Outsider (7 page)

“
In my dream, Second Look had to cancel a
gig at the last minute. They left the pub in a whitish, oversized
limo.”

“
I lifted a treasure up from a sunken boat
and lifted some dynamite down, while Second Look were having a
drink in a next-door pub.”

“
I dreamed I was in high school with
Hillary [who lives in San Francisco] and Angie. Terri and Dawn were
in the background. I wanted to climb the climbing wall of the
school. Outside the rain was raging. I could fly.”

“
The Lakota see black as the colour of
inspiration for it represents the darkness that gives way to
light.”

One morning, the one dream still fiercely
grabbing at her mind had more details than ever –since her getting
on anti-depressants– and presented an attachment of good feeling.
Picture it out of the dark recesses of her mind:

Sid is hanging out with her friend Bea, who,
these days, lives in Canada. They’ve known each other for a few
years. Being both singers, they naturally met on the acoustic
scene. By that time Sid was already an oddity, feeling more of an
oddity than David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in Italian, having
upgraded for an electric guitar and darker than ever songs. Anyway.
Sid and Bea are hanging out at a party. It is a huge party and the
sun is shining benevolently on the revellers enjoying the small
size estate belonging to Terri. If it was not Terri’s party, Sid
wouldn’t have bothered, she is no party girl, herself dixit. Sid
knows Terri hasn’t arrived yet and she is anxious to catch up with
the wild rock singer. The atmosphere is one of summer festival.

From a distance (Bette Middler and Nancy
Griffith chorusing in her ears), she sees a motorbike trailing
through the green grass. She doesn’t need keen eyes to know it’s
Terri’s Bandit, with Terri herself riding it without helmet. She
leaves Bea with some chatty women and starts making her way to the
house. Well, calling it a bungalow or a shack would be an
understatement of mega size. It’s a Victorian mansion.

She is in no hurry with such sunshine and
such gentle breeze. With the booted tip of her left foot she
attempts to straighten a poster made out of flimsy paper to examine
it leisurely. That’s when the cop turns up and starts shouting
abuses at her, attracting punters’ attention. At first, Sid stares
at him blankly. He is accusing her of unlawful littering, claims
she has to pay a ten-pound fine, on the spot, or get arrested. She
sighs at the unimaginative threat and suddenly the wolf in her
reacts. She shouts back and loud that he’s just narrow-minded and
prejudice, and the only reason he’s asking her to pay a fine is
because he knows she hasn’t got a tenner. She briefly considers his
bruised ego in need of restoration but decides it unworthy of
mention. As suddenly, she walks out on him.

“
Way to go, Wasgo!” It’s a tall blonde
woman she remembers from another of Terri’s parties.

Upon waking up, she briefly thought about it
with a look at her old-fashion clock, went back to sleep and
dreamed another dream. After all, she was about to see Second Look
in the evening, and remembering nothing requiring her attention
before the afternoon, she could afford the extra rest.

* * * * * * *

When she re-opened her eyes later on, her
mind struggled to keep them shut and succeeded on not analyzing the
memories of her latest trip to the Dreamworld. Oh yes, she so much
wanted to stay in bed with this new dream. More exactly the main
character of her dream. Well, she meant, blushing scarlet in the
solitude of her bedroom, going back to the dream and indulging some
more, perhaps forever, in the company of the main character of this
dream. Who had said you HAD to get up every morning anyway? The
idea instilled her with a subtle mix of grumpiness and rebellion.
Now she remembered she had an appointment to reluctantly attend,
with the young, but definitely stuffy psychiatrist she disliked
because he never listened to what she had to say about
anti-depressants, their side effects, and her personal experience
of life on legal drugs. The four walls of her bedroom were a
thousand times more receptive and friendlier. With the starry
ceiling, the dark curtains and the black-carpeted floor, they
shaped a box, a box where she could dream any time. As long as the
drugs didn’t mislead her brainwaves.

This new dream had been so sweet, with a
peaceful adagio excerpt from Carl Maria Von Weber’s collection. Oh
yes, a thousand times yes, the dream would have never been so sweet
without the presence of the Second Look musician, the mysterious
and talented Dawn Ferndale herself. The simple thought of the
memory made Sid melt.

