He reared his right foot back to kick the DJ’s brains out of his head.
The young man lifted his chin. The bleeding face was weeping. Tears mixed with blood coursed along the corners of the mangled mouth. His eyes were sightless, fixed on something far beyond the dude from Detroit.
Nomad was about to let swing.
He wondered what more he could add to this cup of suffering. He heard the DJ’s chest rattle as the sobs rolled out. He saw the DJ put his hands up to his eyes as if to hide from the blinding light. Nomad wondered what kind of shrunken shirt this young man had had to wear, and what had been burned and scarred into his mind and soul. He could imagine this kid leaving Philly with a big-lid ball cap and big dreams. Gonna be a big star, Mom. Gonna set ’em on fire.
Instead, he came to the place where people want things before they’ve earned them, where you are nobody without power and money, where the heat of the dreams melt you down to size, and hey, Mom, lookit me now.
It was not for Nomad to add anything more.
He lowered his foot. When he turned back toward Ariel, he saw that True and two cops had come into the corridor, along with the club’s manager, a spindly guy wearing all black with a trimmed black goatee. True was talking quietly to Ariel, his face close to hers, and Nomad saw her nod. The two cops came over and pulled DJ Talk It Up to his feet. His knees promptly gave way, so they half-dragged, half-guided him into the Green Room. True said tersely, “Call an ambulance!” but Ariel shook her head and grabbed at the manager’s sleeve.
“No,” she said. “No ambulance.”
“Go ahead,” True directed.
“No!” Ariel’s voice was louder. “I’m not going to the hospital!”
Berke said, “Listen, baby, you’ve got to go. We’ll be right there with you.”
“No,” Ariel repeated. “No, I’m going on.”
“Going on?” Terry shot a quick glance at Berke and then at True, whose flesh seemed to have tightened over the facial bones just in the last half-minute. “Going on where?”
“On stage,” Ariel answered, holding the towel against her bleeding nose. It was numb, she didn’t know if it was broken or not. She’d already explored with her tongue to make sure her teeth were still there, and though she’d discovered a few unfamiliar edges she thought she was okay. “They’re calling for us,” she said. “He hurt me, but he didn’t rape me.” She repeated it to make sure they understood. “He didn’t rape me.”
“You’re going to the hospital,” True said, searching her eyes. “Whether you want to or not. Go call the ambulance,” he told the manager.
Ariel took the towel away from her face and screamed.
It was a word.
The word was: No.
The manager stopped and no one else moved either, not even the dude who was mopping up the mess. Out front, the chanting went on, louder and louder and time to get this party started.
Nomad walked to her. He saw her eyes tick toward him, and they were her eyes, yes, but they were different now. They had seen things he wished she’d never had to see. They were bloodshot and they were frightened down in their gray depths, but most of all they were angry.
“Nobody’s stopping me!” Ariel said, to all of them, and maybe to the world too. Her teeth clenched; she could taste her own blood and feel all her new sharp edges. “Nobody’s going to stop me from doing this! Nobody!”
She pulled loose from Berke and from Terry. She stood on her own.
“This is what I do!” she cried. “I was born to do this!”
When Berke reached out to touch her shoulder, Ariel pushed the hand away.
“No, just let me…let me…” Ariel shook her head and put the towel to her nose again, and when more of the blood was captured she dropped the towel to her side and her eyes blazed into True’s. “Nobody’s stopping me,” she told him, “from doing what I was born to do. This. Music. I didn’t work this hard… I didn’t come all this way…all the bands…the people…everything…to have someone tell me I can’t go on when I say I can.”
And there was more to it, but she was about to sob and she feared breaking apart and not being able to pick up her pieces, so she didn’t say that she thought the darkness that had just tried to destroy her wanted her to tuck her tail between her legs and go speechless and spineless to the hospital. She didn’t say that she thought the darkness revelled in the wounded silence of broken hearts and raped spirits, that it grew strong on the bitter memory of the crushed dream. She didn’t say that she thought to not go on would be the biggest surrender of her life, because to fight that darkness, to push back its encroachment, meant you had to be determined to stand up. You had to play your guitar and sing, if that’s what you were born to do. You had to go out there, bruised and bloody, and let them know you were where you were supposed to be in this world, and nobody—surely not that greedy, stupid-minded little thing that had tried to throw you out of it—was going to stop you.
She didn’t say any of this. But she did say, “Now listen to me. My nose might be broken. There might be a doctor or a nurse or a med student out in the crowd. Somebody who can look at me. I know there’s got to be a first-aid kit here. My head’s hurting, maybe he can find out if I have a concussion. The doctor,” she said, so they’d understand. “I need one hour. If I pass out or keep throwing up, then okay…call an ambulance. But I need one hour. And I…shit… I need a new top.”
“You can’t be serious,” True said.
“I need to get cleaned up,” she continued, as if he’d never spoken. “Wash my face. I can’t go back in there, though.” They knew what she meant. “Oh Jesus,” she said wearily, “I’ve got to pee again.”
“You’re in shock,” True said.
“No,” she answered. “Too much tea.”
True was about to say something, to deflect her crazy arrow, but he couldn’t remember what it was going to be. He didn’t smile, he kept his face as grim as a rock. But the determination on this girl’s face got to him. He knew why he liked her. She was probably the toughest one of the bunch, but before this moment she’d never needed to be.
“Will you let me—allow me to—take you to the emergency room after we’re done?”
“Yes.”
“You need one hour? That’s all?”
“That’s all,” she said, and he knew she meant it.
“Suit you?” True asked the manager.
“You got it.”
“You guys okay with this?” True asked his band.
Terry and Berke looked to Nomad.
“Solid,” he replied. If Ariel could go on with her busted nose, he could go on with his swollen knuckles. This was going to be a gig for the ages.
< >
The corridor was clearing out. In the Green Room, the cops had called for a cruiser to take into custody a suspect they thought was most likely the Duct Tape Rapist. The manager went out on stage, faced the happy beer-sodden and Cobra-Cocked crowd and got to speak into the microphone a question he never thought in a million years he would ever ask: “Is there a doctor in the house?”
Suddenly, when True and Terry and Berke moved away, Nomad was right there in front of Ariel. He stared at her, as a wry and admiring smile slowly crept over his face. He didn’t understand about Jeremy Pett, about that girl at the well, about that song or what it meant, but he did understand that he could fall in love with Ariel, if he let himself.
And maybe he was halfway there.
He touched his bad eye and then he tapped his nose. He said, “I think we’re two of a kind.”