by Nina Malkin
XLIV
BRUISE BLUE
Dice = vox & magix
Duck = bass & guitar
Marsh = hits & kisses
Sin = huffs & puffs
Tosh = this, that & the other thing
Empowering punk. Redefining rock. With the backbone and bloodline of music born in secrets, slavery, and sex.
BRUISE BLUE. We’re gonna hurt you. You’re gonna love it . . .
***
Pen presents a printout at the studio tonight. We pass it around and weigh in.
Sin: I approve. Makes me sound like the big, bad wolf.
Marsh (ever wary): Hits & kisses? I’m not sure I get it . . .
Tosh: That’s the idea, a bit of mystery.
Duck: Oh, it’s cute, Marsh. But mine’s so straight—and I’m so not. Can I be . . . how about rhythm & grooves?
Pen: Absolutely. Done!
Me (finally): I like it. I think it’s . . . us. You came up with this, Pen?
She and Tosh check each other. Then she takes the paper back, reading it like she forgot what was on it. “Me and Tosh,” she says. “We batted ideas around. Over email.”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “So what’s it for?”
“Everything, ultimately,” Tosh enthuses. “The Bruise Blue website, our Facebook page, iTunes . . .” iTunes? Damn, that boy dreams big. I feel like the slacker in the act. All I do is show up and sing, mostly for therapeutic purposes.
“But right now,” Pen picks up his thread, “it’s for the Chest-ah-Fest flyer. So if you guys don’t mind . . .” She breaks out her camera. “Photo session.”
“Pen, no!” Marsh objects. “You could’ve warned us. I didn’t even wash my hair today.” It’s not that she’s vain—just shy.
“Exactly why I didn’t warn you. I knew you’d balk,” my cousin counters. “Besides, shut up. You get out of bed looking like you sleep on the cover of Vogue.” Marsh implores me with a grimace, but I only shrug. I couldn’t care less.
“Please, Marsh? Oh, pretty please, nuts and cherries and cream, just like your very best sundae?” Duck cajoles. He’s such a ham, and anything to do with the band helps him forget his troubles.
Pen poses us against the stacks of studio equipment, then decides that’s “too busy” and piles us onto the sofa instead.
“Okay, you guys, let’s see some attitude.” We mug.
“You call that attitude? Come on, give me badass!” We scowl.
“Damn it, people, don’t look so miserable. I want sizzle! I want smolder!”
Sounds to me like she wants Sin.
Who’s all too willing to oblige. By rising off the couch, cuing up some music, and proceeding to get us in the mood. By “us” I mean everyone. In the room, across the nation, and around the globe. Boy, girl, gay, straight. A sigh in your ear. A tickle up your spine. A tremor in your underpants. Sin Powers is moving, and you are not immune.
Not that he’s moving much. Not at first. Just a tad. Very, very slowly. A boot heel. An eyebrow. Every muscle involved in a deep, from-the-diaphragm moan . . . except his comes out silently, a private dispatch for you and only you, addressing that most sensitive sex organ: your brain. What does he transmit?
It’s for you and he alone to share. But you get the message, all right. Sin Powers knows how to reach you. Reach . . . you . . .right . . . there . . .
So you start to throb where you throb, and melt where you melt, and get hot, hot, hot—all over. He’s well aware. He feels it, too. And with his next move—that upper left quadrant of lip elevating the littlest bit—he demonstrates approval. He’s pleased with you. And pleasing Sin Powers is the greatest pleasure you’ve ever known. So far . . .
Then a hint of his hips—an orbit of adventure, a theme park ride with no safety belts. A tilt of his head that let’s you know there’s more in store. He rubs his thigh as though the constraint of his jeans and society in general is too much to bear. And when he plucks the front of his plain white tee, that special concavity between navel and sternum, he sends another message—you’re making him as hot as he’s making you. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.
Look what you do to him; look at him now. He’s grown a foot taller and a foot longer. It’s all your doing. Proud of yourself?
Now the music picks up, a tempting tempo, tribal and ribald and ancient as earth. He’s ready to move for real. Are you?
Since it’s everyone-out-on-the-floor time. Done teasing, done taunting, Sin Powers is bursting at the seams and set to burst all over you. Spin you and split you, flip you forward, bend you backward, throw you down. Listen up: Hear the quickening pulse as his thick, bright blood pumps, pumps, pumps.
