The Drive

by Tyler Keevil

‘I’m heading off to set up,’ Venus said. ‘For my gig.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  I waited for them to tell me whatever it was they weren’t telling me.

  ‘The thing is,’ she went one, ‘the gig is a fundraiser for our shelter, with karaoke, and it’s a one-off ladies night. No men allowed.’

  I had to think about that. ‘You’re a karaoke singer?’

  ‘No.’ Venus frowned. ‘The karaoke is just part of it, to raise money.’

  ‘Oh. I get it.’

  I sort of did. It still seemed weird, though.

  Bea said, ‘I was hoping Venus might be able to pull some strings and get you in…’

  ‘But I don’t think the organisers would go for that,’ Venus said.

  She crossed her arms, as if waiting for me, or Beatrice, to challenge her verdict. I leaned back, sinking into the sofa cushions. ‘Honestly,’ I said, ‘don’t worry about it. You go without me, Bea. I mean, I’d love to see Venus do her karaoke thing –’ I only called it that to piss her off, obviously ‘– but if not we can all just meet up after, right?’

  ‘Trevor.’ Bea lowered her head, fixed me with a stare – that no-nonsense, matter-of-fact, Beatrice Carmen stare. ‘I’m not ditching you on your last night in San Francisco.’

  Venus checked her watch. ‘Whatever,’ she said to Bea. ‘I’ve got to go. Don’t feel like you have to come to my gig or anything. You can hang out with him if you want.’

  ‘No, really,’ I said.

  We both looked at Bea, waiting on her decision. It had come down to that. She looked from me, to Venus, and back to me.

  ‘I have an idea,’ she said.

  ‘Hold still.’

  ‘It tickles.’

  ‘If you keep smirking, it will smudge.’

  I puckered up for Bea again, ready to be kissed. She ran the lipstick, firm and slick, across my lips. Her face was right in front of mine. As she worked I studied her iris. It was dark green, gleaming like jade, with a delicate star-burst pattern around the pupil. When she paused to twist the lipstick case, I asked her, ‘Do they call it an iris because of the flower?’

  ‘It’s Greek. It means rainbow, or eye of heaven. It’s a goddess, too.’

  ‘How do you know this stuff?’

  ‘I know everything. Now close your mouth.’

  I did. She rubbed my bottom lip one more time.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Try smacking them. Like this.’

  She demonstrated how, and I imitated her. She stood back to examine me, assessing her work. I was sitting on a chair in the bedroom she shared with Venus. T-shirts and bras and panties lay scattered about the floor. The bedsheets were all twisted up and entwined.

  ‘Can I see?’ I asked.

  ‘Not yet. I haven’t done your mascara.’

  She selected a rectangular make-up case from among the clutter on her dressing table. She told me to look up and keep my eyes open. I felt the stroke of the mascara brush.

  ‘You’ve got such long eyelashes,’ she said.

  I shivered. ‘It feels like a butterfly kiss.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘When somebody flutters their eyelashes against yours.’

  ‘That’s beautiful.’

  ‘Zuzska taught me.’

  Bea nodded. Solemnly. Anything to do with Zuzska had to be solemn.

  ‘All right – just one more thing.’

  She’d already done my foundation, and my eyeliner. Last she added a dash of blusher. By that point she was pursing her lips, trying not to laugh. We were both three drinks deep. They were stiff drinks, too – double mojitos – or I would never have agreed to it. But Bea said it was the only way to get me into the place on ladies’ night.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let me see.’

  ‘Just a sec.’ On her dressing table she had one of those circular mirrors that you can swivel vertically. She’d flipped it away from me so I wouldn’t get distracted as she did my make-up. Now she turned it back, presenting me to myself.

  ‘Ta-dah.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. I touched my face. Testing.

  ‘Don’t mess it up.’

  I wasn’t pretty. But I wasn’t all that ugly, either. My lips were full and glistening. And she was right about my lashes. I had long lashes. The mascara had brought them out. My jaw was a bit too square, though, and I had prominent cheekbones. That couldn’t be helped. The combination was vaguely European – like a butchy villainess from a Bond film.

  ‘My hair,’ I said. ‘What about my hair?’

