Pop Kids

by Havok, Davey

  “Yeah…” I glance over the drunken, raging lot to make sure that no one is listening. “I’m actually kinda glad that she stayed home. I’m really into checking out some of these new Extras.” I nod toward the hippie girls, twirling on the bank’s steps with Star. “And there’s only so much joy to spread around, you know?”

  I can feel Lynch’s mutilated eyes staring holes through my flawless reasoning. I turn to face him.

  “Dude.” He knowingly grins. ”You want Holly to yourself. You’re dying over her and that’s why you don’t even care that she still hasn’t gone off with any real activities! Fuck, you and Dustin should start a club.” He laughs,

  “I just want to be first, man.” Calmly, I reposition my new Morrissey pin. On the other lapel, it will draw eyes to my good side.

  “Did you propose yet?”

  “C’mon man, someone’s gonna hear you!” I beg, fearing and hoping that Stella might still show up. It’s been a week since I’ve heard from her.

  “Okay. But you do like her right?” He pops a Mento and smiles.

  “Yeah.” Grabbing my phone, I hide my eyes in my overfull inbox. “I guess I do.”

  I’m about to open a PM from someone named Moore when Lynch says, “Holy Fuck.” I look up. Chewing, he’s pointing to a hot blonde in a Hello Kitty raincoat. I take off my shades.

  As if summoned back to the valley by my confession, Stella weaves through the late-night parking lot social and sputters to a wavering standstill in front of me.

  “Hey kids! Miss me?”

  She has on too much eyeliner. Her hair is chopped, straightened, and white.

  “Where ya been Babe?” I ask, tempted to bring up my twenty-seven ignored texts and forty-three unanswered calls. “I mean, other than the salon. Did Blake make you do that?”

  “Phhh, I make Blake.” With a medicated toss of her hair, she hums, “It was all for you Babe,” and raises a single brown brow. “I knew you’d like it.”

  She looks bizarre. She’s lost those few extra pounds on the Frisco diet, but her new look is unnerving and she’s being weird. I feel like she’s either going to fall down or start doing back flips off the planters.

  “Rockin’.” I put on my Fords as she fingers a particularly interesting corner of the sticker on Lynch’s chest. “So how did it go?” Did you get the part? Did you ask about me?” Her unfocused eyes roll toward the far end of the lot.

  “I’ll know next week…” Giggling at some unknown joke she falls into me with a sloppy hug. “I’m gonna get it Baby. And when I do, you’re next!”

  “Fabulous. She needs to go home and sleep off her weird. I’m going to insist upon it … in a second. Holding her up with one arm, I poise my phone. “What’s Blake’s email again?”

  “Donnnnnnnavon!”

  Her squeal rings in my ear as she wanders toward the Frisky DJ’s and their harem of San Francisco socialites.

  “I think she’s on that Salvia shit that Leo does.” Lynch watches her weave away. “Where do you think she’s been?”

  “I don’t know—” Smiling, I shake the hand of a bearded Extra in an Upper Playground sweatshirt. He slips me a ten-dollar bill. “One-on-ones.” I shrug, pocket the money, then realize that I’ve been selfish.

  Pulling out my phone, I tap my photo album and hold out the screen.

  “Check it out. Pretty cool right?”

  Lynch grins at the first shot from last night’s session with Holly and Stella begins wandering back through the overfull lot.

  “I’ll show you the rest later.” I hide the evidence.

  My long lost co-star wraps herself around Lynch. He squeezes her butt and I motion to the raucous crowd of Extras.

  “We’d better get this downstairs.”

  “No, no wait, Babe.” Obliviously escaping my partner’s paws, Stella hooks my elastic waistband and pulls me into her. At least she still smells pink. “My friend is on his way. He’ll be here in like ten minutes.”

  “Babe.” I look down into her unfocused blue eyes. “I’ve gotta get everyone out of here. We’re far too visible.” Pointing to Mia’s distant areolas I insist, “And your BFF and her fans need to close their coats.”

  “Thannnnnks Babe.” Stella connects with a sloppy kiss. “Just ten minutes.” Sprinting away she hops into the Sprinter’s thumping lounge to dance in the strobe light.

  Shaking my head, I pocket square my mouth and pull up more underwear pics. Lynch asks about Holly’s nipples. I tell him about Hawaiians who believe that their dead friends can turn into shark gods, and a pigtail brushes my shoulder.

