Get Bent (Hard Rock Roots)

by C. M. Stunich

  I spin to glare at him and get up in his face, pressing the toes of my boots to his. He doesn't expect it, so he doesn't step back, just stands there and let's me get in close.

  “We will demand their respect, and we'll have it. They'll either give it or they'll leave. I won't accept anything else. If you bow out now, you give in. You might be prepared to do that, but I'm not.”

  Rook drops the microphone from his mouth and pauses like he isn't sure what to do. The people in here have lost their Goddamn minds. Music isn't what they came here for; drama is. I don't do fucking drama.

  Without waiting for a response from Dax, I storm across the stage in blood crusted boots, pausing in the center, waiting in the spotlight like I was fucking born for this. Rook gives up the mic without a fight.

  “Hey.” One word from me shuts the whole place up, just the way it should be. I've always been in charge, ever since I left home. My life didn't give me any other options. It was either take control or be controlled. Not much of a fucking choice. And this is my tour, and it's my friggin' heart that's bleeding and my love that's lost at sea. The crowd gapes up at me with open mouths and cell phones flashing, taking pictures, recording video. Good for them. I want them to write this shit down in the history books, mark this moment as a landmark in life. If I get my way, they will remember this shit forever. Whether it's my dirty, sweaty clothes, or my sunken cheeks or my trembling hands, I don't know, but I get no backlash, just stunned silence when I speak my next words. “Shut the fuck up. We're not here to entertain you. We're here to destroy your souls and put you back together. We're here to make you remember why it's so damn good to be alive. We're here to remind you that all of the drama and the bullshit isn't worth it. So, you're gonna shut your mouths and you're going to listen, and if you don't like me saying that you can leave. And if you do stay, when you walk out that damn door later, you're going to stop gossiping and you're going to think real hard about what it is you want in life, and then you're going to take steps to fucking get it.” I pause and wet my lips while equipment is shifted around me, while the members of Amatory Riot sneak out from backstage, crawl across the dirty wood floor and stand with their heads down and their hearts pounding. “I fell in love with a girl last week. I didn't expect it, didn't even know what was happening to me until it was too late. Now that there's a chance I've lost her, I know I'd do anything to get her back.” My hand falls to the guitar, and my mind scrambles to remember her rhythm, her music, the rise and fall of her voice. It's been awhile since I've played, but I will be damned if I screw this up.

  From behind me, Dax starts a beat on his drums while that skinny druggy dude sneaks in from my right and blindsides the shit out of me by taking control of the lead guitar position, leaving me to play rhythm. It only takes me a second to get into the music and once it's got control, that little demon fucker screws with me hardcore and doesn't let go, sinking its teeth into my hands and sliding its tongue down my throat.

  The crowd swells and breaks up into pieces before crashing together into a new whole, eliminating the us and them, becoming a single entity, one shining face shouting its joy and pain to the world, knowing that it's safe to spill secrets, that they'll get caught up in the strands of our music. Tangled webs are weaved as we unravel those motherfuckers, unleashing our fury into them and watching it get smashed back tenfold.

  At first, my voice is low and weak, like I'm coming out of a Goddamn coma or something. That isn't fucking me, has never been me. If I let love make me weak, then I wouldn't be Turner fucking Campbell.

  “Unwitting cruelty bathed in beauty sings to me, brings me down, and lifts me back up. Takes me high, soars above, and all the while I'm falling. I am falling. Falling. Falling so far that I move right through you, and you don't, you refuse, to see me.”

  I get somewhere inside that maybe Naomi was singing about me. I think a lot of her songs are about me, but maybe I'm just an arrogant little bitch. There's that, too. But I like to think they're about me. All of mine are about her, whether I knew that or not. I wish I could tell her. I wish I'd done a better job of breaking my feelings to her. Jesus, I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this. It wasn't the blood or the ambulances or the unknown. I miss the shit out of that girl.

  “When you tried to catch me, it was all a lie. When you tried to soothe me, you only made me cry. Because I'm falling. Falling. So far into you. And I'm bleeding. Bleeding. Because you cut me through. My heart is sore.”

