The Metal Minute: Preview of "Saved by Zero," a Novel by Ray Van Horn, Jr. Chapter 5

Saved by Zero, Chapter 5

The Hearse Hoppers interview had been a success.

Otis Odium and I had a fantastic chat about horror films before we ever hit a musical topic. His favorite was Evil Dead 2 and he said “Hell yeah” after I laid my favorite on him: Re-Animator. He fielded all twelve of my questions, which had rattled off a perfect twenty minutes worth of footage, my personal gauge of a boss interview. Afterwards, Odium took a picture with me at the band’s van at my request. Sneed did the honors and I later discovered he’d turned the camera on himself and taken a shot of his waggling pierced tongue. I have to admit, that’s a classic. I’m not much of an autograph hound since most musicians’ Hancocks are sloppier than doctors’ scrip scrawl and nobody who wasn’t there to witness it believes they’re the real deal anyway. Photos with my guests when they’re amenable to it has been more my style and I have two albums’ worth of pictures. They’re the most meaningful material possessions I hold dear, documents of my hobnobbing years I’m sure will be a trip to revisit in my elder years.

I decided to be a good sport and invited the Betties over to join us for a picture since they hadn’t yet gone into the venue, chomping at the bit for me to finish my business at the Hearse Hoppers’ van so they could get up close to Otis Odium. The girls apologized to me for being rude earlier and said their dads were nowhere near as cool as me. It was the best compliment I’d enjoyed in months.

Before we parted ways, Odium handed me a complimentary XL band shirt with a warm Yuengling wrapped inside of it. “From one band dude to another,” he told me, since I’d shared a couple of Attila’s Sword road yarns with him during the interview. I assumed it was one of the venue comps or maybe from the band’s previous haunt on the road. Either way, I figured Odium had a rightful, street-tested fear of being busted by 5-0 for drinking in the public outdoors. From one band dude to another, yes sir...

Then he jotted me his email address in my spiral and asked me to send him some of my live photos. Afterwards, we shook hands a second time. Before I went into the venue, I slipped into the Ranger to drop the shirt off and to pound down that Yuengling. It was actually colder than my Diet Coke, which wasn’t saying much, but the strain of German blood I have linking me to those strong as boars Eberstarks zipped down that tepid brew like I was getting happy inside an authentic Festhaus.

At the venue door, I fist-bumped one of the bouncers I’d known for years, Sammy Faragon.

“Dude!” he exclaimed upon seeing me. “I should’ve known you’d be here covering this one.”

“Of course you saw my name on the list,” I said wryly.

“Of course. Hey, we all appreciate that write-up you did of the Sevendust show from this past summer. Getting those photos of the club into Thunder has spiked business the past couple months, so everyone here thanks you. Your first round’s on my tab, brother.”

It should be mentioned Sammy has played in no less than four different local prog metal bands, none of which went further than home. We’d first met on the end of this same Talkman IV when he’d wielded axe in the long-gone Stark Montage. We became friends the day he was manning the door at a Melvins gig I was covering at the Kat’s Kradle and he’d told me my credentials were solid even without checking the list. If there’s anyone from Baltimore I miss these days, it’s Sammy.

Sammy walked me up to the bar, flagged the hulking bartender I only knew by first name, Chris, pointed at me then shot a thumbs-up, followed by one upraised forefinger. I didn’t need to know the sign lingo to know he’d silently indicated I was to receive one on the house.

A few other patrons bobbed impatiently at the counter, but by the time I’d reached the bar, there was a pint of Newcastle waiting for me. My standing at the Kat’s Kradle was such that they even knew my favorite beer.

“There you go, bud,” Chris told me before moving on to the next customer. I saw two junior whiffleheads look at me like I was a god. I only had a single left in my wallet and I plunked it on the counter for Chris as a tip. He and I never really spoke that much in all the time I’d covered gigs at the Kat’s Kradle, but I heard him mutter “Thanks”to me as I took my chilly glass of Newcastle and silently toasted the rock gods. I made sure to repeat the gesture towards Sammy before slipping to the furthest perimeter of the bar you were allowed with a drink.

I can’t really tell you that much about Dirty Trace’s set or even the second band, whose name I’m ashamed I can’t recall. Everything before the Hearse Hoppers took the stage at 10:30 p.m. was moot because I’d met her.

There’s not enough emphasis I can place upon this gig as a pivotal moment in my life. Better, it is the pivotal moment of my life. I look at the Hearse Hoppers show as an improbable meeting spot for two people who might never have had the opportunity to cross paths anywhere else. I think because we both stood out like we didn’t really belong, Allana and I automatically gravitated towards one another.

