Song: Can you Hear the Music by The Rolling Stones
Like a Rolling Stone
Chapter Two: Can you Hear the Music
Can you hear the music? Can you hear the music?
Can you feel the magic hangin' in the air?
The night hangs high in the air, a sheer curtain of mystification and adolescent delusion. The thin desires within such hours of darkness fissure, slithering through the open window of a second story bedroom, the only window that casts light upon the dead, dry grass of the yard, a single square of yellow to soften the edges of dusk.
The room sits still, crowded by this same yellow light and a set of white furniture, a small single-mattress bed, unmade but un-messy. A stereo sits on the floor; the tabletop of the dresser holds only makeup to conceal any near imperfections, to create a mask of lies, and magazines with tips and tricks to aid in such affairs, books of deception for girls whom treasure such hollowness. A hand reaches out, slim fingers, and nails painted in gunmetal gray. They run across the length of a black stick, a small little utensil to line the eyes with unbidden ambiguity when they are merely attempting to stand out. Angela takes the liner in one hand, a pocket lighter igniting in the other, and holds the coal precariously above the flame, softening it. The blackness slackens, and as she outlines the shape of her eyes it seeps further within her soul.
A second girl—Ruby—sashays about the room, the skirt of her dress hovering between layers of thick summer air as it lifts away from her thighs mid-spin, a flower opening its petals to the sky. She hums like the honeybees that collect the flowers' sweet nectar, the dancing melody playing tune with the speaker system: The Rolling Stone's Satisfaction. The rocking tone clashes carelessly with Ruby's saccharine manner, a single moment when sugar catches light upon the skin only to be licked, sucked away in devilish acts of sin with a boy whom finds profession in such tort.
Angela lies out on the bed; limbs stretched wide like a star and at times, one may find, she shines like one too. "So," The girl with the black hair and the pale skin and the eyes that sometimes shine huffs, cigarette held between puckered lips painted in a deep red that reminds Ruby of her own name. "Can you always see right into that chick's window?" Angela's eyes flick carelessly towards the house across the road, a streetlamp illuminating the empty jagged asphalt and then a second light like that of the yellow that is reflected upon Ruby's own yard. The neighbor-girl's own window is closed against the heat of the night but the glass pane is not so dirty that it cannot be seen through. Neighbor-girl folds her hands in her hair, picking up strands and twisting them experimentally.
"It's just as much that she can see into mine s'pose." Ruby shrugs, uncaring of her spotlight, and reaching to run her hands through her own stands of broken and dirtied gold.
Angela snorts, it is unladylike and shallow but familiar all the same. "You ever talk to her?"
Ruby remembers when the darkness of night was still new, and the loneliness it brought still hurt, drawing the sheets of her bed all the way up towards her chin, a flimsy shield, even then. When her mother was still alive, still laughed and breathed and wore a shade of lipstick that always reminded Ruby of spring flowers, the bed clothes smelled of mildew and fabric softener, each scent attempting to overawe the other. Now they just smell of sex and smoke. But when they didn't—oh, it's always before, always when something didn't—she would watch with wide eyes the color of whiskey, something that only Daddy drank, something she never knew the dizzying effects of, not the sharp sting it left in the throat, or the clouds it built within the mind, nor the way it tasted best if mixed with Coke, or they way it made things hurt less when mixed with nothing at all, she'd watch. She'd watch the lights turn on in that house across the street and watch the girl with no name that was nothing more than a ghost—she didn't exist, only fixed her hair and shook her skirts and when the light turned off she'd disappear.
"Nah, but I think her name is Carol." Ruby remembers that's what her mom's name was, still is she supposes. Or do people become nameless when they die, nothing more than a memory? But she remembers it anyways, remembers it etched into the hard marble of the gravestone and spoken by a man whom never knew her but stood behind a podium and wore the church's cross pinned to his chest as Ruby dropped spring flowers over her mother's casket. They reminded her of the lipstick she wore upon her lips. Ruby remembers, remembers how hard her father had grabbed her when she had said that out loud.
