*Warning for explicit and vulgar language in this story. I still don't think I captured the vernacular of 'teenage boy' quite right. I tried, I really did. :)
time and allhallowtide, and all that stuff
one
Being fourteen and a freshie in high school – it's not all complete shit.
Troy Walsh moved away last year, smell ya later, and his 2-bit sidekicks have drifted to other cliques that pretty much leave the remaining members of the Party Proper alone. They themselves have been inducted into the greatest of guilds – the collection of Dungeons & Dragons players that made up the prestigious Hellfire Club. Who knew anybody in Hawkins besides them liked playing D&D? They've already had their first campaign, it was amazing.
He knew the Weird Al t-shirt was the right beacon for the first day of the rest of their lives.
On Friday nights they don't have D&D, they head for Family Video, where their inside man (and woman) keep a copy of that week's best release just for them, no matter the rating. But to his constant consternation, neither Steve nor Robin will give them a discount on snacks.
"Come on," Dustin pleads, for the hundredth time.
Steve rings up Day of the Dead for them. "How are we still having this argument? No. I'm not losing this gig because of your penny-pinching habits, Henderson. Just go raid the Dollar Tree to get your fill."
"It's Dollar General," Dustin corrects, with a salute. "And their off-brand M&Ms taste like the secret ingredient is Eastern European water from a factory regulated by communist OSHA. Do you know what communist OSHA is, Steve? It's one guy with a clipboard who never actually completed his certification in health and hygiene safety, because he paid off the instructor, and he makes that money back plus interest by taking bribes from all the factory owners who don't care that their drinking water tastes like pencil lead and rust particles."
"Aquae Sulis of the East," Robin adds. "Y'know, Bath? Taking the waters?"
"Are you..." Mike is hesitant, but his side-eye is stronger than ever. "Are you talking about drinking bath water?"
"Oh, gross," says Steve. "Who would – that's gross. That's definitely European."
Lucas absentmindedly taps the glass with a pointer finger, right over the colorful, shiny examples of American candy, full of high fructose corn syrup and red dye #40. "I read somewhere that if you're in a natural disaster, you're supposed to fill up your bathtub with water to drink later."
Robin's energy radiates all the way out through her limber limbs. She knocks over some cardboard display on the counter, and talks over trying to set it back up. "No, the town in England! I hear they're gonna make it a World Heritage Site, first one in the country. You'd think there'd be a ton over there already, 'cause it's old, but no. And there's already like, a dozen of them in the United States. None in Indiana, of course. Not even close."
Robin was a surprising hot spring of weird information, and a certifiable Pretty Girl. If Dustin didn't have his Suzie-Q she'd be the perfect target for a crush post-Nancy. And post-Max, if he was going to be honest with himself, which he always was. Robin also tolerates Steve to an exaggerated degree – as in, almost three-hundred-and-sixty – so he has no idea why Steve is bothering with the Casanova bullshit when the real thing was right there, doing Friday night and weekend shifts along with him.
Dustin thinks: the man is a mystery, under an artfully sculpted head of hair, wrapped up in a super ugly polyester vest and nametag.
"Where's Max?" asks Steve.
"I'll tell you anything you want for a real box of Reece's Pieces. I will spill like Old Faithful of Yellowstone National Park for a true Snickers bar."
Robin gives up on the cardboard display. She waits a beat, smashes it down with one hand, and then chucks it in the trash. Dustin can hear a muffled, anguished scream behind her tightly shut mouth.
"No."
Lucas kind of half-groans, half-sighs, and there's a ton of unspoken tension behind it. "She said she doesn't feel like watching stupid or scary movies with us."
"Can you blame her?" says Mike.
"Of course not, that's not what I meant!"
"We don't always need to hang out with Max," Dustin throws out. It's not a big deal, why does anyone need to make it a big deal? "Sometimes it's guys only, and distance only makes the heart grow fonder. Look at me and Mike-" Dustin throws an arm (up) around Mike's shoulder, and they stand side by side facing Lucas. "Mike has begun the ancient tradition of sending handwritten love letters to El." He says 'love' with the right amount of passion required for the word, loooooove.
Mike shakes off Dustin. "They're not love letters, they're regular letters! Mrs. Byers can't afford a huge phone bill on top of her new job using it all the time."
"And I don't know that you can call writing a letter ancient," comments Robin.
"But we all know that you check your mailbox every day like you think Santa Claus visited it the night before," finishes Lucas.
Mike grabs the VHS box and walks backward out of the Family Video store, giving everyone there – even a wayward customer still browsing – the middle finger from both hands.
"Real mature," Steve calls after him. "I can see how you're related to Nancy. Hey, someone still has to pay for that!"
