Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. The fictional band Degenerate Matter, their albums Vagabondage, Ultrarelativistic, WIMPs and MACHOs, Frozen Stars, and all the lyrics contained therein copyright to the author of this story (username: MistyMountainHop, maker of Those '70s Comics).

CHAPTER 44
CONDEMNED

March 10, 1995

Sydney, Australia

Sydney Entertainment Centre
…

Hyde was helping Degenerate Matter's crew load-in equipment, a head-clearing ritual he refused to give up. Thirteen-thousand empty seats filled the Sydney Entertainment Centre. In eight hours, those seats would be packed with singing, shouting fans. Ro was a master at absorbing that much energy and reflecting it back. Hyde wasn't sure he could do the same.

The band's first gig on its Australian tour had been Perth, at a venue with eight-thousand seats. He'd ensconced himself, as usual, with Scotty in the sidestage bunker. Hyde would run onto the stage to give Ro water or a small towel, and the crowd's energy would rise. Screams from the front rows vibrated his eardrums, as did his name. Fans recognized him, even with his hair hiding his face. After the same reaction happened in Adelaide, he was done being Ro's water-and-towel boy.

"Why do you roadie for the band?" Donna said now as he rolled the cable coffin, a trunk full of spare wires and plugs, toward the Sydney stage. She was walking with him, holding her portable tape recorder beneath her chin. "You signed Degenerate Matter, helped develop its sound, write many of its lyrics—so why do manual labor, too?"

"Got to get my exercise somehow," he said into her recorder. His calf, where Charleston Hiver cut him two weeks ago, no longer stung with added pressure. "Started out as a humper for The Underground, a club in Chicago, moving equipment from one place to another. Progressed to stage-builder real fast 'cause I'm good with my hands."

"The music you write for the band is evidence of that."

"Only contributed musically to a few songs. Ro, Lee, Sherry, and Nate are the songwriters." He'd gotten the cable coffin to a ramp, but he grasped the tape recorder and pressed the stop button. "Donna, could you quit inflating my role here?"

Her expression softened, transforming from reporter to friend. "Sorry. I'm just so giddy. The kid I used to blow spitballs at in first grade is part of the biggest band in the world … and I'm his exclusive interviewer!"

"'Cause I'm counting on you to tone shit down." He pushed the cable coffin up the ramp and onto the stage. He'd work with the road crew as long as he could, much to Ro's disappointment. She and the band were taking surfing lessons at Bondi beach, but his absence would make the outing less interesting to spying eyes, flesh or tech.

"When did you first start working as a roadie for the band?" Donna said once he was offstage. Her tape recorder was under his chin.

"Summer of '90," he said. "Became a steel dog."

"How did members of the band feel about someone on the corporate side of the business getting into the dirty, labor-intensive side?"

"Didn't know it was me. I looked different on the road than in the office, but Ro figured it out eventually."

"How?"

Hyde thought over his answer, but one of the crew hauling clag—a bunch of loose cables over his shoulder—and two toolboxes in his hands puckered his lips at him, making kissy noises. The crew had always given Hyde a hard time, but ever since Come On Magazine exposed him as Ro's fiancé, they'd become especially rough.

"You'd have to ask her," Hyde said into the tape recorder.

"Think she'll answer?" Donna said.

"Only one way to find out."

She exhaled loudly, obviously dissatisfied with his response. "Okay, so how have your interactions with fans changed in the last few months?"

"I'm actually havin' interactions with them, for one. Beyond writing letters. They had no clue who I was before. Now..." loading-out after a show had become impossible. The last two gigs, fans waited by the stage long after the house lights came up. Hyde went onstage to haul out equipment, and fans tried to get his attention. They called him both O. MacNeil and Steven Hyde. Professed "Spark" or "Singularity" was their favorite song. Claimed they just wanted a picture with him, or a signature, or for him to sing a line or two.

He gave them nothing but a wave, and that set off a cascade of shrieking.

"Ask me that question again at the end of the tour," Hyde said to Donna, who followed him across the arena floor. One of the noise boys, a sound tech, shoved a road case his way, full of sound components. Hyde took control of it and wheeled it toward the stage.

"Can't you give me a little something?" Donna said. "Change is the theme of the first article I'm writing for Bad Radio. Your relationship to the band's fans is an important aspect."

"Haven't gotten a handle on that dynamic yet."

He also hadn't gotten a handle on what Jackie told him in Foster City. The story about her miscarriage gave him a sense of déjà vu, one he couldn't shake. He needed some non-thinking time, for his subconscious to process what he'd learned. Being interviewed wasn't allowing him that space, and he sent Donna off to join the band at Bondi beach.

