Crucifax

by Ray Garton

  She danced her way over, lowering part of her teddy just enough to reveal one breast, then covering it again.

  "Yeah! That's what I like!" He slapped a five-dollar bill on the edge of the runway and tilted back the bill of his cap.

  Erin flashed the other breast as she danced closer to him.

  "Keep it comin'!" he bellowed, putting down another five.

  You keep it comin', too, she thought.

  There were four other men with him, laughing, cheering her on, tossing singles onto the runway.

  Erin pulled the top half of the teddy down to her waist, baring both breasts, and turned her back to the man, bending down until she could see him between her legs. She reached both arms through her legs and stroked the cheeks of her ass slowly, then lifted her arms at her sides and expertly shook her shoulders, making her upside-down breasts swing in a circular motion.

  His lumpy hand smacked a ten onto the runway.

  There was a flurry of movement behind him, and Erin stood and turned in time to see someone stand so quickly that a chair fell over and clattered across the floor. It was a young man who did not look at all familiar at first as she squinted against the bright lights shining on the stage, still moving to the music, running her fingers over her breasts, but he seemed to recognize her as he stood a yard away from the runway, arms at his sides, jaw slack.

  When she recognized Jeff, all the noise in the bar seemed to fade away, as if someone had turned down the volume on a radio; hands clapped together silently, mouths moved without words.

  Jeff began to walk backward clumsily, his mouth opening and closing. Mom… Mom…

  Erin felt her knees weaken as she stood frozen in place, gaping at her son. Peripherally, she saw Brad and three other boys sitting at a table near Jeff, saw Brad lean toward them, his eyes staring at her in disbelief, and vaguely heard him say, from a great distance, "Jesus, it's his fuckin' mother!"

  "Jeff," she said, but it was only a whisper. Her hands fumbled with the teddy until her breasts were covered.

  As he backed away Jeff bumped a table and spilled drinks on two men who began to shout silently at him, and he turned, dodged another table, and hurried toward the rear exit.

  The big tipper was pounding a fist on the runway shouting, "Hey, honey, what's yer problem?"

  The music was pulsing again, and she could hear the whistling and hooting from the men who were waiting impatiently for her to go on dancing. She stepped off the runway onto an empty stool and hit the floor as Brad and his friends hurried away from their table to follow Jeff, who had tripped through the door and was gone.

  The boys reached the exit before Erin because tears were filling her eyes, making everything around her run together in a sparkling blur of light and color. She wiped her eyes with numb hands, ignoring Neil as he called, "Hey, whattaya doing? Where you going?"

  She thrust her arms out before her, locked her elbows, and slammed the door open, hurrying into the rain. A furious gust of wind made her stop and hug herself protectively as the rain soaked her teddy and made it cling to her body like a second skin.

  Erin watched Jeff hurry across the rear parking lot, water splashing around his feet; Brad and his friends were close behind, their shoulders hunched against the rain. Jeff stopped and leaned heavily against the post of the single streetlight that glowed over the lot; he leaned forward, held his stomach, and vomited as the others gathered around him.

  She called his name, but he did not respond. Brad patted him on the back and, when he was finished and standing straight again, put an arm around his shoulders and led him away from the light post.

  "Wait, Jeff!" Erin shouted, running across the parking lot.

  The boys went to an old white Mustang and began to get inside.

  "Jeff, please wait!" Her voice had risen to a desperate shriek, and she waved an arm above her head to get his attention. The heel of her right shoe snapped off, and she tumbled to the pavement. A shattering pain ripped through her leg, and she cried out as she fell forward, scraping her palms on the wet pavement. "Please wait!" she shouted, but her words were lost in her sobs. "Please!"

  Her view of the Mustang was blocked by two other cars, but she heard the doors slam, the engine roar, and the tires whoosh through a puddle as the car drove away.

  A jagged streak of lightning lit the sky for a heartbeat as Erin remained on her hands and knees, sobbing. She slowly stood, taking off her right shoe, and staggered back into the bar.

  Inside it was just as loud and busy as it had been when she rushed out, as if nothing had happened and everything was the same. But Erin felt fifty years older, and the bar somehow felt different to her—ugly, filthy, darker than before.

