Outsider Read online

  CHAPTER TWO

  Terri started the second set by congratulating the crowd:

  “Thank God you’re here!”

  Sid shouted back:

  “Nothing to do with God!”

  Terri glanced at her and launched herself into “Mercedez Benz”, Janis Joplin’s tongue-in-cheek acapella song. Sid had guessed with amusement the worry in the singer’s eyes, the “what’s wrong with this woman?” and decided to calm down. She didn’t want the band to get pissed off with her. She made one with the audience and played the game, singing along the repeat of the first verse, knowing only one word out of three, struggling with the tune whose key was slightly too high for her voice. When was last time she had vocalized? Terri swiftly followed the song with another Joplin’s number: “Take a Little Piece of My Heart”. The audience went wild. Janis would have been proud. While Sid still enjoyed the title of craziest dancer.

  Rocky number after rocky number, the audience was in love with the mischievous singer who always had the word to make them laugh, while the keyboard player was fidgeting and twiddling buttons around her electronic apparatuses.

  Terri, shouting and haranguing the crowd, complained about the plastic containers given to her with each shot of her favorite drink:

  “They must have heard of us! I always break the glass after drinking my tequila. So last week I broke a window. At the time, it seemed to be the best surface to break my glass!”

  The crowd roared with laughter. Terri went on:

  “That must be why they didn’t pay us!” After a calculated facial expression she added: “No, I’m sure the cheque is in the post!” and started on the next cover, a favorite of Sid’s, “Black Velvet”. She used to love Alannah Myles’s version, but Terri’s voice, a voice echoing Janis Joplin’s and Melissa Etheridge’s, had no trouble eclipsing any other contender. She was the best, even if Sid was still trying to figure out the lyrics.

  After another heroic number, a tall guy with short brown hair and a quiet face –Sid identified him as a roadie-, created a pause when he proffered a blasted plastic container with a guaranteed content of 100% pure tequila to the appreciative singer.

  At first, Terri just stood there, in the middle of the stage, microphone in one hand and drink in the other. Long enough for Sid to notice the golden signet ring on the right little finger and a few tight silver bracelets around the left wrist.

  Terri brought the tequila to her left nostril and inhaled deeply. Repeated the operation with the right nostril. And exhaled a long and greatly satisfied sigh. She eventually stated:

  “Don’t know about you guys, but my hay fever is suddenly feeling much better!”

  “Mine is on vacation!” Sid shouted back spontaneously.

  Terri looked at her, charismatic as ever:

  “Wanna have a taste?” She stepped to the edge. “You’re gonna be nice to me now?”

  A bit wary because it was in her nature, Sid closed the leftover distance and with a smile protested:

  “I worship your voice! Well, I also enjoy being a bit of a troublemaker sometimes.”

  “Shut up and open your mouth!”

  Sid had never been one to obey orders. But somehow, she didn’t mind if it was the brash and butch Terri. The spell-weaver poured the tequila on top of the exposed, pierced tongue. Sid closed her mouth and her eyes, savoring the surprising taste. Not the burning firewater she expected. She reopened her brown eyes and bit into the lemon crescent offered by the other brown-eyed singer, even though she was in unfriendly terms with every citrus fruit. She swallowed the alcohol. It was heaven.

  “What’s your favorite brand of tequila?” She impulsively questioned Terri, simply ignoring their surroundings and circumstances, the gig and the audience.

  “Mescal,” Red Head answered, surprised. But recovering swiftly she told the delighted audience, in the deepest voice she could manage: “Bring me the worm!”

  “I’ll bring a bottle to your next gig. When is it?”

  Brightly: “Mardi Gras.” The yearly gay festival in London.

  “I don’t do Mardi Gras!” Too commercial for Sid’s politics.

  The mighty Scorpio struck another ace:

  “But I’m sure they’d do you!”

  The rioting uproar of the audience gave another point to their hero. Sid could only acknowledge her defeat. But she didn’t mind losing a round to such a worthy adversary.