  ‘On it,’ Bea said. She rooted around in her closet, first on the top shelf, then in shoeboxes on the floor – yanking off lids and tossing them aside. The boxes were full of trinkets and dress-up props: outlandish hats and Venetian masks and feather boas and handcuffs and wigs.

  ‘Here!’ She held up one of the wigs, shaking it like a pom-pom. ‘You’re too pale to go brunette. But I think you could pull off a redhead.’

  She came over and fitted the wig on me, tugging it down to my ears. She adjusted the loose strands and brushed them away from my face. Then she bent to peer over my shoulder, studying my reflection. The hair on the wig framed my face in a bell-shaped bob.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she said, covering her mouth. ‘You look like…’

  ‘Zuzska,’ I said, flatly. ‘You made me look like Zuzska.’

  Bea doubled over, laughing. She laughed so hard she nearly puked.

  chapter 69

  The venue for the fundraiser was across town. We caught the Muni train over, got off at the nearest stop, and walked from there. Bea walked, anyway. I hobbled. I’d put on a pair of Venus’s heels. They were low heels – only an inch or so – but they were still heels, and all the things you hear about heels are true. My ankles kept rolling and I felt completely off-kilter, like a kid in his first pair of ice skates.

  ‘Remember,’ Bea said, ‘men walk from the shoulders. Women walk from the hips.’

  ‘From the hips. Got it.’

  En route, I asked Bea about the venue. She said she’d never been. It was a dive-bar called the Peaks. Apparently the organisers of the fundraiser had screwed up the booking.

  ‘They were supposed to book out this gay bar, called Twin Peaks Tavern…’

  ‘Wait a minute – why are both bars called that?’

  ‘Because of the Twin Peaks in the middle of city.’

  When she said that, I stumbled in my heels, but managed to stabilise.

  ‘There are actually Twin Peaks in San Francisco?’

  ‘Sure.’ She pointed. They were right there, rising above the rooftops – a pair of twin peaks like the ones I’d driven to in the desert. ‘This whole area is named after them.’

  ‘Oh, man,’ I said.

  I stopped walking. Bea looked back, waiting for me.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing, hopefully.’

  But I could feel it – both in me and in the air, like the first stirrings of a storm.

  The Peaks bar had a faux-stone façade – styled like a Spanish taverna – with swinging saloon doors and, above them, a neon sign showing an image of a cartoon hiker. The bar was right at the base of the peaks, which loomed impossibly behind it. I still couldn’t quite believe it – that there was this giant, thousand-foot mountain in the geographical centre of San Francisco.

  ‘How come that thing hasn’t been developed?’ I asked Bea.

  ‘It’s a municipal park – why?’

  ‘Just wondering.’

  Out front people were lining up. The all-female crowd looked fairly random. I saw a couple of punks with their hair frosted into Liberty spikes, a hippy-chick burning a fat one, and this bleary-eyed emo whose mascara was already running. On the sidewalk was an A-frame sign with a publicity poster for the event. It showed a killer plant, like the one in Little Shop of Horrors, with a big mouth and jagged teeth. A man was caught between the teeth. His blood dripped down to form the words Venus & The Flytraps – Karaoke Fund
raiser.

  ‘That’s them,’ Bea said.

  She led me past the line to the front door. I stood clutching my handbag while she motioned the bouncer over, and explained that we were VIP. He checked his guest list for our names. He was scrawny and anxious and had an amateur tattoo of a rattlesnake, all smudged and smeared, crawling up his neck. He didn’t look like much of a bouncer.

  ‘We’re on the guest list,’ Bea said. ‘Beatrice and Trevine.’

  We’d decided that would be my name for the night. It seemed appropriate.

  He said, ‘There’s no Trevine on here.’

  ‘We’re with Venus,’ I said, raising my voice to a falsetto.

  The guy looked me over. ‘You got ID?’

  I rooted around in the handbag Bea had lent me, angling away from him because I didn’t want him to see what else I had in there. I’d brought my bottle of mezcal along. I’d also brought my gun. That’s the great thing about handbags – you can fit almost anything in them. It was only after I’d withdrawn my wallet that I remembered about being a woman. By then it was too late – I had to hand it over. He checked my licence. At first he looked confused. Then he looked disgusted. He handed it back.

