Easy Pickings

So we finally get there, and all John can say is that he’s sorry there’s such a long line. I bring up the fact that had we left when I was telling him we should, a full two hours earlier, then maybe there wouldn’t be such a line. Already his thoughts have moved on, and I know the apology was more superficial than anything. He’s zeroing in on this girl next to us. She’s maybe twenty, but under the make-up she looks seventeen and I’m betting the car keys in her purse belong to her mother. But John’s already sold, magnetized to the magic lines of top, skirt, and boots.
    “You seen them live before?” he asks, unleashing his fish-hook grin.
    “Yeah! Not in town, though. My friends and I saw them at the Gorge a few years ago. SO GOOD,” she says. Her eyes widen and she leans forward a little on the ‘so good’ line, and John and I both see young cleavage. He’s only been reassured.
    “Nice. You know I met the guitarist once,” he says, and c***s his head so he stares down at her over the edges of his Ray-Bans. She bounces.
    “Wow! He’s so good, he’s definitely in my top five,” she says.
    I light a cigarette and let them get ahead of me a few feet when the line starts to move. I feel like I’m watching a Discovery special on the mating habits of primates.
    “You know, I used to work this club. I know almost all of the staff. You want to see if I can get us backstage?”
    She’s in front with her back to him, and everyone is funneling into the two cramped entrance doors ahead of us.
    “Seriously?” she says, and I notice just a flash of hesitation.
    I shake my head behind them and stamp out my smoke.
    His grin evolves from fish-hook to shark-smile, and he already knows he’s in.
    “Sure. Come on,” he says, and takes her small hand in his, gently. You could how well he was gauging the situation, making tiny adjustments if she gave the slightest cue of apprehension, leaning in a little when she did, straightening his back, pushing his chest forward just enough that she glanced at it once, casually using his hands when he spoke, and all of it was leading up to the moment where he took her hand in his and caught his prey.
    She was sunk.
    He leads her off to the back entrance of the club, and I’m left wondering all sorts of s**t about what must be going on in both their heads. I didn’t see them the rest of the night, and I’m not even sure they made it into the show. And John, just being the kind of a*****e he is ruined the show for me inadvertently. The whole time they’re playing all I can think about is him and this girl, and what it all means.
    I imagine they got backstage. John really does know most of the staff, and the layout of all the back rooms of the venue. I’m guessing he brought her through the doors marked, “No Entrance, Staff and Performers Only”, and I’m guessing that probably made her soak herself. Then there’s the catacomb-maze of hallways that lead to a few of the dressing rooms where the band must have been warming up. But I know he didn’t take her there. I know him too well to believe he wavered from his tried-and-true routine. I keep seeing it in my mind as I watch the band play.
    He leads her down the hallway to a small room that’s rarely used, but is furnished inside. The door says, “Keep Out”. She’s probably wondering what’s up at this point, maybe even getting nervous, but ol’ John smiles his shark tooth smile, and the little thing withers beneath him at the sight of those pearly whites. How could she not, the guy spent a whole year’s tax return on fixing up what he called, “the Moneymaker”.
    He asks her if she likes to smoke, and she says sometimes, though she really means, “I’ve tried it.”
    He takes out one of his professionally rolled joints, and sparks it inside this forbidden room, and now she’s getting excited. She’s forgotten all about the band, because now she’s doing so many things she knows she’s not supposed to. This guy is a stranger, but he’s kinda cute in his leather jacket and thin frame, she thinks. He looks a little older, but he seems to really like me.
    “My buddy will come get us when we can go in to see the band,” he says, buying himself some time to negotiate.
    They finish the joint and now she’s way too high, and he’s thinking how much this all reminds of him of going hunting with his dad when he was twelve. They sit down together on the couch, and she’s getting giggly now, not used to the strength of the pot, or all of the anxious emotions she’s stumbled into. The young ones at concerts were always his favorite. They’re already half horny and jittery from waiting to see the band, he’d say. Easy pickings.
    He starts to make a move, and even though she’s kind of unsure of the whole thing, she lets him. At that point it’s over, she’s his, even if she doesn’t realize it. He’s lost in fantasy now, adding her body and face to the countless times he’s done this before. When he slides his hand along her small thigh to the edge of her razor-thin skirt, it’s not her he’s thinking about anymore. She never really mattered--that’s why he never bothered to learn her name. It’s the conquest itself, the need to keep perpetuating this masturbatory ego parade that’s driving him now. And for anywhere between the next half hour or whole night he uses her up, drains her like a vampire of her worth and hopefulness. Because when he’s done she’ll just be a shell, wondering what it was that just happened to her. He’ll say he’s going to find out about seeing the band when he leaves first, but she’ll wonder about why he can’t look her in the eyes when he says it. He’ll walk out the door, zip his fly and wipe his hands on his jeans, and then head down the hallway as though nothing happened; while, inside, she will slowly put her clothes back on, wishing there was a mirror to fix her smeared heavy make-up, and stand up in a daze, like those people you see on the news after a tornado destroys their house. And she’ll be thinking the same thing, “It all happened so fast.”
    After awhile, she stops wondering and knows concretely that John’s not coming back. And then she has to confront the fact that she’s been used up and spit out by someone, that someone saw her as an object, and not a person. Maybe she wait’s for a little bit, trying to fix her make-up and hair. She goes back out into the hallway, and tries to navigate her way back to the show--she can hear the band playing now. They sound so far away, and the bends and curves in the walkway don’t make any sense. She finally finds her way out, and circles back to the entrance to get in to see the band, but when she once inside she doesn’t really care about the music anymore. Maybe she stands close to where I’m standing, where I’m trying to shut my own brain up and enjoy the set.
    Who knows, it’s too dark to tell.

Reviews

[Linds]

Tim, really love the narration. Have you ever read Bret Easton Ellis? Check out his style. He writes kind a like this. Anyway, another great story. And you should play around more with this type of narration. Really strong voice.

[DavidRyanM]

Brilliant stuff, man. So many depths to each character. I honestly didn't hate anyone in this story, oddly enough. I just thought, "They'll both got/will get what they deserve." And, as for the narrator, almost forgot there was one ( which is a compliment because I got lost in the story itself) until the end when it came back around. And I remembered that none of that happened the way it was told -- it was just "probably" what happened. Felt bad for the teenage girl just because she didn't know any better and the way you described her being left alone to figure out what happened was harrowing experience to read. All around, well done, man. Brilliant last line as well. Really makes the story strong.