Murder of Angels

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

  “Yeah, man,” Donny snickered and tapped out three quarter time on the plaster. “Audiences are for pussies. We don’t need no steenkin’ audience—”

  “Speak for yourself,” Daria muttered, wrapping a Band-Aid tightly around the pad of her thumb. “A few more warm bodies sure as hell wouldn’t break my heart.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “I know what you think you meant.”

  And when she looked up, the almost-familiar face was staring sheepishly back at her from the doorway. The man wearing the face was tall and scarecrow thin, dressed like a bum, and his name finally came to her—Keith Barry—the name and what it meant. He’d played guitar for a local punk band called Stiff Kitten, the best thing Birmingham had going for it until their vocalist had died a few months earlier. Her death was the stuff of local legend. She’d gotten wasted on vodka and speed and driven her car under the wheels of a moving freight train.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” she replied. Daria smiled for him, and he almost smiled back.

  “You’re Keith Barry, aren’t you?” she asked. “You used to play with Stiff Kitten.”

  He looked confused for a second, like an actor who’s forgotten his lines or missed a cue, then slowly nodded his head.

  “Yeah. That’s me.”

  “Damn,” Sherman said. He stood up too quickly, almost knocking over the rusty folding chair where he’d been sitting. He held one hand out expectantly. “Dude, you guys were absolutely fucking killer.”

  “Thanks,” Keith Barry said uncertainly, looking down at his shoes or the floor, not shaking Sherman’s hand.

  “No, dude, I mean it. You guys fuckin’ rocked,” Sherman burbled recklessly on. “That really sucked, though, Sarah dying like that and all. She was fuckin’ hot.”

  “Yeah,” Keith Barry murmured, and now there was hardly a trace of emotion in his voice. He nodded again and raised his head, staring directly into Sherman’s eyes. “It did. Do you always talk so goddamn much?”

  “Jesus, Sherman,” Daria groaned. “Will you sit down and shut up for one minute?” Sherman’s smile faded, and he sat back down in the rusty chair.

  “Listen, can I, uhm, can I talk to you a sec?” Keith Barry asked her then, tugging nervously at his shirt collar.

  “Sure,” and she wrapped the last Band-Aid around her index finger, then stood and dusted off the seat of her jeans. He led her back down the hallway and stopped at the stairs leading up to the stage. Daria leaned against the wall, both thumbs hooked into her belt loops.

  “I’m sorry about Sherman,” she said and looked back the way they’d come. “He isn’t a dork on purpose, not usually.”

  “Oh hell, don’t worry about it. You guys have a name?”

  “You got a cigarette?” she asked, and he fumbled at his shirt pocket, but turned up only an empty pack and a few dry crumbs of tobacco.

  “Thanks anyway,” Daria said, wishing she’d thought to buy a pack before the show. “Right now we’re Ecstatic Wreck, but that’s just until we think of something better.”

  “Ecstatic Wreck, hunh? Hey, that’s not so bad. I’ve heard worse,” and she could tell how hard he was trying not to show the jitters, but his hands shook, anyway, and there were beads of sweat standing out on his forehead and cheeks. Keith Barry’s heroin addiction was almost as famous as Sarah Milligan’s run-in with the train.

  “Yeah, well, I played with some other guys for a while, but they all joined the army, if you can believe that shit. Anyway, tonight was our first show.”

  “No kidding? Wow,” and he rubbed nervously at the stubble on his chin. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you you’re good. Hell, you’re better than good.”

  “Thanks,” she said, a little embarrassed for both of them and trying not to show it. “That means a lot, coming from you. I used to go to all your shows.”

  “You want to maybe get a beer or go for a walk or something?”

  She thought about it a moment, then shook her head.

  “Sorry,” she said. “That’d be cool, but I have plans already.” She didn’t, unless load out and the drive home alone counted as plans. She didn’t have anything until work the next day, but the fevery sheen in Keith Barry’s eyes made her nervous, warned her to keep her distance, here be tygers and plenty worse things than tygers.

