Wild Horses

A novel, based on a true story

by Rebecca A.

 

Chapter Thirteen.

We got into Memphis at 2.00pm and found the motel where we were staying. Then we went to do a sound check over at the bar we were playing that evening. We'd finished by 4.30, and as we weren't due to go on until 10.00 we had some free time. Everyone went to do their own thing. The guys all had people they wanted to see and Steve -- who seemed to be in one of his moods -- said he wanted to go off by himself. I was secretly glad since I, too wanted to pursue some private business. I took the number Cee had given me for his friends in Memphis and dialed it. A man's voice answered and I asked for Vanessa. She came to the phone and I introduced myself as a friend of Cary's, and said he had told me to look her up if ever I was in Memphis.

"Do you have some time to meet for coffee?" I asked.

"The heck with coffee, honey, let's find some place we can get a drink."

Vanessa suggested we meet in the bar of the Peabody Hotel. It was a very grand looking place. When I entered the hotel in the early evening it appeared there was a ball or function of some kind taking place elsewhere in the hotel, as the lobby was full of men in tuxedos and women in elaborate evening gowns. The lobby itself was a grand two-story affair with a fountain and large overstuffed furniture. I was dressed in a simple dark green dress and my black slingbacks and as I walked through to the bar I felt plain and strangely unfeminine amongst such finery. Then I noticed a bunch of ducks in the fountain, and I was reassured. They were real, live ducks, quacking and splashing. I smiled. It was hard to feel like you were weird when there were ducks living in the hotel. The Peabody seemed like it had character.

At the bar I ordered a lime and soda and waited for Vanessa. I had told her on the phone how to recognize me, but she had given me no clues about herself, and I eyed all the women in the place to see whether she might have missed me come in. I was the only unaccompanied woman in the bar, and definitely the only one under thirty, so there seemed little chance of that. I took the copy of 'The Dice Man' that Rick had lent me from the mesh shoulder bag I was carrying and began reading it. I had just read the first line and realized it began with a story about rape when I saw Vanessa in the margins of my vision.

I knew it was her before I saw her clearly. She swept in and made a beeline for me. Wow. She was *huge*. At least six feet tall, maybe more. At least as tall as Pris. And big with it. When she spoke her drawl was pronounced, even for Memphis. "Emmmm-ahhh!" she oozed. She had blonde hair -- make that platinum blonde -- piled high on her head and a black wrapover dress that barely contained her extraordinary breasts. Her face was round and fleshy, and she had the beginnings of crows feet beginning to mark her otherwise creamy skin. It was hard to guess her age. Her voice was quite deep, and on the phone had suggested she was older, but she seemed no more than 35 to me in the flesh. She was smiling, and she had her arms open as though she expected me to stand up and be swallowed up in them. "I'm sooo sorry to have kept you waiting!"

I said hello and she sat and ordered a vodka and tonic. "None of that Scandinavian crap daaahling" she insisted to the Bartender before turning to appraise me. "Emma, you look just diviiiiine."

For some reason I blushed. "Thank you for meeting me."

"I could hardly wait," Vanessa breathed. "Dear, Cary Philips is like my own child. I was so, so heartbroken to lose him when they... when he was involved in that unfortunate business."

"Have you heard from him?"

"I had a postcard --"

"-- From San Francisco? Is he okay?"

"-- And a letter. Yes, they were, and yes, he is."

"That's good to hear."

"He's a sweet boy."

"Do you have an address where I can write to him?"

"I'm afraid not." Her vodka arrived and she drank a large mouthful right off.

"Oh."

My face must have fallen, because Vanessa immediately tried to reassure me. "But I'm sure he'll write again. Emma, if I understand it he's not really at liberty to tell anyone where he is. Do you know anything about that?"

I briefly considered how much I would have to tell Vanessa. Since she couldn't help me locate Cee I wasn't sure I needed to tell her anything.

"Tell me, Emma, how is it you came to meet him?" She continued.

I knew we would get to this at some point if I pressed her for information, but now I was on the spot. Cee had said she was a good friend, so...

"We met when he was at Brand."

"Inside?"

I nodded. I suddenly found it difficult to meet her eyes.

"Were you doing volunteer work or such?"

I was still staring at my hands in my lap. "No ma'am. I was an inmate."

Vanessa didn't say anything for a long, long time. I figured she was either puzzled, or shocked, and eventually I looked up at her to find out which. She didn't seem to be either. Instead she had a small smile on her face. "I knew that, Emma," she said gently.

Now it was my turn to be puzzled.

"Cary mentioned in his letter that you might contact me if you needed help. Pardon me for intruding on your life, but I had to know if you were going to be honest with me."

"I uh... I don't need help. I was just trying to find a way to reach Cee -- Cary."

"Cary thought there would be things you would need."

"No. No, I can't think of anything."

"Would you like... would you be willing to tell me how you came to be at that place?"

I sat awkwardly for a moment. Vanessa gestured to attract the barman's attention. "Sugar, we could do with two more Vodka's. We'll take them over there." She indicated a table at the far end of the bar, away from other people. I could see the bartender was thinking of protesting to Vanessa about serving liquor to someone my age, but she gave him a look that evidently made him rethink.

We went over to the table. I felt more like a freak than ever as I walked. I hated it when people knew about my odd situation. I felt so self-conscious. I made sure I smoothed my dress under me as I sat and I crossed my legs and offered her a weak smile.

"Start at the beginning, sugar," Vanessa said as the bartender set our vodkas down on the table and left. So I did. I abbreviated all the stuff about my innocence. Something I couldn't put my finger on about Vanessa suggested to me that she had seen more of the world than I had, and I figured she would draw her own conclusions about whether I was or wasn't a good person based on more than any story I could tell. During the course of the telling I became slightly emotional once or twice, which might have been due to my memories or the two additional vodkas Vanessa ordered, or perhaps a little bit of both.

I finished the story at the point at which I'd last seen Cary, in the back seat of the Malibu bumping down the track from the cabin where Travis was now buried. I didn't feel the need to tell Vanessa anything beyond that.

"Are you happy, Emma?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Please, call me Vanessa. Good. I'm surprised. Not many boys would have dealt well with what you've been through. There must have been something in you?"

I shrugged. I wasn't defensive about my masculinity any longer. I didn't even think of myself as having any masculinity any more, and I said as much to Vanessa.

"Pardon me for asking, sugar, but is that all you?" She waved a hand at me to indicate my body, and I blushed for some reason -- it was strange to be embarrassed about that after everything I'd just told her.

"Yes ma'am."

"Vanessa, please. The gods have been kind to you, haven't they? You're a beautiful woman, Emma." I blushed again. "I really can't pick anything about you that would give you away at all. So tell me, sugar, what are your plans for the future?"

"I don't know, ma -- Vanessa. I guess I'm just happy ..."

"Do you want more?"

"More?"

"Do you want... do you want to become a woman?"

"How?" I genuinely didn't understand.

"Surgery, sugar."

"They can do that?"

"You really haven't been out in the world much, have you? What have you been doing for hormones?"

I confessed that I hadn't had any at all since the last shot Blaha had given me nearly six months earlier. Vanessa seemed concerned, and grilled me about my feelings, and suddenly some of my unease in the previous weeks seemed to make some sense to me. My old male self was starting to come back as the hormones Blaha had given me faded. I wondered what would happen if it continued. Would I become more like a guy, and less like a girl? Would I wind up looking like a girl, or like a guy with tits? What would happen to Steve and me if I started looking less like a girl?

I had just started getting used to being a girl, and I was happy. I didn't know whether I could be anything else, now. Being a guy just seemed so... it seemed so completely different to who I felt comfortable being. So... other.

Vanessa seemed to read my mind, and she told me she shared my concerns.

"Thanks, I think," I said.

"Emma, do you trust me?" Vanessa asked.

"Pardon?"

"Do you trust me?"

I paused for thought. "You're a friend of Cary's, so..." I shrugged.

"Do you have any money with you?"

"Some," I said. "I think sixty dollars." In fact I had almost a hundred that Julia had thrust at me before we had come to Memphis, but I didn't want to reveal that.

"Good." She downed the rest of her drink and motioned for me to do the same. "Come with me, then, dear."

We took a cab, down south on Second Street, past Beale Street which seemed like it was being torn apart building by building, and on a couple of blocks into a neighborhood that looked the worse for wear for different reasons. Most of the people on the streets were colored, and the houses were different, but I had a feeling that in lots of other ways it wasn't too different from the neighborhood I had grown up in. People here were doing it hard, and always would.

We stopped at a two-storey place with an old ornate porch. The flaking paint on the building was so old that its weathered gray color was indistinguishable from the bare timber patches. "I'll need forty dollars, Emma," Vanessa said.

I was going to ask her what it was for but something in her face told me that just by being in the cab outside this place I had already forfeited a large amount of whatever rights to control I had. I was pretty buzzed from the vodka anyway. I reached into my purse and gave Vanessa forty dollars, and she indicated that I should pay the cab as well. I sighed and dug into my purse again as Vanessa consigned the forty dollars to an envelope she extracted from her own purse.

A group of black men were slouched around the door to the building. They reluctantly shifted their hips as we approached so we could squeeze past them into the hallway beyond. Vanessa knocked on a door and after a few seconds we were admitted. Inside it was so dark I couldn't see anything for a few moments, but I was aware of others in the room and I could almost feel their eyes sizing me up. Eventually some dark faces took shape in the gloom, and in the light from a television set at the far end of the room I saw a pale skinned figure observing us.

"You a pretty one, girl," the figure said. I recognized the voice as the man who had answered the phone when I first rang Vanessa, but something about that voice didn't quite ring true with the mass of the figure it was coming from.

