Beautiful City of the Dead

by Leander Watts

  That kind of stuff wasn't big with her.

  The only thing that fit with the old hippie ways was how deep she was into zodiac stuff. There was a picture of Aquarius in every room. The best one hung in the kitchen. It showed a girl pouring water from a clay jar. And even though it looked like something from the ancient days, it was a photo, not a painting. The girl had beautiful hair and was wearing a loose kind of dress belted with a piece of silver rope. She looked out at me from the picture with the same trancey gaze that Tannis wore right there and then.

  Tannis offered me tea, which was kind of strange. Jolt and Mountain Dew: yeah. And Panther Blood, the stuff Relly found at the old Italian market. I got used to that. But tea was something I hardly ever drank. And it turned out to be this nasty, poxy-smelling stuff brewed out of roots and berries.

  "Relly says you're good."

  "I guess."

  "There's never been a girl in any of his bands before. You know that, don't you?"

  "Sure. But I don't think that—"

  She cut me off. "What you think about Relly is not important. I'm more concerned with what you feel."

  I sat there, not talking, figuring she'd get to the point soon enough.

  And she did. "You know it's just me and Relly here. That's the way it's always been. And his band has always practiced here. That was my idea. Did he tell you that? I helped him clear out the space in the attic."

  She was staring at me with those big, accusing eyes. "Relly is not like other boys. Do you understand that? He is different. And he needs a place where he is safe. Where nobody will lead him astray."

  "Look, I'm just the bass player, OK? That's all. I'm not leading anybody anywhere."

  "Yes," Tannis said. Then we were quiet for a little while. I stared down at the gray-green leaves floating in my teacup. I could feel her eyes on me, accusing me of something, but I didn't know what.

  "Zee?"

  "Yeah?" I didn't meet her stare.

  "I want you to promise me something."

  This was getting way too weird. I just wanted to play. That's all.

  "Will you promise me that no matter what happens, no matter what you see or hear or find out, you'll keep it to yourself? Relly is all I have. It's always been just the two of us. Do you promise me that everything you learn stays here? He likes you, Zee. And he doesn't like many people. He says you're good. He says he can trust you. Do you promise you'll keep it that way?"

  Just then Butt came blundering into the kitchen. "Hey, I just heard a good one. What's brown and sounds like a bell?"

  It didn't occur to him that neither Tannis nor I was in the mood for his stupid jokes.

  "Dung!" he said, making his voice ring like a Chinese gong. "Get it? Get it? Dung!"

  He headed upstairs.

  When his clomping had dwindled to nothing, Tannis said, "Promise."

  "OK, sure. I promise." I got up. "We done?"

  She said, "I'm going to hold you to that promise. Do you understand?"

  No, I didn't. But I wanted to be out of there real bad. So I nodded.

  "All right. I've said my piece. Go on now. They're waiting for you."

  Seventeen

  The next day we had a new bio teacher. Actually he was the old one, but he'd been out on sick leave since September. So the long-term sub was gone and Mr. Knacke was back.

  He had that evil old-man smell, kind of sour and dry, like old coffee breath and mothballs and burning dust. He wasn't big. Still, when he came in the room, you sure knew he was there. And he wasn't ugly. Not exactly. But even at eight fifteen in the morning, his bald spot was shining bright red through his combover. And he had those little webs of white goo in the corners of his mouth.

  "My name is Mr. Knacke. That's pronounced Kuh-Nack-ee. Do I make myself understood? Festus B. Knacke. Say it! All of you, say it! Now."

  The whole bio class repeated his name, like we were in Marine boot camp and he was the drill sergeant.

  "You!" He was talking, or I guess I should say, growling, at me. "What is your name?"

  "Me?" It was kind of a shock, him picking me out of the crowd. Usually, keeping my mouth shut and my head down is safe. The nail that sticks up gets hammered flat. That's what my dad says.

  "Yes, you." He put so much disgust into those two little words. "What is your name?"

  I told him.

  He stared at me like I was making some dumb joke. "Zee? Your name is Zee?"