  “Maybe another time then,” he said, sounding disappointed, but he smiled and ran his long fingers through his dirty, mouse-brown hair.

  “Definitely. Absolutely.”

  They shook hands, his palm cool and slick with sweat, and she left him standing there. She turned and walked quickly towards the dressing room, walking fast before she changed her mind.

  “Hey,” he called after her. “What’s your name?”

  “Daria,” she called back, without even turning around.

  Two weeks later, Ecstatic Wreck played the Cave again, another Wednesday night, and this time there were a few more people. The stingy reward for a couple hundred fliers and word-of-mouth.

  Keith Barry came back, too.

  They played all the same songs in a different order, and added a jangling cover of David Bowie’s “Starman.” When the show was over, Keith was waiting at the edge of the stage.

  “There’s someone I want you to meet,” he said and handed her a cold bottle of beer. She looked at the beer, then at Keith Barry. He was dressed a little better than before, and his hair was combed; his hands weren’t shaking, and there was a confidence in his voice that told her he’d fixed before the show. She took a sip of the beer, promised the boys that she’d only be a minute, and let him lead her to a booth near the very back of the club. He said the sound was better back there, as good as the sound could ever get in a dump like the Cave. Then he introduced her to a skinny guy in a baseball cap and a blue mechanic’s shirt with the name MORT stitched on the pocket.

  “My man Mortimer here, he was our drummer,” Keith said and sat down next to Mort, motioning for Daria to take the seat across from them. Mort looked uncomfortable, but said hi and smiled. Daria looked over her shoulder at the stage, Sherman and Donny already breaking everything down, and then she looked back at Keith.

  “I really should help them,” she said.

  “C’mon. They’re doin’ just fine on their own,” Keith replied and pointed at the empty seat again. “There’s something we got to talk to you about. It’s something important.”

  “Something important,” she mumbled and sighed, but sat down. She took another swallow of beer, and it soothed her dry, exhausted throat.

  “We want to put the band back together,” Keith Barry said. “We’ve been talking about it, me and Mort, and we think it’s time we got off our lazy asses and went back to work. Sarah’s gone, sure, but there’s no reason we have to bury Stiff Kitten with her.”

  Daria stared at him a minute, then glanced at Mort, and he must have seen the growing impatience, the suspicion, in her eyes, because he just shrugged and began picking apart a soggy napkin.

  “That’s really great,” she said, turning back to Keith. “But what’s it got to do with me?”

  “What’s it got to do with you?” he repeated, as if he wasn’t exactly sure what she was asking. “See, that’s what I was just getting to.”

  “He wants you to dump your band,” Mort said without looking at her, still busy dissecting the napkin. “He wants you to play with us.”

  “Oh,” she whispered. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

  “No,” Keith said, glaring at Mort, glaring like he could kill a man with those eyes alone. “I’m not fucking kidding. We need a singer and a bass player, and we’re never gonna find anyone better than you.”

  “I’d be a shit,” Daria said, “if I walked out on them like that. We’re just getting started.”

  Keith frowned, then sighed and slumped back into the booth. “They’re not the ones you should be worrying about,” he said, and lit a cigarette.

  “They’re my friends—”
>
  “Sure, they’re your friends. And I’m sure they’re sweet guys. But you know that they’re nowhere near as good as you are, right? You know they never will be.”

  “Jesus,” she whispered, and stared hard at Keith Barry through the veil of smoke hanging in the air between them. “Yeah, I know that,” she said, finally. “But I also know that your arm’s got a bad habit.”

  Keith took another drag and shook his head. “I guess that must make you Sherlock fucking Holmes.”

  “All I’m saying is, I want to know if it’s something you got a handle on, or if it’s got you. You’re sitting there asking me to ditch some really good guys. I think I have a right to ask.”

  “You some kind of fucking saint?” he asked angrily, and she knew that was her cue to thank them both for the beer and the compliments and walk away. But she chewed at her lower lip, instead, and waited for him to answer her question.

