Beautiful City of the Dead (11 page)

E
VERY DAY, SCHOOL SEEMED
less real. I went, I sat in classes, I failed tests, and I ate disgusting school lunches. I watched the other kids do what they always did. Fighting and gossip, flirting and goofing off, smoking in the lavs and beating up the geeks.

It was all perfectly normal. And it was all unreal, like I was stuck inside a movie and knew everyone was just an actor.

Kids did what they always did. Only it felt like they were just going through the motions. I swear I heard two girls near my locker talking but all that was coming out of their mouths was blah blah blah. No words, like they were extras in some crowd scene and the director had told them, "Just pretend to talk."

So school was nothing. Knacke was still out and I didn't see Frankengoon all week before the Bug Jar gig.

Up in Relly's attic, things were getting pretty tense.
We had three days till the gig and Butt had brought in a new tune he wanted us to do.

He showed up with an old album by Iggy and the Stooges. "It's called
Raw Power.
And that's the tune I want to do." He put the record on the turntable and out came this crude chugging riff. He started jerking his legs and whacking the side of his head in time. "Cool, right? Totally cool. These guys were like the grandfathers of punk."

The tune was simple. Relly and me had it down in about ten seconds. And Butt had even scribbled some of the words. The part that Jerod liked best was when he got to sing "Get down baby and kiss my feet."

We ran through it a couple of times. "So we do it at the Bug Jar, right?"

Relly shook his head. "I don't think so. It's getting too close to the gig. We've only got three days to go."

"It's done," Butt said. "We're ready, right? All Jerod's got to do is learn a couple of lines. Doesn't matter if he gets it all."

"I don't think so," Relly said.

"Come on. We're not doing a single tune I brought in. This one's easy and I love it. Raw Power!" he yelled. "The crowd will go nuts for it when Jerod gets to the chorus. Raw Power!"

"Let's save it for the next gig. We've already nailed down the set list."

"Yeah," Jerod said, "and you two figured it all out without even asking me."

"Maybe if you showed up on time once in a while, you'd get a say in the matter." Relly turned up his volume and let fly a long, fuzz-toned riff, silencing Jerod for the time being.

We sounded good. But still, all the little things that bugged Jerod were now ten times more obnoxious to him. He swore at me when I missed my cues. He picked up an empty pop can and threw it at Relly when his top E string broke. "What are you so bent about?" Relly snarled. "Strings break, OK? That's the way it goes." He looked over at me for support. "His Highness doesn't get it."

"Right!" Jerod yelled back. "So it's you two against me now. Well you better not forget that without me, you're just a couple of geek nothings. I can get guitar players as easy as I can get girls."

Butt threw a drumstick at him. And I figured in about ten seconds all three of them would start throwing punches. "Enough!" I shouted at them. "You're acting like six-year-olds."

Butt calmed down pretty fast. Relly and Jerod were still steaming. "We're all pretty stressed out," I said. "Why don't we take a break for a little while?"

Without saying another word, Jerod stormed out. Butt stayed behind his drums, adjusting the heads and tightening the stands for about the hundredth time.

I went downstairs with Relly and flopped onto the living room couch. Jerod was already out the door, revving his engine.

"You think he's quitting?" I asked.

Relly sneered. "He quits about once a month. There's always something bugging him. A while back he brought in this tune called 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World.' It was like a disco thing. Or one of those wimpy British synth bands. Duran Duran. Wham. Tears for Fears. God, I hate that stuff."

"And you just told him no?"

"It was perfect for him. He really does think he's the king of the world. But we're a metal band. It was totally not us."

Tannis came into the room. "Something wrong?" she said.

"Same old hissy fit from Jerod. He'll be back. He'll rip around the block a few times in his Acura. I don't know who he thinks he's showing off to. But he always comes back once he gets that crot out of his system."

Relly went to the bathroom and I was alone with his mom.

She pointed to a picture on the wall. Two girls, maybe my age. Back in the early '70s from the look of the hairstyles and the way the jeans were cut.

"That's me," Tannis said, pointing to one of the girls. "And that's my sister. Did Relly ever tell you about his aunt Lissa?"

