Barns, Blood and Rock and Roll

by Joe Zito

  Lacy threw her arms up in frustration. “Darrell what the fuck is this?” Her voice went up a couple notches, sounding scratchy from either from too many camels or too much screaming or maybe both.

  Kari: “Some say that your obsession with Angel Larson overrides the bands integrity. I mean you actually kinda look like her; long black hair, tall. Hell you even use her last name.”

  “Are we done here?” The angry vocalist shouted, making a curtain of her blue black hair fly away from her face. She crossed her arms.

  Darrell stood frozen against the wall, wondering why the hell he didn’t jump in two minutes ago and end the interview. He was a nervous wreck but part of him was secretly enjoying this.

  Kari: “Lacy?”

  Kari leaned towards Lacy like a high school counselor giving a student a pep talk.

  Kari: “Do you think you are Angel Larson?”

  The room was filled with an incredibly intense feeling. There was a moment of absolute silence after the question was asked and then a low boom of thunder sounded outside along with the muffled roar of an electric crowd anticipating there hero.

  Lacy had an ‘ok ya got me’ kind of smile on her face for a few seconds. She sat up and put her elbow on her knee. Her chin sunk into the palm of her hand; her fingers tapped at her teeth. She shook her head and laughed,waving a finger at Kari.

  “You like to ask a lot of questions don’t you. Well I got a question for you.”

  Sitting back in her chair, Lacy resumed her slouched position, but now her robe had opened up revealing her black patch of pubic hair along with cuts and scars on her inner thighs. A small trickle of blood inched its way down her thigh. “You ever eat a bloody pussy?”

  “Jesus Christ Lacy!” Darrell yelled.

  “I’d prefer the Virgin Mary, oh wait, I can’t, I lost that when I was fifteen,” Lacy retorted.

  “Ok, we’re done here.” Disgusted, Kari stood up, gathering up her things.

  Lacy was laughing hysterically like some evil queen in her castle. Kari shook hands with Darrell and walked towards the door. “I’m really sorry about this,” he explained.

  “It’s ok, live and learn I guess.” She turned to Lacy, her robe still open exposing herself. Embarrassed by Lacy’s actions, Kari thanked her for her time and wished her the best in her career. It was a very professional gesture on Kari’s part, but not well received by Lacy who responded crudely with, “Whatever bitch.”

  Kari, Darrell and the bodyguard (his face screaming relief that it was over) began walking to the door, but Kari wanted to have the last word. Just before she walked out she turned and faced Lacy and said, “Oh by the way, Katherine Kat called, said she wants her voice back!” Darrell could have sworn he saw Lacy’s eyes turn red as she rushed towards Kari screaming like a lunatic. “You fucking bitch!” The poor bodyguard found himself in between a tangled mess of blonde and black hair, and fingernails as sharp as knives. Darrell quickly grabbed Lacy around her waist, picking her up as she continued scratching at Kari’s face. The bodyguard ushered the journalist out of the room.

  Darrell turned to Lacy with fury in his eyes.

  “What the fuck was that?” He yelled at the top of his lungs.

  The jaded vocalist began laughing hysterically again. “Oh relax hot shot; I’m just having a little fun.”

  “You are fucking crazy! You have some godamn nerve, you know that!” Darrell’s face was turning red with hot anger. He could feel his blood pressure rising.

  “All these fucking journalists are the same man,” Lacy said as she took her place again in her chair. She lit up a cigarette.

  Darrell began massaging his forehead trying to calm himself.

  In a mocking voice Lacy spoke with a wicked tongue. “Oh look it’s poor Darrell, can’t handle the pressure, wah,wah,wah!” She jokingly wiped fake tears from her eyes. And then suddenly the room was quiet for a few moments.

  Lacy was eyeing Darrell, looking at him suspiciously. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you should have taken the Goatwhore gig, right? No drama, no bullshit. But you didn’t did you. You were going where the big bucks are at, and its right here baby!” She grabbed at her crotch and squeezed, and then sat bold legged in her chair, her knees touching. As she continued her tirade, Darrell could feel his blood boiling at her every word. “Oh I forgot sweety, the Goatwhore tour didn’t offer enough money. Not enough to cover poor Ms. Rocks chemotherapy.” Lacy stood up and began clapping her hands mockingly. “Let’s hear it for poor little Darrell, suffering out here on the road putting up with all this rock star bullshit, while his bald, near dead wife sits alone at home missing her fucking do-gooder husband!”