  Neil caught up with Erin as she headed for the dressing room.

  "Jesus, look at you!" he blurted. "What happened?"

  Clutching her shoe in a white-knuckled fist, Erin snapped, "Since when did you start letting minors in here?"

  "What? Oh, them. That was my brother-in-law and his friends. It's his birthday, and I—"

  "Well, one of those friends was my son!"

  "Oh, Jeez," he sighed as she stalked down the corridor, still limping. "Hey, you wanna go after 'em?" he called.

  Erin stopped.

  "They're goin' to Fantazm tonight. Some band's playin'. You can take a couple hours off, if you want."

  "A couple hours?" she replied over her shoulder. "I won't be back, Neil. I quit."

  In the dressing room, she threw her shoe into the sink. She was soaked all over, her mascara was running, and her stocking was torn.

  But if you keep hiding it from them… J.R. had said.

  Erin laughed bitterly through her tears, hating herself for not heeding J.R.'s advice, for taking a stripping job in the first place, for not finishing her education so she could get some decent work….

  "You okay in there, honey?" Chaunte asked.

  She thought of her mother's weekly phone calls and of how good it had always felt to assure her mother that she and the kids were okay. It would probably be a while before she could honestly say that again.

  "No," Erin muttered. "No, I'm not okay…."

  An hour before Crucifax was to play, Fantazm was so crowded that the teenagers on the dance floor could do little more than stand in place and move their shoulders to the music. J.R. and Reverend Bainbridge entered the club uncertainly, and J.R. winced at the noise level, guessing he would have a headache in thirty minutes, maybe less.

  A burly young man with a crewcut and sunglasses stood behind a small window in the wall to the right of the entrance.

  "Six dollar cover," he said, his mouth hardly moving.

  "You're kidding," J.R. said.

  The man pointed upward. A sign over the window read $6.00 COVER CHARGE—2-DRINK MIN.

  "Six bucks for a headache," J.R. muttered as he took a twenty from his wallet. He waited for the change, then led the reverend past the window to the steps that led downward into the throng.

  Bainbridge wore a wrinkled tan corduroy suit under his raincoat. He looked better than he had earlier but still appeared haggard. Despite the two showers he'd taken before leaving the house, he seemed in need of another. He looked around with wide, bewildered eyes, absently scratching his cheek with a trembling hand, glancing at J.R. and trying to smile.

  "Loud," he said.

  "Would you like a table?" asked a petite blond girl with a streak of magenta in her hair.

  "We'd like to see the manager," J.R. said. "Or whoever's in charge this evening."

  "Is Mr. Bascombe expecting you?" she asked.

  "No. My name's J.R. Haskell. He doesn't know me, but please, tell him it's very important."

  "Wait right here." The girl disappeared into the crowd.

  The ceiling of the club was high, and strings hung from the bottoms of red and blue lights shaped like balloons that had floated up to the rafters.

  "Look at them," the reverend said, leaning close to J.R.'s ear.

  They
crowded the dance floor, bunched together around tables, shouldered through the crowd laughing and shouting above the music, restless, energetic. Couples stood between tables kissing and fondling, and groups of girls moved to and from the ladies' room.

  "Do you see?" Bainbridge asked.

  On every third teenager—maybe more—J.R. spotted a Crucifax. The dark crosses caught the light in brief glimmere of black-red.

  "Yes," J.R. said. "I see."

  The stage was at the other end of the club, black except for an occasional glint of reflected light on the band's instruments. And something else…

  Almond-shaped spots of gold sparkled in the darkness behind the instruments….

  "They're here," Bainbridge said fearfully. "Watching us…"

  Jeff sat in the back seat of Brad's Mustang with the burning taste of bile in his mouth. Nick and Keith were in the back with him; Jason sat in front, handing back cans of Budweiser. When Jason offered one to him, Jeff shook his head and turned his eyes to the window at his left and absently watched the watery blur of lights go by slowly as they waited for the traffic on Ventura to get moving again.

  "C'mon, Jeffy," Brad said, "you need it."

