Red Velvet Crush

by Christina Meredith

  TONIGHT BLASTING CaP!

  I sit back in my seat. They couldn’t spring for another big A?

  The sky is getting darker, dimming down to rain. We circle the empty parking lot, doing our usual drive by.

  The homeless guy slides behind the rosebush when we make our way around to the front of the building again. The van lurches over the curb and out into the empty street, leaving him behind.

  It starts to sprinkle. Winston snaps the headlights on, lighting up the pink, red, and yellow rosebushes that line the streets. The roses glow from the misty background. We follow their colors down the rain-washed streets, all the way downtown and to our hotel with a capital H.

  Yep, this one has more than two floors.

  Winston dumps us out at the front doors and goes to park the van. The Hotel has a swanky old-time lobby with a velvet sofa and a dusty smell. It may be tall and stately, but nice left this hotel a long time ago. Timeworn is the best way to describe it. I get in line to check in while Billie and the boys crash on the sofa in the corner.

  I’m behind a tiny, pale guy with slick black hair. Skinny arms. Twenty-two at best, he appears to be turning hotel registration into some sort of Advanced Placement test.

  “We’re in a band,” he says to me over his shoulder, as if he were apologizing and trying to impress me at the same time.

  It does explain the knot of dark-haired smokers in the other corner staring at us.

  I nod. “That’s nice.”

  He folds up his paperwork and slides it into the inside pocket of his vest. Then he turns and looks me up and down. I try to ignore the fact he has no shirt on, just the vest. Eww. Finally he steps to the side, letting me at the front desk.

  “Wait,” dark and tiny says, shaking his head. “That usually works.”

  The girl behind the counter smiles at me past her lip piercing.

  “We have a reservation,” I say to her. “Carter. Red Velvet Crush?”

  I’m not sure how Randy made the reservation.

  “You’re the Crush?” my new little friend asks.

  “Apparently.”

  “Good name. Very dramatic.” He raises his arm with a flourish of black polished fingertips. “We’re your headliner, Blasting Cap.”

  He points his finger at me and shoots an imaginary pistol when he says the band’s name, but I doubt this guy could handle a BB gun, let alone a serious weapon of any kind.

  I fill out the van’s info and forge Winston’s signature on the receipt.

  He continues. “We’re only slumming here until we swing on through to Seattle.”

  I nod. “Sweet.”

  He lifts his chin toward the scrum of greasy rock boys in the corner.

  “That’s the band,” he says as they stub out their cigarettes and make their way across the faded carpet toward us. They all are dark and small just like him, but he is obviously the master of ceremonies.

  They nod. The one closest to me has tragically bad teeth. I watch him smile and thank God that Billie, Winston, and I were lucky enough to end up with good teeth. Lord knows we can’t afford the dentist. Most days I am glad we have enough toothpaste to go around.

  “That’s my band.” I lift my chin toward the sofa.

  “Yours?”

  “Yep.”

  “And the little blonde?” the cutest one asks.

  Billie is squealing and laughing as Ty puts her into a headlock and Jay messes up her hair.

  “That’s Billie,” I say.

  I gather up the key cards in their little envelopes and the printed map of the hotel with our rooms circled in black ink.

  They all are watching Billie, but I’m not worried. They are nothing more than a flea circus for Billie to train for her entertainment and eventually swat away.

  “Don’t bother,” I say as I walk away with my hands full, “she won’t remember your name tomorrow.”

  “We can live with that.” The ringmaster chuckles. “And by the way,” he calls after me, “it’s Ben.”

  “There are way more dudes out there than last night,” one of the Blasting Caps boys says as I squeeze by behind him and stop, scanning the room for Billie. He is blocking his dressing room doorway so he can peek out at the crowd. It is almost a full house.

  This is a big club. Not just for us, but for any band. It has a real backstage, with separate dressing rooms for Blasting Cap and us. Their room is bigger, full of cast-off furniture and an old oak bar and tons of people.

