Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [117]
“Get the hell off the stage,” she said. “Just get the hell off the stage.”
Behind the crowd, Niki saw Keith falter and the song ended, nothing now but fading echo whine, static strips and tatters of sound. And she saw the way Spyder flinched, familiar confusion in her blue eyes that said something else was going wrong and she was there so it had to be her fault, somehow had to be her fault. It made Niki mad, mad that anyone, sane or crazy, could blame themselves for every goddamn thing that happened.
Wouldn’t be projecting just a little tonight, would we, Niki? and No, she answered herself firmly, no, we wouldn’t.
“Oh,” Theo said, “this is just fucking wonderful,” and she gave Keith the finger, obviously not caring that he couldn’t see her from the stage. Like she had seen, Daria, through the mike, “…you give us a fucking break?” and even way back at the bar, the crash of the beer bottle right over Mort’s head.
“Christ,” and then Theo was gone, slipped away and into the crowd, heatseeker, and Niki rubbed unconsciously at the faint and lingering sting on her neck, the hairline welt that had risen on her throat.
Then Daria was saying something to Keith, shoved him, and Stiff Kitten was leaving the stage, sulking away from the hail of boos and catcalls and flying beer bottles. Daria looked back once, everything but her face swallowed in the shadows behind the amps, but she was too far away for Niki to read expression or intent or anything else.
“Come on,” Claude said, then. “Maybe we can at least stop them from killing him.”
“We’ll wait here,” Spyder said, stirring at her Coke with one finger, not looking at anything, and Niki didn’t argue.
Out of the spotlight heat and down the black hall to the dressing room, pulled deeper and deeper into the cold by the gravity of Daria, the furious wake of her. His skin felt sunburned, flashburned, and his nose hurt, and the place beneath his eyes, like the time when he was ten and he’d snorted green Kool-Aid on a dare. He followed her, because anyone would have, and he knew she hadn’t seen anything hanging above the crowd, hanging there above his head.
The light in the dressing room made him squint, and Keith sat down, him and his guitar and Mort must have stopped to talk to the manager because it was just him and Daria. She had stopped in the doorway, lit a cigarette and didn’t look at him.
“I’m not gonna ask what happened out there, Keith. I know what happened.”
“Yeah,” he said, and she just shook her head then, drew gray smoke and exhaled.
“You’re a fucking mess. Just look at your face in the goddamn mirror. We can’t count on you.”
He didn’t look in the mirror behind him, but when he touched the place where his face ached, his hand came away wet, a ginger alloy of pus and blood; he wiped his fingers on the couch, and Daria flicked her half-smoked cigarette away into the dark, cold hall, little comet of sparks arcing away into space.
“You’re out, man,” she said. “Out of the band, out of my life.” Keith sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, no surprise, nothing he hadn’t known was coming, but it hurt anyway, hurt too much for him to respond. And then Mort was filling up the doorway, red cheeks, and he didn’t even glance at Keith. “I’m doing what I can, Dar, but this dude’s really steamed,” and she nodded, and he was gone again.
She lit another cigarette.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. “I just can’t sleep anymore, not since…” and she nailed him silent with her eyes, stabbed two fingers and her cigarette at his chest, “You’re a fucking junky, Keith. Period. You are a goddamn fucking worthless-ass junky bum, and I’m tired of listening to your bullshit excuses. We can’t count on you, and it is over.”
Outside the doorway, the darkness shifted, but it was only Theo, bristling like a terrier on speed, wanting a piece of him, too, a big, juicy piece, and Daria told her to fuck off and get in line, take a number.
“You’re a real fuckup,” Theo said to him anyway. “You