  “Hey my brother!” Putting a consolatory arm around me, Prius empathizes, “That Sarah shit is pretty crazy man.”

  “It is right?” I stash the private photos in my breast pocket. “Did you know she was going to do it?”

  “Yeah.” Taking a drag of his American Spirit, he blows smoke over his shoulder then opens and offers me his compact. “I got her the best guy in San Francisco. You freaked out over it?”

  It’s nice to have someone who can understand the emotional impact that aesthetic disasters can have on a guy.

  “Well, it’s weird,” I bravely admit. “But I’ll get over it.” Snapping the comforting GO SMiLE tube, I sponge my teeth. “And it will probably help her get the part. Everyone loves a wild blonde and—”

  My heart stutters like a broken projector.

  Timidly, I gasp. “Oh fuck.”

  Through the storm-ready sea of young Greats and Extras, Stella is walking toward us again, this time holding hands with her featured guest.

  “Hey kids. This is Ryan.”

  Her friend extends his hand to Donny “Hey my Brother!” Then to Lynch.

  Giggling, “Fuck,” my co-host shakes Ryan’s hand before the fully tattooed arm reaches out to me.

  I have no words. Silently gripping Mr. Snow in a paralyzed handshake, I stare at Stella, wondering if the high volume hair bleach also stripped the sanity from her head.

  “Hey Score.” Recognizing my arresting terror, Ryan assures me, “Don’t worry man. None of the other teachers really know what‘s going on. They haven’t even seen the video.” He smiles. “Thanks for having me.”

  Chapter 55

  Everyone is in. I take my speech position. I’m still a bit dazed. A bit concerned. But we’re all in this together: Filmgreats, Extras, and teachers who party together, go down together. I’m not going down. Except on that blue-haired water ride. And I’m not going to think about the video. Looking out over my fabulous full house, I begin to settle. I see schoolmates and surfers amidst sexy strangers. This is my biggest Premiere by far. This will be fabulous.

  “HAYYYYYY! Hay everyone!” My unruly masses begin disrobing. “Welcome to an evening of opulence, eminence, and posterity!” I open my arms. “Tonight Lynch and I bring you…” Two awestruck Sparks boys wander through the curtain. “Fuck It!” With my grand gesture, pornography hits the wall.

  Don’t think about the Sparks kid with the mohawk. A fully tattooed arm grazes mine. Don’t think about Mr. Snow. Concentrate on the OJ. The blue-haired Extra squeezes me. Hard. Embarrassed, I reach down and hopelessly tug a nipple ring. Switching up her technique, she licks lightly. Maybe a Katy Perry song will come on and save me. Lying limp in Heaven, I glance back to the soundboard. There, standing a few feet from the purple love seat, The Mohawk mixes his Sparks into his Jim Beam. Teetering in his puffy sneakers, he chugs from his swirling swill, raising and lowering his bottle, glaring at Bickle’s back.

  “C’mon. I wanna save some in here to pet my kitty with.” The frustrated Extra has pulled a vial from her raincoat. “Do you want me to play with your butt or something?”

  My Producer won’t wake up.

  Apologizing to the Blue girl for leaving her very high and totally dry, I pull Lynch from his tag-team scene with Mr. Snow.

  “What man? What? C’mon.” He resists, tying his hoodie around his waist as I drag him to Surfers’ Paradise. “You so need to s
ettle. Ryan’s totally cool. He was in a band—”

  “No man, I’m over that right now.” Pulling on my sweats, I nod toward the PA. “Who’s the X Games reject?”

  Sparky, in his tall tee, stands out like a storm cloud amidst my rain-coated guests.

  “Oh. Yeah, I thought those guys were weird too. They were creeping around before I started the movie.” Lynch slumps against the dusty wall. “They said that Stella invited them. But she doesn’t recognize them.”

  “I’m not sure that she’d recognize her own face in a mirror right now.”

  On the mats, Mr. Snow is wearing my GF like a reverse Hello Kitty backpack.

  “True, but they’re definitely not her friends. When the first scenes started, the dude with the throat tattoos freaked. They started arguing about staying. Then he went, ‘You’re on your own faggot,’ and bailed on that guy.” Lynch points to Sparky then wipes his slick hands on his naked hips. My partner smells like cherry lube. “Can I please go fuck Stella now? Or Someone? Please?”