Hyde remained in the sidestage bunker as Scotty dashed onstage. Degenerate Matter was halfway through its first set, and Ro signaled for water. The crowd at the Sydney Entertainment Centre needed to be woken up a little, and the moment Scotty returned to the bunker, the band kicked into the throat-tearing "This Ain't About Love".

"That's more like it," Hyde said by Scotty's shoulder. "Finally hearin' the crowd over Ro."

"Maybe if you were doing the water-runs, you would've heard them earlier," Scotty said. "No one screams for me when I bring Ro a towel. I'd have to shred a killer solo to get that kind of adulation."

In the dim light of the bunker, Scotty's face revealed little. His eyes were focused on Lee, in case a guitar string broke or an effects pedal glitched, and his head bobbed with the song's rhythm. Standing beside him, Hyde felt claustrophobic. The bunker seemed too small to house three people, despite that he, Scotty, and Rick—Ro's guitar tech—had a decent amount of personal space.

"You could always get a boob job," Hyde said, ignoring his discomfort. "Method's worked for a lot of chicks. Gave 'em overnight fame."

Scotty chuckled. "That's wrong on too many levels, man. But I'm relieved I don't have to deal with fans the way I used to. Not saying the occasional encounter doesn't happen, though."

The muscles in Hyde's neck were growing tight, but he didn't understand why. He'd spent countless gigs in the bunker with Scotty and Rick. Maybe not having a real reason to be there this time was the problem. He could've sat in the band's VIP section, but he preferred privacy. "By 'encounter,'" he said, "you mean fucking?"

"Nah. Just people who recognize me, even without the Wildebeest hair."

Hyde smirked. "And makeup."

"Yeah."

"How many groupies you screw back then?" Rick said. He rarely spoke during a a gig. Ro tended to be wild in her playing, and her guitars strings broke more often than Lee's did.

"Enough to make my dick sore," Scotty said.

"Is that who you messed around with while you were hitched?" Hyde's tone was more aggressive than he'd intended. The edginess must've come from cutting down on cigarettes again. He yanked a stick of gum from his jeans pocket and shoved it into his mouth.

Scotty opened a bottle of water for himself. "Doesn't make it right, but we all slept with groupies." He sipped form the bottle. "State of rock's different now, at least in Degenerate Matter's scene. Different kinds of folks are getting record deals nowadays, not just better musicians but better people."

"I hear that," Rick said, and he rushed onstage with Ro's 1987 Rickenbacker. The band transitioned into "Tender Eyes," which required a less sludgy and more classic sound.

"Speaking of Wildebeest," Scotty said, "Gabe Wilde showed up at one of the Bull gigs." He was referencing his side band with Lee, Bull in a Cramped Shop. "He starts yapping about missing the life, the drugs, the pussy, and I couldn't relate. He wants to get Wildebeest back together."

Hyde willed his tone to be light. "What'd you tell him?"

"Turned him down. I'm not going back to that." Scotty swallowed a big gulp of water. "Hell no."

"Good..." Hyde's thumbs hooked into his belt loops, but the rest of his fingers clenched into fists. His body was ready for a fight. His mind was whispering theories he refused to believe, yet he couldn't entirely dismiss them. "Something I've always wondered," he said, accepting he might not like the answer, "what was your name before you changed it to Scotty Roxx?"

"She told you, huh?" Scotty said. He put his bottle of water on the ground. "Can't say I blame her—"

"Who told me what?" Hyde needed to hear him say it, say her name.

"Come on, man. Don't play dumb. That show Degenerate Matter played at the Wintry Hotel, there was a reason I refused at first."

"Nerves."

"Jackie. My ex."

"Your ex?" Hyde said, but his mind had been whispering it all along.

"Small world, huh?" Scotty said with a little laugh.

"Your ex-wife … Jackie's the … you broke her fucking nose?"

Nate mirrored Hyde's pulse with a blistering drum solo. Hyde's fists were shaking. He had to get out of the bunker, but Scotty's gaze was on him and full of regret. "I still feel my knuckles crashing into her face. I haven't forgiven myself for it. Don't think I ever will."

Hyde's own knuckles burned with the unreleased energy in his fists. But he'd already known about Scotty's violence toward his ex-wife. That knowledge had neither stripped Hyde's respect nor prevented him from considering Scotty a friend. It should have, but Jackie being Scotty's ex made all the difference. The violence he'd left behind almost sixteen years ago was pulsing through his veins.

And it shamed him.

Hyde relaxed his fingers. "Don't know if I can forgive either of us."

He exited through the back of the bunker, even as Rick said to Scotty, "Mind explaining what that's about?"

Ro sang the last chorus of her song about Hyde's "tender eyes," but if she could see them now, they'd inspire a totally different song.

