“Weird,” said Whitey, looking at the stack. “That’s not nearly enough to fill the place. It’s going to be super-sparse. Even empty.”
“What the hell do I care?” asked Chip. “If they want to play to an empty hall, then let them.”
“A classic underplay,” said Herman. “Sounds like a big money loser to me.”
Chip pulled a small poster out of the box and unrolled it, showed it to Herman. On it was the same symbol as on the record, but it looked like it had been carved into the flesh between a woman’s breasts, the wound brimming with blood and beginning to drip. Below, it read, in a gothic script,
THE LORDS ARE COMING
.
“Not a money loser for us,” he said. “We’re being paid just to push it. And money loser or not, the Lords are coming and it’s our job to spread the word.”
Herman still was thinking about Heidi with half his mind, wondering if she was okay, wondering if she’d get there. But so far no Heidi. Whitey looked like he wanted to say something or ask about her, but Herman put that don’t-mess-with-me look on his face and Whitey read it loud and clear and swallowed his words. Even when it was time for them to go on the air neither of them said anything about her absence, just gathered their things and went into the studio.
Just as they were getting ready to start, Chip came in. “Where’s the final member of Big H’s holy trinity?” he asked.
Herman thought for a second about what he should say. He could say that he didn’t know, which would just make Chip anxious. Or he could say that she was fucking up again, which would get Chip angry not only at her but also at him. Or he could lie and just pretend like things were okay and then later let the chips fall where they would. The warden would be pissed at him about that last one—she was always telling him that he needed to look out for number one first—but he was built how he was built, and he was going to do what he was going to do.
“She called,” he said. “Said she’s going to be a few minutes late.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Chip. “Is anything wrong?”
“We got it covered,” said Herman. “No worries.”
“If you need me—” Chip started.
“We got it covered,” Herman said, more firmly this time than he felt. It was enough for Chip, who nodded and went out.
Which left him and Whitey alone to get their things together as the commercials wound down.
“I didn’t know she called,” Whitey said.
“Shut the fuck up,” said Herman. “You’re putting me in a bad mood.”
Whitey was silent for about four seconds. “Could have told me she called,” he said.
“She didn’t call,” said Herman. And when Whitey opened his mouth to speak again, he lifted a finger, stopped him. “Focus,” he said. “Show’s starting.”
They stumbled through it for ten or fifteen minutes or so, both of them worried in their own way, but just trying to go forward with the show. And then they relaxed into it and it was okay. As per usual, Whitey offered up one of his various family dramas, fucked-up things from his childhood that were probably all made up but that the listeners seemed to like to hear. Was there a grain of truth in them? Hell if Herman knew. He’d stopped wondering about that about a hundred stories back. It was his job, he knew, to seem incredulous, and then let Whitey make the story wilder and wilder. And then, cut to a commercial or a song.
“I’m sorry, man,” he said, after Whitey had finished his first rendition of the story, “but I don’t believe it. That story sounds like complete b.s.”
“What’s so hard to believe?” asked Whitey. “I’m on a cruise ship with my grandparents, and my grammy gets seasick. So she leans over the side to puke… and pukes out her dentures right into the ocean. No joke.”
“Disgusting,” said Herman.
“Oh, it gets worse,” said Whitey. “Later that night, I walk in on a butt-naked, toothless grammy giving Grandpa a blow job.”
“Butt-naked, eh?” said Herman. “That’s the last thing you want to see.”
“Well, not quite naked. Actually she had a sombrero with the words ‘Aye, Chihuahua’ embroidered on it.”
“Excuse me?” said Herman.
“What, did I forget to mention it was a Mexican cruise?”
Herman just shook his head. They were definitely skirting the edge of what Chip would see as appropriate. Any moment he might pop up at the studio window and give them the signal to tone it down. But still, he couldn’t resist saying, “I guess Grandpa didn’t have to worry about teeth that night.”
“Are you calling my grammy a whore?” asked Whitey. He made sure the listeners could hear the smile in his voice so they’d know he was joking. “Don’t talk about my grandparents like that.”