  “That guy’s a nast,” I insist. “He’s one of those kids that have been creeping around outside. He called me a fag.”

  “I mean, yeah. He’s for sure a nast, but he’s not really doing anything, and he’s so wasted that he can barely stand up. Fuck him.”

  As if on cue, the saggy pants miscreant stumbles like he had just been pushed by one of the hotel’s spectral ex-residents.

  “See, don’t worry about it man.” Revealing his mid-level Producer, Lynch re-ties his hoodie around his shoulders like a cape and gives me two thumbs up. “I’m gonna go fuck something.”

  He’s right. I take off my pants. Sparky looks like he won’t even remember what town he’s in, come morning. I suck in my cheeks. I hope he doesn’t puke. Bounding after my heroic partner, I begin acting like a Great host.

  My tie is in knots. It’s binding the blue-haired Extra’s wrists behind her back as we do it upright kitty style. After tying up my co-star, the raven-haired Extra wriggled between our spread legs. Below us, she’s guiding my pulsing Producer, helping me make up for my earlier outtake.

  “You’d both better fucking give it to me!” Opening her mouth, the dark haired dominator begins to suckle my production house.

  To prevent getting accidentally bitten, I slow my pace. The blue-haired Extra thrusts her hips faster and asks me to bite. I do. She makes a fabulous anguished sound. It almost finishes me, but Mr. Snow’s voice cuts through Ke$ha’s. Threatening ‘detention’ and ‘the principal’s office,’ his tired role-play reminds me of my unwanted guests and impedes my rising joy. I turn toward the soundboard. Sparky still hasn’t puked. But his expression has changed. His face is twisted into sweaty pink disgust— pure, seething, drunken hatred.

  Raven begs for a shower and I hump harder, wondering what the wasted mohawk has against Bickle. Maybe it’s some rival wrestling team grudge. Maybe he’s jealous of the Paul Smith sweater. A small blue voice tells me ‘I’m about to go’ as I realize that the drunken piece of trash hasn’t even noticed my dapper security. He’s looking through him, gripping his knuckles white around the neck of his whiskey bottle. I know what he’s about to do. My whole body tenses. I pull out of the Blue Extra and joy into her friends open mouth just as Sparky takes his final swig.

  “Fucking faggots!” He yells and hurls the bottle at the two boys in love.

  The glass shatters next to their couch.

  Startled, Cruz and Volta sit up and freeze their scene.

  The Blue Extra soaks the girl below us. I reclaim my wet Producer from the Raven Extra’s mouth and frantically search for my pants.

  As I stand, pulling up my Y-3s, I’m terrified to meet my guest’s reactions but— they’re all still in scenes. No one is paying attention. Except for The Boys. And my killer bee.

  I start running.

  Bickle wraps his hand around the throat of the unwelcome guest and pins him against the stage right wall. Suspended from the ground by his throat, Sparky wretches and pukes as Bickle connects a solid right to his guts. Nowhere near as dismayed as I am by the vomit, my security somehow keeps his grip through the spew.

  Erection sprinting over limbs, pillows, underwear, rainwear, bottles, and boots, I watch the kid’s ugly veiny red face cave in. The wet, snapping sound of skull mingles with the sonorous sex-slaps rising from the rest of the theatre; I, too, feel like I may throw up. Because this is bad.

  This is really bad. This could end everything.

  In seconds, I’m at the scene, but by the time I call cut, Sparky is completely unconscious, dangling like a used condom from the big bee’s bloody, pukey fist.

  “Fuck, sh…it…” Almost letting an old name slip out—with a moth—I place a calming hand on his flexed bicep. “Bickle. Stop. You gotta stop.”

  Turning, recognizing me, he discards the mess. The phobe’s head hits the floor, resounding like a dumbbell dropped in the school gym. I stare down at the mangled kid in the stinking puddle of blood and regurgitated booze. His face is a grindhouse still. His clumpy hairline is pink. His blonde mohawk is spattered with blood.

  Moz, gross.

  “He threw a bottle at The Boys.”

  The love seat is empty. Cruz and Volta have gone to dress in Surfers’ Paradise.

  “I know man.”

  My fear for the safety of myself and the secrecy of my party rises with the unnerving reappearance of Sinatra’s song.

  It has to be me.

  “It’s fine. We just have to get him out of here. Is he dead?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Can you kill him?”

