Archive to Allslash
Series/Sequel: None
Feedback to: nicxf@softhome.net
Spoilers: If you haven't seen the movie, you don't know what the hell you're missing.
Disclaimer: Apologies to Michael Turner, Bruce McDonald and Noel
S. Baker.
Summary: Billy does some reflecting.
Comments: This is all Amy B's fault! This is dedicated to her for feeding my ego and giving me ideas that stick in my head until they drive me nuts. Thank you to Amy and Orithain for supreme beta.
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Bucksnort
By Nicole S. 6/99
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Another day, another nondescript town with the usual PepsiCo franchises, plus the obligatory McDonald's, Subway, Little Caesar's, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Sears and Target...nothing ever changes on this fucking tour. All the kids look the same, all the people act the same, the product of chain stores, mass media advertising and on-line shopping. Why look different when you can look and act like everyone else?
I'm aching for a cigarette but can't have one on the bus. I can't drink either, and it's killing me. I've resorted to stealing the bottles from the mini-bars in my hotel rooms and bringing them on the road with me to drink on the sly. Vodka and coffee is an acquired taste, but at least it dulls the boredom.
I look around at my bandmates, at the luxury we have on this bus. Jenifur is the big-time; no old delivery trucks with holes in the floor covered by a thin piece of carpet. Nope, full tour-bus with bunks and Nintendo and a microwave. There's also a tour manager sent to babysit us, although none of these fresh-faced young men need it at the moment. They're all on this clean kick, have been since the tour started three weeks ago. No smoking, no drinking, no drugs. I give them another week before they falter and we're snorting coke off of one of the many CD cases that line the cabinet under the television. Fortunately, there is plenty of fucking. Groupies are still one of the joys of the road.
Joe would have hated this. He would have run away screaming the first day, then he would have found a bar and gotten drunk, then he would have scored some blow and gotten high. No, today's rock'n'roll is too tame for Joe Dick; it's almost too tame for Billy Tallent.
Joe...I've been thinking about him a lot lately. I've had time to think on this tour, while the band and crew settle in to watch movies on the road. We don't need to play movie games here; we've got all the comforts of home. I usually go to my bunk with my Walkman and read, or write, or think. Think about Joe. Joe'n' Billy, Billy'n'Joe. Together forever. Inseparable. Until death do us part.
The bus hits a bump, and I'm jarred out of my daydreaming and look out the window. Where the fuck are we? Fuckin' redneck town again - they're everywhere. The only reason we're playing in these hell-holes is because there's a university or college here, and those kids like to spend their money. Jenifur, 2 singles in the top 10, videos played constantly in the clothing stores of the Mall, songs on the radio all the time. It's overkill, but these kids eat it all up.
They'd eat the band alive, if we let them. They dress like us; try to act like us. There's always some kid with his hair dyed dirty blonde, spiked up to look like mine in the front of the crowd, dressed in dirty black jeans and a plaid button up shirt over a t-shirt. Little do they know that's all I could afford until a year ago when I got this Jenifur gig. It's not like I can afford Armani, but new underwear is a treat.
We finally get to our hotel and check in. I'm just about to go across the street to the liquor store (God bless America and the easy access to booze) when Steve, one of the roadies knocks on my door. It's time for the obligatory interview with the college radio station. I don't want to go. I don't want to talk to anybody. I try to make like I'm not in the room, but Steve knows I'm there. Reluctantly, I let him drag my ass out and down to the waiting cab that will take us to Bucksnort University, here in Bucksnort Whereverthefuckweare, which unsurprisingly looks just like Bucksnort Saskatchewan, Bucksnort Manitoba, and Bucksnort Minnesota. All these little college towns are the same.
The University is the same, the control room is the same; the questions are the same. The same mundane shit, over and over again. I'm about to fall asleep when the little fucker throws a curve at me and it hits me full on in my gut.
"You've played here before, Billy."
I'm stunned; he's talking directly to me. No one talks to me. I'm the guitar player, I just sit there and nod and let the singer do all the talking. Doesn't this kid know the drill?
"Whaddya mean?" I say, trying to hide the hesitation in my voice.
"Eight years ago, with Hard Core Logo. You played at the Double Horseshoe Lounge."
Images flash through my mind, my mouth is suddenly dry, then I remember.
