From Detroit she came (though it could have been any large northern city, it just happened to be Detroit, with its bombed out inner city, the Devil's Night which reduces old buildings to cinder, with its rich suburbs and downtown and devastated median zones (where new plants were growing, and wildlife (even bears and deer escaped from the zoo, the tigers having been hunted to extinction by concerned parents) thriving in the ashes)), from Detroit she came to this city, a smaller one, only a quarter size, stretched along the Interstate (I-40, running east and west, intersecting in the downtown with I-75 (north and south, the Florida Keys to Canada), the two busiest interstates in the country), in the hill country of Tennessee, because her mother, the mother she hadn't seen until she turned thirteen, had married a man transferred here to the administration of the Tennessee Valley Authority (that God-send from the thirties that had taken an obscure city in the Appalachian hills and raised them from the abject poverty they had known forever, since Davy Crockett had come through to blaze the trails so long ago, since they had tried to become the state of Franklin (the first time, after the Revolution, not the time they had tried to do so during the Civil War in an attempt to separate the economy from the slave-based agriculture which dominated the rest of the state), not at all succeeding in their transparent attempt to win Benjamin Franklin's support (he said once that he liked the state fine enough, but they were too remote and underpopulated to get anything but a university out of it), at least TVA had been the best thing to happen until the bomb-factory (Oak Ridge National Labs, run first by Union Carbide, then Martin Marietta, and in another year by Lockheed-Martin) and ALCOA (Aluminum Company of America, a name which sounds so oddly close to the temporarily exiled Cherokee (the nation native to the region until the favorite and most despised native son Andrew Jackson broke every law of the land and started the trail of tears, though the Cherokee have had the last laugh, buying back most of their old land (and then some) and fleecing the stupid white folk with the same gaudy trinkets that those Anglos' ancestors had tried to push on them so unsuccessfully so many centuries ago)) and Magnavox and Whittle (now defunct, taking a billion dollars of the region's capital with it) and Jake Baker's S&L (ditto)) and the man her mother married, her step-father that she loved dearly, she thought him a much better man than the bum who was her real father, though he had no experience to speak of in either administration or energy management, did very well here, but she, the one who had to move at that awkward age of thirteen (though what age isn't awkward?), she hated this little provincial burg, this city of five hundred thousand with only a two gate airport (efforts to increase the capacity were always met with picketing and near riots as it would let more of those damn Yankees in, never mind that most of the ancestors of the people picketing had fought as Yankees, those that hadn't come from the North later) and its one major street (a street with no shoulders, no buses, five lanes, and bordered by ditches three to twenty feet deep) and nothing much to do but drive down it.
Deborah spent every night she could out, usually at what ever night club was the rage of the month (this month, November, was the Mercury Theater, which spent every second or third month on top of the list, mostly because every other place was infested by boomers soon after it became hip, something none of her friends could tolerate (especially as they came in with streaked-bleached hair, several inches (it seemed like) of make-up, creating the line at their chins where the orange gave way to pink, and worst of all, a strong, strong floral scent that smelled like cheap potpourri) but the Mercury scared those sorts away, with the butchered dummies hanging from the walls and ceiling at every odd angle, what was left of their bodies covered in black leather (really vinyl scavenged from old car seats) and chainmail (made from linked soda-pop pull tabs), with a smoke machine that spewed out a fine mist of motor oil (something she welcomed over the cigarette smoke which burned her eyes so bad she spent most of the night outside the front of the club, watching the cops prepare for their nightly bust (you would think the cops would have a plant inside who would tell them when the shadow dancing (for example) was going on, but instead, they just caught the coke fiends (not that those people weren't dense for not realizing true cops would bust them every bloody night, but then, everyone knew the chief got a cut of every coke sale, and what he took off the fiends he busted there, at the Mercury, would be back on the streets in no time flat, usually in the hour)), but the music was so much better outside, so she usually ended up dancing, slow and moving her hands through the air, casting ritual spells with her fingers weaving, leaving trails through her vision (she imagined, but that was enough, she didn't need any help in seeing such things) and the cops, once or twice, before they got to know her, would take her in with the rest to give her the full battery of tests, but she always turned up negative and too much a hassle) and there she was, at the