  THE BAND is painted above their doorway, and someone drew a skinny rocker dude in a wifebeater and big boots on the wall next to the door; the grubby light switch is his belly button.

  We are definitely riding on Blasting Cap’s coattails. They bring a crowd with them, and I am nervous and anxious to sing to a full room, an excited mob. But I need to find Billie first. I tell myself I will worry about singing after that. The thought makes my throat dry up.

  I spy Billie in the darkest corner, making out with one of the Blasting Cap boys with reckless abandon. I hope it’s the cute one. They are kissing like they can’t be seen, like they aren’t backstage, surrounded by strangers and assorted musical instruments. It makes my tongue tired just watching.

  “Where are all the hot chicks?” the first Cap moans.

  He has gray jeans on with silver designs sewn into the back pockets and tattooed arms. His jeans hang low on his skinny ass as he turns back into the room and presses himself against the wall that separates the stage from backstage.

  “All those dudes out there greatly decrease our chances of getting laid, you know.” He drops into a chair in a puff of Old Gold dust.

  “Are you kidding?” the other one asks, his eyes sliding over to Billie in the corner, “What if she brought along some friends? Can you imagine?”

  Then he takes his turn peeking out at the club.

  “Way worth the extra dudes.”

  The first one—shiny pants—sighs. “I do love the crazy ones.”

  “We all do.” The second one agrees as they tap their beer bottles together, toasting my little sister and her supposed legion of hot friends.

  I probably should be offended. But I laugh and pass them by, knowing that Billie’s never really had any friends. Temporary tattoos last longer.

  Blasting Cap showed up super-early to our sound check, arriving backstage with fresh bottles of booze and dusty red packets of bottle rockets while Ty and Jay were double-checking our gear and retaping our cords to the floor. The two of them walk up next to me now, their eyes flicking toward Billie in the corner, buried in the couch.

  “Great,” Ty says, turning away. “That’s all we need . . . a Blasting Cap baby.”

  “A little powder keg,” Jay coos, rocking his arms back and forth.

  I roll my eyes.

  “A little six-shooter.” Jay continues, his Vans keeping pace with me as I make my way toward Billie across the worn, dingy red carpet that is decorated exclusively with cigarette burns and strange wet spots.

  After our first night sharing a bill, I know these things for certain: Blasting Cap likes alcoholic beverages, Billie, and blowing things up.

  Their show is the Fourth of July and a mini Mardi Gras rolled into one, complete with smoke screens, small explosions, and a steel drum. By their third song the stage is knee deep in empty beer bottles and burned matches. Ty and I didn’t stick around for the after-party last night, but Billie must have.

  “Whatcha up to, Billie?” Jay asks, grinning down at her as we approach the battered couch. It has seen better days, probably ten years ago.

  Billie stops to take a breath.

  She swings her head up in our direction. Her eyes are lusty and unfocused, her cheeks shining pink.

  “Sinning in the name of rock and roll,” she says with a smile.

  Jay chuckles.

  “Well, stop,” I say.

  I reach down and peel her and the sweaty cap apart.

  “It’s time to cool down a little,” I say. “And—”r />
  Oh, crap, it isn’t the cute one, I realize. It’s the one with the teeth.

  “Swab for diseases.”

  I yank Billie up by her wrist, steady her out, and straighten her skirt. She smells a little like gunpowder.

  Holding her tight by the elbow, I steer her across the room.

  As we turn the last dim corner and step onto the stage, she hisses into my ear. “I’m singing them all tonight.” Her breath is smoky and sour.

  Strange cylinders line the edge of the stage, every couple of feet. They must be new, compliments of Blasting Cap and their special effects team. His name is Dave.

  “No, you’re not.” I assure her, and myself, as we navigate through the maze of old coffee cans and our gear.

  “We’ll see.”

  She twists away, bobbles on a loose cord, and finds her balance. She isn’t that drunk tonight, but man, is she mean. I leave her alone, cranking her mic stand down inch by inch as I take my own spot onstage, on the audience’s far right, and slide my guitar over my head.

