If there was a such thing as preemptive guilt, Beverly was feeling it intensely at the moment. She was about to trigger one of her estranged friends into remembering the one of the worst experiences of their lives. It wasn't that she was trying to hurt them, or that her decision stemmed from a malicious place, she just needed them to remember what they'd been through; she needed them all to remember, to recall that summer of '89 and the events therein, the most important one being the day they all trekked down into the sewers and defeated the Clown.
But IT wasn't dead.
She knew because she could feel IT inside of her, she could sense ITs presence wherever she went; including outside of the bounds of Derry, Maine. IT didn't particularly do or say anything to her directly, but the connection to the creature was a wholly unwelcomed one. ITs presence was dark and vicious and Beverly believed IT had begun influencing her negatively throughout the years, making her irritable and violent.
I already have the anger issues and mental instability handed down from dad and mom, she grimly thought, it's not like I need anymore odds stacked against me.
She wanted to get rid of the darkness that was steadily seeping into her soul, poisoning her heart and mind. To do that, she figured she'd need to destroy the creature itself, which meant she would need to gather her friends, journey back home, and defeat IT once and for all.
Hence the task at hand.
Richie was the first one she decided to focus on, not that she was aware of any rhyme or reason as to why she'd chosen him first. She hadn't been able to forget her friends-or anything about her past, for that matter-and she had plenty of good memories of the Tozier boy from her youth, so it wasn't as if she didn't like him. Someone had to be spoken to first, and that someone just happened to be him.
He always did have a tendency of pulling the short stick whenever we drew lots, Beverly recalled with a soft smile. And he was always a good sport about it.
She loved him and all of her friends dearly; she never quite managed to make another friend since leaving Derry. She couldn't bring herself to settle for any connections that weren't as deep as the bond she'd shared with the other six boys. Of course that hadn't stopped her from entertaining a litany of one-night-stands and even one single, semi-professional, semi-romantic long-term relationship that she now, of course, regretted.
Beverly frowned at the thought of it, then continued on in her work.
She was sat in front of the TV in a hotel suite in southern California. She'd arrived in the sunny state only two weeks prior and had been toiling away at the current project as if her life depended on it.
In a way it kinda' does, Bev realized. She had to finish the costume she was designing, had to trigger Richie and then the others and face IT before their 27 year pact was upon them.
If we wait until then, we won't stand a chance, she feared. She knew the likelihood of them not only surviving but emerging victorious would be significantly higher if they were all in their prime, with the element of surprise on their side. IT no doubt had a vendetta against them and, even as a group, it would be difficult for them get the better of IT again. They'd need every advantage they could get.
She was already meticulous when it came to her work, but now she took extra care in making sure the nearly-finished costume was absolutely perfect; every seam was straight and the buttons aligned, the color and cut and texture just as she remembered it to be from so many years ago. She'd spared no expense where the wig and shoes and accessories were concerned, either, wanting to replicate the outfit as closely as possible.
"And we're back!"
Beverly looked from her work station up towards the TV and saw that the commercial break had indeed ended. Her attention was thereon divided between sewing the three red poms onto the front of the suit and glancing up at the VH1 broadcast.
Richie was on TV.
The fact that he'd become famous had been something of a shock for the young woman, but it was great news, nonetheless. He and the rest of his band were being interviewed by an affable middle-aged talk show host. The four of them-all men-were sat on a bright yellow couch with Richie on the far right end. The host was in an armchair adjacent to him and was perched near the edge of it as he made idle chit-chat.
Bev didn't so much listen to that part as she took in what each person was wearing; a habit of her fashion-conscious mind, perhaps. Of course the host was in an unassuming pair of black pants and a simple black polo shirt, with his blonde-hair parted to the side and combed neatly. The band members were in indistinguishable combinations of ripped or bleached jeans, logo-bearing T-shirts, and denim or black leather jackets.
Then there was Richie.
He stood out in his eye-catching attire, in a pair of royal blue high-water slacks tailored to fit his lean frame and an open jacket of the same intense color. He wore a white dress shirt as well that was patterned with tiny little yellow and red and blue anchors and had a pair of red loafers on without any socks; she could tell from the way he was sat with one ankle propped up on his other knee. He seemed absolutely at home with his arms spread out on the couch behind him and a wide, slightly nervous smile on his pale and angular face. His hair had gotten much longer than Beverly remembered, and maybe it was Hollywood magic at work but it looked extra sleek and shiny as it fell in loose curls over his forehead and shoulders.
