Boring Girls Read online

  My anger didn’t offer me any sense of power. The same feeling that had swept over me when Brandi had confronted me in the schoolyard so long ago began to creep in. I tried to toss my hair back and continue singing with confidence, but the embarrassment and anger was turning into crippling despair. I turned away from the front of the stage and tried to focus on Fern, who was still making a valiant but completely ineffective attempt to move to the music. I couldn’t look at Paul and his friends. I was so angry at myself.

  When the set finally ended, I walked off the stage to the smattering of disinterested applause. I strode as fast as I could through the club, avoiding eye contact with everyone, towards the girls’ bathroom. Once inside, I sat down on the toilet and slouched over, my face in my hands.

  TWENTY-TWO

  After a little while I heard a small cheer from the crowd, muffled and faraway. I remained seated, rubbing my eyes with my hands, smearing my stupid makeup, not like it mattered. Through the walls I heard Heathenistic Bile begin their set.

  The bathroom door squeaked as it swung open, and I heard footfalls on the tiles. Whoever it was walked slowly across the floor and paused.

  “Rachel?” It was Fern.

  I took a shuddering breath. “Yeah.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Not really.” I cleared my throat and sat up straight. “What’s going on?”

  “They just went on,” she said. “You should come check it out.”

  “Where’s our stuff?”

  “We packed it up. It’s sitting next to the door. They won’t let us load out until the band is offstage. I guess it’s too loud to open the door.”

  “Sorry I didn’t help pack.”

  “That’s okay.”

  I opened the stall door. Fern was leaning against the sink counter. She looked tired, her makeup smudged as well. She smiled at me. “They suck, if it makes you feel any better.”

  “Worse than we did?”

  “In a different way than we did.” Her smile faltered, throwing her face into a lopsided grimace. “Don’t feel bad. We tried. It was our first show.”

  “I was terrible,” I muttered. “I just stood there.”

  “It’s okay. Next time will be better. We can’t expect to have an amazing show right off the bat.” She touched my arm, and I appreciated it, but I knew that she had to be pretty disappointed in me. I was supposed to lead onstage, step up and take control of the show, exude confidence and spearhead everything. And I hadn’t. All my fantasizing in my room had turned into nothing but a joke. I sucked.

  “I don’t know if I can go out there,” I said. “Are the guys mad at me?”

  “Why would they be mad? No one’s mad.”

  “What about the crowd?” The thought of walking back out there made me feel sick. A memory of the headbanging guy making fun of us flashed in my mind, and my stomach ached sharply at the image of it.

  “No one cares. They’re all watching Heathenistic Bile. And I really think you should check them out.”

  I sniffled and smoothed out my skirt. A glance in the mirror showed my hair was frizzy, my makeup was smeared, and I looked like shit in general. “I look awful.”

  “You look tough. Now please come back out.”

  I followed Fern back into the club, and Socks and Edgar were standing at the back. There seemed to be a few more people in the place, and everyone was crowded up at the front by the stage. Still, the place was mostly empty — nowhere near the number of people that Paul had smugly predicted.

  “Great show!” Socks cried when he saw me, and yanked me into a hug.

  “Thanks,” I replied and smiled weakly. I knew he was just being his sunshiney self and trying to make me feel better, but I did appreciate it. Edgar hugged me too, and I was relieved. Part of me had seriously worried that they would be angry at me for failing so bad.

  “There’s no one here, really,” I observed, looking around the club.

  “Probably mostly their friends,” Socks agreed. “Have you checked this out yet?”

  I focused my attention on the stage. Heathenistic Bile was headlong into their set by this point, and all of them were wearing white facepaint with black ringed eyes and mouths. Their bass player and Paul, of course, were freaking out, whipping their hair around and leaping. It would have looked cool except for the fact that their two guitar players weren’t matching the energy.

