream.”
“Yeah. Some helladream,” I echoed.
That night’s gig went well, not nearly as great as last night at the 8150, but it would be impossible to top that gig. On stage, the euphoric vibrations of the music saturated my body and absorb into my soul. Love, lust, passion. All the same. Hot, soothing, immersion into a roiling tide. The stage was another planet, another totally different world. Its atmosphere hot and heavy and electrically charged. I closed my eyes; tasted it in the sulfuric air; smelled it in the human sweat and alcohol. The lights, like tanning bulbs, singed my skin, changed me, drew from within the truth of who I am. The crowd, my friends. The band, my family. The stage, my home.
Fans passed up double shots of Fireball to me. My racing heart amplified the numb in my head. Sweat seeped from my pores. My body, drenched. The music, loud. The music drifted through me, body and soul, my life’s blood. Before the crowd, I basked in the hot and passionate waves that rolled across the arena. I hummed the tune of the song, while the crowd sang the words back to me. I started each phrase and they finished it for me.
We were all starved after the show, and decided on Asian food at a little restaurant around the corner from our hotel. The restaurant had a name that sounded like a swear word in English and we took turns taking pictures in front of the sign, flipping off the camera. The food was great, though, and it didn’t take long for inactivity, a full stomach and a couple of beers to have my head nodding. I yawned and stretched.
“I’m gonna head back and hit the sack,” I announced. Jack and Kylen offered to walk me back, but I flashed them a grin and the balisong I kept tucked in my waistband, resting comfortingly on my hip bone. I withdrew the knife and flipped it open in three quick moves, then shut it again in three quicker. “That’s not a knife…” I said in my best, and really horrible, Aussie accent, and tucked the knife back in my pants.
My bandmates rolled their eyes at reference to an old 80’s movie. “I pity the fool,” Drey pitched out his own movie reference and chuckled at me. The rest of the guys laughed. They knew I could hold my own—if necessary. I pulled my best ‘bad ass rocker chick’ sneer and headed out the door.
The city smelled of rain, of course, and late night restaurant leftovers. I tugged my leather closer around me to keep out the moist chill that always seemed to hang in the air here, and tapped a cigarette out of my pack. Just a couple quick hits before I hit the sack. The guys didn’t like it when I smoked, so I tried not to do it around them.
Seattle didn’t really intimidate me, not even at night, but I kept my head up and my eyes open, ever vigilant to those around me. I would take the knife out and play with it as an intimidation factor to any would-be attackers, but carrying a butterfly knife was kind of illegal in Washington state, so I kept it tucked away. I turned the corner a block from the hotel. As I neared the alley at the center of the block, a figure stepped out of the shadows but not fully into the light. He just stood there, looking my direction, his hands stuffed in his pockets. I stopped dead in my tracks. I flicked the smoke and my hand moved to my waistband, but I didn’t extract the knife. Yet. I stood staring at the man in front of me. He shifted subtly, his face now fully illuminated; his eyes glowed an incredible obsidian blue. It reminded me of the color I’d seen glinting off the wing of a raven in the summer sun. My mouth dropped open and my hand fell to my side.
There before me was the rock-god from last night’s show. His raven-dark eyes spotlighted in the light of the street lamp. My heart and stomach leapt, and I staggered forward a step, before I thought to restrain myself. Hot or not, he’d followed me. I didn’t know what kind of man this was, if he was to be trusted. Everything in me was caught in the riptide of his gaze, but I couldn’t let him pull under. I opened my mouth to ask if he really was following me, but he stepped back into the shadows and retreated into the darkness of the alley. As if by compulsion, I stumbled forward, but the stranger disappeared. I scanned the darkness of the alley for his silhouette, but found nothing except trash cans and shadows. He just—vanished.
I shook the cloud of confusion out of my head, but scattered shreds of memories still drifted in and out of clarity. No amount of concentration could shake the pieces into place. “What the f…?” My chest tightened with anxiety, and fear twisted a cold hand around my gut. I turned and jogged the rest of the way to the hotel. Relief swept through me as I stepped into the safety of the walls and lights of hotel lobby. I breathed in the scent of Seattle-moist air mixed with antiquated dust.
Kylen was not amused when I told him later about the fan from Vail showing up in Seattle. The rest of the guys laughed it off, saying it was about time I had a little fun, about time I got laid.
“And what about Jesse?” I demanded of Jack who was being the biggest smartass of them all.
