Crooked Fang

by Carrie Clevenger

  I snorted. “Yeah, I can tell.” I bent to rub my cigarette out and palmed the butt, not wanting to litter her yard. When I walked back inside, I dropped it in the wastebasket. “You should get sleep, not make coffee.”

  She paused midpour and looked at me. “Mind your own business.”

  I raised an eyebrow but resisted a retort. Even though I’d done what I could to relax her, she was still tighter than a guitar string. Underneath it all, I was sure a thin thread of fear charged her. I doubted she’d be able to sleep much until the sun was up in full force, at which point even I would be looking to lay it down.

  She glanced up from her coffee cup. “Relax, Xan. Make yourself at home. There’s food in the fridge if you want to eat.”

  “Thanks.” I pulled out a chair from the kitchen table, a simple country whiteboard set, with glass inserts. I peered down at my feet through it while I drummed my fingers on the surface. Part of me already itched for another cigarette, and I definitely wanted a drink. I felt out of place.

  She sat down across from me. “So what do you do besides play music and rescue battered women?”

  I shrugged. “Not much. Watch music videos on YouTube. Listen to music. Look for new music.”

  “Music’s really important to you, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “It’s all I got.”

  She hummed in response and took a sip of her coffee. “Where are you from?”

  “Denver.” It wasn’t a lie. My dad had taken me in when I was eight, after my mother died in New Mexico. I grew up in Denver, working in his restaurant while I went to school.

  She sat down across from me with a cup of hot coffee. “I’ve never been outside of Colorado. Have you?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re not very talkative about yourself.”

  “What you see is what you get.” Her questions needed answers that would require me to lie. I had a story lined up to tell people, but it didn’t mean I was going to just divulge in some woman I barely knew.

  She must’ve taken my response as a signal to stop digging because she changed the subject. “So how well do you know my sister?”

  Sabrina. One of the Frigid Bitches. “Not really.”

  “You were talking to her that night you chased Art off.”

  “It was the first time.” I met her gaze. “And the last time I’ve seen her.”

  Tabby finished her coffee. “I should thank you. Not every guy is willing to bring a girl home out of the goodness of his heart.”

  “I wasn’t exactly innocent.”

  She laughed. “No, you were being good. I was the aggressor.”

  “That’s true.” I crossed my arms over my chest. She stood and took her cup to the sink, to wash it out before setting it on the drying rack. I took the time to appreciate the shape of her legs in her jeans, the curve of her hips. I licked my lips. That nagging nature. I hadn’t really been around people like this in a long while. I probably still shouldn’t have been.

  We went to the den again to settle in front of the TV and held hands. As the blinds pinked with sunrise, we both fell asleep, as if we’d always done that. It felt comfortable, normal even.

  * * * *

  The next night, I ventured out for a trip to the liquor store to stock her cabinet with the one of the things I did drink. She frowned in disapproval, but soon realized I wasn’t like Arturo, who had just fallen off the map. He never called again or came to get his things.

  Spending one night turned into three. Three nights turned into a full week. She worked at the gas station on the edge of town, and when she was gone, I’d sit around on my ass, drink and watch movies. It was a good place for me to hang out beside Pale Rider. I still showed up to do bass for Crooked Fang, but I guess it had slid down my priority list because afterward, I hightailed it back to her place, barely even acknowledging people when they tried to stop me on my way out the door. I felt like I had to protect Tabby, especially from her ex-boyfriend. Arturo’s silence irked me, but it was really her deal. It wasn’t like we were dating. I cared for her as a really good friend. Maybe with a few benefits on the side, but I didn’t see any harm in having a little fun.

  * * * *

  It wasn’t all that surprising when she started dropping hints about two months after meeting each other. Her friends had boyfriends that bought them flowers.

  “It’s just so sweet how he buys her roses, for no reason at all.” She lay beside me one morning, playing with my hair as I watched the ceiling fan spin. “Isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I like flowers.”

  I smiled. Girls were crafty. “I’m just a bass player. I couldn’t afford to buy you flowers anyway.”

