When you’re growing up, you have this sort of vague idea in your mind of what’s going to happen, right? I’ll go to college, I’ll get married to some handsome dude, we’ll have some kids . . . And then your life starts to take shape a little bit — for me, it was like, Okay, I’ll be in a band with my friends. And I didn’t know what was going to happen past that, other than some sort of half-assed backup, like, when the band stops, I’ll have to get a job. Maybe I’ll go to college or something. It’s a bit of a void, looking ahead to that. And then a weird flash of maybe meeting some guy, maybe having a kid? I don’t know if I ever seriously entertained either of those ideas. So it was all about the band, and then the weird purgatory afterwards when I guessed I’d have to transition into something else. But then I killed two people. That wasn’t one of the milestones I’d envisioned.
I had definitely anticipated some sort of consequence. That maybe one morning there’d be a knock on the bus door and Fern and I would be dragged, bleary-eyed and pyjama-panted, off to prison. I mean, yeah, we were travelling miles every day and moving along fast, and the dead guys weren’t exactly the beautiful missing persons girls that you’d see on the top news stories, but I expected something.
And there was nothing.
And Fern and I never discussed it. Whenever we were alone on the tour, it wasn’t like Oh, hey, how are you feeling about the murders or anything. I knew she’d kept that brick from the alley in Florida, but I wasn’t going to ask her to see it. So thinking about what had happened was something I did alone, at night, in my bunk.
By now the shows were mechanical. My voice was starting to get tired, I said the same things every night onstage, I did the same moves at the same parts of the same songs. None of us were doing laundry anymore, either, realizing the ultimate redundancy of it. I’m sure the bus reeked, but all of us were beyond noticing. At least Fern’s renewed zest for life kept the focus off how disinterested I’d become in the live performances — let the people focus on her and her wonderful energy. I just wanted to go to bed.
Sometimes I dreamed about that broken face in the alley, about the screeching, desperate voice, that hideous repetition, I did not, I did not, I did not! until I would have to get out of my bunk and go up to the front lounge and watch the sun come up as Roger drove us along whatever highway in whatever state. I would sit, quiet as a mouse, so he wouldn’t know I was awake and sitting there, because I didn’t want to talk to him. I just wanted the sunshine to burn my eyes, bleach out the fucking disgusting images. I had no regret over who I had removed from this earth. But does killing someone have to be so bloody, so pathetic, so sweaty, so intense? Like you end up having this horrible, way-too-intimate connection with this vile creature in all of its bleeding, whining, whistling death throes. Why does it have to be so gross?
FIFTY-ONE
We had three or four shows left on the tour when I got back from getting dinner with Edgar one evening. We’d just grabbed some burritos from this restaurant down the street from the venue. It was chilly. We’d started moving north — the tour finished in New York State.
We climbed on the bus. Toad, Socks, and Timmy were listening to music. Fern was still off getting dinner, probably with someone from Gurgol. As I set down the bag of food, I couldn’t put my finger on what was making me feel so nauseated.
“Big, big news,” Socks said.
I felt like I was going to faint. My head started spinning. In confusion, I sat down on the couch, unable to figure out why I was shaking. I couldn’t get control of it. Everyone in the lounge was looking at me.
“What is it, Rach?” Socks leaned in to touch my shoulder. “You okay?”
“What is this music?” I said, but it came out as a shriek. Horrified, I realized it was fucking DED; it was “I Ignore Your Screams.” I had shut out their music for so long, I had refused to listen to it, I had torn and burned and destroyed their posters and albums, I had never wanted to hear his voice again, and here it was, an old familiar song, one I had loved, and I knew every word, and I was going to throw up.
“It’s —”
“Shut it off, shut it off,” I bellowed, interrupting Edgar, waving my arms like a freak. Bewildered, Timmy got up and snapped off the stereo.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Toad asked.
I closed my eyes, tried to take a deep breath to clear my head. Shut out that song, remove its residue from my brain. I actually entertained the idea, for a split second, to go and wash my ears.
“I have a headache, the music was just driving me crazy. I don’t know what came over me. Can we leave it off?”