draft

[jones]

i don't have time to write anything these days except works & days but i can't stand being left out of anything! so here's a veeeeeery rough draft of a chapter that will appear this saturday.

it is as yet untitled and still lacks a set-up paragraph (which i usually write last), but for what it's worth, here's mud 'n yer eye!

Barge-In Basement Records, 2.54p

there's supposed to be a paragraph here that describes the store as having a few customers wandering about. rooting through the seven inch record bin, sylvia notices two kids who keep looking at her, then looking away and laughing whenever she catches them. she's pissed.

Dropping the seven inches, Sylvia fixed her eyes on the pair and advanced upon them. Though a few inches shorter than the boy, she stood toe-to-toe with him and thrust her palms up in front of her.

"What?" she grunted. "What's so funny? Or do you just randomly point and laugh at girls in record stores?"

The eyes of both boy and girl expanded. They shook their heads in apology.

"We weren't laughing at you," the girl in black said quickly.

"No way," the boy said still shaking his head. He glanced at his companion, then turned back to Sylvia. "Seriously, we weren't. She just thought she knew you from somewhere."

Taking strength from her indignation, Sylvia leaned back on her artificial heel and folded her arms. "Really?" she snorted, "Where did she think she knew me from?"

"It's not important," the boy returned, his voice shaking slightly.

"No," Sylvia countered, "really, I wanna know." She bored her eyes into the girl, "Are we long lost blood sisters from kindergarten?"

"Well," the girl smiled but took half a step back, "I just thought I'd seen you around. I thought... I just thought you were in this band we like."

"Oh," the look of menace on Sylvia's face faded immediately. Her cheeks went red. "Really? What band?"

"They're a local band," said the girl. "They've only played eleven times that I know of, but I've been to all their shows. You probably haven't heard of them though: Sealed Whiskey Kiss?"

"Oh god..." Sylvia's face turned bright red. She looked away and let out a breath, trying to keep from shaking as her stomach turned itself inside out. "I am so, sooooooo sorry. Yeah, that's me. I play for them. I uh... I thought you went to my school and were laughing 'cos... well, I just get that a lot at school. Really, I'm sooooo sorry."

Profuse apologies were exchanged all round. The girl clapped the boy on the shoulder proclaiming, "Told you it was her!" As the tension eased, the couple introduced themselves as Kyle and Laura; both younger than Sylvia, Kyle was a freshman and Laura in the 8th grade at Arbor High School.

Amidst the chatter, Kyle abruptly blurted out, "Can we see your foot?"

Before Sylvia could say anything, Laura slapped him hard on his upper arm. "God, how insensitive can you be?"

"What?" Kyle shrugged. "I'm just asking." Genuinely contrite, he looked at Sylvia. "Sorry. You don't have to show us. I'm just a curious dickhead sometimes."

"No, uh..." Sylvia stuttered but smiled weakly, "It's... okay, I guess. Just -- nobody's ever asked me that before. But sure -- I mean, if you really wanna see it."

Kyle and Laura both nodded hesitantly. Fingers twitching, Sylvia bent over and unlaced her right shoe. Glancing up quickly, she then removed the high top and carefully drew the frayed cuff of her jeans up to reveal the harsh, black outline of the fiberglass prosthetic, stopping just before uncovering the point at which it joined with the termination of her natural calf.

Boy and girl stared down for a moment, seemingly transfixed by the unnatural approximation of a human foot. Nudging Laura, Kyle surreptitiously pointed out the Superchunk sticker covering the inner portion of Sylvia's ankle. She nodded and emitted an almost inaudible squeak of approval.

"Uhm..." Licking her lips, Laura drew in a breath and looked into Sylvia's eyes. "Do you mind if I uh... if I touch it?"

Despite her intentions, Sylvia drew in a sharp breath. There followed an embarrassed exchange between the two, during which Laura repeatedly denied her desire to touch the appendage to which Sylvia responded more and more strongly, "It's fine, go ahead."

