13 “Touché, mothafuckas!” Cecilia yelled, a slim silhouette wielding her guitar from the darkened wooden stage at the Continental bar on the Bowery.
Cecilia was killing.
As usual.
It was her night to headline. Thursday. The midnight show.
The emergency room detour of the previous weekend was a distant memory and the only ones who appeared to be gasping for breath now were the awestruck fans before her. She held them mercilessly, musically, by the throat.
The Vari-Lite rig flicked on. Incandescent beams shone around her head and shoulders like a fractured, multicolored laser light halo.
The PA system crackled expectantly.
The audience, anxiously awaiting her surround-sound sermon.
There she stood.
Silent and powerful. A vanguard vixen vision in white.
A blank screen ripe for whatever the audience wanted to project upon her. With her don’t-fuck-with-me fashion and her weapon of choice, CeCe was ready for the jaded hands-in-pocket hipsters that were gatekeepers on the New York club scene. She accepted the challenge.
And she certainly looked the part. Over her head, she wore a sheer, white, netted veil tucked close, obscuring her face even to those at the edge of the stage. Her hair was pinned up in a messy, romantic do. Her thin, long neck was bare. She wore a white peekaboo kevlar vest, strapped tight with Velcro bands. Her pants were white McQueen “thrift score” leggings, made of vinyl, that laced up the front. A chain mail epaulet dangled from her bare shoulder with a single-strand sash made of old rhinestones crossing her torso. Her nails were painted white with some type from a book faintly visible—she dipped them in rubbing alcohol and pressed a cheaply printed Bible that Bill, her homeless poet friend, had acquired over them so that words would transfer to her nails. Her eyes were dark, smoky black and gray, and her lips glossed in a flesh-colored hue.
Cecilia stared blankly toward the back of the long, narrow room as she surveyed the crowd in front of her from the drum riser, legs spread, Fender guitar slung low around her waist, arm stiffened and extended straight outward as if drawing a bead on the audience. It was an aggressive pose, and one she thought worth striking.
Beaming. Beautiful. Badass.
People didn’t so much attend her weekly shows at the Continental as loiter around them. She drew a mixed crowd and she was proud of that. Lurking in the dingy room where a few neighborhood regulars, slumming private school students, stylists for big-name musicians who were there to “borrow” her look, cheating boyfriends, bartenders with arms folded, an overly enthusiastic gaggle of girls packed unnecessarily tightly at the lip of the tiny stage, and the four or five guys in back who’d come mostly to eye-fuck her. Lots of people had come to see her tonight, but not the one person she was hoping to see. She knew she had no right to expect he would turn up, but she was disappointed anyway.
She looked out over the heads of the gathering, breathing the stink of her own sweat mixed with splintered floorboard marinated in spilled beer, saliva, smoke, and ash from cigarette butts long since stamped out before the city smoking codes changed. Pretty much a typical Thursday night, except for the new accessory she was sporting: The emergency room chaplet she’d been given was worn around her bicep, twisted like a tourniquet, matching her stark white ensemble with the unusual charm dangling perpendicularly from it.
For her, the applause was beside the point. It was about communication. It was the look of adoration in their eyes she’d sought. That she needed. Their respect, not their approval, that turned her on. That’s what inspired her to begin with, the same compulsion that had driven her musical heroes and the people she admired. To tell the truth. To reveal to people what they already knew deep inside. To shake them up.
Sebastian was a total stranger but he got that about her. And she got the same vibe from him. She wasn’t into playing it safe. If anything, her goal was to put some risk, put the unexpected, back into music and into life for that matter.
In the end, she just wanted to cut through the bullshit, on stage, at least, if not off, where she’d fashioned a persona that resembled both a wounded soldier and a sharp blade, but more a shiv than a rapier. The suggestion of violence, disruption, thinly veiled and always present.
She wasn’t afraid to show her lady balls.
To be hard.
To be intimidating.
The warrior queen of her own private dystopia.
