The Devil's Metal (14 page)

I took my eyes off the stage where Sage and
Mickey were serenading each other with their strings and looked
down. A short girl with Rod Stewart hair, dyed black as coal, and
giant boobs was staring at the pass. I could have sworn she licked
her lips, which were lined with dark red lipstick. She was dressed
head to toe in black and her eyes were dark and soulless.

“Can I help you?” I asked unsurely. I didn’t
feel like getting into an altercation, but I was at least taller
than she was and a good deal lighter where it mattered.

“Can I have your pass?” she asked sweetly.
She finally ripped her eyes off my chest and looked at my face. I
shuddered internally. She looked crazier than I originally thought,
and I immediately knew who I was dealing with—Sparky, one of the
GTFOs.

“Um, and who are you?” I knew to handle the
wannabe devil worshipper with care but I was annoyed I had to deal
with her during a song I had been waiting for.

“Someone who deserves it more than you,
bitch,” she answered. One of the metal heads in front of us looked
behind him to see what was going on, and upon seeing her, he shot
me a “good luck with that” smile and turned back around.

I put my hand to my pass and clutched it in
my hand. “I don’t know who you are, sorry. This is my pass. I’m a
journalist.”

I put my attention back to the stage and
prayed she’d go away.

She sidled closer and reached out with her
hand, attempting to close it around mine.

“Give me your pass!” she screeched like a
jungle monkey.

I was flabbergasted but quick to act, and I
backed up into the crowd, feeling their hands at my back,
supporting me for the meantime. “Holy fuck, what’s your problem,
you psycho!?”

“You don’t deserve it, you fake fan. You
know nothing about him and I was here first,” she said coming
forward, her black-nailed hand outstretched like some crazy fucking
witch.

I put my palm out to stop her, and for some
reason it did. But it didn’t stop her from taking the cup of beer
that she had in her other hand and throwing it in my face.

“I’ll see you in hell,” she snarled and
stormed off into the crowd, amused concertgoers parting for her
like the Red Sea. I watched her go, speechless and shaking with
adrenaline as the warm beer soaked me.

“Whoa, chick is tripping,” said one of the
metal heads who had been holding me. Now that I was able to stand,
his hands were at my ass and copping a feel.

I shrugged him off and gave him a dry
“thanks” as I shook the rivers of beer off my arms.

Chick
was
tripping, but I didn’t
think it had anything to do with drugs. Though who really knew in
this day and age. I patted down my wet hair and carefully wiped the
smelly, cheap draft beer from my face and under my eyes, pulling up
my tank top to do so. The metal head stared at my bare stomach with
glazed lust, and I decided it was a good a time as any to get my
ass off the floor. My favorite song had ended and Hybrid`s spell
had been broken by a groupie witch.

I pushed my way through the sweaty crowd,
Noelle`s basslines rumbling beneath my feet, and climbed the stairs
to the backstage area. There were a few people in front of me so
security was busy grilling them about their passes or lack thereof,
and over their heads I could make out Jacob at the very edge of the
side stage as it sloped toward the back, talking to a young
girl.

He didn`t look too impressed with her and
was making shooing gestures with his hands. The girl waved her pass
in his face and pointed at the stage and the show in progress, but
Jacob just shook his head, not budging over whatever they were
arguing about. The girl looked like a replica of Sonja, with the
same pale hair and skin, just a bit shorter and with bigger hips.
When she finally gave up and walked away, her nose beaked sharply
in the profile and I caught a flash of violet eyes. I had a feeling
that was GTFO numero three, Terri the Know-It-All.

Finally I was let through by the stocky
gatekeeper with a close inspection of my pass and a pitying glance
at my drowned rat appearance.

“Christ on a cracker,” Jacob exclaimed as I
slogged toward him at the side stage. “What happened to you?” He
sniffed me. “You fall in a pint?”

“Something like that,” I said with a sigh.
“Hey, who were you just talking to?”

His mouth twitched in a grimace. “Oh, the
usual riff raff.”

“Robbie told me about the GTFOs.”

Jacob shook his head with annoyance and
started fiddling with the rings that adorned his fat fingers. “Of
course he did. Robbie’s jealous that Sage and Graham are getting
all the attention and he has to deal with normal groupies. He
doesn’t get the crazies. Makes him feel left out.”