Dustin turns back to his best friend. "And me, I have my weekly phone call with Suzie every Thursday night. Our bodies are separated by hundreds of miles, but our minds are connected on a frequency that science has yet to explain. We always end up talking for more than an hour until her parents force her to hang up." And sometimes they sing, but nobody else needed to know that. Let them think The NeverEnding Story was a one-off.
Lucas scoffs. "Why Thursday? Are you the only two people in American who don't like The Cosby Show?"
"You know I'm a dedicated Ripley's Believe It or Not fan. And since when do we, the outcasts and the outsiders, ever join the masses in their popular pursuits?"
"Well, maybe we should think about joining the masses, at least on a few things. It doesn't always have to be D&D and A/V club and all the nerdy shit that gets us shoved into lockers. Can't we like other things too?"
Dustin takes a moment, tries to process. "What do you mean? You can like whatever you want."
Lucas makes a gesture Dustin doesn't understand. "Just – don't you want high school to be easier than middle school was? Why can't we swim with the tide for once, instead of against it?"
Dustin has nothing productive to say. Life's been dangerous for them, but – he wouldn't call his life difficult. Not anymore.
"Um, I guess?"
"Forget it. Let's just get some snacks and pop at the store on the way to your place."
Dustin gets one step forward before he's abruptly yanked back.
Steve has reached over the counter to grab a fistful of the back of Dustin's shirt, above his backpack. If Dustin twists his head enough, he can see the smile on Robin's face at their antics.
"This isn't the library, pay up Henderson!"
Movie nights, that sometimes turn into sleepovers but not always, not anymore, take place at Dustin's home. He's the only one (left) that doesn't have siblings or a second parent that could interrupt their sacred TV time.
They don't use Mike's basement anymore. That was for the four of them, Mike-Will-Lucas-Dustin. And then later also the four of them, when El substituted for Will. But the Byers have been gone for months, El along with them, and they play D&D with the Hellfire Club now in a super tricked out corner in the far back of the high school theater.
So there's just no point anymore.
When they first got their high school schedules, they all huddled against the impending first bell to see what classes any of them had together.
Dustin and Max shared only one: Biology.
"You won't regret this," he says, after she accepts the offer to sit with him, locking them in as a pair for the year.
"Hope so."
"Oh ye of little faith: who do you think inherited Nancy's freshman year notes? And I'm willing to share with my trusted lab partner."
"Mike didn't take them?"
Dustin tilts his head and gives her a look.
She grins. "Okay, yeah. So we might actually have a chance at academic success this year. Good work Dustin."
"What are friends for?"
"Lording it over Lucas and Mike's heads when we do better than them?"
"Hell yeah."
Max laughs, and he thinks, oh, it's been a while since I heard you do that.
It's a Thursday afternoon in late September, after school hours and into extracurricular hours, and Dustin is with the rest of the Hellfire Club in Gareth's garage. The instruments of the other teenagers' band are untouched and silent; all the players are huddled around a small TV that plays VCR tapes, which Gareth managed to rig up. Everyone is crowded around it, sitting in an uncomfortable hard plastic chair, or in an uncomfortable folding camp chair, or cross-legged on the hard concrete floor. 'Everyone' includes a couple of older kids not in high school anymore that their fearless leader Eddie Munson is friends with, or that used to be in the club, Dustin doesn't really know.
They're watching a tape that Gareth set to record on a public access channel before leaving for school.
It is the first day of the Parents Music Resource Center Senate hearings.
"But in all candor, I would tell you it is outrageous filth, and we have got to do something about it," says Senator Hollings of North Carolina, of 1985's popular rock and pop music. "I take the tempered approach, of our distinguished chairman, and commend it. Yet, I would make the statement that if I could find some way constitutionally to do away with it, I would."
"Booooooooo!" all the boys chant, and Eddie leaps off his chair to go right up to the screen and press his two middle fingers to the glass. The metal of his rings squeak at the friction, as if the force of his wrath will transmit through and make Hollings physically feel the double-F-you.
Dustin was not at all Buddhist, but he still kind of believed that Eddie must have been some kind of swashbuckling pirate in a previous life. On that note, they should totally have a pirate-themed campaign.
"Give me my porn rock, or give me death!" shouts Hellfire Club member and Corroded Coffin base player Little John, so nicknamed by Eddie years ago because he's the biggest and tallest of the entire motley crew.
"Give us death!" Dustin adds to all the jeers. A lot of them throw up the 'rock on' hand sign.
When he meets Lucas's eyes, Dustin is hit with a side-eye that could rival Mike's.
"I'm just trying to match the energy," he says.