Imagine…….

Sid is dreamily asleep in her bed, cozy and
naked under the tiger quilt as usual. The heavy, dark velvety
drapes clear off the windows let the first sunlight of a new day
spread into the room, like a stealthy invader. Not as subtle but
definitely more intrusive, a male cop with blonde short hair and a
blue suit, the blonde musician with gray eyes, and some other woman
Sid cannot identify, burst into her flat. It is 6 am, apparently
legal time to arrest criminals. The cop, whose blue eyes are paler
than his suit, informs her of her rights while telling her she is
under arrest for associating with a controversial political group,
whose name gets garbled and fuzzed by her not entirely awake brain
transmitters. He steps out of the bedroom to lounge in her living
room and wait for her to get decently enough dressed up for a visit
to the cop shop. Dawn pushes the door shut behind the others and
squats on the bed, a simple mattress on the floor. Sid doesn’t mind
Dawn’s presence when she moves the quilt away from her bare chest,
because with all her tattoos, Haida totem poles down each limb and
a few Navajo symbols on her front and back, she is never naked. She
has a brief thought for the several photos of the grey-eyed
musician forever scattered in her bed, but they are generally lying
safely sheltered by her six tiger-patterned pillows. Looking
intently and intensely at Sid, Dawn talks about a bright yellow
envelope the writer received a few days ago, and that is now lying
on one of the “Death-and-Blood” shelves in the bedroom. The
content, a leaflet advertising a benefit in favour of the
aforementioned subversive group, could be used as evidence against
Sid. Pulling a dark T-shirt over her green mohican and tattooed
skin, Sid, her brain now extraordinarily focused, listens to Dawn
whose grey eyes have been fascinating her more and more lately.
Along with the smile. But Dawn is not smiling. Even so serious, her
face is extremely beautiful to Sid’s eyes. If people knew. It is
not Terri Harley, mighty rock singer whose powerful voice could
raise the long dead, she’s got a crush on. No, never mind this
detail right now because the keyboard player is talking. She is
saying that she is the one who sent the incriminating leaflet.
Under the assumed name of Lindisfarne. Getting more decent by the
minute (Sid, still on her bed, willing to keep at Dawn’s level, is
now wearing black boxer shorts matching her dark T-shirt, and
starts struggling, juggling, with a pair of socks), Sid doesn’t
even think non-decent thoughts, she is too spellbound by Dawn’s
voice, Dawn’s eyes, Dawn’s everything. Because, as Dawn sometimes
sings on stage: “Track number five’s got the voice and the smile,
and the matching grey eyes”. Despite her subjugation, one black
sock with a red-cobwebby pattern barely on her left foot and the
other still in her right hand, Sid exhales a sigh, gets up, keeping
her eyes on her dream woman as long as she can, walks to the shelf,
tearing herself away from the previous scene, snatches the
outstanding item with the now identified and familiar messy
handwriting, hands it over to Dawn, who grabs it and stuffs it into
an inside pocket of the denim jacket the writer has seen a few
times gracing a few stages. But since when does Sid wear blue
jeans, too?

And the tattooed writer woke up in her darken
bedroom, cozy and naked, but never naked with all her Native
American tattoos, under the tiger quilt, her eyes grasping at the
empty air, wondering which of her Two Spirits - whale or wolf – she
was.

She was alone, all alone as every morning.
The hold of the dream was so strong over her split personality, it
didn’t let her drift into the daily loneliness, not yet. She
sighed, swooning, willing herself back to the dreaming, trying to
reinsert herself into this parallel universe, wishing to spend more
time listening to Dawn Ferndale’s captivating voice and lose
herself deep into the grey eyes.

Before the aspic of morning loneliness get
another bite of her vulnerable heart again.

Sid had arrived late because of the rain.
Definitely reality for her small Kawasaki when she had to restrain
its speed, in the name of caution.

It was a gay club, charging club prices at
the door and at the bar, women only, but with men as guests (Sid
would shake her head muttering under her breath what kind of joke
is that) and they had given Second Look only thirty minutes. The
venue was middle class and Sid felt out of place, like everywhere,
like every day, with or without the drugs. She was in a manic mood
and full of good intentions to well behave.

