"Ohhh my god I'm going to throw up." Holly moved to turn around, but Kyle grabbed her arm.
"No, you're not," she replied, though her face lacked confidence in this statement. "You're fine." But she wasn't fine- there were at least twice as many people in Nicky's this Friday, and they were all watching the stage intently for signs of life. Kyle's eyes on Holly's grew appraising for a moment, and swept her face. "You should wear your glasses more often." Holly ducked self-consciously, and pushed the black-framed lenses higher up her nose.
"I dropped one of my contacts down the sink." At the moment Holly was regretting her ability to see the smoky bar clearly, for she was able to see the faces of each and every person waiting. Waiting for them. Waiting for her.
Word spreads quickly in small towns, and many more students had shown up this week to see the new band in residence, of sorts. As usual, Adam sauntered with an astounding confidence up to the mic and began speaking in an almost conversational manner to the crowd. Within moments more than half of the room was on their feet and crowding towards the stage. He was just one of those people, those people you wanted to watch like just maybe if you figured it out you could be that halfway to celestial too.
"We're gonna do a couple more covers than usual tonight," Adam was saying, and he cocked his head towards Holly to his left for a moment, meeting her eyes. "This first one's called 'How a Resurrection Really Feels,' we love this song. Hope you guys dig it." They never really had a set plan- Adam seemed to make things up as they went along. Their act was all a bluff. Lucky Holly always had been good at bluffing.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
"What are you looking at, Asshat?" Tyler cocked an eyebrow at Reid, who's eyes were narrowed irritably.
"Touchy."
"Well, if you weren't fucking staring at me I wouldn't be so touchy."
"Or maybe if you weren't here to watch your swim buddy and fester in your own self pitying cesspool of unrequited… whatever you'd be in a better mood."
"Tyler?"
"Yeah?"
"Shut the fuck up." Reid handed Tyler one of the two glasses he'd just obtained from the bar. The boy took it with a sardonic grin.
"Aye aye, Captain."
Reid surveyed the room, ignoring the boy who was speaking to the crowd, shaking his head occasionally to flip the mop of dark curls from his eyes. She was there beside him. Her head was tilted slightly down, and the muscles of her long neck were rigid as though she was forcing herself to keep it up. The set of her shoulders appeared relaxed, but a muscle in her arm jumped. The anxiety she so quietly contained belied a vulnerability she tried to hard to hide. Pathetic. He saw the weird girl in the gold dress flick her short hair, and turn slightly to stick her tongue out at the goofy-looking guy with the floppy hair behind the drums.
Her parents named her Halleluiah, the kids all called her Holly.
If she scared you then she's sorry.
She's been stranded at these parties.
These parties they start lovely but they get druggy and they get ugly and they get bloody.
The priest just kinda laughed.
The deacon caught a draft.
She crashed into the easter mass with her hair done up in broken glass.
She was limping left on broken heels.
When she said father can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?
People were dancing now, that annoying sort of dancing so full of hopping and arm waving. Girls tossed their hair and shimmied at the veins surfacing in the lead singer's arms, their eyes on his nimble fingers as currents of electric sound rippled through the room from the stage. Even the fucking name was haunting him.
Holly was a hoodrat.
Now you finally know that.
She's been disappeared for years.
Today she finally came back.
She said: St. Louis had enslaved me.
I guess santa ana saved me.
St. Peter had me on the queue.
The St. Paul saints they waved me thru.
I was all wrapped up in some video booth.
When I heard her say I love you too.
What Reid needed was to get laid. This much was obvious to him. There was Barrett English… her legs extended possibly into the next area code, and summer had obviously been kind to her, but he'd seen her around with her before, and her blondie friend. Austin Riviera looked hot with the black eyeliner- he liked angry girls, but he wasn't into that GI Jane hair. Even for a hundred bucks shaving your head wasn't worth it for chicks… Austin was rich, and she'd looked much better when her hair had been long, and auburn. Marissa Fritz was a maybe, but, like, he might, like, lose like 35 points from his, like IQ just being in like, a ten foot radius of her. But then, only when she opened her, like, mouth. Yknow?
No. Miri Kerwin. Blonde. Blue-eyed. Tan. Freckled. Feminine, normal, happy… Perfection.