"Hush now," said Vanessa. "Girls, this is Emma. She's a friend of Cary's, and y'all know how I feel about Cary, so I want you to make Emma feel real welcome." She turned to me and indicated a chair beside a dark skinned girl next to me. "Sit down, honey, and I'll be right back." She disappeared into a room beyond the television set and I heard her begin to say something to someone inside before she closed the door.

I sat awkwardly, still nervous at being the center of attention. Everyone in the room was staring at me, and at first I averted my eyes and looked at the floor in front of me. When I flicked my eyes back up at the girl sitting opposite me she was still looking at me, and I blushed and studied my hands for a moment. In the quick glimpse I had got I had noticed her heavily made-up eyes and short red dress, and my impression was that she was very possibly a working girl. Another quick glance up and a nervous smile at her confirmed my opinion. She gave only the most imperceptible smile in return, and met my gaze confidently. The woman next to her was older, but similarly attired and made up. Was this some kind of brothel? I wondered.

The male voice from the end of the room said something I didn't catch, and the women laughed. I instinctively felt it was a comment about me, and I blushed. There was something odd about the laughter of the girl next to me, and I turned to look at her. Although the only light in the room was the television I found I could make out her features much better now, and to my shock I noticed that even with her coffee-colored skin she seemed to have noticeable beard shadow. She was a guy. Maybe. I didn't want to stare so I looked away, back at the girl opposite me. She seemed normal enough.

"Where you from, girl?" the man at the end of the room asked. I realized now what had seemed incongruous -- the voice belonged to someone who looked extremely androgynous.

"She lives in Mississippi, Delia," Vanessa said as she opened the door. "Not that it means anything to you. Emma, would you like to come in?"

I stood up and followed Vanessa into the next room. It was slightly brighter than the one I'd just come from, but only just, lighted by a single desk lamp that shone directly downward. There was a figure on the other side of a large wooden desk, visible only in the light that reflected off the dark, worn leather inlay on the desk top, which is to say hardly visible at all. Vanessa guided me to one of two chairs in front of the desk and we both sat down.

"Lester, this is Emma Boyle. Emma, Dr. Lester Savage," Vanessa said.

"Charmed, m'dear," the barely visible Dr. Savage said. I could see that he was white, and that he was fat. A pint bottle of whiskey, three-quarters empty, sat on the edge of the desk not far from the Doctor's right hand. "I understand you are having some women's problems."

That was one way to explain it, I thought. Dr. Savage asked me a couple of questions about my health. I felt awkward about even being in the office with him, especially since I had quickly guessed the nature of part of his practice from the women in the room outside, but his inquiries were brief and pointed, and a few moments later he had scrawled a prescription and passed it across the desk. Then he asked me to undress and lie on the examination table that was barely visible in the gloom over at the side of the office. I looked at Vanessa and she nodded.

I undressed down to my bra and panties and lay on the table as the Doctor lumbered to his feet and went to the other side of the office and unlocked a small cabinet. He took out some packages and unwrapped them as I looked to the ceiling and tried not to be fearful. My mind was full of the possible consequences of being examined in what was clearly an unhygienic environment. He lumbered towards me and I stiffened. "Lie on your side," he commanded, and I complied and waited for his sweaty fleshy touch. Instead I felt a quick swab on my thigh and then the jab of a hypodermic, followed by some pain as a thick substance was injected into my muscle. He finished the injection, swabbed me again and then told me to get dressed. As soon as I was decent, before I had the chance to sit down, he told me he would provide the prescription by mail every two months, and that under no circumstances was I to relate the details of what had just transpired to anyone so long as he was alive. Vanessa slid the envelope across the desk to the Doctor and then stood and led me out of the office.

Out on the street we had to walk to the end of the street to a busier road to hail a cab. I kept rubbing my thigh where Doctor Savage had jabbed it. It had been a while since I had received a shot like that, and Blaha had always given them to me in the butt, which didn't hurt quite so much. Vanessa noticed me rubbing and smiled. "At least it will keep you looking pretty, sugar."

We took a cab to another house in a slightly more upscale neighborhood. By more upscale I mean the windows in the houses all had glass in them -- otherwise there wasn't a whole heap of difference. We walked up a flight of stairs to a large apartment in a run-down building. The place looked totally different inside, clean and bright and well-maintained, although I noticed an electrical outlet was taped to the wall in the small kitchen off the hallway. "Welcome to my place," Vanessa said cheerfully. "Make yourself at home, sugar." She pulled some papers from the top of the refrigerator and passed them to me. "You might be interested in these while I make us a drink."

I begged off the drink, explaining that I had to go on at ten.

"You're a little short to be doing the clubs, aren't you sugar?" Vanessa asked.

"What's height got to do with it?" I asked, puzzled.

"Most of the owners hereabouts, they like their girls a little taller."

I honestly didn't understand what she was getting at for a moment, and then I wondered whether I should be insulted. "Vanessa," I said gently, "I *sing*. I'm not a dancer or anything."

"You sing?" I could tell by the inflection in her voice that she still thought my singing was part of a sex act or a strip show.

"Rock and Roll, R&B," I said. "I'm in a band." I reached into my purse and extracted a flyer for the trip that Ray had given me at the sound check. "Firehouse."

"Oh, my lord!" she said as she finally understood, and then she laughed. "What must you think of me, child!"

"It's okay, really. But I'll stick to water if that's okay with you. The vodka has already been a bit much."

"Heavens, sugar," she said, looking at the flyer and handing me a glass of water. "You do this for a *living*?"

"It's not much of one," I admitted. "But we're just starting out, really. If you want to come tonight I'll put your name on the door."

We went into the living room and I looked at the papers she had handed me. There was a postcard from Cee, and a letter which ran to almost four pages. Reading it didn't add much to the details that Vanessa had told me, but it was nice to see Cary's thoughts on San Francisco and his feelings about being away from Brand. Both were overwhelmingly positive, which was hardly surprising. As Vanessa had said, there was a brief mention of me in the postcard, and then a much longer description of my situation in the letter. 'I believe Em will need help soon,' Cee had written, 'and I hope you'll do everything for her as you would for me. She was my best -- my only -- friend in that horrible place and she deserves only good things.'

I sat in the living room missing Cee more than ever. I was glad he was enjoying California, but I wished I was with him.

I probed Vanessa about Doctor Savage's, and the 'girls' in the room outside his office. "How did you know about a place like that, Vanessa?" I asked. I idly wondered whether she was a real girl. After all, she was so tall, and her voice was quite deep. But her breasts were so large, and her mannerisms seemed very feminine.

"It's okay, sugar, I'm all girl, if that's what you're wondering. Born and raised that way. I'm a kind of aunt to most of them I suppose, and a few of the gay boys working the bars. Most of them don't have anyone else, so I take care of them."

"Take care of them?"

"A little money when times are tough; a lot of love because times are always tough." She drained her glass again. I hadn't seen her pour them and I suspected that hers contained vodka.

"But why?" I asked. "You don't... please pardon me if I'm being rude, but you don't seem to have a lot of money to go around."

"Oh, I have money, sugar. I'm very careful with it, is all." I remembered that I had paid for the cabs -- but then I had told Vanessa I had money.

"As to why," she continued, "I don't rightly know. I suppose I have a kind of natural resistance to the forces that make everyone walk the narrow path, Emma. There's a lot of love in the people society casts out, but very few get to see it."

Vanessa had a soul as big as her body. Maybe bigger.

I asked about the room at Doctor Savage's again. Why were all the girls sitting there? Were they waiting for appointments? Had I jumped a queue? Vanessa explained that they lived there, in the other rooms aside from Savage's office. "He's a harmless old fool who's obsessed by boys in dresses but incapable of doing anything about it since he made friends with the bottle," Vanessa said. "He doesn't have any other practice these days, and the girls take care of him in return for medical services rendered. So long as he treats them well he gets a place to live and he gets to keep his license."

We sat and discussed the Memphis 'scene', which involved a substantial number of drag queens and transsexuals. Vanessa explained the difference to me, and then we got into more personal discussions as she asked me again about my future and then told me about the various surgical options open to me if I decided I wanted to go "all the way". She was a treasure trove of information.

When I left at 9.15pm I felt refreshed. Although surgery had never been on my mind before, the other issues were the sorts of things I had sometimes discussed with Cary, and even though Vanessa was very different to Cary I felt better about having talked about my specific problems with her. They weren't the sorts of things that I could mention to Julia and I was always afraid to raise them with Steve for fear of how he might begin to think of me.

The gig went well, *really well*, and the crowd cried for more. The only difficult moments were before the show, when Steve seemed uncharacteristically subdued and pallid and I worried that he might be getting sick, and after the show when Vanessa and the person named Delia came backstage and Delia's appearance made the rest of the band nervous. Embarrassed, I hustled the two of them off for a drink out front before the bar closed. They had loved the show, and loved my singing, and I found Delia a most intriguing androgyne, with features neither entirely female or male which drew very odd glances from some of the other patrons of the bar, and disturbed me more than I admitted. Her appearance settled one thing in my mind, though: Steve definitely didn't like being reminded of my in-between state. He'd been as disturbed as the other guys in the band when Delia was introduced.

***

We'd been playing to packed houses for months now in Tupelo, and Ray had found us more gigs in Jackson, Knoxville and Nashville that had gone over well. He organized some time for us in a small studio back in Memphis. We went up there on the weekend and laid down ten songs in the two days. Being in the studio was interesting, but it was really pretty hard work. You lay down the tracks separately and combine them in the mix, and it's hard to sound spontaneous and fresh after you've sung the same verse four or five times. I wanted to take a look around the town but there really wasn't any time because we worked so hard all day and were all exhausted by the time we finished.