bar, the club not yet full, the guest DJ (Storm was the name he called himself by, but his everyone else called him DJ Drizzle or DJ Sprinkle, because he believed that every measure should repeat at least eight times, which gets phenomenally annoying real fast, but he was constantly requested anyway (once, four years before, he had been a great DJ, with brilliant mixes and house music beyond belief (in Knoxville, he pioneered layering gospel over (slowly incrementing, faster and faster, more songs and lyrics nested) some classical standards (he only had a mail-order collection, the only one he had ever really used was "Classics From the Crypt," but he could do magic with "In the Hall of the Mountain King"), and a drum machine. Of course, then he was called down to Atlanta, to work as a guest DJ, and he returned a year later, his ear reduced to nothing, but the source of the cheapest heroin in the region, even cheaper than the police, and that got them pissed, but they never caught him at anything, he was smart enough (or they were too stupid, which is equally likely, though probably both) never to do anything too incriminating) probably he was playing because of his heroin, but that was just a rumor put out by those who hated him (which seemed to be everyone sober enough to care), the guest DJ was doing his usual job of playing some very beautiful ambient which was impossible to dance to (since it had been constructed without a beat) to keep the floor empty until everyone was biting to dance to anything, at which point he would do his thing (he might have sucked, but he wasn't stupid) and there, at the bar, Deborah was just sitting there, her drink (a California White Zinfadel which cost her three-fifty, though she could get a bottle of the same stuff for fifty cents more) in her left hand a quarter full, her right hand gripping the bottom of her seat, feeling for where the tacks kept the cloth pulled tight over the stuffing (which had been coming out for a while, and everyone picking at it, as she did occasionally as she drank her wine, which wasn't helping), her legs did not reach the floor (not that she was terribly short, just that the stools were so tall, too tall for the bar they sat at (they had been gotten, as everything else in here, almost, by digging through the trash along I-40 (dismantled washers were the bathroom decorations (the toilet fixtures gotten the same way) and old refrigerator insulation served as soundproofing)), but her midthighs were pressed up against the underside of the bar (people here never put gum or snot there, one of the niceties common to all those clubs-of-the-month) and even so, she was comfortable enough, mostly because she was used to it, but maybe also because she liked the pressure keeping her there.
A woman was standing behind her, the woman she always saw there, the woman who she sometimes drank with, this woman (her name was Rebecca, a name that she never shortened, and insisted that she be addressed by that and her last name (which no one could ever remember, mostly because it was generically Scotch-Irish, like everyone else who was native to the city) until you earned her respect, and Deborah had, for some reason which she had never figured out), this woman who she loathed, and made no secret of it (but a person needs enemies, and better to have your nemesis be a known quantity, close to you, so she thought, than to have them where they couldn't be watched). That woman did not greet her, just stared at her back, the base of her neck, where Deborah's hair touched the collar of her sweater vest (she always wore sweater-vests, even in summer, in the hundred plus heat and humidity, when the entire city took on a silvery haze as the light reflected from the water hung suspended, a static steam, in the air. She said to her friends (always in shorts and the least top they could get away with (two of them, both men, refused to take off their shirts in even the worst weather, mostly because they both thought they were fat (which they weren't terribly, at least less so than many of the men who were out mowing their lawn or fixing that car on cinder blocks with the engine hanging on shiny chains from the crotch of a thick, ancient dogwood (the branches too small and weak)))) when her friends would ask her why she didn't ever dress like everyone else (they secretly thought she dressed like their mothers, but they knew better than to tell her that, if they didn't want to get hit) and she would say that this is how she dressed in Detroit and this is how she will dress for the rest of her life, no matter how hot it got (she insisted she was comfortable, and would stay outside longer than anyone else to prove it, and who knew, maybe she was telling the truth, no one saw her break a sweat, ever)) and Rebecca, staring at that sweater which would start to smell of a nice mix of tobacco, cloves, and pot in a half hour or so (Deborah would always wear sweaters to these places right before they went into the wash, so she didn't care about the way they smelled as much as she might), Rebecca just waited, the same way she always did, every night they saw each other (she would have to build up in her mind why they hated each other, because, sometimes, it wasn't so easy to remember, and others it was overwhelming (common opinion, amongst those who were friends with both, was that