“What about Jesse? You oughta know the road is like Vegas, ‘what happens on the road, stays on the road’.” Jack intoned in a solemn voice, his hand over his heart as though making a solemn vow. I snorted and turned away.
“Don’t sweat it, for now,” Kylen suggested. “If he shows up again, we’ll know for sure it wasn’t a coincidence.”
I conceded, though I was reasonably sure there was no coincidence in his
appearance here. “One thing’s for sure, I’m not telling Jess about this. He’ll freak.”
Ky nodded.
Life on the road is one of hardest parts of being a musician. Significant others struggled with the loneliness, and often felt like second best. Jesse DeLaRosa was no exception. Jesse loved me. And I guess I loved him. But our ‘on again, off again’ romance was tumultuous at best. He was kind, gentle, protective—a great kisser, with those sexy Puerto Rican lips. But his personal insecurities caused him to become very possessive, almost smothering at times. Which is what caused a lot of our ‘off again’ times.
No, it was best not to tell Jesse just yet.
Chapter 4 For Those About to Rock
There was always a sense of relief on the flight over the Cascades on our way home to Spokane. Seattle sprawled into the ascending white-peaked mountains. Mountains smoothed into tumbling foothills and craggy crevices, home of rolling, glittering rivers. The foothills spread like giant fists, fingers balled and bared against the earth. Half-way home the land flattened and turned into a patchwork of brown, green and gold circles and squares—the land covered in a enormous homemade quilt of farmer’s fields. I laughed at one gaping circle that looked like a giant PacMan ready to swallow the homestead. Finally, innumerable lakes and ponds sprouted across the land, glimmering puddles scattered haphazardly across the scraggly land.
Spokane may not be a huge city, but it was sufficient for me. Big enough that I could lose myself and not be recognized, too much. Vast housing developments led to landmark sights like the bold green and gold water tower in Shadle Park and the rising bastion of the courthouse downtown, as we banked sharply over the city. And of course, there was my man, Jesse, waiting for me at home. With his warm brown eyes and safe strong arms, it was always something to look forward to.
Tonight, we had a gig at the Factory, so we headed straight from the airport to the venue. We parked on the North side by the load-out doors and hauled the equipment from the van into the equipment room. DeWayne, the sound guy, led us to the stage, then to the elevator that took us to the second floor green room. They were more than adequate accommodations with plush, comfy couches; a gigantic screen television; arcade games and private bar and bartender, though no one was on duty at the moment.
“You guys want anything?” DeWayne asked from behind the bar. Yvy and the guys ordered beer and DeWayne turned his attention to me. He ran a cold calloused finger suggestively down my arm. “How ‘bout you, little missy?”
Jack snorted, and pressed forward but I caught his arm and warned him off. “Fireball, on the rocks.” Asshole!
I wandered around the green room sipping my drink, while DeWayne explained everything to the guys, loud enough so I could hear also. After several minutes, a pimple-faced, leather-glove-clad teen boy emerged from the elevator.
“My guys are ready whenever you are,” he announced, after introducing himself as Jacob, head roadie for the Factory.
The guys headed for the elevator and I downed the last of my drink, sucking up one of the ice cubes in my mouth and setting the glass on the bar. DeWayne’s fingers fished around in the glass and he pulled out a cube, sucking the alcohol off the ice and tracing the cube down my chest where his fingers lingered at my cleavage. The elevator fairly exploded with testosterone and rage, but I had the asshole face down on the floor, his arm twisted behind his back with my knees pressing on his kidneys before the guys could reach us. I crunched the ice and blew the chunks into DeWayne’s face, and leaned into him. He grunted.
“If you ever so much as look at me wrong again,” I spat and cranked his wrist to a precariously dangerous angle, “I will break your fucking wrist and you will be damn lucky if that’s all I break. You got that?” I pressed the angle of his wrist a little further.
DeWayne whimpered and nodded.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes ma’am. I got it. I understand.”
“Good,” I hissed. “Now stay the hell away from me.”
“Yes ma’am.”
DeWayne whimpered as I pressed my knees into his back. As I got up, I tweaked his wrist a little further for good measure. I thought, perhaps, I heard something pop inside as I shoved away from him. Yeah? So what? He deserved it. The prick. I picked up the remnants of my glass and scowled because his nasty fingers had contaminated it, then dumped the remainder of it over his head, and clunked the glass back on the bar top.
Drey and Yvy high-fived me and Jack and Kylen put their arms around my waist to escort me onto the elevator. DeWayne was just pushing himself up off the floor when I turned around. I double-birded him as the doors closed in front of me. Just for good measure.