In the greenroom, Hyde sat as far from the mini-fridge as possible. Beer was inside, but he'd more likely smash the bottles than drink from them. His hypocrisy and Scotty's treatment of Jackie had fallen into the same fire. It was raging out of control; and on the sofa, he bent over his knees, pressing his stomach against his legs. His fingers were laced behind his head. He hadn't felt this much like a prisoner since before he met Ro.

"Jackie," Scotty said less then twenty minutes ago. "My ex."

Three words explained the truth behind Jackie's disappearances at her birthday party. Her reactions. Being trapped in the same room with the guy who'd busted her face, who'd pulverized her sense of self … Hyde couldn't reconcile that guy, Ralph, with his friend Scotty. Yet they were one and the same.

The greenroom door eventually clicked open. The band's first set must have ended, and Ro, Lee, Sherry, and Nate entered, talking quietly among themselves. Hyde hadn't changed from his hunched-over position on the sofa, and Ro said, "What's wrong with you? You sick?"

"Kind of." He unlaced his fingers from behind his head. His hands were sweaty, but he dug them into his hair and didn't sit up.

Ro sat beside him and rubbed his back. "Let's get you into the bathroom, huh?"

"Want me to get you a bucket, buddy?" Nate said. "We could go full-on punk, toss your up-chuck into the crowd."

"Nate, you're making me want to up-chuck," Sherry said, but Ro had coaxed Hyde to his feet. His neck and shoulders ached from being in one position for so long, but the pain gave him a focus.

Lee kept silent as Ro brought Hyde into the corridor. Either he didn't care about Hyde's current state, or he'd recognized the anger blazing in Hyde's blood and made the right choice.

"Out with it," Ro said once they were in the women's bathroom. Stall doors gleamed in the surprisingly bright lights. She glanced under the doors. According to her, the stalls were empty, but the lock in the bathroom door knob required a key. "This is as much privacy as we're gonna get, love."

"Scotty," he said quietly by the sinks. "He's Jackie's ex-husband. He hurt her … really hurt her."

"Cheated?"

"Tip of the iceberg."

"Beat her?"

"Once. Broke her nose."

Ro cupped his fist in her hands. She turned it palm-side up and rubbed her thumb over his wrist. "His past, like yours, doesn't define him. If you're friends with who he is now, then what he did to Jackie doesn't matter."

He yanked his fist from her. "Bullshit! What if it had been you? If Scotty had smashed your nose, made you feel so damn worthless that you cultivate misery?"

"Then you never would have met him," she said with a condescending lilt, "because I wouldn't have allowed him to work for Lee. And Lee wouldn't have allowed him to work for Lee."

"Fuck, you think that's helpful?" He slammed his hands into a stall door, and it banged open. His irrational side hungered to turn Scotty's face into a pile of blood and dust, like he'd done to Kelso's. But his rational side found the idea reprehensible, and it choke-chained whatever rage he had.

Ro stepped closer to him that she should have. "Should we fire him?"

"No. But anywhere Scotty is, I won't be. It's safer for both of us that way." He cleared his throat. It was dry and craving a smoke, but he wouldn't give in. His body had to metabolize the stress on its own, was capable of it. "And take 'Spark' off the setlist," he said, moving toward the bathroom door. "Not in the mood to make my goddamn 'arena debut'."

"Hey—!" She gripped the material of his shirt, and he stopped mid-stride. "We've been having a good time." She pushed herself against his chest, and her palms skimmed over his butt. "Let me suck the anger out of you."

"Appreciate the offer, but it's not gonna work." He rested his hands on her waist. "Need time to process this crap."

"After tomorrow's show, you'll have two days to process it. One of the songs we're recording doesn't have lyrics. Write some up."

Maybe he would. But for now, his main objective was staying away from Scotty. Otherwise, he'd process his feelings on the man's skull.

March 12, 1995

San Mateo, CA

Enchanté Bistro
...

Jackie's legs were hidden under a long table cloth, and she dug her nails into them to keep from grinning. Her mom was raging to her, Deborah, and Brie in the Enchanté Bistro. Jackie needed pain, or else she'd start laughing.

"And then she has the audacity to call Ecliptic a bunch of never-bes!" her mom said and tore into a bread roll. A barrage of crumbs missed her side plate and flew onto the table.

Though the world technically appeared darker from behind Steven's sunglasses, Jackie's experience of it had become brighter. Her mom's ire was directed at Ann-Marie, as it had been for the last week. Deborah spurred her on while Brie played both sides, and all Jackie had to do was sit back and watch.

"As Robby might say," Deborah said, referring to her husband, "Ecliptic's stock isn't as high as Degenerate Matter's, but it's still worth investing in."