The engineer who worked on our songs was a cheerful Greek guy named Con who was very patient with us and our naivete about the recording process. He had done some work with Alex Chilton, which blew Brett away because we all thought Alex's records with his band Big Star were fantastic. We stayed late on the Saturday night to record 'September Gurls' in a rough single take as a kind of homage.

Everyone tried their best and Con was a lot of fun to work with, but in the end neither Brett nor Steve was totally happy with the way the songs sounded. It wasn't really very surprising that they sounded rough considering how much stuff we'd tried to record in one weekend! Steve was unhappy with a couple of his solos and Brett thought the overall sound was too muddy. He wanted my vocals to stand out more in he mix. I was flattered, and I was impressed, too. As a singer himself I expected him to want more of his own performances in our recordings, but he was genuinely interested in us succeeding as a band.

During the following week we met up with Ray in Oxford, and he listened to our complaints and then arranged for Steve and I to redo our parts on a couple of tracks the next Saturday, with another engineer doing the mixing. Steve and Brett thought the mix was much better and we ironed out one or two things in my performance that had worried me too. Of course going back into the studio cost us a lot of money, but Ray was supportive and told us we'd get it back eventually in record sales and increased crowds.

Ray rush-pressed an EP of four of the songs from our studio sessions. It contained a song that Steve and Brett had written together, one that Brett had written alone, one that Steve had written alone, and one that Steve had written with me while we were at Brand together, 'No Questions'. Ray said he needed the EP for distribution to radio stations where we were touring. He also got Pete the anarchist to take some photographs of us performing at Elroy's that he could use for publicity.

It cost more than seven hundred dollars for the studio time and the record and the distribution, but everyone kicked in money. I think Julia put up Steve's share. Elroy said he'd put in mine. I tried to protest but I really didn't have any other way of paying. Elroy was a sweetheart. I promised him I would pay him back. I don't think he believed it, but I meant what I said.

When Ray gave us the record we all went over to Lisa and Brett's house and played it about thirty times until nobody could bear to hear it again. Except Bo, who kept playing it over and over again until people begged for mercy. A few weeks later he was *still* playing it.

Our shows featured only original material now, except for encores which were always covers. Our choice of songs to cover was eclectic, to say the least. Brett was well and truly into a Britpop 'punk' phase, while Steve was much more into R&B and my own tastes were slightly more folky. Rick liked any song that gave him a chance to show off on keyboards, Bo liked flat out Rock and Roll and Jim was leaning into a kind of Jazz Fusion, of all things. We usually did at least two songs for an encore, and sometimes more if it was a really good night.

Four months had gone by since our deal with Ray had begun, and it was time for us to go on the road. Our first stop was probably the toughest town we were going to play the whole tour -- a huge gig, to more than 3,000 people, back in Memphis. Ray told us it was going to be okay, but I paid more attention to Elroy's comments. "If they like you in Memphis you'll find acceptance everywhere, but if they hate you..." he said. Seeing that I was worried he tried to reassure me. "'S alright, Emma, they're gonna love you, you know that."

***

Although most of the guys in Firehouse had been in other bands before none of them had ever played a really big house, and none of us really had any idea of what to expect. We loaded everything we had into two vehicles, a van Rick had borrowed from a friend, and Wendy's pickup which held most of the gear. I never really figured out what Wendy did for a living besides hang out with us, but whatever it was he could afford a nice truck and he was able to just up and leave to come with us.

We all gathered at Brett and Lisa's to pack everything into the van and the truck. Everyone was acting like we were going to be gone for months instead of two weeks. Elroy showed up and gave us a couple of six packs for the journey, and I gave him a big thank-you hug and told him we'd send postcards. I think he was almost as excited for me as I was. Julia and Pris said farewell and Pris reminded me with a smile that going on the road trip did not mean I was moving out.

***

>From Memphis we went to Jonesboro, and then down to Little Rock. At first being on the road was fun. When the Memphis show went over well we felt good, and they liked us in Jonesboro, too, even though it was a small gig by comparison. In the weeks before we went on the road we had been practicing a lot, and some of the new songs Steve and Brett had written were really fantastic. Everyone felt great. What's better than playing good music and making people feel good with it?

By the third day we were all getting irritable with one another. We had all stayed up late after playing in Jonesboro, drinking and joking around. We had never performed more than two nights in a row before, and driving between cities was really pretty boring, although we had the constant schizophrenic accompaniment of Iggy Pop and Townes Van Zandt alternating on the cassette player so there was always something to listen to. It wasn't difficult work -- each day we didn't get up until at least 9.00am, and that was usually only because we had to be out of the motel rooms. We were staying in the cheapest places we could find, places where the walls were thin and the mattresses were rotten and the plumbing was shot. We tried to be in our rooms as little as possible. Steve and I had a room to ourselves, but Rick and Bo and Brett and Jim doubled up to save money. Three hotel rooms were eating into our earnings anyway, and when gas and food and booze were included we didn't make much out of most of the shows.

In Little Rock, our third stop, we were part of a double bill with a band called Sons of the Railroad, who were more hard rocking than we were and came from some town I'd never heard of in East Texas. We played first, and then hung around while they played. I got carded, of all things, and asked to leave the bar area, even though the barman had seen me onstage only an hour earlier. It was only 10.30pm and we didn't want to leave. We had all planned to go back to the motel together at the end of the night and Rick and Brett were nowhere to be seen and Jim was dancing with a girl, so Steve and me and Bo and a blonde girl he had met went backstage to the band room to wait for them. We all sat around the room and the girl passed around a flask of whiskey she had.

"This is Maggie," Bo said to us. "Maggie, this here's Emma and Steve."

The girl nodded. "You guys were great tonight. Really."

There didn't seem to be a whole lot to say to that. It was nice to get the praise, but kind of awkward. "Thanks," said Steve, affecting an oh-so-cool air. I couldn't believe the expression on his face and laughed.

"Here, man, you look like you need to relax and deflate your ego," Bo said jokingly. He had some grass and he rolled a joint and passed it over to Steve, and we all laughed kind of nervously. Steve took a hit from it and passed it on to me. I looked at him uncertainly. I'd never tried it before, and I didn't smoke tobacco. He looked at me like I was a child, and so I took it and inhaled and then immediately coughed and spluttered and dropped the joint.

"Sorry!" I said.

The girl, Maggie, picked it up from the floor and took a hit from it like she'd been doing it for years. I felt like such an idiot. She passed it on to Bo with an approving nod, and then it came around again. This time I waved it off. "I don't think I'm made for it," I said. I didn't care if Steve thought I was uncool for not wanting to get stoned.

Maggie was alright. She was not an especially beautiful girl; her skin was pockmarked from a difficult adolescence and her thighs were quite large, but she had a good heart, an open face and a ready laugh, and that seemed to make her more attractive than most of the other women Bo brought backstage after our gigs. I thought at first that Bo had just hit on her out of the blue after our set, because the guys in the band were always making jokes about Bo being such a ladies man. I remembered an old off-color joke Steve had told me about drummers when we first joined the band. But it turned out Maggie was an old friend of Bo's. They went to high school together in Texarkana. She hadn't known he was playing tonight, but had been in the bar and had recognized him. They were both glad to get somewhere quieter to talk, and I thought they deserved some privacy, but Maggie was a real live wire who crackled with jokes and talk and liked to have an audience. She had lost her job clerking at a local business the week before when the old accountant who ran it upped and died, and she was looking to move on out of the area, she said.

After the joint was finished Bo rolled another, and then another, and I think the three of them were pretty stoned by the end of the third one. I felt kind of out of things. Later that night when we all went back to the motel -- Maggie accompanied Bo, I noticed -- Steve was very distant again, and he barely acknowledged me before he hit the bed and slept.

Next morning he was much more cheerful, and we made love after we woke. We lay together afterward and I stroked the hairs on Steve's arm as I lay my head on his chest. I liked Steve's hairiness. I don't know whether I liked it just on its own, or because it reminded me of how different the two of us were and that made me feel just a little more feminine. Maybe it was a bit of both. I was stroking his arm, and he was running his fingers over my neck, when I noticed there was a lot of bruising around the inside of his elbow.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Hmmm? What?" Steve said.

"Your arm. What did you do to it?"

"Huh? Oh, I don't know."

I let the subject go at the time, but I should have known what it meant. I got out of bed and went to the bathroom instead. When we checked out Bo announced we needed to swing by Maggie's place to pick up some stuff -- she was going to come on the road with us. I thought it was interesting that someone would make such a snap decision and just up and leave pretty much everything she had for a week or more, but I was also glad to have another girl riding along with us, even if it did get kind of cramped in Rick's borrowed van. Even though we had been away from Oxford for only a few days, I found I missed having women around. The guys were nice enough, but somehow I just didn't fit in with guys anymore. If I ever had, I thought.

Our tour called for us to swing across through Texas, and into New Mexico, then back into Southern Texas and then into Louisiana. After that it was along the coast and up toward Atlanta taking in most of the major cities along the way. After Atlanta we had Gadsden and Birmingham and then we were back in Oxford. I had never even seen the ocean, so I was looking forward to the coast part of the trip.

I had discovered that washing clothes on the road was impracticable most of the time, and so I'd had to wear a variety of things onstage, from my green dress, in a place that looked better than most in Austin, to just plain t-shirt and jeans in a rough looking place in Alexandria. Mostly it didn't seem to matter much. As Julia had predicted, people liked to look at me and the first part of our shows always went better when I dressed up than when I wore t-shirts, but once we got to the part of our second set everyone called 'the quiet songs', the ones that Steve had written for me specially, the atmosphere in every room we played changed and got really intense. As we performed in front of different audiences I got more comfortable with myself on stage and Brett and Steve and I even worked out some onstage banter between songs that the crowd seemed to like. Everywhere we went people thought we were great, and we actually sold a lot of the EP's that Ray had given us. After we did the show in Baton Rouge a guy from one of the local radio stations came up and asked us to do an interview with him, and he made us a feature of his next show. Ray was ecstatic, and ordered more records.