  The boiling point had been reached. Darrell lunged at her with extreme hate, his hands reaching for her neck. He threw her up against the concrete wall. His teeth grit together in pure anger as her squeezed her neck hard. It felt as though his heart was going to burst out of his chest. Lacy started to hack and spit and gasp for air.

  “What ya gotta say now you fucking cunt!” Darrell raged at her.

  She tried to talk, but only choked coughs came out.

  “What!” Darrell yelled.

  Her hands went around his. He loosened his grip slightly. Her eyes clenched shut in agony.

  “Are you gonna fucking kill me Darrell, is that what you’re going to do?” She coughed. “You don’t have the fucking balls. Do it, I want you to fucking DO IT!” His eyes lit up with fire at Lacy’s request which he would gladly carry out.

  Just then a loud bang came from the door. Their eyes were glued to each other. Lacy looked over to the door. A man’s voice came from the other side. “Is everything all right in there?”

  Darrell finally released his death grip, slowly.

  “Twenty minutes till showtime Lacy,” The voice called out again.

  “Yeah all right,” Lacy said as she wiped a string of saliva from her mouth. Breathing heavily she tried to compose herself. Darrell leaned against the wall, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by his act of hate. He leaned over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

  Still trying to catch her breath as well, Lacy told Darrell, “Ya know, that was kind of hot. I’ve never been choked out before.” She felt in between her legs. “Look Darrell, I’m wet.” She showed him her hand which glistened with her sex secretions and blood.

  The crowd could be heard through the concrete walls chanting Angel over and over again. They were getting restless. Lacy’s breathing returned to a somewhat normal rate. She acted as if nothing ever happened. “Well gotta go, my children are calling.”

  “You’re fucking mental,” Darrell said to her. He had a twisted and disgruntled look of disgust on his face. Still leaning over catching his breath, he waved at her without looking at her, motioning for her to go. She started towards the door.

  “Can’t forget this.” She grabbed her tea which was now perfectly cooled and ready to drink. She took a sip and smiled at Darrell.

  Just before she exited the room, Darrell shouted, “Hey Lacy, knock’em dead kid!”

  Lacy made her way to the stage accompanied by two security guards. She was covered in blood courtesy of her personal assistant dousing her with fake red gore minutes before the show. Looks that Kill by Motley Crue was playing loudly over the pa as the anxious crowd waited. She tried to shrug off the fiasco of an interview and the little chocking game with Darrell. The warmth of her smooth lemon tea coated her throat as she took a sip.

  “Are you about ready Lacy?” The stage manager asked.

  She snapped at him like an angry dog holding up her cup of tea. “You see this in my hand. When it’s empty I’ll be ready, got it!” She tilted her head back quickly and drank the last of her tea. The crowd began to roar as the crue ended.

  “Now give me my knife,” she said.

  The lights went out.

  Slithering bodies lubricated by fake blood slid off one another on the main floor of the arena. It’s a sea of
human flesh and blood. A violent bloodbath of twenty something’s. The aroma of dude sweat and testosterone mixed with girl’s baby powder deodorant and pot. A young girl flung her drenched blonde hair in a windmill pattern. Her perspiration flew above the mob. Beer cup missiles were launched. Fingernails clawed at backs and shoulders as rabid sickos climbed their way to the top of the human blood pile. Slippery hands pushed bloody bodies forward, creating a mangled mess of feet and hands. A kid up front gets slammed in the head by a large black boot. His face was bloodied by the collision, real blood. Strobe lights danced in unison to the pounding double kick drum battery. An exhausted security guard wiped sweat from his forehead as incoming bodies came flying in over the railing like a bloody beast chewing and spitting out its victims. The arena has become a splatterhouse of blood and metal. Hail to the warriors that fear no brutal pit and to those who slip and slide shoulder to shoulder with brothers and sisters amongst red gore and vile audio.