Finally, Laura pursed her lips and went down on one knee. With shaking fingers, she ran the back of her hand along the instep. A queer sensation ran through Sylvia as she realized she could almost feel Laura's touch. Indeed, she almost said as much but stopped herself just in time.

Standing again, Laura made a fist of the hand that had touched the foot and pressed it absently against her right shoulder. No one spoke as Sylvia once again replaced her shoe and pulled her cuff down to cover the prosthetic once more.

"That is so cool..." Kyle murmured. Feeling the girls' eyes on him, he shook his head stuttering, "Not the foot. Just that you play drums with it. It's cool that you do that. Isn't that the foot for your bass pedal?"

"Yeah," Sylvia nodded, "it's caused some problems, but nothing we can't handle. I can't do everything some drummers can, but then I got this double bass pedal for Christmas and that helps a lot."

An uncomfortable silence followed, during which Sylvia almost excused herself back to the seven inch bin. As she was about to do so, however, Kyle spoke again.

"I've only seen you guys play a couple times, but Laura here," he bumped shoulders with his companion, "she saw you when you played in this one guy's basement, and she's been to every all-ages show you done since then. You guys and the Idiots are her favorite bands."

"Really?" Sylvia felt a rush of pride surge through her. "I'm sorry I didn't recognize you just now, but I hardly ever talk to anybody at shows."

"I know," Laura nodded and shrugged, "it's okay. I should've said something to you before now, but... uh..."

Kyle finished the sentence for her, "She thinks your intimidating."

This statement hit Sylvia like a punch in the face. "You think I'm intimidating?" Despite herself, she grinned from ear to ear.

"No!" Laura grunted and shot Kyle a menacing look. "You just seem so... into playing and stuff. You never look at anybody when you're setting up and you don't look out at people when you're playing. I just didn't want to bother you."

Sylvia felt her head grow a bit light. However, she focused herself once more upon hearing Kyle's next words.

"Tell her about the fan club."

"Fan club?" Sylvia looked up aghast.

Laura turned on Kyle, "God! What is your problem?" Swallowing, she looked once more at Sylvia and began babbling, "It's not a fan club really. It's like... well, I grabbed a bunch of stickers at one of your shows and plastered them all over my books and a bunch of people's lockers. And then I grabbed a few more at your next show and the one after that and kind of got into this habit of sticking them on mailboxes and walls and tables and wherever else I was. So Kyle here, he goes 'Geez Laura, why don't you start a fan club?' So like me and him and these friends we have who've seen you guys play kind of started calling ourselves 'The Little Drummer Girl Fan Club.' It's stupid really. It's just me and a couple people at Arbor who--"

"A couple?" Kyle broke in. "More like ten or twelve. And what about the newsletter?"

Sylvia's eyes widened, "There's a newsletter?"

"Shut up!" Laura brought her fist down on Kyle's solar plexus. Pushing him out of the way, she stood in front of him and looked at Sylvia. "There's only been one, and it was just this assignment for Ohio History. It was like a group project. We were studying like how they used to have town meetings and how communities work, and our teacher Mr. Brink, he told us we had to make up our own community and write a newsletter. I always get A's in his class so I talked him into letting us do a newsletter about your band and said our fan club would be like the community. He thought it was cool -- especially since your band is like... _real_, y'know... and local. So we did it."

Kyle thrust his head past Laura's shoulder. "And then everybody in class wanted a copy, so she xeroxed it and passed 'em out. Here, take a look." Slipping his arm beneath Laura's shoulder, he held out a white sheet of paper. Laura made a lunge for it, but he restrained her with his free arm until Sylvia put her hand out.

Noting the photograph of herself behind the drumset with a particularly rapt expression on her face as she pounded the floor tom, Sylvia blinked and felt slightly faint.