...He looks really good, Beverly's smile was slow. Like...really good.
The host finished up with introductions and then said, "Now naturally, I've got to ask: how did you boys get your start as performers? When did you realize you were, ah," He gestured with his hands, "musically inclined?"
All the guys on the couch smiled and looked to each other but it was Richie who chose to answer first, perhaps since he was the closest to the personable interviewer.
"I started playing drums in, like, middle school." Richie explained.
"That's young," The host remarked. "Were you any good?"
"Good at annoying the shit out of my parents," Richie grinned and made everyone laugh. He leaned forward and said, "My dad actually got me that drum set so I could, like, get rid of all of the excess energy I had at home and at school-I couldn't really, like, concentrate on my classes and stuff 'cause I had this really short attention-span."
Beverly smirked and knew exactly what he was talking about, although she hadn't been around him during this particular phase of his life and that made her a little sad.
"Did it work?" The interviewer asked.
"I mean, it did and it didn't," Richie replied with an ever-widening grin. "I think it helped, but I still had no clue what the hell was going on at, like, any given minute in school." Another round of laughs was earned at that candid admission.
The other band members gave insight into their own early inclinations to the instruments they played, but honestly Beverly was only tuning in to hear Richie's answers.
"Yeah, we all met in California a while back," He said when he next spoke. "I was, like, seventeen I think?" He glanced at the others as if for confirmation and said, "I left home kinda' early. I didn't even graduate, I just kinda' shot out into the world-" He extended an arm straight forward for emphasis. "I was just so damn ready to get outta' my hometown."
"And what was your hometown like?" The interviewer asked.
"I.." Richie frowned at his ankle and then put both feet back on the floor and shook his head, seemingly at a loss. "I really can't even remember that much about it, to be honest."
Both the band members and the audience chuckled and only Beverly understood that it wasn't a joke or a random moment of mental failing, it was just an effect of the power IT had over the residents of Derry.
Except for her.
"I kinda' remember having a bunch of friends," Richie continued, tilting his head. "But it wasn't that hard for me to make friends; my thing was to just annoy everybody and see who stuck around. I mean, I don't think I had friends so much as a group of people who just, like, decided to tolerate me." He finished this with a laugh that added to the one the band, host, and audience were already engaged in.
Beverly didn't think that was funny. She didn't remember him being quite so self-deprecating in the past.
But people change, of course, she reasoned. It was only natural for his humor to evolve as he did.
The next time Richie was addressed, the host was asking, "How did you handle the band's two-year hiatus? What did you get up to? Did it bother you, breaking up like that?"
"Nah, it didn't bother me at all," Richie claimed and added wryly, "I just adore being on my own, all alone with nothing but my thoughts all day and night." His laugh this time sounded much too forced for Beverly's liking, and from the close-up on his face she could read the hints of his discomfort; the rapid blinking and the strained way he tried to keep the smile on his face.
No one else seemed to notice, thinking it was yet another joke.
Richie said, "I used that time to focus on myself and branch out more as a serious comedian-which is, like, an oxymoron, I know."
"And how did that go?"
"Not good," Richie flashed another dry smile. "Not good at all, but I think what it is is that I haven't quite found the right crowd that appreciates my artistic style."
"Is it true you sometimes share your material with your audience at shows?" The host curiously inquired.
One of the band members rolled his eyes. "That's one way to put it."
Another inputted, "At our shows we have what you'd consider a captive audience, and Richie tends to take advantage of that."
The third member added, "I'm honestly surprised there haven't been riots."
"Riots? Please," Richie scoffed. "The fans love me." And true to that, there was uproarious whistles and applause. It made Richie's smile grow genuine and indulgent.
"No, seriously; I am the band," Richie declared. "When people think Sick Science, they think of me-" People again cheered him on, and his band mates just shook their heads with good-natured smiles.
He is such a piece of work, Bev smirked. But I guess they're used to him.
She had to admit she was feeling pretty jealous of his band mates, really; they got to be around him all the time and she missed that. But she was very glad that he'd found good company, which was more than she could say for herself unfortunately.
As Beverly continued to watch the interview, she noticed that Richie seemed to be anxious or uncomfortable; he was fidgeting and twitching and jostling his leg constantly.