  Late last night when I was in bed, staring at the ceiling and waiting for the stars shining so brightly in my mind to fade so I could finally fall asleep, I thought about performing, about my music, about something that I created, that didn’t exist until I thought of it, and I realized I will never want anything more than this. It is awesome and painful and sweet all at the same time. It fills me up and then craps me out the other side, ready for another go.

  I smile to myself onstage, watching as my little sister brushes the hair out of her eyes and wipes the spit from some snaggle-toothed boy from the corners of her mouth.

  Billie can make all the messes and sing all the cover songs she wants. Tonight it is finally my turn.

  Our third song starts with a roll and a punch. Then the rush hits me. This is my song! A chorus of butterflies carrying chain saws circles in my stomach.

  It’s not like I didn’t know it was coming. How many times did I hear Winston repeat our plan before the show: open with two covers, slide in a new song, and then get back to what they came here for? At least twice, but it felt more like ten.

  But then Billie scratched over the set list with her boot, and I guess I really am lost in the sunshine of your love because I am totally surprised when Jay bounces down three bass notes of the intro, hard and heavy, announcing my song, my shot. Here it is.

  The crowd swims before me, eyes and hair and teeth and smiling and clapping and waiting and watching and wanting, as I reach for the microphone.

  Blood shoots through my veins, a thin, hot river of adrenaline. My mouth tastes tinny, like I licked a guitar string. My heart rams at the walls of my chest, trying to escape. Please, ribs, I beg, don’t break.

  Billie steals one last look at me and goes off. She is a lit fuse, running and twirling and dancing. A hot flash of white legs and blond hair that streaks across the stage in a short black skirt while the rest of us race to keep up.

  I open my mouth to sing and am slammed back by a sharp, deafening squeal of feedback. I cringe and cower away as a loud pop jolts the stage and everything is swallowed up by a deep, sudden darkness. Then silence.

  It probably doesn’t last more than a few seconds, but as I stand there on the stage with the microphone in my hand, that quiet feels like forever.

  My mouth is open. The tips of my fingers are throbbing.

  “Aww . . . Christ,” Ty moans from behind me.

  I hear his sticks land on top of his snare. “Blasting Cap blew out the lights.”

  Not just the stage lights, all the lights. And not just the lights, all the electricity, it seems. The only things still glowing are the exit signs above the doors and a Schlitz malt liquor lamp on the bar that looks so fossilized it probably runs on kerosene or melted whale blubber.

  I swallow my disappointment in a large, disquieting gulp and cram the microphone back into its stand with sweaty fingers.

  The crowd rustles self-consciously. I can feel fear and excitement and confusion rising from the floor. A single shout goes up.

  A generator kicks in, and the lights come on again, half-mast and ghostly green. A sigh and some clapping come from the mass of bodies below.

  “Those sad little pyros,” Winston swears as he walks on from backstage, lighting a cigarette and rolling up his sleeves.

  “AFI wannabes.” Jay joins in, reaching for a cigarette.

  Winston bends down and tries one of the amps. Nothing.

  Ty stands, slips his sticks into his back pocket, and walks over.

  “We look like schmucks waiting around up here,” he worries. “Like amateurs.”

  Jay laughs. “We are amateurs.”

  I unplug my guitar. Pull it over my head and set it on the floor as I search the stage. My heart thuds and stops.

  “Where’s Billie?” I ask.

  A slippery curl of smoke is leaking from one of the coffee cans in the front corner, catching my eye. I cross the stage and find my sister there, down on the floor, standing with a small crowd circling her.

  She is gray and crooked. Her arm is hanging funny, and I can see a line of sweat above her brow, even in the half-light of the generators.

  I jump down off the edge of the stage.

  “Billie?”

  She is breathing hard, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

  “Something’s not right,” she says.

  Then she pukes all over me.

  16

  Billie rolls over and knocks into me with her cast. It is bright white in the early-morning light and scratchy. She drops it on the pillow next to my head. Her eyes flutter open, and she whimpers, “My prostaglandins hurt.”

