Get Bent (Hard Rock Roots)

by C. M. Stunich

  She leans back and we look at each other for a long, long moment. Time stretches thin and brittle. I stare at her and then I shift my eyes back to the crowd, a subtle cue. It only takes me about ten seconds to see them both. Eric and Katie. He stands on the left side of the room and she, the right. I don't know if either knows the other is there, but they both see me. That's for fucking sure. Everybody sees me right now. There is no retreating inside of myself, diving deep and hiding in plain sight. Tonight, I'm going to have to come out and show them everything I've got.

  Turner moves out beside me and steals Wren's mic. He doesn't protest, but he looks confused. He's not the only one. The crowd starts to get restless. I take a deep breath and hold it in my lungs before bringing my hands up to my shades. I touch the nosepiece and wait. Seconds tick by and the wind outside howls so loud we can hear it through the brick. It's roaring like a fucking freight train. I know then that we're going to get a tornado. I don't hear the sirens yet, but I will. Soon. Right now, I will use the force of my will to make Mother Nature wait. She will not fuck me here. Not tonight.

  I pull the glasses off and there are some gasps near the front of the room. I toss them to the floor near my feet and reach for the bottom of the sweater, digging my fingers under the fabric and pausing. Turner's voice slithers into the microphone like liquid sex.

  “Good evening, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.” He chuckles and wraps both hands around his mic. “We're having a bit of weather tonight, aren't we? But that just makes you lucky. You're going to get a show that not many will see in person but that everyone will be talking about come tomorrow. You're like fucking pioneers, forging their way into new territory, and believe me when I say you've never seen anything like this.”

  I lift the sweater up and pull it over my head. Blonde hair cascades down around my shoulders as I face the crowd, eyes blazing, lips already pulling up into a small smile.

  For one second, one split, tiny second, the purest of silences hits the room and nobody moves, no one speaks. I drop the sweater; I grab my guitar.

  Explosion.

  The roar of the wind is nothing compared to the screeching of the crowd as I slam my fingers on the strings and worship a god that's older and stronger and wiser than me, using my music as a prayer, my voice as a sail to carry my ship to the mouth of heaven and the depths of hell.

  Dax slams in next, pounding his music down through the stage and up into my bones, breaking my tibias, shattering my femurs, and it feels so damn good. They thought I was dead and now here I am, ready to tear their shit apart.

  “Get fucking READY,” Turner screams, voice breaking as he bends over, releasing every last drop of breath in his lungs into the mic. He springs back to life like a fucking daisy, spinning in a circle and slamming his boot on the ground.

  The people in here give their souls up to us, leaping and punching, flailing and sobbing as they bounce to the beat and record us with phones, cameras, tablets. We become immortalized in an instant, spread across the web for all to see. Idiots singing in the eye of a storm, uniting as a front against a hidden enemy.

  I couldn't be happier.

  “Don't ever be afraid of me. I cannot see.”

  “Cannot FUCKING see!” Turner screeches for me in full on devil mode. There are no angels here. We are all full of sin and it is beautiful.

  “I can't see, and I'm blinded by your love,” Hayden sings as I bring my voice over hers, relegating her to the background, taking the spotlight. I fuck my guitar like a long lost lover, forgiving it entirely for coming from the hands of corruption. I don't care who bought it or sent it, only that it's here, pressed tight against me, singing my soul into the air with frantic twangs and gurgles of devilish delight.

  “That day you walked away from me, I went down hard and I could not see. I could not see, and baby, you're fucking bullshit is killing me.”

  “Tear us apart with your LIES and taste my HEARTBEAT with your cries,” Turner growls, coming up close to me, wrapping the cord of his mic around my hips, just under my guitar, pulling me against his body as we start to sweat and grind and bleed.

  “I cannot see because the visions you showed me brought me pain instead of pleasure, left me numb and got me bent for forever.” We sing together and my eyes close of their own volition, loosing me into the crowd, stabbing them all through the skull with Kash's bass, Blair's keys, Wren's guitar.

