Damaged

by Timothy W. Long

  “Yeah. Everything’s okay. Sorry, but I have to run.”

  “Band business?”

  “Yeah. Band business.”

  Giselle sat on the bed. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Not right now,” Michael said. Guess what. I made a deal with the devil and sometimes I have to do wicked shit. Now an asshole who used to burn down churches is onto Damaged’s background. I’ve done some bad stuff. Truly evil and I can’t figure a way out of this contract. Is that what you want to know?

  “Okay,” she said.

  He could hear the hurt in her voice. He took her in his arms and hugged her close. “Love you. I’ll call later.”

  “You don’t want to eat?”

  “Babe, I have to run,” he said and jammed his phone in his back pocket. “I’ll grab something on the road.”

  “Fast food?” she asked as she got to her feet. “You have to be careful. The diet.”

  “Yeah. The diet. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Fucking diet. He was about sick to death of healthy meals, low fat meat, and endless salads. He’d just about kill for a fucking porterhouse cooked bloody rare. Sadly, he’d probably have to settle for a burrito.

  Giselle made a half-hearted attempt at standing in the doorway. He grabbed her up and hugged her close, then slid her to the side.

  “You have to leave in the morning. Is this how you are saying goodbye?” Giselle asked.

  “It won’t be but a day or two. I’ll fly home on Saturday and we can talk more. It’s the band, baby. Things are not going well and I have to fix it,” Michael said and wished, not for the first time, that he could simply confide in her. Tell her the truth. Show her the document upstairs, make her understand he was a damned soul.

  That all of this, this life he’d created, wasn’t really his at all. It was all a bunch of bullshit. All of it. If the band failed, they were all doomed, and he would end up taking Giselle with him on a trip to Hell.

  “I love you, Michael.” She said.

  He nodded, kissed her, and then he was down the stairs and out the front door with barely a wave to their guests.

  The drive was going to be a long one so he connected his phone via bluetooth and realized he had missed a bunch of calls the night before. He hit a button and listened to Wex’s first voice mail.

  “Gotta do something, man. Gotta do it. Like the early days. Know what I mean? Gotta do it soon.”

  It was Wex’s voice, but he sounded odd like he was talking in slow motion. There was a dreamy aspect to it that made Michael feel like something horrible was about to happen.

  The next voice mail wasn’t any better.

  “Man, remember when we tag teamed that chick in Belize? Sunny held her down while we all took turns. We didn’t hold anything back that night. She went home a wreck. Fuck, dude. Those were the days. Payton could be like that for us. Fucking Payton. The yapping is driving me insane. Or it drove me insane. I don’t know what else to say about Mr. Fuckface. Call you back later. I need to take care of something.”

  Michael resisted the urge to call Michael and clicked onto the next voice mail. If nothing else, he didn’t want to know about Mr. Fuckface.

  “It wasn’t easy. Used to be easy. But it’s done. Little yapper. I taught him a lesson. Sure did, buddy. Taught him to shut his fucking yap. I should teach Payton a lesson next. Should make it real clear that she is not meeting my expectations. Wouldn’t you agree? What if Giselle wasn’t living up to your expectations? What would you do? Just like the old days. Right, buddy?”

  The last message trailed off. Michael turned up the volume on the car stereo because Michael hadn’t hung up the phone. Some kind of chanting came over the sound system, sounding like it was in a different language. Didn’t sound like Michael at all. It was more like a kid singing in a well.

  Michael picked his way around side streets until he found the exit to the freeway. Then he punched the gas and sat back as the Cadillac accelerated up the four lane road. Eventually the message ran out of steam or it just cut off. Michael couldn’t help but shiver.

  Michael chewed on what he’d heard as the car ripped up the road. He pushed it up to ninety when he could but, more often than not, had to stick to the speed limit thanks to Southern California’s shitty traffic. The car had an internal hard drive so he cycled through music until he found something he liked. His mood was dark and that called for some old school Anthrax.