Music was rocking full swing but the audience
looked frozen, a few feet away from the stage where Terri and Dawn
were giving away their best, tension running up and down their raw
nerves.

What’s wrong
, Sid wondered.
Have I
done something wrong? Should I dance or should I freeze?

She wanted to dance but the musicians’
tension freaked her out, while the music gnawed away at her feet,
harassing her tight skin, like a tickle too hard to make her laugh.
But the music’s pull was too strong for Sid to resist. Without
thinking more, she gave in to her standard behavior, shedding
helmet and jacket, and letting the fast rhythm of the moment guide
her feet. A wave of relief washed immediately across the stage and
Sid’s skin automatically relaxed. She temporarily forgot about her
fresh tattoo still itching under her black combats, and her latest
short story.

After the too short set, some canned music
started to spell out pop tunes in fashion and Sid caught up with a
few known faces, regular Second Look fans like the heavily tattooed
and pierced woman who only danced when no one else would, but that
evening was on paraphernalia-stall duty, and a few women who had
eventually relented to Sid’s insistence. Yes, Second Look was a
band to check out, definitely. Jessie had come, too and requested
from Sid:

“Show me your leg!”

Sid had obliged and rolled up a trouser leg
to expose the shiny totem pole, coloured with the traditional Haida
black, red, blue and white.

Talking about the musicians. In between two
chats, the singer spotted the writer and grabbed her for one of her
famed bear hugs. Swiftly moving on, Terri introduced her girlfriend
Justine to Sid, and next found herself entranced in an enthusiastic
chat with a tall, skinny woman with long, auburn hair, bright smile
and red roses tattooed on her upper arms. Sid exchanged a few words
with Justine who, incidentally, had read “Tequila After Dark” and
“The Beast(s)” and reported Terri’s enthusiasm to Sid in between
puffs of cigarette. Sid remembered Justine from the Black Crow, one
of the many silhouettes in the audience. Somehow, not someone she
would notice, but it didn’t matter since Justine was with Terri and
Sid had someone else squatting her mind and her dreams.

After an acquaintance grabbed Justine away,
Sid’s eyes found themselves drifting around the venue. Not
interested in the alcoholic offerings of the bar or any eyes
meeting hers, she searched towards the stage.

Dawn was still on the stage, packing up some
mini disks or doing whatever she usually did after a gig. Sid
looked at her with shortsighted, brown eyes, unable to guess,
feeling shy and nervous, the wolf and the whale debating about the
best possible next step.

There was something she wanted to know, so
much that she didn’t care about the crowd around her. She knew
about Terri’s hugs, Terri being as generous with her hugs as her
voice was powerful. And Terri was a great hugger. She hugged
strong, but not tight. The best hugger in town. What about Dawn?
The keyboard player was so elusive. Suddenly, Sid had to know, she
had to find out. Now. There and then. But Dawn was too reserved a
person to hug groupies after a 2-minute chat. Only one way for Sid
to get a hug. The anti-depressants giving her a wackier than usual
sense of humour, she could have explained herself as a student
researching, analyzing, comparing, cataloguing hugs.

Sid selected the direct approach. She walked
onto the stage she would have loved to share with Second Look.

“Dawn?”

“Yes?” The musician turned to Sid with a
smile.

“Could you do me a favour?”

“Sure!”

“Could you give me a hug?”

The smile took an amused turn and Dawn made
the step necessary to close her arms around Sid. The embrace was
honest, with a softness invading Sid’s heart. The writer felt a
sudden desire to protect the musician from whatever harm would ever
come her way. It was overwhelming. Dawn withdrew after a hug too
brief for Sid, unaware of Sid’s emotions.

* * * * * * *

Sid Wasgo was unwilling to write openly in
her diary about her feelings for Dawn, her chaotic hormones. A few
next entries read as follow:

“
I have enough illusions to corrupt me for
a lifetime

Illusions born out of excessive
enthusiasm

Anything could be so much better than
isolation”

“
I got it all wrong my entire life and I
still don’t get it. It took me a lifetime to get my rhythm
together. It took me a lifetime to understand the value of my
voice. And I’m still nowhere.”