Can you feel the magic? Oh, yeah
Love is a mystery I can't demystify, oh, no
And sometimes I wonder why we're here
But I don't care, I don't care
There are no spring flowers by the riverside, if they even had the courage to grow, stiff petals shuddering in the breeze, they would have wilted in this summer heat. But it does smell heavily of unknown intimacy and smoke, the air saturated with a cancerous blaze and run-away morals. Ruby can feel the heels of her shoes sink into the grass, nature pulling her downwards towards where her riven purity has gathered in fragments. Angela flounces beside her, strides shortening as she steps away from the gravel of the parking lot.
The tailings of the lot are left generally un-scattered, only a few vehicles smothering the broken rock with their heavy rubber tires, paint like metallic fire, while the rest are parked upon the lawn and nearer the water's edge. The moon casts a silver light upon the processions, bodies moving like shadows, as if they are not a part of this world. And as the girls step farther still, they too depart from this stolid Earth.
Silver meets with gold, two metals tempered in fire, upon the hood of Jack Fonder's car. He perches here too, melting in his own metallic state beneath the night's inferno. Ruby makes her way towards him, a single jewel to decorate the hilt of this brazed sword, and away from the water's edge, a single breeze pushing forth that does nothing to cool her as she reaches out towards the flame.
Can you hear the music? can you hear the music?
Can you feel the magic dancin' in the air?
Can you feel the magic? Oh, yeah
Angela has slipped within the pulsing crowd, a separate heart from their own, seeking eyes against the atomicity. The river is still, a placid partition between lands, all piceous glass that holds within it the stars. A second girl approaches the edge, hair dragging, red like autumn that has no place in this season, and dandelions twisted in its braid. "Hello," The girl speaks, voice misty, and Angela can tell that she is already far-gone, nothing more than a corpse dancing among the rest of these bodies.
Angela frowns; the expression seems odd upon her features but not out of place. "Virginia," she greets the other girl, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia and nothing more because she was never given a second name. The girl with the hair the color of a time when everything is falling dips her foot into the water, breaking the fragile calmness of it with toes that are always bare. And she giggles, the noise mixing like odd music with the sound of the water wallowing, dropping back into place, the nuance of its compulsive action reverberating in circles across the gentle watercourse.
Virginia looks up at Angela, pupils blown wide so that her irises are nothing more than a rim of color about the contorted blackness, and the veins of redness leach the whites of their awareness. The girl with the contorted eyes smiles, a crooked thing that makes her nose crinkle and her freckles press together, a clot of copper skin; Angela imagines each penny dropping away, falling from her face and into the river without a wish to kiss upon each one. Virginia reaches into her pocket, eyes still wide, unblinking, and fixed upon Angela, and all the pennies stay in place. She'll get to hold onto her dreams for now, dance in them if she'd like. People like her usually do. The other girl shifts, turning away from the spectral eyes that seem to swallow the light; she feels the other girl's hand in her hair, twisting the strands, her skin warm and damp near her scalp, "You want some?"
"No, Sweet Virginia," Angela swats the other girl's hand away, a few black strands caught in curled fingers.
"You seem sad," Virginia speaks with that voice full of mist, fogging her own brain, her thoughts falling away until all she can do is rock and hum, dropping into the crowd like a fallen skeleton, all bones that rattle to the music, before Angela may even answer. She wasn't planning to anyways.
Love is a mystery I can't demystify, oh, no
Sometimes I'm dancin' on air
But I get scared, I get scared
The heat lingers in the car even as the shadows of tree branches stretch forth, fingers tensing at the reveal of more skin. And it curls around their bodies where Ruby straddles Jack Fonder in the driver's seat of his golden automobile; with every movement the fever upon the air seems to thicken, forcing their bodies apart. But like most things, he fights it.
Their breaths mix, lips nothing more than moments apart, and when they move they slide against each other. "I bet we get caught," Ruby gambles, whiskey eyes dark, and Jack feels as though he has gotten drunk off their color alone.
"You're gonna bet against us, baby? You're always gonna lose," he says, even as music trembles in the tipsy air, the crowd treading over grass the same way they do fortune, a luckless gathering.
When I hear the drummer, get me in the groove
When I hear the guitar, makes me wanna move
Can you feel the magic, floatin' in the air?
