Shot to the Heart

(August 1-3, 2014)

Chapter 5: "Giving Love a Bad Name"

From the Journals of Dipper Pines: It's nearly eleven o'clock, Friday night, and I've finally got some alone time to catch up on this. OK, GREAT DAY with Wendy! We didn't do all that much—hung out, listened to a lot of music at Woodstick, danced a little, and then we came back to the Shack.

And she was all tired, so I massaged her feet. She really seemed touched by that. I know she liked it, and I always enjoy touching her, even if it's only to feel her curl her toes around my fingers!

But I almost wish I hadn't done it.

Because just after Wendy went downstairs on her way out to her car and to her house, at maybe, I don't know, 9:30? Anyway, around that time, Mabel bopped in, without knocking, as usual. "Scored some major romance points with Wendy, huh?" she asked me, giving me her big old smile. You know, sometimes I miss the goofy look her braces used to give her.

Since I didn't really want to comment on that, I changed the subject. "Sev'ral Timez all taken care of?" I asked.

Mabel stretched her hands over her head. "Yeah, I put them to bed in their trailer. They should be OK. I hope they can remember how to flush. They've been living in that cave a long time." She hopped up on her old bed and kicked off her black flats, then pulled off her white socks. "DIP-per," she chirped, wriggling her toes. "I need a foot rub, too!"

"Wendy told you?" I asked.

Mabel giggled. "'Course she did, silly! We tell each other everything, all the time! I'm surprised you got up the nerve, you Brohemian rhapsody, you!"

"Well—we got sort of mellowed out, hanging with Wendy's friends and hearing the bands and all. And the sandals made her feet sore, and, well, it just felt right, you know?"

"Less talking and more massaging!" Mabel said, kicking her feet at me.

"OK, but at least go to the bathroom and wash your feet first!" I told her.

"Bet you didn't make Wendy do that!"

"She doesn't sweat as much as you do."

"True that," Mabel said. "Be right back. You have any oil?"

"Nope. It was just skin on skin with Wendy. She didn't complain."

"No worries!" I heard her go down the stairs, heard water running, and a couple of minutes later she breezed back in, barefoot and holding a tube of hand lotion. "This'll do!" She flung herself on her old bed—Abuelita keeps a patchwork quilt on it, no sheets or pillow, though—and wriggled her toes again. "Get busy, Dip! These pods ain't gonna massage themselves!"

So, I went and sat and held her feet in my lap, to keep the lotion off the quilt, and started doing my thing. The lotion smelled like cinnamon. "Feels good!" Mabel said.

I was pressing my thumbs into the ball of her right foot. That feels very good—or so I'm told. I wouldn't know myself. "Maybe when I finish, you can do mine."

"Pfffbbt! Dream on!" I pulled her toes one by one, and she asked, "Does Wendy have nice feet?"

"Yeah, she does!" I said. "Kind of thin, well-shaped, with beautiful long toes. Yours are stubby and pudgy."

"They are not! They're the perfect toe shape and size! And they're just like yours. We have the Pines toes! What's so great about long toes, anyway?"

"Well, you can hold hands with your feet."

She looked thoughtful. "Huh. That would be kinda cool!"

After about ten minutes I went to the upstairs bathroom for a towel to remove the last traces of lotion from Mabel's skin, and when I got back, she was asleep with her feet dangling over the edge of the bed. I tossed the towel in her face and said, "Dry your tootsies and go to your own room!"

"Oh, man!" Mabel complained. "I was having such a nice dream, too!" But she wiped off both her feet and said, "Seriously, you're good at this, Dipper. You should turn pro. I can even see the sign on your shop door: Dipper Pines, Pedotherapist! 'Put your feet in my hands!'"

"No, thanks," I said. "I'm already mixed up about what I want to do professionally. Feet are real low on the totem pole."

"As they should be," Mabel agreed. "What's the plan for tomorrow, Brobro?"

"Wendy's coming over at nine-fifteen—"

"I KNEW you'd have a schedule timed to the minute! You and Mom! What IS it with you, Dip? Learn to live in the moment!"

"That was Wendy's suggestion," I told her.

"Bad sign, Bro. You're rubbing off on her. Maybe it was because you didn't use any oil for the massage."

"Whatever! Anyway, we're not going to run tomorrow. The gates open at ten, so we're gonna catch the tram at nine-thirty or about then. Want me to wake you up at eight?"

"Mm, no. Eight-thirty. I'll need to shower and grab breakfast, but that's all. My guys take the stage at three this afternoon, but I'll have to check in with them and make sure the Multibear shows up on time."

"He will. He's very reliable."

"Yeah, I like him. He's so soft and cuddly!" She yawned. "Getting late. Guess I'd better turn in. Oh, hey, you be up and showered already by eight-thirty, 'cause I gotta dress you."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do. Don't argue, you know you're just gonna lose."

When she's right, she's right. So—I wonder what I'll look like tomorrow.

"Dude!" Wendy said the next morning. "Cool! We totally match!"

"Yeah," Mabel said. "That's on me. You told me your plans, so I had that to go by."

