“They’ll sue you.” Colin didn’t feel excited anymore. He felt drugged and indifferent. Something enormous and depressed and on drugs had moved through him; had been watching him, from a distance, and had now come and moved through him.
“I’ll sell them faulty windows that would keep breaking,” Dana said. She laughed. “So their restaurants will look all dilapidated. When they sue me I’ll bribe the Supreme Court. I’ll give them supercomputers. Colin, I really like supercomputers for some reason. They’re so big and sad. I just want to take care of them. I get these urges …”
Colin wondered if Dana talked this way to her boyfriend. He knew nothing about Dana’s boyfriend. Except that his name was Tyson, and all Colin could ever think was Mike Tyson. Colin liked Mike Tyson. He didn’t know much about Dana anymore. They had talked a lot at first, years ago, that first August before school, before September 11th — all day, walking up and down Manhattan, side to side, through parks — but Colin couldn’t remember any specifics unless he tried very hard, and he didn’t feel like trying that hard.
Leftover Crack had a history of inter-band disputes. At a show Colin had attended, the guitarist had left the venue after Stza became depressed and smashed his guitar — the body snapping cleanly and quietly from the neck, as if willingly — and sang a few songs lying flat on his back. Another time, at CBGB, a few months after September 11th, the guitarist had on a fawn-colored sweater over a crisp white shirt for some reason and had said, in a sincere way, that he was proud to be an American, that it really moved him how everyone had come together. Then Stza had said that September 11th was the greatest day of his miserable life. Then they had played “Stop the Insanity (Lets End Humanity),” or something.
On stage now, Leftover Crack’s bassist walked to his bass, picked it up, strapped it on, and stood waiting for the others. His face was expressionless and he did not move his eyes, mouth, head, or legs. His shirt said “NO-CA$H.” The guitarist was asking the crowd for beer. Someone passed up a shiny blue plastic cup, but it wasn’t beer.
“Somebody pass this fucker a beer,” Stza said.
“If I don’t get a beer,” the guitarist said. “I’ll put my guitar down, smoke some crack, drink a forty. Seriously, I don’t care.” He had just done a set with his own band; he had his own band.
“We all know, dude,” Stza said. “We all know.”
They played “Gay Rude Boys Unite (Take Back the Dance Hall),” their anti-homophobia song, “Money,” their anti-money song, “Life is Pain,” their anti-breeding song, and “Suicide (A Better Way),” their pro-suicide song. Behind them, against the wall, was a large upside-down American flag with a pentagram drawn over it in black marker. In the corner was a little silvery “666.”
Colin and Dana stood to the side, back a little. Both had toilet paper packed in their ears. About ten songs in, Dana pushed Colin toward the middle and front. They were squished, were pushing forward and screaming the lyrics, and then Colin fell back into a circle-pit area, was okay for a while, moving quick and unharmed, but then was elbowed some place and smacked in the side by someone’s fat, hard body. He fell to the ground, which was cool and sticky. Kids picked him up, righted him, squared his shoulders. “My shoe,” Colin said. “My shoe fell off.” Kids began to search for his shoe. Then someone was slapping Colin’s cheek with his shoe and giving him his shoe. Colin saw some yellow and pushed up front. Stza was dancing something like a jig on stage, rapping, “incarcerate the youth of the next generation / and you get the high-fives at the police station.” Colin screamed the lyrics for a few songs. Leftover Crack played “Born to Die,” their usual closer—“I just can’t escape the lying / the moment we’re born, we’re dying”—and right after that the venue people turned on the lights. The house music was death metal. Colin found Dana and they stood around for a while. They used the bathroom. They wandered to the outside area, where a girl was interviewing Stza.
“Alright,” the girl was saying. She had bright orange hair and a large tape recorder, and was young, maybe in 8th grade. “So what’s the point of what you’re doing? What do you hope to gain?”
“Well, the point …” Stza said. “Actually we’ve pretty much done everything I had hoped to do. I wanted to be in a band, I wanted people to come to our shows. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up and I wanted to meet people … see, I’m really shy, and I just can’t walk up to people and talk to them. I feel like a total jerk. But if kids come up to me and talk I can just talk back.”
“Is this the one important thing about the band … that you are going to extremes just because you’re making a point of free speech?”
“That’s one of the things,” Stza said. “But it’s not the only reason I say some things. I mean a lot of the things I say. I joke about a lot of things. But only half joking.”
“Is that why you have satanic imagery on your website? To be offensive?”
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m an atheist. I like satanic art, I think it’s pretty … I’m not a Satanist, but if you read the Satanic Bible, a lot of it is just common sense, really. It’s not about hurting people, it’s about freedom and autonomy.”
One of the Polish women — the mom — was watching and had been moving closer and was now standing next to Stza. She asked about some beers that were sitting on a fence. “I wonder whose they are,” she said. There were three beers.
“Don’t know. You can have them,” Stza said.
“No; you should have them. They’re not mine.”
“Thank you,” Stza said.
“I wish someone would have them so they wouldn’t just be sitting there.”
“I’m sure someone will have them,” Stza said.
“Okay. Goodbye.” She turned to leave.
“Goodbye,” Stza said. “Well, you know, I eat out of the garbage, so …”
The polish woman turned back around. “What?” she said.
“I eat out of the garbage, so it doesn’t matter,” Stza said. “A lot of kids do, so they’ll drink the beers.”
“I don’t think they’re garbage, I think they’re sealed cans, just over there — look.”
“I’ll go check it out if it makes you happy,” Stza said.
“Just chuck them over the fence into that garden.”
“No! That’s wrong,” Stza said. “I don’t believe in littering. This is such a pretty place.”
“But someone might use them to throw at people’s windows.”
“They’re empty aluminum cans, that’s not going to break a window. I know these things.”
“He’s too smart for me,” the woman said to Colin and Dana. She smiled at Colin. “Oh,” Colin said, and looked away. Dana was holding his hand, he saw. “Will you put them in the bin for me then?” the Polish woman said. “They worry me.”
“Alright,” Stza said. “When we go back we have to go back that way — so we will.” He looked around. The little girl with the orange hair was gone. She had vanished.
“Thanks,” the woman said, “you’re an angel.”
“Thank you. An angel of death.”
Outside the venue, the sky was a distinct brown. Kids pointed at it. “What the fuck is that?” someone said. “It’s a piece of doo-doo,” someone screamed. There were clouds but those were brown too. A group of kids began to chant, “Don’t dis the sky, don’t dis the sky.” No one wanted to go home. Everyone loitered in the street, kicked at snow, talked shit about Good Charlotte. Colin walked around a little and soon couldn’t find Dana. He stood in one place, looking and shivering, feeling an unpleasant and comprehensive longing for tonight; it was a thousand years later and Colin was thinking back, remembering — regretting everything. But he would not be alive in one thousand years, he knew. He would be alone in a vast and unimaginable place. He felt a little confused. He saw Leftover Crack’s bassist running away, sprinting down the block, slowing, turning a corner. Then a girl was asking Colin his name. “Colin,” Colin said. “Hi,” the girl said. She had round and vapid eyes and a very thin, silver hoop in her nose. “I’m Maura. Join me, Frank, Donnie in a Chinese dinner. We’re going to Manhattan Chinatown. You’re invited.”