  Kate and Jennifer, Paul’s two girlfriends, were also onstage. They’d changed into shiny black vinyl shorts and fishnet stockings with high boots and halters made of the same cheap material. Both of them had their eyes screwed shut and heads thrown back, expressions of ecstasy on their faces, and they swung their arms and ran their hands through their hair as they tried to gyrate sexily to the fast beat. It completely didn’t work, and I couldn’t help but grin.

  The crowd didn’t seem to mind. Everyone was throwing their hair around and tossing their fists in the air, but there were so few people there, the whole thing seemed slightly ridiculous.

  “Did you notice the chain?” Fern said into my ear over the music.

  One of the stock-still guitar players indeed had a length of metal chain attached to a dog collar around his neck. The other end of the chain fastened to his amp.

  “I guess it’s so he doesn’t get out of control,” I observed, and Fern and I laughed.

  The song ended, and the crowd cheered sparsely. “Thank-fuckin’-you!” Paul shouted into his microphone. “You guys are the fuckin’ best.”

  “Yeah, all thirty of you,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Sometimes, when the moon is just right, bad things happen in the night,” Paul rhymed, glowering at the crowd. I drew my breath in sharply in surprise as the crowd actually cheered. “Killers come out in the moon’s dark glow. And the killers are people you sometimes know.” His voice sounded thin and melodramatic, like a grade-school kid at a recital, reading off cheesy lines that echoed through the somewhat empty room.

  “Are you scared?” Paul demanded of the crowd. They clapped in response.

  “I said are you fucking scared?” he repeated, his voice rising to an embarrassing shriek. The crowd cheered. “Fuck yeah!” someone called.

  “This is awful,” Edgar murmured to me.

  “Blackskull!” Paul commanded. What the hell was he talking about?

  I heard a thin, weak wail, and my eyes flicked to the chained guitarist, who had thrown his head back and apparently roared. But because it was not into a microphone, it sounded flaccid.

  “Blackskull — are you ready?” Paul addressed the guitarist, who was, presumably, Blackskull. He walked to the guitarist’s amp and unchained him. The crowd cheered weakly again. I noticed that Kate and Jennifer were still gyrating for some reason — even though there was no music.

  As Paul unchained the guitarist, he spoke into his microphone. “It is time . . . to unleash the beast!” And Blackskull let out another thin howl.

  I couldn’t help it. A shriek of laughter erupted from my mouth, louder than I had intended it to be — a resounding, echoing honk. Everyone in the room heard it and looked back towards us. Paul and Blackskull faltered onstage for a moment, but then Paul glowered. Their next song began. The guitarist moved to front and centre of the stage, bobbing his head a bit more than he had been and letting his tongue loll out of his mouth. Presumably this was the beast . . . unleashed.

  “I can’t believe you laughed like that,” Edgar leaned in and said. “They all heard.”

  “Who gives a shit?” I replied. “This whole thing is a joke. I’ve seen enough. Can we leave?”

  “Not yet,” Socks reminded me. “Let’s just sit back and enjoy the show.”

  xXx

  Eventually the beast was chained back up, and the set continued without much more hilarity. I knew Edgar was worried that I had offended them by laughi
ng, but I honestly didn’t understand why he would care if we’d hurt their feelings. This whole night was a joke. Sure, maybe the crowd hadn’t cared who we were — but they liked Heathenistic Bile. I was totally fine if their fans disliked us. If this was what they thought was cool, I wanted to be the exact opposite of it.

  And so what if Paul and his moron bandmates had heard me laugh? They were pricks and had been from the get-go. I knew we’d had a lousy performance, but we didn’t have ridiculous dancing girls onstage. And we certainly hadn’t unleashed any pathetic beasts. They were embarrassing.

  After their set ended, the crowd filtered out after high-fiving the band, and their “helpers” started tearing down the equipment. I couldn’t resist approaching Paul, who was sitting on the edge of the stage with his two girlfriends and a few other girls who’d come to the show and were now fawning over him.

  “Hey, Paul! Great show,” I trilled, ignoring the girls, who glared at me in sync as if someone had pushed a button.