There was movement in front of the glass of the booth and he thought,
Chip, right on schedule
. But when he glanced up it was to see Heidi. Very quietly she eased the door open and then slipped in. She made it to her chair, a little unsteady on her feet and slid in behind her microphone.
She didn’t look good. Her eyes were glassy and bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles, like she hadn’t slept in weeks. She was a walking disaster. Goddamn, why had he covered for her?
“Well, look who’s ready to join the party,” he said, his voice indignant.
When she spoke into the microphone it was with a mellow, throaty voice. Yeah, he had to admit, she had a great radio voice. You could hear sex dripping off it. “Did I miss anything?” she asked.
“Another nonsensical Whitey childhood memory,” said Herman.
“Nonsensical?” protested Whitey. He put his hand over his heart. “Every word of it was true. If I do say so myself, it was a fascinating tale of my slutty grandma and some missing teeth.”
Herman bit back the impulse to scold Heidi on air. “Anyway, since
you’re here, I guess we can make our big announcement. Fanfare, please, Igor.”
Whitey hit a switch on the board and played a flourish of off-key trumpets and kazoos.
“That the best we can do?” asked Herman.
Whitey shrugged. “I can play it again if you want,” he said, and did so. Heidi, meanwhile, was resting her chin against her hand, eyes half closed, about to nod off. Herman gave her a dirty look, but she was too out of it to even notice.
When the fanfare ended, he began to speak in stentorian tones. “The Lords are coming to Salem for one night only.”
At that Heidi perked up a little. Opened her eyes anyway.
“The Lords of Salem? Really?” she said in a half mumble. “When?”
“You’ve got to start coming to the meetings,” said Whitey.
Heidi gave a lazy smile and flipped Whitey off.
Herman began singing, Bay City Rollers style. “S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night! And we’ve got the tickets. In fact, we have all the tickets. You get them from us or you don’t get them at all. Plus, the show is free.”
“Did you say free?” said Whitey in a fake excited voice. “Now I know there’s gotta be a catch.”
“Why does there always have to be a catch?” groaned Heidi.
“I don’t know,” said Whitey. “There just always is.”
Chip wasn’t going to like that if he heard it, thought Herman. No point in making the audience paranoid. “No catch at all,” he said. “Just call in and get your tickets or come on down to the station and get them. Any way you slice this meat loaf, it is free, baby.”
He gestured to Whitey, who put the needle on the album. The Lords track started off. Hell, he liked it even less than the first time he’d heard it. He made a face and then turned to dress Heidi down.
Virginia Williams sighed, her hands deep in the dishwater. She was tired, but she always felt tired these days. How had life gotten away from her? Last thing she remembered she’d been, like, twenty, and then she blinked and now suddenly here she was, fifty-one. Not even fifty, but fifty-fucking-one. And still with Keith, for Christ’s sake. And on top of that, she had to put up with this crap. Had Keith ever even washed a single damned dish in his life? To hear him tell it, he was the one who did all the work and kept things going. If that was the case, then why was the porch about to rot off? It was hardly even safe to go out there these days. And why was it that every time she turned around he was sucking down another beer?
Okay, Keith wasn’t sucking down a beer right now, but he was damned sure digging through the fridge looking for one. He was way over the hill and halfway down the other side, almost sixty compared to her fifty-one. No hair on the man’s head to speak of, and why did he still insist on wearing a wifebeater? The only hair he had left was his chest hair, which was a stiff dirty white that was better left covered up. But could she get him to put a nice shirt on at home? Hell no. She sighed. It was lucky, she supposed, that he was willing to throw on a tank top. If she had to see even an inch more of his pasty white flesh, well, she didn’t know what she’d do.
He surfaced from the fridge again and sure enough this time he had a beer in hand. He twisted the lid off and flicked it at the trash
where, as usual, it bounced off the side and skittered across the linoleum. Was he going to pick it up? Not a chance. She’d be doing that later, as soon as she was done with all these dishes.
On the window ledge over the sink, the radio was playing. The Big H. They were the best that Salem had to offer, which wasn’t, she had to admit, saying all that much.
“I guess it’s time,” said one of them. Whitey, his name was.