Senator Hawkins of Florida gets a marvelous round of heckling thanks to her ironic name, plus her presentation of album covers and music videos feel like a reverse-psychology awards show. The disdain of a prudish middle-aged woman is an honor reserved for only the best in rock.
Lucas leans his head close to Dustin's. He murmurs, low enough that only his best friend hears, "I don't actually get what the big deal is. We rate movies, why not music?"
Dustin lifts his hand a little, now in professor mode. "I've been debating it with Suzie, I know exactly what you're thinking."
"I doubt that."
"Well that tells me more about your subconscious than you even realize, and I do not wish to know any more. Okay, so. This is actually about forced branding coming from an authoritative source that adds prejudicial meaning-"
They're interrupted by Eddie, in full metal histrionics. Somebody in the hearing has brought up Ozzie Osbourne.
"It's not about teen suicide, it's about ALCOHOLISM! It's a METAPHOR, do you not know what a fucking METAPHOR is?! Why don't YOU take English three goddamn times and find out!"
Dustin feels the urge to kind of melt in place. "I'll tell you later. This may not be the best time or place for civilized discourse. Also, my butt is going numb."
"No shit," says Lucas. "That's what happens when you're forced to sit on concrete for more than two minutes. How long are we gonna watch this? I would have brought a chair from home if I'd known."
"You would have walked however many miles just carrying a chair from your house?"
"I could do it. Yeah."
The lady of the hour, Mrs. Tipper Gore, wife of the senator from Tennessee, takes her place on TV as one of the first witnesses.
"Fuck your Tipper Stickers!" Gareth shouts.
"No, see," Fred says, "Nobody wants her stickers, and that's why she's stirring up shit."
"Oooooooh," they all go, egging each other on.
They sit through the rest of the boring, insulting witness statements, and make their own commentary. They're not as interested in what's actually happening on screen, even though some of the statements are against the PMRC's goals. The boys only break when Gareth's mom walks in to distribute bottles of root beer and drop a kiss on his head. That diverts their teenage attention for a solid three minutes. Technically, they're loud enough that she can probably hear them swearing even from inside, but the group only waits so long after she goes back in the house before starting up again. Selective hearing, maybe. If only Dustin's mother could suffer from the same affliction.
"Fuck the Washington Wives!"
"Listen to the Washington Mommies or Daddy will spank you!"
"You know," says one of the older boys Dustin doesn't know, "'Porn Rock Problem' is a great name for a band. I call dibs! No, I called it!"
Mike lightly elbows Dustin. "This is a real step up from NeverEnding Story, huh?"
"I'm never gonna live that down," Dustin groans, or at least he starts to, because Lucas interrupts and says, "What is your problem?"
"Problem - I don't have a problem, what's your problem?" Mike says. "We didn't even know Dustin could sing until this summer, and now we know a bunch of guys in a band, a real band that plays music. He's got an in neither of us do."
"An 'in' for what?"
"I don't know, being a backup singer? Becoming the lead singer of our own band?"
"So your way of cheering him on is to make fun of him?"
His friends were literally on either side of him, and Dustin puts up a woah there hand to each one. "You guys, we're losing sight of the real enemy here." He points to the screen. "Censorship! Not miscommunication between friends. Plus I don't want to give Robin any more ammunition. She's started bugging me about joining the high school band since I 'already have such musical talent' but I am not wearing one of those stupid marching band hats."
Mike makes a 'whatever' kind of gesture, and goes back to watching the hearing.
Although – wouldn't it be nice if Dustin could serenade Suzie while strumming a guitar? Okay, that idea had merit. At least three of the older guys here played guitar, surely one of them would be open to taking on an apprentice.
A man on TV is speaking to the senate members. "The album I am holding up in front of you is by the band Metallica," he says, and the garage fills with cheers. "It is on Electra Asylum records. A song on this album is called "Faith in Black." It says–"
"Son of a bitch!" Eddie shrieks, along with a few others, and he jumps up to kick over his chair.
"Are you kidding me?" says Fred. "He's holding the album in his own hand and he can't read what it says?"
"It's Fade to Black you ass munching idiot!"
"Pencil dicksicles like that are the same ones who think there are Satanic messages on records played backwards, you can't even play cassettes backwards – hey!" Gareth starts yelling at his own bandmate. "Eddie, stop kicking my bass drum! You're gonna put a fucking hole in it."
Eddie runs back over and kicks Gareth's chair out from under him. "What the fuck, man!" he protests, although the other boys laugh.
"If I don't hit something I'm gonna scream, or pull out all my hair," Eddie whines. Loudly.
"Then go bald, asshole!"
Gareth's bravado visibly flees when Eddie reaches down to grab him. But it's only to pull him to his feet.