"Oh my god..." she murmured as she scanned the various stories: an article describing what little was known to the club about Sylvia's personal history (i.e. her first name, age, where she attended school and the kind of drums she played), a small featurette on Badger and Eugene, a schedule of upcoming shows, a list of Sylvia sightings ("driving down third street," "at Whither's Groceries after midnight," "with two friends at Superchug" (with a complete list of what she ordered)), and a pool for betting on which member would be the first to tell the Little Drummer Girl about the fan club. There was also a top five list of favorite SWK tunes. But since no one knew the titles, they were referred to simply as "the one where LDG makes the scrunchy face," "the one where LDG hits the floor tom a lot," and so on.

"I took the picture by the way," said Kyle when the silence became more than he could bear.

"Yeah?" Sylvia tore her eyes from the paper. "It's nice. I uh..."

"We're not psychos!" Laura said a little too loudly. "Really, it's more like an in-joke with us than anything else. We just like your band."

"I'm flattered," returned Sylvia. "I'm really... really just... flattered."

A strain of nervous laughter infected the trio for nearly a minute, after which Kyle and Laura, having promised to keep Sylvia informed on possible fan club activity, excused themselves from the store. Sylvia watched them through the glass as they sprinted up the steps, exchanging excited words and smiles though she could not hear what they were saying.

As it happened, Sylvia was leaning with one arm against the glass counter near the cash register. She jumped upon hearing a voice at her ear.

"Don't you love it?"

Sylvia turned to find Steve Greener perched on a stool with a cigarette in one hand and a copy of MaximumRockNRoll with cover folded back in the other. Though the words were obviously addressed to her, he did not look up from the magazine.

"Love what?"

Steve lifted his eyes over the edge of the magazine. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Act like you don't know what I'm talking about," he grinned. "I know that look. I've seen it in the mirror a million times. They," he inclined his head toward the door through which Kyle and Laura had just exited, "_like_ you. You kick ass, chickybabe. And they love it. Shit, you've got a fan club. And you're only..." Trailing off, he set the magazine down on the counter and took a drag from the cigarette. "How old are you anyway?"

"S-seventeen."

"Well," Steve smiled, "believe it or not, that officially makes you cooler than me. I was twenty-two before I had a fan club."

Sylvia sighed. "It's just a joke. It's not a real fan club."

Steve shook his head. "You are sooooo judging this shit the wrong way. It's a group of people who like what you do. And you are a topic of conversation when they get together."

"So?" Sylvia found herself laughing nervously.

"So it's damn fan club, honey."

Sylvia opened her mouth but said nothing for a moment. Taking a step back, she thrust her palms up and tossed her head from side to side. "It's... it's some kids in high school. _I'm_ in high school. It's just some high school thing."

"That," Steve nodded, "is the short definition of 'fan club.'"

Sylvia's laughter returned more uncontrollably. "I can't have a fan club. I can _be_ in one, but I can't have one."

"_Be...?_" Steve raised one eyebrow. For a moment, he seemed struck speechless. "Oh my god, you are fucking brilliant! Join your own fan club! Why didn't I think of that?"

"I never said--"

Ignoring her, Steve dismounted his stool. He paced back and forth behind the counter waving his cigarette about as he spoke to no one in particular but loud enough for everyone in the store to hear. "It's beautiful! It's the height of hubris, the pinnacle of publicly displayed ego! Join your own fan club. Shit, you could... show up at meetings and drool over yourself... write letters to fanzines about a chance encounter with yourself at a bus stop... shit, sign your own autograph and sleep with it under your pillow every night!" Stopping himself abruptly, he placed two hands on the counter and bored his gaze into her, "Sorry girl, but an idea this good has to be stolen! Do you mind?"

Eyes wide, Sylvia shook her head back and forth. "No... I guess. But it's not my idea. You're the one who--"

"It's incredible. No wonder you've got a fan club!"