Come close, closer than atoms. Give what you’ve got, all of it, everything, to this rhapsodic sirocco of parry and thrust, build and break, rise and fall. Succumb. Surrender. Submit. If you’re a living, breathing, heaving human being, you have no choice.
Oh, but you’re not? You’re an accidentally-on-purpose freak of demented damnation. Soulfully stunted, never nurtured, ignorant to primal bliss. Driven by perversity and obstinate ironclad fallacy. Well, then, when Sinclair Youngblood Powers snaps and slides and leans like a cholo, pops and locks and cranks that yank, you fly from your seat, chewing your fingers, and run from the room as fast as you can.
XLV
Let’s just say Sin is taking the Lust card literally—and finding major inspiration. Judging by the band photos that result, it’s contagious. The Bruise Blue flyer shows a messy mélange of waving limbs, wild hair, and wicked grins. Out of focus, yet very much on target. How Pen managed to snap away while taking part in Sin’s spontaneous dance party is definitely to her credit. She wanted sizzle, she wanted smolder? Well, she captured it. If I didn’t know us, and someone handed me a piece of paper boasting about Bruise Blue, I’d want to check us out. We look like a hurricane—the kind you can’t wait to get swept up in.
Unless you’re Antonia Forsythe.
From the edge of my eye I watched her flee, freaked out and shaken up. So the orgiastic goings-on offended her? Good!
Finally, a few points for our side. No one followed her out, but I guess she made it to 12 Daisy Lane well enough on foot. The next day she spends in bed, recovering, refusing even to see Sin when he pays his obligatory call. I wonder if she’s planning to attend today’s jaunt to Meriden Falls.
I’m up early, and Marsh skips the stables so we can prep, packing coolers with sandwiches, drinks, and treats. We work in tandem, in harmony, giggling and gabbing happily, making things happen, getting things done. Yet as I spin to the spice rack—curried chicken salad is on the menu—I see her. Antonia.
How long has she been standing there, grasping the collar of her long chenille robe, glaring at us?
“Good morning and excuse me,” I say sprightly, elbowing her out of my way.
Antonia skitters, fetching her preferred breakfast spoon.
Marsh and I try to impress upon her the meaning of Independence Day, but her bland response shows little interest.
Surely the great soon-to-be-state of Connecticut was already buzzing over taxation without representation back in her day, but I sense Antonia didn’t concern herself with anything beyond her roses and her illusory romance.
We take two cars: Me and Marsh in the Duck-mobile, Pen with Tosh riding shotgun and Sin and Antonia in back. Seating arrangements that thrill me to no end. Luckily, Meriden Falls is only about an hour away, and with cool tunes and good friends, the time flies. It’s still morning when we arrive, but this is clearly a popular destination, the parking lot already half full. As we pile out, I notice Sin is in rare form. Only no, not rare—not rare at all.
The robust timbre of his voice, that rakish swagger in his stride, the way clover-sweet air and sparkling sunshine seem like his attendants—or his accomplices. I’m struck with a slo-mo replay of the first day Sin set foot on the Swonowa quad, every head turning with the need to know: Who is that guy? Now as then, his magnetism beguiles like the bell of an ice cream
truck. That rock-god routine at the photo session was merely a prelude—Sin Powers is back, in full effect.
Once we start hauling out our stuff, he starts showing off—juggling Marsh’s backpack, Tosh’s soccer ball, and a small watermelon. I’m nervous for the melon, what a big, splashy mess it would make if Sin were too mishandle a pass, but he soon tires of his own clowning. Stacking three coolers, he leads the way out of the lot.
As to Antonia? She’s left to fend for herself. I can’t imagine he was outright rude to her en route, but he certainly seems to have forgotten her now, strutting ahead carefree as Huck Finn with a week full of Sundays. How awful she must feel, tagging along on the fringes of our group, but what am I supposed to do, loop my arm through hers and inquire chummily about her china pattern? Antonia is unwanted, and I unwant her more than anyone. Except maybe Sin. The tarot threw down 301
a gauntlet and he’s picked it up. And I get the sense he’s just begun.
Doubling my pace, I reach his side. “You act like you know where you’re going.”
He slants his glance my way, smile the slightest bit vulpine.
“You call it Meriden, we called it Scatacook,” he says. “I’m sure I told you my adopted mother often had me stay among my tribe. We’d come out this way to fish.” He hoists the coolers to readjust the weight. “Damn, woman, what are we picnicking on, boulders?”
