“Stupid fuckers,” he’d grunted, but they’d ignored him, too infatuated with the patter of their own voices to be bothered by the world.
The last song had been more amazing than all the rest together.
Afterwards, he’d slipped unnoticed into the sour hall behind the stage that led back to the dressing room, the ten-by-four closet where a thousand bands had sweated and smoked and scribbled cryptic messages to each other on the swimming-pool blue walls. Had brushed at his crazy hair with his hands and tried to rub the cloudiness from his eyes. They’d all been there, packed in tight with their instruments and BO, the singer sitting on the floor, putting Band-Aids the phony color of mannequin flesh on her fingers. He’d still been trying to think of something to say, when she’d looked up and seen him, and her eyes had gone big and her mouth had dropped open a little ways.
“Hi,” he’d said, one clumsy word.
“Hi,” she’d said, that voice so much different when she spoke, but still the same voice. “You’re Keith Barry, aren’t you? You used to play with Stiff Kitten.”
“Uh, yeah…”
“Wow,” the Sonic Youth boy said, springing up from a rusty folding chair, hand out like a karate chop. “You guys were fucking killer, man.”
“Uh, yeah, thanks…” and Keith wanted to be somewhere else, out front sipping his charity beer, looking at the empty place where she’d stood on the stage.
“Whatever happened to that chick that sang for you guys, man? God, she was cool.”
“A train ran over her,” Keith said, no emotion left in the words, and the boy’s camera grin had drooped and faded away, the offered hand hanging uncertain between them. The girl on the floor frowned up at him, and he’d sat back down on the scabby chair.
“Can I, uh, can I talk to you?” Keith had asked her then, pointing at the girl with one hand and pulling nervously at the collar of his shirt with the other.
“Sure,” she’d said, getting up, the final Band-Aid wrapped around her right index finger.
And then they’d been walking back down the hall, had paused at the steps that led up to the stage, the way back, and she’d leaned against the wall, thumbs hooked into the pockets of her jeans.
“I’m sorry about Sherman,” she said and looked back the way they’d come. “He isn’t a dork on purpose, not usually.”
“No problem,” he’d said, and then, “Do you guys have a name?”
“You got a cigarette?” she asked, and he’d fumbled at his pockets, but had come back with nothing but an empty pack and a few dry crumbs of tobacco.
“Thanks anyway. Ecstatic Wreck, but that’s just until we think of something better.”
“That’s a pretty cool name,” and he was trying not to show the jitters, the way his hands shook and the cold sweat, wishing his fucking junk-starved body would let him be for five lousy minutes.
“I played with some other guys for a while, but they joined the army,” she said. “Tonight was our first show.”
“Well,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you you’re goddamn good. Better than that.”
“Thanks,” she said, embarrassed, he could tell. “That means a lot.”
“You want to maybe get a beer or go for a walk or something?”
She’d shaken her head, and his stomach had begun to roll again. “Sorry. That’d be cool, but I have plans already.”
“Maybe another time, then,” he’d said.
“Definitely.”
They’d shaken hands, his damp and hers so dry, and she’d started back towards the dressing room. He was up the first two steps, two to go, hoping he’d make the toilet before he puked the beer back up, when he stopped and called after her.
“Oh, hey, what’s your name?” and she’d said, “Daria Parker,” without even turning around.
It had been two weeks before Ecstatic Wreck played again, another Wednesday night at the Cave, and this time he’d fixed and worn a cleaner shirt, and he’d dragged Mort along with him. There had been more people, word of mouth and he’d seen some flyers stapled up around town, pink paper and black letters. They’d sat in the same booth, because the best sound was way back there, and this time Mort had bought him cold long-necked bottles of Old Milwaukee.
The same songs in a different order, and between every one Keith had reached across the table and poked Mort in the shoulder.
“What did I tell you, man? What the hell did I tell you?” and Mort had nodded his head.
“I know what you’re thinking, Keith.”
