“See? Patches sure as hell isn’t giving up her bunk. And I’m not sharing mine either.”
“She sleeps on me sometimes.”
“She likes you. You should have seen what she did to that shipping office I raided in 2027, the day we met. My god, when she ran out of that hallway screaming, and they tarted chasing her—”
Tarzi had heard this story seventeen times, unless he counted the time she stopped and started over as two times. In that case, it was eighteen.
He lit another cigarette and calmly listened. It didn’t matter. He still liked to hear her tell this one. He inhaled through his nostrils, held a puff, and blew it to the ventilators above him. the Queen Anne was low on some luxuries, but damned if she didn’t have the best ventilation system in the world. Or worlds.
“Are you even listening? I said—oh, never mind. Come here. I’ll show you one more time. Gently this time, alright?”
She made a T-shape with her feet. She brought the back one up from the ground. “See that lift in the back? Easy. But, the front of the T has to twist on its heel. Then when its toe comes down and you push off, that provides the propulsion for the glide. So, heel toe heel toe kick toe kick toe, back like this now, kick toe kick toe back whoa check this out now, look out, baby.”
She slid back and forth across the deck, pumping her arms in time with her feet. Spinning around, she kicked again, and slid past Tarzi. “See, man, it’s that easy! Just heel toe heel toe.” Without missing a beat, she ran in place with the same shuffling step. “Awww yeah, don’t forget this one. See, it’s just breaking up the steps into a one-two-three-four pattern and—”
Tarzi enjoyed watching her dance. She smiled when she danced. She smiled like nothing was wrong, had ever been wrong, or would ever be wrong again. At least when she was teaching him, he thought, she had her clothes on. It was a bit much, watching her dance at the club. Not that she wasn’t good. She certainly had the moves. Tarzi had to give her that. Maybe he could pick up a few of them.
She laughed and plopped back down in her chair. “Did I ever tell you about that time I punched a shark in the face?”
Goddamn, he thought, my weekends would be so boring without her. “You punched a shark in the face? When was that?”
Patches stretched out and yawned as Mags told her story.
★ ○•♥•○ ★
December 2028: The Private Lounge at Club Assteroid.
“So I met these girls back in ’92 when I was hanging out in the States,” said Meteor Mags. “Small town, boring as hell, but I heard some girls were putting on a show. So I’m rockin’ out, and the girls are having a good time, but these dudes keep pushing and shoving everybody trying to start a pit. I’m head banging next to this girl, when all of a sudden this dude just elbows her right in the fuckin’ face. Breaks her nose, sprays blood, she falls to the ground. The dudes don’t give a shit. They’re stomping around in their boots, and this poor girl is gonna get trampled, know what I’m saying?”
“Mhm,” said Celina, not caring she had heard this story approximately thirty-seven times, and twice in one night on an especially long trip. “I totally know.” She refilled Mags’ shot glass with rum, and then her own.
Tarzi pushed his shot glass towards Celina, but she waved her finger at him.
“So I’m like fuck this, and I punch the dude in his fuckin’ jaw. His eyes go wide and his head wobbles around, and he falls into the guy behind him. His mates don’t take kindly to this, so they rush me. But this girl’s on the floor between me and them. So I spin to the side and kick one of them in the chest, pushing them back away from the girl. Then they—”
Suddenly a rain of dollar bills fell on her. Fuzzlow stepped around from behind and ground his bum against her arm. “Yo yo yo! You ain’t the only dancer who can shake it in this club!”
Celina shouted, “Wooo! Work it, baby.”
Mags laughed and pushed him away. “Sod off, you brain-damaged goofus.”
“Are we listening to another one of the great Meteor Mags’ blow-by-blow accounts?” Fuzzlow already knew the answer. He pulled out a chair next to Celina, kissed her cheek, and sat down.
“We were trying to.”
“So then, like, she beats down this dude,” he said, reaching for Celina’s shot glass. “And then she beats up another dude, or maybe twenty dudes, and then she beats up a whole metric fuck-ton of dudes. Am I right?”
“Something like that. Damn it, Fuzz, why you always gotta ruin my stories?”