By now we’ve reached an optimal tree—lavish low boughs offering maximum shade over lush, spongy lawn. Our gear goes down and we’re next, lolling in the grass. Sin lasts maybe two minutes horizontal; aggressive energy has him up and kicking the soccer ball around.
“Might I ask what you brought this for if you’re going to sit on your ass all day?” he chides Tosh, to my shock and amusement. “Come on, get up.”
To my further shock and amusement, Tosh does get up, and soon Marsh and Duck join the frolic.
“Don’t you want to play?” I ask Pen, who was always such a jock.
The scrunch of her features, the level of her lashes—what she’d like to do is talk, I can tell, really talk, like we used to.
Then she flicks at Antonia—the usurper, the outsider—and fakes a noncommittal shrug. My resentment builds like lit coals. Could be Antonia senses it; she pulls a magazine from her tote and begins to leaf through it.
“Go for a walk?” I prod my cousin.
The moment has passed, though. Pen plucks at a tuft of grass in front of her. “Maybe later . . .” Something’s up with her. I’m curious but I don’t push. “Okay, well, whenever.” I flop, lulled by drifting clouds into a doze, only next thing I know, I snap to, a poke from my subconscious: Dice, you don’t want to miss this! Lifting to my elbows, at first I think Sin has found himself a pet—a round, bouncy pet. Then I see it’s the soccer ball—the way he manipulates it with the sides and soles of his feet make it chase his heels like a frisky puppy. For seconds at a time he lifts off the ground, glissades over and hovers atop the ball, defying gravity.
Pen’s caught on too, and Antonia puts aside Modern Bride.
We stand for a better view, since now a crowd is gathering.
Grinding old-school industrial music cranks from a boom box nearby, egging Sin on. The freestyle moves become ballet-meets-capoeira-meets-hip-hop as he handstands and backflips, popping his rubber buddy off parts of his body—not to mention Tosh’s Afro, Duck’s belly, and Marsh’s butt as she shrieks with laughter. People are clapping and stomping, whooing and hooing. Pen seizes the moment to press Bruise Blue flyers on the burgeoning mob. Feeding off the frenzy, Sin tops himself with increasingly impossible gyrations until, for a grand finale, he head-bangs the ball into the air. It falls to earth I know not where. Unless of course it actually goes into orbit.
XLVI
With a single piece of extreme-sports performance art, Sin has established a following. Care to guess how many of this eager coterie are female? Naturally, some have boyfriends, and they instruct these boyfriends to drag their blankets and baskets over there—i.e., where we are. Said boyfriends actually oblige. Since who wouldn’t want to hang out with that mad, rad, bad . . . what’s his name? Sin?! No way! Holy crap . . .
So our small crew swells, and Sin, in the center, holds court, looking less than lordly in frayed shorts and not much else. Shoved and shunted by the gaggle, Antonia winds up yet again on the rim. For how could she possibly compete with specimens like these, she with her hunched posture, frail speech, and cement-colored eyes, they with their spray-on tans, dazzling teeth, and twenty-first-century boobs? Tupperware offerings of fried chicken and banana bread, plus assorted other temptations not necessarily edible are made as newcomers jockey for position.
“Sin, let me put lotion on your shoulders—you don’t want to burn!”
“Sin, try my potato salad—it’s a blue-ribbon winner at the county fair!”
“Sin, have you heard this song? Here, use my earbuds . . .” Am I jealous? Damn skippy! But I’ve figured out Sin’s scheme: He’s giving his bride-to-be a preview of coming attractions. The future Mrs. Powers will have to put up with mucho female attention. Is this the life—nay, the eternity—she wants, forever facing a revolving bevy of cuter, cooler, more lascivious competition? He’ll show her exactly how desirable he is, which ought to cure her crush and prove without doubt that he never made her any vow. How could he swear to love anyone?
He’s Sinclair Youngblood Powers, and he loves everyone. So, ladies, ladies, please—form an orderly line!
