The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,17
a guy and then you want to get paid.”
CeCe stood there, waiting for Lenny to grease her palm. He grabbed her wrist and, instead of paying her, he stuck out his tongue and licked it, blood and all, and spat at the floor, cursing her. “You’re not getting one dime from me after that shit you just pulled out there.”
“Keep it,” she said, wiping any trace of spittle and plasma from her hand onto his shirt. “And the herpes.”
Cecilia stalked off, noticing a pale and familiar face in the smoky darkness. Ricky Pyro. An up-and-coming Gothpunk front man and druggie scenester. It certainly wasn’t the guy she was hoping to see. He was much different from Sebastian, even though she’d known Ricky for a long time, and Sebastian only a moment. But, oddly, Ricky was more of a stranger to her. Her pet name for him was “sociopath.” He was out for himself. No mystery. No manners. Crass. The complete opposite of Sebastian. Ricky was a fellow soldier on the music strip and a sometimes booty call. They had a history and not always a good one. She packed up as she bitched to him. “You saw all that, right?”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“Showbiz.”
He nodded in agreement. “Short yet fucking amazing set.”
“I gotta get out of here. You on next?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you calling the band tonight?”
“Pagans,” he replied, sticking his hand in his pocket and looking her up and down.
“Sounds familiar. Better call your lawyer,” she joked, knowing he was so broke he used to book his band pretending to be his own agent.
But then again, so did she.
“That band was The Pagans, smart-ass,” he corrected, pointing out a distinction but not a difference. “They were a punk band. I found the lead singer. He’s, like, a janitor now or something. He said we could use the name if we sang one of his old songs every night. He still owns his publishing. Business, ya know.”
“Must be a valuable catalog. Which song?”
“ ‘What Is This Shit Called Love?’ ”
“Charming. Break a nut. Oh, and thanks for getting me to the hospital the other night.”
“Hospital?”
“Never mind,” she said, rushing for the door.
“Where you headed?”
“Don’t know,” she called back as she reached the door, the silence from the outside getting sucked into the roar inside. “Oh, and by the way. I’m feeling better. Thanks for asking!”
“Hit you up later?”
“Nah,” she said, looking over at his groupies, who would kill to be with him. “Don’t ever fall for me, Ricky.”
“Too late,” he replied.
Then she looked condescendingly over to his band members. “By the way, no matter what you call them, they still suck.”
“Not as good as you do,” the drummer shouted.
CeCe pushed the bar on the back door and walked out into the alley where a few of her fans—the diehards—had gathered. Her “apostles” she called them, all sporting her look, with varying degrees of success. She appreciated them, their loyalty and devotion most of all, but right now, even they were not enough.
“What happened?” one shouted as she rushed by them. “Everything okay?”
“I’m good.” She grinned unconvincingly, like someone about to vomit, and kept walking.
“Sick bracelet,” another girl called out. “Where’d you get it?”
“Some guy,” she answered, preferring to keep the details to herself.
She held up her arm as much to show off the chaplet as to wave good-bye. The girls turned wide-eyed, covered their mouths, and giggled silently, devouring the piece of inside info they’d just been tossed. She was rude and they didn’t deserve that. They deserved an explanation, but what was there to be gained by preaching to the converted, to her followers, she thought. Whatever she said they’d just nod their heads, listen attentively, frown sympathetically, and agree with every word. She needed some criticism, some perspective.
Maybe she should have just admitted to them that all that bravado and empowerment talk she put out there was just a load of bullshit, a stage persona that she put on and took off the way she changed her outfits or boyfriends. That the club owner was a pervert who she subtly encouraged to keep her weekly gig, that she barely made cab fare to and from her apartment from her ticket and download sales, that she’d allowed herself to be used by every Strokes wannabe in a leather jacket and skinny jeans from Williamsburg to the East Village, and that she’d finally had enough. She was still coughing up dirt from the previous weekend’s puddle if she needed any further proof.