I was beginning to warm to Ray. At first I had dismissed all his talk about big success and records and all that, but I had to hand it to him: he worked hard. Every gig he had ever set up for us had been in a good, well-run place that could pull a crowd, and on the road trip every place we went he had already sent records on ahead to the local radio stations and followed up with phone calls to make sure they would play them. He had a network of people in most of the towns we went to who put up posters promoting our shows and got articles placed in the local paper. Whenever we got into town Ray would visit the local record store to see whether they would stock the record. We weren't the only band he managed, but it seemed like he gave us all his attention.

Our first single broke in Dallas -- Ray had taken the song from the EP that Steve had written with me, 'No Questions', and done a separate pressing of it backed with our cover of 'September Gurls', and some DJ there just wigged out on it and convinced the program director to put it on high rotation. Within a week it seemed like it had rippled out from there. By the time we got to Louisiana it was getting nation-wide airplay, our gigs were selling out, and scungy journalists started calling our motel rooms. Ray flew down to Baton Rouge to be with us, and begin to plan putting an album together.

I noticed that all the guys smoked dope, and there was a lot handed around. I was kind of curious about it -- I don't want you to think I was some kind of ultra-straight kid who was morally opposed to it or anything, and I sure didn't want the guys to think that. But I had never smoked tobacco, and after that time with Maggie and Bo I thought I couldn't smoke anything. Steve tried to teach me, but it didn't work. I just coughed and spluttered and everyone laughed at me. So I was the only one who didn't get stoned most nights.

We were in the van just outside Mobile, joking about the amount Bo had drunk the night before, when a cop pulled the van over. Rick was driving and Ray was in the front seat beside him, and Steve, Bo, Brett and I were in back. Wendy and Jim were in the pickup and kept on going after we got pulled over. I didn't know what was happening at first -- Rick said "Shit" and began to pull over and I thought something was wrong with the van.

"It's cool," Ray said. "Bo, make sure your stash is hidden away somewhere safe."

"What's up, man?" Bo said.

"Cop," Rick said dejectedly.

I felt, more than saw, Steve stiffen in the seat beside me. I took his hand and squeezed it. "It's okay," I said. "Everything will be okay." I don't know why I said that but it was probably to reassure myself as much as Steve.

Rick stopped the van and turned off the engine. A few moments later the cop walked along the side of the van and appeared at Rick's window. He was tall and thin and hard looking. "See your license?" the cop said. Rick handed it over. "Registration?" the cop said.

Rick got it from the glove compartment. "It's not my van. It belongs to a friend." I looked over at Steve. He looked like a caged animal. I could see his muscles flexing as he considered leaping from the van and running.

"Good friend, lettin' you drive it this far," the cop said. "Know why I stopped you, son?"

"No, sir." Rick said.

"You got some wire" -- he said it 'wayuh' --"hangin' from the back of your van. It's draggin' behind you."

"Oh. Thanks," Rick said. "Mind if I get out and look?"

The cop nodded his assent. Ray and Rick both got out and went around the back of the van. The cop peered in past Rick to try to get a look inside as they opened the back door. He was looking straight at Steve. I could sense Steve's body go rigid.

"Damn," Ray said. Sure enough a lead had flopped out of one of the boxes in back of the van, and whoever had packed it had shut the van door without noticing it hanging out. The plug on the end of the lead was ruined. "Well, thanks for letting us know, officer."

The cop looked away from Steve and I could feel the tension ease slightly.

"Musicians, huh?" the cop said, peering at some of the gear in the back.

Ray couldn't resist handing him a handbill for the trip with the dates for the tour.

"Firehouse. That's easy to remember." He folded the handbill and put it in his pocket. "Well, y'all enjoy your stay. And pack your load better next time."

Ray closed up the back and he and Rick got back in the van as the cop drove on. "Jesus," said Bo as Rick started the van, "*Now* I could use a drink."

I noticed Maggie was staring at Steve strangely as we drove off. Had she noticed anything unusual about his behavior?

We got into Mobile early in the afternoon and did our sound check quickly. Wendy was getting practiced at our setups and was able to do everything much quicker these days. Then we went to the motel to check in. Afterward the guys and Maggie wanted to get out and look around, but I was feeling tired, and thought I'd lie down for a while before dinner. I fell asleep for an hour and woke up around dusk.

I suppose I shouldn't have pried. I should have left well enough alone. Steve's guitar case was lying in the corner of the room, and I was bored, and I went over to pick up the Gibson to try to play a few of the songs we had been working on. I picked it up from the case and carried it over to the bed, where I sat on the end and strummed a couple of chords, thinking about the opening to 'Nowhere I Could Go', a song Steve and Jim had written together that Steve had been trying to teach me to play. The guitar didn't sound right, but it wasn't the tuning. I held it up and heard something moving inside it, and when I turned it over a small plastic bag with a tiny amount of white powder in it fell out.

Ohhhh, Steve... My heart fell to the floor along with the bag.

It was almost 7.30pm when Steve returned to the motel. We were due to go on at 8.00pm. I had found the syringes he used in his shower bag with his razor, and I was waiting for him, sitting on the end of the bed with the guitar lying beside me and a syringe and the bag of heroin in my lap. As soon as Steve opened the door to the motel room he saw me, and his face fell. Neither of us said anything for a few moments. I guess my face was saying "Well?" and I didn't have to.

"Em... " He didn't know what to say, and he threw his hands up. He walked over to his duffel bag and extracted a shirt from it, then peeled off the t-shirt he was wearing to change. When I saw his naked torso I started to notice the signs I should have picked up on earlier. There were bruises on both his arms, and his once muscular chest had lost some definition. He didn't look too bad, but if I had been paying more attention I should have noticed him getting run down. Well, I had noticed him looking pale and stuff, but I hadn't thought about heroin.

"You're not going to say anything?" I said finally.

"What do you want me to say?" He said as he pulled on the shirt and began to button it up. "Sorry? I don't think that's really it, do you?"

"Steve... Why?"

"Why not?" He shrugged again. "I wouldn't expect you to understand, Em."

That hurt. That he couldn't talk to me. That he thought I wouldn't understand. That really hurt. I tried to hold it back but a tear ran down my face.

"I *don't* understand, but maybe if you talked to me more..."

"That's the problem, Emma, alright? I don't want to talk to anyone. Okay?"

"Steve..." I got up and walked over to him. I wanted to hug him, but he turned away.

"Not now, Em. We're gonna be late for the gig."

"Fuck the gig!" I said, really crying now.

"Oh, shit," he said wearily. "Look, can we not do this now? Please?"

"Steve, I --

"I mean it, Emma. You know why I didn't tell you? Because I didn't want any of your 'we can work it out' stuff, alright? That's not what it's about. Just let's forget about it now and we'll talk about it later." He brushed past me and scooped up the smack from where I'd left it on the bed, then went into the bathroom and closed the door.

He was right. I didn't want to do this now. I went outside and got into Wendy's pickup to go with him to the bar. A few moments later most of the other guys came out and got into the van, and then Maggie joined me in the pickup.

"What's the matter, honey?" She said when she saw my tear-stained face.

"Steve," was all I could say. She put her arm around me and I sobbed for a few moments.

"He was acting kind of strange this afternoon when that cop stopped us," Maggie said. "Is he in any trouble, Emma?"

I lifted my head from her shoulder. "What do you mean?"

She looked embarrassed. "Sorry, it's none of my business, right? It was just... he looked like he was hiding something. Has he been hurting you?"

"No," I said, wiping my nose. "No. He's just... I don't know what to think, Maggie. I just wish he'd talk to me about stuff, you know?"

"He's a guy, Emma. Haven't you worked all that out yet? Guys never talk about stuff that's important. Not unless they're about to die or somethin'."

"Maybe."

"Don't push him, just let him talk to you in his own time," she said. Then she laughed. "Hah! Here's me givin' you advice. I'm practically the winner of the Elizabeth Taylor award for stable relationships! Emma, ignore everything I say, okay? I want you to promise me you'll ignore any advice I offer you."

"I promise," I said, and smiled. Maggie was a good tonic. I was still hurting inside but it was hard to stay upset around her for very long. Wendy came out and got in the driver's seat and we headed off to the gig, and Maggie did her best to put my mind on other things.

***

At the bar Steve and I didn't speak to one another. The guys were all looking at us like they were afraid to say anything. I think that was sensible.

We played like shit that night. I was all messed up emotionally and my sinuses were all blocked up from crying. I think Steve had shot up before we left the motel now that he didn't need to hide it from me. His guitar changes were sloppy and although I managed to sing on key I couldn't put any feeling into the songs.

During the break between our sets Steve and I couldn't even bring ourselves to look at one another. "For god's sake!" Brett said. "I don't know what it is, but can't you two make up?"

"I don't know, Brett. Why don't you ask Steve?" I said. I felt lost and alone, caught up in swirling waters that were taking me in directions I didn't understand.

After we finished the show Steve left on his own. The others looked at me like there was an explanation I should give, but I burst into tears and crumpled into a little ball on the floor. Bo and Maggie pulled me up and hugged me, and Ray told them to take me back to the motel. I was really upset. The stress of the day was getting to me. Ray tried to get me to take a pill he had, but I hissed "No drugs!" at him and he recoiled like I'd bitten him.

When I woke up next morning Steve was lying on the bed next to me, still in his clothes. I looked at his face while he was sleeping. God, I loved him more than I could say, but I was so worried for him, and I was still hurt from last night. I couldn't believe he felt he couldn't talk to me. I felt so much for Steve there was nothing I wouldn't tell him. Why didn't he feel the same way?

