Burn Down The Night (17 page)

I have a little
time. The cops don't know if I'm armed. They aren't about to rush through that back door until
reinforcements get here. I thrust my hands into the sink, try to turn the tap on, thinking maybe
I can get some of this blood off of me, and maybe then I can slip out and hide in the crowd.
There's a chance, a real small one, they don't know exactly who they are looking for, but I doubt
it.

There's lots of
people here, enough to get lost in if I'm lucky. It's the local Saturday night rock and roll
crowd. My only hope is to lose myself among them.

There's no water.
The faucet's rusted shut. Desper­ate, I run my arm down into the toilet and yank the lever. The
toilet flushes, soaking my arm. I peel my blood-soaked jacket off and throw it under the sink. My
shirt's blood-soaked and I rip it off too. I got to get me some new clothes somewhere or steal a
coat or something.

I look at myself
in the mirror over the sink. I don't look so good. I bump into the sink with my hip. There's an
empty beer bottle sitting on the rim of the sink and it falls over and breaks in the
sink.

A hand closes on
my shoulder and I almost go through the roof. My hand goes into the sink, seizes the broken
bottle and I spin around, swinging. If he wants me, he's going to have to kill me. I don't want
to get caught any other way.

Only it's no cop.
It's Russ, a not too close friend of mine, the road manager of the band doing a gig
here.

Russ ducks under
my crazed swing, the jagged fragment of glass just missing his face. His hand strikes against my
shoulder, flinging me back hard into the sink.

"Holy Christ! Hey,
man! Be cool! You almost took my frigging face off! It's only me, man!"

The bottle
fragment drops from my hand. The jagged edges of the glass have cut deep into my palms. I am
bleeding like a broken piñata.

Russ grabs my
hand, turns it palm up. "You did yourself up, man! Remind me not to sneak up on you in the dark.
My face could have been your hand! Christ!"

"Sorry, man.
Didn't know it was you. I thought you was a cop."

"What did you do?
What the fuck happened to you anyway, man?" Russ points at the pile of bloody clothes on the
floor. Russ is cool, stoned, not even shook up about almost getting his face carved. He's that
kind of guy. Nothing ever shakes him out of his tree.

Russ motions at
the pile of bloody clothes on the floor. "Jesus! Did you win the war?"

"I'm in real bad
trouble!" I look at him, searching his face, unable to read it. That half-stoned smile that's
al­ways there. Can I trust this guy? Can I ask him for help? He doesn't owe me anything. I just
barely know him.

"Trouble is when
you can't go to the bathroom," says Russ. "Then you got trouble." Russ studies the backs of his
hands, cool, unconcerned. Does anything ever move him? He's kind of like I want to be. Nobody can
touch him, nobody can get to him. You can bleed all over him and he hardly notices you're there.
You get the feeling he doesn't even know he exists let alone you.

"What did you do?
Forget that the difference between rape and seduction is patience?"

"Hey! I'm not
shitting you! I got real trouble! I wasted somebody! An accident, but no cop would go for it!
They are crawling all over the place, looking for me!"

A nervous reaction
is setting in. I'm shaking, near hysteria.

"They saw me
coming in here! What am I gonna do? 
What am I gonna do!"

Russ smiles his
smile. "This ain't no time to hit the chicken switch. Can you drive a truck?"

"What?"

"Can you drive a
truck?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. I
can drive anything with wheels. You got one?"

"I don't but I
know somebody who does. What you need is a job."

A
job!
A
job when I'm about to get blown away or put away forever. This guy isn't playing with a full
deck!

"I ain't old
enough to drive legal. I'm only fifteen."

"That don't mean
shit. There's ways around everything. Besides, it could work out good for everybody." Russ nods
at me. "Stick with me, man. I'll do you up righteous. The cops can go screw themselves! Follow
me, man. I'll hide you until the cops are gone."

I got no choice
but to trust him.

We both hear feet
pounding along the hallway, cops yelling. Russ grabs me and shoves me under the sink, shielding
me with his body. He bends over the toilet and makes loud throwing up sounds. A cop sticks his
head in the door, sees Russ being sick and ducks back out, not seeing me.

Give Russ credit,
this guy is fast on his feet.

Russ grabs me,
drags me to my feet, and hustles me to the door. My hand is beginning to throb, beginning to
really hurt. I really cut myself up. There's blood running off the tips of my fingers.

Russ thrusts his
head out the door, looking both ways to see if the coast is clear. It is and we go running up the
stairs to the backstage rooms. He's got one arm around my shoulders, helping me run. I'm a little
shaky on my feet.

We burst into the
equipment room full tilt.

"Get behind this
spare set of Sun amps. I'll stack them up in front of you."

I rush to obey,
crawling around in back of the amplifiers.

Russ wipes the
floor with a rag, blotting up some of my blood, and then tosses it over the amps at me. "Wrap up
your hand. You're bleeding all over the place."

I lean against the
back wall and jump forward. I forgot about my back. I still got a few shotgun pellets in me. I'd
been too scared to remember until now. I'm a mess.

"This isn't going
to fool anybody for long! Cops search this place, they'll find me!" I yell out at
Russ.

"I'm way ahead of
you, man. This is temporary until I get to the main game. Just stay cool. Let Russ handle the
fuss. I'll get you a disguise. Hang in there and I'll be right back."

The door opens and
I hear Russ run out.

It's dark behind
the amps and I lean against them, never felt so tired in my life. I'm out of strength and I ache
all over. I wish I had a cigarette. My head feels so heavy I don't know how I keep it up. Feels
like it's falling off.

The rag is dirty,
has some kind of oil or maybe gas on it. It stings when I wrap it around my hand but I got to
have something to stop the blood. It's not bleeding as much as before. Maybe I am too tired to
bleed.