  "Yeah." What did he want? Should I explain it, or say I was sorry that my name was so weird? I just slunk deeper into my chair and he moved on to harass another kid.

  Eighteen

  "LORD CROT ALMIGHTY," Relly moaned. "I thought he was never coming back."

  "You know him?"

  "Do I know him? He was the scumpack who gave me an F last year in bio. You're in serious trouble. It took him a while to hate my guts. It looks like with you it's hate at first sight."

  "But why? What did I do?"

  "Didn't have to do anything. It's just the way it works with Knacke. He's the worst, Zee. I thought he was too sick to go on teaching. I heard some kids say he had cancer."

  Butt scowled. "I heard other kids say he is cancer." We were standing in front of a bulletin board promoting "good mental hygiene."

  "He really is nuts," Relly said. "If he didn't have—what do you call it, tenure?—they'd lock him up in the state looney hospital. You know how I found out I flunked bio last year?"

  "How would I know that?"

  "I was sitting in the kitchen. Somehow Knacke figured out when I'd be alone. This was right after finals last June. I heard a car horn and looked out the window into the darkness. When I stuck my head out the front door, I heard a noise, like a balloon popping.

  "The driveway exploded. A huge big letter F was burning on the blacktop. The car horn started up again. You know, real loud and crazy. Then it stopped for a second, and Knacke yelled, 'There's your grade, loser-boy!'

  "My big F burnt itself out pretty fast. I stood there staring, like I wasn't even sure if I'd really seen it. Or if Knacke's craziness had rubbed off on me. His car started up, honking again, and he drove away."

  As his story got weirder, I wonder if Relly was making the whole thing up. And if he was, then why? "This is for real?" I said.

  He didn't answer. He just smiled and finished up the story.

  "I went out and looked at the driveway. The scumpack had used some kind of lighter fluid that burnt but left no mark on the blacktop. Nobody but me had seen the fire. But standing there, I could still smell the smoke. Kind of sour and sweet at the same time.

  "There was my final grade for bio. A burning F. 'See you next year!' That's what he yelled as he drove off."

  Nineteen

  So bio turned into a daily dose of torture.

  Mr. Knacke had three or four different voices, as if there was a gang of Knackes inside him. Most of the time it was a flat droning noise, like an airplane heard from way far away. But sometimes it would explode into a screechy, scratchy yell, and he'd aim every kind of insult at the kids he called the "flat-liners." After he asked you a question, he'd make this beeping sound, like one of those machines in Intensive Care. And if you got it wrong, which was most of the time, then he'd buzz out the words "Brain dead! Brain dead!"

  Once, when he passed back a really bad test, he stapled job applications from McDonald's on the ones that got Fs. "Would you like fries with that? Go on," he said, leaning in toward me so close I could smell him. "Try it! Say it, because that's where you'll be for the rest of your life."

  I put up with it. What else could I do?

  Like there was a girl called Michelle Eckers, who was born with one leg shorter than the other. And she had to clomp around or else wear these spasmo-looking shoes. And everybody knew. And some kids made fun of her, of course. But what could she do? Complaining wouldn't make her leg any longer. And what could I do about Mr. Knacke? Complaining wouldn't make him lay off with the insults and ranting and extra work.


  So I did my time at school. And as soon as I could, I was out of there and back to Relly's house for more hard guitar slag and slippery bass groan.

  Twenty

  "IT'S A REAL GIG," Relly announced. "The all-ages show at Waterstreet. There's five other bands and we have to go second. But we'll burn the place down. When we're done, there won't be anything left but smoke and ashes."

  We only had a week to get ready. So we had to get the set list together fast, narrowing the songs down to a half-hour set. The big question was, Do we do any covers? We could do Zeppelin and Priest and AC/DC. But we also had original tunes. Relly's and mine.

  Just a couple of days before the gig, we'd written our first tune together. Jerod had taken off at about eleven, driving back to his nice big house in Pittsford. Butt stuck around. He had nowhere to go, and nobody at home who cared how late he stayed out. And I knew my dad was working till close that night.

