Part 14 (1/2)
WWR: You recently played a show in Birmingham, didn't you? That must have been pretty bizarre.
119.
DP: No, it was just another show. I stayed focused and didn't let it freak me out. I just went to Birmingham and did the show. It wasn't like going home or reliving my wild punk-rock past or any of that c.r.a.p. It was just a show, that's all. We had a great turnout that night.
WWR: So you didn't check out any of the old haunts?
DP: h.e.l.l, no. Most of those places are long gone now, anyway. Dr. Jekyll's and everything. Gentrification took care of that, which is really just as well. Dr. Jekyll's was pretty much Birmingham's one and only punk and hardcore club. Back then, of course, we all thought it was the s.h.i.+t, like we were headlining the Cathay or f.u.c.king CBGB's or something. It was just this tiny hole in the wall, but we could play our music there, and most of the time no one bothered us. I think the biggest thing that ever happened was a Black Flag show, but that must have been almost a decade before I even started playing with Stiff Kitten. Mostly, though, it was all these bands that came and went, and n.o.body will ever know or care who they were. Someone told me that there's a parking lot now where Dr. Jekyll's used to be, and I was like, h.e.l.l yeah and thank G.o.d.
And this is the night that Daria Parker met Keith Barry, this muggy summer weeknight in 1993, before Dr.
Jekyll's was even Dr. Jekyll's. It was still called the Cave back then, an all too accurate name for the dark and smoky little dive on the east end of Morris Avenue. Just past the train tracks that cut the city into north and south, tucked in snug among the empty warehouses and cobblestones, the gaslights that had long since been con-verted to mere electricity. A decade earlier, Morris had been littered with nightclubs and restaurants, the place to be seen until it wasn't anymore and the parties had moved on. This night, that night, the marquee read EC-STATIC WRECK in red plastic letters; the band Daria 120 fronted after Yer Funeral had finally disintegrated, trading grinding hardcore for something only slightly less violent, but something that gave her melodies and words enough breathing room that she didn't suffocate in the roar of her own music.
Through the glare of the lights, she caught glimpses of him sitting out there alone, sipping beer from a plastic cup and watching her. He was the only person in the club besides the albino kid who tended bar, and the guy at the door, and a booth full of goths who all seemed more interested in trying to hear each other above the music than listening to the band. An audience of one, and in those days, that wasn't so unusual. It hadn't mattered to her, one or a hundred. As long as she could play, and as long as there was someone, anyone, to listen, that was all she needed. They played their set, all the songs they had.
Sometimes Daria was singing to him, because he was there, and sometimes she was only singing for herself, only slapping the strings of her black Fender ba.s.s for her own satisfaction. Back then, the music was better than s.e.x, better than any drug she'd ever tried, almost heaven, the words and chords and toothache, heartbeat throb of the drums behind her.
Keith Barry clapped and wolf-whistled between the songs. She smiled and squinted through sweat and her tangled hair and the lights, trying to put a name with the hard, almost-familiar face. When the set was finished, he hooted for more, and she mumbled a thank you into the microphone. They didn't play an encore, because they didn't have anything else to play. As they left the stage, she realized that three of the fingers on her right hand, her thumb and index and middle finger, were bleeding.
But it was nothing she couldn't patch up with a few drops of Krazy Glue and some Band-Aids, nothing that wouldn't heal. Three b.l.o.o.d.y fingers were a very small price to pay for the rush that would probably keep her going until the next show, whenever and wherever that might be.
121.
Daria followed the others down the short, smelly hallway leading back to the ten-by-four closet that pa.s.sed itself off as a dressing room. She wiped the blood from her injured hand onto the front of her T-s.h.i.+rt, three dark smears on yellow cotton, three more stains, and she could point to them in days to come and say, ”See that s.h.i.+t there?
That was a d.a.m.n good night.”
”Pretty sweet, Dar,” Sherman James said, and then he slapped her hard on the back. Sherman wasn't bad, but she knew he was a lot more interested in his engineering cla.s.ses at UAB than his guitar. ”Too bad only half a dozen people heard it.”
”Hey, f.u.c.k 'em,” she said. ”They don't know what they're missing, right?” and Daria put her ba.s.s down on the tattered old sofa taking up one wall of the room. She found a spot on the concrete floor where she could sit cross-legged and have a closer look at her fingers. Sherman made a dumb joke about playing to ghosts and roaches, and Donny White, who had known Sherman since high school, clacked his drumsticks loudly against the graffitied, swimming-pool-blue wall and laughed like it was actually funny.