“What? What the hell am I thinking, then?”
“Your guitar’s still in hock, man, and don’t tell me it ain’t, ’cause I saw it this morning hanging in the window at Liggotti’s.”
Keith had taken another hit off his beer and watched the stage while she adjusted the strap on her bass.
“She’s already got a band,” Mort said. “And they’re too good for you to go bustin’ up.”
“She’s good,” Keith said. “They’re just there because she wants them there.”
“Shit, for all I know you’re just horny.”
“Man, I haven’t been horny in a month of Sundays,” Keith had said, knowing there was so much more truth in that statement than his admission of a junky’s impotence. Daria had played her black Fender like hot midnight, her voice a chorus of hoarse and growling angels, and Keith’s hands had felt empty, lonely for his strings, for the first time since Sarah’s funeral.
“I’d be a shit,” she’d said, “if I just walked out on them like that.”
Keith frowned, sighed and slumped back into the booth. Mort was busy shredding a napkin.
They’d been talking for an hour, talking in tight little circles, figure eights, Möbius-strip conversations, and Mort was almost no help at all. Keith knew that he wanted it just as much, wanted to play again, to plug himself into Daria Parker’s wild energy.
“They’re not the ones you should be worrying about,” he said and lit another cigarette.
“They’re my friends….”
“Sure, they’re your friends. But you know that they’re nowhere near as good as you are, right? You’ve admitted that much already.”
And then Daria Parker had looked at him, had nailed him to that moment and the back of the booth with her green eyes like flawed emeralds, and she’d said, “Yeah, I said that. But I also know that your arm’s got a habit.”
“Whoopee-shit,” he’d said, feeling the old anger start to rise, not wanting to see its face. “I guess that makes you Sherlock-fucking-Holmes.”
“That sort of thing doesn’t stay secret in a town like this. All I’m sayin’ is, I want to know if it’s something you got a handle on, or if it’s got you. You’re asking me to ditch some really good guys. I think I have a right to ask.”
“You some kinda saint?” And Keith knew how close he was to blowing it, blowing it like a cheap hustler, but the words were too close to the surface to push back down. “I had a lot of nasty shit the last few months…”
“Just answer her, Keith,” and that was only the half of what Mort was saying; the rest was there in his face, coiled like twine and baling wire.
Keith took a long drag off his Lucky and let the smoke out slowly through his nostrils; the haze made it easier for him to match her cut-glass scrutiny. Blink, fucker, and she’s got your number.
“Yeah,” he’d said, cool and calm as well water. “It’s under control, okay? I just need to get back to work. It’s not a problem.”
And she’d nodded, a slow and wary nod, and finished her beer.
“I’m gonna think about this for a couple of days,” and the beer bottle had thunked back down onto the table in front of her, glass the color of honey from wildflowers and amber beads of sweat.
“Hey, that’s fair. I’m not asking you to make a decision right this minute.”
“I just gotta think about it, that’s all.”
“You got my number at the shop,” Mort had said and offered her his h
and as she slipped out of the booth. “Thanks, Daria,” he said when she shook it.
“You won’t be sorry,” Keith said, as if the deal was as good as done, adding the smoldering butt of his cigarette to the overflowing ashtray.
“We’ll see,” she’d said, quick half smile, and walked away into the night outside the Cave.
Mort caught up with him three days later, found him in front of Liggotti’s Pawn and Fine Jewelry, staring in at his guitar like a child looking in at candy he’ll never taste or toys he’ll never have the chance to break.
“She said yes,” and Keith had put one hand against the storefront glass, leaning closer. “She called me this afternoon and said yes. Just give her a few days to break the news to her band. They have a gig next Wednesday, and she doesn’t want to leave them hanging.”
“I knew she’d say yes,” Keith whispered, smiling, feeling something warm spreading through his soul that wasn’t junk, and he’d said, “So, you gonna lend me the money to get her out of there?”