  I try to move her fat white arm over without hurting her, but it won’t budge, as if the plaster and the bedsheets have become one. I slide myself out of its way instead—sleeping beside Billie has always been a contact sport—and she falls back to sleep.

  I reach over and touch the tips of her fingers, lightly. Last night an ER nurse in light blue scrubs wrapped Billie’s skinny arm in plaster until it weighed more than Billie.

  I watched, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. I held Billie’s free hand, the fingertips of her right hand on the verge of disappearing under all that wrapping.

  “Dad, she’s okay,” Winston said from the other side of the thin white curtain that hung between us.

  Two more wraps, and Billie’s fingers would be gone.

  “She’s fine,” he said. “Just a broken arm.”

  Just, I thought. Dad probably loved that: just a broken arm.

  “No, you don’t need to come. I can handle it.”

  I saw his boots pacing. They passed once, turned around, and kept going.

  “We’re all fine.” His voice drifted down the hall that smelled like pain coated over with Pine-Sol and a little bit of prayer.

  Shing! The nurse was done. She pulled the white curtain open, exposing Billie to the world again. My sister looked skinny, compared with that cast, and she smelled awful, like smoke and puke and plaster.

  When Winston got us back to the capital H hotel, I crawled into bed with Billie, knowing I was going to be battered and abused, but certain that she shouldn’t be alone. She already had a broken arm, one bruised rib, and three prescriptions to be filled. Good thing she wasn’t that drunk or we could have added a rap sheet to that list.

  Careful not to move Billie or her arm, I roll over and feel for the prescriptions on the nightstand. I get a whiff of myself when I move. I am still wearing my shirt from last night, the one covered in Billie’s puke and dried tears and my nervous exhaust.

  I click the TV on, set it on mute, and find some cartoons for Billie to wake up to. I slide out of bed and grab a shirt off the chair on my way to the bathroom. It is Billie’s, so it is going to be way too tight and way too sparkly, but its lack of little chunks of pink french fries glued to the front appeals to me.

  The bamboo-printed wallpaper in the hotel bathroom is peeling, and the bathtub
is older than my dad. It feels like the towels have been around since before his birth, too. My skin hurts a little when I dry off after my shower.

  I knock on the door to Winston’s room with dripping wet hair and Billie’s prescriptions in my back pocket. He has the cash, and he knows the way. Everybody else can sleep in.

  The Barracuda Lounge paid us for last night, even though we didn’t finish our set. I think they were worried about getting sued. The Blasting Cap boys chipped in, too, once they saw how they had broken Billie. Miniature bastards.

  Winston opens the door and tugs on a hooded sweatshirt and his leather jacket. His hair is wet, too. I hold out the car keys to him.

  The van coughs into life, and Winston pulls hard on his first cigarette of the day. I count the remaining cash, and he turns on the radio, flipping past NPR and morning talk until he finds some rock. His leg bounces all the way to the drugstore.

  Winston doesn’t like hospitals, doctors’ offices, pharmacies, funeral parlors, or hair salons. Basically any place sterile and possibly antiseptic. Still, he stands next to me, tall and tight, as we wait for Billie’s prescriptions to be filled. His eyes are locked on the shiny tiled floor, and it feels an awful lot like the time he had to take me to the drugstore to buy my very first box of tampons.

  He stood the same way that day, stiff and awkward, planted in front of a wall of pink and blue and lavender boxes. He acted like we’d never met before while I searched the rows, looking for something familiar, a box I might have seen at school or under somebody’s sink during a sleepover—but nothing.

  I was nervous, standing there, trying to figure it out, just the two of us. My tears built, waiting for something to push them over the edge so they could spill down my hot, embarrassed cheeks.

  Winston twitched his leg and reached for a royal blue box.

  “These are the kind I think Mom used,” he said, holding the box at arm’s length, obviously out of his element.

  They looked cheap. And generic. Nothing like anything that I would want to stick into my body. I shook my head no, my breath running at a rapid pace, and Winston put them back on the shelf.