  “You’re about to blow this thing,” Mort said, scattering bits of shredded napkin across the table in front of him. “The lady asked you a question.”

  Keith smoked his cigarette and stared past Daria, towards the stage.

  “You gonna answer her or not?”

  “Yeah,” he said, finally. “It’s under control. I just fucking need to get back to work, that’s all. It’s not a problem.”

  She nodded her head and finished her beer. It was even hotter back here in the shadows than it had been on stage and she was starting to feel a little dizzy, a little sick to her stomach.

  Walk away, she thought. Tell him thanks and walk away and just keep walking.

  “Look,” she said, all the false cool she’d ever have rolled up in that one word. “I’m gonna have to think about this for a couple of days.” And then she set the empty beer bottle down onto the table in front of her.

  “No problem,” Keith said. “I’m not asking you to make a decision right this minute. I know you need some time.”

  “I just gotta think about it, that’s all.”

  “This is my number at work,” Mort said, and he slid a business card from a northside machine shop across the table to her. “Just ask for me. And whatever you decide, thanks for thinking about it.”

  “You won’t be sorry,” Keith said, like it was already a done deal, and stubbed his cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray. “You won’t regret it. I swear. Me, you, and Mort, we’ll wake all these motherfuckers up.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see,” she said. “I’m not making any promises,” and Daria slipped Mort’s card into a pocket and walked back to the stage alone.

  After the signing—two interminable hours of autographs and smiles for flashing cameras, the pretense that it’s all about the fans, about the music, instead of the mortgage and the credit cards and Niki’s doctor bills—and after the interview, Alex leads her to the waiting car and tells the driver to take them back to the hotel. She lights a cigarette and watches the streetlights, the ugly parade of strip malls and apartment buildings and fast-food restaurants along Peachtree Street. The stark white blaze of mercury vapor and halogen and fluorescence set against the last few moments of November dusk, and when she shivers Alex puts an arm around her.

  “You were great,” he says. “You’re a trooper.”

  I’m a phony, she starts to tell him, but it’s an old argument, an old confession, and she doesn’t feel like having it again right now. “I need a drink,” she says instead.

  “We’ll be back at the hotel soon.”

  “Great, but I need a drink now, not soon.”

  Alex frowns and pulls the silver flask out of his leather jacket. She gave it to him for his thirty-fifth birthday, almost three years ago now, back when the money was still something new, and it still felt good to give people expensive things. She screws the cap off, and there’s rum inside; she hates rum and Alex knows it. Daria tips the mouth of the flask to her lips and tries to ignore the sugary taste. Who really gives a shit what it tastes like, anyway, as long as it makes her numb.

  “I didn’t think you liked rum.”

  “Fuck you,” she says, and takes another drink.

  “I don’t think there’s time before the show,” Alex says and smiles, but she doesn’t laugh.

  “I have a headache. I’ve had a splitting headache all goddamn day long.”

  “Do you have your pills?” he asks.

  “They make me sick to my stomach.”

  “I think that’s why you’re only supposed to take them with food, love.”

  She screws the cap back on the flask and tries to remember the last time she ate—a bite or two of the dry room-service toast Alex ordered her for breakfast, and a handful of salted almonds on the plane from San Francisco. There was Marvin’s avocado and cheese sandwich, but she didn’t even touch that.

  “How long does it take to starve to death?”

  “Don’t know,” Alex replies. “I’ve never tried.”

  “I think it takes a really long time. At least a month.”

  “Are you hungry, Dar?” he asks hopefully. “You want to pick something up? I could tell the driver to—”

  “No,” she says. “I was just wondering, that’s all. I’ll eat something after the show. I promise.”

  “I’m gonna hold you to that,” he replies and slips the silver flask back into his jacket. “Don’t you start thinking that I won’t.”

  Daria rests her head against the window and takes another drag off her cigarette.

  “This is where it happened,” she says.