Maybe that's the excess energy he was talking about? Or maybe he's on something...?
She certainly hoped that the latter wasn't true. She didn't remember him being quite so restless in the past-
"Richie has a high metabolism, which tends to make him a little hyperactive."
Said by Stan by way of introduction on the day she first met him and the Tozier boy, the quote suddenly came to mind. She guessed she could rule out drugs as the source of his inability to keep still, which was a huge relief.
"Yes, the fans certainly do love you," The interviewer agreed with a tickled smile. "Though I can't help but wonder if that's due, in some part, to your antics, Mr. Tozier."
Richie laughed and the camera settled on him; in that moment Beverly's stomach clenched. She'd heard him laugh so many times before, but had he always sounded like that?
"Speaking of that..." The interviewer made a face and asked delicately, "the ah, the bit with the Clown -"
All three of Richie's band mates shared in a collective groan, throwing back their heads and falling over each other on their side of the couch. Richie was grinning manically and the moment the word 'clown' had left the older man's mouth, the crowd had burst into a frenzy of laughs and hoots and shouts.
Undeterred yet extremely bewildered, the interviewer continued, "Tell me how all that got started."
Richie was laughing so hard at his band mates' reaction that it took him, and the raucous crowd, a moment to calm down. When he did, he was still smiling broadly and his face was slightly red.
"Uh, yeah." He coughed. "That um, that was..." He turned to his band mates and asked, "You guys wanna' tell it or should I? 'Cause it's your fault it-" He turned back to the interviewer and gestured towards the other trio of musicians. "These fuckers found out I had a thing about Clowns and-"
"A thing?" The interviewer cut in with intrigue. "As in you like them or...?"
"No!"
"Ah."
"Hell no!" Richie was both laughing and vehemently denying. "I fucking hate Clowns, and these assholes found out and started pranking me and shit, and they got it all on camera and put it online-"
"Now, in this incriminating video," The interviewer again interjected. "What exactly is it that's-what transpires, exactly?"
Richie sighed and his band mates continued in their silence-one of them shaking his head down at the floor, another chuckling to himself with his arms crossed at his chest. When Richie finally spoke again, he did so in a quiet, embarrassed tone.
"They put the fucking...clown on top of the..." He tipped his head back as if to gather the strength to continue, and the murmurings of laughter started up among the crowd: no doubt the audience had seen the video. Richie finally forced himself to blurt, "They put this...thing in the toilet so when you open the lid it kinda' does this," Richie made his palms snap open and closed like an alligator's mouth.
"It was a novelty toilet seat cover," One of the band members supplied. "One with a pop-up clown head-"
"Oh, no way!" The interviewer could see where things were going.
"It was like three in the goddamn morning and I came in there to drain the ol' flesh pipe and that thing popped up and scared the ever-loving shit outta me!" Richie exclaimed animatedly. The crowd was in complete hysterics. "I swear to God I didn't know what the hell that thing was! I freaked the fuck out, I fell and hit my head and got piss all over the bathroom-"
"Oh, God," The interviewer cringed. "You guys got him good, then?"
"Did we," One of the band members smirked.
"And you said you got this on video?"
"Yep."
"And you posted it to the world wide web?"
"Uh-huh."
Beverly felt kind of bad for Richie, having such a mortifying video get spread around for the whole world to see. But she had to admit, the thought of him shrieking and terror at such a juvenile prank caused a smile to start spreading across her lips.
"The video was just the beginning," one of Richie's mates sighed. "Once the fans got a'hold of it, all hell broke loose."
"You see," the other band mate explained, "in the video we kinda' explicitly state that Tozier's afraid of clowns-"
"I'm not afraid of clowns." Richie corrected. "I hate them. Which is why it was such a dick move for people to jam up our mailbox with all kinds of clown shit from that day on." Richie tilted his head and listed, "Toys, action figures, posters, panties, little fucked up drawings-"
"We got so much stuff that it started obstructing our driveway," One of the musicians recalled.
Beverly wasn't even trying to work anymore, so engrossed she was in the interview at that point. She sat with her hands on her lap and her expression soft and amused. She saw Richie toss his hair and could tell that he was thoroughly enjoying recounting the series of events, despite claiming the fans' behavior to be outrageous and cruel.
