All Tomorrow's Parties

46. PINE BOX

CREEDMORE was into the climax of his number before Chevette spotted God's Little Toy cruising past overhead. The bar, like a lot of the spaces here on the original deck, didn't have a ceiling of its own, just the bottoms of whatever floor areas had been erected above it, with the result that what passed for a ceiling was uneven and irregular. The management had at some point sprayed all that black, and Chevette might not have noticed the floating camera platform if its Mylar balloon hadn't caught and reflected the stage lights. It was definitely under human control and looked like it might be jockeying to get a close-up of Creedmore. Then Chevette spotted two more of the silver balloons, these parked up in a sort of hollow created by a discontinuity in the floors above.

That meant, she thought, that Tessa had gotten someone to drive her back to the foot of Folsom. Then either she'd driven back or gotten a lift. (She was pretty sure Tessa wouldn't have walked it, not with the balloons anyway.) Chevette hoped the latter, because she didn't want to have to try to find a space to park the van a second time. Whatever Tessa was up to here, they were going to need a place to sleep later.

Creedmore's song ended with a sort of yodeling cry of brainless defiance, which was echoed back, amplified into a terrifying roar, by the meshback crowd. Chevette was amazed by the enthusiasm, not so much that it was for Creedmore as it was for this kind of music. Music was strange that way though; there were people into any damned thing, it seemed like, and if you got enough of them together in one bar, she guessed, you could have a pretty good time.

She was still working her way through the crowd, warding off the odd grope, looking for Tessa, and keeping an eye out for Carson, when Creedmore's friend Maryalice found her. Maryalice had undone a couple of extra increments of bustier, it looked like, and was presenting as very ample indeed. She looked really happy, or anyway as happy as you can look when you're really drunk, which she definitely and obviously was.

'Honey! she cried, grabbing Chevette by the shoulders. 'Where have you been? We got all kinds of free drinks for our industry guests!

Maryalice clearly didn't remember Chevette having told her that she and Tessa weren't A&R people, but Chevette guessed that there was quite a lot, usually, that Maryalice didn't remember.

'That's great, Chevette said. 'Have you seen Tessa? My friend I was here with? She's Australian-

'Up in the light booth with Saint Vitus, honey. She's getting Buell's whole performance on those little balloon things! Maryalice beamed. Gave Chevette a big, lipstick-greasy kiss on the cheek and instantly forgot her, face going blank as she turned in what Chevette supposed would be the direction of the bar.

But the light booth, now, she could see that: a sort of oversized matte-black crate tacked up against the angle of the wall, opposite the stage, with a warped plastic window running its length, through which she could see, quite plainly, the faces of Tessa and some bald-headed boy with mean-looking slitty black glasses. Just their two heads in there, like puppet heads. Reached, she saw, by an aluminum stepladder fastened to the wall with lengths of rusting pipe strap.

Tessa had her own special glasses on, and Chevette knew she'd be seeing the output from God's Little Toy, adjusting angle and focus with her black glove. Creedmore had launched into another song, its tempo faster, and people were tapping their feet and bobbing up and down in time.

Couple of men in those meshback caps, drinking beer out of cans, by that ladder, but she ducked under their arms and climbed up, ignoring the one who laughed and swatted her butt with the flat of his hand.

Up through the square hole, her nose level with dusty, beer-soaked brown carpet. 'Tessa. Hey.

'Chevette? Tessa didn't turn, lost in the view in her glasses. 'Where'd you go?

'I saw Carson, Chevette said, climbing up through the hole. 'I took off.

'This is amazing footage, Tessa said. 'The faces on these people. Like Robert Frank. I'm going to treat it as mono and grain it down-

'Tessa, Chevette said, 'I think we should get out of here.

'Who the fuck are you? said the baldie, turning. He was wearing a sleeveless tube shirt and his upper arms were no thicker than Chevette's wrists, his bare shoulders looking fragile as the bones of a bird.

'This is Saint Vitus, Tessa said, as if absently bidding to forestall hostilities, attention elsewhere. 'He does the lights in here, but he's the sound man at two other clubs on the bridge, Cognitive Dissidents and something else Tessa's hand dancing with itself in the black control glove.

Chevette knew Cog Diss from before. 'That's a dancer bar, Tessa, she said.

'We're going over there after this, Tessa said. 'He says it'll just be getting going, and it'll be a lot more interesting than this.

'Anything would, Saint Vitus said with infinite weariness.

'Blue Ahmed cut a single there, Tessa said, 'called 'My War Is My War.

'It sucked, Chevette said.

'You're thinking of the Chrome Koran cover, said Saint Vitus, his voice dripping with contempt. 'You've never heard Ahmed's version.

'How the fuck would you know? Chevette demanded.

'Because it was never released, Saint Vitus declared smugly.

'Well, maybe it fucking escaped, Chevette said, feeling like she wanted to deck this diz-monkey, and thinking it might not be that hard to do, although you never knew what would happen if somebody tightened on dancer got really upset. All those stories about twelve-year-olds getting so dizzed they'd grab the bumper of a cop car and flip the whole thing, though these usually involved the kids' muscles popping out through their skins, which she sincerely hoped was impossible. Had to be: what Carson called urban legends.

Creedmore's song ended with a steely clash of guitar that drew Chevette's attention to the stage. Creedmore looked completely tightened now, staring triumphantly out as though across a sea of faces in some vast stadium.

The big guitarist unslung his red guitar and handed it to a boy with sideburns and a black leather vest, who passed him a black guitar with a skinnier body.

'This here's called 'Pine Box, ' Creedmore said, as the big guitarist began to play. Chevette couldn't catch the words as Creedmore began to sing, except that it sounded old and doleful and was about winding up in a pine box, by which she took him to mean a coffin, like what they used to bury people in, but she guessed it could just as easily apply to this sound booth she was stuck in here, with Tessa and this asshole. She looked around and saw an old chrome stool with its pad of upholstery split and taped over, so she planted herself on that and decided she was just going to keep quiet until Tessa had taped as much as she wanted of Creedmore's act. Then she'd see about getting them out of here.