  All this insanity! All this ritualistic controlled mayhem, brought on by the audio violence pumping through the pa and the screams of the one orchestrating the madness with her large bloody butcher knife, tauntingly swinging it at her bloody children as they float atop arms and hands in hopes of getting slashed by the queen. Lacy “loud” Larson stood at center stage; her knife in hand and foot atop a monitor. The bloodshow had begun and despite Lacy’s near death experience at the hands of Darrell, she was still able to deliver the goods. That was until though by the end of the third song in the blistering set, she had begun to feel a slight nausea coming on. Her body was in the zone of blood and mayhem but she knew something wasn’t quite right. She forged on anyway continuing to slash at the oncoming bodies over the guard rail.

  Darrell eased his way through the maze of road cases and snake like cables in the backstage area. He leaned steadily on a case watching the show from the side of the stage. For Lacy, the nausea started getting worse, a lot worse. This sudden onset on sickness threw the bloody one into a panic. The slashing became less and less as she took hold of a mic stand, choosing to head bang as she quickly did a panicked recap of her day in her mind, all while brutal guitar leads scorched the pa. “What did I eat today, fuck, think dammit! Half a sandwich, Subway I think, shit! Uh, grapes, some chips?” At the same time Kari caught Darrell’s eye. She was on the opposite side of the stage watching. She waved to him. He nodded back.

  Meanwhile things were unraveling for Lacy as she stood stiff as a board holding on for dear life to the mic stand. No headbanging. The nausea had taken over her body. Vomit water started to form in the back of her throat. Her tongue salivated from the acidic flavor. Her stomach felt hot, her legs shaky, but yet her arms and hands felt ice cold. She gripped the mic and held her head down. Her forehead met the cold metal microphone. “What the fuck is happening to me?” Her mind became a whirlwind of panic and distraught just as her guitar player gave a confused shrug to the drummer.

  Darrell continued to look on with curious eyes. Kari also takes notice of the singer’s sluggishness.

  Nausea now gave way to a new found terror as constricting, sharp pains attacked her insides. She doubled over in a quick motion holding her stomach. Blood soaked strings of black hair covered her face. Horrendous bouts of sharp pain lasting two to three seconds stabbed at her midriff. She had missed her cue for the chorus of the song. The guitar player looked over at Darrell, who motions to keep playing. Some fans in front have noticed the sudden stage presence of their hero. A few think this might be part of the show.

  An amazing sense of relief was felt by Lacy when those three seconds stabs of pain subsided, but only for a few seconds, and then right back to the cruel, unrelenting pain. “Am I dying?” she thought. “Am I seriously fucking dying?”

  Phase three of Lacy’s predicament now unfolded as her acid scraped throat began the slow process of closing. A horrifying tightness squeezed around her neck like a constrictor and a new kind of panic took over in her mind. Hyperventilating gripped her lungs, but there was no air to get out. Her throat closed shut like a compactor. It felt as though she was being buried alive, with each helpless swoop of breath feeling like a shovel full of dirt being thrown on a half-buried alive body.

  Lacy started to stumble around the stage, walking crookedly like a new born calf trying to walk for the first time. Still hanging on with a death grip to the mic stand, she saw Darrell in the corner of her eye. She slowly turned her head and stared at him with scared and helpless eyes. A string of drool hung at the corner of her mouth. The stage started spinning. Visions of the band, Darrell and the crowd zipped past her in a whirlwind of sickness and pain. A distant voice rang loudly in her ears. “Knock’em Dead Kid” it said over and over. Snapshots of the interview and the fight with Darrell from earlier flash like lightning in her mind, just as a foamy substance snakes its way from her mouth, looking something like a sudsy overflowing washer. More voices echo in her mind as if in a deep well. “Can’t forget this” and “When it’s empty I’ll be ready, got it!” Darrell’s face came into her view. “Bye, Bye Lacy” His mouth moved in slow motion. The band played on as Lacy took one last slow look at her bloody children in front of her and then at Darrell. Her eyes blew up wide when she then realized. It was the tea, motherfuuuu…. She began to fall like a fighter going down after a brutal hit to the face. She suddenly collapsed on stage, falling on her knees and then quickly falling to her side. Her eyes stared blankly at a terrified young girl in the front row. Two roadies quickly ran to the stage, kneeling down looking in fear at Lacy. They turn her on her back. Her body jerks from convulsions as white foam oozes its way out her mouth onto the stage. A small fountain of blood vomit erupts from her mouth. It splatters at her cheeks leaving thorny lines and specs of red. The shocked and horrified audience watched in disbelief as two security guards carried their hero off stage on a stretcher; her arms dangling lifelessly over the stretcher.