  The gig picked up with another powerful rock song, 100% courtesy of Second Look, wilder than ever. Sid was dancing, pogoing, stomping. She was possessed by music. Still on Cloud 9. By the time the singer ordered the audience to give her “five”, she had moved to a corner in front of the double keyboard. She saw her friend Judy giving “five”, then another dancer. Terri was making her way along the stage with the confidence of a rock star, step by step getting closer to Sid, who deliberately looked away. A woman eagerly placed herself between her and the singer for a “five”. But Sid knew, between wild beats of a speedy rhythm track, and waited. The hand entered her field of vision, strong and square. Sid looked up and smiled out to the smiling freckled face. Their eyes exchanged understanding while Green Mohican gave Red Head “five”. Not really “five”. Instead of slapping the extended palm with the flat of her hand, she squeezed it. And was surprised when the singer squeezed back.

  She was still fiercely unaware of the magnificent keyboard player, her mind unconsciously blocking her out, so afraid of the too beautiful smile.

  (Tequila After Dark)

  Billie would shout at the crowd, asking them how they were doing, complaining about the plastic glasses she had to drink out of.

  “They must have heard of us! I always break the glasses after drinking tequila, so last week I broke a window. It seemed to be the best surface to break my glass!” The crowd responded with noisy laughs. “That must be why they didn’t pay us!” And added after quick consideration: “No, I’m sure the cheque is in the post!” And started on a rendition of “Take A Little Piece Of My Heart” Janis Joplin would have been proud of.

  Jan had sipped her anonymous pint dry. She always was a fast drinker. She was dancing freely, alternating pogoing and mad swinging of the hips, her gaze regularly riveting itself to Billie’s eyes. Billie was equally wilder on stage, screaming and roaring, her hair like the crazy branches of a willow playing in the wind.

  Every next number was rockier than the previous one and the mischievous singer knew how to please her crowd.

  During a relatively quiet pause, she accepted a tequila proffered by a roadie, placed the glass under her nose, took a good sniff of the alcohol through one nostril then the second and stated:

  “I don’t know about you but my hay fever is suddenly feeling so much better!”

  “Mine is on vacation!” Jan replied impulsively.

  “Wanna have a taste?” Billie offered, good and charismatic performer, closing the distance between them.

  “Why not, sounds like a good idea!” But a bit weary inside.

  “Shut up and open your mouth!” Brash and sometimes macho, Billie was.

  Jan obeyed. Billie poured the content of the small plastic glass onto the pierced tongue exposed in the process. Jan closed her mouth on the alcohol, a satisfied look on her face, savoring the surprisingly-not-so-burning taste. She bit into the lemon crescent offered by Billie.

  Tequila was the trigger. Jan didn’t know, but the Dragon knew. It would now take about two hours.

  * * * * * * *

  When the gig ended –too soon- Sid’s friends started to make a move toward home. But Sid sat down in the chair recently vacated by Nat and told Judy:

  “Hold on, I’m not ready, I need to unwind.”

  Sid actually wanted to see Red Head off-stage, she wanted to scan the singer’s aura, and she needed to know. It was not that she could read auras, but she could sense a few things, a few shifts, and a few differences. She absolutely needed to know something about Terri Harley.

  The room was ser
iously clearing, punters slowly shooed away by the Blue Moon’s bouncers, when Terri Harley eventually reached the green-mohicaned woman, whose Native American tattoos shined with sweat. She smiled and Sid forgot to protect herself. For the second time that night, a smile pierced her fragile heart. Terri’s friendly voice inquired:

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sid.”

  “Sid, good to meet you!”

  Terri’s handshake was firm, the kind Sid relished in. She replied:

  “It’s good to hear another powerful voice. I was getting to feel lonely. And you know, about the bottle of mescal, I mean it.”

  “You don’t have to!”

  Looking at Second Look’s gig list:

  “Where is ……. The Black Crow?”

  “It’s easy! Just across the street from the Gunnersberry station!”

