“I’ve been planning to tell him someday.”
Serv nudged me and I glanced at him. His eyes were big. “I thought we weren’t supposed to say anything to anyone about the whole being-vampires thing?”
“Yeah, sometimes there’s times you have to. And there’s a lot of times that you want to. In fact, you almost always wish you could. It’d make everything a hell of a lot easier.”
Serv nodded. “I can see that. And there’s been a few times where I get tired of explaining why I don’t want dinner or cake or can’t come out during the day. It gets old, and it’s just been three years or so. Centuries of this shit? I don’t know, Xan. Sometimes I wonder if I can really take it.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I won’t be the last one to tell you it won’t get any better, just easier. You figure out your lie, and you tell it so much, it becomes part of you.”
“Do you ever feel guilty?”
I glanced at him. “Sometimes. Other times, I’m convinced that if people really knew everything about us, they’d either like us more, or freak the fuck out. But I always feel guilty lying to Charlie. Always.”
“You like that old man, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I guess I do. If this wouldn’t have happened to me, I’d be just like him.”
* * * *
The following Sunday, I sat in my usual corner, minding my own business, just watching the customers, not expecting any excitement, slow as we were. Charlie worked the bar by himself, and was currently elbow-deep in politics talk with Earl, one of the traveling locals. Earl drove a big rig seventy percent of the time, but stopped in whenever he was home. His wife sat next to him, munching on salted peanuts, eyes glazed over, staring at the muted game onscreen.
Josh and Serv walked up to my table. I raised an eyebrow.
“Hey, that Denver show was moved.” Serv grinned ear to ear. The whole band was still excited about leaving Pale Rider to play at Lobos. It was like letting kids out for recess in school. “She wants us this Friday night.”
“That’s really short notice.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I know. Isn’t it awesome?”
I turned to glare at Josh. “Kind of pushing your luck, aren’t you?”
Josh only shrugged with a smile. “Easy in, easy out. Good money and we get some exposure.”
It wasn’t worth arguing. Never mind the lack of rehearsal time we had. Or set put together. It would have to be improv, pretty much. I just hoped nothing would happen to get us into trouble while in Denver.
* * * *
Friday evening we loaded up and headed out of town in Josh’s work van. It was snowing in Denver by the time we arrived. The city was huge compared to our crook of the woods and the guys gazed out the windows as we passed busy streets and inched through icy intersections. “My phone says Lobos should be right up there.” Darrell pointed over my shoulder through the windshield. Josh was driving.
“Where’s there?” I snarled, trying to get a handle on where he pointed. Josh snorted and grinned. The van was old and drafty. Josh’d borrowed it for the special occasion. It was a dull gray with a sun-bleached pale yellow hood. Our first outside gig vehicle. Glamorous, I know.
“Right here.” Darrell tapped his phone’s screen and Josh pulled into the drive. The business sign featured the bar’s name written in red script neon over the silhouette of a wolf baying at the moon. The place was otherwise nondescript: brown shingles peeked out in holes left by melted and refrozen ice and snow. It was a one-story slate-blue building, with blacked-out glass double doors and no other windows. But the lot was moderately full, which was promising. It was a ballsy move for Karla, to slide Collette to an opening act, making us the headliner. Maybe she was trying to get the audience used to us, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t looking to be a permanent feature of the place, money or not.
We pulled around the back of the building and parked. Josh went up to the door, and banged on it. All business this time, Karla greeted him wrapped in a gray wool poncho instead of latex. She was cool, though, and helped us haul our gear inside. I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed in her modesty. Maybe because I knew what she had under that cable knit.
I lit a cigarette as I climbed out of the van and slammed the door.
“Well hello there, stranger.” She grinned up at me and we locked gazes for a few seconds before I was yanked by the elbow to help out with the equipment. I shot her an embarrassed grin.
“You can leave that in your van.” She eyed the last piece of equipment we’d brought along–a massive PA cabinet and bass rig setup I’d had to manhandle into the fucking van in the first place. “We have our own.”
