Punk and Zen

by JD Glass

  I mean, sure, yeah, we’d been great friends in high school, and I’d had feelings for her forever, but still—a lot of time had passed since we’d seen each other. And the feelings that I had for the girl I’d known, from the girl I’d been, well, here we were now, all this time later, young women, and, despite all that history, complete strangers, especially after what I’d overheard not too long ago.

  Hey, she could be a homicidal maniac, and I’d just invited her home with me. Okay, not that I really believed that, but still, you could never tell, right? And whether I wanted to be conscious of it or not, I had to consider the strange arrangement that was our lives hanging in the background.

  “Hey, guys!” I greeted the group at large as we neared.

  Everyone looked up with friendly curiosity except for Nico. His eyes widened in shock, and he jumped out of his seat.

  “Holy shit!” he exclaimed as his elbow jostled Jerkster’s beer, spilling it—onto his prized kilt. Jerkster pushed back from the table and shook his head, dismayed.

  “Holy shit is right.” I grinned at Nico as everyone looked up.

  “Everyone,” I said to the table at large, “this is Samantha.” They all nodded and said their various hellos.

  “Samantha? This,” and I waved to include the whole group, “this is everyone.”

  “Hi, everyone,” she greeted the group, glancing from face to face until she reached my brother and smiled. “Hello, Nicky.”

  “Nico,” he corrected tightly.

  “That suits you,” she smiled again, “Nico.”

  He didn’t smile back.

  “Damn, not another of Nina’s girls?” Jerkster asked Nico in a loud undertone from his sodden perch.

  “No. Definitely not that,” Nico muttered back, and hearing that, I glanced over at him. To my surprise, Nico had crossed his arms across his chest, and his eyes had faded to stone gray as he stared at Samantha.

  “Good,” Jerkster muttered, “because I look like I peed myself.” Someone threw him a bar rag and I chuckled a bit, full of high spirits.

  “Get a move on there, dude,” I teased unhelpfully, “we’ve still got work to do. Samantha,” I said, “I leave you in,” I looked around at the group, “interesting company.” Good hands was certainly not the description, that was for sure.

  Stephie, Jerkster, and I regrouped by the stage to ensure we hadn’t forgotten anything. Ronnie came over to us as we started to arrange our shit so we could carry it out. He seemed so enthusiastic he was almost bouncing.

  “Hey, guys!” he greeted. “You know, I just spoke with Graham, Graham Crack from the Microwaves. Their drummer, Paulie-Boy, was here tonight!”

  We stared at each other in shock—the Microwaves? Dude, they were one of the coolest ska bands around. And if you don’t know what ska is, you’re really missing out.

  There’s a huge debate as to which came first, ska or reggae (and guess which side says which), but in a nutshell, ska is reggae sped up, with lots of horns and totally fun—whether or not the lyrics are political, satirical, or allegorical, and sometimes all three. The dance is called skanking, the Toasters are a hot group, and the people into it, who wear gray creepers, porkpie hats, and super-skinny ties, are called “Rude boys and Rude girls.” That’s the basics—oi!

  I quickly hid my surprise, and so did Steph and Jerkster—we were cool, after all.

  “Anyhow, you mind if I spin off a copy of your tape tonight and give it to him? They’re searching for a band to take on tour—you know, open for them.”

  Jerkster looked at Steph, Steph looked at me, and I looked back at them both like my mind had fallen to the ground. What? Yes? No? Really? No way! passed through all of our minds and faces as we searched one another for answers.

  “Uh, yeah, hey, why not?” I answered Ronnie finally, swallowing through my dried throat. I kept peeking at the band to see what they had to add, but they just kept nodding at me like I had all the answers, so I continued. “Just, uh, we don’t have an official drummer, as you can see.” I pointed to the vacant spot our hired gun had abandoned. He was probably home sleeping already. “That’s something—well, we’ve got to work on that.”

  Ronnie laughed. “That’s an easy fix—Paulie-Boy loved you guys! So, I’ll give the tape to Graham?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, nodding with a casualness I ABC didn’t feel.