  Two men nearby were standing at attention. Terri squeezed Sid’s hand again and planted a kiss on Sid’s right cheek:

  “Thanx for coming, Sid! Spread the word!”

  “I will!” She literally meant it.

  Regretfully she followed the bouncers’ directions and left the building. But she felt good, oh so good inside. She was unwillingly carrying the surrounding people’s contentment along with her own satisfaction. She had made contact and she knew. Terri’s aura was different off-stage. Friendship was a possibility. Life was opening up; the future was hers to collect. She was flying on the wings of wishful thinking.

  (Tequila After Dark)

  During the next two hours everything and everyone went wilder. The crowd, the singer, the drumbeats, Jan’s dancing. Her eyes darkened, her elbows sharpened, the crowd gave her respectful space for her increasing foot stomping.

  And when the band left the stage, after more of Billie’s antics and a few encores, Jan was nowhere to be seen. Neither Billie nor the other Leos cared to even mentally comment about it. More fans to greet, more smiles to distribute and thanks to attribute, posters and t-shirts to sign, CD sales to watch over from very faraway. Everyone still so buzzed-out that unwinding couldn’t be considered yet. Too good a gig to readily obey the security men of the pub urging to now leave the premises. It was some time past midnight and no one could really care about it.

  When later on The Leos crew managed to eventually load their van, there was no warning. Barely a jet of fire, usual artifice, vague sideshow of a dragon’s activity. Before Mel’s and Jo’s unbelieving eyes, the fantastic creature’s claws grabbed an unsuspecting Billie by her jacketed shoulders and the creature flew off with her in their grasp.

  Billie was no pitiful babe, she tried to fight back, kicking and screaming. But the claws were strong and uncompromising. High in the dark sky of London, the creature flipped her over, allowing her to face her kidnapper. Humanoid shape with the wings of a Dragon. The singer plunged her gaze into the dark eyes. Something unmistakably familiar. The challenging look. The line of a scar. It dawned on her as surely as the many sunrises she had contemplated. If the snout had been a human nose and a mouth, the nostrils would have shown a hint of tension and the lips would have been delicately chiseled.

  *..*..*..*..*..*..*

  A few days later, Jan, barely aware of another lapse in her memory, incidentally picked up a free local weekly rag. Vaguely leafing through it, her eyes caught a title: MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF A ROCK SINGER. The item started skeptically with an unknown winged creature breathing fire, claimed to have kidnapped the singer of rock band The Leos, and the latter discovery at dawn by some night worker, of her blooded and dislocated body. Wounds and breaks in the bones were consistent with a fall from great height, the police had said.

  Jan first thought she would have liked to see the creature with her own eyes. Where was she at the time? She became aware of a blank. Then she felt a hint of sadness shoot through her heart. And suddenly, she moved on to intrigued, the odd fact that she couldn’t remember anything after the tequila administered by the rock singer.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The artwork spread over the door of Sid’s bedroom was reminiscent of Klimt’s work with its wealth and tightness of colours, but the reminiscence stopped there. Like her tattoo sleeves, the inspiration was indebted to the Haida nation from the northwest coast of America. She had made the debt indelible by choosing the traditional colours: black, red, white and blue. Deciphered, it depicted a thunderbird, a wolf, a killerwhale and a human being. The door of her front room sported a life-size portrait of Shi-tsukia, the bringer of the New Year, one of the Zuni White Kachinas. She had painted them herself, with fascination, respect, admiration and a remarkable precision. Even so, she would have never labeled herself an artist out loud.

  Today, Sid Wasgo had no time to just stand and admire her fancy work. The 31-year-old had another boring psychiatrist appointment to attend and she was barely short of being late. Psychiatrists not working on Navajo time, she had better stop spinning all over and make a move. The hospital squatting only a few blocks away, she decided to ignore her black shiny helmet negligently crashed on the carpet and only grabbed her leather jacket and opaque sunglasses. Her state of mind was a mixture of sleepy and manic, as every morning, thanx to her medication. She had spent the night writing controversial pieces to entertain her faithful insomnia and caught only two hours of dense sleep and foggy dreams around dawn. Bloody anti-depressants. The current guilty party was labeled seroxat and was, she guessed, as addictive as any of its street relatives. It always worked on her as such. But the psychiatrist was adamant; she needed it to keep her manic episodes under control. Sure, they were under control: she was manic all the time.