Catching a glimpse of Antonia huddling by herself, big hands clinging to bony elbows, I think Sin’s ploy might be doing the trick. So as the congregation of girls grasps and weaves, I’m feeling very much the more the merrier, and sure, I’d love a piece of fried chicken, why not. One tasty drumstick later, I don’t even know where Antonia is, but I do need a napkin, badly. I make my way toward the stash I packed, and that’s when I spy her. What draws my eye is the flash of sun on her very large knife, and I feel my blood flow backward. What is she doing? What should I do? Holler an alarm, choke-slam her evil ass? Wait . . . now what? Sin extends toward the blade-wielding whack job. Obedient eyes lowered, she hands off her deadly weapon. He grabs the hilt, then calls to his minions:
“Hey! Who wants watermelon?”
“Me!!!” comes the chorus.
Right, phew, silly me! We do have a watermelon, and wouldn’t its sugary juice be great after all that savory stuff?
“Bring . . . me . . . the melon!” Sin commands.
“The melon! The melon!” comes the exuberant if vaguely aberrant chant.
I’m cracking up as Duck presents the fruit, round as the soccer ball, almost twice the size. He places it before Sin like a sacrifice and trots up to where Marsh and Pen and Tosh and I have gravitated toward one another. Sin, seated, lifts to his knees, the knife poised. Antonia has stood back, out of the picture, perhaps for a better view of her beloved as he readies for this bizarre and hilarious rite. Everyone quiets down as he sonorously intones: “On this most important day of our nation’s history, I hereby slaughter this proud and noble gourd in honor of the great state of Connecticut!” There are cheers as Sin brings the point to pierce the rind.
Except the thing before him is no longer a gourd. It’s a bomb, a grenade, a cannonball—and it explodes. Our cheers become one confused, united scream. Chunks of wet pink meat and hard green shrapnel go flying, a rain of seeds like bullets. The picnic erupts into panic, our new best friends running for cover, tripping over coolers, slipping on Frisbees. Ultimately, as the fallout settles, it’s clear that no one’s really been injured.
Only it’s just us again, Sin’s sycophants scattered.
Talk about buzzkill. Nothing like nuclear fruit to get this party finished. Sin especially seems at a loss, having found the soccer ball and stalking off to kick it around solo. Either he’s being a big baby or strategizing his next maneuver. Marsh and I pick up the carnage, while Antonia fastidiously attends to herself with a sanitizing wipe, a cruel twist to her
contracted smile.
Chalk one up in her column. Yeah, sure, she had nothing to do with the patch that produced the melon, but given her prowess with plants, I unequivocally hold her responsible for its detonation.
So what are we going to do now—pack it in and head for Swoon? That would suck.
“Hey . . .” Tosh, a voice of reason. “Are we hiking to the falls or what?”
That’s right, the falls. Somewhere to go, something to see.
“We really should,” pipes Pen, who’s been there. “So gorgeous. And the trail’s not too tough.” It seems unanimous, except no one moves toward Sin. Well, I’ve seen him in worse moods, so it’s up to me. “The consensus is we should take a hike.”
He checks me from under his forelock and says, “All right.” That was easy.
There’s a picturesque covered bridge that I bet has graced many a postcard, and then the trail begins. “Tough,” I find, is a relative term. The way down is certainly steep. By and large we’re dressed for it; only Antonia, who eschewed sneakers during her spree through Torrington Commons, wears pink lace-up espadrilles. She’s clearly having difficulty on the path, and Sin suffers the grip of her fingers as she baby steps. Despite this hampered progress, we’re soon feeling mist on our skin as we come upon the dramatic cascade pounding some seventy-five feet toward the Housatonic River.
Wows abound all around. Then we stand quietly, admiring the magnificence. It’s hard to be with Sin in the presence of wonder yet unable to share it in any direct way. The light touch of his hand at my sacrum, a hushed adjective in my ear, that’s all I want right now. He’s here, though, scant inches away. We exist on the same plane, in the same place, at the same time. I try to be grateful for that.
Pen pulls out her camera and snaps away.
“Please, Pen,” Antonia says, posing stiffly. “Please do take one of Sinclair and I.”
I assume she’ll want a print and, in her skewed view, see a happy couple. Even though, once the shutter clicks, Sin can’t wait to extricate himself from her possessive proximity. He leaps to the guardrail, the slim margin of safety between tourists and the coursing water, the jagged limestone drop. As he makes it his tightrope, my breath catches in my throat. Last fall, such a feat wouldn’t have given me cause to blink—a golem feels no pain, a golem can’t be killed. Only there’s no way of telling which, if any, immortal attributes Sin retains in his current incarnation—and I don’t want to find out.