***
“That was strange,” Danny said. He grabbed his sticks and went to catch up with John. Case stopped him on the way out the door with a hand on his shoulder.
He turned to her. His heart rate seemed to have doubled instantly.
“I don’t know what Quentin’s deal is,” she said, “but he’s on the right track. What are we going to do about John?”
His mind was sluggish, and the first answer that came to his mind was he doesn’t have to know. What came out was “Huh?”
“You know. He gets fucking terrified every time he’s onstage. The first time I heard him, I thought he sounded like an eight-year-old girl. He’s getting better, he really is—in here. The other night onstage, though? He sounded like an eight-year-old girl.”
Danny swallowed. She was so close that he could see green flecks in her brown eyes, so close that he could smell her sweat. It was sharp, biting, and yet somehow intensely enticing. He looked down at her hand, then back to her face.
She took her hand away and let it relax by her side, but she didn’t look away.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice husky. “It’s a problem. I’ll . . . I’ll think about it.”
He practically ran to catch up with John.
Chapter 7
“Ow, shit!” Case yelled and dropped the short stick she’d been holding.
Erin looked at her with concern. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”
Case grinned. “Yeah, fine. Just surprised. I didn’t expect you to hit me that hard.” They had been practicing knife disarms, and Erin had chopped down on Case’s wrist hard.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. If you’re going to do it, do it like you mean it. Just don’t forget that control is important, too.” She shook her hand. “Hope I can still play tonight,” she said, smirking.
Erin’s eyes widened. “Oh God. I’m really sorry.”
“I’m kidding. It’s okay. Really.” Erin didn’t look convinced. “We probably ought to get some arm guards or something, if we’re going to keep this up. Let’s take five and get a drink,” Case said. She went over to the shade near the side of the building, sat on the asphalt, and opened the bottle of water she’d left there earlier. Erin sat next to her.
Training had been going well, Case thought. It had only been a few weeks since they started, but Erin was an avid student, and she had clearly been practicing outside of their informal classes. Danielle had gotten bored after the second or third session and stopped. Case had thought Erin would lose her enthusiasm shortly thereafter, but it hadn’t happened yet. Erin was tough and had a great attitude, and Case had found her surprisingly easy to get along with.
“You’re learning fast,” Case said.
“Thanks. I’ve got a good teacher.”
There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that. Case drank some water and handed the bottle to Erin, who accepted it gratefully.
“Band practice tonight?” Erin asked.
“Show tonight, actually.”
“What kind of music do you play, anyway? No—wait. Let me guess. Death metal.” Erin made horns with her left hand, stuck out her tongue, and did a little mock head-banging.
Case made a face. “No way.” She took the bottle back. “I hate metal. We play hard rock.”
“Like Nickelback?”
Case gave her a look designed to wither flowers and kill cockroaches.
“Not like Nickelback,” Erin said.
“No. More like the New York Dolls or Motörhead.”
Erin tightened her lips and shook her head. “Sorry. Not ringing any bells.”
“How about Led Zeppelin? Guns N’ Roses?”
By way of response, Erin opened her mouth and belted out a couple of lines from “November Rain.” It was horrifying. She was even worse than John on one of his bad days. Or maybe it was just that she didn’t have a bunch of loud instruments drowning her out.
“You hate me,” Case said. “That’s the only possible explanation.”
“Sorry, Sensei,” Erin said solemnly. Case growled, but Erin ignored her. “I am a humble student, seeking only knowledge. You hate metal, but you play hard rock. I didn’t know there was a difference.”
“It’s all in the attitude,” Case said. “I want to play music that says ‘Fuck You’ to the world.”
“‘November Rain’?”
Case glared at her. “There are other— You know what? Forget I said Guns N’ Roses, okay?”
“Done. But heavy metal isn’t fuck-you enough for you?”