"It's not a--"

"Are we back to that again?" Steve cocked his head and looked at her with half a smile. "I know what you're thinking." He lifted his eyebrows and, nodding conspiratorially, motioned her back to the counter. Faces close, he locked eyes with her and lowered his voice to near a whisper.

"You're thinking: I'm a fraud. I haven't done anything to deserve the attention these people are paying me. They're gonna figure that out pretty soon, and then they'll hate me."

Sylvia said nothing, but cast her eyes down to stare absently at the limited issue promo and interview discs under the glass.

"Little Drummer Girl," Steve gently put out his hands to cover both of hers. She looked up again and swallowed sharply. "Let me tell you something, _nobody_, especially people in entertainment, ever does anything to deserve the kind of attention they get. And yeah, maybe some day they'll end up hating you. Don't ask me why, but adulation has a tendency to turn to bitter hatred. But in your case, that some day is a long way off. And until then, there's a good life to be lived in the here and now."

_Oh Sylvia Ruth Rosen, I think you might have arrived. Everybody knows this guy's an asshole, but he's a successful asshole. And he's talking to you like an equal. Maybe whatever he's got, he sees a little bit of that in you -- like kindred spirits maybe? Oh who really knows? But he's got soft hands, doesn't he? Warm palms. Handsome face. And for whatever reason, you are the sole object of his attention right now. Yes, it is a beautiful day: you have a fan club and Steve Greener thinks you're important enough to spend time on._

With more than a little hesitation, Sylvia broke Steve's gaze. She further drew her hands back slowly but firmly and let them fall at her side. Still, she said nothing.

"Hey!" Steve said clapping his hands together loudly. The sound made Sylvia jump. "Do you have a job?"

It took Sylvia a moment to respond, "No, I... no."

"Good," said Steve, "you wanna work here?"

"The store you mean?" Sylvia lifted her eyebrows. "I don't... I mean I'm not..."

"It's a simple question, drummer girl. How 'bout it?"

Sylvia hesitated. In between school and band practice, she had been on the lookout for some sort of after school job -- if for no other reason, than to eliminate the need for an allowance with which to fund her ever growing music library, which would in turn eliminate at least one major source of control her mother had over her. She had begun by filling out applications at Superchug and a number of fast food establishments. Yet finding herself gripped with an almost claustrophobic sense of dread at the thought of being on her feet working a register for hours, coming home with muscles aching, and wearing a monochrome uniform that reeked of stale grease, she had skipped out on half a dozen interviews. Thus, Sylvia had raised her sights and applied as a sales clerk at several musical instrument and record dealers (including this one) but so far received not so much as a phone call in response. A position at Barge-In, in which she already spent more time than her own room, should have been ideal. Yet for some reason, she held back her response for just a moment, and though she did not understand the reason for it, the mere fact that she hesitated gave her further pause.

She took a step back and without meaning to, narrowed her eyes on Steve. "Why are you...? What made you think of asking me?"

"Well," Steve shrugged, "I dunno. I guess it's like-- well, it's a great job for somebody in a band, y'know? I remember the first year my band got going, I met a lot of people who just came in to buy records. We'd strike up conversations, and I'd be like 'come see my band!' And some of 'em did. Now I'm here and it's cool 'cos it sort of makes me visible, right? People will like drop in to find out what's up with the Idiots. Whenever we go in the studio, I make a tape of the unmixed stuff and listen to it over the sound system here, so sometimes people come in to hear our new stuff. I guess I just figured: you're in a band, a damn good band far as I'm concerned. Judging by what I just saw, you're getting sort of like a... _following_. You should work here."

Try as she might, Sylvia could not resist an electric sensation in her temples at Steve's use of the word "following." Still, she composed herself and steadied her voice. "I don't know... I mean, it'd be great, but I've got school and practice and stuff. And..." she looked up quickly, "well do you even have an opening?"

Steve snorted and reached under the counter. Glancing at the clock, he produced a cordless phone, punched in a number and held it to his ear. Eyes on Sylvia, he waited for the other end to pick up.