  ‘Go ahead, Trevor. Sorry – I mean, Trevine.’

  ‘Classy,’ Beatrice said, and pushed past the guy. I scuttled after her.

  The interior was really something. There was an old-school jukebox, a backlit Sierra Nevada beer sign, an antique cash register that opened with a hand-crank, and, in one corner, a vintage wooden phone booth. But along with that retro décor they had all kinds of racing memorabilia: pennants and trophies and posters, and even lampshades in the shape of cars.

  ‘This place is a trip,’ Bea said.

  ‘It’s reminding me of my trip, with all this weird paraphernalia.’

  ‘Let’s get you a drink, Trevine.’

  The drink special was a cocktail called Dragonfire –basically a margarita souped up with spices and Tabasco sauce. We ordered two each and went looking for some seats. The bouncer had started letting people in but there was still plenty of space. We got a table near the front, right by the stage. It wasn’t actually a stage – just a raised platform set up near the rear exit, with a few PAR lights rigged on stands. The band had already prepped their amps and microphones and drum kit and speakers. They weren’t scheduled to start for another hour.

  While we waited, I kept fiddling with my wig and adjusting my bra.

  ‘Relax, darling,’ Bea drawled, stirring her drink. They each came with one of those little plastic swizzle-sticks. ‘Just pretend you’re a femme fatale from some film noir.’

  ‘I don’t have the seductive powers.’

  ‘Sure you do, sweetheart.’

  The tables around us were filling up. I gulped my drinks and studied the women as they sat down. A big-nosed Goth on the next table caught my eye, and smiled. Her smile seemed to say, I can see right through that little outfit. All her friends were looking at me, too. I was terrified that one of them would whip off my wig and denounce me as a man. Hordes of rabid females would descend on me, like a pack of Bacchae, and tear me apart.

  ‘You want another drink?’ I asked Bea.

  She looked from my glasses to hers. Mine were both empty. Hers were both full.

  ‘Take it easy, Trevine.’

  I was already up, moving off. I concentrated on walking from the hips, the way Bea had told me. I sashayed up to the bar and leaned against it. While I waited to be served, I caught sight of this red-headed chick in the mirror behind the bar. She looked all right, actually.

  ‘Excuse me?’ I said, wiggling a finger at the bartender.

  He waddled over to me. He had a bald head, gleaming like a cueball, and there were two nicotine patches stuck to his bicep. He spread his palms on the bartop and grinned at me.

  ‘What can I get you, miss?’

  ‘Two Dragonfires, please,’ I said.

  He shook them up and poured them out. I thought he might be giving me the eye.

  ‘Lucky you,’ I said. ‘All alone on ladies’ night.’

  He winked at me. ‘It’s a first, all right.’

  I tipped him big, and told him to keep the change. As I walked away, I glanced back to see if he was watching me. He was. He was checking out my ass. It was my best feature.

  Back at our table, I twirled my swizzle-stick around in my drink. ‘I think I’m getting the hang of this,’ I told Bea.

  The band came on with a bang. They did that thing bands do, where they launch straight into the first song without any introductory bullshit. They just walked out, grabbed hold of their instruments and fired it up. It was a three-piece band: drums, bass, and guitar. Venus was the frontman, or front-woman. She sang and played lead guitar. She was good, too – quick-fingered and kinetic, attacking those strings, moaning and wailing and swearing. She’d run her voice up high and then just let it hang there, quavering, like a flag in the wind.

  ‘You’re my fix, my addiction, my white nurse in a needle.’

  Most of the seats were taken, except a handful at the back. There were maybe fifty or sixty women in there. When the first song ended, they all applauded and pounded the tables.

  I leaned over and shouted to Bea, ‘She’s awesome!’

  When the applause died down, Venus gave a little speech – welcoming us to ladies’ night and thanking the venue and introducing the band. Then she told a story about the next song. It was a song about rape: the rape of the land, the rape of a friend. It was called ‘Seed of the Tillerman’. As a nod to Cat Stevens, I guess.

