The concert
"Bitchen!" everyone in the basement was listening intently to the conversation upstairs.
So far is sounded like 'blah blah. Blah blah, blah – blah' and then all you heard was Eric say Bitchen.
Hyde looked around the room. Donna sat on the couch with a spot in the middle were Eric had been, and on the other end of the couch kelso sat with Jackie in his lap.
Yuck. Jackie.
She was a cheerleader and a spoiled brat. She was always hanging around kelso and she had quite the temper. Not to mention that she was extremely materialistic. She had a nail phial collection.
Then there was fez. Well, we called him fez. His real name took about five minutes to say and it was impossible to pronounce. And if you did his initials you had to include three different languages.
His nickname stood for foreign exchange student, but when kelso tried to get him to pronounce 'fes' it just sounded like a long f. So now it was fez.
He was a fun guy. He had lots of interesting stories about chickens and even though he thought Jackie was pretty he knew she was evil.
Forman came barreling down the stairs.
"I GOT THE CAR!"
"...And?"
"IM DRIVING TO THE TODD RUNDGREN CONCERT!"
Everyone turned there heads and angrily looked at Eric. Jackie didn't know about the concert.
"Uh Michael?"
"Yes Jackie"
"Concert?"
"Oh yeah everyone's going. Eric's driving now I guess." He flipped through another page of his Archie comic book.
Jackie crossed her arms and gave everyone the 'you may want to leave' look.
As everyone walked upstairs Jackie stomped off of kelso's lap.
"Everyone's going?"
"Oh yea. Well Donna and Eric, oh and Hyde, and the foreign kid and me. So yea, everyone."
"So you're not forgetting anyone?"
"Oh." The cogs were turning in his head. "Well I didn't think you liked music."
After a good five minutes went by and then it was decided that she would be going to the concert. As the gang marched back into the basement she skipped by them and grabbed her jacket.
"See you guys tomorrow, I have to go pick my outfit out for the concert! Oh and Donna, go get your eyebrows done." Jackie dashed out the basement door.
"KELSO!" everyone groaned at the same time, and as Hyde was going home he punched kelso's arm.
:)
"Lets put on ABBA" Jackie said as she pulled the box of the CD's from the front seat.
"Led Zeppelin-ewe" her inner self cringed. She loved led Zeppelin. She tossed the case into kelso's lap.
"Alice cooper" into fez's lap.
"KISS" floor.
"The who" darn she loved pinball wizard.
"Pink Floyd" fez.
"Beatles" kelso.
"Rolling stones" she flung that one hard, her hand didn't want to let it go. It almost went out the window before Hyde instinctively caught it.
"Jackie! Stop throwing gold out the window!" she could feel Stevens' eyes burning into her skull. "And ABBA sucks" no duh. She hated ABBA. "Lets just put on Todd rundgren" he grabbed the cd from the box and passed it up to Donna.
The drive went well until the battery died. She insisted on calling her father, which was a real courageous card, even if they didn't know it.
Ever since her mom had left he was mean, like really mean.
Normally when he was home they had dinner, went to the movies, even playing softball. She loved softball with her dad.
But recently he locked himself in his study. Every day he was home Jackie would wait at the table till her food was cold so she could have dinner with him.
But he never came. She only talked to him, he never responded to her.
She called him every day at seven, like she did when she was younger, and always left a voicemail asking him how his day was.
The only time she had kelso over was Friday nights, she told him her father was driving home from work and she said her mother went out dancing with her friends.
She shook her head. They even went as far as to dance around.
It was nice watching Hyde dance. He was not only horrible at it, but it made him look stupid. Jackie hated him, he hated her. It was fair. It was war. She had pranked him on and off.
She put a whoopee cushion under his chair, replaced a cherry pop with watered down ketchup, and when he passed out on the couch she tied his shoelaces together.
She turned to look at the dancing baboons.
"I'm going to the bathroom." She grabbed her purse but stopped when she didn't hear anyone behind her. She turned around and crossed her arms. "Donna?" she said as she rolled her eyes.
Hyde watched as the two walked away. Donna was beautiful. Jackie was a bitch.
The battery guy walked away after saying he would fix the car for two concert tickets. Everyone turned to kelso.
"So who's not going?"
"Hm, let me think, Jackie?"
"Oh yea, Jackie's out, gone, but who else?" the three boys shared glances. Even the foreign kid understood.
"I dunno, Jackie's date?"
:)
They had just finished 'I saw the light' when a low silence fell over the group.
Hyde looked around. Eric and Donna were quietly talking, fez was probably thinking about some type of song in his language. And kelso-well he was with Jackie.
The concert was over and they were walking back to the car and as they got closer kelso and Jackie were making out in the back. Disgusting.
There were three reasons it disgusted him.
One, Jackie and kelso.
Two, tongue.
And the third reason was a reason that made him feel disgusting because he thought it was disgusting.
Then the car ride home sucked.
