I promise that we'll get to M's POV soon (fear not folks).
Chapter 4: Party I
The design elements were all out of whack.
It was supposed to be a 'theme' party, but there were so many conflicting themes at play that it all just came off as...bizarre. The decor looked as if it had been done by an Asian schizophrenic with Gothic tendencies, and maybe a serial killer fetish. O'Malley stood for several minutes by the front bar, which was hung with blood bags, some of which were attached to old-fashioned silver IV poles. He prodded one of the bags with a finger, wondering what the red stuff inside it actually was. Syrup? Booze? Real blood? With Vic, it was hard to say for certain. The man was a known control freak with a pain killer addiction (you could just look into his eyes and tell), and maybe-if you were hopped up on enough liquor and lortabs-then blood bags and Asian paper lanterns together would seem like an absolutely fantastic idea.
Well, O'Malley was stone cold sober, and it was positively not a good idea.
O'Malley shook his head and turned away. He pushed his way through a labyrinth of glass doors, with the intention of finding the main stage area. The party hadn't officially started yet, and there was still time before the club was opened for business. Party staff in various outfits-undead nurses, vampire hunters wearing gauntlets with wooden stakes strapped to their backs, waiters in tuxes and fangs-rushed back and forth around him, ignoring him as they went about their last-minute duties. O'Malley opened the door to the main floor, and standing in the middle of it was a short man wearing a loud purple button down shirt and lavender silk tie who was screaming orders at various staff members who were jumping at his words like dogs in a training session: sit! stay! roll over! The purple shirt had to be the club owner or the promoter or whoever was currently in charge of this ungodly mess, and he came across as sweaty, tense, and uber-stressed. His voice was uncomfortably shriek-y as he grabbed a passing waiter by the elbow and launched into a laundry list of garbled orders. The man promptly released him and the waiter simply spun away with a dazed expression on his face. The stressed purple shirt then locked eyes with O'Malley and he shrieked, "Hey-you there!"
O'Malley froze.
The little man came shimmying up to O'Malley, his actions and demeanor strongly resembling those of an overly-excited chihauhua. "What are you doing?" demanded the little man, who paused to glance down at the square plastic tag that was hanging around his neck. That, combined with the clear expression of "fuck off" that O'Malley was wearing, was enough to make the man squeak, "Never mind," and send him reeling off into another direction. O'Malley just smirked. So his reputation preceded him, eh? Excellent-because frankly he didn't need the additional annoyance of prissy promoters trying tell him what to do. That was a standard inclusion in of all of his contracts: he had to be left absolutely alone to do his 'thing' with no outside interference. And if someone wanted to try and interfere-well, it was at great personal risk of bodily injury to whomever it was doing the interfering. And while that last part was definitely not included in any contract, it was altogether implied.
"Hey, O'Malley!"
O'Malley spotted Danny's red beanie cap and blue-framed glasses-the colors standing out like crayons in a Crayola box-beneath the garish lighting of the main stage. He was sitting with his legs dangling over the edge with a Gibson Les Paul guitar on one side and a silver thermos on the other. O'Malley immediately homed in on the thermos.
"Whatcha got in there, Dan?" asked O'Malley as he approached.
"Vodka and OJ..."
"Give it."
Wordlessly, Danny handed over the thermos. O'Malley sat down next to him, and took a big swig from the container. Thermos cooties didn't even rank his concern.
"Don't drink the whole thing, " said Danny finally.
O'Malley plunked the thermos back down. He looked up at the giant round paper lanterns that were hanging from the ceiling. "It's a bit of a mess, isn't it?"
"I don't know," shrugged Danny. "I kinda like it. It's like being inside a hallucination. You know, without the drugs."
"I suppose that's one way of looking at it." O'Malley hesitated only a moment before picking up the thermos again and upending it. Danny watched disapprovingly, then said:
"We're set to go on first, then Angels of Anarchy will follow us as the main act-"
O'Malley literally spewed out his drink.
"What the fuck, man?" asked Danny, pulling in his precious red sneakers.
"Nobody said anything about them playing!" said O'Malley, obviously pissed.
"So what?"
"So what? Their fucking lead singer almost wrapped me around a tree with his car once. Goddam smack addict..."
There was quite a bit more to the story than that, but O'Malley didn't feel like going into it. And Danny was smart enough to not ask him about it. So the guitarist merely said, "So you don't like him then?" and left it at that.
"You're damn right, I don't like him," muttered O'Malley under his breath, his eyes narrowed gloomily at the floor. It seemed that this evening was pretty much set to go to hell in a hand basket. Oh, yey-he could just fucking feel it...