"We didn't exactly play." I shift in my seat; I can feel everyone looking at me. "Our singer got hit in the head with a beer bottle before the first song."
"You mean Joe Dick?"
I can still feel everyone looking at me. They don't like talking about Hard Core Logo, or Joe, or any of that shit. Joe's death overshadowed me joining this band and took away some of Jenifur's glory. We couldn't go anywhere without the press following us around, bothering me. Following me to my favourite strip club, trying to get an exclusive interview. I look over my sunglasses at the kid conducting the interview, my glare telling him that I'd like to rip out his spleen.
//Yeah, Joe Dick. You remember him? He blew his fucking brains out right in front of a fucking camera crew. Showoff.//
"Yeah, Joe Dick," is all I can manage, the words coming out soft and low. I'm still glaring at him, and he knows he's totally crossed the line and fucked up, and suddenly, he's just some college punk who has this radio show because they'll give time to anyone who's enrolled here.
The kid looks at me nervously, squirms a bit then says "That's all the time we have, right now. I'd like to thank Jenifur for coming in to talk to us today. They're playing at the Beach tonight; tickets are $12.50 in advance, $15 at the door."
The kid cuts to our latest hit single "Banana Girl" and rises to shake our hands. Being the good little corporate rock whore that I am, I shake it and let him kiss my ass for awhile before we go back to the hotel for more fucking interviews.
Now I'm on stage, and I'm cold stone sober. It sucks. There's nothing like playing with a buzz, the music loud and filling your ears. Now I just go through the motions and sneer rock'n'roll style at the nice middle class white kids in their clothing from the Gap. They're *dancing* to the loud, screaming guitars, the grungy sound the press and record companies loved so much five years ago, before Kurt Cobain blew his brains out. Blew his brains out just like Joe.
They're just itching to *mosh*; you can feel it. The testosterone is flowing freely throughout the guys' veins as they bump into each other. The large, steroid case security personnel, stuffed into their yellow shirts, won't let them. They all have to behave. Anyone caught moshing will be *forcibly ejected*. Shit, last time we were in this town, we nearly started a fucking riot. Where were these oversized frat boys then?
I play my part, play all the notes I'm supposed to, interact with the rest of the band, smile a little. I taunt the crowd with the rest of them, laughing at the girl who touches my leg; or my boot every time I get to the front of the stage. Barely out of her baby fat, she's dressed all in patent leather, hot and horny and looking for a fuck. I'd be happy to oblige, but I'm just not in the mood right now. Haven't been in the mood for quite some time, actually. I don't know why.
We're finally done and I leave the club and take a cab back to my room at the hotel, leaving everyone behind for the post-show bash. We have a day off tomorrow, and I know that those guys are just dying for a drink and a smoke. They can't stay clean forever; I know that much.
I pay the cabbie and go over to the liquor store and stock up on booze and smokes. I like American cigarettes; they smell different from Canadian ones, taste different, like James Dean riding around in his car just before he goes over that cliff. I light up a Marlboro as I walk back across the street to my hotel and lock myself into my room, feeling very much like the rock star I pretend to be.
The first sip of the Jack Daniel's is smooth and inviting, tearing a strip off of the lining of my throat. It's better if you've been screaming all night. I occasionally sing in Jenifur, but I don't wail like I used to in the Hard Cores...God, we'd come off stage, drunk, stoned, our voices totally trashed, begging to go back for more. Now I just play and get the fuck back to the hotel, or bus so I can drink and forget about the evening, until I have to do it again.
I'm starting to remember the last time we played here, thanks to that pock-marked asshole kid who interviewed us. I remember it like it was yesterday, as a matter of fact. I get comfy, light up a smoke and pour myself another drink as it all comes flooding back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed Festus, that motherfucker, sent us on a tour of the southern US; he said it would just be like what the Sex Pistols did in '75, except now, it's '88. Joe's all excited, he wants to make some *real* money, show those American fuckers that we can rock just as hard as they can. We get here to...wherever the fuck this is and check into a dirt-bag motel, Pipe and John in one room, Joe and I in the other. The two *roadies* Ed sent along with us have to sleep in the truck. One's named Odie, the other Mike. They serve no useful purpose at all, except to smoke all of our weed and piss us off. Mike's *supposed* to be doing sound, but he must be fucking deaf, because the mix always sucks. Odie...we have no idea who this guy is, always seems to disappear at the end of the night with some chick and leaves us to load out ourselves.