When I reflected on this later I saw that what I thought wasn't really truthful. There were many things I hid from Steve or tried not to remind him of, like the male parts of me, the way I worried about our future and the way I felt about not being enough of a woman for him. I hid those things from him because I didn't want to worry him. Maybe he thought he was protecting me, too.

I got up and took a shower and washed my hair. My hair was halfway down the middle of my back and in need of another trim, and it needed a lot of shampoo and conditioner each time I washed it. I felt better after the shower, but I still felt numb inside. I combed my hair out carefully and blotted the excess water from it and thought of how happy Steve had been in those first weeks after I had revealed my secret to him at Brand and we had made love several times a night. With a tear in my eye I reflected that since we had been out of Brand things hadn't been quite so good, what with Travis and then Steve's moods and now the drugs. I thought on it and realized that Steve's moods were probably related to the drugs rather than anything I had done, unless he was taking drugs because of something to do with me. I shook my head as though to clear the thoughts from it. How the hell did I know what Steve thought or felt when he wouldn't talk to me?

When I came back out into the motel room Steve was awake and sitting on the edge of the bed., and he watched me as I walked across to my bag and selected some clothes for the day. When I dropped my towel I faced away from him, as I always did when I dressed, and I pulled up my panties and tucked myself back in them and then reached for my bra.

"Em, I'm sorry," Steve said. I turned to face him. "About last night, I mean."

I thought that was all I needed to hear and I turned to look at him. In the subdued light through the crack between the curtains I could see his blue eyes, shadowed with dark rings beneath them from lack of sleep and who knows what else. I knew he meant the apology sincerely, and I crossed the floor to him and sat on his lap. He cupped my left breast in his hand. I lay my head against his. We sat with our arms around each other for a few minutes, not saying anything, just feeling closeness with each other.

Eventually there was the issue of Steve's drug use to consider. I didn't quite know how to bring it up, and Steve seemed to sense that I wanted to say something but couldn't. "It will all be okay, Em, I promise," he said. "I can keep it under control."

I didn't really believe that but I didn't want to fight with him. Instead I lay down on the bed and he lay next to me and touched me, so gently, on the face and neck and breasts. I felt those familiar butterflies running through my insides in a soft fluttering as my body responded to his touch.

We touched each other slowly and softly and sweetly as though we were discovering each other for the first time, both afraid but entranced by one another. He was hard, and I ran my fingers lightly up and down the length of his cock as he stroked his fingers up my belly and over my breasts and neck to my mouth. Then he bent over me and started kissing my neck, and my breasts, and my stomach, and then the insides of my thighs. I tried to give his cock more attention but he pushed me back on the bed and continued to stroke me and kiss me, and then nibble on my nipples until I thought my insides were going to melt. Whenever he did those things to my breasts I felt the sensations somewhere deep inside me, in a way that went right to my core, and it was beautiful and scary all at the same time -- scary because it felt like if I gave in to the blissful sensations my body would melt away, dissolve away, and never come back. I felt warm and soft and pliable, and gradually I became aware that I was moving my hips, needing him, wanting him in me to respond to those movements. After who knows how long he paused in his kissing and nibbling and stroking and rolled me onto my front and pulled my panties down. He took a pillow from the top of the bed and thrust it under my hips, and then I felt him apply some lubricant to me and then position his cock at my opening while he put his hands under me to touch my breasts. In a moment he was inside me, in a quick thrust that made me cry out because it hurt, but then the hurt turned into something different, an overwhelming satisfaction, and he was moving in me and I was moving my hips in return and he felt so good and I felt warm all over and tingling sensations in my nipples and crotch and then it was even more intense and I thought I wouldn't be able to bear his fingers on my nipples a moment longer and his cock felt like it would break me in two and then he found a spot inside me that sent me into spasms of pain and ecstasy and confusion and then again, more ecstasy, I needed him so badly, I wanted it never to end, never, and he thrust into me harder and stronger and we had never ever fucked like this, slow but strong and I kept spasming until I was weak and moaning and I thought I was going to lose myself forever. And then I did, there was no me, there was just us, just Steve and me as one and I had no thoughts, just sensations over and over and stronger and wider through my whole body radiating out from my belly but up through my arms and legs and then back again, my *whole* body, my fingertips, and I was hot and confused because there wasn't only me, there was us, and then his breathing changed and we were fucking more quickly, urgently and there was a grunting noise coming from one of us and some moaning from the other and then Steve came inside me with a gasp, and it was him and me again and he thrust six, eight, twelve times into me and collapsed on top of me. I could hear his breathing next to my ear and he whispered my name, "Emma, Emma... Emma."

 

***

 

 

Chapter Fourteen

During the next few days Steve and I maintained a different kind of relationship than we had before I discovered the heroin. In some ways we were even closer, but in others... I think I had lost some of the respect I had for him. Before, he was invincible. Afterward... I couldn't understand why he felt that way; why he felt so bad about himself that he needed it.

I was sure Steve was still shooting up. Whenever we got into town he would disappear for a few hours, and he always looked distant and dull when he showed up to play. After that bad night in Mobile his performance improved, though -- in fact in Columbus, two nights later, he put in one of the best sets I'd ever heard him play. After the show he left alone, without talking to anyone. I went back to the motel with Wendy, Bo and Maggie. "Great show," Bo said, "but this ain't what I signed up for, y'know?" I nodded sadly.

The next morning I woke to find Steve laying on the bed next to me again, and he apologized once more.

I looked deep into his eyes.

"Steve, what is it you want?"

"I don't know, Em," he whispered. "I don't know."

"Is there something I can do to help?"

He didn't say anything. We both lay together for about five minutes without saying anything at all. Then he turned his head back to look at me and said quietly "You don't know what it's like. You should try it."

I didn't see how both of us developing a drug problem was going to help us. "I don't think so, Steve."

"Just once, Em. Then you'll know why."

I didn't want to lecture him. I knew that wasn't the way to bring us back together. Steve wasn't going to give it up just because I said so, and I knew from watching him in the preceding few days that if I made him choose between me and the drugs I'd lose. Not at first -- I hoped that initially he would choose me --but one day I'd find another needle. I ran my hand over the stubble on his cheek. His skin was dry and dull-looking.

"When did you start?" I asked.

"Uh... the first time was about a week after we arrived in Oxford. Leon and me were out at a place over to the west, listening to some wild music, and we hung out with the guys playing it later on, and they offered it and, you know... it was alright."

"Leon was doing it too?"

"He decided he didn't want to keep on doing it. I think he thought he liked it too much."

"Was he right?" I wished Leon had stayed. He had been good for Steve.

Steve shrugged.

"Who do you get it from?" I asked.

"All over. It's not hard, Em."

"You've been buying it in places we've toured?"

He nodded. "I scored some in Memphis, and Austin, and Mobile."

That gave me something else to worry about. I would always wonder whether he was going to get arrested for heroin when he went out. It wasn't enough that he was a wanted escapee, now he was a drug addict too. There had been very little in the plastic bag when I had found it in Mobile, and I guessed that he would need to get more soon.

"You said you could keep it under control, but that's not true, is it, Steve?"

"Emma, you know you mean everything to me. I wish... I wish you could understand this."

We hit the road to Atlanta. Although our shows had been great since the debacle at Mobile, the atmosphere in the van was bad. No-one felt much like talking, except Maggie who kept trying to cheer everyone up without much success. When 'No Questions' came on the radio as we were driving into Atlanta nobody smiled, and Brett turned the volume down on the pretext of asking for directions and not being able to hear Bo's reply. At the venue Steve bailed on us as soon as the sound check was over, as usual, and I went back with Maggie to the cheap motel we'd checked into earlier.

I called the apartment in Oxford. Pris answered, sounding cheerful. It was great to hear her voice. She was on her own because Julia and Pete had gone to Jackson for the weekend with some friends. "It's kind of quiet without you," she said. I didn't want to tell her about Steve and the drugs over the phone, so I talked about the shows we'd done and she told me about the events of her week. I was suddenly lonely and wishing I was back in Oxford. After I finished talking to Pris I rang Elroy and felt even more homesick. He told me he was missing me, too. We talked for about ten minutes until my supply of dimes was used up.

I was still musing over what to do about Steve, and so Maggie tried to divert me by steering me into a co-operative beauty session. We spent the late afternoon in my motel room painting each other's nails and fooling with our hair. I touched up the roots of Maggie's hair -- which wasn't naturally blonde at all -- using a bleaching kit we picked up at a drugstore around the corner, and she helped me put mine in rollers and then style it with lots more body.

Steve still wasn't back at the motel at 7.00pm, when we were due to head off to the gig, so we all waited, and waited next to the van in the parking lot. Brett was really pissed at him for being late.

At 7.45 Steve finally showed up, completely stoned. Whatever Brett was planning to say to him never came out, since it was obvious that arguing with Steve while he was in that state would be fruitless. We got to the venue at 8.30 and went on for our first set at 9.00. The place was cavernous, maybe the biggest bar I'd ever seen, but it was packed with college kids who gave us a huge welcome when we took the stage.

I never really understood how Steve could play so well while he was so out of it, but he could. If anything he played even better when he was stoned. Perhaps he wasn't great in a technical sense, but when he was stoned the feeling that he put into the music was extraordinary. It was like he was feeling the music as much as playing it.

The rest of us were just as good that night. Whether we all fed off Steve or just finally learned to put our differences aside and really play as a band, everyone came together for three really powerful sets of music. We did an encore, and then we were out of original material and so for the second encore we did a high-octane frenetic version of one of Brett's recent discoveries, Pete Shelley's 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)' with him out front and me backing and then closed with me doing a rather melancholy version of an obscure song we'd practiced at the sound check the past three days, 'Junk Man'. It was a song I'd liked a lot since I'd heard Pris playing it in the apartment a few weeks earlier, but now there was an ironic tinge to the words.