  She threw her leg over me and buried her face in my armpit.

  “Hey, no need to hide in there.” I pulled her away and put my arm around her instead.

  “The hair tickles my nose anyway.”

  “Well yeah, I’m a guy.”

  “Yeah, but you smell better than most guys. Most guys smell all funky and sweaty, and you never do. It’s nice.”

  “I take a shower every day, Tab.”

  She rose up on her hands, a smile plastered across those undeniably cute features. “I love it when you call me Tab. People have called me Tabby or Beth, but not Tab. It sounds like a soda pop.”

  “Not cherry pop I hope.” I ducked as she swung a pillow at my face, laughing.

  The subject of commitment forgotten, she cuddled against me and eventually drifted off to sleep. I lay there thinking for a while, stroking her hair away from her face, and listening to her blood plod through her veins as her heart slowed in slumber. She was really interested in me. I couldn’t give her anything but heartache.

  I slid out from under her leg and threw my shirt back on. I was a goddamned vampire, not some nice boy who lived down the street. And she was getting attached. I looked at her, lying on her side. She was a sweet thing. But I wasn’t the one for her. I switched off the bedside lamp and let myself out of the house, turning the thumb lock before shutting the door. After another bout of hesitation in the car while I smoked a cigarette, I left.

  Maybe I was trying to escape by going around in circles. Something held me there in that sleepy village, whether it was Scott or Charlie or–I just didn’t know. Pinecliffe was a gorgeous area, only a few miles away from Denver, but light-years away from the big-city vibe. People knew one another. There was the big reservoir lake and national forest. But that late at night, the road was mine. The snow glittered in spots along the highway from the dappled shine of the moon overhead. I turned up Tool on the radio, one of my favorites, Flood. A fitting song for my state of mind, because I felt like I was treading water, looking for higher ground. At the same time, I wanted to let go, and drown myself in whatever it was I was supposed to be. So there I was, running away like a punk. But it was easy to convince myself that I was doing the right thing. All I needed was my music, a little drink and my car.

  I loved my RS. Dad had bought it off another guy whose son decided to rag the shit out of it and got it taken away from him as punishment. We worked on it together, me and my dad, bonding over rebuilding the blown engine. It took a while to accomplish as he made me pay for most of the parts. When it was done, I had a fine-looking car. Fast too.

  Charlie was in the garage when I arrived back at Pale Rider. He liked to pretend to tinker with an old neon-green Dodge Challenger he’d won in a poker game however many years ago. I caught him staring into the engine compartment. Two space heaters flanked his feet.

  He wiped his hands on a grease rag and smiled at me. “Always out all night, boy. Gone for days. Come in with the sun. Unless you got your show to do.”

  “You’re up late yourself.” I leaned against the doorframe and twirled my key ring on a finger.

  “Just woke up. Figured I’d come out here for a while. Where you been?”

  I shrugged. “Around.”

  “Young and wild. I remember those days.”
/>   “Charlie, you remember the Eisenhower Administration.”

  “Ayuh, I do that there.”

  I lit a cigarette as he slammed the Dodge’s hood shut.

  “I guess I’m done for now. Beer delivery come tomorrow.” He threw the rag on the workbench. “Think I’ll be out with Linda. Judging by how late it is, I imagine you’ll be still ’sleep when the truck comes in.”

  “Darrell can unload the kegs if I leave him a note.” My guitarist drank almost as heavily as me. Chances were he’d be battling a hangover but, oh well.

  “That’ll be fine. Make sure he clears the drive before it come.” Charlie looked like a shadow himself. One the moon could shine on. I left him standing there and went inside.

  The tables had already been moved back where they belonged in front of the stage area. A little twinge of guilt stabbed me in the brain because Charlie had probably ended up doing it himself, since I was off with some girlfriend, as he said. That word wasn’t in my vocabulary. But that was just how I was. I didn’t compromise for anyone. She should’ve known. Yeah.

  Since there wasn’t anything pressing to do at four in the morning, I went up the stairs to my room. Serv’s door was standing open, and he had some Bon Jovi going while he scribbled, hunched over a spiral notebook. He listened to all kinds of music so he could sing their songs. He could emulate like a hundred famous voices.