He’d waited almost a minute for Mort’s reply, sixty seconds full of traffic and dry wind between buildings.
“No, man. I’m just gonna let you get up there and play with dick.”
Keith had grinned and stepped back, away from the window filled with musical instruments and typewriters and portable televisions, all indentured for a few bucks and a yellow hock slip. He’d been standing watch over the Gibson for days, had been threatened with the cops twice by old man Liggotti and the Korean woman who worked for him, threats of jail if he didn’t stop standing around staring through their window all day.
“I’ll have to go by the ATM machine first,” Mort said, and Keith had lingered only a moment longer before following him across the street to the white van.
4.
Sometime after ten, the van bumped across a railroad (another railroad, this city seemed shot through with them like varicose veins) and left the road, rocking over uneven ground, gravel and bigger rocks, then rolled to a stop a few feet away from what looked to Niki like it might once have been a loading ramp for the empty factories and warehouses. Her ass ached, and the small of her back, too, the place she imagined her kidneys to be, and she had to piss.
The platform was dark, too far from the streetlights, nothing but a dull red glow from a barrel and that surrounded by shivering men in ragged clothes, freezing scarecrows or tramps.
“That goddamn son of a bitch,” Daria said, relief and furious anger, and she slammed her fist hard against the sun-cracked vinyl dashboard, then jumped out of the van, and Niki could hear her Docs crunching toward the platform.
No one bothered letting Niki out this time; Mort swore and killed the engine, got out and followed Daria. So Niki was left alone to wrestle with the stubborn handle of the sliding door. By the time she caught up with them, Daria had climbed up onto the platform, hands on her sturdy hips, leaning down to yell at someone sitting on the concrete edge. It had to be Keith, guitar across his lap like a disobedient child, not dressed for the weather, and she could tell he’d be a tall man when he stood. It was too dark to see his face, and he was looking down besides, past his dangling legs at the ground where broken-bottle glass glittered faintly.
Mort stood a few feet away from her, helpless watcher.
“Do you have any fucking idea where all we’ve been out looking for your ass tonight?” Daria hissed, and then she kicked an empty beer can; the can flew high, end over tumbling end like a football or grenade, and clattered to the ground somewhere out in the darkness.
The figure did not move, did not shift its wide shoulders or tilt its head toward its accuser.
“Why the hell d’you do that?” he asked. “I’ve been right here all evening. Mort knows to look for me here.”
“Christ!” the swear spit like cracker-dry crumbs, and Daria turned, paced to the other side of the platform and stood staring out across the tracks. The bums watched from the safety of their barrel fire.
“I got a phone call that you’d been in a fight,” she said. “That somebody had cut your guts out over a bad deal.”
He shrugged and shook his head.
“Who said a damn fool thing like that?” he murmured, so low his bear’s voice was almost lost in the wind.
“What the hell difference does that make?”
“Because some people will say anything, Dar. You gotta know who to believe and who’s just full of shit.”
Muffled laughter from the glowing ring of bums and junkies, and one of them said, “That’s some fine white-bitch ass, all right, Mr. Barry. Yessiree…”
“L.J., why don’t you just shut the hell up,” Keith said, but Daria had already turned on them, had taken a step toward the huddled circle of orange-brown faces and warming palms; Niki felt Mort tense in the dark beside her.
“Man,” Keith sighed. “You’re only gonna piss her off more than she already is.”
“I ain’t tryin’ to disrespect your lady,” said the man with arms like twigs and a face like a hungry weasel, all guilty innocence. “I’m just payin’ her some due, that’s all.”
“Shut up, L.J.,” another of the men growled.
“You just gotta be properly respectful of fine white pussy like that, that all I’m sayin’. That’s all I’m sayin’.”
Niki took a step closer to Mort, felt her hand on his arm before she knew she’d put it there.
A howl like metal past fatigue, the point where stress becomes shear, and Daria rushed the men, moved howling her steel gash howl across the platform, and most of them had time to jump out of the way before she reached the barrel. Except for the one they had called L.J., who stood like a shabby rabbit in blinding headlights.