  She kicked a hardback book with her left DM boot (14 eyelets were the minimum she would settle for), but the bestseller persisted in her path. She had never thought that she’d ever, in her entire life, pick up a book penned by Stephen King, but the title had been promising, a powerful and unavoidable magnet: “Dreamcatcher”. She had felt a strong need to know why this writer would want to use the Native American device meant to protect people, and more especially babies, from bad dreams. One hundred stubborn pages on, and she hadn’t found her answer, but she was sure as hell she couldn’t abide by his style. She kicked it again, and it gave up after hitting the wall.

  “KEYS”, a sign violently colourful clamored on her front door. She stopped, stood still ten seconds, frozen in her thinking, then scrambled through the pockets of her clean black combat trousers. Clean. So clean and fresh from this morning that the keys were not chained to the belt loop yet. She sighed with frustration. She couldn’t afford the luxury of destroying a second lock.

  The mood stabilizers had been to blame. Can you imagine filling up your bag pack with all the essential items for the day (two crime novels for the library, one horror novel and one heavy metal CD for the friend you’re gonna have lunch with, one sci-fi novel to read on the train, one black pen and one barely started notebook in case you feel inspired), then you walk out of your building, take a left, arrive at the next corner, and suddenly it hits you; where is the backpack filled with all the essentials for the day? Home…

  Well, that day, Sid had walked out of her flat with the mountain bicycle she had been looking after for a friend traveling abroad. She kept this light two-wheels in the roomy closet gracing her flat and used it as a lazy mean of transportation for the immediate area: the psychiatric hospital qualified for the ride. She had pulled the door closed, and frozen. Damn: she had just locked the keys inside. She considered breaking into her home straightaway and retrieved the blasted things, but thought getting rid of the stuffy psychiatrist first would be a better idea. One problem at a time. Once at the hospital Sid faced the next one head on: she kept every key within a same cluster.

  “I never had a bicycle in my office before!” The puzzled psychiatrist scratched his head.

  “There is a first time for everything,” She countered, thinking the saying didn’t apply to her in many situations.

  Anyway, the mood stabilizers were history no
w. After three weeks, her chemical networks still in chaos with moods swinging from high to down, frustrated to happy, relaxed to angry, every five minutes or so, Sid chose; the psychiatrist disagreed.

  *..*..*..*..*..*..*

  Refusing to repeat history, Sid turned around and walked the few steps to the bathroom. There she scrounged amidst the pile of yesterday’s clothes, dug out a forgotten, but welcome ten-pound-note, and grasped the bunch of keys she definitely needed to let herself back into her home, sweet home, colourful home, after another fruitless encounter with the man who didn’t like her wearing sunglasses, the man who couldn’t or wouldn’t understand that, from one day to the next, every month, thanx to the wonderful drugs swallowed every morning for breakfast, Sid would switch from cranberry juice drowned in soda water with a few ice cubes desultorily floating, to gallons of alcohol, the harder the liquor the better, with a humongous and uncontrollable urge to drink herself not just under the table but deeper than underground, at any cost and at any price. An inescapable fate. And the next morning, her period would clock on. Blast, she was always out of sanitary pads. She never liked this reminder of the femalehood of her body. Nor any other reminders.

  And this was only one of the few side effects she had isolated. Sid wanted out and it was not as simple as leaving a family behind. The man wouldn’t hear her repeated statement. She felt like a guinea pig. Great, society was having a go at her again; trying to change her, turn her into someone else. She was turning into a monster. Good job she liked monsters! Or maybe she was a monster and they wanted to make her “normal”. How did her song use to go? He wouldn’t have known the lines: When I don’t wanna be myself / I don’t wanna be someone else.