The show went off without a hitch, as home shows usually did, despite the fact that DeWayne ran sound for us. At one point after the show, I caught sight of a large, bald, black man glaring down at DeWayne, jabbing his finger into the sound man’s chest. DeWayne shrank, cowed by the magnitude of ass chewing he was receiving and the sheer size of its deliverer. The black man walked over to me and introduced himself as the venue owner, Antonio Kohlhauff, and offered his apologies for his inept sound man. Apparently, my guys didn’t think my personal chastisement was sufficient enough punishment for the arrogant bastard and had gone to the head honcho on my behalf, as well.
Later, as we headed out for the night, DeWayne approached me, abashed. “Miss Sweet?” He reached for my arm but withdrew his hand as though in fear of losing a finger or two, or that I’d make good on my promise to break his effin’ wrist.
“What?” I had no compassion for him whatsoever.
“I, uh, wanted to apologize for earlier,” he stammered. “It was…uh…I shouldn’t have treated you that way. There’s no excuse…”
“No. Duh-Wayne.” I spit out his name like a curse. “There isn’t.” I stepped up into his face looking up from my all of five foot two stature. He flinched as though I towered over him, and backed away. “Tell me something,” I stepped up to him again and poked my finger into his chest. “You got a sister? DeWayne.”
“Yes ma’am. She’s fourteen.”
“So in three years, you want some ass wipe of a sound guy, who thinks he knows everything about music but doesn’t, so all he can do is run sound, to be fondling her? You think she’ll be old enough then?”
“No ma’am.”
“‘No ma’am.’” I snorted. “Let me ask you this—DeWayne. Do you think Mr. Kohlhauff would think twice about firing your sorry ass if it meant me and my guys would never return to this here fine establishment?”
“No ma’am. He’s said as much.”
“Well, there’s one intelligent man here. The Factory’s saving grace as far as Cuimhnigh is concerned.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Shut up. Just shut the f…” I clenched my fist and backed off before I did something we might all regret. “Don’t fake the respect with ‘ma’am’. You got that?” I growled venomously. “It’s bullshit, and we both know it. You step up with some balls and some genuine respect for the ladies who come to this place. You are nobody, Duh-Wayne the sound guy. Nobody. You don’t even have a girl, do you?” I didn’t wait for his reply but I could tell by the way he flinched, like someone stuck him in the butt with a cattle prod, that I was right. “Women aren’t objects and every one of us deserves to be treated like a queen. You got that?”
“Yes m—yes.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. Duh-Wayne the sound guy.” I turned my back on him and strode away to the guys, who were waiting a few yards away. Kylen wrapped his arm around my waist and shoved his fingers into my back pocket, his thumb gently, reassuringly stroking my hip. I took one last look at Deflated Duh-Wayne the sound guy, and snorted. Shaking my head, I wondered if he really got it, or if he was just an innate idiot, and walked away.
Home was grand. Being in my own house with my own stuff, doing my own things on my own time was amazing, relaxing, wonderful. Jesse was there with my favorite late night snack, peanut
butter and crackers with a glass of cold milk. He had the house all warmed up, and candles burning so I didn’t come home to the cold mustiness of an empty house. Bless his heart. He always reminded me when I got home, why we had so many ‘on again’ times. I gratefully entered the comfort of his arms and breathed in his guy and Fahrenheit scent.
“So how was the tour?” Jesse breathed in my ear when we were finally snuggled up on the couch watching Jimmy Fallon.
“Great,” I feigned enthusiasm. I did not want Jess to know about the mystery man. His Puerto Rican blood tended to boil, under such circumstances, and I didn’t need him going off when I just got home. Besides, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. So, I snuggled against him and traced the contours of his forearms, muscled from heavy lifting. Now, that got my blood boiling, and it didn’t take long for us to head back to the bedroom for a little welcome-home canoodling. I fell asleep to the rhythmic beat of Jess’s heart, and wrapped in the heat of his body.
Old burlap enshrouded me, smelling of dust and dung. I gagged as the filth rushed into my nose and mouth. A heavy boot struck me to the ground, where I wallowed, unable to right myself. My hands were tied behind my back with a course fibrous rope that lacerated my wrists. I tried to speak, to defend myself with words, but the boot connected with my gut, forcing the air from my lungs.
“Will…” I gasped, my voice low and gravelly as a country road. “I didn’t…” But the boot launched me off the ground. “I loved her, Will. I loved Sarah Rose.”