  “Yeah,” Stephie finally chimed in—I glanced at her with barely veiled relief, “and uh, let us know what he says.”

  “Definitely,” Ronnie agreed, and started digging into his pockets, pulling out little bits of paper. “Whose number do I have here?”

  “Take Nina’s,” Stephie said, and Jerkster nodded behind her in agreement.

  “Yeah, take Nina’s,” he echoed.

  “She lives for that thing.” She grinned at me, jostling my shoulder. I grinned back as I wrote the number down for Ronnie.

  “Okay, great, I’ll talk to you guys soon,” Ronnie said, clapping his hands together as he walked back to his board. “This is gonna be so fuckin’ cool…”

  “Man oh man, the Microwaves—can you believe it?” Jerkster asked.

  “Nah, it’s all bullshit,” Stephie answered, “this is fuckin’ show business—everyone is bullshit.”

  I kinda sorta agreed, but still…this was New York, home of the “Hey, you never know.”

  “Nothing is nothing until it’s something,” I agreed with Steph, “still…sometimes things happen, right?”

  “Yeah, sometimes, things happen,” Jerkster agreed.< /font>

  “Uh-huh, and it’s usually shit!” Stephie added, and we all laughed.

  We grabbed our equipment and started hauling it out of there, taking it to the sidewalk so Jerkster could drive around with the van we’d rented and we could return it to our rock.

  “Hey, seriously,” I asked Stef as I hefted an amp, “would you wanna go?” I walked to the sidewalk, Stephie carrying the bass drum behind me.

  “What, you mean on tour with the Microwaves?” She put the drum down carefully between broken glass and gum on the cracked cement, then straightened. “Shit yeah! That’s why Ronnie’s got your number—I wouldn’t believe it, and Jerkster still believes in the tooth fairy!”

  “Hey!” I laughed. “I made some good money from the tooth fairy!”

  “You know…” Stephie considered for a long second. “Me too.” She grinned.

  Stephie’s words made me feel pretty darn good—as if there wasn’t enough of that tonight. I was always a little bit aware that I was the newcomer to the Stephie-Jerkster friendship, even though we’d started the band together. Choosing me to take that call meant they trusted me, which was a good thing.

  “But,” I said as together we carried the drum hardware, “you’d go?” I asked again. Jerkster pulled around and hopped out, quickly opening a door and getting his muscle under that damn rack.

  “Go where?” Jerkster asked as we slid our all-important shit into the cargo space.

  “Tour,” I answered succinctly, “open for the Microwaves.”

  Jerkster stopped what he was doing. “Oh my God, did they call? When? I need a new bass…”

  I took pity on his enthusiastic panic, knowing how easy it was to rush over that ya-ya-ya-hoorah edge. I patted the arm of his army jacket.

  “No, dude, they didn’t call. But if they did, would you go?”

  He stared at me for a moment, and his face seemed to glow.

  “Nina…it would be my whole life,” he said, his tone one of wonder and solemnity, something I’d never thought to hear from him. “You just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”

  I nodded. I understood. I felt exactly the same way. Still do.

  Stephie came round to stand by us. “Yeah.” She looked at the ground and spit, then looked up again. “Me, too.”

  I studied them both, considering, nodding. “Me too,” I agreed, “me, too. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”

  I don�
��t remember how we got back to the rock we called home, barely remember the after-party our friends threw for us at the Red Spot—an after-hours event just for the band and what seemed to be over a hundred friends.

  We laughed a lot, and there was lots of noise and what I thought was premature champagne, but it was great fun just the same—I think. Samantha’s presence was like a constant heat at my back even though we weren’t always next to each other; in fact, she seemed quite comfortable on her own—although every now and again we’d catch one another’s eye and smile.

  At one point Trace went to sit with her, and when I saw her a little while later, she looked extremely pissed. Poor Trace—I think maybe more than one person was immune to her charms.