  “Thanks,” he said casually. I could tell he was surprised by my confidence. I guess he had assumed I would be demoralized after our lousy performance — which, in fairness, I had been — but watching their set had put me in such a great mood. I grinned at him, and I fed off the impression I was gathering that he was slightly intimidated by me. “You guys rock,” I gushed. And I turned to Kate and Jennifer, smiling. “And wow. You girls are so sexy.” My sarcasm impressed even me, and I knew I was being a bitch, but I wasn’t like Edgar. I didn’t feel like I needed to get along with everyone we met. This was making me absolutely glow.

  Paul tried to rally, raising his nose slightly. “I’m sure you guys will improve. It was a rough show for you, but it was your first, and not bad. It’s not easy to be a singer, or a good frontman.” At this, his gaggle of girls laughed.

  I nodded. “To be honest, part of me wants to stop singing and strip down and just dance onstage, really. Maybe it would be a better role for me.”

  “Maybe,” Paul snarled.

  “Well, give my regards to Blackskull,” I said, allowing my voice to take on a death-metal growl as I said the name. I smiled brightly and then walked out the side door, past their roadies, and through the parking lot to Socks’s van, where I helped Fern, Edgar, and Socks load in our gear.

  xXx

  Fern and I sat together in the backseat on the way home, Socks and Edgar sat up front, all of us quiet and tired. But my body buzzed. I kept replaying my confrontation with Paul and running through different possibilities in my mind. He’d been so cocky, sitting with the girls, and I wished I’d embarrassed him more. I kept imagining punching him in the nose, right in front of them, and then walking haughtily away. I grinned at the thought of him trying to look cool in front of his harem while wiping the blood away. I stared out the window into the darkness of the passing countryside and weighed the pros and cons of this fantasy scenario. Paul didn’t strike me as the sort to call the cops. And he sure wouldn’t have been able to hit me back. There wouldn’t have been any repercussions.

  Socks broke the silence from the front seat. “So how do you guys feel about tonight?”

  “I thought it was great,” I announced. “That band sucked so bad.”

  “You shouldn’t have laughed,” Edgar said. “That was totally uncomfortable.”

  “If you thought that was bad, you should’ve been there after the show,” I bragged. “I went up to Paul and totally told him where to go.” I explained to them how sarcastic I had been, unable to keep myself from laughing as I imitated my Blackskull closing line.

  “Oh, jeez,” Edgar grumbled.

  “They were terrible,” Socks said, “but we could have done way better.”

  “No one was even thinking about us by the time they went on. I mean, they were so embarrassing, they made us look good,” I insisted.

  “No, they didn’t,” Socks corrected me. “I agree that they were embarrassing, but that has nothing to do with how we did. I think we should look at how we did, and see how we can improve.”

  “Yeah,” Fern nodded from beside me.

  “Oh, we’ll do much better next time,” I said dismissively. Of course we all had learned from tonight’s show. I hadn’t forgotten about our performance, but I didn’t want to dwell on it.

  “I don’t know how I feel about what you said to Paul,” Edgar said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to burn bridges like that.”

  My face got hot. “Burn bridges? What are you talking about?” My voice was rising; I couldn’t help it. “Do you really care if we have a good relationship with that band? You want to play with them again? Give me a break.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t like them,” Edgar said. “I just don’t want to start going around telling bands to fuck off, you know? I think it’s probably important to keep good relations with the other metal bands around here, even if they suck.”

  “Well, you can give Paul a call tomorrow if you want. Go for a coffee or something,” I snapped. “I don’t regret what I said. I’d do it again. And I’d probably say something worse. They suck. I never want to play with them again. They are assholes. If you want to go buddy it up with Blackskull, be my guest.”

  Everyone was silent when I stopped talking, and I started feeling stupid, which made me even angrier. I folded my arms and stared out the window.

