Anyway, saying that to those kids would make them think you were a pitiful oldster. Hopefully Shannon hadn’t done so.
“Man, place could use some more lights,” said Shannon, digging into his shirt pocket for a cigarette. “Same old shit. Could be the Beers are doing one more set, or not.”
“I hope not.” Dewey didn’t really want to hear Bearflesh, though he hoped they’d missed the Queensryche tribute band.
The stage lit up and the members of Bearflesh came out and lifted guitars from their stands, flamboyantly dressed but paunchy, most of them, with hair at least shoulder-length but starting farther back on their foreheads than it used to. The singer, Billy D’Amato, came out in red spandex pants and boots, a wifebeater t-shirt, a considerable belly hanging out of it and over the front of his pants. However, his frizzled black elbow-length hair looked the same as it had for decades. Maybe, Dewey thought, that meant it was a wig. Had it always been a wig?
An old tired-looking guy with a grizzled beard and military hat went up to the mike, his voice full of radio-announcer enthusiasm. “Ladies and gentleman! Once again, the famous Grasso Villa brings you Stankerton favorites, Bearflesh!”
Some in the crowd yammered weakly in response, and there was even a little applause. “Beeeeeer-fleeeeesh!” someone bellowed drunkenly. Obviously, they’d already played and this was the last bit for the evening.
“Awright, Stankerton!” Billy yelled in a fake gravelly voice. “It’s gettin’ late, but rock and roll never cums, or what the fuck, I dunno. What day is it, Saturday already? What are people still doing here, losers? Go the fuck home.”
“Friday,” someone called out. “Saturday morning,” said another.
“Okay, it don’t matter, ’cause you know what?” He amped up his voice. “You know what, Stankerton? We gonna open up a can o’ kickass here t’night! That’s right!” He grabbed at his crotch and yanked upward, possibly as a rude gesture, or just to loosen the spandex a bit.
“Awright then! This here is a song we did earlier, we got a request for a reprise. It’s about bitches that want to wrap you around their little finger, you know? Sure you do. But what I do is, I wrap ’em around my fuckin’ dick! It’s called ‘Swallow My Love,’ one two three—”
Feedback shrieked, drums were pounded and power chords struck as the familiar mock-frenzied ritual ensued. This had been a standard number of theirs for years, having once been featured on a local radio station.
“Well, that’s awesome,” said Shannon, leaning close and speaking into Dewey’s ear to be heard over the roaring music. “I’m gonna look around for the weasels.”
“They’re closing in like a half hour or less,” said Dewey.
“Awright, awright.” Shannon walked off.
Sitting by himself, enduring the music, Dewey fretted. Just being here kind of depressed him. He and Shannon used to hang at Grasso’s a lot when they were in high school, and maybe for a few years after, but only once in a while in the last couple years, especially since Shannon had gotten married. Though in fact, Dewey hardly went out anymore unless he was with Shannon. He especially didn’t like seeing people there he used to see around, especially not people he used to know, and he didn’t much like that screaming speedfreak metal they played these days, especially when they sang in monster voices or tried to add rap shit to it.
Besides, the last time they’d been there, Shannon had been real drunk and got so he was fucking with people—strangers—which he did sometimes, a certain level of drink bringing out the sociopath in him, and they’d gotten thrown out by security. But that was like six months ago or maybe longer.
Just the same, Dewey was more worried than ever before about what Shannon was getting into—or maybe, more worried than he’d been since the first year after high school when he really seemed to go kamikaze for a while. This wasn’t as bad as that, but the fucker was getting pretty reckless again. Dewey thought it was mostly because of work. Construction was down, and he hadn’t been getting a lot of painting jobs since, well, last winter really. That was probably the real cause of the strife at home with Roni, too. Dewey hoped so, anyway. He liked Roni, even though she pretty much ignored him. Of course, he himself hadn’t had a real girlfriend in so long now it was embarrassing. He even sometimes told Shannon he was in touch with his old girlfriend Alta, when he really hadn’t heard from her in well over a year.
Then there was that incident with a kind of cute girl hitchhiker who turned out to be a guy. Oh well, fuck that, he’d just been drunk.
He ambled over to the bar, some distance from the stage and off in an alcove, to get a beer. He stood against a wall, still farther back, drinking and wincing as he watched the band. Fucking Bearflesh, still at it. At this point, the only members he could identify were Billy and the lead guitarist, Ed “Buzzy” Napper, the leader and only original member. White-bearded and very saggy, in a headband and shades, he looked like he was about seventy, though he must have been more like fifty. Billy had been in the band nearly as long. He used to be skinny and popular with girls. Oh, well, that’s life. Now they were doing an old song of theirs titled “Kill the Pain” or something like that, another one they’d been doing forever, though it sounded like they wrote it in five minutes.
Dewey didn’t watch the band for long, finishing his beer up fast and going for another one. When he returned to his spot by the wall he was looking around at the girls. As he went on drinking, his self-consciousness faded and he looked at them more brazenly. After a few drinks he didn’t care what they thought, though he’d still be careful about staring at a chick who was with a guy. He wasn’t trying to pick anybody up or anything, hadn’t even thought about really trying to do that for years.
After a while, Dewey started wondering a little about where Shannon had gone off to. Wasn’t going to find those kids, he figured. They were probably at the Morgue all along.
He finally spotted Shannon, sitting with some people at a table to the back. At first he thought it might be those guys he was supposed to sell to after all, but no, it was that one guy he knew who used to work at the garage out by, whatshisname, Chet’s place. He was with some real homely chick. Dewey didn’t feel like going over. Shannon was different, knew too many people, he was always running into somebody and standing around shooting the shit for a half hour.
Bearflesh broke into a ragged cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s “7 Screaming Diz-Busters” that they’d also been doing forever.
He kept glancing back at this one girl who was standing by herself and was really cute, a knockout, a tall, slender, long-haired blonde in a form-fitting dress. Great ass in it, too. Maybe that was a fashion, punk or whatever, he didn’t even know anymore. She was way too young for him. Wouldn’t have paid any attention to him even if he was her age. He made himself turn his head away. Useless.
But he soon looked back. She was tossing her hair, smoking, preoccupied. Her lipstick, he saw, was an odd shade of pink. It looked good on her. She was sweet. On impulse, Dewey wandered over nearer to her. Not that he was going to try to talk to her or anything.
When he got over there, within about six feet of her, the chick looked up and back at him, hard. She must have noticed him watching her. She didn’t look pissed off, just defiant. He looked away for a few moments, and when he glanced back, she was smiling off in another direction. A young, skinny guy with a multicolored mohawk, wide and stiff as a peacock’s tail, and wearing a Sex Pistols t-shirt, sat down beside her. She threw her arms around his neck and cuddled. Lucky fucker.