  ‘Old Mother Nature, she’s been abused. Ploughed and pillaged by the tillerman…’

  All the women nodded along. Trevine nodded along with them.

  ‘The soil is soiled,’ Venus sang, raising her voice to a fever-shriek, ‘there’s blood on the grass, blood on your ass…’

  The crowd shrieked back, and Trevine shrieked too. She shrieked and screamed and shook her hair and stamped her feet. She kept that up all through the first set, becoming more and more hysterical. At one point she even fell out of her chair, but nobody seemed to care. It was that kind of gig.

  At intermission, Venus came over to say hello. Beatrice stood up and gave her a hug, then stepped aside to introduce her to Trevine. Apparently Venus hadn’t recognised me from up on stage, because she looked completely dumbfounded. I twiddled my fingers at her and offered her my hand. The nails were painted an off-red that matched my lipstick.

  I said, ‘You’re blowing them away, baby.’

  Venus laughed, clasped my hand, and pulled me into a sisterly hug. Her shirt was clammy with sweat, and I could smell her cologne – a musky, man’s scent.

  ‘I like you this way,’ she said.

  She liked it so much that she dedicated a song to me – the first one after the break.

  ‘This is a Martha Wainwright tune,’ she told the crowd. ‘It’s for my new friend, Trevine.’

  Everybody applauded. I held up my hand in acknowledgement.

  Then she started singing. About being a chick with a dick… I lowered my arm, sliding down in my seat. I wanted to slide right under the table and hide under there, like a troll. Bea pushed her drink over to me.

  ‘Take it as a compliment,’ she said.

  After that number, Venus switched to an acoustic guitar. The lights dimmed, and her bandmates put down their instruments. Sweaty and worn, Venus clutched at the mike. She whispered. She moaned. She crooned. The room settled to a lullaby-hush. In the midst of that intimacy, I heard a faint buzzing noise. At first I thought it was feedback from the amps. But it seemed to be coming from outside. I cocked my head, listening.

  ‘What?’ Bea asked.

  I made a dismissive gesture. At that point I still wasn’t sure. Then I heard the door bang open, followed by shouting and what sounded like some kind of scuffle. Beatrice and the women at the other tables turned around to see what the hell was going on. I didn’t. Not at first. I was staring into my gla
ss, and thinking, it can’t be them.

  Then I looked back, and said, ‘Oh, shit.’

  There were bikers shoving in past the bouncer. They were all dressed in matching leather jackets, lathered in trail dirt. The one leading the way was wearing a pair of super-dark sunglasses. I had the same feeling I always had when I saw that guy, or his brother – that feeling of uncertainty and unreality. This time I knew it was him, though. It had to be.

  He was wearing my visor.

  chapter 70

  They swarmed in like a sandstorm, filling the place with laughter and shouting, high-fives and back-pats, burping and swearing and dust and testosterone. They settled on the seats at the back, moving tables around and dragging chairs into place. The chair-legs scraped across the floor, like fingernails on a blackboard.

  ‘Where did these assholes come from?’ Beatrice said.

  ‘The desert, unfortunately.’

  The bouncer hovered in the doorway, as if hoping somebody else would handle it. Nobody did. Eventually he shuffled over to face them. I couldn’t hear what he said, but whatever it was didn’t work. The head biker palmed the bouncer’s chest and shoved, so he fell back on his ass. The rest of the Cobras howled. It was like a scene from a pantomime play. Venus was still singing her solo, but it was hard to hear over the commotion.

  After a moment, the bouncer picked himself up and slunk over to the bar, where he spoke to the bartender I’d flirted with earlier. They conferred with their heads tilted towards each other. Then it was the bartender’s turn to try. He looked like a capable man. He had both sleeves rolled up, displaying his flabby biceps and his nicotine patches.

  But, as he swaggered up to their table, he grinned and extended a hand. He and the head biker shook. They did one of those tricky guy handshakes – a grab and a clasp and a knuckle punch. They chatted for a bit, while me and Bea and the other women watched.

  ‘What the hell’s he doing?’ she said.

  ‘He’s kissing his ass!’

  By then the bartender was already strolling back to his bar.

  ‘Let’s have us some beer,’ the biker called.