“Because I heard your mysterious nephew was here tonight, and I figured if I didn’t break it up soon, we’d all be dead by the time you finished beating up the entire United States!” Fuzzlow slammed the shot of rum and set the glass in front of Celina.
“Fine! Meet my adorable nephew, Tarzi. Tarzi, this useless hunk of space gas is Fuzzlow.”
“Nice to meet you, Tarzi!” He held out his hand.
“Hey, you too, Fuzzlow. Huge fan of your album, by the way.”
“Don’t flatter him,” Mags warned. “If his ego gets any bigger, we’ll need another asteroid to house it.” She slammed her shot and set the glass back on the table.
“If you liked that album, wait ’til you hear the next one!” Fuzzlow snatched the bottle and poured another round for Celina, and then one for Mags. He almost set the bottle down, but then he poured a shot for Tarzi, too. Another shot glass appeared in Celina’s hand. She set it down in front of her boyfriend.
“Can I finish my bloody story already?”
“Okay, okay.” Fuzzlow ran his hand over the mane of dreadlocks that framed his face and spilled over his shoulders. “So, what happened after the beatings and the bludgeoning and the broken bones?”
“It turns out these girls had a real problem with assholes showing up to their shows and ruining it for everybody. They ended up asking if maybe I could hang out at more of their shows, free of charge, and not like officially be a bouncer, but just sort of keep the peace. And I was like, hell yeah!”
“Cheers, mates,” said Celina, lifting her glass. The four of them clinked their glasses all around.
“So, I’m talking to them one day, and I mean they didn’t just want to start a rock band. They wanted to start some kind of revolution! But, you know, everyone was broke as shit in that neck of the woods, and it’s hard enough to get an album recorded, let alone press up thousands of copies of the bloody thing. And they’re telling me about this, and I’m like, I don’t think these girls realize who they’re talking to!
“So the next day I show up at their practice space with this van I ‘liberated,’ and I say, ‘Hey, I got you something, come and see.’ I open up the van, and holy shit you should have seen the looks on their faces. I got boxes and boxes full of blank CDs, plastic cases, paper for the little insert thingies, everything but the goddamn printing press, ya know?”
“Sweet,” said Tarzi. He took another sip.
“So pretty much just like our album!”
Mags’ belly shook with laughter. “Pretty much! Only these girls weren’t so happy about it. The singer is like, ‘Where did you get all this?’ I tell her, ‘Oh, you know, a warehouse! Where else?’
“She says to me, ‘You stole all this?’ And I say, ‘Well, yeah!’” Mags laughed at her own story.
Celina could tell her friend was getting pretty buzzed. She refilled her glass anyway.
“And she says, ‘Mags! You can’t just go around stealing stuff!’ Can you imagine that? She’s like seriously offended. Who would have guessed? And I tell her, ‘I sure as hell ain’t taking it all back! Do you want it or not?’
“She gets this total Mom look on her face and tells me, ‘Okay. We’ll take it. But just don’t do it again!’ Hahahahaha!” She slammed the shot of rum. “So anyway, I say, ‘Deal,’ and hold out my hand, and she shook it. And that’s how their first album got made.”
Just then, a loud buzz came from the door. Then again, and again.
“Who the hell can that be? D
on’t they know this shit is marked private?”
“I’ll get it,” said Celina.
“Let me, sweetheart,” said Fuzzlow, standing up from his chair. “I wouldn’t want you to miss the beginning of Mags’ next bloodbath.”
“You’re a real riot, Fuzz.”
On the monitor near the door, he saw a lone man in the hallway, leaning on a crutch. The stranger had a sizeable bruise on one of his temples. “Who is this dweeb? Let me see what he wants.” Fuzzlow went out in the hall and shut the door behind him.
Tarzi took another sip of rum. How they could stand the taste of this stuff, he had no idea. “So, what about the revolution? What happened?”
“I wouldn’t say they changed the course of rock and roll history,” said Mags, “but they did help a lot more girls get their voices heard, make the shows safer, and make the whole scene be about positive change rather than the usual rock and roll bullshit, that’s for sure.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Celina.
Fuzzlow returned. “Mags, this guy out there says he knows you. Says his name is Die-monic Don or something.”