For certain, Allana was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and I know that sounds trite coming from a married man whose relationship had floundered like a dead carp on the bank of a contaminated lake. Those who passed her by on the floor (the girls as well as the boys) checked her out, mostly from behind. I heard one of the Whiffleheads talking about her while in the can, and I quote, “Cougar age or not, that older chick is fine.”

Allana Connelly was born in Kerry, Ireland but she’d leaped over the Blarney for America with her family when she was ten. Most of her natural accent had become Yankeefied over the years, but now and then you can catch a little harp if you’re keeping an ear out for it. Allana’s grandparents in Limerick had fallen ill a year prior and her folks returned home to care for them while she and her sister Manda remained Stateside.

Let me tell you something, the Irish get beer, bangers and redheads right. Allana was an auburn sensation and an “authoritative number-cruncher,” as she’d described herself to me that wonderful night. In what possible universe did that actually happen? She was what spazzes of my day would’ve referred to as a “wicked hottie.” Or Molly-o-rama. Or was it Molly O’Rama in her case? She was the same age as me and still possessed the air-carving figure Dea Matrona blessed her with decades ago. Minus a few age-hinting wrinkles around the creaks of her hazels and the tiniest hint of a paunch, she was defying the aging process with a vengeance. Allana Connelly—reverted from her one-time married name Dargen. I was smitten by her before I even introduced myself.

She’d been at the club to watch her niece, Rachel, who, as it turned, was the vocalist for Dirty Trace. Later she admitted to me she’d nearly flaked out coming down to the Kat’s Kradle that night because she’d been tired from her job, also as it turned, as an accountant for a mortgage title company posed in my neck of the suburbs. I’m confident like I was that night when I approached her that Fate had given her the necessary nudge to make the show. Today, we both thank the unseen force that had intervened on our behalves.

She’d been impressed I was at the gig on business, while she admitted to me then and there she was likely to leave after watching her niece perform since she didn’t know much about the other acts. Besides, her music tastes ranged specifically to traditional and contemporary music from her homeland and what pundits now label “adult alternative,” as in The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Psychedelic Furs and Echo and the Bunnymen, her personal favorite. When I told her “Lips Like Sugar” was one of the catchiest songs I’d ever heard, she told me straight-up, “Okay, you’ve convinced me to stay a little longer.”

The fact I could strike up a lengthy, knowledgeable conversation about music with someone I was instantly attracted to is still a profound thing to me. Donna could’ve cared less about the music I loved, much less reported about. It seemed more than a bit off that the only passionate conversation my wife and I ever had about music was one that turned south when I corrected her that Talk Talk had originally recorded “It’s My Life,” not No Doubt. I’d taken the effort to pull Talk Talk off the shelf to prove my point and slam-dunked Donna by defiantly stating there was none of the same lovesick throbbing in the remake versus the original. I’m pleased to say Allana takes my stance. It's the little things that mean everything.

I had to excuse myself to the bathroom during Dirty Trace's set and the rest of the time I was soaking up Allana out of the corner of my eyes. A few times I faced her directly and each time I locked onto those hazels, I knew I was bound for trouble. When we talk about it now, Allana says she wanted me just as much as I’d wanted her then.

The more we talked in-between set changes, the more I found we had in common. Allana had two kids, whom her sister was watching that night. Because Manda had Rachel when she was twenty, then the rest of her brood (two boys and another girl) a decade later, Manda wasn’t able to make the show. I talked about how Donna and I had adopted Caitlin and Allana melted me by pushing her lip out and grabbing my forearm for a second, telling me “That’s absolutely beautiful.”

Allana liked to hike, even if that constituted mostly of safe roundabout trails at state parks. She was into movies and history and she confessed to weaknesses for Looney Tunes, Pringles chips and pistachio pudding. She hated video games that were made after Atari and Intellivision had long gone out of fashion and she said more than once, “I wish MTV was the way it used to be, when we were kids.”

Before the Hearse Hoppers took the stage, I told Allana I needed to work and all but begged her to stay. She told me she’d be in the same spot towards the rear of the floor waiting for me.

I’d wedged myself towards the front of the stage since there was no barrier to offer me the wiggle room I enjoyed in a standard photo pit. That was one of the charms of the Kat’s Kradle, when they left the steel gate out of the proceedings. It usually meant I would have to fight harder than usual for my pictures with bodies crashing, thrashing and pumping around me, but I thrived on the competition for my space. I also have some up-front and personal shots of screaming show kids that mirror the vintage hardcore snapshots you saw from Black Flag, Youth of Today, Government Issue and The Adolescents shows of the eighties. Sure enough, the slam dancers went into action once the band kicked into gear. It instantly became a motherlovin’free-for-all.

