Bradley Denton - Blackburn

Blackburn didn't turn to look for the girl. He stayed focused on the musician's eyes. They weren't anything special. Fiber and jelly.

"Yeah, you're afraid to look," the musician said. "You don't want to see. Better learn to play guitar, man. Your eyes ain't got it. Most don't. That's why guys are always ripping me off for shit. My last bass player stole my amp. Same old story. I was cool, he was a dork, and his girlfriend wanted me. So he stole my shit and took off. But I fucked his chick before they left."

Blackburn laughed. The musician had started out as irritating, but he had become funny. Blackburn turned away and gestured to the bartender, who finally took notice and came over. Blackburn ordered two Shiners.

"Hey, man!" the musician yelled. "I was here first! My break's almost over!" The bartender had already turned away to get the beers.

"He'll be back in a second," Blackburn said.

The musician glared. "Same old shit," he said. "You feel threatened, so you rip me off. Just like the guy who wouldn't let me back in his cheap-ass nightclub because he said I bothered the women. Hey, man, I fucked the women. That's what pissed him off. He felt threatened. And he didn't pay me for my last gig. Fuckin' ripoff. All because the girls like my eyes."

"They just look stoned to me," Blackburn said again.

The musician jabbed a finger into Blackburn's chest. "All right, man. You watch." He turned and shoved people out of his way until he reached the blond girl in the pink top. He gazed at her and said something that Blackburn couldn't hear. The girl frowned.

The bartender put two bottles of beer on the bar, and Blackburn looked away from the musician while he paid for them. When he looked back, he saw that the girl in the pink top was heading for the door. The musician was following her. She said something over her shoulder to him. She didn't look happy.

The musician caught up with her, grabbed her arm, and pulled her through the crowd toward the stage. "Time to party!" he cried. "Time to dance!"

Blackburn took a sip from one of the beer bottles and watched. The blond girl was trying to pull free of the musician's grip. The crowd parted for them as they neared the stage. Some of the males cheered and hooted. Some of the females did too. Blackburn started squeezing his way through the packed bodies.

The blond girl was furious. Her face was red. She was screaming at the musician. He pulled her up onto the stage with him.

"Let's hear it for this sweet little rock-and-roll mama!" the musician shouted into his microphone. The crowd bellowed.

The musician pulled the blond girl to him and stuck his tongue in her mouth. Then he shoved her away and picked up his guitar. He and the drummer kicked off the next song while the blond girl struggled toward the door. She passed right by Blackburn, who was heading the other way. He saw that she was crying.

The yellow light bulbs went off, and the strobe started again. Blackburn found the girl he had been dancing with and handed her one of the bottles.

She pointed toward the door. "Sorry, but I'm gonna take off," she yelled. "I'm too pissed to stay. That guy's a good player, but he's a shit."

Blackburn nodded. The girl started through the jumping bodies toward the door. Blackburn started toward the stage.

When he got there, the Dead Gilmores were cranking fast and loud in a final frenzied bridge. The noise from the amplifiers was like an extended bomb blast. Blackburn's skull rattled. He jumped onto the stage at the crash of the final chord and headed for the drum kit. As the sound decayed, Blackburn grabbed the sticks from the drummer's sweat-slick hands. The drummer yelled.

The band leader's right arm was still raised from striking the chord. Blackburn came up behind him and crouched. The musician stepped back from his microphone and toppled. The amplifiers squealed.

Blackburn climbed onto the musician and knelt on his belly, just below the guitar. The guitar was glitter-specked lavender. In the light of the strobe, each speck was a different color. The musician stared up at Blackburn.

The strobe flashed, and the drumsticks were poised above the musician's face. The strobe flashed again, and they were sticking up from his eye sockets. The crowd squealed with the amplifiers.

Blackburn leaped from the stage, and the people began clapping and cheering. "All right!" someone yelled. "Alice fucking Cooper!"

Blackburn glanced back at the Dead Gilmores. The bass player, rhythm guitarist, and drummer approached their leader in stop-motion animation. One of them squatted beside him and touched his face. The strobe gleamed from it. It was like oiled plastic. The drumsticks pointed toward the corrugated roof, toward heaven.