“What did that girl want? Was it Terri?”

“I don’t pay attention to their names,” he
said calmly, twirling a big gold ring around. “She did mention you
though.”

“What? Me? I’ve never met that girl.”

He cracked a smile and lifted his shoulders
back, looking down at me slyly. “She knows you though. Says you’re
a wannabe music journalist and can’t be trusted. Says you’re just a
groupie in disguise, and that she’s the one who should be writing
the story.”

“Are you serious?”

He shrugged. “I’m always serious, love. For
what it’s worth, this Terri as you say, has an actual media pass.
She writes for someone, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a
private magazine out of her parent’s basement, judging from the
looks of her.”

I crossed my arms, not liking this at all.
“So what else did she say?”

“That was pretty much it. You know, it’s
just girly grade school stuff, tattle-taling and all that. Don’t
worry, Rusty. I can tell when someone’s sucking up to me and
spreading the nasty stuff for ulterior motives. I’m the manager for
crying out loud. That’s my job.”

I wiggled my mouth in thought. “I don’t like
it.”

He patted my shoulder. “No one likes it but
it comes with the territory. Did you think you’d be able to
interview the band and not score the wrath of other writer fans or
groupies? Judging by the beer shower you just took, I’d say you
know now.”

He walked off toward Chip at the console.
“Welcome to groupie high.”

***

“You’re looking a little tired, Rusty,”
Robbie said, peering at me with concern. I was sitting across from
him at the table, trying to drink a glass of water while the bus
trundled along the rough highway toward Minnesota. “Was I
snoring?”

“Nah. I just didn’t sleep very well,” I told
him truthfully. After the show was over and I was glancing over my
shoulder every second, expecting to be ambushed by Terri, Sparky,
or Sonja, we headed right back to the bus and a just waking Bob got
us out on the road. Everyone was in great spirits but extremely
tired and it wasn’t a very lively night. I had stayed up for an
hour or so playing cards with Mickey and Noelle while the rest of
the band went to bed early.

The top bunk was now officially mine as
Noelle and Mickey were back to taking over the full bed in the back
and Robbie decided to camp out beneath my bunk. Graham and Sage
took over the other bunks toward the back and Jacob had a permanent
claim on the couch. I guess it was the best place for a steely
guard dog to be.

There’s something very comforting about
sleeping on a bus; the drone of the engine and the sway of the
roads make you feel like a baby being rocked to sleep. The confined
space of the bunk helps too. But for whatever reason, I tossed and
turned all night and the only reason I knew I had gotten any sleep
at all was because I remembered my dream quite clearly.

I’m not sure if it’s because Jacob had
mention high school earlier, but that’s where my dream took me. It
wasn’t even a dream in a sense because I merely relived a moment
that had already happened. I was in grade eight, during Mrs.
Hoolahan’s gym class. Normally I loved gym—I was very athletic and
was ace at most sports, except for badminton since I had a
reputation for breaking birdies and throwing rackets. It was after
a game of soccer where I had scored the winning goal. It wasn’t a
big deal since most of the girls didn’t give a shit about sports,
but it made me happy and the popular set hated to lose. They
taunted me as usual afterward, calling me flat, a surfboard, and a
boy. One of them asked me if I had a secret penis and if that’s why
none of the boys liked me. I guess I was tired after the game and
just plain sick of the same girls always bullying me and calling me
names. So, I punched the girl—Tiffany, of course her name was
Tiffany—right in the face. It shocked me and I immediately
regretted it, especially when I saw the blood pour out of Tiffany’s
fair nose and I was consequently suspended for a few days. My
parents didn’t really care, and because my mother, at this point,
was beginning her downward spiral, my dad was grateful for the
extra help on the farm. I couldn’t tell if they were even
disappointed in me, but it didn’t matter. I was appalled by my
violence and growing short temper, and I made a vow to myself to
keep my anger under control.

Maybe last night’s altercation with the
GTFOs triggered repressed feelings of injustice or something, but I
woke up from the dream feeling angry, grumpy, and ready to lash
out.