As she held fast both her dramatic pose and the audience’s attention, she looked out past the bright lights and into their eyes. It was mesmerizing.
She took the time to stare down each and every one of them. Surveying the crowd for one in particular. Sebastian. But he was nowhere to be found. A no-show.
She noticed all of them.
Watching her.
Watching for what she would do next.
The bartenders unfolded their arms.
The girls stood still.
The guys, waiting. Patiently.
For her.
For her to make a move.
She slowly opened her hand, keeping eye contact with the crowd, and let her guitar pick fall in front of her, off the stage. The lonely, lost eyes, out on a Thursday night, looking to her for something. Something she realized she couldn’t give them. Not tonight.
“What the hell is going on?” a guy in the crowd yelled. “Play for us!”
“Cecilia, play for us!” the crowd began chanting in unison.
If I can’t play to him, she thought, I’ll play for him.
She slyly slid the chaplet over her wrist and wrapped it tightly around her hand, the most gorgeous set of brass knuckles anyone had ever seen, the sword charm suspended just low enough for her to grip it, like a pick, between her thumb and forefinger. She cranked her guitar up and tore into a wailing solo, channeling all her feelings into a wordless maelstrom of sonic aggression, the bow of her gold charm slaying the steel strings and feeding back relentlessly into the amps and out into the audience.
CeCe attacked the fretboard, bending notes with such passion that she nearly pulled the instrument out of tune. The pointed end of the sword charm dug deep into her hand. Drops of blood ran from her palm down her fingers to her cuticles and onto the pick guard and the whammy bar. Without uttering a word, she’d said everything she needed to say to the stunned gathering.
Spent, she turned and faced the drummer, on the verge of tears, and mouthed, I can’t.
But she already had.
CeCe bolted from the stage, guitar in hand, and headed straight for the backstage closet that doubled for a dressing room. She grabbed her bag, squeezed it to make sure her wallet was still inside, looked indifferently at herself in the tiny cosmetic mirror on the door, and started for the exit.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” a gruff voice quizzed. “I paid you for an hour show.”
“You didn’t pay me, Lenny,” Cecilia reminded him. “It was a door deal, remember? I keep the cover, you get the bar.”
“What bar? Those freaks you brought in were underage. I don’t make money selling ginger ale.”
“That’s your problem.”
“Now it’s your problem. Don’t come back here.”
“That’s the idea.” Cecilia wasn’t sure what had come over her.
“I was doing you a favor. Giving you a night here to showcase. Build something. A following.”
“A favor?” she huffed. “You mean like the weekly photo shoot of me changing that you tried to arrange from the camera you have planted in the bathroom? You just want to get in my pants.”
“No thanks, honey.” Lenny wagged an arthritic finger. “I’m a little too scared of what I might find when I get in there.”
“Pay me,” Cecilia ordered, holding her bloodstained hand out.
“Ha. You’re like all the others. You screw a guy and then you want to get paid.”
CeCe stood there, waiting for Lenny to grease her palm. He grabbed her wrist and, inste
ad of paying her, he stuck out his tongue and licked it, blood and all, and spat at the floor, cursing her. “You’re not getting one dime from me after that shit you just pulled out there.”
“Keep it,” she said, wiping any trace of spittle and plasma from her hand onto his shirt. “And the herpes.”
Cecilia stalked off, noticing a pale and familiar face in the smoky darkness. Ricky Pyro. An up-and-coming Gothpunk front man and druggie scenester. It certainly wasn’t the guy she was hoping to see. He was much different from Sebastian, even though she’d known Ricky for a long time, and Sebastian only a moment. But, oddly, Ricky was more of a stranger to her. Her pet name for him was “sociopath.” He was out for himself. No mystery. No manners. Crass. The complete opposite of Sebastian. Ricky was a fellow soldier on the music strip and a sometimes booty call. They had a history and not always a good one. She packed up as she bitched to him. “You saw all that, right?”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“Showbiz.”
He nodded in agreement. “Short yet fucking amazing set.”