Joe's still excited, bouncing around like he's got fucking springs on the bottom of his boots. We go over to the club to set up and I start to have visions of the movie the Blues Brothers. This isn't a punk bar; this is a country bar. The only regret I have is that there is not a protective wall of chicken wire in front of the stage to block the bottles that will undoubtedly be lobbed at our heads with the opening bars of "Something's Gonna Die Tonight." We set up, slowly and watch the patrons file in, cowboy hats, cowboy boots, and flared jeans years after they were in style. I keep expecting Bo and Luke Duke to walk in any minute.
We take to the stage, Joe's still totally hyper, freshly shaved sides of his head gleaming in the lights, his black mohawk a sharp contrast to the pale skin. He takes a long swig of the bottle of JD he bought earlier and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He looks over at me and nods his head, then grins and spits. "Y'all ready to rawk?" He screams into the microphone. Then, with a windmill action that would rival Pete Townsend, rips into the first chord. Joe doesn't hear the second chord, or the third, as I lay into the tunes. I'm looking at the floor, and suddenly, I'm looking at Joe, lying on the plywood stage with a gash in his temple, blood oozing out of his head.
I stop playing and tell the big-ass bartender to call an ambulance. He just laughs at me. John, however, falls into full-responsibility mode and runs out of the club to get some help. Pipe's sitting there behind his drums, using a cymbal as a shield from the onslaught of bottles and ashtrays. Ten minutes later, the ambulance comes and Joe's still flat on his back. They load him up and take him away, while the rest of us pack up our gear and load it back into the van. I call Ed Festus and tell him what happened. He informs me that he *forgot* to get us our travel insurance, so we have to break Joe out of the Hospital pronto. I scream at him; he's such a motherfucker. I tell him to wire us some fucking money, because if Joe's brain dead, I'm just gonna pull the plug and bury him myself out here. Ed says he has no money. Fucking typical. I also tell him that if he books us into one more country bar, we're coming home first class, charging it to his credit card, then we're gonna kill him. He laughs at me.
I tell the guys to go back to the motel and hang out for the rest of the night; we'll hit the road for the next crappy stop on this shitty tour tomorrow. I hightail it to the hospital and find Joe in Emergency, still clothed. It turns out he wasn't knocked out for too long after all. No one's even looked at him yet, so we escape back to the motel, he's still bleeding from his temple a little bit. I patch him up as good as I can with some band-aids and then he brings out this huge bottle of pills that he swiped from the ospital pharmacy. It's codeine.
I don't ask how the fuck he got that huge bottle; instead I help myself to the contents. Now, Joe's used to alcohol, weed, hash and a little bit of coke now and then, but opiates are a new thing to him and me. We start tripping on this hazy ride down a river of fog; then we pour some liquor on top of it. We have this nice buzz going, not too far gone, yet gone enough.
I'm lying on my bed on my back, and suddenly there is a presence beside me. It's Joe. I mean, it's not going to be anyone else, but he doesn't usually come over to my bed, unless it's to punch me, which happens once in awhile. I look him in the eye and smile, he smiles back. I reach up to touch his face. The bottle had not only left a cut in his temple, but now a large, purple bruise is starting to form and fan out down his cheek. He pushes his face into my hand, nuzzles it for a second, then kisses it.
Now, Joe and I have known each other longer than we've known anyone else. We used to play together as kids. There was always this underlying thing between us, this rivalry, this urge to up one another. I'd get a Hot Wheels car, an Impala or something like that, and he'd get a Hot Wheels car, but a Camaro, or a Challanger. There was this tension between us that I never figured out. Until now. That kiss nearly shocked the fuck out of me, yet it was totally expected.
I cup my hand under his chin and bring his face to mine. Our lips meet. It's like fireworks are going off in my brain and in my cock. I moan into his mouth as I lay him tenderly on the bed and move myself over him. God, this is what we've been missing; this is the thing that's had us at each other's throats during the tour, this is what we really wanted.
I push my tongue into his mouth and nearly come when he starts to suck on it. His hands are moving up my back, and I can feel him pulling my shirt up and off of me. Our mouths part for just a second to allow clothing to be shed, then it's back to kissing and rubbing up against one another. I move my head down and start kissing his neck, flicking my tongue out to taste him. Joe's skin is surprisingly smooth like silk under my lips, as my mouth and hands move lower.