Robbie leaned back in his seat and lit up a
cigarette. The blue smoke drifted through the hazy air of the bus
and I absently followed it as it curled around Graham and Mickey
sitting at the couch. Mickey was scribbling into a notebook. Graham
was staring right at me in some sort of unfeeling gaze. When his
eyes finally came into focus and recognized mine, he flinched. Then
a cold, cold smile spread across his lips. His dark eyes sparkled
like shiny buttons and I quickly averted my eyes before I asked him
what the hell he was looking at. Like I said, I was grumpy.

Luckily by the time we got to St. Paul,
Robbie was hell bent on getting me out of my mood. Once we parked
at the venue, he grabbed my hand and my purse and pulled me off the
bus.

“Where are we going?” I asked him, trying to
hide the excitement in my voice. Day three with Hybrid and the fact
that Robbie Oliver wanted me to go with him somewhere still lit up
my insides.

He let go of my hand, much to my dismay, and
gestured off in the distance. The city of St. Paul looked bigger
than I had expected, with a charm that reminded me a bit of
Ellensburg. “I don’t know, man. I’m just sick of the bus. Let’s go
get fucked up and throw stones across the Mississippi.”

I could have done without the fucked up
part, but the famous river at least piqued my interest. We walked
away from the venue for a good ten minutes, Robbie babbling about
how much he disliked Mick Jagger and how he thought Page had been
better off with the Yardbirds. None of it was very good interview
material, unless Robbie wanted to start a pissing contest with
Jagger, who was clearly such a big enough star that he wouldn’t
care, but I let him talk anyway. The boy was a bundle of energy and
obviously one night of jumping around like a rabid dog on stage
didn’t do much to dissipate it.

We seemed to be getting away from the river,
and the afternoon heat was stifling like a thick, wet blanket that
coated my arms and made my hair frizz out like a porcupine. Robbie
told me he knew a person in the area and that he had to say hello
for a couple of seconds. We stopped outside of a modest walk-up and
he quickly disappeared up the stairs. I stood on the sidewalk,
watching the normalcy of a town I’d never been to. Kids down the
corner sat at a lemonade stand, while young moms pushed strollers
down the cracked asphalt, waving a fan at their faces. The sun
beamed down on me with such intensity that I knew I’d have a new
crop of freckles on my nose by the end of the day.

Minutes later, Robbie came skipping down the
stairs, taking them two at a time. He clapped his hands together
and his hair shone in shades of amber and mahogany in the sunlight.
“Well, shall we head back?”

“What about the river?”

He did a little jig. “Oh right, to the
river!”

“Unless you think we’ll miss
soundcheck.”

“Those fuckers can soundcheck without me.
Sage usually fills in.” He shot me an artful glance as we started
down the street. “Have you ever heard him sing?”

I shook my head, wondering why he was
looking at me like that. “No, just in backup.”

“He’s good. I mean, he’s not me.”

“Of course not. You’re Robbie Oliver, a
Golden God.”

“No, that’s Robert Plant. I’m a Silver God.
Almost as precious and not as bright. But Sage, he’s good. Very
low. Bassy. Gets you here.” He reached over and squeezed my
stomach.

I squealed and ran away from him a few
steps, nervous laughter at my lips. I watched him shyly, keeping
more than an arm’s length away.

“You sound fond of him, even though you guys
argue.”

“Like I said yesterday, Rusty. He’s the head
honcho. He calls the shots and you hate him for it but you’re stuck
with him. He’s like my dad in a twisted way, and he’s only
twenty-seven. Well, actually twenty-eight. His birthday is in a
couple of weeks.”

‘That’s cute that you remember his
birthday.”

“You’re cute,” Robbie said. He made another
grab for me, holding me by the arm, and brought me to his
chest.

And that’s how I first found myself in the
arms of a famous singer, his eyes sparkling playfully in the heavy
sunlight, his sweat-tinged hands on my skin. For a second I wasn’t
sure if he was just going to stare at me with that smile on his
face or if he was going to kiss me.

He didn’t do either. He dropped my arm and
whispered, “You’re a college student, right?”

I nodded, holding my breath.

He bit his lip and his eyes looked up as he
dug his hand into his pocket and fished around. He brought out his
hand, opened his palm, and my eyes followed to a few pills marked
Lemon 714.