"Yeah, I thought if we ignored them, they'd eventually stop, but nooo," Richie shook his head slowly, "not these assholes." He laughed. "So what I came up with was, at our next show, I brought one of the um, the gifts on stage and it was, like, the most heinous, ugly-ass thing I've ever seen in my life-"
"What was it?"
"It was a life-size, like, statue or figurine; like it looked like a real person," Richie shuddered and said, "I brought the fake clown onstage after our show and I took this bat-one of the old-fashioned ones made of real wood-and I just went to town on the thing."
"You destroyed the clown?"
"I destroyed the hell out of the clown."
"It was highly disturbing," One of the band mates winced. "He was yelling and shrieking like some kind of wild animal."
"Yeah, it was great," Richie reminisced. "After that I told the crowd that if they didn't stop sending me shit I would track them down and do the same thing to them."
"Oh, my." The host pretended to be aghast. "Did that make them finally stop?"
"Of course not." Richie smirked. "There were so many people dressed up as clowns at our next show, and you know what?"
"What?"
"I brought one of 'em on stage and I beat the fucking daylights out of him."
The crowd roared.
"I'm a man of my word," Richie shrugged. "And I had to send a message." He ran a hand through his hair. "Only thing was, everybody loved it, you know? They thought it was hilarious, they wanted me to do it again and again, and you know, I'm a man of the people, I just had to oblige-" More appreciative hollering came from the crowd as the cameras panned over the audience.
"People willingly took part in all that?" The host asked.
"Yeah, they would all rush the stage at the end of the show," Richie explained. "Then I would pick one and just start whaling on him."
"Really?" The host was astounded. "And no one complained about this?"
"Well, there was almost a lawsuit that one time," One of the band mates admitted. "Tozier got all carried away and broke this guy's collarbone and uh, fragment-fractured his-"
"Fractured his rib," Richie picked up. "The guy was in pretty bad shape but we worked it out; I paid all his medical bills and gave him a ton of free shit."
"And now we make them all sign a waiver when they walk in the venue," The band mate stated. "If they plan on participating, that is."
"So these people volunteer to be savagely beaten at the end of your shows?" The interviewer couldn't wrap his head around the notion.
"Yep." Richie laughed. "We bring them backstage to put on this, like, protective gear we got from the army surplus place and most of the time they don't even wanna' wear it."
"That's insane!"
"I agree!" Richie laughed and so did the crowd.
"So is this how you got your nickname, The Clown Killer?"
"I mean, I haven't killed any clowns yet."
"Where did your hatred of clowns originate?" The host asked. "Did your parents take you to see some demented circus show or did you run afoul of one at a birthday party as a kid?"
Richie laughed and said, "No. I mean, it did start when I was a kid. I used to be afraid of them but not anymore, not since..." He narrowed his eyes for a few seconds, then amended, "...I guess I just grew up and grew out of it."
"So you moved on from fearing clowns to assaulting them, I get it."
Richie laughed again.
"Now, despite your on-stage antics," The interviewer began, "or perhaps because of them, you've gained a lot of notoriety over the past year and a half." He turned to Richie and asked, "Do you think your stage presence overshadows the music itself?"
"Not really," Richie shrugged. "I think that there are definitely people that come exclusively for the shenanigans at the end of the shows, but there's also lots of really dedicated fans who like the music we put out."
"The music is actually quite different than one would expect, given your general 80's-esque rock and roll persona."
Richie laughed.
"Your music sounds more contemporary, especially your latest album." He asked Richie, "Is it true you're the primary lyricist?"
Richie nodded and both Beverly's brows shot up in surprise.
"The highest-selling tracks all have a similar sound," The host noted. "Very dark, very ominous-"
"And sexy," Richie smirked slyly. "I think that's what people like the most, to be honest."
"And why is that?"
"I dunno," Richie shrugged. "I guess it just turns them on."
That was an understatement.
When Beverly first listened to the music from Richie's band-paying close attention to the rhythm of the drums-she was blown away by how much the songs resonated with her. She agreed with the host about the songs being dark. Even the titles themselves were intriguing-Devour, Ravenous, Insatiable. Part of her wondered if Richie's dealings with IT had influenced the type of music he later produced.
She was indeed turned on by the sound of the front man's voice and by the words he sang; it felt like the songs all perfectly applied to what she was currently dealing with. She had a darkness inside of her, a ravenous, insatiable darkness that seemed to be devouring her one piece at a time.