“I gotta get out of here. You on next?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you calling the band tonight?”
“Pagans,” he replied, sticking his hand in his pocket and looking her up and down.
“Sounds familiar. Better call your lawyer,” she joked, knowing he was so broke he used to book his band pretending to be his own agent.
But then again, so did she.
“That band was The Pagans, smart-ass,” he corrected, pointing out a distinction but not a difference. “They were a punk band. I found the lead singer. He’s, like, a janitor now or something. He said we could use the name if we sang one of his old songs every night. He still owns his publishing. Business, ya know.”
“Must be a valuable catalog. Which song?”
“ ‘What Is This Shit Called Love?’ ”
“Charming. Break a nut. Oh, and thanks for getting me to the hospital the other night.”
“Hospital?”
“Never mind,” she said, rushing for the door.
“Where you headed?”
“Don’t know,” she called back as she reached the door, the silence from the outside getting sucked into the roar inside. “Oh, and by the way. I’m feeling better. Thanks for asking!”
“Hit you up later?”
“Nah,” she said, looking over at his groupies, who would kill to be with him. “Don’t ever fall for me, Ricky.”
“Too late,” he replied.
Then she looked condescendingly over to his band members. “By the way, no matter what you call them, they still suck.”
“Not as good as you do,” the drummer shouted.
CeCe pushed the bar on the back door and walked out into the alley where a few of her fans—the diehards—had gathered. Her “apostles” she called them, all sporting her look, with varying degrees of success. She appreciated them, their loyalty and devotion most of all, but right now, even they were not enough.
“What happened?” one shouted as she rushed by them. “Everything okay?”
“I’m good.” She grinned unconvincingly, like someone about to vomit, and kept walking.
“Sick bracelet,” another girl called out. “Where’d you get it?”
“Some guy,” she answered, preferring to keep the details to herself.
She held up her arm as much to show off the chaplet as to wave good-bye. The girls turned wide-eyed, covered their mouths, and giggled silently, devouring the piece of inside info they’d just been tossed. She was rude and they didn’t deserve that. They deserved an explanation, but what was there to be gained by preaching to the converted, to her followers, she thought. Whatever she said they’d just nod their heads, listen attentively, frown sympathetically, and agree with every word. She needed some criticism, some perspective.
Maybe she should have just admitted to them that all that bravado and empowerment talk she put out there was just a load of bullshit, a stage persona that she put on and took off the way she changed her outfits or boyfriends. That the club owner was a pervert who she subtly encouraged to keep her weekly gig, that she barely made cab fare to and from her apartment from her ticket and download sales, that she’d allowed herself to be used by every Strokes wannabe in a leather jacket and skinny jeans from Williamsburg to the East Village, and that she’d finally had enough. She was still coughing up dirt from the previous weekend’s puddle if she needed any further proof. If nothing else, she was comforted by the knowledge that she’d given them an interesting status update for their fan pages.
Frauds, liars, cheats, users, perverts, wannabes, and worse. She let them all in, bit by bit, until it seemed almost . . . normal. Until she felt comfortable, with them and with herself for choosing them. Until she almost needed them. The height of self-delusion, she knew, but it made it much easier to get through the day—and night—most of the time. Sebastian seemed like he might be the antidote to all that. But then again, maybe not. He couldn’t even be bothered to come.
“I know how to pick ’em.”
She suddenly felt a hard thud against her chest that startled her out of her own pity party.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” a sweet but shaky voice intoned.
“Watch it!” CeCe barked, moving around the person who’d just body checked her.
“Would you sign this for me?” the girl asked sheepishly, holding out a show flyer with Cecilia plastered all over it. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
Cecilia froze and gritted her teeth. It was the last thing she wanted to do right then, but she could still remember when nobody cared. Her ego kicked in. “Sure.” CeCe grabbed the neon pink and green punk-style poster from the girl’s trembling fingers. “I see they advertised me tonight,” she said, realizing that Lenny needed her much more than she needed him. “I never get to see these.”