I sort of
collapse, drift off, trusting Russ. What other chance do I have? I hear voices, doors slamming,
people shouting.

The door bangs
open and some cops burst into the room. I tighten up inside, awake now, and so tense I almost
can't breathe. Maybe Russ is going to be too late.

The manager of the
rock and roll club is with the cops and he's screaming at them. He's one of those intense
middle-aged types trying to be hip as a nineteen-year-old and never quite making it.

"Fucking pigs!
Where's your motherfucking search warrant?" I hear the club owner scream at them. "You got no
goddamn right to burst in here and..."

One of the cops
says something I can't hear and there is the sound of a scuffle. Then the sound of something hard
smacking into flesh. The club owner groans and I hear a body hit the floor.

"Jesus!" says one
cop. "You really boogered up that scum bag! You shouldn't have hit him so hard."

The other one
says, "The fucker's not gonna lay his hands on me and get away with it." I hear another sound. I
think the club manager just got kicked while he is down. There's a muffled gasp of
pain.

"Let's head for
the stage. Maybe we can see him from out there. I know he's in here somewhere. I'm sure I saw him
go in the back door."

I hear them walk
across the room and go out the door that leads to the stage. I hear the manager groaning on the
floor. The dumb bastard! Did he think they were gonna kiss him or something?

It gets quiet. The
thunder of the rock and roll band ceases. Must be the end of their set. I crouch down behind the
amp, just waiting, no place to go. I almost pass out. So tired.

The sound of
people coming into the room brings me back. Sounds like a whole lot of people coming into the
room. Sounds like a party.

"Come out, man.
It's me, Russ. I got you some clothes."

The amps get moved
away from me and Russ is standing there with a whole bunch of people, the guys from the band and
some chicks and assorted hangers-on.

There's a tall
girl standing next to Russ, big chested, no expression on her face. Dressed up like a
lamppost-leaning girl you can buy for ten bucks any night of the week. She doesn't look like she
would be worth it.

I come stumbling
out, dizzy. I look at Russ, standing empty handed in front of me. "What clothes? I don't see any
clothes."

"Strip," says
Russ, turning to look at the girl. She's not much to look at. I think she belongs to somebody in
the band, somebody with poor taste.

Obediently, the
girl starts stripping. She doesn't even have to think about it. The clothes peel off. The wig
comes off with the dress.

This isn't a girl.
It's a guy.

The clothes tumble
to the floor at my feet. Complete strip-oft even the tiny red cotton panties that weren't meant
to cover the kind of equipment this guy is carrying. This guy is hung like an
elephant.

If he isn't shy
about stripping, neither am I. This isn't any time to get delicate. Besides, although there's
chicks in the room, nobody is even paying any attention. Naked is not something people in this
room haven't seen before.

I get my clothes
off and awkwardly begin putting on the dress. I'm going to feel like a total idiot but I don't
give a shit. Better dumb than dead. I'd dress up like the Queen Mary if it would help me escape
the cops.

I'm only halfway
into the dress and really having some kind of trouble trying to find where and how I'm supposed
to fit into it. The manager of the rock and roll club is still on the floor, his face swollen on
one side and his nose bleeding. He's moaning, kind of rolling around on the floor in real agony.
Nobody pays much attention to him either, except a really stoned groupie who offers him a beer.
He's too screwed up to respond to the offer, though.

Nobody makes a
fuss about anything. What happens, happens. Your pain belongs to you, your nakedness, whatever.
It's your trip. The message is clear. This rock and roll world is a place where nobody interferes
with anybody else.

I'm struggling
with the frigging dress, trying to find where the frigging snaps are that hold it all together. A
couple of guys from the band come over and stand be­side Russ. I recognize them. I've seen them
play before, hit a few parties with them, know them by name and not much deeper.

Spence, the one
with the body that's studying to be a giant, stares at me like I am a piece of meat. "This the
one?" he asks, speaking to Russ.

"That's him," says
Russ.

Chris, the
drummer, who is cut thin to win, snickers. "He looks like Bob Dylan in drag! How did he ever kill
anybody? Did he vamp them to death?"

Nobody laughs.
Maybe nobody is even listening.

My bloody hand
gets no comment. If they notice it, they give no sign. The rag hides it pretty well. I keep my
fingers balled into a fist around the rag, holding it in place. It stops the blood but makes me
awkwardly one-banded.

I guess they see
the difficulty I'm having getting my act together. Spence comes over and grabs the back of the
dress, yanks it on, straightens it up, then works on the fasteners. "You need a frigging college
education to figure out these buttons!" he mumbles. "How do chicks get into these frigging things
anyway?" He jerks on the fabric of the dress. "Man, I hope I ain't estab­lishing a frigging
pattern here! I'm not going to start a second career getting you dressed in your dress every
day."

"Hah!" You could
cut me with a saw and get sar­casm every inch.

Mick comes in,
holding a guitar in one hand and a chick by the chest with the other. "Wow," he says. "Is this
some kind of new thrill?"

He comes over to
watch the clothes get draped on the dummy.

The club manager
is sitting up, blood on his paisley shirt. Nobody pays him any attention. Nobody will until it's
time to get the money for the gig; Money is the only thing that makes this kind of guy real to
anybody.

Russ waves at the
band members. "There's a good chance you can ride with us. If you pass with us and can do an
up-front job of driving, we'll keep you covered."

Spence backs away.
"There you go, man. It's on."

The dress opens up
and falls forward on my arms. Spence doesn't have a college education. He isn't very straight
either.

There's a
disturbance at the door. The door opens and two cops burst into the room. Suddenly there's a lot
of people standing very close together right in front of me. It is automatic, like a steel trap
closing shut.