  My eyes scan the crowd and catch on smiles, tears, frowns. I pass right over all of them, trying to remember what it was like to have her onstage next to me. It might've been only days ago, but the rift between then and now is so wide that it makes it seem like years. I feel my body responding to the thoughts, the memories, and I end up with the most inappropriate, raging, fucking hard-on. But I won't apologize for it. It's just my dick reacting to what my heart already knows.

  The crowd loves the shit out of me for it.

  “And I can't go on.”

  And then as I'm scanning, as I'm pretending this call and response thing isn't happening between me and that chick with the dual colored hair, that it's Naomi that's answering me, I see the barefoot girl.

  “My life.”

  She's standing in the back, the only still person in the venue, the only one whose body isn't throbbing with the music. She hasn't lost herself in the crowd. She's still a single person, and she's looking right fucking at me. The Devil himself would cry if that girl stared at him the way she's staring at me. I almost choke on my next words. My fingers fumble a bit, but I pick it up. If anything, I'm a Goddamn perfectionist at heart. I can't fail at this. I won't.

  “It's all come undone. I can't get air.”

  I feel like the girl's trying to grab me with her gaze, trying to warn me with those crazy blue eyes that swim like the sea. I want to stop playing right then and there, call her out, have the crowd bring her to me, throw her at my feet, so I can shake the shit out of her. She knows things. What, I'm not sure, but Naomi told me about her, warned me actually. What if she's the one responsible?

  “And I no longer fly.”

  I keep playing, knowing that she'll be gone before I can get to her, and I try to learn everything I can from her face, from the way her hand clutches her stupid, plastic purse, the way her lips part and her face fills with fear. I see her mouthing words, and I think she's trying to tell me something. Then I realize, that's not it at all. She's singing the lyrics, the response bits, the ones Naomi would've done if she'd been onstage with that anorexic bitch, Haley or whatever the fuck her name is.

  “Because I'm falling. Falling. Falling into you.”

  When she saw the carnage on the bus, she said she was too late. That he got there first. Who the fuck is he? What the fuck is going on? The girl starts to move back, white dress dirty and torn, melding into the shadows, taking her answers with her. In my grief, I had forgotten about her and now, here she is, three hundred miles away from the last place I saw her.

  I belt out the last lines of the song like a plea, like I'm praying for her to stay, to answer my questions, but if she hears me, she doesn't cut me any slack.

  “And then I know it's the end and even my descent is done.”

  The last thing I see before she goes are her lips, mouthing the words like a curse.

  “I hit the ground and I'm gone. I hit the ground and we're done. Forever.”

  For some reason, I think I hear an angel singing, strumming the beat of my fluttering pulse with words that are my own, penned in a dirty, spiral notebook, born of the pain that kissed my spirit a lifetime ago. I accept that this is my end and relax into the rhythmic cadence of his beautiful breath.

  After the set, Trey brings a couple of girls back to the bus just to piss me off, practically forcing a little blonde onto my lap.

  “Give her some of your coke, Turner,” he says as he wraps himself around a brunette and smiles across the table at me. What he doesn't fucking get is tha
t I'm not playing anymore. I don't want this girl or any other. I just want Naomi Knox back. If that can't happen, fuck if I know what I'm going to do. I just sit there for awhile and watch him make an ass out himself. I shot up again in the bathroom, but I don't feel any better, not really. The emotional charge I got from being onstage has totally fucked with my head, and I can't seem to snap out of it. I feel like a zombie, marching along to the beat of a necromancer's drum. I'm moving, but I'm not in control. I'm functioning, but I'm not living, not anymore. “Come on, what's your fucking problem?” Trey asks as the girl runs her fingers through my hair. I let her, but only because I'm an emotional wreck right now. I'm not thinking of her or the words she's whispering into my ear or the way Trey's acting like a damn fucking fool. I'm thinking of the girl with the bare feet and the buzz cut. I looked for her. Oh, you can bet your sweet ass I looked all over the damn place. But I knew I wasn't going to find her.

  I let out a sigh that the blonde mistakes for a come on. Her hand reaches down between my legs and strokes over the bulge of my crotch. I clamp my hand down on her wrist hard, maybe too hard and she lets out a yelp.