  My solo hits and that's just all she friggin' wrote. Turner drops to his knees, and I step over his cord, moving to the front of the stage and strumming my baby like my life, like the world depends on it. I grind my pelvis into my instrument, pretending it's Turner's body, so I know they're feeling how I felt, how I want to feel for the rest of my fucking life. I don't want to love. I don't. But I do.

  “I wish I didn't love you. Things would be easier that way.” My voice alone moves though the sky in time with my guitar, melds us into a single entity that breathes then lives then dies. It's simple, but it has to count. I have to make the middle worth the end. That's the way it has to be.

  I play like I've never played before, and I hardly notice when the rest of my band joins in, so lost am I in the music.

  “Easier to breathe,” Hayden sings, giving me that special blend of eighties and pop and nails on a chalkboard heartless beauty that makes it hard for me to hate her.

  “Easier to bleed,” Turner coos and I loose my shit. I hit the floor on my knees and my head moves in time with the music. I forget to sing because he's there and his voice is the only one I want to hear. “Easier to need the truth.” I feel him behind me and lean my head back into his throbbing cock, pressing my hair against that bulge of denim. I look up at him, and he gazes down at me. “I cannot see because the visions you showed me brought me pain instead of pleasure, so take me in and make me yours forever.”

  He leans down quick and kisses my lips, sears me and burns me, cauterizes old wounds and leaves me with a scar that I hope never heals.

  As soon as I pull away from Naomi's hot mouth, feel my heart slamming against my ribcage and my hormones flowing like rapids, we hear the siren. It sounds so old school, a blaring cry of danger that shakes the building with its intensity, sounding off at the very edge of the parking lot. This is not a joke, it says with its crying fear. This is life or death. Get your asses moving.

  The music dies off at the end of the song and stays quiet. Instruments drop and people start to panic. The police milling around immediately start directing people out the doors. I'm glad to see their lack of hesitation. It gives me hope for the human race. Not much, but there it is.

  There's still excitement in the air, still that sweating, crying, breathing monster of rock nipping at our heels and drawing devilish grins, but the fear is coming quick, rising up over us and bathing the room in shadow. The crowd, though relatively small for a show this size, is thick, and when folks get panicked, they do weird shit.

  I watch crew members scrambling and nervous faces peering up at me from various positions below. It was selfish bringing them in here with the threat of danger looming, but it had to be done. This was a fucking necessity for us, for Naomi, and nobody was forced to be here. They chose. Hey, at least if anything happens, we've all got the hot heat of music pulsing in our veins. I could die happy right now. Though I'd rather fucking not. There's a whole host of positions from A to Z that Naomi and I haven't tried yet. I intend on mastering every single one. Oh, and marrying her ass. I want to be buried next to this chick on a hill under a fucking tree. And I'm not ashamed to admit that.

  I get out a smoke. I guess I don't realize how serious this shit is yet. I told you, I'm from Cali-fucking-fornia.

  “Why are they making them go outside?” I ask Naomi as she slips the Wolfgang off regretfully and I help her to her feet. Her eyes immediately rise to the ceiling, and she licks her lips nervously. I look around and I can make a pretty easy guess about who's a local and who's not. Some people are walking, others are sprinting like their life depends on
it. Huh.

  “This is not the sort of place you want to be if the shit goes down. A wide roof is bad news, and this artistic well of sin has no designated shelter.” She smiles with tight lips and grips my hand tight. “We'd be better off in that ditch next to the parking lot. Let's go.”

  Naomi turns to face her band. Hayden is already gone, but the rest of them are there, staring at her with stunned disbelief. Guess this is a lot to take in.

  “You can all kiss my ass and praise my resurrection skills later. We have to get the fuck out of here.” Naomi doesn't wait for them to respond. She's a natural leader, born and bred. She just moves and expects them to follow.

  Thing is, they do.

  “I'm so glad you're back,” Blair says, moving across the stage with Dax. “Really. I … I missed you, bitch.” Naomi smiles at her, but she doesn't stop walking. Instead, she keeps gathering people until we have a friggin' entourage – Ronnie, Trey, Jesse, Josh, Milo, her bassist dude, her backup guitarist. She pulls them to her like a magnetic force, calming some of the panic and guiding us through the already empty backstage area and past a shouting cop. It all happens so fast that my head starts to spin. Why is it that crises always seem to go so quick? To exist in a place that is out of this fucking world, like a whole other dimension or some shit.