"The only reason Ecliptic's stock 'isn't as high' is—" Pam snapped her fingers at a young waiter, who couldn't be older than twenty-five, and he rushed over. "Garçon, I am sick of picking at bread. Can you have the chef rush our appetizers, s'il vous plaît?"

"Right away, ma'am."

"Miss."

"Miss."

Pam clawed her fingers through her perfectly bleached blond hair. "Even in a French restaurant, you can't find good help." She sipped her white wine and blotted her lips with a napkin. "As I was saying, the only reason Ecliptic isn't selling as well as Degenerate Matter is..."

Her voice blended with those of other patrons. Brie must have responded because her lips were moving, but Jackie was too at ease to care. Wearing Steven's sunglasses felt like having a force field surrounding her. Also, not being the receptacle for her mom and the Blonde Brigade's negativity was reinvigorating. Over the years, it had drained her energy, exhausting her.

"June told me you'll be running an article on Degenerate Matter this month," Pam said to Brie and blew on a spoonful of French onion soup. The young waiter had been successful; their appetizers had arrived moments ago.

Brie scooped her fork into her baby arugula salad. "Cosette is running a page-article, yes. Donna Pinciotti-Forman sent us an exclusive from the band's Australia tour. It's a thank-you for the feature we did on her. That lady has true class."

She turned her attention to Jackie, and Jackie's hand twitched. A shrimp fell off her fork. She hadn't expected to be included in the conversation, but Brie said, "Jackie, you choose your friends well. Getting anything official on Degenerate Matter is impossible, not without an in. Connections are vital to being successful at business, at life—"

"Yes, they are," Deborah said. "Do you know how many celebrities Robby and I hobnob with at the Nuff Creek Country Club?"

Jackie laughed. "Did you just say hobnob? How old are you?"

"A lady never tells."

"You're not old enough to say that." Jackie's gaze remained on Deborah, though she wondered how her mom was reacting. Jackie was more daring than usual, expressing more of herself, but she couldn't push it too far. "Wait another twenty years," she said. "Then you can start hiding your age."

"She's right," Brie said. "Your husband might be in his fifties, but you aren't. None of us are."

Jackie stuffed a shrimp into her mouth. It was either that or coughing. Her mom, despite the plastic surgery, had almost sixty-year-old bones.

"Nuff Creek is the crème de la crème." Pam raised her glass to Deborah. "Married couples only." It was a low-key diss to Brie. Maybe to Jackie, too. Her mom and all of the Blonde Brigade were members of the Burlingame Country Club, but Nuff Creek was even more exclusive. "Perhaps I can get you in on a visitor's pass, Brie," she said, "if you were to do a little article on the 'Hot Guys of Ecliptic'. I'm sure they'd go shirtless."

"Oh, that's quite all right." Brie drank from her water glass with a scrunched, disgusted expression. Only Ecliptic's drummer was in any kind of shape. The other band members were either scrawny like Eric used to be or paunchy from beer. "Jackie, I've been meaning to ask you—" Brie gestured to Jackie's face—"where did you get those sunglasses? They're very retro but so now."

"That'll have to stay a secret," Jackie said. "I don't want them to become trendy like flannel shirts."

"Oh, God, no." Deborah's fork clanked on her terrine of foie gras. "That much plaid only belongs on a golf course or in Scotland—or a golf course in Scotland."

"I have a guess where Jackie got those sunglasses," Pam sang.

"And I have more than a guess about what kind of 'sister'you are," Jackie said through a toothy smile. "Would you like me to share that particular detail with our friends? Or would you prefer the paparazzi who're crawling around my house to learn first?"

Ever since her birthday party, so-called journalists had camped out on Flying Mist Isle. Usually they said nothing to her, but some asked if she'd "heard from Steven lately?" Others trespassed on her property, but the police took care of them. Her neighbors weren't happy about the intrusions either, and she wasn't considered a public figure, despite her marriage to "Scotty Roxx". She'd popped up in a dusting of tabloid stories during that time. But after her divorce, after Wildebeest lost its popularity and broke up, the tabloids' interest in her disappeared. No money to be made off her anymore.

"I even have a few 'journalists' personal numbers," Jackie said. "I can call one right now. I'm sure he'd be more than happy to interview us on our sisterly bond."

"That won't be necessary," her mom said and sipped her wine. "The subject of the sunglasses is closed."

Deborah snorted. "No, it's not. Where do you think she got them?"

"A vintage clothing store in Beverly Hills," Pam said, but for all the times she'd called Steven Sven, she remembered plenty of details about him. None of her actions could be taken at face value. Jackie had etched that fact onto her brain, but she wouldn't worry about it. Not until her mom made an obvious threat. Then Jackie would act on her own threat: revealing to the wider world, including her oblivious stepfather, that Pam was in fact her mother.