  So we banged out the new tune. Relly's black surging riffs and my words. It was called "Ten Thousand Charms." And all three of us agreed that we had to do the tune when we played out the first time.

  "That's it," Relly said when we finally got the tune where we wanted it. Sometimes I thought the sound went on forever, up there in the shadows and weird peaks of attic roofline. Echoes above our heads. The traces of lost chords, broken riffs, whispers and screams.

  "That's it. That's the sound I kept hearing in my head." He had that strange look again, half mystic and half maniac. "This song is the real Ghost Metal," he whispered. "Till right now, till tonight, it was just in my head. But now it's out. It's finally really in the world."

  It was important to him that I understood what he meant by ghost. It wasn't cheap booga-booga horror or little kids on Halloween in old sheets. "Uh-uh," Relly said." Ghost is the old word for spirit. Like Holy Ghost. Spirit, not stupid scary-movie crot."

  Butt shrugged. I guess he'd heard this routine before.

  I said, "OK, so we do the tune?"

  "Yeah. We do it last in the set. And we leave 'em all shaking and gasping for breath."

  Butt gave his bass drum a couple of powerful kicks. That was his way of saying "Count me in, all the way."

  "All right. We'll run it tomorrow with Jerod," Relly said. "And it'll be ready for Sunday."

  Twenty-one

  THE NEXT DAY, while we were doing some kind of idiot worksheet about blastulas and gastrulas, Mr. Knacke came down my aisle and caught a glimpse of a logo I'd drawn in my notebook. Scorpio Bone—in kind of spiky letters, like the name was made out of hunks of broken glass.

  "What, pray tell, is Scorpio Bone?"

  "It's a band," I said, feeling his invisible noose slip around my neck.

  "What kind of music do they play?"

  "Ghost Metal." The noose tightened.

  "Is that so? Someone is clearly an imbecile." That was his favorite word. Imbecile. He said it like a Nazi general reaming out his flunkies. "Scorpions are arachnids. They do not have bones."

  "Yeah, I know. It's just a name."

  Some kids were snickering now, because they knew it was me and Relly's band. And the word had gone around that we were doing the all-ages show at Waterstreet that Sunday.

  "That's moronic. Whoever came up with that name is a moron. And I suppose you're even more of a moron for thinking it so worthy that you'd draw it on your belongings."

  I didn't say a thing. I could barely breathe. The noose pulled up hard and I knew he was going to keep on tightening it.

  Twenty-two

  WE HAD ONE LAST practice before the show. "It's OK," Relly said, "that's the way it usually goes."

  We'd sounded awful. Out of tune, out of sync, weak and unsure. "It's OK. If you sound too good before a show, that's always bad luck."

  But I had some serious doubts. If I couldn't remember the changes to the tunes, we'd wander all over the place. If Jerod couldn't keep the words straight, we'd look like wanks, stupid amateurs. And we'd be standing there in front of a couple hundred kids. Even Butt, who was usually solid as a cement block, had seemed to lose it.

  "I don't know," I said. "Maybe we should forget this. You really think we're ready?"

  This was the first time I'd seen Relly mad. "What are you talking about? We don't have any choice here. We're playing tomorrow and it's got to be perfect." When things got bad, Relly's voice got quieter, not louder.

  "OK, OK," I said. He didn't exactly scare me. I mean, it wasn't like when my dad got all furious and went around the house breaking things. But I couldn't look Relly in the eye. I couldn't stand being there with him right then.

  "I'll see you tomorrow," I said, grabbing the set list and my case and heading for the door.

  Twenty-three

  WE SHOWED UP ON time, but of course everything took twice as long as it should have. Because there were five bands to get on and off in a couple hours, everyone had to use the same basic setup. Drums, amps, mikes. This was a pain, because we weren't used to the gear. But those were the rules.

  They said we'd have a sound check. That was a joke. We stood on the stage for about five minutes before the sound man even noticed us there. And when we asked questions or said the levels in the monitors were too low, he didn't even bother to answer.

  So it was looking pretty grizzly as the doors opened for the crowd. I was hoping nobody would show up. Then at least we wouldn't look like wanks in front of the whole world. No such luck. Some of the other bands had a pretty good following. And by the time things got rolling, the place was packed.

