the fight. There was an American flag tacked to the slanted ceiling that hung with the pitch of the roof. A large Iron Maiden poster hung on the wall near the window that showed the skeletal Eddie the Head in a straitjacket with three chains attached to his iron neck collar. It secured him inside a padded room, and his fierce eyes screamed out at you. It read “Peace of Mind” at the bottom.
Sy’s hair was a greasy, dirty blond tangle that hung down past his shoulders. His beard was mangy and had a tint of red in it. He wore this threadbare, black Metallica t-shirt, bleached white jeans with rips at the knees, and some white high-top Reeboks. I peeked my head in through the door.
“Get over here, you,” Sy said, waving me in. “The champ himself!”
He reached out, grabbed me, and threw me in a head lock. I smelled pot and liquor, but I didn’t know what the smells were then, and I recognized ’em as Sy’s scent. He let me go and stood there. I could feel them all staring at my forehead and eye.
“Now what happened, Joey?” Sy asked.
I took a deep breath. “Got in a fight,” I said quietly.
“Well, I can see that,” Sy replied, grinning. “Did ya win?”
“Didn’t get to finish,” I said, and glanced over at Rich, who watched me with his arms folded over his chest.
“Well… Did you get any good punches in?” Sy asked.
I paused, looked down, and scratched my chin. I riffled through my memory—the haze of punches and shouts—then I remembered Leroy on the pavement, and I looked back up.
“Yeah!” I exclaimed. They broke up.
“So he’s coming out tonight, huh?” Sy looked over at Rich.
“Yep, Ma even said it was alright,” Rich confirmed as he reached over and messed up my hair. “I told her what happened and said it might cheer him up to hear some metal.”
My mind raced with wild excitement of where we were headed. I was sure it was some dark pit of dragons and snakes, smoke and roaring noise.
We piled into Rich’s rusty Bronco, and the back was stacked to the roof with large black amps, guitar cases, and a drum kit.
“Sy, what’s the name of your band?” I asked as we squished in the back seat.
“The Dead Rat Society,” Sy growled. “Got a problem with that, kid?” He glowered at me. Metallica erupted as the sputtering engine started, and the Bronco sped down Hollywood.
The show was at a place out on Peterson Ave. called Fautches. I remembered Jan’n’Rose said they had all-ages house music on Friday nights, and they’d even convinced Ma to take ’em a few times. Fautches was a wide one-story converted office space with tall windows that spread across the entire width with tan, vertical track blinds that were always drawn shut. There was a glass door in the middle for the entrance, and the building had a narrow, empty lot beside it that was covered with white stones and garbage. A few bushes lined the club’s cinderblock side wall. As we approached Fautches, Rich swerved right, and suddenly the Bronco barreled over the curb and sidewalk. Everything in the truck sprung up airborn, then it all fell downward on the creaky shocks as the truck bounced. The instruments and amps wobbled. The truck tires rumpled over the stones and stopped near the back of the building next to a steel door.
“You’re one crazy motherfucker, Rich!” Sy shouted as we piled out.
Rich got out and swung the rear hatch up. Miraculously, the mountain of equipment didn’t avalanche out.
“Here, you carry this,” Sy said as he gripped a guitar case, spun around, and bent down on one knee. Then, he lifted it up to me like some sacred relic. “Now you take care of this, champ.”
“What is it?” I asked, grabbing the smooth wood handle.
“Excalibur,” Sy declared, his eyes closed solemnly. “Now get in there.”
I followed Rich, who hoisted a large kick drum.
We walked down a dark hallway. The roaring yawn of a lead electric guitar spilt into the room. We stacked the instruments and amps on the back of the small carpeted stage. The long, narrow room was about half full with slouchy metal-heads—almost all of whom wore black band shirts, bleached jeans, and combat boots—and most had long mops of dirty hair. There was one black dude sitting atop a tall amp near the side of stage. His long, skinny legs dangled almost to the floor. He had a mohawk made outta finger-length spikes of frizzy hair that spouted down the center of his shaved, glistening scalp.
I stood steadfast beside Excalibur’s case and gawked at the room. Rich stomped up with a fistful of quarters. “Here,” he said, and poured them into my cupped palms. “Go ahead.” He nodded to the large arcade in the side room. “The show won’t start for a while.”
The game room was long and narrow like the concert room. It was filled with manic, pulsing lights. Video game machines lined each wall, and a column of games ran down the middle. It was full of racecar and gun games and crazy, themed pinball machines. I had a blast. Sy came up later and challenged me to a game of pinball. I picked Pin-Bot; it had this intergalactic robot with electricity blazing from its fingertips. Sy was all into it. He leaned in over the machine, and his wild hair splayed on the clear glass plane. Below was the bust of a lit up solar system. The green, red, and blue bulbs pulsed frantically, and the sensors rang as the ball bopped them.
Rich poked his head into the game room. “Hey... Sy, you gonna smoke?”
“Naw. I’m busy whippin’ this kid in pinball,” he replied without looking up.
“Alright,” Rich said, putting his hand through my hair and disappearing back down the dark hallway.
“Smoking,” I scowled. “That’s what gave my Da cancer.”
“Hey,” Sy paused and looked down at me. “Well, den I never want to hear about you smokin’. Got it punk?” He slapped me softly on the back of the head.
“I won’t, never.”
Two blondes strolled up to us and started hanging on Sy. One wore this tight, white tank-top. It was sliced up with scissors on the sides and struggled to restrain her giant pair of plump boobs. She had on a black spandex leotard with a blue stripe running down one leg and these huge hoop earrings. The other was chunky with a loose, nylon plaid shirt on that hung down to her knees. Sy flashed his glowing smirk. I took my turn. Sy teased the ladies as they drunkenly hung on his shirtsleeve. The chesty one twisted her index finger in an oily strand of his hair.
I focused on the pinball machine. I banged hard on the smooth, little buttons. The flippers popped the small, chrome ball and bounced it through the flickering neon lights. The ball incited the spring-loaded boppers to percolate red. When my last ball slipped past the flippers, I was up a few points on Sy. He batted the blonde’s hands away and stepped around to the front of the machine.
“Now, ladies, watch how a real man plays the game,” he said, glancing at them. “You gotta understand, I ain’t been beaten in two years runnin’. I’m the reigning champ of Fautches,” he said to the girls as he smoothed his hair back behind his shoulders.
He pulled the spring, let it go, and leaned over the machine. The little ball bounced and rattled.