Bodies collided into me, crowd surfers cracked me upon the back of my skull and one asshole Whifflehead took a swat at my camera before I shot him a warning glare that I wasn’t above duking if it came to that. I never saw him again. Otis Odium caught sight of me despite all of the jumping and fist pumping from the row of kids separating us. He lurched the neck of his stand-up bass towards me and I angled the shot so it looks almost like he’s wielding a bazooka instead of an oversized stringed instrument. If you go to the Hearse Hoppers’ website, you’ll see it with a credit to me.

After I’d reeled off a hundred or so photos, I bulldozed my way out of the crowd, which was opportune, since the mosh pit had grown intense with fierce shoving and escalating tempers. I saw Sammy and a couple of the other bouncers part the sea of kids out of their way to restore order in the pit.

I was delighted to find Allana where she promised she’d be. She high-fived me and told me I had a lot guts, if not brains.

I knew right then I was going to pursue her. Donna’s slap had not only sent me over the edge, it had sent me right at the heels of this gorgeous creature who had hung out at the club longer than she’d intended to, just for me. The Betties I’d kinda sorta befriended toodled by and flashed me their approval of Allana.

From what I’d seen of Dirty Trace, Rachel did an admirable job, even if it was evident she was still developing her vocal style, which had pitches ranging from that of a wounded tiger to the sound of someone talking with a gob of lunchmeat in their cheeks. Allana described her niece as "a bit of a recluse," hence we never saw her again after Dirty Trace's set. That's something I like to joke about these days with Rachel now that she's going to become my niece as well. For the record, Dirty Trace broke up a few months after this gig and Rachel is in her freshman year at Duke pursuing a degree in Philosophy. Now and then she comes over to the Banks to visit us and she talks our ears off, no longer the reclusive type.

Still, Allana had remained at the Kat’s Kradle for me and after the Hearse Hoppers had finished their encore, she’d pointed to her ringing ears and blamed me for them before asking if I wanted to get a cup of coffee a few blocks up in the Hampden sector.

With only the sound of chattering art students, clattering porcelain and silverware and the hum of Vampire Weekend, which seemed less potent with the echoing screeches in our ears, Allana and I sipped on coffee at Bonnie Brewer’s, perhaps the most fashionable coffeehouse in the city for neo-beatniks. It was a place you could get away from polite society since the sweltering profanity was not only tolerated, it seemed encouraged. Bonnie Brewer’s had two open mike nights on Wednesdays and Fridays, but it seemed like the local laureate hopefuls were always about, reciting fresh words in progress amongst their peers. Most were angry slam rants I related to in portions that rebuked the apathy of society, but I found most of the anti-government tirades no better than groundless kvetching. They hadn’t lived the sixties, much less the more prosperous Reagan Years.

Allana and I leaned in close to one another at our table. I was still a married man but I wanted so badly to kiss her then. I found myself hating Donna as much as I was beginning to care for Allana. Our first night together would be long, but it would be respectful.

We laid it all on the line about our lives. Her divorce had nearly busted her to the point of bankruptcy, but Manda and her family had been there to cushion her downward spiral. In turn, Allana winced through much of my recount of bitter days past. I could give you a blow-by-blow account of what I shared with her, but you already have the gist. I touched upon my band days but withheld my gory secrets, numero uno being that Latina who is still something of a phantasm from an era I'm both glad and sad to have lived.

I hadn’t seen that the time had ventured past 3:00 a.m. since Bonnie Brewer’s was open 24-7, and still we went on. I just knew Donna was raising her own private maelstrom at the townhouse.

“My sister’s gonna kill me for this,” Allana said after our waitress had filled both of our mugs up. “So tell me, what’s the best concert you’ve ever been to, Music Man?”

“I don’t even have to think on that one,” I returned. “I’ve covered hundreds of shows…”

“I’ll bet you have,” Allana said with a giggle. “This is only the third show I’ve ever seen in my life. Planxty and Depeche Mode were the other ones.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I know, I know,” she droned. “Cut a single mom some slack. I don’t live anywhere near the chic life you do, Mr. Rolling Stone.”

“I claim nothing like that,” I said back. “Otherwise, I would've been out of the financial brackets ages ago. But in answer to your question, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, 1989, Mother’s Milk tour. Unbelievable energy. I know substances had a little to do with it, but man, almighty…I was there with my best friend Vince, and we locked onto each other by the shoulders and jumped around like lunatics during ‘Me and My Friends.’ Hands-down, the greatest live experience I’ve been a part of. I felt that show more than heard it.”

“Guess I need to get out to more concerts,” Allana said, tilting her coffee mug back. “Though I don’t know if I can take this ringing all the time. You played in a band once too? Seriously, how do you deal with it?”

“Well, normally I use earplugs,” I answered. “I forgot to pull them out tonight.”