The strobe stopped as Blackburn reached the door, and the yellow lights came on. The voice of the crowd started to change. Blackburn went out and ran for his car.

As he unlocked the car door, a voice behind him called "Hey!" He looked back and saw the long-haired girl he had been dancing with. She came up beside him.

"You got tired of the Gilmores too, huh?" she asked.

Blackburn nodded.

"Yeah," the girl said. "They kind of suck."

Blackburn smiled. "Yeah. They did."

The girl seemed to be studying his face. "You have a nice smile," she said.

"How about my eyes?" Blackburn asked.

The girl laughed. "Well, they aren't hypnotic."

He opened the car door, and she got inside. They drove out of town and spent the rest of the night in the country, where it was quiet.

The south wind sang through the catwalk. Jimmy lay on his belly with his head hanging over the edge, listening. He worked up a gob of spit and let it ooze from his lips like syrup. When it fell, he closed one eye and watched. It curved away from the tower's east leg and stayed airborne almost ten seconds. Then it burst on the Potwin road, just missing a motorcyclist coming into town from the north. Better luck next time, Jimmy thought.

He stood and walked around to the north side of the water tank, sliding his hand along the rail. In the field below, Jasmine sat apart from the others, playing a five-year-old's game in the dirt with her Doll-Baby. She showed no interest in the brown paper kite he had made. It was lying in the weeds beside her, its shop-rag tail coiled. That was fine with him. As long as Jasmine was all right, he could stay up here awhile longer. Mom had told him to watch her, but she hadn't said to stay close.

The other three kids were flying their own kites, or trying to. Chrissie Boyle and Kyle Thornton were struggling with a green batwing, but it never rose higher than eight feet before diving. Jimmy wasn't surprised. Chrissie and Kyle were only seven, and they didn't understand what was necessary for a kite to fly. Kyle kept trying to throw it, and Chrissie kept running with the wind.

Chrissie's brother Todd had his kite soaring high. With nothing to do now but hold the string, he was spending his time laughing at Chrissie and Kyle. Todd was almost twelve. He was more than a year older than Jimmy, and liked to think of himself as Boss Stud of any group. Being Boss Stud meant having the right to ridicule everyone else.

Jimmy didn't mind. Compared to Dad, Todd was an amateur. Besides, Jimmy preferred solitude over groups. It was only when Mom made him look after Jasmine that he had any use for other kids.

He looked up, squinting at the July sun, and watched Todd's kite for a minute. It was a shield-shaped piece of plastic decorated with the face of a roaring tiger. Below it, a knotted black tail lashed. The tail looked as if it were brushing the top of Clay Hill a half mile away.

Jimmy headed west around the tank, reading for new graffiti beneath the letters that spelled WANTODA. Ever since he had realized that there was no useful truth in either religion or textbooks, he had relied on the water tower and other popular media to teach him what people really thought was important. DRINK MORE WHISKEY, the tank said. '68 RULES. WORLD'S BIGGEST SPITTOON. A-BOMB THE GOOKS. CHERYL SUCKS TO THE HILT. FORD = FOUND ON ROADWAYS DEAD. JOEY + HOLLY. SKOOL DONT TEECH DIK. '70 IS BEST YEA! LARRY + JULIE. KING GOT WHAT HE DESERVED. TOMMY + SUSIE OOOH! SALLY WARDERS IS A CARPENTER'S DREAM (FLAT AS A BOARD). EAT SHIT. DAVID P. + SAM O. = QUEER BAIT. DORIS IS A PIRATE TREASURE (SUNKEN CHEST). KILROY WAS HERE amp; CHERYL SUCKED HIM. SO LONG BOBBY K. DOPE IS GOOD. KILL ALL COMMIES NOW! GARY + MELANIE. FUCK NIXON. '69 FOREVER! Last weekend, Jimmy had put a sandwich and some notebook paper into his army surplus backpack, and he had come up here and copied everything down. He was sure that if he took it all to heart, he would know how to live in the world.