The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [41]
“Fuck you.” Jessica told him half absently, used to this sort of thing from him.
Jessica sniffed and motioned for a barhop, her right knee bobbing with the spasmodic energy of a bucking bronco in anticipation of her love-God’s performance, a troublesome reaction for any wishing to conceal a nasty crystal meth habit.
Andrew’s first drink arrived as the first band member emerged from an open doorway hidden behind a mega amp to the stage’s side, another following, then another, a sweaty stoner quartet unfazed or at least unresponsive to the growing fevered applause. Andrew could almost hear the curses mouthed by the remaining bar regulars slouched over in their stools as they studied the bar table surface beneath lowered scowls.
Sound checks, cymbal tapping, tinkering pecks on string and keyboard provided the soundtrack for Andrew’s last chance to leisurely observe the crowd before the house lights dimmed and the stage lights beamed. His bias disposition to anything feeding Ralston’s ego melted against the ease of carefree contagion, and he relaxed and even chuckled to the tasteless sexism of William Behn’s insistence that all women writers wanted his cock for a contract, and that writers’ girlfriends such as Jessica particularly longed for a hunk o’ he-man hose.
This time Jess paid him no attention. She fussed to reposition a white bra strap exposed by the cut-away collar gap of her sweatshirt.
The house lights dimmed, the stage lit up.
The show was about to begin.
***
“And here they are, the band you’ve all been waiting for, Ralston Cooper and Squid Friction!!!”
“Funny, all my life I’ve thought everyone was watching me, and here I am, looking out, and finding it’s true, that everyone is watching me....”
And with that, a gen-u-ine original sparkling Ralston Cooper novel quote, Ralston began his gig.
And he was bad.
At least, to Andrew, he was awful.
But the crowd cheered nonetheless, because he was their hero. Their patron saint of literary horrordom. A pop-cult figure a la carte, served piping hot right before their eyes. And Ralston Cooper carried the role with all the swiftness and ease of the countless cells carrying fresh intakes of varying uppers and downers through his beer-diluted bloodstream.
Andrew had never known Ralston to be any good at anything, let alone music. Except of course making himself look good. But Ralston always held high the dream of being a talented and popular musician one day. Tonight came to prove that the only reality spawned by that dream was that he was popular; he could never ever be a successful musician nor harbor any true talent beneath his mock-writer mask.
All this appeared easy to tell with this sort of crowd, for among the exuberant fans were those ho-hummers here and there who seemed neither impressed nor amused. Andrew was certainly one of them. So were the crowd misfits whose dates insisted they’d come with, the ones who never cared to read a Cooper novel or scarcely any novel at all, the ones only remotely acquainted with the author’s works by lack of interest.
And then there were the journalists and media what-nots to the right of the stage; they seemed to be the least impressed with the budding rock star wannabee.
Except for one particular woman seated alone among them in the back row.
She seemed to be watching Andrew....a quick glance here, another glance, then a quick dart elsewhere, another glance....
Her knee was bobbing, much like Jessica’s knee energy spasms, only with her it was to the rhythm of Ralston’s band’s high energy rock beat ones. She sat upright, almost dancing there in her seat, almost dancing like the dozen or so dancers congregating to the miniscule dance floor before the stage, right in front of Andrew’s front table. Andrew thought minutely of how the several table-and-chair settings including his were added over the dance floor space to accommodate the club’s maximum capacity.
An Autumn aura swirled about her, this media-woman, from her deep dark-toned features and down to her very attire, which together