  Damaged had partied with Anthrax a number of times and he had found Scott Ian, guitarist and head madman, to be a blast to hang with. They had lost track of each other over the years, but he considered calling his old friend. He wasn’t sure Scott would even talk to him. The two hadn’t chatted since one night, almost a decade ago, when they’d had a frank talk about the Satan stuff. Michael had played if off but Scott had not looked convinced. Since then they’d drifted apart.

  He jumped to an older Emperor disc and tried to get lost in black metal but his thoughts drifted to the Norwegian.

  Finally, he queued up an audiobook but he couldn’t even pay attention to the plot and just let the words carry him through the night.

  At more than one point, he even considered calling Wex. Letting him know that he was on the way.

  Instead, he fumbled through his pockets until he found the scrap of paper. He dug it out and peered at it in the darkness. He hit the overhead light and swerved as he drifted into the lane to the right. A big Land Rover blasted around him and honked its horn.

  Michael concentrated on the road for a few seconds before punching in the phone number. Screen tilted in the poor light, he touched it ten times, and then hit connect. The ringing came over the car’s speakers, interrupting the thriller he’d been trying to listen to.

  “I’m probably off doing evil things.” Then something was said in a language Michael didn’t understand.

  He hung up and once again concentrated on the road. Fucking Wex.

  It was nearly 12:00 AM when he arrived at Wex’s place. Set on a bluff and overlooking a residential section populated by the elite of LA and celebrities, Wex’s house had been on more than one television show. There had also been the occasional look inside the band segments, stuff for DVD releases. These were always well choreographed and showed the parts of the band that fans lived for. It didn’t ever show the fighting, the arguments over stupid shit like who got the biggest share of a song’s writing credit. They had gone back and forth for years over who got paid for the early stuff.

  Michael had a lot of distaste for it all. One of their lawyers had cut Karl, their first drummer who had died in a car crash, out of the credits with a token payment to Karl’s mother. She had been a wreck ever since her son had died and had been in and out of mental facilities.

  But that was a long time ago, and one thing that Michael had learned was that you couldn’t fix the past. If he could go back in time, he’d tell that asshole to stuff his contract right up his ass. They would have made it without the Devil’s help. He was sure of it.

  Wex’s Lamborghini was parked next to the entryway. A white overhang, supported by colonial styled gable and tapered columns, rose upward to meet a roof that supported arced musical notes. They were engraved in black and looked gaudy as hell to Michael’s eyes. Of course, when Wex had purchased the home, Michael hadn’t been with Giselle. Her eye for trends and fashionable decorations had taught him a great deal. Little did his fan base know he lived in a home that would have pleased a Saudi prince.

  The other thing fans never would have guessed, was that the back of the large musical notes were elaborately etched with cruciform symbols. Their meaning was unknown, but it was something they all had to use, replicate, and place at their own entryways. His were behind a false wall but they were still there. Trying to cheat the Devil was an exercise in futility.

  Michael pulled up to the gate and rolled down his window. He stared at the little dial pad for a few seconds before pressing a button.

  No one answered.<
br />
  Michael knew the code to the door. All of the band members did, but he hesitated to punch it in.

  He pushed the button again, longer this time.

  “What?” It was Wex, and he sounded pissed.

  “We need to talk,” Michael said.

  “The fuck you doing here?”

  “I just told you.”

  “I got a problem, man. It’s not a good time.”

  “We’re all about to have a big fucking problem, Wex. Someone knows about us. About the deal.”

  “The hell we care about some loony asshole? Let him talk out of his ass,” Wex said.

  Michael shook his head. Wex was doing what he did best. Being Wex.

  “It’s not that easy. Jesus, Wex, just let me in. I wouldn’t be here if this was bullshit.”

  Wex went silent.

  “Fine. I’ll just fuck off back to my house. See you tomorrow, Wex.”

  The gate opened with a loud rumble, trundling to the side.

  Michael parked behind the Lamborghini and approached the door. Wex didn’t greet him so he walked inside.