”Yeah, man,” Donny snickered and tapped out three quarter time on the plaster. ”Audiences are for p.u.s.s.ies. We don't need no steenkin' audience-”
”Speak for yourself,” Daria muttered, wrapping a Band-Aid tightly around the pad of her thumb. ”A few more warm bodies sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't break my heart.”
”You know what I meant.”
”I know what you think you meant.”
And when she looked up, the almost-familiar face was staring sheepishly back at her from the doorway. The man wearing the face was tall and scarecrow thin, dressed like a b.u.m, and his name finally came to her-Keith Barry-the name and what it meant. He'd played guitar for a local punk band called Stiff Kitten, the best thing Birmingham had going for it until their vocalist had died a few months earlier. Her death was the stuff of local legend. She'd got-122 ten wasted on vodka and speed and driven her car under the wheels of a moving freight train.
”Hi,” he said.
”Hi,” she replied. Daria smiled for him, and he almost smiled back.
”You're Keith Barry, aren't you?” she asked. ”You used to play with Stiff Kitten.”
He looked confused for a second, like an actor who's forgotten his lines or missed a cue, then slowly nodded his head.
”Yeah. That's me.”
”d.a.m.n,” Sherman said. He stood up too quickly, almost knocking over the rusty folding chair where he'd been sitting. He held one hand out expectantly. ”Dude, you guys were absolutely f.u.c.king killer.”
”Thanks,” Keith Barry said uncertainly, looking down at his shoes or the floor, not shaking Sherman's hand.
”No, dude, I mean it. You guys f.u.c.kin' rocked,” Sherman burbled recklessly on. ”That really sucked, though, Sarah dying like that and all. She was f.u.c.kin' hot.”
”Yeah,” Keith Barry murmured, and now there was hardly a trace of emotion in his voice. He nodded again and raised his head, staring directly into Sherman's eyes.
”It did. Do you always talk so G.o.dd.a.m.n much?”
”Jesus, Sherman,” Daria groaned. ”Will you sit down and shut up for one minute?” Sherman's smile faded, and he sat back down in the rusty chair.
”Listen, can I, uhm, can I talk to you a sec?” Keith Barry asked her then, tugging nervously at his s.h.i.+rt collar.
”Sure,” and she wrapped the last Band-Aid around her index finger, then stood and dusted off the seat of her jeans. He led her back down the hallway and stopped at the stairs leading up to the stage. Daria leaned against the wall, both thumbs hooked into her belt loops.
”I'm sorry about Sherman,” she said and looked back the way they'd come. ”He isn't a dork on purpose, not usually.”
”Oh h.e.l.l, don't worry about it. You guys have a name?”
123.
”You got a cigarette?” she asked, and he fumbled at his s.h.i.+rt pocket, but turned up only an empty pack and a few dry crumbs of tobacco.
”Thanks anyway,” Daria said, wis.h.i.+ng she'd thought to buy a pack before the show. ”Right now we're Ecstatic Wreck, but that's just until we think of something better.”
”Ecstatic Wreck, hunh? Hey, that's not so bad. I've heard worse,” and she could tell how hard he was trying not to show the jitters, but his hands shook, anyway, and there were beads of sweat standing out on his forehead and cheeks.
Keith Barry's heroin addiction was almost as famous as Sarah Milligan's run-in with the train.
”Yeah, well, I played with some other guys for a while, but they all joined the army, if you can believe that s.h.i.+t.
Anyway, tonight was our first show.”
”No kidding? Wow,” and he rubbed nervously at the stubble on his chin. ”Anyway, I just wanted to tell you you're good. h.e.l.l, you're better than good.”
”Thanks,” she said, a little embarra.s.sed for both of them and trying not to show it. ”That means a lot, coming from you. I used to go to all your shows.”
”You want to maybe get a beer or go for a walk or something?”
She thought about it a moment, then shook her head.
”Sorry,” she said. ”That'd be cool, but I have plans already.” She didn't, unless load out and the drive home alone counted as plans. She didn't have anything until work the next day, but the fevery sheen in Keith Barry's eyes made her nervous, warned her to keep her distance, here be tygers and plenty worse things than tygers.
”Maybe another time then,” he said, sounding disappointed, but he smiled and ran his long fingers through his dirty, mouse-brown hair.
”Definitely. Absolutely.”
They shook hands, his palm cool and slick with sweat, and she left him standing there. She turned and walked quickly towards the dressing room, walking fast before she changed her mind.