Daria kicked high and her right boot connected with the rim of the barrel; it lifted a little ways off the concrete, short flight before gravity took it back and it tipped over, spraying embers and ash, showering the paralyzed L.J. in the sizzling rain, dumping its little inferno at his feet.
“FUCK OFF!” she screamed, vague word shapes pounded from the howl, and L.J. dove off the side of the platform, yelping and cursing, stomping his feet and slapping madly at his clothes. Some of the other men moved in cautiously to help put him out.
And from the smoking barrel litter Daria seized a charred stub of wood, broken fruit-crate slat, held it high like a burning tomahawk and turned back to Keith Barry. He stood up slowly, moving as if invisible lead hung from his limbs, one hand out like a traffic cop or safety guard, the guitar hanging limp from the other. Upright, he was at least a foot taller than Daria.
“Man, you have got to get a grip on yourself,” he said, and Niki kept waiting for him to flinch, take a step backward, for Mort to intercede. But no one moved.
“You listen to me, Keith Barry,” she said. “I am sick and goddamn tired of this shit.”
“Mort. You better tell her to back off, man.”
“We have a show tomorrow night at Jekyll’s, Keith, and you will be there, and you will be as straight as you are still capable of being. Are you listening to me?”
She held the brand a little higher, bright cinders dripping to the concrete at her feet.
“What the hell is your problem?”
“I said, you will be there. All you have to do is say, ‘Yes, Dar, I’ll be there and, no, I won’t be too fucked-up to even take a piss.’”
“Mort?” he asked, the name uttered almost like a prayer.
But Mort was insensible granite beside Niki, immovable.
“Last chance,” Daria said. “You gonna be there or not? ’Cause if you’re not, I have absolutely no reason not to go ahead and shove this board up your ass right now.”
“Tell the woman you’re gonna be there, asshole,” said the man who’d told L. J. to shut up.
“Yeah,” Keith said, and Niki felt a little of the white-blue tension, the crackling threat, drain out of the air. “You know I’m gonna fucking be there.”
“And you’re gonna be straight,” she said.
“Yeah, straight,” and he sat back down, the guitar held out like a shield of wood and strings. “I ain’t gonna fuck up this show.”
Daria sighed, seemed to let out a breath she might have held a hundred years, dropped the glowing slat and ground it out with the toe of her boot. Niki felt herself breathing again, pulled her hand back from Mort’s shoulder.
“Sound check’s at eight o’clock,” she said. “Don’t be late.” And she stepped past him, then, down from the platform without looking back.
“Come on,” she said as she passed Niki and Mort. “This place smells like rat piss.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Stiff Kitten, and How Shrikes Fly
1.
This end of Morris, down past the parking decks and the Peanut Depot and the loft apartments that rent for small fortunes and have neon sculptures in their windows. Where the cobblestones are more uneven and the warehouses are still warehouses, caverns of bulk and shadow that feed the ass ends of trucks all day long and whisper rat-feet patters at night. Where the tracks are closer and the trains rattle windows. Past Daria’s building, where no one bothers with the broken glass or weeds that grow through asphalt and concrete, the kudzu that seems to grow from nowhere and creeps like hungry mutant ivy. Dr. Jekyll’s, brick front washed matte black and one door the color of something royal or orchids that could grow underground. The old marquee that sags dangerously, although this never was a theater; another warehouse once, before the seventies, before the sixties, and maybe before that. Crooked red letters, plastic messages that no one can read after dark, that fall off if a strong wind blows.
Daria and the guys were already inside, and Niki had spent the last hour down the street in the Fidgety Bean with Theo, waiting out sound check, watching the cold night through steamy windows, bright clouds, orange with city light, rushing by overhead, drinking a Cubano and then another. Too much caffeine, even for her, and Theo talking like she’d just discovered her tongue.
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