“Oh, it’s time, baby,” said the other one, Herman. “Give it up for the Lords of Salem.”
And then the music started. It was some far-out stuff, all right, hardly even music, not like the stuff she grew up with anyway: REO Speedwagon, Donna Summer, Earth, Wind, and Fire. But there was something to it, something was pulling at her, dragging her into it.
Keith was saying something to her, jabbing a finger at her as he spoke, just kind of crouched there beside the sink, watching her, drinking his beer. Couldn’t he just leave her alone? Couldn’t she be allowed to do the dishes and listen to the radio in peace for once? Was that really too much to ask?
She’d missed most of it, but she caught the word
daughter
and realized he must be talking about his granddaughter’s birthday party. He’d been griping about it for days now.
“Why should I?” he was saying. “I might as well stay home.”
“Well, I don’t want to go either,” Virginia said harshly. “But guess what? You can just suck it up because we’re going.”
It just bounced off Keith. It usually did. He was the kind of guy who thought an argument was just two people’s normal way of communicating.
“It’s so stupid,” he said. “The fucking brat is one year old. She doesn’t even know it’s her fucking birthday.”
“Hey,” she said. “It’s your family, not mine.”
He gave her a disgusted look. “Trust me, I know,” he said, and walked out of the room.
And then, mercifully, she was alone. Just her, for once. Or her
and the music. There was something about it, something about the song, that she could feel humming in her bones. She liked it. It made her feel like she was somewhere else, and that was exactly how she wanted to feel. Anywhere but here. She reached out and turned it up just a little, her wet hand giving her a little shock when she touched the knob. Yeah, that was better, a little louder. What did it remind her of? Something, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but yeah, it was familiar somehow. The music was calling to her, whispering to her. Wow, she hadn’t felt that way about a song for years now, decades even. It made her tingle all over.
The plates were done. She reached into the dishwater and groped along the bottom of the sink for silverware. She was scrubbing off utensils, moving them from the soapy water to the clean water when something caught her eye. What was that through the window above the sink, that shadowy shape staring at her?
With a start, she realized that it was her own reflection against the dark glass. But it didn’t look like her, did it? Who was that old, fat, bedraggled woman? That wasn’t her. She knew she wasn’t really that way. This was the universe playing tricks on her.
But maybe
, a voice inside her said,
it’s time for you to start playing tricks back.
Who was that?
she wondered. She looked at the strange shadowy reflection of herself in the pane of glass, the image that both was and was not her. There was something different about it, and it wasn’t just that the image was backward. She looked different than she had. A sly smile had begun to curve on her lips.
“What kind of tricks?” she asked her reflection.
“Did you say something?” shouted her husband from the other room.
She ignored him.
Well,
it whispered back,
we could start with a makeover…
A makeover! She’d always wanted a makeover. She’d begged her friends to put her name in for one of those TV shows, the ones where
the women went in looking dumpy and came out looking beautiful. She’d be perfect for one of those shows; she knew it. There was a beautiful woman hiding inside her. All she needed was for someone to let it out. But nobody ever took her seriously about it. And most of those friends were gone now anyway, driven away by Keith. She should have left him long ago. If she had, she’d probably still have friends now.
“Shall I go get my makeup?” she said to her reflection. She began to dry her hands off, getting ready to go into the bathroom.
“Are you talking on the phone or something?” Keith shouted. “Who you talking to?”
She just ignored him. This was between her and her reflection—Keith had nothing to do with it. If Keith got involved he’d just wreck things, like he always did.
No makeup needed
, said her reflection.
You’ve got an innate natural beauty. We just need to bring it out a little.
Yes, that’s right,
she thought.
I do have an innate natural beauty. I’m ravishing.
She lifted up her dripping hands and ran her fingers through her stringy hair.
You just have to bring it out
, said her reflection.
But how was she to do that? And without makeup? She looked around on the counters but there wasn’t much there. A half-empty box of cereal, a grapefruit, some tomatoes. Two dirty shot glasses that somehow she’d missed washing. A rack with spices on it. Other than that, there were only the things now draining in the dish drainer. A bunch of plates, some plastic cups, some utensils, a carving knife—