And it was during this moment that the stressed purple shirt started clapping his hands together in the middle of the floor and screamed: "Alright, people! Show time! Everybody in their places! We're opening the front doors NOW!"
"Well, that's that," said Danny, rising up from his spot. O'Malley stood up with him, reaching for his camera bag.
It was time for the party to officially begin...
It was like an audio-visual assault to the senses. Jaded Sadie's amps had the whole main floor literally vibrating with sound, the pounding heartbeat of the bass guitar causing tables, chairs, and all other pieces of furniture in the immediate area to shudder and lurch like there was an ongoing earthquake. Red and white strobe lights rotated and flashed on the dance floor overhead, dousing everyone in bleach one minute, blood the next. There were middle-aged women in too-short dresses, plus sized drag queens, and what looked like escapees from the Renaissance fair all swaying to the overly-loud beat. It was insane. It was a nightmare. It was the perfect excuse for O'Malley to get shit-faced. Even though, of course, after last weekend's fiasco he had mentally promised himself that he would behave for this.
Well, good behavior had never been his strong suit...
He made a direct bee-line for one of the many blood-bag bars. It wasn't even necessary for him to order. Before he'd even opened his mouth, one of the bartenders (dressed in bloodied scrubs) had shoved a drink his way, a finger wave indicating some other customer across the way. O'Malley turned to stare across the bar to the boy? girl? thing? that had bought him his drink. He then turned away, grabbed up the glass, and rudely stalked off. Behind him, he heard some woman laugh and say, "Hey, I didn't know vampires drank white Russians." What the fuck? Was she seriously talking about him? He took a swig of his drink. It was a goddam white Russian. O'Malley hated white Russians. That didn't stop him from draining the whole thing, though.
"You might want to lose the popped collar if you want them to stop saying that."
O'Malley whirled around at that comment-sloshing his drink across the floor in the process-only to find himself standing face to face with Valentin Ceras, the lead singer from the band Angels of Anarchy. Tall, anemically pale, with a head full of glossy black hair, and basically fuck-all gorgeous. O'Malley couldn't stop himself from staring. Then he remembered that Valentin was an egotistical, out-of-control smack addict who had almost gotten him killed and he promptly snapped himself out of it. "Get lost," he said, before turning and heading for the outside patio.
"As drunk and as rude as ever," called Valentin from behind him, a bitter note coloring his voice. "Go to hell," O'Malley mumbled under his breath as he hit the glass doors leading out to the deck.
The blast of icy air was a welcome sensation on his skin as he breathed in the coolness of the lantern-lit night. What was not so welcome was the slurred voice of Vic Madigan, magazine editor and pain killer addict, as he grabbed O'Malley's passing arm, and said, in a too-loud voice, "Hey! O'Grady! It's you! Why don't you come over here and say hello to my assistant editor and head writer?" O'Malley turned to find Vic's eyes glittering with an unnatural lortab-and-liquor induced sheen.
O'Malley restrained himself as he allowed Vic to pull him over to a pair of his mousy co-workers, both of which had 'please help me' expressions on their faces. O'Malley smiled a fake smile and pointed to his press badge. The two co-workers looked at it and he watched as the realization of who he actually was dawned on their faces. That still didn't stop Vic from going on with "O'Grady this" and "O'Grady that." And not once did O'Malley bother to correct him. He simply allowed Vic to go on for a little bit, before he finally got fed up and said, "Hold this for me, will you, Vic?" and then he placed his empty liquor glass in the editor's hand and just sauntered off.
O'Malley clattered down some stairs to the deck's lower level. Off to the side, near a giant ice sculpture of a wolf baying at a full moon (?), was a man breathing fire while simultaneously walking on stilts. Next to him was another man, who was apparently walking across hot coals or glass or something else equally painful and uninviting. O'Malley didn't know how any of this was supposed to fit in with the 'vampire' theme and he frankly didn't care. He just wanted to get as far away from the noise and the lights and the crowds as humanly possible. Sartre had it right: Hell really was other people.
"Hey, O'Malley!"
O'Malley tensed as someone else called his name. Fuckofffuckofffuckofffuckoff, he thought to himself as another unknown and unwelcome figure came bounding across the bricks in his direction. No-not unknown. Just Sherman. Sans hat, which was why O'Malley hadn't immediately recognized him.
Well, he didn't want to talk to him, either.
Sherman came to a bouncy halt next to O'Malley, the spring in his step altogether too springy for O'Malley's current taste. "Watcha doin' way out here, O? I thought you'd be in there photographing. You know, out there on the floor where the chick's beating the guy with a bullwhip..."