  “Hey. Back for a while?” He looked up from his notes. The station switched to an old Slayer song from the radio on his nightstand.

  I paused at his doorway. “For a bit, yeah. Why? What’s up?”

  He rose to his feet and wobbled unsteadily. He’d been drinking heavily. I could tell, both from his diesel breath and the way he leaned on the bed for balance.

  “Good, I wanted to talk to you about Crooked Fang.” He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for a smoke, lighting it with a chrome Zippo. My chrome Zippo, I noted, but said nothing. In this place, stuff just ended up wherever. As long as it stayed in the building I didn’t give a shit.

  “What about it?” Every time any of them wanted to talk about “the band” it was usually some nut job idea to take it to the next level, and I was so over having to tell them to back down again and again.

  “Elaine’s been talking to a friend. Real cool guy from Jersey. He has a label, likes my singing.”

  “No.”

  “But Elaine says we have the talent. I mean I’ve written some songs if you wanted to try.”

  “I said, no.” I couldn’t help but look like the asshole. It was always the pushing, the wanting to be fucking famous. I’d gone through it with Darrell when he’d joined our band, replacing Jason, who’d finally got his shit together and started community college at the ripe age of twenty-six. And now Serv? He knew exactly why I wasn’t interested. I had to feed the other guys a line, but Serv was aware that as vampires we couldn’t just go out there and perform in strange towns where we were at the mercy of our environment. I’d thought he was smarter than that. “We’re a cover band. For Pale Rider. A house band. Just a novelty.”

  “But we could be so much more.” His face held stubborn hope, like I’d suddenly change my mind after years of denying growth. He picked up a bottle of Smirnoff from the table beside his bed and took a drink.

  “Crooked Fang stays in Pinecliffe. You want to tour and get famous? You’ll have to do it on your own.”

  “We could at least perform original material.”

  “No goddammit, and that’s final. I don’t want to be famous, and honestly, neither should you.”

  Serv’s face darkened into a scowl.

  I stepped into his room and shut the door behind me. “Look. We’re outsiders. It’s just the nature of the beast. Being what we are makes us permanently not a part of everything else. We can’t stick our necks out too far because people like to probe, and will start asking questions. It’s our responsibility to keep our real identities secret. To hide them from the living.”

  “Fuck that shit.” He could get really loud. “Who are you to tell me what I can or can’t do?”

  “It’s not just me, you know that. There’s others out there like us.” He didn’t know what I had done before I came to Pinecliffe. How I killed little shits just like him that couldn’t seem to keep their mouths shut and endangered the rest of the bloodsuckers. “Elaine’s bad for you. You’re talking to her too much about shit she doesn’t need to be involved in.”

  “Well maybe I’m ready for a more permanent kind of company.” He rose to his feet and paced the floor like a panther in a cage at the circus. “Maybe I’m ready to leave the nest and realize my potential. My full potential.”

  I gaped. What he was suggesting was dangerous. “Serv, she’s human. And you’re just a youngblood yourself. You’re not ready for the responsibilities of making another, let alone strong enough to have it not fail horribly. Do you realize how stupid you sound?”

  “Stupid? What about what I want, huh Xan?” He flung the bottle sideways. The glass smashed, spilling vodka all over the wall and floor. “What about my future, since I have so much of it ahead of me? Huh, Xan? How about that?”

  I wanted to knock him down. The temper tantrum he’d thrown had left a nice-sized dent in the plaster. The room reeked of vodka. His eyes were wild and dark, and he bared his fangs at me. His shirt hung open. He was in a bad way. He stepped up to me, which was almost funny since he was a foot shorter than me.

  I glared down at him. “If you take Elaine, you’re done here.”

  “Fuck you. Crooked Fang is nothing without me.”

  “I’m pretty sure I could replace you.” I snatched him up by his shirt with a snarl, and lifted him to his toes. “After all, I found you, didn’t I?”