“Fuckin’ Donny? What’s he doing here?”
“He said he wants to apologize.”
Her eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth for a moment without speaking. Then she slammed another shot. “Let him in, I guess.”
Donny hobbled in on his crutch with a sheepish look on his face.
“Dæmonic Don. You’re the last person I expected to crash our party tonight. What the hell do you want? Your money back?”
“Nah, Meteor, it aint like that. I just—” He looked down at the floor.
Mags drummed her fingers on the tabletop impatiently.
“I just wanted to say sorry for the way things went down. My guys were way out of line. I was way out of line. So—sorry.”
“What the hell happened to your leg?”
“I guess after you knocked me out, I took a few rounds from my own fuckin’ guys! What a bunch of tossers! If you hadn’t killed them, I’d probably have to do the job myself.”
Mags laughed. “So, that’s all you wanted? To say sorry?”
“There was one other thing.”
“Alright, now we get the real deal. Spit it out, man. We’re trying to drink here.”
Donny cleared his throat. “I lost my mining job after what went down. I was pretty busted up, and I got blamed for the whole mess. But rumor has it the Psycho 78s lost their horn player recently. And I thought, you know, since you sort of cost me my job and all…”
Mags rolled her eyes.
“I thought maybe I could, like, try out?”
“Try out? You play sax? Where’s your axe?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t have one at the moment. But—”
Mags shook her head. “This fuckin’ guy.”
“But I do have some demos on this drive, if you could listen to them.” He fished a small drive from his pants pocket and held it out to her.
“Fuzzlow,” she said, not taking the drive from his hand. “Would you put this on the hi-fi for us? Since you’re like up and all. You better not be wastin’ my time with some shite demo, Donny.”
Fuzzlow plugged it in, and Mags could not believe what she heard next. A rich baritone sax roared from the speakers, its bass boosted so hard it made the rum in Tarzi’s glass ripple. It broke into a flurry of arpeggios before laying down a metal riff in 7/4 time. Then the melody doubled itself in stereo and hit a note so low it made Mags tingle. Her jaw dropped in amazement.
“Donny, you sorry sod! What were you doing pounding space rock when you can play like that?”
“Ah, Meteor, it all started when I was banging this married chick and—”
Mags held up her hand. “Say no more.” Then she reconsidered. “On second thought, we could use a fresh story around here. Pull up a chair.”
Donny hobbled over to the table. Celina grabbed an extra chair for him.
“But for fuck’s sake, man,” said Mags. “If we’re going to be friends, stop calling me Meteor! My friends call me Mags.”
“Or willie wagtail,” Celina chimed in.
“Or Auntie,” offered Tarzi.
“Or—”
“Shut it, Fuzz!” Mags grabbed the bottle of rum and poured a shot, then passed it to Donny. “So, tell us all about it.”
And that was how Donny joined the Psycho 78s.
★ ○•♥•○ ★
January 2029.
“Ladies, gentlemen, assembled degenerates and dissidents of Club Assteroid,” Celina announced. A chorus of cheers and whistles rose from the crowd. “It is my pleasure to introduce to you this evening my most favorite band of all time.” She waited for the applause to die down again. “You’ve pirated their album—you naughty, naughty people—and you’ve seen them on wanted posters all across the System. But now I give to you, live and in the flesh—the Psycho 78s!”
The club went completely dark except for strips of LEDs along the edges of the floor leading to the exits and the loo, and the occasional red light of a cigarette here and there. Tarzi clapped, hardly noticing the earplugs Mags insisted he wear tonight. He heard bells, faintly at first, then swelling in volume.
Out of the darkness came a wail, forlorn yet filled with power. In the dim glow of the LEDs, Tarzi could just make out Fuzzlow’s silhouette on the edge of the stage only a couple meters away and above eye level. He imagined a train set ablaze and filled with souls on their way to hell. He realized Fuzzlow was blowing in and out of a harmonica. The wailing grew ever more intense, the imaginary train plowing through the bells. And then, as if the wail had reached its destination, the house lights kicked back on.