“What?” Allana exclaimed, though thankfully it was with a smile. Because of our ringing ears though, we were talking louder than we should’ve, and Allana's outburst had drawn attention to ourselves.

I tried not to laugh, but found it unavoidable.

“You mean, you could’ve saved me this tonight?” she asked, pointing at her ears. “You creep!”

“Would I redeem myself by saying it was the pleasant company I’ve enjoyed tonight that made me forget?”

For a moment, Allana paused and then she smirked. “Slick move, sir, I’ll give you that. I’ll also give you my cell number if you want it. You're a pretty interesting guy for a creep.”

“I want it,” I said to her in near-apish tone.

"Maybe we can link up since we're in the same industry by trade. Or something."

"Or something," I repeated, switching my tone from near-lascivious to almost somber. "I doubt I'll have any in-house connections for you in the immediate future, though."

"So I've read in the trade journals. The writing's on the wall, First Federal's done. Do you have a backup plan?"

“If duck and cover is a backup plan, I have that one mastered. Sad to say, I’ve done this dance more than once.""

"I pity you, then."

"On the other hand, I’d be happy to take you to another show. I’m always on the list in this town and frequently get a plus-one.”

“You’re still a creep,” Allana said back before reciting her number to me.

We left Bonnie Brewer’s at 4:15 a.m. following more talk about music and movies we enjoyed. We agreed that Office Space was the epitome of our white collar lives and that Leo DiCaprio was the Marlon Brando our time. We didn’t agree that Han Solo was cooler than Luke Skywalker, but I was enraptured Allana even cared about the Star Wars films. My wife thought they were“childish and boring.”

I picked up the miniscule tab for two bottomless coffee specials and added a generous tip to our waitress for putting up with us for so long on my bank card. Donna would have a rage over that during the next checkbook reconciliation, particularly if she found out I'd been chumming with another woman all night.

Since I had work in a few hours, and still feeling enmity towards Donna, I made the rashest decision of my life second to getting in bed with Allana while I was still married. That didn’t happen this evening as I told Allana to be extra careful driving home while I headed back to the bank and parked in my usual spot on the second level of the parking garage. Then I pulled out my cell phone, powered it up since I’d turned it off after interviewing Otis Odium, and set a wake-up timer for 7:45.

I knew what was in store for me on my cell.

Three text messages and six incoming calls registered on the phone once it dinged to life. No mystery who all of them were from.

Of the three texts, the one that sticks out in my mind was this one:

“You inconsiderate son of a bitch, call me back. When are you coming home? How dare you scare me like this?”

“Have a nice sleep, wife,” I said to the cell phone, not bothering to check the phone messages.

I still had my work duds from earlier in the day and didn't care one iota about slipping them back on when I went on the clock. I might get written up for showing up with stubble on my face since the employee handbook stated men were to keep themselves properly groomed each work day. If I got questioned, I'd simply make up a lie about experimenting with a beard and add that I would likely shave it away if it didn't work for me. Hell, nobody really noticed me anyway since my cubicle was in the deepest plunge of our section. Even the Buckley ambassadors had merely peeked overtop my partition wall and resumed their surveillance the last couple times they'd been through.

I laughed at myself in the rearview mirror, wondering how I'd managed to entice an epicurean woman like Allana into hanging out with me all night, given the fact I was dressed essentially like an older version of my old grit boy image so long ago. Donna had called me an elder-hoser in the past, but meeting Allana made me suddenly feel like I was master of my domain. Better yet, I wanted a new mistress by my side.

I didn't expect to fall asleep as quickly as I did being crumpled in a half-sitting, half-slouched position in the truck and pondering delirious scenarios with Allana. Sex played a part in some of them, but moreover, I found myself wanting to meet her kids and to introduce Caitlin to her. I pictured an autumn hike with the full color changeover to reds, yellows and oranges. I knew many places in Maryland where the fall hues were spectacular. I wanted Allana's hand in mine and our kids (I had no picture yet of what her daughter Keara and her son Jared looked like) tramping behind us, kicking up leaves, swordfighting with broken branches and hanging like monkeys from trees I knew could hold an entire kindergarten on them.

Whereas I was resistant to having children with Donna, I crazily embraced the potential of what I would later have, a large family with a woman I truly loved. In some ways, I feel sorry about this, but not for any of the right reasons. At the time, all of this imaginary expansion was fantastical nonsense, yet it was something to cling to in my truck that no longer smelled like rude farts. I kicked the Yuengling empty from Otis Odium under the passenger seat and aside from worrying how I was going to get out of my marriage to chase after Allana, I worried for just a moment what my wife was going to do once we next crossed paths.

The last thought that crossed my mind was to ask when and where Allana had caught Depeche Mode the next time I saw her.