  “You can’t replace me.” He squirmed in my grasp and I pitched him on the bed, capable of much more but holding back in hopes of getting through to him.

  “You’re brand new at this.” I started to leave but he charged at me. I caught him by his wrist and folded it up high behind his back.

  “Hey!”

  I spun him around and shoved his face into the nearest wall. He was pushing buttons he didn’t want to mess with. “You take Elaine now, and she’ll be worthless and completely dependent on you for a decade at least. You haven’t got a fucking clue about yourself, let alone caring for a brand-new make. Listen to yourself. What you’re suggesting is madness.”

  He spat a glob of blood on the wall, and it dripped down. He must’ve bitten his tongue. “I’m going to New England. Elaine and I will form a new group. You can fucking have Crooked Fang.”

  “Don’t you tell her what I am,” I growled in his ear then released him. “I’ll be telling Charlie we’re looking for a new vocalist. You’ve got three days to clear the fuck out of here.” I snatched open the door, nearly tearing it off its hinges, and left before I ended up caving his forehead in.

  Chapter 3

  In reality, I didn’t know what I’d do. With Serv fired and a show scheduled for the weekend, the band was in a pickle. Tabby had tried to reach me a couple of times but I didn’t take any of her calls. I had no gas to drive around, so I just kind of sat and plucked strings downstairs at my usual table in the corner. Charlie noticed my black mood and sat with me for a few minutes while I filled him in on Serv’s outburst.

  “He wantin’ fame. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.” He pulled off his fedora, set it on the table then polished the wood with his ever-present rag.

  “Yeah, but he’s going about it the wrong way. Why can’t he just be happy doing his thing here? What’s the big deal about going someplace else and being a big star?”

  Charlie stopped wiping the table and gave me a long hard look. “I’m surprised at you, boy. You act like you so damn old. Don’t you have a dream?”

  “My dreams are dead.” I lit a cigarette and slouched in my chair. Positive thinking. Whatevs. Any hope I had was washed away two days before my twenty-eighth birthday. There was no dreaming allowed anymo
re.

  Charlie scowled, a rare expression for him. “So damn negative. You think I’d bought this place if I just said fuck it, I’m out of the Army, I’ll just sit around on my ass? No, I fought for this place, boy. I followed my dreams of having a good place where people of all colors could come and have a good time.” He turned in his chair, gestured to the bar room and grinned. “Now look at it. It’s a happy place.”

  “Yeah, until we get onstage and start playing metal music.”

  “It’s still a happy place. People come to get away from things here. They come in after work and play those pinball games. Or maybe they play darts with they buddies. People have they first dates here. I seen it. The way I figure, it’s better to just be happy and let life do as it will.”

  “Don’t worry, man, I’ll find another vocalist. ’Til then, I’ll see if he’ll do this weekend show with us at least.” I lit a cigarette and blew smoke to the side, a half-assed show of respect.

  “You pretend to be all business, but you a good boy, Xan. You just gotta realize that although you think it’s over, it ain’t over. It ain’t ever over ’til you’re dead, and you’re not dead.”

  I snorted smoke and bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Right.”

  Charlie got up from my table and went back to the bar, leaving me alone to think. There wasn’t much I could do really, except wait and see.

  Early the next morning, I was digging for another bottle behind the bar when Serv showed up again, drunk as fuck, thankfully with no Elaine in sight. Having forgotten his key, he had to beat on the door until I let him in. Without so much as a thank-you, he brushed past me and staggered toward the stairs, tripping on the second step.

  “What happened to you?” Hell, I’d fallen up those stairs more than once. He ignored me, so I followed him. He stood there, trembling, staring at his closed door. A 9mm pistol was clutched tightly in his hand. I threw open his door and shoved him inside, gun or no gun. Arguing was one thing. Bringing a gun home was another. Did he even know how to shoot that thing? I thought of my two Taurus Trackers hidden in the trunk of my RS along with a pair of handcuffs, which I had sorely been tempted to use on him more than once. I knew how to shoot, but was out of that business. I didn’t need to carry guns anymore...well, up until lately.