Morgue Than Words: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Rock Show



Tick-tock-tick-tock. Joey’s hand propped his head up as he stared unfocussed at the clock of his English class. The faint drone of his teacher was drowned out by his thoughts. Thoughts of the Motley Crue show he was going to that night with the only other people in school who didn’t think he was a freak.


He had not long moved to Charlotte, North Carolina from Des Moines, Iowa and he found it just as hard to make friends here as he did there at first, perhaps more so, but after meeting  Eric, Ben, Racci and Lexi, he didn’t give a fuck. He was just happy to find people with the same interests and were just as outcast as himself in the bible belt school.


“Nathan!”


Joey’s daydream state was broken by his teacher’s shrill tones shouting his name. His real name, he disliked being called Nathan but they insisted on it. His head jerked up and he looked slightly alarmed.


“…um…I…”


He didn’t know what he was trying to say and had made it perfectly clear he hadn’t been listening to a word Mrs Jeyes had been saying.


“Nathan if you’re not going to pay attention there is no point in you being here, take this week’s homework and leave please.”


Joey grabbed his backpack, took the homework papers from the front desk and left. Good. He didn’t mind being sent out, in fact, he was glad. He headed straight for his locker in the empty corridor and pulled out his cassette player and headphones. He spent nearly all of his spare time either, listening to music, playing music or reading about it. He went outside, sat on the wall, pressed play on his cassette player and the sound of “Dr. Feelgood” blasted through him. He had time to pass ‘til the others got out of class so he zoned out the world and focussed on the music, absent mindedly drumming out the beats on his thighs with his hands.


He didn’t even notice the people starting to descend down the school stairs or Eric sitting himself down next to him.


He gave Joey a little nudge, “hey, space cadet!”


“huh?”, he pulled his headphones off and let them rest around his neck.


“you didn’t even notice me sitting down, you’re so spaced out dude!”, Eric said with a grin and a laugh. “so, you stoked about tonight?”


Before Joey could answer, Racci, Lexi and Ben came bouncing down the stairs to meet them. Lexi jumped up on the wall on the other side of Joey and planted a kiss on his cheek, her sleek dyed black – much like his own - hair tickling his arm. They had been dating for a few months now and Joey simply adored her. A little explosion of happiness went off inside him and he couldn’t help but smile.


Although the moment was soon ruined by the rest of the guys mock gagging and throwing up. Typical. Joey’s face held the smile but he shook his head at his friends and slid off the wall to his feet.


“c’mon guys let’s get going, I wanna get ready and go queue up so we get a good spot for CRUUUUE!”, Racci yelled gesturing in the direction of his house.


The five of them headed off towards Racci’s house to get ready, their excited chatter creating a buzz in the air around them. Nothing could beat the atmosphere of a gig night. Live music is what they lived for.


They spent an hour or so changing their clothes, doing their hair and putting on their make-up. The guys taking more time than Lexi, naturally. An assortment of chains hung from Joey’s studded belt, clinking whenever he moved.


“people will hear you before they see you Jo!”, said Lexi with her arms around his skinny waist.


“they’ll have time to get the fuck out my way then!”, grinned Joey, a cheeky glint in his heavily black outlines eyes.


The group left and made their way to the bus stop just as their bus into town was pulling in, they boarded and as they had come to expect, were met with disapproving looks and sighs from the older passengers and sniggers and whispers from the younger ones. They weren’t bothered by it, in fact it gave them a sense of pride. They fed off the reaction from people and it spurred them on to step up their game, aiming to be even more outlandish. They smiled slyly as they sat down in the back and exchanged knowing looks.


A queue of black clad rockers and punks had already formed along the outside of the venue, a sea of spikes, chains and studs, the air so electric around them it felt as if they’d explode when they doors opened. The sky gradually began to darken and people started edging forward as word of opening got passed back through the now considerably larger line.


Once inside they rushed for the barrier to check out the support acts they’d never heard of. Joey liked discovering these unknown bands at shows unlike some of the more elitist of the crowd who stood unmoving practically staring the bands down. It was people like them who were killing the local music scene.  Joey brushed the angry thought off and cheered as the bands last song ended.


Eric attempted to shout over the noise into Joey’s left ear, “dude, so diggin’ them!”


“yeah! Gotta get my hands on some of their stuff for sure!”, He replied, always looking to expand his music collection. He assumed Lexi, Ben and Racci liked them to from the whooping coming from beside and behind him.


Here came the waiting. Various crew members came and went from the stage setting up. Eventually the lights dimmed and the crowd surged forward and erupted into chants of “MOTLEY! MOTLEY! MOTLEY!”


Joey felt Lexi tug on his right arm, “Jo-, can we move further back please? I’m getting too crushed”


He mentally sighed and tried not to look disappointed. As much as he didn’t want to, he couldn’t say no to her. He mouthed to the guys that they were going back and he took Lexi’s hand and guided them out backwards and slightly to the right to where the crowd was less dense. But not too far, he still wanted to be able to enjoy it after all.


A few songs in Joey became acutely aware that someone in front was looking at him. It’s pretty obvious when someone is facing the wrong way at a show. He shifted nervously, only making eye contact with the young dreadlocked man – around his age – , for a second to flash him an uneasy smile before darting his vision back to the stage. He could still feel his eyes on him though. He glanced at him again, this action made the taller man seem like a deer caught in the headlights and he quickly looked away.  But Joey found his gaze still lingering on the other man.  What are you doing? Snap out of it! He thought.  He shook his head as if to shake the thoughts away, whatever those thoughts were, and tried to focus on having a good time.


The band were approaching the end of their set, they had gone off to prepare for the encore and it was at this time Joey found his eyes wandering, scanning the crowd in front for the dreadlocked man. He seemed to have disappeared. Joey felt weirdly disappointed and he had a feeling in his chest he couldn’t quite explain to himself.


The young couple headed outside into the cool night air to wait for their friends who they guessed were still slowly shuffling out from the front of the stage.


It didn’t take them long. “Jooooooey!”, the 3 continued their exaggerated shouts of his name until they spotted him with his arm around Lexi by the phone box. The 5 of them stood there a while discussing the show before heading their separate ways home, hair going flat and make-up running down their faces.


…


A few days later on his way home after searching the local music stores for new tapes Joey decided to stop off at the local library to use their computer. He wanted to visit a site where people arranged to swap or sell their rock and metal music tapes, and cd’s but the only cd player in Joey’s house was in the living room so he didn’t like to use it and in any case his parents and sister Annie didn’t want him using it anyway. He preferred to keep to himself in his room.


He sat down and logged into the site and was about to type up an advert asking if anyone was interested in some of his old tapes and to see if anyone had anything by Motley’s support band when he noticed he had received a message, he clicked on the icon and waited for it to load.


“From: Mr.Motherfucker13”, okay, wonder what this guy wants? He scrolled down to read the message.


“Hey, um. I’m sorry if this is the wrong person, and if it’s the right person, I’m still sorry if this seems at all creepy. Were you at the Motley Crue show in town the other day?...”


He had to stop reading, he felt his face flush and his heart quicken. Was it who he thought it was? How did he find him?


Tentatively, he continued to read on…