  Finally Fern spoke. “Rachel, they definitely were assholes. I personally don’t care what you said to Paul —”

  “Well, you should,” Edgar interrupted grumpily.

  “But I do think Socks is right, we need to talk about our show,” she continued. “Otherwise no bands are going to want to play with us. We’re not going to be able to move forward.”

  Everyone started talking about how we’d sounded versus how we’d looked, and how we needed to really try harder for more energy next time, and out loud I agreed and half-listened. I was still thinking about what Edgar had said. He seemed to think it was a bad move to establish myself as a force to be reckoned with. Why couldn’t he understand that it was obviously better to be aggressive? Not to take any shit from anybody? Maybe that was a good reputation to have. After all, this was metal music. What part of it did he not understand?

  TWENTY-THREE

  I was determined not to have a shitty show ever again. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that wouldn’t take time and practise, of course, and I wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the fact that trying too hard could result in Heathenistic Bile–like stupidity. It was a fine balance.

  I spent a bunch of time on the internet, watching live concert videos of my two heroes: Marie-Lise from Gurgol, and Balthazar Seizure from DED. There weren’t any female metal singers I could watch for inspiration, but that meant that if I could combine the elements I admired from Marie-Lise and Balthazar, I would be original in a lot of ways.

  Marie-Lise, of course, played bass and I couldn’t copy her as much as I probably would have tried to if I’d also played an instrument. Fern — as much as I loved her — wasn’t being very discreet in her attempt to emulate her. I mean, Fern continually bleached her hair, and she still wasn’t able to get it as pure white as Marie-Lise.

  What I admired the most about Marie-Lise was her aggression and confidence onstage, and, of course, her style. She somehow managed to leap around stage in giant platform boots, sweat onstage without smearing her makeup, and wear cute dresses and skirts without ever coming across as looking skanky. She would take command of the crowd in front of her side of the stage by just glancing at them. In my opinion it was no small feat that she managed to intimidate all those long-haired guys pressed at the front of the stage, especially since there was a strong possibility that they felt the same way about women as Paul did.

  My favourite video was one where Marie-Lise had moved to the front of the stage. It looked like a crazy show. Hundreds of people were crammed up front. Wrenching her bass, she s
kipped lightly to the front of the stage and placed one foot on a monitor, gazing challengingly into the sea of faces, and a ton of hands reached up through the wall of flying hair and banging heads, stretching towards her frantically.

  She stayed just out of their reach and taunted them, banging out the chords, always making eye contact with the crowd and sneering. She was amazing.

  But the best part of the video was when some greasy, big-faced asshole lunged at her. I couldn’t tell if he was climbing on people or what — that part happened out of frame — but he was somehow able to grab Marie-Lise, his sweaty arm extending towards her like a hairy, damp snake, his mouth stretched in a wild, ecstatic grimace. His hand gripped her knee and pulled her slightly off-balance, and then moved up her stockinged thigh. It was disgusting.

  But Marie-Lise’s face betrayed no alarm at all. Her eyes flicked down at him, and then she smoothly swung her other knee forward, neatly smashing the leering ape right in his face. A small smile crept over her face as he reeled backwards into the crowd in a spray of saliva and blood. The music was drowned out on the recording as everyone cheered in support of her. That’s where the clip ended.

  I wanted to be like that. In command, unstoppable, and ready to deal with bullshit at a minute’s notice. Skimming across the stage as light as air, into the music without looking overwrought and melodramatic. God, she was amazing. And she hadn’t been afraid to smash that guy. How could Edgar be pissed at me for telling off an asshole, when Marie-Lise could knee a guy like that in the face and be adored? No, Edgar was wrong.

  Balthazar Seizure had a different vibe than Marie-Lise, a different sort of confidence and presence. But he had the same command of the crowd and prompted the same frantic response. DED was a bigger band than Gurgol and played to giant crowds of what looked like thousands. Browsing through the video clips, I could find everything from performances in dark bars to middle of the day festivals in Europe and South America.