  I was tired and drunk off excitement and more than a little champagne, and I was relieved that Jerkster was taking everything to his place for the night—I’d go pick my stuff up in the morning—so all I had to do was carry my guitar (I never let that go) and call a cab. It picked me up in front of the Red Spot, and Samantha took the ride, sitting in the backseat with me.

  I don’t think we spoke at all. I leaned on my side and she on hers, and all we did was hold hands and stare at each other. I was so tired…

  By the time we got to my place the night had chilled, threatening to become early morning frost, and the frigid air woke me up enough to feel how tired I was as the car pulled away and Samantha and I stood outside the door that would lead to my apartment, our breath steaming.

  “Coming?” I asked her with a tired smile. I shifted my gig bag on my shoulder and held out my free hand.

  “Where else would I go?” she asked me seriously, her eyes glittering in the streetlight as she took my hand.

  I opened the door, then led her through the common-area kitchen in the back to my room, where I snapped one of the dimmer lights on. I can’t deal with bright ones when I’m that tired—they hurt my eyes.

  I spied small glowing embers on my bed. “Hey, scoot!” I chuckled as I put my guitar down in a safe spot nearby and reached with my other hand to pet a fuzzy head—one of Mr. Rabbitz’s cats had gotten into my room. The fur ball scampered.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Chubbles!” I called to the retreating waddle I recognized.

  Samantha stood in the doorway, looking about. “Nice space,” she commented, “it suits you.” She indicated my art studio set up at the end of the room.

  “Thanks.” I smiled back in appreciation. Her eyes were the same blue I’d remembered, the same blue I’d dreamt about, and they held me in place as they came closer and closer.

  When I barked my shin on the edge of my spare amp, I realized I’d been the one walking, which shocked me back to a reality where we stood face-to-face, alone together for the first time in years, maybe ever. She had the very lightest of lines around her eyes, and her face had grown thinner, perhaps a bit sharper, but the same soul sparked in those eyes and gave me that half-pursed smile I remembered so well.

  “Let me have your coat,” I asked her through dried lips, my voice sounding low and raspy to my ears. I shucked mine as she wordlessly removed hers, then handed it to me. It was a relief to move away from that intense connection. I walked to the closet to hang both up, and as I closed the door I felt her at my back, heat radiating like a rock left out in the sun to warm. Her arms closed around me, and I leaned back a moment to absorb her warmth ABC before I faced her. I put my arms around her waist, and she buried her head in my neck.

  “I thought…I thought you didn’t want to see me,” I told her quietly, my head pressed into her collarbone.

  Samantha’s hands tightened around me. “Not that, never that,” she spoke hoarsely, her lips against my skin. “I died without you.”

  She sighed and shifted her grip, her hands strong and warm in mine. “I can’t let you go,” she said finally, quietly. “I never could. I can’t go back to living without you.” She took a deep breath and looked down at our hands a moment. Her eyes caught mine again, and she breathed out slowly. “I won’t,” she said vehemently.

  I tried to remember to breathe as the sheer impossibility of everything rode down on me—the high of the gig, the perfect fit-feeling of Samantha, the dim ache in my gut over Fran. The right thing to do was to send Samantha back—back to London and Candace and her arrangements and her life, whatever it was she had created for herself, and for me to go back to the life I’d finally started living—my job and my band and, yes, my Fran, my Kitt.

  I would, too, I absolutely would, but…not now, not this second. If Fran had brought me back to life, then just being with Samantha was that bolt from the blue that woke up something in me long sleeping. I was simply going to have to face it and, somehow, move on.

  Oh hell, who was I kidding? “Me either,” I admitted softly, “I can’t do it either.” I took my hands from hers, sat on the edge of the bed, and studied Samantha in that half-light.

  “You’re with Candace,” I reminded her as she sat on the other side.

  “No, I’m not, not since I spoke to Fran—it’s way over,” Samantha told me through tight lips. She wrapped her arms around me again, and I snuggled against her.

  “I’m with Kitt—Fran,” I corrected, and I admit I couldn’t help smiling a bit thinking about it.

  “I know,” Samantha answered, her voice muffled in my shoulder. “I know she loves you.”