  The house smelled…off. Like copper or something. A smell Michael was all too familiar with.

  “In here,” Wex called.

  Michael rounded the hallway and walked into the kitchen to find Wex kneeling over a body.

  “The fuck?”

  “Yeah, man. Sad shit. But the good news is, I found us an out.” Wex grinned at his old friend.

  Michael recoiled when his friend looked up at him. Wex’s face and arms were covered in blood, like he’d used his hands to paint it on.

  “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “An out, man. I did it. Just rub some of her blood on you and we’ve met the letter to a T,” Wex said.

  “This won’t do it, Wex. It has to be a band thing and you know it. We all have to be there,” Michael said.

  “Dude, that’s the beautiful thing. Sunny and Seth will be here in a few hours. We can all take some of her blood.”

  The body was fresh. Sadly, Michael was used to seeing dead stuff. Over the course of nearly thirty years in Damaged, he’d been required to participate in enough weird rituals to leave more than one animal corpse and it haunted his dreams. Not that they had actually killed a person during a ritual. That hadn’t been a requirement until now. Wex was crazy if he thought this was going to get them out of the deal.

  “What happened?” Michael asked, trying to keep his voice level. He wanted to scream at Wex, kick his ass, pound his face into the ground. A fucking body in Wex’s house could mean the end of Damaged and, once the deal was broken, they were all fucked, nothing protecting them anymore.

  “She went too far,” Wex said. “But it actually works out, man.”

  “This isn’t going to fucking work!” Michael said in exasperation.

  “The Devil ain’t here. He can’t see everything we do. Just do it, Michael. For fuck’s sake.”

  “This isn’t how any of this works. How did you do it?”

  “My hands and feet. Christ, Michael. This is nothing. We can cover this up. Just get that blood on you, man. Get enough to coat your arms and face.”

  “We? WE! Now I’m involved? I should leave right now and swear up and down I was never here.”

  “Well aren’t you a saint, especially considering what the fuck we’ve got planned already,” Wex got in Michaels face. “Show up out of the blue and all you can do is think about alibis. After all the stuff we’ve done to keep this band alive? Not us - me! It always falls to me to do the dirty work. Like that kid in Columbia. You couldn’t even finish the deed, and I had to.”

  Michael staggered as if he’d been struck. The kid. That was one thing he wished he could have bleached from his mind. It was one thing to sacrifice stuff, it was another when it came to how that kid had been used. It hadn’t been anything sexual but he would bear those scars for the rest of his life, assuming he was still alive.

  “Fuck you, Patrick.” Michael said, knowing full well how much Wex hated being called by his first name.

  “Fuck you back, Michael.” Wex said but grinned nonetheless. “Just like old times.”

  “This ain’t nothing like old times,” Michael said. “This isn’t anything like what we’ve done in the past. This is murder plain and simple. You can go to jail for a very long time for this, Wex. Not only that, but thanks to our deal, you probably won’t even make it to the big house. All you’ll find yourself in is a swirling lake of fire.”

  “We won’t go to jail. It was in the letter so we’re protected,” Wex argued.

  Michael hated Wex in that moment, more than he had ever hated his friend in his entire life. Wex was trying to manipulate him, remind him that they had known each other for so long, that this should be okay. This murder. The poor woman didn’t deserve to die like this, not at all for that matter, and especially not at the hands of Wex.

  “That Hell stuff is bullshit and you know it. We’re not going to Hell. We’re going to live forever,” Wex said.

  Michael laughed in Wex’s face as he backed away. He was so angry he was afraid he was going to deck his old friend. Then one of them would probably end up on the floor next to the young lady. But laugh he did. He couldn’t help it. Wex was just as delusional as ever.

  “I should go,” Michael said.

  “Not until you help me. Besides, Sunny and Seth will be here in the morning. We have to head to the studio. And what’s this about some Norwegian jerk-off?”