Dipper wore a red bandanna rolled and tied around his head like a sweatband. It matched Wendy's. He had on a white tee shirt and over it a short black denim vest. Just like Wendy. And they both wore stressed jeans with laddered rips in the legs. And they both wore boots—Wendy's normal lumberjack boots, and Dipper a pair of brown chukka boots that were very nearly the right size for him, though he thought glumly If these things rub my heels, I'm gonna get blisters. That was one problem with Mabel's shopping at second-hand stores: things like shoes and boots tended to be stretched out more than the advertised size indicated.

When he complained, though, Mabel compensated by having him wear a pair of the shoe-liner socks beneath his boot socks, and that helped, though it made for hot feet. Abuelita again was staying home to babysit Little Soos, Melody was running the mobile Mystery Bus, Teek would be cashier, and Soos was the tram driver and genial guide to Gravity Falls for all the out-of-town tourists.

It was a medium-warm morning, bright and clear, and Soos seemed at ease speaking over the tram's PA. Of course, he had a couple of years as Mr. Mystery under his size 44 belt, and he'd developed a little polish that charmed the tourists nearly as much as Stan's in-your-face bullying always seemed to do.

He dropped the three of them at the Woodstick site about half an hour before opening, and Mabel, who was lugging a picnic basket, said, "Come with me. I'll get you through the VIP entrance."

She led Dipper and Wendy to a chain-link gate manned by two bouncer-type guys, big and burly, and they welcomed her warmly, opened the gate, and wished her a good morning. "Mabes, you make friends fast," Wendy said.

"Yeah, I do! Don't tell Teek, though. He might get j-e-a-l-o- You guys! Hi! I brought breakfast!"

"Girl, we knew you wouldn't forget, yo!" Deep Chris said. The Sev'ral Timez singers were still in their civilian outfits of tee shirts, shorts, and flip-flops, and they had been chatting with some other early risers at a small picnic area just past the van parking lot.

Deep Chris and the other members of the group huddled around one of the redwood picnic tables and Mabel doled out breakfast burritos. By the time she'd served the last guy, the first one was asking for seconds, but that was cool—she'd brought enough for seconds, thirds, and fourths. When the chomping began to slow, she took out a Thermos and poured cups of purple liquid. "No coffee!" she said. "Bad for your voice before a performance. This is Mabel Juice!"

"Bad for your guts any time," Dipper murmured to Wendy.

Creggy G. laughed and pointed. "Hey, I know that dude, yo!"

From behind Dipper came a hoarse voice: "What time am I on? What's my cue? Dudes, where's my entourage? Why is the sun so bright?"

"Is that the Love God?" Dipper asked, turning to look.

"Yeah," Mabel said, glancing around. "He's not on until two-thirty, though. His set's right before Sev'ral Timez. I think he was out partying all night."

"I was!" The chubby blond tattooed guy in a tight-stretched tee striped with light and dark gray, cut-offs held up by a rope belt, and thong sandals, came reeling up. "Heard ya! I got like Olympian ears for hearing! 'Sup, dudes?" He still wore his small pink backpack with what looked like—but were not—small white fake wings apparently attached to it. He fanned his face with a flattened hand. "Whoo! These local chicks love to get down! So how long until my gig?"

"About four hours," Dipper told him.

"Good! Then I'll snooze a little." He seemed to notice Wendy and gave her a wide grin. "HE-llo, tall, red, and beautiful. Here, have my newest mp3's!" From somewhere he produced a red USB memory stick and flipped it to Wendy, who fielded it.

"Thanks, dude," she said. "Uh—you feelin' OK? You look kinda rocky."

The Love God held up his hand beside his mouth, as though confiding, except his voice was loud enough to be heard all over the backstage lot: "Li'l bit hung over. Don't tell the old lady! I was, like, carousing, you know what I mean? Little R-and-R, you understand? Gets me up for my music, yeah! Hoo-wahh!"

Mabel looked surprised. "Old lady? You're married? Or do you mean your mom?"

"Married! Dig it!" The Love God tossed Mabel a red memory stick, too, and then sat on the picnic table bench, forcing the Sev'ral Timez guys to crowd back and making Leggy P. fall off the other end. "Don't do the ring thing, gold on the finger's not good for my rock-star cred, ya know? Psyche, my wife is. Great gal. Nosy, though. Beautiful but nosy. Don't tell her I said that, 'kay? My mom never thought she was good enough for me, dig it? Long story. Anyways, you run into Psyche, you just tell her Chubby Hubby is meditating before he sings." He winked, got up, looked dizzy, shuffled around in a tight circle, muttered, "Which way's my van?" and then staggered off in what might possibly have been the right direction.

"That was kinda disturbing," Wendy said.

"He's a legend, yo!" Chubby Z. said. "Man, I wish he'd given me an album!"

"Here ya go," Wendy said, tossing it to him. He caught it and clutched it to his heart.

"I think Love God got off track carer-wise when he decided to be a performer," Mabel told Wendy. "I didn't know he was married, though!"