  He considered it, took the can, and popped the tab hoping he'd be able to hold it down. He gulped the beer quickly, deciding to have another as soon as he finished it. Maybe beer would help rid him of the images of his mother reaching between her legs and clutching her ass, swinging her bare breasts, of the leering men throwing down their money and howling like animals each time his mother cocked a hip or jutted her pelvis.

  I know you trust Mom right now, Mallory had said, but you shouldn't.

  Jeff wondered if she'd known, and if so, for how long.

  He wondered how long their mother had been stripping … and what else she'd been keeping from them.

  Was that why their father had left?

  Was that why Mallory had left?

  There are things about her you don't know….

  A storm of questions swirled in his mind, but—and this surprised him—he felt nothing, didn't know what to feel, as if he were totally detached from what had happened, as if he'd watched some other guy find his mother dancing in a strip bar.

  "Okay," Brad said, "so the Playpen was a bad idea. How about we go back to my sister's place and get some grass, then to Fantazm?"

  Everyone agreed but Jeff. He'd heard Brad but was busy finishing his beer and trying not to think.

  "Hey, Jeff?" Brad said. "You okay?"

  Jeff leaned forward, handed his empty can to Jason, took another beer, and said, "Yeah, I'm okay." It was a lie, but he would be drunk in a while, and he was sure he'd be seeing Mallory at Fantazm; he would be okay soon….

  A bullet-shaped man with a goatee and frizzy hair the color of straw approached J.R. and the reverend. He wore an oversized white shirt with several zippers over the chest and sleeves. His left arm was in a cast, and there was a small blood-spotted bandage above his left eye. The blond girl was at his side.

  "Marty Bascombe," he said to J.R., glancing around the club as he spoke, preoccupied. "I'm kinda busy, but, uh, what can I do for you?"

  J.R. introduced himself and said, "I'd like to talk with you about the band that's playing here tonight."

  "Yeah, Crucifax?" He nudged his way up to the bar, and they followed him. "Gimme a Coke, Perry," he said to the bartender. "Okay, what about the band?"

  "Well, I was wondering…" J.R. suddenly realized he didn't know what to say to this man. He hadn't given it any thought. He decided shortly before arriving at the club that it might be a good idea to have a word with the manager about Mace. He found himself stammering and at a loss.

  "We have reason to believe," the reverend spoke up, "that the band you've scheduled for tonight is a serious danger to the young people who—"

  "Hey, I know you," Bascombe said. The bartender brought his Coke, and he swirled the ice for a moment as he eyed the reverend suspiciously. "You're that little Bible-beater who stands out in the parking lot preachin' to everybody. So what's the deal here, you think they're gonna poison the kids' minds? They got Satanic messages in their music?"

  "I'm certainly not going to say I approve of that music, Mr. Bascombe," the reverend replied. "But it's nothing like that at all."

  J.R. said, "The bandleader—Mace—we think he might—"

  "Hey," Bascombe gulped, putting down his drink and looking around him as he took J.R.'s arm. "C'mere, c'mere, c'mon with me." He led them quickly down a short carpeted hall and into an office cluttered with stacks of magazines, papers, loose files, and empty beer cans. Rock music posters were tacked haphazardly to the walls. Bascombe closed the door and turned to them. "Okay, what's this about the band?"

  J.R.'s ears rang in the silence of the office. He coughed nervously into a fist and said, "I'm assuming you know Mace."

  "Met him."

  "He's been connected to some recent suicides. High school kids."

  Bascombe rolled his eyes. "Jesus, what're you, some PMRC nut? You think rock music's making kids kill themselves? Is that what you—"

  "It has nothing to do with the music, Mr. Bascombe, it's Mace. He's dangerous. I'm telling you, he's—"

  "Get to the point, okay? I don't have all night. Whatta you want from me?"

  "You have to cancel the concert tonight."

  Bascombe laughed, sitting on the edge of his messy desk. "We've got, what, about an hour before the show, a little less? And you want me to tell these guys to, what, go home? Look, these are just local kids getting their first shot at—"

  "They're local kids," J.R. said emphatically, "who've been living in the basement of an abandoned building with this guy for weeks. Their parents don't know where they are or what—"

  "So what'm I now, a babysitter?"