"I don't think so."

I heard the toilet flush and then Relly's footsteps as he went back to the attic. As usual, it felt weird being alone with Tannis. But for once I didn't try to get away.

"We were only a year apart," Tannis said, taking the picture off the wall and handing it to me. "She was really into drama. You know: plays, theater. She was good. Very good."

"Does she still do it?" I asked. It was easy to see which one was Tannis. Darker hair, heavier features. Tannis, at least in the olden days, was kind of cute. But her sister was beautiful. "She's the one in the kitchen, right?" I said. "The zodiac picture. Aquarius."

"Yes, that's Lissa."

We heard a car door slam and then Jerod came stomping into the house. "So what are you waiting for?" he asked me. "Let's get back to work."

Just like Relly said, the fight was all forgotten. And if anything, we sounded even better after Jerod had his little tantrum.

No more talk about the set list. Relly had added the last tune, "Silence Loud," and that was that.

It was great, better, I bet, than any drug. So much
power, so much joy blasting out of the amps. Relly faced in toward the drums. And me, too. With Jerod in the middle. We were a perfect four, banging our heads against the air.

Afterward, I wondered what the real Silence Loud would've thought if she'd heard us. She was a pioneer girl from the olden days. She died when she was seventeen years old. That's what her stone said. Probably she'd run screaming from the room if she heard her song. I felt a little bad about that, stealing her name. Maybe in a hundred years somebody would steal mine too, thinking,
Zee, that's the weirdest name I ever heard.

I was OK with that though. And I hoped Silence would understand if I ever met her and had to explain it all.

W
E HAULED OUR GEAR TO
the Bug Jar in Butt's van.
Just like a real band,
I thought.
This is what it will be like when we tour. The four of us together, all cranked up, ready for the stage, hungry for the almighty noise.

Only when we got big, we'd have roadies and the places would be huge.

The Bug Jar holds maybe a hundred people. In the front room, a gigantic fly rotates from the ceiling above the bar. There's seedy old punks and a few biker types, college kids and teenagers drinking pop. Even though we were playing that night, we had to have our hands stamped with Xs. No beer for Scorpio Bone.

Kruel and Unusual was already there, hanging around the bar. For a big-name act, they were pretty friendly. The lead singer talked a little with Relly, about mikes and amps.

So we set up and watched the crowd come in. By the
time we were supposed to go on, the place was packed. The back room is where the stage is. There's a booth for the sound man and about as much room on the dance floor as in Relly's kitchen. In the back was a table where one of the Kruel and Unusual girlfriends was selling CDs and band T-shirts. By eleven o'clock we could hardly get through the crowd to the stage.

"All right," Jerod yelled, grabbing the mike stand with both hands. "We are Scorpio Bone and this is the end of the world as you know it." Butt gave us the four-count and off we went.

How good were we? Better than ever. How did the crowd like us? They screamed for three encores, and that's saying something for the opening band. Everyone came to see Kruel and Unusual, but they went away talking about Scorpio Bone.

We did all our best songs, which means all the ones I wrote the words to. With the crowd pushing up against the stage, with the noise ripping out of the amps like a horde of furious demons, with Jerod yelling my words, I thought nothing could ever be as good.

My Ibanez and me were like one body. And Relly's crushing riffs were mine too. Butt's bass drum pulsed in my brain. Jerod screamed words that I had written, or copied off old gravestones. And the whole crowd was mixed up in our rising, roaring tide.

I was back behind Relly and Jerod. Still, it felt like this was
my
night, not anyone else's. This was for me, and me alone. This was what I'd been waiting all those years for. To be real, to be wild and loud and free. And to have a hundred people yelling because they loved it.

F
OR THE FIRST TIME,
I truly got what the band was about. Each one of us had joined for a different reason. And each of us got a different payoff. Jerod could stand before the crowd like a pagan idol to be worshiped. Every girl in the place wanted to be with him. And every guy wanted his look, his moves, his voice, his godlike glow.

Butt wanted to smash and pound, like he had a Mack truck in each of his hands. Diesel engine stink, noise, and raw power.