  “This is where what happened?”

  “Where Keith killed himself. It was down here somewhere. I don’t remember the street name. Hell, I’m not sure if I ever knew the street name.”

  “Oh,” Alex says and holds her tighter. His arms feel good around her, safe as houses, and she closes her eyes because she knows there’s no danger of falling asleep, no danger of dreams. Her head hurts too much for sleep, her head and her stomach, and, besides, in another five or ten minutes they’ll be back at the hotel.

  “All I can remember is it was in some alley near Peachtree. He used his pocketknife.”

  “I know how it happened,” Alex says, and she feels him pull away an inch or two, his embrace not as certain as it was a moment before.

  “He was still alive when the cops found him. Just barely, but he was still breathing. They said he might have lived, if he hadn’t taken the pills.”

  And he releases her then, slides across the leather upholstery to his side of the wide backseat, and Daria opens her eyes. Her cigarette has burned down almost to the filter, and she puts it out in the little ashtray set into the back of the driver’s seat, then lights another. Alex isn’t looking at her, is busy pretending to watch the traffic, instead. The car crosses a short bridge, and a reflective green sign reads PEACHTREE CREEK. If there’s actually a creek down there, Daria can’t see it, nothing but impenetrable shadows pooled thick beneath glaring billboard lights.

  “Jesus,” she hisses. “Is everything in this city named after a fucking peach tree?”

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  Daria turns and stares at Alex for a minute, a full minute at least, waiting for him to turn towards her, waiting for some sort of explanation for this sudden shift in his mood, but he keeps his eyes on all the other cars rushing past outside.

  “Are you pissed at me about something?” she asks, and he shakes his head, but still doesn’t look at her.

  “No, I’m not pissed at you, Dar. I’ll just never understand the irresistible gravity of assholes.”

  “What are you talking about now?”

  “Assholes. They suck you in, and you never get away again.”

  “You mean Keith?”

  “Yeah, I mean Keith. I mean the way he’s all you can think about, when the junky son of a bitch has been dead for more than a decade. How many times did you think about Niki today? How many times did you think maybe you should pick up the phone and see if she’s okay?”

  Dari
a presses a button, and her window opens silently, letting in the chilly night air; it feels good against her face, feels clean even though it stinks of carbon monoxide and diesel fumes. The wind whips at her hair, invisible fingers to scrub away the filth that seems to cling to her no matter how often she bathes. She flicks the cigarette out the open window, and the wind snatches it.

  “That means a whole hell of lot,” she says, “coming from the man who screws her wife every chance he gets.”

  Alex grins and laughs softly and drums the fingers of his right hand impatiently on his knee.

  “One day I’m gonna learn to keep me mouth shut,” he says. “One day, I’m gonna learn not to butt heads with you.”

  “One day,” she whispers and presses the button on the door, closing the window again, shutting out the cold wind and the oily, mechanical smells of the autumn night.

  WWR: As an artist, what would you say scares you most?

  DP: Waking up in the morning. Because I know that one morning, sooner or later, I’m going to open my eyes and all this will have been a dream, and I’ll be back there in Birmingham, or maybe Boulder, if I’m lucky, playing for pennies and working in coffeehouses. It’ll all be gone, just like that (snaps fingers). And I’ll be a failure again. That’s what scares me the most.

  Back in the hotel room, Daria sits cross-legged in the middle of the bed and listens to the messages that have backed up on her cell phone. A call from Jarod, asking if she’d like to make an appearance at a local nightclub after the show; a message from Lyle, her piano player, saying he was going to have a few drinks with an old friend before the show, but not to worry, he’ll make soundcheck on time; a last minute request for an interview; another call from Jarod, to say maybe that particular nightclub wasn’t such a good idea after all and he’d get back to her. All the usual crap, the sizzling white noise before the storm, and she listens to each in its turn, then presses delete, watching the city through the wide glass balcony doors, the dizzying maze of buildings and streets glittering red and green and gold, arctic white and glacier blue.