"Southside girls they told me

That you were hot as fire

And I remember every word you said

When you told me I'd get burned

I said don't worry baby

I'll just live and learn

I should have listened to the junk man"

When you're onstage under lights it's hard to see past the first row or two of people in front of you unless the bar is very well lit too. Most of them aren't. You can see thirty or so faces, and between songs you can occasionally hear louder people further back, but mostly you're only aware of the people onstage with you. You get almost all of your feedback from the crowd at the end of each song. With the exception of the Mobile show, the applause had been getting better and better every night we'd been on the road, and in Atlanta that night the crowd stomped and hooted for more for a full three minutes after our third encore.

Because we couldn't see, or hear above the ruckus, we didn't know when we finished the encore that the police had entered the bar, and so we all went backstage unaware of any problem. Once we got into the room set aside for us I could see as soon as Steve laid his guitar down that he was about to head out into the night again, and I went over to him and put my arms around him. "Stay with me tonight," I said softly.

He looked at me and I could see he was momentarily torn, but I knew I'd lose and was a fool for trying. "I'll only be a little while, Em, I won't be late." He pulled away from my arms and walked out of the room and out the back door. Bo looked at me and shrugged, then passed me a beer.

About 30 seconds after Steve had left the cops showed up at the door to the room. I was busy helping Rick with some cables and didn't notice them at first. It was only when I became aware that everyone else in the room had stopped moving that I looked up. There were two of them, a man and a woman, both in plain clothes, both holding badges up for us to see. The guy was probably in charge, because he spoke first.

"Looking for Steve Hammond," he said to Brett, who was closest to him.

Brett looked over at me and then at the rest of us before he looked back at the cops. None of us knew what to do. Finally I spoke up. "You just missed him." I nodded toward the corridor that led to the back door.

At that moment we heard a loud cracking sound outside through the small barred window in the room that opened onto the parking lot. My heart went into my throat. I recognized the sound, even though it was further away than the last time I had heard it. It was a gunshot. The male cop ran toward the back door and the policewoman drew her gun and pointed it at us one by one.

I felt the beginnings of panic.

None of us moved. It wasn't just because of the gun pointed at us; we were all hanging on the next sounds. From the bar there was the dull thump of some canned music that management had put on after we finished playing, but we were waiting to hear what was going on outside. In a few seconds we heard shouting, it sounded like the cop, and then we heard a siren, briefly. It seemed like it was right below the window. Then some more, indistinct shouting, and then just the dull thump thump of the bass from the music in the bar.

The policewoman broke us from our freeze. "You all in the band?"

Brett spoke up this time. "Yes ma'am."

"'Cept Maggie and Wendy," Bo said, indicating them with a nod of his head. "They work behind the scenes." That wasn't quite true in Maggie's case, but it was the shortest way to explain their involvement.

"Would you mind not pointing that thing at me?" Jim asked the policewoman. She showed no sign of lowering the gun. She didn't look much older than any of us, I reflected. She was nervous, and her nervousness while armed was making us all nervous. We all looked at one another uncertainly.

In a few moments the male cop came back to the door, looking flushed and sweaty, accompanied by two uniformed cops. "Okay, everyone, up against the wall,' he yelled. "Arms on the wall, legs apart!"

There was shouted chorus of complaint from everyone except me. I knew how this worked from my time at Brand.

"I said up against the wall, people!" One of the uniformed cops grabbed Brett's shoulder and muscled him toward the wall, then forced his hands upward. The rest of us reluctantly followed suit. The policewoman came over to Maggie and began to frisk her roughly. I figured she'd probably get to me next. I could hear the other cops patting the guys down. My panic was increasing as I was wondering what the shot meant, worrying about where Steve was, and feeling sick.

Bo gave voice to all our thoughts. "What happened outside?"

"Your friend just shot a cop," the male plainclothes policeman said with venom. At that point all my senses failed me and I hit the floor.

***

I came to with four people standing over me: the two plainclothes police, Bo and Maggie. It took me a little while to focus enough to make out their faces, and a little longer to realize where I was and what had happened.

"Are you alright?" The policewoman asked me.

Steve shot a cop? It didn't make any sense. Steve never carried a gun. The only time I'd ever seen him anywhere near one was in the cabin when he shot Travis, and those were exceptional circumstances. I couldn't imagine what he'd want a gun for.

"Emma?" It was Maggie asking this time.

I blinked a couple of times and tried to sit up. Whoa. Slowly, I thought to myself as my head spun again for a moment.

"Are you okay?" Maggie asked again.

"Yes. Yeah... Yes, I think so. What happened?" My head hurt. I must have hit it on a nearby chair when I went down.

"You passed out, Em," Bo said. In the background I could hear the other cops taking names and addresses from Jim, Rick and Brett.

"No... no, I mean what happened to Steve?"

"Munsey, call for another ambulance," the female cop said. "We need to get her checked out."

"No ambulance," I said. "I'll be okay. What happened to Steve?"

"I don't know yet," she admitted. She mouthed 'do it' to one of the uniformed cops. "I was in here with you. The report back was that your friend shot a cop in the parking lot."

"Steve would never do that," I said. I looked around for the male plainclothes cop but he had left the room. "Please can you find out --"

"-- What's your name?" she interrupted.

"Emma Donaldson," I said. I was sharp enough to remember that the license Pete had given me said 'Donaldson' instead of Boyle. I noticed Bo look at me strangely, though. He only knew my surname as Boyle.

"What's your relationship to Steve Hammond?" she gave me her hand and helped pull me up to rest in one of the room's few chairs.

"He's my boyfriend," I said. "Can you find out what's happened to him?" I wondered whether he really had shot a cop. It didn't make any sense. Had the cop busted him for heroin possession? Or was it something to do with Brand?

My head hurt.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Nineteen."

"You don't look it."

"Yeah, that's what everyone says."

"Lean over," the Policewoman continued. "It'll help keep the blood to your brain."

I put my head down. The uniformed cops had finished taking names and addresses, and there was relative quiet in the room. Outside I could hear car doors slamming and many voices, all too low to be understood above the bass from the music next door. Even with my head down I felt dizzy, and sick. I thought of Steve onstage just twenty minutes ago, and I raised my head again to argue with the policewoman and find out what had happened. As soon as my head came above my shoulders I knew I wasn't in a fit state to argue with anyone. My head swam and I felt sick. I felt a dull ache inside me, in that part of my belly that Steve had made feel so good so many times. There was a sharper pain on the back of my head, but it didn't hurt in the same deep way that my insides did.

"We'd like you all to come down to the station to make statements," I heard the policewoman say to the others before she turned back to me and said "I'm still going to have a doctor look at you."

"I'll go with her," I heard Maggie say. "If that's all right. You can ask me questions there, right?"

"What about our stuff?" Brett asked. I could tell he was still pissed from being frisked. I realized they hadn't frisked me yet, unless it was when I was unconscious. Maybe they had, and that was why the policewoman wanted me to see a doctor. I wondered what she thought if she knew my secret. I wondered whether the others knew now too. Bo and Maggie had seemed concerned when they were leaning over me, so it seemed unlikely, but... None of this was making a lot of sense to me. What had happened to Steve? I needed to know before I could think properly about anything else. I began to weep, noiselessly.

"Your stuff will be locked up, here. We may need to search this room anyway," the policewoman said as though she was only just thinking of the possibility.

"We don't have to go to the station, do we?" Rick said. His voice also indicated he was hostile after being frisked. "I mean, if you're not charging us with anything."

"Is there something we should be charging you with?" One of the uniformed cops said darkly.

The police began hustling the guys out of the room. "I'm gonna stay with Emma," Maggie said to Bo. To the policewoman, she said "Where will you send her?"

The policewoman shrugged. "Probably Northside."

"Can you go there after the police station?" Maggie asked Bo. "I think we'll be there a while." I felt her hand on my shoulder. I idly wondered why she thought we'd be a while.

The guys left with the uniformed cops and about five minutes later two paramedics arrived to take me to hospital. Before we left I was able to raise my head, and I saw the policewoman talking to the male plainclothes cop in the corridor. I tried to hear what they were saying but it was difficult

"Are you in any pain?" one of the paramedics asked me as he took my pulse. I was puzzled at all the attention. All I really wanted to know was what had happened to Steve. Was he alright? I still felt sick, and my head hurt, but none of that meant anything until I knew whether or not Steve was okay. He injected something into my arm.

"It's not her fault if she has lousy taste in men," I overheard the policewoman say in a brief break in the music from the bar. The guy's reply was lost as the next song began.

Whatever the paramedic gave me began to kick in, and the rest of the night became a bit of a blur. I remember the back of the ambulance was crowded. I was lying down on one side of the compartment. The paramedic was next to my head on the other side, and next to him near my arm was Maggie who was holding my hand. At the rear near my feet was the policewoman. She kept trying to ask me questions. I don't remember what I answered. I remember Maggie was great.

The policewoman told me Steve was uninjured but had been arrested. More than that she either didn't know or didn't want to say.

We arrived at the hospital I was put on a gurney and wheeled into a little cubicle with a bed in it, and various doctors and nurses asked me questions. Maggie answered a lot of them. I had to answer the dumb ones, like where was I and what day was it and who was the President, and then they did stuff like stroke the bottom of my foot with something sharp, apparently to test my reflexes. Eventually a doctor started poking around at the back of my head. From his questions and comments I realized that I had a large gash at the back of my head where I had hit it on a metal chair as I fainted. That explained why my head hurt so much. I hadn't bled too badly, but they wanted to make sure I was okay. The doctor was finding it hard to see the wound through all my hair.