“Metal isn’t fuck-you at all. The whole metal scene is a club for crybabies who want to all wear the same black T-shirt and feel like they fit in somewhere. Metal is where misfits and fuckups go to feel safe. If you only want to be exposed to your own kind, you play metal, and you never have to run the risk of pissing somebody off.”
Erin rolled her eyes. “Do you have to overthink everything?”
“I wouldn’t have said I overthink anything. Somebody once told me I ought to have ‘Poor Impulse Control’ tattooed on my forehead.”
“Somebody didn’t know you very well,” Erin said.
Case looked away. “Yeah.”
The silence stretched, but Erin spoke up before it got awkward. She was good at that. “So what’s the name of your band?”
“Ragman.”
“Cool. Tell me when and where you’re playing, and I’ll drag out all my friends so they can find out what real fuck-you music sounds like.”
For once, Case didn’t have a smartass remark handy. She felt absurdly touched at Erin’s offer. “Hey,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet, because I’m about to kick your ass,” Erin said, and she got up. “You ready for another round?”
“Are you ready for another round?”
Erin bared her teeth. “Bring it, bitch.”
“Bitch?”
“You heard me.”
Case laughed, drank the rest of the water in one swallow, and stood. “All right. Let’s go.”
Chapter 8
John leaned over the table and whispered to Danny. “Dude, we have an audience.”
“I know,” Danny said. “What’s up with that?”
John didn’t have any idea what was up with that, and he wasn’t sure which surprised him more—that Case was over talking to a group of half a dozen girls that had just come in, or that a couple of Quentin’s buddies had shown up. Quentin didn’t have buddies. The idea of Quentin slamming back a beer and yelling at the Cowboys on TV with a bunch of guys seemed incomprehensible. Nonetheless, there they were.
And Case . . . that was more than incomprehensible.
“When did Case get friends?” John asked.
Danny laughed. “She’s probably had them all along. She’s not the Antichrist or anything.”
“Bullshit. Case with friends . . . that’s an inversion of the natural order of the universe, as far as I can tell.”
“They don’t even seem to have fangs or anything,” Danny observed.
“No, they don’t.” In fact, they looked alarmingly normal, like any group of young women dressed for an exciting Wednesday night out on the town. “That doesn’t freak you out?” John asked.
“Can’t say that it does.”
“And what do you mean, ‘she’s probably had them all along,’ huh? Like she’s been waiting until we’re worthy or something?”
Danny gave him a patronizing older-brother look. “You have to admit we’ve come a long way since she started. Can you blame her for waiting?”
“Hmph.” John drummed his fingers on the table. He supposed he ought to simply be grateful to have an audience for once—an audience that was actually there to hear them—but now he was even more anxious. He bounced his leg.
“Don’t think about it,” Danny said. That was the problem with brothers—they knew you too well.
“Can’t help it.”
Danny nodded knowingly. “I got an idea about that.�
�
Case walked up before he could elaborate. She was smiling, and John thought she might have been happier than he’d ever seen her, at least when she wasn’t playing. “Look at that,” she said. “We have fans.”
“Don’t remind me,” John said. He swallowed. “No pressure or anything.”
She didn’t bother to hide her disdain. “You gotta get over this, John. Even playing to a handful of people is better than playing to an empty room, and they’re not going to come back if we suck. So man up.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot. That’s a hell of a pep talk, Case. They ought to use you to talk suicides down off buildings. ‘Would you just fucking jump already? You’re holding up traffic, asshole.’”
Anger flared in her eyes, but before she could say anything, Danny held up his hands.
“Look, I was just thinking about this,” he said. “I’ve got an idea. It might help, or it might be completely retarded, but hear me out, okay?”
John hesitated. Usually when Danny said an idea might be completely retarded, it turned out to be, well, completely retarded. John still had a scar from one of Danny’s suggestions involving a very small bicycle and a very high hill when they were kids. There had been a spectacular crash, of course, a trip to the emergency room, and nine stitches.