I slapped Serv’s shoulder. “Told you they can backline us.”
“And usually it’s shit. I wanted to be sure, so we brought our rig.” He rolled his eyes and excused himself for a smoke.
I wandered out front for a drink and to check out the band playing on stage. A tattered vinyl banner with Collette scrawled diagonally in big red font flapped behind the action. Chicks dressed in leather. Grrl power and all that. I’d say they were a cover band, but I didn’t recognize the tune they were playing. The crowd seemed to be familiar with them, though, and I even saw some singing along–always a great sign. Nothing makes a songwriter feel more powerful than to see strange lips mouthing words they wrote in a private moment.
A security officer in uniform stood next to the door with his arms crossed, head steady despite the weird allure of the girls onstage. I accepted my free drink and leaned back against the bar, careful not to dust somebody’s drink with my hair. Even as a vampire, my hair kept growing. I still had to shave. Some things never changed.
The tender kept up with me for three drinks before making an admittance of defeat in the form of the bottle left on the bar. Like a waitress leaving the coffeepot at the table back when Scott and me endured all-nighters for school, studying in the diner, feeding the jukebox and eyeballing the cute skirts. Our grades were barely passing, but we graduated.
I took the bottle backstage where Karla was giving the rest of us a quick once-over of how everything worked. I plopped into a ratty, broken-down recliner, bored with lighting effects and soundboard talk. I knew how it all worked.
Stage call went out, and the Hole wannabes clopped offstage in their platform heels to cheers and applause.
Since we were playing close by, Scott said he might show up, so I looked for him when we went out to drag shit onstage for our set. He sat pretty much front and center, a bottle of Michelob Light basting the table in an untouched circle of condensation. He didn’t drink much anymore and had quit smoking when he married Elizabeth. He was still skinny, and the new goatee he’d grown didn’t do much to hide that ever-present grin he wore, especially around a bunch of girls half his age. I plunked down my stuff and left the boys to go over to him. He had his head tipped back to survey the waving plastic Budweiser pennants hanging from the ceiling, illuminated by the half dozen or so beer neon signs from the full bar opposite the stage. Waitresses flitted to and fro like busy moths, wearing next to nothing in rhinestone black halter tops, short-shorts, and knee-high fringed moccasins, keeping with the Lobos theme.
“Glad you could make it.” I kept a calm exterior, even though inside I was excited as a puppy to see my best friend again. We bumped fists and I pulled out the chair across from him and dropped into it.
“This shit is getting too wild for me these days.” He twirled his finger around an ear. “And I need to try to protect what’s left of my hearing, so feel special.”
“Hell yeah, I do. How’s Liz?”
“She’s good.” He picked up his beer for a swallow and grimaced. “Took her to the doctor today. Her cholesterol count is getting back down to normal.”
“Ah.” I wasn’t sure what else to say to that so I fidgeted with the cellophane on my cigarette pack.
“How long you got?” He straightened his legs to dig in his pocket before
laying a set of car keys on the table beside the beer.
“A few minutes, why?”
He tapped the keys.
I leaned forward to check out the shiny insignia. “A Cadillac?”
“Yeah, they’ve got those good seats, and that bitch is damn fast.”
“Good seats, huh? They always did have all the bells and whistles. Let’s go check it out.”
I waved to the rest of my band to point at the door and mime smoking a cigarette to indicate I was stepping outside. Serv nodded from the stage. Scott and I left our drinks and wove through the growing crowd of customers and wait staff.
“What kind of Cadillac?” I asked, walking ahead of Scott. We neared the door and the cop stepped in my path.
“Excuse me.” His face looked kind of familiar. “Are you related to Manny Marcello? The guy that used to run the old Italian restaurant on the west side of town?”
Manny? That would be my dad, dead in the ground for a year or so. A big guy, loved by everybody who knew him, and who could bake a mean cannelloni.
The question caught me off guard so much, instead of looking at him like I had no clue what he was talking about, an automatic “Why?” popped out instead. Scott blanched and grabbed my arm hard.