"You're not going to cut my hair, are you?" All of a sudden I was overcome with paranoia about that. I thought that if my hair was cut I might look more like a boy, even though I knew that was unlikely from my own experiments tying it back.

"I don't think we'll need to do that," the doctor reassured me. "I can see it now." He wiped the wound with something and made some 'Uh huh' noises, and then told me I could sit back against the pillow again.

"I don't think it's as bad as it looks," he said. ."But we'll do some x-rays to be sure. Are you pregnant?" He asked. When I didn't say anything, he said "What's wrong?". I looked past him at the Policewoman and Maggie, and he took the hint and asked them to leave the cubicle for a few minutes. Then he asked me the same kinds of questions Dr. Bagley had asked me back in Mississippi. I wondered if he was going to want to do a pelvic exam. I figured the answer was no, so I pretended everything was normal, and didn't tell him the truth about my body. He seemed to accept my answers. I guess he had no reason to doubt them.

Then the Doctor had me shunted off to x-ray while the policewoman asked Maggie a lot of questions about Steve. By the time I got back Bo was there, along with Brett and Wendy.

"You okay, kiddo?" Brett asked.

"Yeah, I guess. Do you know how Steve is?"

"He's in a shitload of trouble, Emma." Brett looked. "I can't believe that he did it, but..." he glanced at the policewoman, who was still sitting at the other side of the cubicle. I think he realized we couldn't really talk about Steve with her present.

"You guys are all okay, though?"

"Yeah," Bo said. "They just asked us a bunch of questions, like how long had we known Steve, that sort of thing."

"That's good," I said. "I was worried about Steve, but I was worried about you guys, too."

"Em, do you have the number for his sister? We should, you know, get him a lawyer and stuff," Brett said.

I gave Brett the number. "I don't know if Julia... Um, Julia has money, but not a lot of her own. And Steve didn't exactly see eye to eye with his Dad, you know?" I looked at the policewoman, unsure of whether I should say anything more. "Give her a call. No, no, wait." Maybe it was the drugs and all, but I had forgotten about my phone conversation with Pris momentarily. "She's away for the weekend. Um, can you, can you phone Pris instead? She might know how to get Julia. Tell her I'll call her as soon as I can, okay?"

Maggie and the guys left, and it was just the policewoman and me in the cubicle. "Now that you're more lucid," she said, "perhaps we can go over a few more things."

"Are you going to arrest me?" I asked.

"I don't think so. Have you done anything wrong?"

"No," I answered truthfully. If she had asked me if I'd done anything illegal, I might have thought about a different response. But I had done nothing wrong.

"How long have you known Steve"

So much for being truthful. From her comments and questions I was beginning to think she didn't know about my time at Brand. Maybe she didn't know about Steve's time there either. Of course, it would only be a matter of time until they found out about Steve's record. I wondered if he would say anything about me.

"About six months," I lied.

"Has he ever been in trouble before?"

I didn't know if I should continue to answer her questions, because I knew that if my story was in any way different to Steve's they would use my deception against him. "I don't think --"

"Emma, I'm just trying to help," she said.

She had been pretty nice so far. That was pretty remarkable since Steve was accused of shooting a cop. I'd heard that when people do that the cops usually go crazy in revenge, Maybe it was because she was kind of young for a cop.

On the other hand I didn't think for a moment that me speaking up would help Steve. Fortunately at that moment the Doctor returned.

"I don't think I should say anything until I talk to a lawyer, you know? I don't want to get Steve into trouble," I said to the policewoman.

Her eyes narrowed and I wondered whether my stance would make her look more closely into my own background. But after trying one more time to get my cooperation she gave up. She turned to the Doctor "Are you going to keep her all night?"

"I think so," he said. "Just for observation."

She left, and then the Doctor left. An orderly came and wheeled my gurney up to a ward with three other women in it, and then a nurse came and gave me a pill. I lay there worrying about Steve and wondering what was going to happen until the pill kicked in and I slept.

***

The next morning a nurse woke me at about 7.00am. I guess people get woken up early in hospitals. She looked at my chart, and then at my head, and told me the doctor would come to see me later in the morning. At 8.30am she came to give me a message. "A guy who says he's your boyfriend's lawyer called. That make sense to you?" I nodded. She gave me a slip of paper with a name and number on it.

I got up and showered and tried to fix my hair as best I could. My scalp was very tender and it hurt to brush my hair much, so I tried to untangle it but I left it loose and a little untidy. Pris would have called the look I wound up with 'bedroom hair,' I thought. I wondered if she had managed to talk to Julia yet. My mascara had run in all the trauma of the night before and I had slept without cleaning my makeup off, so I looked a fright. I cleaned off my face as best I could and then dressed and sat on the bed to await the doctor. The woman in the bed next to me struck up a conversation with me and offered to let me use some of the cleanser and moisturizer she had in her cosmetic case, and that made me feel a lot better.

At about 10.00am a couple of doctors I hadn't seen before came by and inspected my head and announced I could be discharged, and by 11.00am I was outside, under the covered entry to the hospital, wondering what to do next. As I stood by the door a drunk wandered up to me. He looked like he hadn't washed in years. "Aaarrrrr," he slurred. He didn't look very old, perhaps only thirty-five, although it was hard to see his face under his wild mane of dirty hair. I wondered what had happened to him to reduce him to this. A security guard and someone in a white medical-type coat moved toward us and took one of his arms each.

"Stupid cops," the drunk muttered.

"Can I help you?" the medical guy said.

"Need to see a Doctor." As he said this he raised his face, and looked straight into my eyes. For a drunk, his gaze was quite disturbing. His eyes, I realized with a start, looked just like Steve's when he was high.

"What's the problem."

"Need to see a Doctor," the bum repeated. He was still staring at me. I turned away.

Yeah, buddy, everybody wants to see the Doctor," the security guard said.

"Your name is?" the medical guy asked.

"Jesus Christ," the bum said coolly.

"Ah, yes, we've been expecting you." The Security guard turned to me and smiled. "Sorry about that, Miss." As they led him away he called out something about salvation to me but I could only make out that word.

I was shaken by the way the bum had stared at me, and I went back into the lobby of the hospital and sat down for a moment. After a few moments I got up and tried calling the motel to talk with Brett, but the guy at reception told me that everyone in our group had checked out already. I was stunned. We were supposed to be staying in Atlanta for two nights. Why would they check out early when we still had another show to do tonight? I guessed the show was off because of Steve. But I was surprised that they had left without letting me know. I understood that they might have been upset about Steve, but I wondered what I had said or done to make them so angry with me that they'd leave me behind.

I asked if they had paid for our room and the guy on the phone seemed surprised and said no. I figured that made sense, since Steve and I had always paid for our own room and the guy in the motel probably thought we were still in bed. He seemed alarmed that I was phoning and asking these questions -- he probably thought I was going to skip off without paying. I reassured him that I would come back. "My stuff's still there, and my boyfriend's still here," I said.

Then I phoned the number on the message the nurse had given me. A kid answered the phone. I guessed it was the lawyer's home number. "May I speak with David Breslin?" I asked. I could hear footsteps thudding on a wooden floor as the kid ran off to get him, and a few moments later David Breslin came to the phone.

"I'm Emma Donaldson," I said. "I got a message you called."

"Thanks for calling back, Emma," he said. "I need to talk to you about Steve."

"Is he alright? Where is he? What's going to happen to him?"

"Can we meet?"

"This morning? Sure," I said. I had nowhere else to go except back to the motel. "Is Steve okay?"

"Steve is fine. Are you still at the hospital?"

I said yes, and he asked me to meet him at a coffee shop a few blocks down the road in 30 minutes. "I think I'll recognize you from Steve's description of you," he said.

I hung up the phone and walked down the road to the coffee shop. It was developing into another warm day, and I had to take my jacket off. I felt kind of conspicuous walking along the street, because I still had on the clothes from the show the night before, and going braless in the black halter top wasn't something I had ever done during the day before. A couple of guys in a passing car yelled something at me and I knew it was a comment on my breasts, or maybe my ass in the tight jeans I was wearing, and I noticed that the men I passed as I was walking all looked at my chest instead of my face, but there wasn't anything I could do about the way I looked until I got back to the motel.

The coffee shop had a dozen or so tables and was fairly busy for a Saturday morning. I ordered some juice and a danish and sat to wait for the lawyer. A guy at the neighboring table was reading the 'Journal-Constitution'. There was a paper stand outside and I went and bought one and returned to the table. On page 5 there was an article about the shooting, and it named the cop, Anthony Figueroa, and Steve Hammond "musician and heroin addict". It made me depressed. Here it was in black and white. The article was short on details, but it said that the police had visited the bar looking for Steve. "Hammond had recently escaped from a juvenile detention center, but was recognized by a sharp-eyed highway patrolman who stopped a vehicle he was in some days earlier... " The article said. "As Hammond fled the bar there was a scuffle with Officer Figueroa, and Hammond allegedly shot Figueroa with the officer's own gun."

The radio that was playing in the cafe had just begun the opening bars of 'No Questions' when I heard a voice. "You're Emma Donaldson, right?"

I looked up. A sandy-haired guy in his early thirties wearing jeans and a plaid shirt was standing at the other side of the table. He didn't look much like a lawyer, I thought. More the kind of guy who'd mow lawns. He had a friendly look on his face, and a charm in his voice that was different to Steve's but still kind of disarming.

I nodded agreement.

"I'm David Breslin, Emma."

"Uh huh. Hi. How is Steve?"

"He's fine. The cops were pretty rough on him, but he's okay now. I got to see him late last night. He asked me to meet with you."