"Oh, yeah," Dipper said. "Cupid and Psyche. Famous myth. Cupid's mother is Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and it started when she got mad because Psyche was such a beautiful girl that all the guys were crazy about her even without Venus's help. So, in revenge Venus sent Cupid to shoot her with a lead-tipped arrow that would keep her from ever falling in love, but he got distracted by her sheer beauty and pulled out a gold-tipped arrow that caused undying love instead, and he accidentally nicked his own finger on the point of it out and fell for her."

"Dude," Wendy said, tilting her head and smiling, "how do you know this junk?"

"I read a lot," Dipper told her. "Anyway, Cupid demanded Psyche as his bride—nobody knew who he really was, but he used his, I guess, godly powers to persuade her parents. And then when he married her, he kept her hidden away from the world in a secret castle. All day magical invisible servants took care of her, and he visited her only at night, in the dark, because he didn't want her to find out he was the Love God. But she got curious and one night after he fell asleep, she took an oil lamp to sneak a look at him, and a little of the the hot oil dripped on his bare shoulder, burned him, and woke him up—and then Venus found out, and, well, it gets complicated. Finally, Jupiter transformed Psyche into a goddess and forced Venus to accept her as her daughter-in-law."

"Dude," Deep Chris said, "we could get a tune out of that—Psyche, I'm psycho for you—"

"Was she psycho?" Mabel asked. "I mean, her name and all."

"In Greek, 'psyche' means two things," Dipper told her. "One is 'butterfly.' The other is 'soul.' See, the Greeks thought the soul was like the butterfly that emerges from a cocoon. When the body dies, the soul comes flying out of it."

"Wow," Mabel said, her eyes half-closed, her chin resting on her hand. "That is so close to being interesting."

Wendy laughed at that, and then she said to a red-faced Dipper, "I think it's interesting. I want to hear the whole story, dude. Let's go claim our spot and you can tell it to me in between the music."

Mabel rounded up Sev'ral Timez and herded them to their RV to rest and practice a few rough spots. Then of course she'd have to get them dressed in their stage clothes. Wendy shook her head as Wendy and the guys went inside the RV. "I hope their pay's enough to get Mabel a respectable check, dude," she said as she and Dipper walked off hand in hand. "She's workin' hard."

"Yes, but if she was a manager full-time, she'd get bored after a week of it," Dipper told her. "I worry about her sometimes. I mean, I try to plan out my future logically, but Mabel just—improvises!"

"Different strokes," Wendy said.

"I . . . don't know what that means."

Wendy shrugged. "It's a line my dad uses. Means 'let everybody do their own thing.' Of course, he says that but then he complains if I want to do something he doesn't like."

"Kind of like our mom," Dipper said. They had to leave the VIP area and then join the shuffling line going into the audience entrance. Tickets had all sold out, and only those wearing the green wristbands could get through—and the guards had stopped about half a dozen people who had unsuccessfully tried to counterfeit the bands.

But Dipper and Wendy got in easily. "Check it out," she said. "Dad's right down front again. He won't move until after Sev'ral Timez does its bit."

They didn't wave to or yell at Manly Dan, but went over to the spot on the hillside where, Dipper saw, Thompson and Vanilla already were sitting on a blanket. "They must have showed up super early!" Dipper said.

"That's Thompson, over-eager and all. Hope he doesn't blow it with Vanilla," Wendy said. "He's a nice guy, but you know—he's Thompson!"

They walked up the hill and waved. When Vanilla waved back, Wendy said, "Cool! Henna tatts! Where'd you get them?"

Both of Vanilla's arms had been decorated with intricate swirling lines, some like feathers, others like flowers. "There's a booth," Vanilla said. "Near that big Mystery Bus. We got here so early that I said I'd like to get a little one, and Tommy said, no, get the whole deal." She bent her elbows and held up her forearms, spreading her fingers. "Do you like them?"

"Totally rad," Wendy said. "Hey, Dip, later on I think I'll get, like, maybe the backs of my hands and wrists done! Is it expensive?"

"I don't know," Vanilla said, smiling at Thompson. "It was a present."

"It wasn't all that expensive," Thompson said, reaching to take her hand. But he hugged her and over her shoulder, just to Wendy and Dipper, he mouthed, "It was!"

Just then the crowd began to murmur and cheer, and Dipper saw the emcee on stage. He spoke into the microphone, nothing happened, he said something inaudible, and then "—at least turn it—oh, now it's on." A shrieking squeal of feedback made everyone groan. Finally, he said, "That better? That's better. OK, guys and gals, good morning, Gravity Falls! Are you ready to rock?"

"Yeah!" the crowd roared.

"I can't hear that! Are you ready to rock?"

"YEAH!"

"Are you ready for—Ripe and Rotten and the Spoiled Peaches!"

This time the shout deafened Dipper. A moment later, a black-haired guy and a black-haired girl, both with guitars, bounded onto the stage. Behind them a girl drummer and a girl keyboardist took their places, and the guitars wailed, the crowd screamed, and the second day of Woodstick 2014 was officially, and loudly, underway.