  The reverend stepped forward and said, "Don't you feel some responsibility toward these young people?"

  Bascombe's irritated smile disappeared. "Hey, c'mon, guys, I'm trying to run a nightclub here, okay? You paid the cover, right? Tell you what, I'll refund your cover, and drinks're on the house, okay? No booze at the bar—this is a teen club, y'know—but I got some here." He went behind his desk, opened a drawer, and held up a bottle of Tanqueray gin. "What about it, huh? Just don't make any trouble for me, okay?"

  He's scared, J.R. thought.

  "Mr. Bascombe," he said, "we didn't come here for free drinks."

  Bascombe put the bottle down and came around the desk, scowling. "Okay, you wanna deal with that guy? Go right ahead. You wanna tell him he can't play tonight? Be my guest. But as far as I'm concerned, Crucifax is playing here tonight, and for the rest of the fucking week if they want to, and I don't care if they stand on the stage, whip out their cocks, and piss on the audience!" He stepped between them and opened the door. "Now I've got some calls to make, so if you don't mind…"

  J.R. noticed beads of sweat glistening on Bascombe's forehead, saw his lips tremble slightly. The spot of blood on his bandage had spread a bit; it was a recent injury. The cast was clean and white; no one had written on it.

  "How did you hurt yourself?" J.R. asked.

  Bascombe rolled his eyes again. "I ran into a big door, okay? Now get outta here."

  They left the office, and the door closed firmly behind them.

  "He's scared," the reverend said, sounding a bit ill at ease himself.

  J.R. nodded as they headed back into the club. "I know. And probably with good reason. He didn't run into any goddamned door…."

  Erin tried to keep her eyes clear as she drove through the storm, but each time she thought she'd stopped crying, more tears came. She spotted Fantazm a block away. The marquee above the entrance read:

  WEDNESDAY

  NEW BAND NITE

  WED OCT 19

  —CRUCIFAX—

  The word Crucifax sent a spear of ice through her chest, and she muttered, "Mallory…" She suddenly felt twice as weary knowing she would have to face both of them.

  The
parking lot behind Fantazm was full, so she had to park half a block away and hurry through the rain.

  Inside the club, she paid the cover charge and surveyed the crowd with a dismal groan. It was a smoky lake of bobbing heads and shoulders with not a familiar face in sight. Erin regretted the fact that she knew only a couple of Jeff's and Mallory's friends. She knew a lot of names, but few, if any, faces. The only reason she knew Brad was that he'd spent more time at the apartment than any of the others.

  What kind of mother are you? she asked herself bitterly. You don't even know who your kids are growing up with, let alone what kind of people they might be.

  She walked into the crowd looking from face to face, stopping to turn and look behind her. She bumped chairs and tables, was pressed against sweaty, smoky teenagers, even walked onto the dance floor without realizing it.

  Erin did not notice the crosses until after she'd been wandering through the club for several minutes. When she did, she stopped in the crowd, saw another… and another….

  They looked like small sculptures cut from chunks of dried blood, just as Jeff had described them.

  And they were everywhere she looked.

  "Mrs. Carr? Erin?"

  The voice was a faint mutter at first but became louder, and when she saw J.R. Haskell, she smiled with relief at the sight of a familiar face.

  "What are you doing here?" he asked.

  "Looking for my kids. Have you seen them?"

  "Not yet, but Jeff should be here soon, if he isn't already." J.R. introduced her to Reverend Bainbridge, then said, "You look upset. And you're limping. What's wrong?"

  She tried to tell him, thinking she could get it out with perhaps a casual chuckle and a toss of her head so he couldn't say "I told you so," but when she started to speak, tears sprang to her eyes again, and she covered her trembling lips. J.R. stepped forward, muttering, "What? What?" and she let him put his arms around her, rested her head on his shoulder. With her mouth close to his ear, she told him what happened.

  "I tried to stop him," she said, "but he ignored me and left with his friends. He was… God, he was shaken. When I think of how he must have felt, looking up on that stage and seeing… his mother…"