  “I know full well we have to work on the album,” Michael brushed hair off his forehead. “Full fucking well. Why do you think so much crazy shit is happening? Don’t get me started on Nils. Not right now. The more I think about it, we need to discuss it as a band. We have to.”

  “What crazy shit?”

  “Come on, Wex. Think about it.”

  Wex shrugged.

  “This isn’t you. What triggered it?”

  “Her dog, Mr. Fuckface. We found him in the garbage disposal?”

  “What!”

  “She went nuts.”

  “How in the hell did the dog end up in the garbage disposal?”

  “That’s a long story,” Wex said. His eyes clenched and he shook his head.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. We haven’t done shit in three years. We haven’t toured, other than those couple of one-off shows, haven’t put out a new album. Now your dog ends up in the garbage disposal, and this girl ends up dead. Don’t you get it?”

  Wex shrugged again.

  “The devil wants his due. He wants us spreading the word. That’s how he works. It’s not about our fame and fortune, it’s about his.”

  “You’re a genius, Michael. Hadn’t thought of that,” Wex shot Michael his best “Duh” look. “Of course he wants his due. But we got this, buddy. We got this and then some. You know what it’s like when we get together. Riffs flow, lyrics happen, music comes together. Not just any old music either. We write hits.”

  “Yeah. We write hits. We also argue. A lot. We argue so much sometimes it takes months to get a single song done. Can we really keep doing this for another decade or two? What happens after that? We go on stage looking like the undead Rolling Stones, singing songs about the Devil?”

  “Man. It’s going to be different this time. Just help me with the body, we’ll meet the band in the morning, they can get their blood on and all will be good. I promise you, buddy.” Wex said.

  Michael gritted his teeth and contemplated murder. What would happen if he stabbed Wex right here? Would the deal be broken? Would he even miss his old friend?

  “I’m not your buddy and you’re an asshole,” Michael said.

  “Yeah. But I’m the asshole you love,” Wex straightened up and extended his hands to the side and cocked his head in a Jesus Christ pose.

  18

  Finger Paintings of the Insane

  Seth

  For the fifth time, Seth wheeled the Mercury through the tight alley, h
is hands sweaty on the steering wheel.

  “Holy fuck! I don’t remember it being this hard to score. Where the hell are all the drug dealers. This is still LA, right?”

  Sunny grunted in the passenger seat, her skin pale and eyes sunken. Sweat glistened along her neck and cleavage. “This is why I hire people.”

  Seth nodded and kept rolling. So far they’d had a dozen gangbangers throwing signs and threatening them, been followed by two police cars for blocks, had one kid throw his sandwich at them—the goddamned pickles still sticking to the windshield—and even had one guy pull a fucking gun on them as they searched for a good dope spot where Sunny could score her shit. If she hadn’t been so insistent, Seth would have given up a long time ago. Besides, he needed to play the role of supportive whatever-the-fuck-he-was-supposed-to-be.

  She’d been bouncing in the seat the entire time, damn near losing her mind. And Seth loved every minute of it. Still, they’d been driving, out of their way for hours, and Set was ready to call it quits no matter how bad she needed her fix. At this rate, they wouldn’t be at Wex’s until tomorrow morning. The afternoon sun was already creeping toward its death and they had yet to find a single fucking person willing to sell them drugs.

  “Fuck you, Reagan, and your bullshit war on drugs,” Seth muttered as they drove along the alley, dodging trash cans and broken bottles.

  “There!” Sunny shouted, finger pointing. “Ask that guy.”

  Seth hit the brakes and followed her hungry stare. There, down a side alley, was a homeless man digging through a cluster of metal trash cans. Long, greasy black hair hung to his waist over layers of stained jackets, puffing the guy up to twice his size, easily. He wore a pair of basketball shorts over a pair of crusted jeans that looked too stiff to walk in, the bottoms frayed into tatters. To round the ensemble off, he was barefooted, his skin nearly as dark as the asphalt he puttered over during his trash dive.

  “Seriously?”

  “If that motherfucker doesn’t know where to find drugs, no one does.”