Serv did a sound check at the same time and I didn’t hear the cop’s response. Instead, Scott dragged me outside. It was still snowing, and we’d both left our jackets inside.
“I know that guy,” Scott said, walking briskly back to his...holy shit. A big, black, shiny new Escalade sat in the lot, still in dealer tags. “So do you.”
“This is an SUV.” I curled my lip in distaste. Considering his first car was a tiny-ass Chevette. I guess he had moved up in the world, but damn.
“Well it is Colorado.” He popped the locks. “Climb in. It’s cold as a witch’s tit in December out here.” He started the engine and turned down the psychedelic rock that immediately blared out of the speakers.
I grinned. “Velvet Underground, huh?”
“Some things never change.” He switched the heater on full-blast, and tipped his head back against the seat. “That cop was Vic’s son.”
“Vic?”
He nodded without looking at me. “Vic was your dad’s friend, remember? Nice guy, kinda burly, also a cop? We used to drive him nuts when he found us playing pinball at the filling station all hours of the night freaking out the clerks.”
I thought back. He had a kid who was crazy about me too. He’d follow me around while I was bussing tables and ask lots of questions about everything. “Shit.”
Scott shook his head. “That kid admired the hell out of you. He liked your old dirt bike, remember?”
Sure, I remembered his face but not his name. He picked his nose as a kid when he thought people weren’t looking but wasn’t too discreet about it. Still, he was curious about everything I did. It seemed weird that he went into law enforcement. And that he was an adult. I nodded once.
“Listen, we’re going to go back in and you’re going to play dumb. Common sense should overrule any memory he has of you when alive. You’re supposed to be older than me, remember?” Scott smoothed his hands over the Cadillac crest in the center of the steering wheel.
“Coming here was a bad idea.” I fiddled with the window switch until Scott locked it off.
“Geez, Xan, you’re like a damn kid. Stop fucking with the window.” He shook his head. “I’m still having trouble calling you Xan after all these years.”
“I’m nervous.” I reached for the door. “We’re going on here in a few minutes.”
“I know you are.” Scott sighed and switched off the heater, then the truck. “It’s not the show that’s got you freaked out, is it?”
I shook my head. “The chances of somebody recognizing me...fuck, Scott. What in the hell do I do?”
The world felt really small at that point. First, there had been Freddie. Then I’d told Tabby what I was. And now, I was in goddamned Denver where I’d pretty much grown up. It shouldn’t have surprised me that I’d run into at least one person that could remember me. Or recognize me. I really needed to reevalauate how I responded to questioning, because so far? Not doing a very hot job of keeping my cool. I couldn’t even pinpoint why. Maybe I was just sick of hiding. It was like I subconsciously dared fate to come and bite me in the ass.
Scott shrugged. “Just keep doing what you’ve always done. Play big dumb bassist, get your ass on stage and do your stuff.”
He was right. I mumbled a thanks and opened the door. A light dust of snowflakes tickled my nose. Scott crossed his arms in front of his chest and strode back to the door like he had a purpose. The cop wasn’t there.
Scott gave a little smile. “Must’ve gone to the can.”
“Yeah.” I nodded up at Serv, who raised an eyebrow. I knew that look. That was his hurry-the-fuck-up look.
“Sorry,” I mumbled and climbed up on stage. The juke faded out and the lights went down. I picked up my bass, realized I hadn’t even tuned it yet, and sped through a quick check. Somebody coughed in the audience. I gave the soundboard dude a thumbs-up. Inside, my mind was racing. The fact that a person recognized me was a bad omen, but we were here. All we could do was play.
The crowd stood silent as we ran through our usual introductions. It wasn’t like Pale Rider at all. These people didn’t know us. They didn’t care about us. Our work was cut out for us. I glanced down at my feet where the set list had been hastily scribbled on a ripped-out notebook page and duct-taped to the stage. First one up was Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name, and Serv and I leaned into our microphones to belt out the opening vocals.
The song appealed to the thirty and forty-somethings in the audience and, little by little, the crowd started singing along. Beer and booze ran freely as everyone relaxed, understanding we weren’t just another shitty cover band to ignore.