"You hear that mistake?" Eddie says, one arm around his friend's neck, and the other pointed to the TV. "It's not a mistake at all. You think he didn't practice his little presentation before today? He knows exactly what the song is called. He's fucking with us. He's giving us degenerates the upper-class, rich-snob version of a middle finger. 'Cause we're not worth getting right, and he wants us to know that."
If I take guitar lessons from you, Dustin thinks, each one will probably come with a complimentary, swear-word laden philosophy lesson. Huh. Pro or con?
And then they watch John Denver, looking as wholesome and American as apple pie, sit down and begin to read a prepared statement. Fred starts to boo, but Eddie smacks him in the arm and orders everyone to shut up.
"These hearings have been called to determine whether or not the Government should intervene to enforce this practice. Mr. Chairman, this would approach censorship," Denver states. "May I be very clear that I am strongly opposed to censorship of any kind in our society or anywhere else in the world."
"I knew it!" Eddie crows, over the other boys' surprise. He pumps his fist in the air and spills some root beer on himself and the guy sitting next to him. "Aw, shit…"
"What!" says another Hellfire alumnus. "What!"
Little John's mouth drops open and stays that way.
"Who would've thought," Mike says.
"Real country music goes just as hard as rock, man," says Eddie. He rubs sugary syrup from his jacket sleeve onto his jeans. "Johnny Cash has been singing for lifers in prison since the 50s; Loretta Lynn got banned from radio 'cause she dared to sing about real shit. People judge us for wearing leather and chains, I'm not gonna judge somebody for corduroy and cowboy boots."
You'll wait five seconds for whatever comes out of their mouths, Dustin thinks. But not unkindly.
"You listen to country music?" Lucas asks. "You?"
"Hell no." Eddie finishes his root beer and chucks it towards the trash. He makes the shot – or at least he would, if the lid weren't closed. The bottles rolls off and falls to the concrete, where it bounces instead of breaking. That's American glassman-ship for you. "Crap, I'll get that later. No, that shit makes me want to rip off my own ears. But real fans oughtta know and appreciate those that came before, you know?"
Mike is nodding along, like he knows too. Lucas stares at the empty bottle near the trash.
"Who came before the what now?" Dustin asks.
"Before the raw, pure beauty that is metal! Heavy metal rock stands on the shoulders of punk rock, which stood on the shoulders of classic rock n' roll, which was birthed from, like, a pantheon of things: jazz, and rhythm and blues, and folk music, and oh yeah country music."
Mike does something that could be considered clearing his throat. "Oh – hey, Eddie."
"Yeah, what?"
"Guess who got the latest issue of Metal Edge in the mail yesterday?"
"No shit!" He reaches over to slap Mike's shoulder and shake it. "Look at you, little metalhead baby, they grow up so fast. Hey, uh, bring it to school tomorrow, will you? Sharing is caring."
"Yeah, yeah, sure. Cool."
It's so very heartwarming to see Mike find the Sorcerer to his apprentice. If the Sorcerer was high strung, and fighting the system for a mere high school diploma, and occasionally selling weed. Although, he and the Disney one did have the same stone cold stare-down. But no matter how frenzied Eddie got – and after just one D&D campaign Dustin is very impressed with how high the frenzy scale goes – Mike will only get so far in following, before his actual older sibling shuts him down.
Nancy Wheeler could bitchslap Godzilla. What a woman.
It gets dark and chilly long before the hearing is done. They come back on the weekend to finally hear Frank Zappa, and Frank Zappa's glorious pornstache, tell the PMRC where they can shove their holier-than-thou attitudes. There's a moment when they think Dee Snider, in a face full of stage makeup and hair bigger than an electrocuted lion's mane, will sink their side. But then it's Eddie's turn to be surprised when the theatrical lead singer of Twisted Sister eloquently and intelligently lays out the facts – it's a sneak attack and a win for the degenerates. He becomes a fan for life when Snider gets in a fantastic potshot at Tipper Gore.
There are more hearings that drag on for at least another month but nobody bothers to watch. Nothing tops the great first act.
Every time he sees a police car now, Dustin freezes.
Coming out of the grocery store, Mrs. Henderson gets all the way to the first row of cars before realizing her son isn't by her side anymore. "Dustin?" she calls back to him.
There's a cop car idling by the curb. The driver is fiddling with the radio. His partner must be inside buying snacks or smokes. How did Dustin not see him? Cops in this town are not subtle. How did he not see?
"Dustin!"
His mom is suddenly right there in front of him, and Dustin jumps.
"Sorry! Sorry, just daydreaming about a semi-final in my math class. Here, let me carry both bags to the car."
They will always remind him of small, dead bodies, and bad men coming to get them, and the gargantuan presence of Hopper which has inverted into a black hole in the town of Hawkins.