Still, it had been a hell of a ride.
“All right. Let’s hear it.”
Danny grinned, and Case pulled out a chair and sat down.
“We need to make up an alternate persona for you.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Like Bruce Wayne or something?”
“Something like that,” Danny said. He continued before John could protest. “Think about it. You get onstage and you’re worried about all kinds of things. Are you going to sing well? Do you look like a jackass? Are you going to say something to embarrass yourself? Is this socially acceptable?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m worried about what’s socially acceptable,” John said.
“I think you are. The front man of a rock band has to behave in a way that would be downright strange if he acted that way normally, and I don’t think you ever forget that you’re the same guy once you get offstage.”
“That’s because I am.”
“I don’t think that’s the way everybody sees it. Even if they do, it doesn’t matter. You’re practically expected to be eccentric and over-the-top onstage. Reckless, even.”
John frowned. “And how is adopting a stage name going to help?”
“Stage persona. You pretend to be somebody else when you’re up there. Somebody who doesn’t give a fuck. The persona gets all the attention and the social disapproval, and you can walk away scot-free after the show.”
“Sounds like bullshit to me,” John said. “When did you get a psych degree?”
“It’s not bullshit. Marilyn Manson used to piss off people by the thousands, but do you think anyone gives a shit what Brian Warner thinks?”
“Who the fuck is Brian Warner?”
“Marilyn Manson, when he’s tucked into bed at night and the makeup has all been washed off.”
“I’m not giving myself a blowjob on stage,” John said.
Case gave him a c’mon-let’s-be-realistic look. “I think that was an urban legend. If the man could suck his own dick, he’d never have left the house.”
John changed tactics. This whole conversation was making him uncomfortable. “It all sounds so hokey,” he said.
Case narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know. I think there might be something to it.”
“What, you too?”
“I read an interview with Buckethead once where he said the mask and all that crap—the whole persona—helps him loosen up onstage. It’s just like Danny said. He can do whatever he wants, because the character takes the heat. I think he said that the irony was that, because of the character, he could act more like himself than he could if he was just, you know, being himself.”
“Who the fuck is Buckethead?”
“A guitarist,” Case said.
“Who plays with a bucket on his head,” Danny offered helpfully.
“And a mask.”
John considered this. He felt cornered, and that wasn’t fair, but the idea had its own seductive charm. For twenty-five minutes, the whole short set, he could step out of his own life and pretend to be somebody who wasn’t fucked up and overtired and insecure. He looked at the group of girls chattering over by the bar, and acid squirted into his stomach.
“Yeah, okay. What the hell?” he said. “How do I start?”
Danny blinked. “Huh. I didn’t think you’d bite, so I haven’t really gotten that far.” Typical. Like most of his stupid ideas, he hadn’t thought it through to the end.
“I’ll be right back,” Case said, getting up.
“Wait, where are you going? We’re on in twenty minutes!”
She didn’t bother to answer. John watched, nonplussed, as she went right past the guy working the door and left the club.
“What the hell was that all about?” he asked Danny, bewildered.
“I don’t have any idea.”
They tossed around a couple of ideas, but the ideas were all pretty lame, John thought. Makeup and masks were right out. “This is not fucking KISS,” he told Danny. “And if you’re gonna make me do all that shit, you have to do it too.” Danny backed off after that, but he didn’t have much else to offer. The conversation petered out, leaving both of them staring at the table.
Case got back after a few minutes and threw a heavy bundle in John’s lap.
“It’s big on me,” Case said, “and you’re skinny, so I think it’ll fit.”
John unfolded and held up a black leather motorcycle jacket. It was old and beat-up, covered in buckles and zippers, but he had to admit it exuded cool all by itself.
“I’m going to feel like such a poser in this thing,” he said.
“Fake it till you make it,” Case shot back.