  From where we were hiding, off to the side of the stage, Waterstreet looked even bigger than before. Hundreds and hundreds of kids were all milling around. Shouts, screams, laughter, arguments, greetings, and just plain talking. Even without the bands playing, it was way loud.

  I didn't have butterflies in my stomach. It was more like a swarm of sharks churning around. My palms were sweaty. My legs were weak. And we weren't even on yet.

  "Look," Relly said. "No matter what happens, we're still the best. Right? Doesn't matter what this crowd thinks. If they like us, fine. If they don't, that's fine too. We're still the best."

  Jerod was all hyped up, and I guess he'd never looked better. Maybe being nervous was a good thing. He was practically glowing with excitement, talking about nothing, doing high-fives, kind of jumping around and dancing. Butt was silent. He kept looking at me as though he thought I was the weak link and if we messed up, the whole disaster would be my fault. Relly stroked his fingers over the fretboard of his Strat, like he was trying to calm the guitar down.

  Then the first band went on. The crowd was screaming already. And I knew I didn't have long before it all was over.

  It was impossible, at least for me, to really listen to the first band. I mean I heard them. I knew they were playing. But I was so nervous I couldn't pay any attention.

  I guess they were all right. The crowd seemed to like them. But nobody really listens to the opening act.

  They did their last tune, which sounded to me like a retread of Sabbath's "Paranoid." And then we were on.

  Twenty-four

  IT STARTED OUT OK. We were pretty together on "Hole in the Sky." Butt was solid. No matter how scared he was, he kept us together that day. And I was OK, too. Relly stretched out a little on the second tune. And Jerod finally got his stride on "Blood Drive," yelling and wailing and shaking like a wild man.

  I kept my eyes pretty much on the Ibanez. There was no way I could look out at the crowd without melting down to nothing. I stayed with Butt, laying down the heavy bottom. I played off of Relly, doubling lines, snaking around his riffs. And I listened to Jerod through the monitors, especially on the words I had written. It was so weird to hear them that big, that strong, blasting out over a couple hundred kids.

  We had three songs to go when the Ghost Metal thing started to happen.

  The crowd was with us. We might not have been the top of the bill. But they heard what we could do. And they were starting to lik
e it. Relly finally shook off the fear and let himself go. I glanced over at Butt and now he, too, was pouring himself totally into the noise.

  So I guess I was ready at last. I was safe there on the stage. Which is very weird. Safe even though everyone was looking at us. I was free too, which is even stranger. Free to make the biggest throb in the world.

  We tore through "The Ocean," the old Led Zeppelin tune. And the crowd was screaming. We went right into "Scar Monkey," and as Relly laid on the riff hard and heavy, I finally heard his Ghost Metal thing. We were loud, huge, strong as a thunderhead. And still, inside the monstrous noise I swear I could hear this ringing silence.

  I looked over at him and he gave me one nod. That was all. He nodded as if to say, "Yeah, that's it, that's the sound." The song rose like a sea monster out of some churning waves. The crowd went crazy, guys banging their heads against the invisible wall and girls glowing as the spotlights swept over them. And I went into that empty secret place, just me and Relly.

  And then we were on our last tune, "Ten Thousand Charms." We ground like huge millstones squeezing out lightning and thunder. It was better than ever. It was the best we'd ever sounded.

  The most amazing thing was to hear my words roaring out of the huge PA system. I'd kept those words secret, bottled up, for a long time. And now Jerod, beautiful Jerod, was wailing them for a couple hundred kids.

  The crowd loved it. Or maybe they loved us. I don't know. It's all a jumble in my head. Did they hear the Ghost Metal silence, too? The roar and the nothingness inside the roar? Did they hear my words? I mean really hear them? I don't know. Did they get the feverish, swelling buzz like us? Who's to say?

  But they sure made noise when we were done. They yelled and clapped and whistled and some were pushing up against the stage, like they wanted to touch Relly or Jerod. Like we had some magic that maybe might rub off.