Joe's squeezing my ass, and his cock is hard and leaking pre-cum onto my belly as I slide down to suck on a nipple. He arches up and moans curses into the air as I pull and nibble on the edge. Joe's hands are kneading my shoulders, the pads of his fingers digging in as I move over to bite the other nipple. He tastes so good, I want him so bad, I can't think how long I'm going to last. It's as if Joe has the same thought because he says, "Fuck me, Billy." In a way that a junkie says he needs heroin.
I've only done this once before with a guy that I thought was a chick, but I fucked her...him...anyway. I barely know what to do, but I figure that Joe won't know the difference, unless he's done this before, and somehow, in the back of my mind, I think he has. I roll him over onto his stomach and he spreads his legs, his cock and balls poking down on display. I at least know that we need lube. I frantically look around until I remember that bottle of Lubriderm I have in my bag. Being a guitar player builds up calluses, and the only thing to soften them up is Lubriderm.
I reach over and grab the bottle and squeeze a generous portion into my hand and coat myself liberally, the cool, wet feel of the lotion quelling the urge to come in the next five seconds. I put some on my fingers and start to move them in the vicinity of Joe's tight entrance. I'm scared; I want this to feel good for Joe; I don't want to fuck up. I stroke in and around the puckered opening with one shaky hand, the other is massaging his back. Finally, after some poking and prodding, one finger slips in and both of us gasp at the unique feeling.
I'm so fucking hard that I could fuck a wall of steel right now. I have to hurry this up, or I'm going to shoot my load all over the sheets. I slip another finger in there and start to work them in and out to make the hole bigger. Joe starts moving so his knees are under him and he bucks his ass back onto my fingers. He *has* done this before. Finally, I'm satisfied that he's been stretched and lubed enough, and I move in behind him. I enter him slowly, grunting and groaning. He's so fucking tight.
"Fuck, you're tight, Joe." Joe just moans back at me and lifts his hips up higher. I take a breath and look down at Joe' his ass is high up in the air; his head is turned so he can look at me. I can see one of his piercing blue eyes, which is heavy-lidded and glazed over with passion. I start to move in and out of Joe, wondering just how the hell we came to do this; but not really caring at the moment because it feels so good.
"So good, Joe. So fucking good."
"Fuck me, Billy...goddamn it, fuck me!"
I lean over and plaster myself to Joe's back, my hands coming down to rest beside his head, my lips kissing along his shoulders, until I'm coming in long streams into him, coming like I've never come before. I roll to the side and lie there, boneless for a moment, until I look over at Joe, who's reaching down to stroke his cock. Oh shit, I forgot about Joe! When you're fucking a woman, you don't think of stuff like that, she just angles her hips another way and gets off...but a man, you've basically got to jack him off while you're doing the nasty.
I look over at Joe and put my hand over his, then move over and put my mouth on the head. I've certainly never done *this* before, and the fluid leaking out of the tip is salty and slightly bitter. I close my eyes and take a bit more in as Joe and I jerk him off. I run my tongue over the head and over the tip, flicking over the slit a few times, somehow knowing what would feel good to him. Suddenly, I hear this growl and his hips buck up a few times, pushing his cock deeper into my mouth, then it's filled with his semen, dribbling out the sides of my mouth and down his cock. I swallow some of it, but most just pools down to his groin.
I get up and grab a towel from the bathroom and bring it back for Joe. He wipes himself off unceremoniously then reaches for me and kisses me hard and deep and for a long time. Finally, I lie down, and I know I've got a goofy smile on my face, and I've probably got that *just fucked* look on my face too. We look at each other, not confused, yet I have one question. "Why?"
"Because."
That's good enough for both of us, Joe decides, and he nestles his head into my shoulder and drapes his arms around me. We fall asleep like that, his leg over my thigh, his heaviness on top of me, his breathing deep until I fall asleep.
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I'm jolted out of my memories by a pounding on the door. I check the clock, and it's 4 in the morning. I go to the door, half hoping to see Joe, but know that's impossible. It's the chick from the club, the young one in the patent leather outfit. I tell her to go away. She tells me she wants to fuck me. I tell her I'm not interested and slam the door in her face and climb back into bed, but not before pouring myself a nightcap. I lay my head down, hugging my pillow as the tears start, not stopping until it's time to hit the road again.
The End