She said I've laid beneath my lovers but I've never gotten laid.
Some nights she felt protected.
Some nights she felt afraid.
She spent half last winter just trying to get paid.
From some guy she'd originally thought to be her savior.
They wrote her name in magic marks.
On stop signs and subway cars.
They got a mural up on e.13th.
That said Halleluiah rest in peace.
Halleluiah was a hoodrat.
And now you finally know that.
She's been disappeared for years.
Today she finally came back.
"Hey… Miri right?" The girl shook her hair from her eyes, and her face was flushed with heat from the crowded room and the dancing. Her eyes raked over Reid and then she smiled.
"Hey."
"Wanna drink?" She smirked, and nodded, leaning in close to his ear to whisper Sex on the Beach, please.
Walk on back.
Walk on back.
She said don't turn me on again.
I'd probably just go and get myself all gone again.
Holly was a sexy mess.
She looked strung out but experienced.
So we all got kind of curious.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Holly's eyes were narrowing but blinking didn't clear the picture that swam across the insides of her eyelids.
"Holls. Which d'you wanna do next?" Adam was leaning towards her over his guitar, eyes blistering with enthusiasm and something more. She shook her head slightly, like someone shaking themselves off after stumbling.
"Umm. Your Little Hoodrat Friend?"
"Golden," he replied, his eyes widening minutely in the Adam version of a wink. He signaled the song to Kyle and Jeremy, who nodded and wiped sweaty hair off of his forehead with the back of one tattooed wrist.
A vein was pulsing somewhere in her brain, tightening and constricting the tendons behind her eyes until she saw and heard in flashes, Adam's words laced in and out through the dream-like ocean of moving limbs in front of her.
Your little hoodrat friend makes me sick, but after I get sick I just get sad.
Because it burns being broke and it hurts to be heartbroken
So always being both must be a drag.
"You're a good dancer," she murmured in his ear, her lips slick with something that smelled vaguely of vanilla. His eyes flicked to her face, needing less than a second to read the triumphant happiness in the set of her lips, and the hunger in the way she held her eyelids half-mast. Tacky. There was no winning when there was nothing to fight against, no achievement in deciphering messages in eyes that flashed them plain as text. He thought involuntarily of the puzzling look in her green, heavy-lidded eyes, of always being on the verge of missing the next stair. Closing his eyes, he nibbled the back of the brown neck that was swaying before him.
Your little hoodrat friend's been calling me again,
And I can't stand all the things that she sticks into her skin.
Like sharpened ballpoint pens, and steel guitar strings.
She says it hurts
But it's worth it.
Miri liked the way he danced and the way he pushed her roughly into the wall when he kissed her without waiting for her response, but she liked the slit-eyed glances of her female classmates more. That was a look generally reserved for girls like Sarah Wenham, those girls who were beautiful in so many accidental ways.
She's got blue black ink and it's scratched into her lower back.
It said: "damn right i'll rise again." yeah, damn right you'll rise again.
Holly felt something hot rising up in her throat. It was either bile, or it was her voice.
She said it's funny even true love gets troubled by stillwater
And washed up in the mississippi river.
Her claddagh ring was pointed at the people,
She said "St. Theresa comes to me in dreams."
She said "I ain't gonna do anything sexual with you-
I'm kinda saving myself for the scene."
"I wanna do the last song."
"What?" Adam had just hurled an open bottle of water over the girls who seemed unable to resist dancing "seductively" in front of the stage, and looked at her with a startled expression.
"Let me do the last song." His gaze flicked between each of her eyes, resting longest on the freckle of brown in her right one. His mouth softened. He leaned towards her, and bent his head to whisper in her ear.
"It's yours."
He saw the curly-haired boy lean over her pale and delicate neck, and his fingers grew harsh in Miri's new honey hair, all beach waved and expensive shampoo. He saw her hesitant half-moon smile and the way it rose up on the right side the way it did whenever he said something that surprised her. The boy tucked a strand of her dark hair behind one pierced ear. He closed his eyes.