Can you feel the magic? Oh, yeah
The dress creases in his hands, folding over, and melting in the sheer heat of his actions. Their bodies collide with a fierce intensity only they can manage, hoods, and greasers, and all things impure. Impure as the very words Jack whispers in her ear. He cradles her back in his hands; though, this word sounds far too gentle for his actions, groping clothed skin, and pulling at hemlines. Ruby arches against him, any lustful sounds she breathes outward lost in the rage of the horn, her body pressing against the center of the steering wheel. She laughs, heavy and clouted with something unchaste.
"Told you…"
Jack grits his teeth, lips pressed against her neck, hands gripping her sides and pulling her closer, still, against him. "You did that on purpose." His jaw tightens, a firm line against the curve of her chest.
"I didn't," Ruby says, pulling at his fingers, fingers rough and callous as the boy they belong to, "I just know how to pony up."
"Don't I know it," his grin is sharp, a rebel glint in his eye, like he's trespassing on sacred grounds. "You were supposed to 'pony up' on me." His mouth closes upon the skin just above the neckline of her dress, teeth pulling and tasting the sugar of her simplicity. In the absence of her complication there many other voids to fill.
Ruby gasps, fingers sliding over the blotch at her collarbone, blood raised from the bottom of its veins to the surface of her skin. A mark blooming like a red rose, its thorns sharp. She straightens her arms against his chest, separating them further, a partition of wills and wicked intentions.
Sometimes you're feelin' you've been pushed around
And your rainbow just ain't here
Don't you fear, don't you fear
Jack Fonder reaches over, a supine movement, grasping the handle of the door and pushing it outward, the taught frame of his body rippling in its flexion, hard body beneath white threads, a street fighting man. He shifts before Ruby is fully out of the door, hips joining in one final tainted movement, a compression of two rogues, shackles as sharp as their volition. She moves like a bird, as if the thin air can lift her upwards; she lets it. But he moves in spite of the wind, against it; Jack's hand comes down upon Ruby's ass, against the fabric of her dress, a sharp movement that disputes chastity.
They gain only a few eyes, the music throbbing like the beat of a heart, too loud to dispute life and those whom fight it, their car-bound fever nothing more than background noise. The crowd osculates, flickering with silver light, and flitting through this world with careless abandon. They are tossed about by the ethereal waves of the river.
Across the Lookout—this riverside haven—Ruby recognizes a familiar truck, an enduring espy, the back laid out and two boys sitting upon the bed of it. One stands, knocking back the last of his beer, bottleneck gripped tight in his hand, before setting it back down, and holding a heavy gaze. The look is shared between familiar eyes, the action not reserved. Ruby relieves in a twisted grin, a smile of apathetic bliss.
When you hear the music trouble disappears
When you hear the music ringin' in your ears
Can you feel the magic floatin' in the air?
The music veils her broken skin, the prickling of the red mark above her heart thrumming thrill amidst the bass. She does not move towards her brother; the melody of the night separates them deeply. But she does throw up her hand in a two-finger salute, pointer and middle finger upon forehead, a simple movement, an empty careless gesture by an empty careless girl. The second boy curves his brow inward and heaves forward a bent, uneasy smile; despite it all he still looks tuff with his recklessly caring eyes.
Can you hear the magic? Oh, yeah, yeah
When you hear the music ringin' in my ear
Can you hear the music? Oh, yeah
The music works like morphine, dulling her restless senses, and her voice is serene, poised upon the cadence of the night. She clutches the back of his white t-shirt, fingers warping stiff cotton, her free hand running through the tresses of her hair, the color lost in the moonlight. And she sees the world in such grace of spotlessness despite the fissures, boiling upward and spilling their contents, mixing with the river water and corrupting the light of the stars that reflect so hopelessly upon the looking glass.
Can you hear the drummer? Gets you in the groove
Can you hear the guitar? Make you wanna move? Yeah
Can you hear the music? Oh, yeah
"You gonna make this up to me baby?" Jack Fonder murmurs his words above the electrifying air, straight spined and bitter against this girl with Technicolor rushing through her veins.
"Yeah," Ruby soughs, wind upon air, they are the same. She tosses her head back, allowing the sterling light to gather upon her skin so that Jack may steel it away, and crown it with his darkness.
Jack Fonder: the keeper of her sanity.
Can you hear the music ringin' in my ear?
Can you hear the music? Can you hear the music?