By the time we hit Alice in Chain’s Rooster, Serv was being drunkenly toasted by good ol’ boys holding up their bottles of Bud. The little motherfucker could sing, we knew it, and now everybody in Lobos had obviously caught on. I liked the jazzy bassline–it was a blast to play. Even Karla was back by the bar, nodding to the music. She shot me a big thumbs-up sign, and for the first time since I’d gone up there, I smiled. Beyond her, the cop at the door stood watching my every move. At our first available break, Serv sweet-talked the audience and told them where we were from, while I unstrapped my bass and reached for a bottle of water. I poured half of it over my head and shook my hair like a dog, which was a very musician thing to do, but it also served another purpose.
As a vampire, I didn’t sweat like Josh and Darrell. Neither did Serv. Since we wouldn’t get all hot and wet like the humans in our band, we’d devised another trick, and that was the pour a bottle of water over our heads thing. By doing that, we achieved fake sweat. Serv took the bottle from me and doused himself, as I strapped my bass on again, he screamed into the mic, and we started the second half of our set, coming back with Iron Maiden in The Number of the Beast, which the audience really loved. Serv took those songs and made them his own, and the rest of us in the band ran with it. Darrell went on Guitar Hero-worthy epic solo-tangents, while Serv stood back and made like he was looking at his watch. The effect was funny, and the audience erupted into laughter.
I wasn’t much of a singer, but even I had my moment with I’m the One, by Danzig, one of my favorite bands, well, among hundreds of others. Maybe that was what Scott was waiting for, because he caught my attention with a wave of his arm and gave me a smart salute before turning toward the exit. He hated getting caught in the stampede of exiting drunks, so it was no real surprise.
Also impatient to bail, I didn’t stick around and mingle with the crowd after the show. I stayed backstage and loaded the shit back into the van, expecting the cop to come nosing around after me, but he didn’t. Karla counted out our take backstage, detailing percentages, but again I wasn’t listening, preoccupied with what could have happened that night.
The close call with Vic’s son was just another lesson to remind me why I kept to myself. I counted my lucky stars nothing more had come out of that experience, and when Karla made an official offer of a permanent spot for Crooked Fang once a month there at Lobos, I declined.
“Can’t you even consider it, Xan?” Karla had a funny smile sometimes, the kind where I couldn’t tell exactly what she was getting at with her words.
“We’re contracted with Charlie. This was a one-time deal.” I avoided my bandmates’ eyes, knowing full well they were not happy with my decision, but even over Josh, I had final say in what Crooked Fang did, because Crooked Fang was my goddamned band. Serv stomped out without a word of rebuttal, and Darrell followed him, probably more concerned about the singer than disappointed in missed opportunities for minor fame.
I looked to Josh. “Do you have anything to say about this?”
Josh shook his head, but there was definitely an angry gleam in his eyes. “It’s your band, man. We’re just along for the ride, right?” He gave a sharp laugh, and walked out, leaving me and Karla alone.
She picked up the stack of money that would be the band’s pay and tapped me in the chest with it. “I wish there was a way I could change your mind. The crowd ate Crooked Fang up. It’d be good pay.”
I tensed my jaw and shook my head for what felt like the dozenth time.
She took my hand and laid our take in it, closing my fingers around the bills. “If you ever change your mind, call me. If one of you wants to fill in, call me.” She ducked her head, trying to catch my gaze with her own, and I finally shifted my line of sight to include her.
“If I change my mind, I will.”
She smiled. “Promise me.”
Her hands were warm around mine. I swallowed. “I promise.”
I wanted the band to understand why I couldn’t take her offer, but when I joined them back out at the van, Serv sat in my seat, almost daring me to object, and refused to look at or speak to me. Since Josh no longer needed a navigator, none of us really said anything, except for a clumsy request from Darrell to turn up the heater about halfway home. Lulled by the van’s repetitive squeaks and wobbles, I dozed off.
Crooked Fang Page 10