"He's not hurt or anything?"

"No, he's fine. Not exactly happy, but that's understandable. He's in a cell by himself."

"What's going to happen to him, Mr.. ah... Breslin?"

"Call me David, please Emma. I can't really say until I know some more about what's going on. I've talked to Steve. He's told me a great deal. Now I need to talk to some of the other people who were with him in recent weeks. You are his girlfriend, right?"

I nodded again. Stay calm, be nice, I thought.

"Well, we need somewhere private to talk," he said. "I would have suggested that we meet at my office but I live close by and I thought it was silly for both of us to travel downtown. Do you have somewhere you need to be after this? Maybe I could drive you there and we could talk in the car."

"Uh, I'd *really* like to go back to the hotel and get changed," I said. "If that's okay."

I felt awkward about getting into a car with a strange man, but he was Steve's lawyer and I figured I could trust him. We walked out onto the street and he guided me to his battered old Mercedes. I think I had been expecting him to have a newer car since he was a lawyer, but Public Defenders don't make a lot of money. He was a gentleman, though, and he opened the door for me and closed it after I was seated. I discovered I liked it. I liked it that he had done that, even though it was such a trivial thing. I leant over to the driver's side and popped up the lock so he could get in easier. He smiled.

I gave him the address of the motel. I realized that I had no real idea how to get there, and that I had put myself completely at this guy's mercy, and would have to trust that he was taking me to the motel instead of someplace private where he could do terrible things to me... I looked over at his face. He didn't look like the serial killer type. As though I knew what serial killers looked like.

"Well, Emma, I'd like you to start from the beginning. Where did you meet Steve?"

I looked at him uncertainly. Where should I begin? I still hadn't worked out why nobody had come after me. And I was still shaken up from the events of the previous night.

I wondered what Steve had told him, and whether he knew the *truth* about me.

I supposed he noticed my hesitation, because he continued. "Emma, you don't have to worry about Steve. I'm his lawyer; I'm here to defend him. I won't be trying to trick you into anything." He turned away from the road for a moment and smiled again. "Now the police, and the district attorney, they'll be trying to trick you."

"I figured that already."

"Yeah." He returned his attention to the road. "They're usually not that subtle."

"What about me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, what if what I say gets me in trouble?"

He seemed genuinely puzzled. "There aren't any charges against you, Emma."

"Might there be?"

"Are you worried about something?"

"I don't know whether I should say anything."

"Emma, I'm only trying to help Steve."

"If you're my lawyer, then anything I say to you can't be passed on to anyone else, can it?"

"That's true Emma. But only if I'm your lawyer."

I considered this for a moment. "Will you be my lawyer?"

"I don't think so, Emma. I'm a public defender. I get assigned to cases. Even if I could, well... I don't know what your concerns are, but whoever represents you should be independent. If you think there's any chance they might come after you... I don't know why they would, but if they do, for some reason, then you need to get someone independent."

I suppose I looked depressed. I looked down at my knees.

"I can't afford a lawyer, anyway," I said glumly.

"Will you tell me your version of last night's events anyway? Anything you say to me is probably going to be useless in court anyway. Even if I wanted to repeat it, it would only count as hearsay unless you said it again in court."

He seemed trustworthy, but I decided to err on the side of caution, and not give away anything that the guys wouldn't have already told the cops. I recounted what I'd heard outside in the parking lot -- the sirens, the shouting, the shots. There really wasn't a whole lot to tell. I hadn't seen anything -- none of us had.

"How did you and Steve meet?"

Here was the time to see whether Steve had told him everything. I decided to lie. "Music stuff, you know..."

"Uh huh. And this was, ah...?"

"About three months ago, when he got out of Brand."

"So you know about that."

"We don't have many secrets, really."

Breslin was a nice guy, but I didn't think Steve was going to do too well with him. He seemed dedicated -- here he was turning up to meet me on a Saturday morning -- but the case seemed pretty difficult. At least he knew that. "I won't kid you, Emma, being charged with shooting a cop is about as serious as it gets," he said. "Plus he has a record already, and..." He let the sentence trail off. He didn't need to emphasize the problems.

We drove for about 35 minutes until we arrived back at the motel. As the day was wearing on I was feeling worse and worse. My mind already knew that Steve's situation was hopeless, but my heart wasn't ready to take on that burden yet. We sat in the car outside the motel room as David asked me a few more questions. We discussed Steve's drug use, and his behavior in the weeks leading up to the shooting. "Can you put me in touch with the other band members?"

"I would, but I don't know where they are," I admitted. I was still hurt that they had checked out of the motel without calling me, and it probably showed in my voice. "I think they've probably gone back to Mississippi."

"They left without you?" he asked.

"Yes... I honestly don't know..." I was close to tears. I tried to pull myself together and show some control. "I'm sorry I can't be more helpful," I said formally. "Can I see Steve?"

"He's not allowed any visitors right now, Emma," David said gently. "Just me."

"Can you at least give him a message for me?"

"Sure," he said.

I thought for a moment. There were so many things I want to say to Steve. I remembered the conversations we had conducted using Carlos Gonzales as our intermediary. Breslin was unlikely to remember much at all with everything else that was on his mind. Keep it simple, I told myself. "Tell him 'Wild Horses'," I said.

"Wild Horses?" He seemed puzzled.

"Couldn't drag me away," I finished. "He'll know what it means."

"Okay." He looked doubtful. "Anything else?"

"Can you get something to him?"

"He can't really have any possessions until they move him to prison to await trial. That will happen later on today. I can get something to him then. What did you have in mind"

"A guitar," I said. "Music keeps him going."

I gave David the number of the motel and scribbled Julia's number back in Oxford down as well. "I don't know when I'll be back there. In the meantime I'll probably be here. Can you let me know when Steve will be allowed visitors?"

"I'll see what I can find out, Emma." He paused. "Are you going to be okay here?"

"I think so," I said. I really had no idea what I was going to do, but I didn't want to burden him with anything more than Steve's problems.

He gave me his business card and scrawled his home number on the reverse. "If you think of anything else you want to say, or if you need anything, give me a call, okay?"

"Thanks," I said as I got out of the car. I watched him drive off with a heavy heart. He was Steve's best hope, and while he was a nice guy I didn't think nice was going to cut it in the courts.

***

I went into the motel reception area, depressed as hell. I called Pris, but the phone just rang off. I stood in the reception area and held the handset in my hands, trying to work out what to do. Most of what I owned was in the room two hundred feet away, but that wasn't so important, really. I stood there, confused. I had no place to go, except maybe back to Oxford. I wasn't sure I could afford to pay for the motel room if I stayed, but I couldn't think of anything else to do. I wanted to see Steve, and I couldn't do that in Oxford.

Eventually I rang Elroy.

"How you doin' honey?" he said as soon as he heard my voice. "Brett called, told me what happened. Is Steve okay? Is there anyone you want me to call?"

I wanted to stay calm, but hearing Elroy's voice made me suddenly emotional. Damned hormones or something. I broke down in tears and it took him a few minutes to get anything coherent out of me. "Elroy, it's just terrible, they're going to throw the book at Steve and the cops were really horrible to him the guys have just left me and I need a lawyer and I can't afford it and --"

"Slow down, honey. Now, why do *you* need a lawyer?"

Silence.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at the motel."

"The one y'all were in yesterday?"

"Yes. I didn't know where else to go, and my stuff was still here and I had to get it anyway and..."

"Have any money?"

"Uh, no, not really," I said sheepishly.

"What do you mean, the guys just left you?"

"They checked out of the motel and... well, I don't know where they've gone, Elroy."

"They were supposed to collect you from the hospital," Elroy said. "I spoke to Brett this morning and he said they were going over to get you and bring you home."

"Well, I didn't see them."

"I expect they'll be looking for you over there. Okay. Back to this business of the lawyer. What's Steve's lawyer like?'

"He's the public defender or whatever they're called. He seems okay, so far."

"What did he tell you?"

"He can't tell how it's going to turn out yet, but it doesn't look really good."

"What about you? Why do you need a lawyer? Did you do anything last night? Are you doin' drugs, girl?"

"No! No, it's... Elroy, I can't tell you. I'm sorry. I just needed someone to talk to. But you're right, I can't burden you with this --"

"-- What do you mean, 'you're right' and 'burden'? Emma, my dear, I care about you, y'know. I know I come over all gruff sometimes, but that's just an act. Whatever it is that's wrong, you know it won't change the way I think about you. You're just about the sweetest girl I know, and --"

I hung up.

I felt really guilty doing it, but I couldn't even begin to explain to Elroy what my fear about my own situation was. I wished Julia or Pris would answer the phone. I tried their number one more time, without success.

I stumbled back to the room, and lay down on the bed. Around seven I tried Julia and Pris again. No luck. I didn't feel at all like eating, so I popped a Valium and lay down. My head was full of images of Steve, and the cops, and the bum that morning and his terrifying eyes. Jesus Christ, salvation. I remembered Steve's eyes the last time I saw them when we came offstage the night before, all dull and scary. Eventually the Valium kicked in and I went to sleep, a dull uneasy sleep filled with hospitals, the guards at Brand, Bo and Maggie, unseen gunshots and a wild eyed man who claimed he was Jesus Christ.

 

(continued)

 

Distribution: Feel free to archive or otherwise distribute, provided it (and this preamble) is unedited and no fee is charged for access. This story may not be distributed from any site that charges money, is members-only, or uses that ridiculous "adult check" thing (or any similar system).

All rights reserved by the author, who can be contacted at rebecca7@cotse.com

You can find my other stories at http://www.geocities.com/rebeccas_folly/

  

  

  

*********************************************
© 1992 by Rebecca A.. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, and compilation design) may be printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without the express written consent of StorySite and the copyright holder.