"Yeah Dustin?" he piped into the receiver. "Greener. Yeah, it's been fun -- but you're fired. From the store. The record store. Where you work, dammit!" He rolled his eyes at Sylvia. "For being twelve minutes late, that's why. You wanna talk to the owner? Well, who the fuck you think told me to fire you? Uh huh... yeah you do that. Yeah, later."

Chuckling to himself, he set the phone down on the counter and beamed brightly at Sylvia. "When can you start?"

---jones

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"self-employed"
new chapters in Works & Days
a punk rock romance in words, music & art
http://www.freehomepages.com/worksanddays

[LAMECH]

Geez, man. What a flashback. It reminded me of my days as a "hardcore kid". COme back soon and write some more. I like "The Little Drummer Girl" angle.

[Ersby]

This is very good. Gunny, sweet and VERY evocative. I don't know about the 'works and days' thing you mentioned (a novel?) so is this part of that, or should it stand on it's own?

[Branflakes]

Wow, jones. I've GOT to go check out works & days now..........

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Branflakes, the ninja lesbian milk getter.
The one Necro calls "brain".
Call me what you want, just don't call me Blue Falcon. Wait! Nevermind! Just call me!
Your smell floats in my memory, long after you've gone.
"You don't go for that male stuff, do you, Butch?"

[jones]

thanks all. i'll be posting other stuff as time goes on.

ersby, works & days is a continuing story i write and post on the web. it's about a boy and two girls who live together in a punk rock house and their more or less immediate circle of friends. i used to do one big installment a month, but time caught up with me, so now it's down to a couple chapters every saturday. this one is a draft of a chapter that will go up this weekend. if you'd like to see the rest, click the link in my sig.

take care

---jones

------------------
"self-employed"
new chapters in Works & Days
a punk rock romance in words, music & art http://www.freehomepages.com/worksanddays

[This message has been edited by jones (edited April 05, 2000).]

[Ersby]

Hey, I've just started reading Works and Days, and it's excellent! I heartily recommend it to anyone in the area.

[gollum]

GO READ WORKS AND DAYS!!!!1 i'm a self proclaimed addict, it's one of the best, most intriguing, most addictive things i've ever read. and the best part? I HAVEN'T GOTTEN TO THE END YET. i don't know about you kids, but-especially with really good stories-i HATE it when i get to the end and i say "dammit-is that it??" yes, all stories have to end, but i'm always left wondering what happens next. works & days always tells me what happens next (and i gotta say, even though it's in smaller doses, the weekly thing is workin real well, in my opinion

of course, i'm probably biased, since i've somehow become "talent" over at w&d (whoever agreed to THAT one...oh hi jones <g>) ...anyway, go read it. NOW. *stern look* it's even better than you'll want it to be.

hey jones--when do i get more of my Gene fix???

-g

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Sometimes i think everyone on this board is crazy. The rest of the time i'm sure.
-Dan

[jones]

gollum, you sort of made my day there. thanks for the testimonial. it is definitely appreciated.

and oh yeah, eugene will be back this weekend (i think). i'm actually going to work on a scene with him at this very moment.

(and yes, you are quite the talent -- no foolin')

ersby, you wouldn't believe how thrilling (yes, "thrilling" -- that's not sarcasm) it is to know the story of a few people in ohio is being read and appreciated on the other side of the atlantic. have a good weekend, and i hope you like the rest of the story as much as what you've read so far.

take care

---jones

------------------
"self-employed"
new chapters in Works & Days
a punk rock romance in words, music & art
http://www.freehomepages.com/worksanddays

[Ersby]

I don't believe it!!! It's Friday evening, and I've already read the lot!!! Oh, well...

(er, what do you mean "Why am I in on a Friday evening?" Um... I'm tired... yeah, that's the reason!)

[Ersby]

You're not wrong about it being addictive: I've just spent the last half hour at work printing stuff out to last me the weekend!