  “Don't.” Just that one word, stiff as steel. I push the girl off and rise to my feet. “I'm not in the fucking mood right now.” I pull a cigarette out of my pocket and light up while the woman starts to screech obscenities from behind me. She even throws a tube of lipstick at the back of my neck.

  “Turner, get your ass back here!” Trey shouts as I kick open the screen door and move down the steps, slamming my head against the side of the bus and sliding down to the rocky pavement. I was not expecting love, but I was more than willing to embrace the shit out of it. This whole wallowing in the depths of despair crap? Not so much.

  “You alright?” I don't have to look up to know that the voice above me belongs to Ronnie. There aren't many people on this earth who can make the gods cry with a simple question like that.

  “Do I look alright, Ronnie?” I snap, pressing the back of my hand to my forehead and letting the ash from my cigarette fall onto my jeans. I think about tossing Asuka's name out there, just so he'll freak out and I won't have to be alone in my misery, but even as trashed as I am, I know better than that. There are certain lines that even I'm not willing to cross. I glance up at him as he pushes the screen door closed on Trey's rant and presses his hands flat against it.

  “Don't hold this against Treyjan, Turner. He doesn't know any better. He just wants you to be happy is all.”

  I sigh deep and drop my wrist to the ground, letting the burn of my cherry fizzle out against the cement. My other knee comes up, and I drop my head to the rough, dirty denim of my pants, the ones that have dried, black blood splatters around the ankles.

  “He's a fucking tool,” I tell Ronnie, and he laughs, moving up close to me, smelling like pot and allspice. I remember the day that Asuka died, the stricken look on Ronnie's face, the way his lips went white and the color drained from his face. My memory of those first few weeks after her death is a little shady, clouded with a lot of horrible all-nighters – girls, booze, drugs – but I'm pretty sure he didn't change his shirt for a month. He'll get it, at least. He'll offer me a joint and stand by my side, and he won't try to push some groupies on me or make me pretend that nothing's wrong.

  “He is, yeah, but that's why we like hanging out with him, right? Makes us feel better about ourselves.” I get that it's a joke, but I don't laugh. I feel drained. Even with the dope, I don't feel like such a big shot anymore. I feel small. Miniscule. Sitting here like this, I'm aware of how little I mean to the world, how unimportant I really am. I might have fans, a following of people who like my music, but so what? If I've made any mark on this world, it isn't a positive one. A stain, maybe. Like, look at Naomi. I left her a fucking wreck, used her and tossed her aside like I do everything and everyone else. Maybe in my quest to be respected, I forget to give it back? Maybe I've become the one thing I've never wanted to be?

  “I want to believe that she's not dead, Ronnie.”

  “There's a chance,” he tells me honestly, scooting closer, feet kicking aside loose pebbles as he adjusts himself and leans back against the bus. Inside, I can hear Trey's false laughter, loud and raucous, full of forced cheer. I don't know what he wants from me, but this shit isn't helping. If anything, it's highlighting exactly how screwed up it is that I am.

  “But nobody believes that except for me.” I sink deeper into myself, wrapping my arms around my legs, halting my breathing so that it comes out slow and controlled. Inside though, inside my heart is pounding and slamming against my ribcage and my pulse is racing. My hands shake and my jaw is trembling with adrenaline.

  I hear Ronnie exhaling long before he speaks. When he does, I can tell he feels bad for me, that he understands what I'm going through, that he's desperate for me to be right. He wants Naomi to be alive, so I don't have to go through the shit he went through. All of that self-loathing crap, those moments of pure terror when he'd wake up screaming her name. Asuka. I think the worst though was the silence that followed the screaming, the frozen slice of hell that Ronnie would sit in, eyes glazed over, sweat pouring down his face. I always knew he was remembering that she was dead, clawing his way out of nightmares and into something much, much worse. Harsh ass fucking reality.