  A doctor later that night unofficially determined the cause of death as death by poisoning. The autopsy a week later would confirm this deadly diagnosis of lethal poisoning. And the suicidal lyrics (written by Lacy, safely tucked in a white envelope titled ‘lyric ideas’ inside her black back pack) found by detectives in her dressing room would be the final piece of the puzzle, putting it all in perspective. Although sitting on Lacy’s dressing room table amongst eye makeup, blue fingernail polish and black lipstick, detectives did find that white envelope with ‘lyric ideas’ written on it out in the open, like it was screaming at them to be seen and opened. Darrell didn’t want them to miss it.

  The Falls

  Many years ago a strange and violent incident took place at Merskashitonia Falls, a beautiful state park known for its rushing water falls located in Blue Angel, Kentucky. Sixteen year old Jeanie Smith and her half-sister fourteen year old Ella Smith were beaten and raped and forced to do unthinkable acts to each other by a group of Kentucky degenerates in their small, well hidden cabin one Saturday afternoon. The raping’s were brutal and yes the acts were horrendous, but it was the event that occurred after the rape in the cabin that day that would forever keep Jeanie Smith looking over her shoulder and the bed covers over her eyes at night.

  Jeanie and Ella had been going to Merskashitonia Falls since they were little. Their father, who was the ceo of a major pharmaceutical company in Indiana, owned a cabin secluded deep in the park with tall pines trees surrounding it. His daughters could never pronounce the name of the park. It was always Meskosia or Merskeesa, but to the girls it was simply: The falls.

  On September 5th, 2002, the Smith’s entered the park at the main entrance driving their black Lincoln suv through and open wooden gate. The park ranger waved to the family as they drove past the security shack. Once they were at their cabin the girls retreated to the tire swing behind the cozy wooden cabin while their parents unloaded the Lincoln and then prepared lunch.

  Jeanie stood in front of the swing pushing Ella lightly back and forth. They smiled and blushed at each other as their
eyes met on each incoming swing.

  They knew their secret.

  On the drive down that morning from Indiana, Jeanie gazed out the window at the turning leaves of autumn as she listened to God Bless the Children of the Beast by Motley Crue on her headset. She was thinking of her and Ella’s love making session they shared two days ago when their parents were away at a dinner party. She thought of their bodies tangled on the floor in a sixty nine position and how her sister’s cunt stunk. It was remnants of her period or it could’ve been from her ass which explained why she ran off the bus and inside the house so quickly that afternoon. Once Jeanie got past the smell it was pure heaven. She thought of how they cried as they enjoyed each other’s bodies because their love was so strong for one another. It was their secret and no one could ever find out, not even their boyfriends. Jeanie was sixteen and had been seeing her boyfriend Trevor steadily for a year. What Jeanie didn’t understand was how Ella was fourteen and was on her third boyfriend of whom she was already having sex with. She pushed the thought aside and put her hand on Ella’s as they drove along the curving and bending road towards the falls. Ella gave her a lovely and innocent smile like some orphan that just made a wish on a shooting star. Please, if you’re parents only knew that you got your sister off two days ago and made her come three times (a feat not even in the ballpark for Jeanie’s boyfriend Trevor) they would be puking their rich guts out, screaming and huddling in the corner covering their mouths in disgust as if they’ve seen Jesus Christ ejaculate blood. You sneaky, dirty little shit!

  Jeanie continued pushing her sister on the swing. Their long brown hair flowed in the early autumn air.

  “Girls, lunch,” Their mother called to them from inside their the cabin.

  They went inside for a quick bite to eat and then they were off to find a hidden trail in which they had not yet discovered. They promised their mother that they wouldn’t go too far and that they would not be gone long.