"I saw that earlier," replied O'Malley in a bored tone, as if a guy being beaten with a bullwhip in public was a daily occurrence within his life. He suddenly didn't feel like talking to anyone in a way that constituted normal, friendly human interaction. So in order to get rid of Sherman, O'Malley pulled some bills out of his peacoat and said, "Hey...go to the bar and get me a rum and coke, will you?"
Sherman just beamed as if O'Malley had asked him to dance-an observation that was completely lost on O'Malley. "Sure thing, O," and Sherman took the wad of bills and headed off up the steps. O'Malley sighed in relief. Alone at last. He sat down on the edge of a concrete barrier that was flanked by rows of neatly-clipped hedges. And remembering Valentin's comment about popped collars, he shrugged his way out of his peacoat, revealing a distressed Led Zeppelin tee depicting the Hindenburg going down in flames. He shivered a bit at the slight bite of cold that nipped at his skin, and he suddenly wished that he had Danny's thermos. There was nothing like a little bit of vodka to warm the soul.
"Hey there."
O'Malley tensed at the greeting, his bodily need for solitude making itself known. Then he relaxed as he recognized that voice. Scotch-on-the-rocks. O'Malley turned to find a shiny, leather clad angel walking towards him, balancing along the narrow concrete barrier.
The boy jumped down from the low wall, landing beside O'Malley with a youthful, graceful ease, and O'Malley suddenly thought about what Tallulah had said about 'cradle-robbing.' The remembered comment made him feel catastrophically old.
"You made it," observed O'Malley.
"I did."
"Not working at ten o'clock at night this time?"
"No, not this time."
"So-you have a name you wanna give me yet?"
"Maybe. You...you seem to have lost your first name somewhere."
"Yey. I don't need it. Besides, they're a burden don't you think-names?"
The boy looked up at him sharply. There was an...odd expression in his pale eyes. "Yes. Most definitely," agreed the boy. Then he said, looking down at the ground: "I didn't know you were a real photographer."
"If you mean 'real' as in 'tangible,' then yes, I suppose I am-"
"No, not tangible. Famous. Which is why you get away with just using the one name."
"What can I say? I'm in the one-name diva club, right up there with Cher and Madonna."
"That's a really lame joke."
"Oh, just wait 'til I've had a few more drinks. They get a lot worse."
"You're extremely self-deprecating."
"Is that so? Most would say I'm a self-absorbed ego-maniac."
"Then they didn't look at your picture. I did. The symbolism was very self-deprecating."
O'Malley raised an eyebrow at this. "Oh, really?"
"Really. You basically stated to the world that you're a drunken whore."
O'Malley laughed uproariously at this. After a few moments-when he had managed to calm himself down again-he said, "I'm...sort of shocked that you got that." He was now looking at the blond with a whole new level of appreciation.
The boy seemed vaguely defensive. "Are you kidding? You practically bash the viewer over the head with Vermeer's symbolism."
O'Malley just stared. Then: "Where the fuck did you go to school?"
"Oh, I had a very...special education growing up. We studied everything." Then, as if to turn the subject away from himself, he said, "Are you always so truthful in your photographs?"
O'Malley looked somewhat thoughtful. "It's...well...it's probably the only time I do tell the truth." And then: "I like being able to tell an entire story with a single image. I find it challenging-"
"-what story would you tell about me?" the boy said, interrupting.
O'Malley smiled a slight, leisurely smile, his eyes sweeping over the blond in slow, sensual appraisal. "I haven't quite worked that out yet..." he said in a low, hoarse voice, allowing the words to trail off. And the two of them just sat there, side by side, as a kind of tense, electrified silence took over. A silence that grew, became more protracted: it threatened to snap in two, like the taut, strained ends of a rubberband. O'Malley could feel something happening. There was some sort of weird, messed up chemistry-or perhaps understanding-churning in the air between them. He felt it, and a million thoughts began rushing through his head all at once: What did he look like naked? What does his face look like during orgasm? Was he a screamer? Did the carpet match the drapes? What does he taste like? Does he like it rough? And so on and so forth. A million and one thoughts, a million and one intimate questions, all accompanied by a rapid-fire succession of vivid, pornographic images. Well, screw this party. O'Malley knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to ask the blond to leave this place with him right now. He wanted to get the hell out of here. He wanted to-
-and what O'Malley wanted quickly became forgotten as he heard his name yelled at him from two opposite directions...
End Chapter 4.
No update next week, as yours truly will be on vacation (what? again?). Yes, again. Catch me in the bar-or the cemetery-folks...