  “Does it matter then? Why not hope? Why not hope like hell until the truth comes out? If it turns out you were wrong, get depressed then. But don't get bent out of shape yet. You can always kill yourself later, right?” Ronnie pulls a joint from his pocket and lights up with a silver lighter, casting an orange glow over his stubbled face. The crackling end of the joint makes the snake tattoos on his neck look like they're writhing, constricting around his neck and choking the life out of him. Sometimes, I think he'd like that, to die without having to make a conscious decision about it. Suicide's hard. It takes a lot of courage, and Ronnie and I both know that he's a damn pussy.

  I reach my hand up for the joint, and he passes it over.

  I'm about to take my first hit when Dax comes over and pauses a couple feet away, hands tucked into the pockets of his black jeans.

  “Hey,” he says and then looks over at Ronnie like he isn't sure he wants to talk around him. Ronnie's my fucking boy though, and there's no way in shit I'm telling him off. Either Dax says what he needs to say around him or he doesn't say anything at all. I don't want to be left alone right now. I need Ronnie here, gay as that might sound. I take my hit and hold the joint up for Dax. He ignores it. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Listening,” I say, leaning my head back against the bus and breathing in the sweet scent of sweat, smoke, and alcohol. Oh yeah, the party is on tonight. The crowd is whipped up into a riotous frenzy, screaming outside the front entrance, tossing shit over the gate. The press isn't helping much either, reporting on rumors and spreading them like forest fire. If I were to go searching for the little bald bitch now, I'd get torn to shreds by my own fans. They would freaking trample me to shit. I take another hit and hand the joint to Ronnie.

  Before Dax gets a chance to speak, Jesse moves up between us in his red skinny jeans and baggy tank, wearing a bunch of stupid, rubber bracelets on his arm, you know the ones they give out for fundraising and whatever.

  “Check this shit out,” he says, flashing me his wrist and the white writing that adorns all eight of the bracelets he's squeezed onto his skinny arm. They all say the same damn thing: Mrs. Turner Campbell. Huh. “They're passing these out by the dozen.”

  “Who is?” I ask, lifting up my shades and looking closer. Jesse shrugs and withdraws his arm, casting a curious glance over at Dax.

  “Dunno. Chicks in a blue van? Looks like you're even more popular now. Nice job, Turner.” He picks at the bracelets again and pauses, biting at the black stud in the center of his lip. Jesse doesn't know what to do with me now. Every other thing he says to me is punctuated with an I'm sorry or some shit. Doesn't make me feel any better. All his awkwardness does is make me wor
se. It's a constant reminder that things are not right, that they might not be right for me ever. Naomi Knox had this … this something inside her that made me think of puppies and kitty cats. I want to kiss her face off and make babies with her, and she is the only damn woman on this earth that I would give the title of Mrs. Turner Campbell to. Fuck the rest of them groupies.

  “Well, glad you're interested in the position, but I don't do dick. Thanks.” The joint makes its way back to me, and I take a hit. “And tell the rest of the crew that anybody I see wearing those damn bracelets is getting fired.”

  “Can I please talk to you seriously for a moment?” Dax growls, sounding pissed. I glance over at him and wish that the drugs did it for me like they used to. Guess the pain of losing the only spark I've ever had lit in me sort of diminished that. Now, they take the edge off, but that's about it. I think about getting up and snatching the bottle of vodka from the cabinet. Maybe if I mix a few choice substances, I'll pass out? Seems better than the alternative.

  “I'll see you inside,” Jesse says, getting the hint. I notice he doesn't take the bracelets off as he goes. A few seconds later, Josh slides by, but he doesn't say anything. Good. He's starting to learn his lesson and stay the hell out of my way. Ronnie thinks we should get along better, but I just don't have the energy to try right now. Maybe when Naomi comes back, I'll give it a go? If she comes back.

  “What do you want, Dax? Kinda busy right now, okay?” Dax wrinkles up the left side of his face for a moment and then grabs control of himself, sucking in a deep breath and shaking out his hands. He's wearing fingerless red gloves with black stitching today. I think they're made of leather, but who the fuck knows?

  “The band and I have been talking,” he pauses and looks over his shoulder like he expects Naomi or Skinny Bitch to pop out of the crowd of roadies at any moment. “And we'd like it if you took over, at least until Hayden comes back. I mean, if she comes back. If not, then until we find somebody new.” He doesn't have to ask twice.