He started to put the jacket on, and Case put a hand on his arm. “Wait,” she said. “John Tsiboukas is not badass enough to wear that jacket. Tonight you’re . . .” She bit her lip, thinking.
“Johnny,” Danny suggested.
John twitched like he’d been burned. I have seen your dreams, Johnny. “I don’t think—”
“It’s perfect,” Case said. “Can you think of a more rock-and-roll name than Johnny? Johnny Ramone, Johnny Rotten. Johnny Winter. Johnny Thunders. And all those songs from the fifties and sixties. It’s classic. Yeah, that’s it.”
John thought of Douglas, and the—the man at the crossroads, and he shivered. Still, Case had a point. It was evocative, and he couldn’t see a crowd of people chanting John, John, John, unless they had to get in line for the toilet.
“Maybe,” he said.
“Yeah,” Case said. “Johnny . . . Johnny Tango.”
That didn’t impress him at all. “Tango?”
“Yeah. Military alphabet for T.”
“Sounds kind of, well, pussy.”
She grinned, sharklike. “Nobody’d tell Johnny Tango that to his face.”
Before he could argue, an image formed in his mind. Johnny Tango. He wore a motorcycle jacket, greased his hair back, and kept a switchblade in his boot. He said motherfucker a lot. He called his friends motherfucker in an amiable sort of way, he called the guys he fought with at the bar motherfucker right before he worked them over, and he used it as an all-purpose expression of rage and frustration. Ow! Motherfucker! was the kind of thing he said when he pinched his fingers while working on his car. He liked cars. He drove an old car, one of those giant tail-finned boats from the fifties, white and cherry red, and turned a wrench at a local garage to keep himself in cigarettes and beer. It was a caricature, sure, but for pure rock-star attitude it sure beat the hell out of a nervous part-time Starbucks barista whose house smelled like fish.
John put the jacket on. It fit perfectly. Danny gave him a nod.
The sound guy came over. “You guys
are on.”
John looked up at him, then back to Case and Danny. He tried on a nasty grin. “All right, motherfuckers. Johnny Tango it is.”
***
John was already sweating by the time they took the stage. It was July, and he was wearing a heavy leather jacket. His momentary bravado was fading even as he went up the stairs on the side of the stage.
I feel like a moron. I look like a moron. Case is right—John Tsiboukas is not badass enough to wear this jacket.
No, he wasn’t. He ought to take the damn thing off right now. It was making him even more self-conscious, and Christ knew he didn’t need any help with that.
John stopped on the stairs, hidden from most of the crowd by the giant speaker stack. Case, Quentin, and Danny were already at their instruments.
His palms were slick with sweat, and he felt like he was going to die in that heavy jacket. He tried to shake it off; this would not be a good time for Johnny—the real Johnny, Johnny the alter ego, Johnny the attitude—to take a night off.
Fuck that noise, he thought, mustering a sneer that felt completely false. Johnny never takes a night off. The bravado rang hollow, and his throat felt tight.
He peered around the speaker stack. There were so many people! Even with the lights glaring in his eyes, he could see the shapes and silhouettes of the crowd, reflections in eyes and off glasses and bottles.
What if I can’t sing? What if it’s gone now? Terror gripped him, and it seemed like his throat must have sealed itself up.
Either Case jumped the gun because she, too, had a case of nerves, or she was simply being hateful. She laid into the opening riff of “Burn” without even checking to see if anyone else was ready. It was hot, fast, and greasy—a hell of an opener, if they didn’t fuck it up. Quentin and Danny were more ready than John had given them credit for—or maybe Case had checked, and he’d just missed it—but they came in right where they were supposed to.
It was a solid start, and John’s terror cranked itself up. Don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up.
He almost missed his cue. The opening figure was nearly wrapped up, and there he was, standing like an idiot on the side of the stage. He forgot all about ditching the jacket, crossed the stage in a few quick strides, and made it to the mic just in time to hit the first line. What if I can’t sing?
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