“I’m sure your fans rip them down and have them hanging in their rooms.”
Cecilia shot her a look.
The girl realized that she was one of those fans.
“What’s your name?” Cecilia asked impatiently.
“Catherine,” the girl said nervously, unable to disguise her excitement. “I’m from Pittsburgh too.”
Funny thing about New York City, Brooklyn in particular, Cecilia thought. If you’re living there, you’re from there. They say that after ten years, you’re considered a native, but it really didn’t matter how long. You were instantly absorbed in it and by it. Your slate was wiped clean. Pittsburgh was already a very distant memory for her. Another life.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her eyes focused on her hand as she signed her name.
The girl just shrugged quietly and smiled broadly. “Same as you. Trying to be somebody. I met this New York photographer online who said I should be modeling, and some guys in Ricky Pyro’s band said maybe even make an album.”
Cecilia bristled a little at the mention of Ricky’s name and a worried look spread out across her face. As she picked up her head to look the girl straight in the eye, Cecilia could see she was young, maybe a bit younger than Cecilia was, clear-eyed and clear-skinned. Pretty and unassuming. Cheerful in an innocent, nonirritating way. “Real” would be one way to describe her. Cecilia saw something of herself in the girl. Herself about a year ago. Disillusionment hadn’t taken long to set in. She was tempted to say something, but didn’t, feeling it wasn’t her place.
Catherine continued on almost breathlessly. “Ricky said we could video the session and upload it online and maybe get a few bookings or an audition for a talent show on TV.”
“Yeah, well, don’t hold your breath waiting to spin the big prize wheel.”
“I just thought I should try everything.”
“Catherine,” CeCe said sternly. “Life is not a game show.”
“You know there are still a few kids who hang around outside your house,” Catherine said enthusiastically, as if that small-town tidbit would mean anything to
her. “I guess they were fans of your first band when you were, like, fifteen—I’m sorry I don’t remember the name.”
“The Vains,” Cecilia said, the slightest smile crossing her lips as the memory of her very first all-girl psyche-pop trio crossed her mind. “We did all right for a minute. Before your time, huh?”
Catherine smiled back sheepishly.
“Why’d you break up?”
“The usual. Backstabbing bandmates. Domineering boyfriends. Out-of-control egos. So I split,” CeCe said almost wistfully. “Mostly I just didn’t think they were into the music as much as me. And here I am.”
“I guess it’s really hard to know what you want at such a young age,” Catherine said sympathetically. “Or ever, for that matter.”
“Really? I knew what I wanted to do at five years old,” CeCe shot back harshly, never one to coddle wafflers. “If it’s in you, it finds you. Or you find it. If it doesn’t . . . ”
Catherine was stung. CeCe’s diatribe felt a little too personal. More like an attack. But it was inspiring also, Catherine thought, in its own way. CeCe bought the rock-and-roll myth. Catherine could see that. A true believer. She was born to do what she was doing. She just knew it. And no one could convince her otherwise. Despite the self-assuredness in what CeCe said, however, the look of hurt in her expression also spoke volumes.
“Your parents don’t seem to like those kids hanging around. The window shades are always pulled down and they never speak to any of them.”
“No surprise there,” Cecilia said uncomfortably. “They don’t speak to me, either.”
“Oh,” Catherine said, sensing she might have hit a nerve. “Don’t they approve of what you’re doing?”
“Approve?” CeCe said, her voice rising and nose crinkling up like she’d just smelled raw sewage. The word almost gave her the chills. Whatever the opposite of approval was, that’s how her parents felt about her choices and how little support they gave her. They had provided a nice house, nice clothes, nice things. Everything but what she craved. It’s why she ran away. She’d stopped seeking their approval the minute she got off the bus at the Port Authority. The fact that Catherine even used the word told Cecilia everything she needed to know about the girl. She still measured herself by her parents’ standard. Naïve. Dependent. Still had their voice in her head. That could be a dangerous thing in this town. Pleasers were eaten alive and spit out like rat guts on the C line.