  Sparky sucks. I hope he dies.

  After turning down my plan to gather all the drugs at the party, force them down the craggy hole of Sparky’s swollen face, and then sink the hate criminal in the infinitely deep lake on the outskirts of town, Bickle agrees to carry him out of The Palace. Begging Cruz to go get his car, I get dressed and, with my arms full of cleaning rags, follow the ghastly procession upstairs.

  It seems like hours have passed when I finally hear the El Camino screech up the side street. I hold open the mouth of The Palace. Bickle brings out our dead, and I begin lining the bed. While he bungee chords the body, I notice its unicorn all-ages show hand-stamp. I take Sparky’s wallet, cover him with Sponge Bob bed sheets, and then get in the car.

  It’s 2:36 am when we reach the bovine scented North Bay town. Before we became the Gods of The Greats, Lynch and I used to come here to see bands play at an old theatre on Washington. Tonight, there was a hardcore show there. I think this is where our envoy got his hand stamped.

  As we speed into Petaluma, Bickle suggests that we either drop Sparky off at the hospital or at the address that’s on his ID. I insist that we leave him behind the Phoenix. If he comes to, he’ll hopefully presume he’d been beaten up at the show for being a drunken prick. If he dies, I at least won’t have to worry about him remembering anything.

  Standing guard at the gravely mouth of the deep, dark alley, I’m infinitely grateful to be texting while my muscle handles all the manual labor involved in our totally fucking annoying task.

  Bickle carries Sparky to the end of the dusty path. Next to the dumpsters, he unwraps and deposits the body onto a splintered box spring. I tell him to save the sheets. He balls them up, brings them back, and stuffs them under the boots in the El Camino’s bed.

  On the freeway, I cue up Morrissey. He sings, “I want to start from before the beginning,” over the voice of Ol’ Blue Eyes. The three of us sit, silently pressed together as Cruz drives the speed limit.

  When our driver pulls over to pee behind the abandoned gas station, Bickle confesses.

  When we arrive at the littered WAMU lot all is quiet. But Bickle’s words are looping through my mind.

  I need to clean. With an armful of soaked sheets, I step into the desolate street. It’s too late. I look toward the hills where my parents are soon to be making breakfast. The sun is almost up.

  I drif
t into The Palace. I pace across the empty ballroom. Springs eerily creak beneath my steps. In an unlit offstage bathroom, I douse bloody rags with thoughts of Stella, her TV show, Blake, Mr. Snow, The Premieres, Sparky, and Gina’s pancakes. I burn the sheets in the sink. I watch them smolder until they’re completely clean.

  Saving my tie from the lost-and-found, I follow the still flickering Path of Prayers up to the purring Camino. I fall in and we peel away from the curb.

  With my eyes still stingy from the smoky incineration, I thank the guys for all their help. Bickle hugs me. Cruz says, “Love you Miguelito.” They leave me at the end of a driveway in the nicest part of town.

  I creep through Lynch’s door. I step over Star and Alvin then tiptoe down the hall. Morning light seeps through the blinds onto the California king. I undress, tie my wrinkled tie over my eyes, and crawl into Al’s disheveled sheets.

  This is too tight. I loosen my blindfold. A virgin, draped in diaphanous, white shark-screened silks, encircled by a ring of fire, descends through the ceiling. Slipping between the purple satin, she swaddles me like the Christ child for McQueen.

  “I missed you tonight.” I look up into her beaming greens. “Did you get my text? We shoulda hung out. Even if Gina was ruining my chances with pie, I know I woulda had a better time. Sharks are cool. I have a picture of you in my locker now. I don’t know if I can handle this.” As my eyes well, Holly joins Frankie in song.

  It has to be me.

  Chapter 56

  In her kitchen, Gina is packing my PB&J while I, scanning for any mention of a body found behind the live music venue of a nearby town, flip through her Monday paper: pumpkin growing competition; drunk cyclist arrested on ‘Bike to Work’ day; Interview with the baker at Cherie Cherie. Good. Still nothing. I grab my lunchbox and kiss the chef. She asks why I need my shades in this type of weather. “Just because it’s cloudy doesn’t mean that I can’t be seen, Mom.” I dash to the Deville.

  Rolling into the flats, I ask Lynch if he’s heard anything regarding Bickle’s correctional service. He hasn’t.