"Alright everybody, this is gonna be our last song tonight because, yknow, we've got things to do. Jer has to get to his Magic the Gathering tournament in about twenty minutes. We've got a special treat for you guys tonight, because our own lovely Miss Holly's gonna sing the last song for you. Holls?" He turned to the girl, who had laid her base in the corner and picked up Jeremy's acoustic guitar. With her waist bare, her pale hipbones were poetry and he was forcibly reminded of the last time he had seen them. He pushed back from the wall he'd been leaning against abruptly, making his way towards Tyler at the bar as he ignored Miri's low voice behind him.
Sliding in between Tyler and his latest groupie, Reid took the forcibly vacated stool despite Tyler's protests and snagged the other boy's beer from the bar.
"Dick," Tyler mumbled, but didn't repeat himself when Reid inquired Excuse me, his voice clear and carefully enunciated.
"Hey everybody." He had almost forgotten the way her high-ish voice hesitated slightly, the vowels lilting. Like she wasn't sure why anyone would want to hear what she had to say. "The song we're gonna do here's called 'Rootless Tree,' if any of you know it." Jeremy was adjusting something on one of his cymbals. Kyle and Adam were sitting with their backs against the far wall. "Wanna back me up on this one Adam?" The boy nodded once, and jumped to his feet. He didn't like the way the darker boy, his cocky and arching movements and the angles of his cheekbones. He didn't like the way he pulled a stool up to Holly's, and the way she leaned her torso towards his. He watched Kyle stand instead, picking a beer up off of the amplifier behind the drum kit and leaning against the wall.
The first melodic notes the old guitar made against her calloused, bitten-cuticled fingers were hypnotic, and the room quieted, almost imperceptibly at first. Silky-haired heads leaned against shoulders that smelled faintly of Old Spice, curls were stroked by tender fingers and wistful glances swept through the small ring of girls who had danced for Adam as they saw the hooded look of his eyes on her bare neck, hair pushed behind her ears.
What I want from you is empty your head
But they say be true, don't stay in your bed
We do what we need to be free
And it leans on me like a rootless tree
Her voice grew stronger, as it usually did, and her gaze swept the crowd without seeing the eyes glancing back at her. They paused for a moment, and crinkled at the corners as Sarah smiled at her, and slid right past Reid, only to bounce back to him as though she had been stung.
What I want from us is learn to let go
But we fade the forests, fracture the tide
We go blind when we needed to see
And it leans on me, like a rootless...
He shifted slightly under her unwavering gaze, and he was uncomfortably aware of Tyler's irritatingly smug face surveying his. He tipped his cup upwards, and peered into it's contents. Mmm alcohol.
So fuck you, fuck you, fuck you
And all you didn't do I said bleed it, bleed it, bleed it
There's nothing in you
And do you hate me, hate me, hate me, hate me so much
That you can't let me out, let me out, let me out
Of hell when you're around
Let me out, let me out, let me out
Hell when you're around
Let me out, let me out, let me out
Their faces were too close as they bent over the microphone, Adam echoing her words now as Jeremy played unnoticed behind them.
What I want from this is to learn to let go
No not of you, of all that is old
Killers re-invent and believe, and it leans on me, like a rootless...
So fuck you, fuck you, fuck you and all you didn't do
I said leave it, leave it, leave it, it's nothin' anyway
And did you hate me, hate me, hate me, hate me so much
That you can't let me out, let me out, let me out
It's hell when you're around
She raised her chin now, and her eyes didn't drop to the floor. He avoided them, instead studying the blush-colored beauty mark that flecked the outer corner of her left cheekbone. He had kissed it, and thought that it would forever be the proof of his lips on her, that raspberry blush.
So fuck you, fuck you, I love you
And all we've been through
I said leave it, leave it, leave it, it's nothing anyway
And do you hate me, hate me, hate me, hate me so much
That you can't let me out, let me out, let me out
Hell when you're around
Let me out, let me out, let me out, let me out
"Thank you, and goodnight." He laughed a little at her ironic tribute to the Sex Pistols but it was a hollow one.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Alright, a longer chapter finally. Ummmm yeah I'm sort of struggling with words lately. There's a bunch of songs in this one- the first is "How a Resurrection Really Feels," by The Hold Steady, and the second is pieces taken from "Your Little Hoodrat Friend," also by The Hold Steady. The final song, and also my favorite of the three is "Rootless Tree," by Damien Rice. Strongly suggest you check it out. Yyyyeah. Alrighty then. That's all I got.