they saw what each could have been, the path they decided not to take and were glad they didn't, and the dopplegangers did not want to be reminded of how low they could have gone, others said it was because they both had the same friends, and made simultaneous conflicting demands, thus creating a constant tug of war), but the list making got her nicely riled up, but just enough so she thought at her best), and Deborah did not turn around, she rarely did in these situations, but she felt Rebecca's stare (the small hairs rose on her neck, the shirt under her sweater vest a little it tighter around the gut, a bit of a dulling of the sound around her, just enough so that she could hear Rebecca's breath under her consciousness) and Rebecca, as was the custom, sat next to her, she already had a drink (with a bit of a smoky taste, custom-made for her in the back rooms of the club, a down payment for her night's work, no one ever asked what was in it (not even Rebecca, who only knew, only cared about its effects (create a flush in her skin, widen her eyes, and she saw so much more, every cell honed to a point of feeling), which were uniform, and it always tasted the same (or so she pretended)) and she put it next to Deborah's, and they sit and look at each other in the mirror (Deborah always wondered if they were required by law, having never been in a pub or wet club without one) behind the bar (covered in stickers, some peeled away as they became less fashionable (the oldest, still intact, was a "Pave the Earth" bumper sticker with a wrinkle from the bottom of the "v" to the middle of the "r")) and the two women don't need to speak to each other, just be in each other's company for a while, to build up enough energy and anger for the night. Slowly, almost competing each other for the greatest pause and smallest sip (they were, but they would never admit it), they drank their drinks, the clear, yellow wine and the thick rust-brown dropping slowly as the music changed and people (desperate to dance, the build-up hitting them hard, Drizzle could have been great, if he'd ever worked sober) took their beers out onto the floor.
Deborah finished her wine first, smiled at Rebecca, a tight victory smile (though she knew she had lost this time), and she moved out onto the dance floor (during a mix of "Yesterday, When I Was Mad" and "Dominion," which made no sense to anyone and led to some accidental violence as people tried to rearrange themselves in the discordant rhythms) and people made way for her (everyone knew her, or had seen her, and kept a bubble about her, compressing each other a bit tighter, mostly because she had always been at the best, most avant garde places, alone for the most part (when she danced, her friends quietly did so away from here, though she would have liked them to join her, but they liked to watch her, unimpeded, and they realized they distracted her as she went out of her way, stopping her whirling, in order to form a more rigid triangle or square and always facing them, slowed down quite a bit), and they kept a respectful distance) and next to the wall, hitting it full on with her body as the music shifted faster and faster (Peter Murphy began to sound like a chipmunk in her ears).
Then the enemy appeared on the floor, her shirt, tied about her waist, flaring out from her, her bra light purple in the blacklight, her boots sounding loud under the music, punctuating a synthesized beat out of the mangle of sound, and Deborah began to be crowded as the people flood the floor to dance with Rebecca, close, and she lets them, but not for long, going from one to the other, and a writhing sphere of people surround her (Deborah at the very edges, and she became more and more pressed into the wall, until only her legs could move, from the knees down).
So she went outside (her eyes stinging, her chest (she never had much lung capacity in the first place) tight and empty of anything but oil mist, her ears near-bleeding (so she felt), and a film running over her skin), she went outside, and the music became more muted, muted to the point she could again make out the words (but the words to house music, even Europop and goth, are better left unappreciated), even over the ringing (like a siren going off a mile away) in her ears, and she saw the policemen (and women, too, of course, but policeperson was just too awkward and police officer too formal) readying their clubs, getting their gas grenades out (must be an inspector in town, she thought, though the tear gas won't be noticed, probably, not in that haze) and their gas masks hanging above their eyes, a second face where their forehead should have been, and she walked along the wall of the building the club was in, her hand reached out, trailing the fingertips over the brick, feeling the crease of the mortar as it powdered (just a little) in her wake, and she walked to the next store (a Wiccan used bookstore, shielded behind stainless-steel chains, barbed at each joint, the target of much ridicule by Deborah whenever Rebecca was in earshot (mostly because she had been one herself, when she was in high school, and was constantly embarrassed by the memories)), and looked in the window, and smiled as she listened, for the nth time, as the cops rushed in, firing gas and yelling into the little firetrap.
© 1997 Joseph Cadotte
Return from whence you came.