  “I knew it,” she said, but she's almost smiling. Her confidence gives me hope. But then, I don't know crap about tornadoes. “But at least I got my song. That's all I really wanted.” I take a step forward and press my back against the door, opening it for my friends, her friends, but mostly for her. Naomi steps up beside me as people filter out, draining past us in slow, ambling steps, like they're not really nervous even though they should be. “Get in the ditch!” she shouts as she notices some idiots heading towards the buses. Fans are getting in the back gate and harassing people. Some see us and come our way. Folks are just fucking shameless, taking advantage of a crisis to what, meet some people that'll never remember their names?

  “Fucking assholes,” I growl as chaos just breaks loose around us, unraveling human society and practiced order in less time than it takes me to blink. A cloud of debris swirls, dropping bizarre shit on our heads: boxes, trash can lids, a dead squirrel. That's right. A dead fucking animal falls not three feet away from where I'm standing. The fuck? “God, fuck this weird Midwest shit. Give me earthquakes any damn day.” Naomi ignores me as the last of the people exit this side of the building. A cop checks around inside and gives me an all clear before telling me to get the fuck out of here. He doesn't wait around long enough to see if I do.

  Dax stands and waits, proving his devotion while the rest of the group is lead away by Milo, taking charge of the flock even though he's the shortest damn sheep in it. People are screaming from the area of the parking lot, but there are still fans back here, rushing towards us, eager to get in a fuckin' meet and greet. That is, until they turn around and see what the commotion is about. Our friends crest the edge of the building at about the same time and stop short.

  The air goes completely still. And I don't just mean the breeze dies down. No, I mean it feels like the life has been sucked out of the air, pulled away and left bare and dead. A roaring scream sounds in the distance beyond the crying sirens.

  I turn around and drop the door back into place. It clicks shut, but the noise is lost in the eerie silence, sucked away like water up a straw.

  “Oh. Shit.”

  On the horizon, like a fucking movie nightmare swirls the biggest damn dust cloud I have ever seen. It looks angry, alive, whipping across the landscape and tearing a scar that'll take a long time to heal. It doesn't discriminate, doesn't judge. It does what it came here to do, destroying with a gleeful twirl and a rush of helplessness. It's like a mighty Titan, ascending Mount Olympus to kill the gods. It's a part of the earth; it can do whatever it wants.

  The screaming starts up again, the running. The rest of the fans abandon their frantic rush towards us at about the same moment I hear a telling click.

  Man, I don't know what the fuck comes over me, but when I hear that sound, I go all karate and shit. My primal instincts take over, and even though I know I don't know shit about combat, that I'm just an asshole with a good right hook, I react. After all, I'm an asshole in love.

  I turn, spinning sharp and letting my fist fly without much thought. It cracks Eric 'the fuck up' Rhineback right in his pale jaw and spills a rush of blood from his mouth like a Halloween prop. But he doesn't drop the gun. Instead, he lowers his aim and fires.

  “Turner!” His name barely escapes my lips before he buckles, blood spraying out his thigh and soaking his stupid girl jeans. I don't know if I've ever been as afraid as I am in that moment, my heart beating in slow motion inside my tightened chest. His other hand comes up and grabs Eric's wrist hard, biceps squeezing, using that practiced pretty strength to drop the gun from my foster brother's grip and send it skidding across the pavement.

  Behind me, the monster screams and stops, closing in on us and the buses start to shake in the currents of wind and the trees whimper. Lawn chairs go flying and the debris that was dumped on us lifts back up as if by magic. The gunshot is going to kill Turner, but the tornado is going to kill us all.

  I move forward as the man I hated more than anyone else in the world, the one person I thought that could never redeem himself, collapses in a puddle of his own blood with a grunt. But he never screams. Not once. He won't give Eric the satisfaction, stubborn even in his pain.

