Free Deathskull Bombshell by Bethny Ebert Page A

altogether.
    The female guitarist, the red-head from the
basement, did backing vocals. When Parker started with the yelling,
she rolled with it, sometimes shouting along, other times singing
in a more melodic way. Her voice was low for a girl, maybe a
contralto. She wasn’t as good with the guitar as she was with her
voice. Austin noticed she watched Trevor a lot, probably looking
for cues.
    Trevor, predictably enough, introduced
himself to the audience as Bjorn. His guitar was an electric,
covered in stickers. He screamed obscenities between songs just for
the hell of it, insulting the audience, pretending like he was
going to spit on them and sucking the loogie back into his mouth
last-minute. At one point he even threw his sweaty black t-shirt
into the audience, revealing stomach muscles and the beginnings of
a tattoo.
    “Put some clothes on, Trevor.” One of the
guys in the audience threw his shirt back onstage.
    Trevor wiped his armpits with his shirt, then
whipped it in the guy’s face. “No.”
    Some greasy guy with stringy pink hair in a
The Exploited t-shirt and torn pants shoved Austin. He ignored it,
not wanting to fight.
    The guy shoved him a second time. Austin
didn’t do anything then either.
    A petite girl in a mohawk shoved him,
then.
    He turned to face her, irritated. “What?”
    “Moshpit’s starting,” she said.
    He nodded, looking up at the stage.
    She scratched the side of her head. Beneath
the mohawk she had a sweet smile. Her lip was pierced and she wore
a military jacket. “You’re supposed to shove me back.”
    “Do I have to?”
    She shook her head no. “No, of course not.
Everything’s optional. But the front’s for moshers. We get pretty
crazy, so you might wanna head to the back if you want to get home
in one piece.” She pointed with her thumb to the back of the
basement. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
    Austin thought about it. He had such a nice
view here, and the beer felt good.
    The girl glanced at him, then at the stage.
She took a sip of her beer, then crushed the plastic cup in her
hand and set it on the ground.
    Austin shoved her.
    Some random guy hit him with his shoulder,
banging into him like a spiky leather-studded truck, a gesture
Austin returned with great enthusiasm.
    Thus began the first moshpit, but not the
last.

Chapter sixteen
    May 2002
     
    Nick stood in the back of the basement, beer
bottle in hand, watching the show. He didn’t actually drink, but he
needed something to do with his hands. They seemed like birds these
days, about to fly away and leave his brain behind. Emotion bubbled
in his heart like witch-brew. Watching Parker up there on stage was
like – well, there was no accurate comparison really, having
nothing to compare it to.
    Nick smiled into the mouth of his empty beer
bottle, feeling more than a little stupid.
    The band was on their last song of the night.
“Cupcake Wolverine”. Nick helped write that song, right after his
Confirmation thing. He was surprised and a little flattered they’d
learned it so fast.
    Both of them were raised Catholic, sort of.
Parker liked the idea and found it romantic, but he believed more
in nature than in any sort of creator. Nick was Buddhist. He saw
common ground between Buddhism and Catholicism, both postulating
guidelines and stipulations for morally sound behavior. He
suspected that was most religion, anyway, stipulations, but somehow
Buddhism seemed more lenient.
    After his Confirmation, he only attended
services when his parents were home.
    They didn’t notice that he was Buddhist, of
course. They didn’t notice anything. Work was always more
important. Nick and Brooke were about as much a priority as the
cute ceramic dishware they got in China. They joked about it with
each other, calling themselves Housekeeper 1 and Housekeeper 2.
    “Hey, cupcake Wolverine, why you gotta always
fuck with my shit. Big Jesus face. What do you do all day? What
what what what do you do.”
    He wondered if