Bathed in pure red, Donny blasted a riff through the bell of his baritone sax. Fuzzlow wailed in harmony at his side. The Psycho 78s percussionist abandoned his glockenspiel to bash out insane drum fills in the spaces between the riffs.
The signal from Donny’s horn was split in stereo to two massive amplifiers on either side of the drum kit. With its boosted bass and a generous amount of overdrive, the thundering sound came not from outside Tarzi but from deep in his chest. In the seating behind him, beer bottles and glasses of rum shook on tabletops and slid onto the floor.
Fuzzlow raged into his microphone, shouting the first verse to The Wizard by Black Sabbath.
Fuck yes, thought Tarzi. He pumped his fist in the air to the beat. His entire body vibrated.
To one side of the band, Meteor Mags danced on a pole. She descended upside down from the top, then writhed on the stage. Other than her tinted glasses and her ring, she wore thigh-high socks covered with Jolly Rogers, matching gloves, black boots, and a bow in her hair. Her tail sharply lashed and curled behind her. She swung around and around the pole. Through the red light, the club’s projection system sent images of moons, stars, and planets across the walls and ceiling.
On the other side of the band, Celina danced on a second pole. With a huge smile on her face, she swayed her hips to the music. Gripping the pole, she kicked her legs into the air and slid down.
Tarzi’s eyes bulged as he saw more of Celina than he had ever seen before, but he was soon caught up in the jumping crowd near the stage. Mags had beat up enough people for starting mosh pits that no one but the occasional newcomer dared to incite violence at the shows anymore. But she had no problem with jumping about and friendly thrashing, as long as her friends and the girls in the crowd were safe.
The Psycho 78s launched into a blistering improvisation in the middle of The Wizard. Donny stepped up to the edge of the stage, rearing back with his baritone like some kind of demonic stallion. Tarzi marveled at how different Donny seemed now compared to the night he first limped into the lounge on his crutch. Truly this man had more fire burning in his belly than his rough-and-tumble life as an asteroid miner had been able to extinguish.
Fuzzlow prowled the stage like a lion, glaring and pummeling the air with the hypnotic, crushing riff from his harmonica. H
is dreadlocks whipped back and forth. Just when Donny’s raging solo threatened to completely destroy the tune, the band brought it back to the finale.
Before the wave of applause had a chance to subside, Fuzzlow shouted into the microphone. “This one is for Mags!” Donny began a familiar throbbing bass riff on his horn, and the drummer jumped in like his life depended on it. Fuzzlow growled the words to the Exploited’s Maggie You Cunt.
Tarzi shouted the lines with him.
Sliding her back up and down the pole, Mags stuck out her tongue at the band. She gave them the UK version of the middle finger, extending two fingers at them lewdly, fist clenched and palm facing inward. The audience chanted the chorus. Mags laughed, showed them her backside, and gave it a hearty slap.
At the end of the brief sonic assault, Fuzzlow took the mic to her. “We’re just kidding, Mags. You know we love you.”
She rolled her eyes and grabbed the mic from his hand. “Alright, you ungrateful wankers. I was going to sing a song for you, but now you went and fucked it up.”
Boos and catcalls came the response. “Come on, Mags!”
“Sing it,” Celina yelled at her from across the stage.
“Fine, you bleedin’ ingrates.” She strolled to the center of the stage without adding a single stitch of clothing, pausing only to take the bow from her hair. She shook out her long, white curls like the ocean shakes out surf on the beach.
At a nod from her, Donny pounded a riff through the metal beast he called a horn. Drenching his harmonica in overdrive, Fuzzlow emulated a slide guitar slithering over the top of Donny’s riff. Mags counted off “One! Two! Three! Four!” The drums boomed behind her, launching into the first verse of Rock and Roll Outlaw.
Tarzi was not a fan of Rose Tattoo, but he made the sign of the devil anyway and banged his head. The sea of people became a bobbing mass of similar signs and fists, heads and hair thrashing to the beat.
Mags belted out the chorus, joined by the patrons of Club Assteroid. Then she tossed the microphone aside. She dove from the stage, knowing they would catch her. She may have loved to sing about not needing anyone, but damn it all if she didn’t love her friends.
Meteor Mags: Omnibus Edition Page 5