Relly had his Ghost Metal.

And me?

I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. And I got that. Of course, I also wanted to be near Relly. But the real payoff that night was to hear my words huge and heavy, blasting out of the speakers. Jerod sang and shouted, yelled and yowled. Only it was me, not him, the crowd was listening to. For once, my voice was really and truly heard.

We came down off the stage and it was like we really were gods. I mean, I still didn't understand about tetrads and ancient, secret powers. But this made sense. People loved us. We'd grabbed them and shook them and they wanted more. We didn't have to burst into flame or make the rains come. This was the real magic power. Bass, drums, guitar, and a voice. That's all we needed to be gods.

What happened right after is all a blur. I was so cranked up I hardly knew who I was. But I do know that Kruel and Unusual actually heard our set and they were just as stoked as the crowd. The singer asked Relly if we could do some more shows with them, in other towns. He talked about real money. Not just a little handful of sweaty five-dollar bills.

Then he said his manager was there and did we want to talk?

So we squeezed our way out of the back room and headed for a table. "He loved your set," the Kruel and Unusual drummer said. "He wants to talk about where you guys are heading."

I took one look and froze. This manager was a creepy-looking guy with mirror sunglasses on. He had a drink in front of him and a ring on every finger.

"It's Scratch," I said to Relly. I felt my stomach turning and my legs starting to wobble. "It's Scratch. This was all a setup."

The place was so noisy, Relly didn't hear a word I said. I kind of hung back, fear gnawing at my brain. "Don't," I said. "Don't go over there." I reached for Relly, but couldn't hold him.

Relly went and so did Jerod. I guess Butt was still enjoying all the high-fives and backslapping.

"No," I groaned. "Don't."

Then the manager guy took off his glasses and relief flooded through me. No bulgy eye like Scratch. He said, "You were great, really something," and his voice wasn't the one I'd heard on the phone and on the bridge.

He stood up and he was way over six feet tall. "You could fill a place ten times bigger than this," he said. "A hundred times."

He shook Relly's hand. The crowd pushed me closer and he took mine too. I felt like a little kid again, playing at being a grownup. He held onto my hand. And my sickening dread all drained away. "I'm Ray Kola." He spelled it.

"I'm Zee," I said.

"Cool name." When he smiled, gold glittered in his mouth.

It wasn't Scratch in disguise, after all. Ray Kola was really his name and he really was a manager. I heard him talking with Relly about better gigs. I just let go then and kind of drifted, like this all was a perfect dream.

The fear was gone. Everything was going to be OK.

It was three in the morning when Butt finally dropped me off at my house.

A
T FOUR THIRTY THE
phone rang. I staggered down the hall and grabbed it. "Yeah?"

It was Tannis and she wanted to know where Relly was.

"He was hanging around outside the Bug Jar with Kruel and Unusual when I took off. The gig went great."

"He never came home," she said. "I called Jonathan and Jerod. He's not with them either." The panic in Tannis's voice brought me totally awake in a hurry.

"He's not with you?" she asked.

"No!" I was almost yelling. "Butt took me home about three."

"They must have got him, Zee." Though she'd never mentioned their names before, I knew she meant Knacke and the others. "They've taken him hostage."

"What are you talking about?" I shouted. It didn't matter how loud I got. My dad could sleep through an H-bomb attack.

"I know it! I just know it! They've taken him prisoner. Knacke and Franken and Scratch."

"Why would they do such a thing?" She didn't answer me. "Did you call the police? Or how about the hospitals? Maybe he was in an accident."

I felt like I was living in two different worlds at the same time. In the normal one, we were just kids in a band. In the other one, which seemed to get more real every day, the rules were all different. The police couldn't do a thing against living human fire. Teachers were maniac wizards. The assistant principal of the school was also the mastermind of a kidnapping ring.

"Relly was talking with a guy called Ray Kola. He manages Kruel and Unusual. Maybe they're still talking."

"It's almost five, Zee. The sun will be up soon. It's not this manager guy. It's Knacke and the others. I just know it."