  “Sammy.” I spoke quietly, and while I enjoyed the sound of her name in my mouth, she had to hear this. “I love her too.”

  Samantha’s hands tightened on me convulsively. “I know,” she answered, her voice an anguished whisper, “I just had to see you.”

  “I’m glad,” I answered honestly, unthinkingly, and we held each other even tighter, still and silent in the dim light.

  “I won’t hurt her,” I said finally into that heavy quiet. It was confusing because I ached with missing Fran, and ABC at the same time the fit of Samantha’s body to mine made me feel, well, whole, as if I’d been missing the last piece to my puzzle, and it didn’t make any sense at all. But I knew that it didn’t matter. I’d made a promise, even if I hadn’t made it aloud. I’d made it, sealed it—in blood.

  “I understand that,” Samantha answered. “I don’t want to—I won’t either.”

  She kissed my neck and I shuddered slightly—not because of the sensuality of it, because it wasn’t that, not really, but because this could not happen.

  “I love her, too,” she whispered.

  I curved my head away from those baby-soft lips I’d dreamed about, but pulled her closer to me anyway. My hands pressed against her shoulder blades and I rubbed small circles into her back as her fingertips drew stripes against my spine.

  “Nina…” Samantha sighed, “what…what are we…”

  “…going to do?” I finished for her.

  God, nothing mattered. Time, distance, even the person whom I’d heard on the phone, what we’d done, become—it made no difference. We felt the same—to each other, about each other. What an impossible situation—because if Candace had been honest all those months ago, there’s good money in betting that everything would have turned out differently. As much as I hate to admit it, I knew that, with a gut-twisting, bitter-tasting certainty. What made it bitter was that I would never, ever in any universe have wanted to miss the opportunity to love and to know Francesca—and I didn’t want to give that up.

  It wasn’t fucking funny, though I laughed lightly, sadly, and rocked her the slightest bit in my arms before I let her go. “Nothing,” I said finally, looking into her diamond eyes, “we’re going to do nothing.”

  I shifted on the bed. “Come here,” I patted the pillow next to me, “let’s get some sleep. I’m too tired to deal with this right now.”

  She stretched her legs along the mattress and leaned on an elbow, a small smile playing about the corner of her mouth.

  I kicked off my boots and lay on the bed over the blankets, and Samantha shifted.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” she ask
ed, uncertain. “I could—”

  “What, sleep on the floor?” I asked with a smile. “I won’t let you do that—that’s not necessary. Besides…” I stretched my hands out over my head before tucking them under my head. Fuck it. I was too tired to even undress or change. I shifted and closed my eyes. “It’s just sleep. We have the rest of our lives to work this out.”

  Samantha chuckled under her breath as she eased her length along the mattress. “Yeah, we do, don’t we?”

  “We do,” I answered as firmly as I could. I lay there on my back with my eyes closed for a while, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t ignore the burning presence next to me, inches away. I finally opened my eyes only to find Samantha staring at me.

  Smiling, I turned on my side to face her. I stretched careful fingers to her face, gently drawing the curve of her cheek, and she returned the favor, sketching the line of my face with her thumb.

  “Hey,” she said softly, “do you remember that swim meet at Brooklyn College?”

  “Of course I do. You kissed me.”

  Samantha laughed, a soft sound I almost couldn’t hear. “Actually, I think you kissed me—that was the best kiss I ever had.”

  “Nah…can’t be,” I countered. It had been only one kiss—and one of those chastely romantic ones, to boot. Okay, so I’d never had one like that since, either, but still…

  Her fingers stroked my cheek. “Yeah, it was,” she affirmed. “You know, I’d been going to ask you out that night.”

  “I kinda figured that out later,” I admitted. I ran my fingers down her neck and along her shoulder. “You should have, you know.” I smiled at her.

  “Nah, I couldn’t,” Sam smiled back, her hands trailing along my arm, “you had a very possessive girlfriend.”

  I laughed softly myself. “Kerry wasn’t really my girlfriend. She was my friend and she was just—”