  “Not right now, Eric!” I scream, watching his face, watching his eyes as they move to the sky and fill with fear. Whatever he says, whatever he thinks, he isn't really prepared for this. “Get to the ditch and we'll deal with this later! Go!” I make no false assumptions about the value of his character and watch in grim satisfaction as the gun is lifted up and carried away while my clothes whip around my body, stinging my skin. The most horrible fucking screech comes to us on the gale, the death throw of a small car as its open door comes off with a frightening ease. It doesn't have long to mourn its lost limb because up it goes next, spinning away like a toy.

  We are so done for.

  I crouch down over Turner who can't get up, who can't run and reach for the handle of the door to the venue. It's locked. Locked. Fucking locked.

  “Go,” he growls at me, shoving me back, pushing at me with bloody hands. “Now. Fucking get your ass out of here Naomi. I'd rather have a tree shoved up my ass than see you hurt.” I think I'm crying, but who knows because the tears get ripped away in the wind. Eric continues to lord over us.

  “Come with me,” he says and in his voice, I hear the magic of a boy who once watched the stars with me. I don't know if it's in his genetics or what, but he's changed. He transformed from that hopeful boy to a disturbed young man. He can't be redeemed for what he's done. There is no I'm sorry for Katie. I hope the tornado kills him. “I'll keep you safe, Naomi. That's all I ever wanted was to keep you safe. I helped you clean up the crime scene, didn't I?” I ignore him. He's inconsequential now. We have seconds, if that. “I don't know what Hayden or Katie told you, but I can promise it's a bunch of bullshit. They've been playing me almost badly as Turner's been playing you. He knows everything, Naomi. He's a part of it.”

  I grab Turner's face between my hands, and I look him in his beautiful, beautiful eyes. If I'm going to die here, I'm going to do it right.

  “I fucking love you,” I tell him, and he stops fighting me. The gray sky drops a torrent of violent rain on our heads, plastering my hair to my face, drowning me. I slap it away and press my face close to his. “I haven't completely forgiven you for the things you've done, but I love you just the same. I love you. I love you.” And then I kiss him, taste his tongue ring, run my fingers down his face.

  And then I'm shoving him onto his back, covering my body with his, waiting to die.

  I can't describe my next few moments because the English fucking language does not have words for them. All I can tell you is that I'
ve traveled to hell and back, and it isn't pretty. It's ugly as shit.

  “Naomi!” I scream after the wave rushes us, rides us, fucks us and then simply … stops. The building is missing its roof, the buses are not where they were when we left them and there are bodies everywhere. Some are covered with debris, others are lying bare on the suddenly sunny pavement like they're just out for a tan. I must've passed out because I don't remember anything beyond that kiss, that one fucking, single sharing of breath that will define who I am for the rest of my miserable life. “Naomi!” I push myself up with my elbows and grit my teeth against the pain in my thigh. It's inconsequential right now. I don't care. I don't care about anything but my one woman. My only woman. “Naomi?” My shout becomes a question as I roll her over. She moves limply, pulled only by my arms on her shoulders. I don't see her chest moving. I don't see it. I don't fucking see it.

  She's dead.

  She's fucking dead.

  “Naomi?” That's it, there it is, a sob. A wail. “NAOMI! FUCK!”

  I grab her face, lift her head up, tap her cheek. Blood dribbles down the side of her face and turns her blonde hair pink, taints her lips. I pull her body up to mine and listen. No, no, no, no. But then, there it is, a faint pulse, a light whisper. She sucks in a breath and groans.

  I cry like a little bitch.

  I won't lie. I bawl like a baby and go back for more, squeezing her against me, cursing her name under my breath.

  “Would you stop shouting,” she whispers. “I mean, just shut the fuck up. My head hurts. I can't think straight.”

  “You stupid, fucking bitch, what the hell were you thinking?”

  “I was shielding you, you asshole.” Naomi tries to sit up and whimpers, dropping her body back against mine. I hold her tight and wrap my arms around her as I survey the damage. It's like a fucking apocalypse out here. In the distance, I hear sirens, ambulances probably. The tornado warning has stopped, but I doubt out of choice. I bet that fucker got ripped up and torn up, spit out and eaten alive. Whoever it is that's coming, I hope they get here soon because I don't think either of us is able to move. I press a kiss to Naomi's hair. “You're alive,” she says.