Jackie and kelso were cuddling the entire time, kelso's elbow was in fez's rib and Jackie's hair was whipping Hyde's face because the windows were open.
When he got home Edna yelled at him. He was supposed to stay out of the house, he forgot. It was already eleven and the Forman's house was on the other side of town so it would be about twelve thirty when he got there and there would be no way to make that work.
He couldn't go to kelso's, his Chihuahua spike and Dalmatian fluffy both hated him. He had no clue were fez lived, or if foreigners slept upside down like bats.
So he started walking. And he watched as a girl climbed down a rose wall. She was skilled at this, he could tell. She got halfway down the wall and grabbed the rainspout, swinging down onto the ground.
She wore a rolling stones t-shirt tied into a knot at her midriff, and a corduroy pencil skirt. She had on a pair of white slip on's two, as well as a pair of black sunglasses. He had an urge to follow her so he did.
As she turned into the backyard he slunk down her driveway and watched her grab a case of some kind and slings it over her shoulder. She hopped the fence and walked into the darkness. He willingly followed.
:)
She looked at the door. It was in a grungy old alley but it felt like home. A small sign on the door made her smile.
School of rock.
It was community performance night. The owner, Danny, gave her a set of keys and booked a sound room for her, it was kind of a deal.
Jackie didn't require money, but she did want to play in a place that she knew no one would see her. She normally left her guitar there but she wanted to clean it last night.
So every night after she practiced in her sound room she would turn on the jute box and listen to music as she cleaned. On community performance night's people often told her that the place had been really nice since last year, and she took pride in that.
Danny was announcing tonight and she put her guitar in her sound room. She went to the tech table and started running tables. She looked at the list and set up the first song amp and then put on the record. She had them stacked perfectly on the shelf behind her and she whispered into Danny's ear.
"Alright rockers and rockettes were going to get this party started with singer number one. If y'all don't know how this works let me explain it to you…."
He winked at Jackie.
"No one uses their name, that's the name of that game, our lovely tech mate here will use our tuning device and see who has the loudest cheer! So say cheers to that and with a delightful tip of the hat…singer number one!"
She had to admit, Danny was charismatic. He talked fast and rhymed as much as possible. He said that because of his name he thought it was cool to talk like Vince Fontaine.
She put on the track and then walked to get a drink. She wasn't a fan of alcohol; she was sure that's part of what ruined her mother.
"Hey" Jackie turned around. God it was Hyde. Act like you're not the Jackie he knows.
"Hi."
"Are you preforming tonight?" he said as he grabbed one of the beers next to the punch.
"Yea but not for applause. I sing as everyone starts to leave."
"Stage fright?"
"Nah, I think it would interfere with my job." She smiled as she turned around to see who was preforming.
This girl came in every week, and she always sang ABBA. She rolled her eyes.
"I hate ABBA," they both said at the same time.
"Great minds think alike." Hyde really hated fake Jackie but this was nice. "What are you preforming?"
"Surprise" she smiled. "Anyways, duty calls."
She got to the end of the night as all of the singers came on stage. Thank god ABBA girl didn't win. It was the girl who sang bohemian rhapsody. It was beautiful.
"Were pulling into congratulation station, singer number twelve, what would be your name?"
"Holly Rolland!" everyone clapped for her.
"Alright, were going to wrap this up and as you gather your things were going to have our very own performer, blink, playing one of our favorites."
Jackie got her guitar and came to the stool on the stage, pulling the microphone closer to her.
She started to pluck out the notes and play a familiar tune. She leaned in to the microphone.
"' There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold"
She loved led Zeppelin.
"'And she's buying a stairway to heaven
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
Oh oh oh oh and she's buying a stairway to heaven'"
Hyde was entranced. He watched the strings move and maybe it was because he was high or maybe it was because he was so fascinated with this creature but he could've sworn he could see every single vibration of the chords.
He could see all of the shapes of her mouth.
She was brilliant.
She didn't sing it like Robert Plant, she sang it faster and a little higher, but it worked.
He noticed that she didn't have a track playing but it sounded so real.
"' To be a rock and not to roll
And she's buying the stairway to heaven'"
And just like that it was over.
Only about five people were left when he walked over to her.
"I see what you meant, you would've won."
"You flatter me, " she smirked "but no."
She walked around cleaning up, as she watched him flip through the rolling stones magazine.
He was the last one and as he was leaving he looked at her one last time.
"When is the next performance?"
"Same time next week."
"Alright. Sing more Zeppelin" He walked out of the door and back towards his house. It was two in the morning. This was his type of place.
:)
Next week she would sing more Zeppelin
:)
On the way home he couldn't help but hum stairway to heaven.
Authors note: as promised, another chapter because of my bad chapter last week :) I actually really liked this chapter and I know there was nothing paper-airplane-ish soul mate thing, and there's actually about an entire chapters worth of stuff that I'm not posting. I've gotta have cliffhangers, right? Oh, and please review, it helps a lot to know if you want more :)