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It’s a gimmick tour, Eddie will be the first to admit. Their metal label has no shortage of bands that have had their controversies, complaints in local newspapers by the Parents Music Reaction Group of the area. The In Satan’s Name tour is different. It’s a triple bill, three bands with a history of arrest warrants and murder charges. Enough to really get the conservatives frothing at the mouth, while negative word of mouth boosts ticket sales amongst the curious.
Eddie could be accused of having no dignity, allowing their managers to put this together based on the worst memories of his life. In the end, however, a show is a show. He wants to be on tour, and so do Jeff and Grant and Gareth. Dustin and Mike are the only people from home who care about his band, and they don’t hate him for exploiting them all. Louise and Hank Cunningham were always going to hate him. Eddie tries to ignore the past as much as he can, and just shred.
There is a lot for the fanatic Christians of the world to talk about, he’s gotta admit. Corroded Coffin; a lead guitarist accused of murdering a cheerleader, a basketball player, and a nerd, and cursing a town with earthquakes and crop death. Dethkrunch; a guitarist accused of murdering a football player, growing a satanic cult, and burning down a church. Skull Splinters; a drummer found at the scene of a murdered suburban family, the neighbourhood raining frogs shortly after. Friends, family, and hometown busybodies have soundbytes seemingly every new city, and they’re all never anybody but unadulterated evil, selling their wickedness with an awful racket of noise that bewitches the vulnerable. It would be exhausting if Eddie didn’t love his racket so much.
Mere days into the two month tour, Eddie finds himself drawn to Dylan. Dethkrunch more broadly speaking, sure. It’s easy to judge their music as far superior to Skull Splinters’, especially Spud on the drums. Jer’s fills have nothing on Spud’s. Equally importantly, Spud and Gareth like to share conspiracy theories when they’re in the courtyard of the motel of the night. And Jordy and Grant talk psychology. All Skull Splinters does is drink. Eddie can’t imagine they’re making much on this tour. Dylan though, stands out as a performer by the sheer value that he’s Eddie’s type. Passionate, artistically nerdy, and a man.
Their situations are very different. Eddie went through actual demonic monsters commanded by a magical sociopath and a whole massive government conspiracy. Dylan, on the other hand, dealt with a very real cult, one that tried to bury him alive for betraying them, his ex-girlfriend the lead on the decision, and a counter-cult of Christians ‘fighting back’. Eddie crawled away from spring of 86 with a lot of fears, but claustrophobia and a sudden malice from his loved ones were thankfully never on the list. Dylan’s mother believed herself possessed, with Dylan at fault. Uncle Wayne never thought for a moment he was guilty of One’s murders.
Despite their core troubles being different, though, Eddie has found that Dylan gets him in ways no one else does. Not Jeff or Grant or Gareth, who got in trouble by association, feared for their lives, even, but never faced the cold shock of getting arrested for something they didn’t do. Not Steve and Robin and Nancy and Jonathan, who all did what they had to do to protect the kids, but were able to find ways to walk away from that role and live new lives afterwards. Not even Dustin, who shares the same nightmares about the part of the plan they executed, the soar of the guitar and the swoop and tear of the bats. Dylan too, nearly died, as the church his accuser turned mother’s exorcist lured him into burned down around him. Just as menacing a location as the Upside Down, really. No one else can understand that.
It’s May, and they’re in Tucson. The air is warmer than in Indiana, and like Will, like most of the disbanded Party, Eddie feels better with a sheen of sweat on his brow. Dylan fears the cold of an abandoned makeshift grave, and Eddie still occasionally mistakes falling snow for filthy particles, so it’s nice to be here, warm in the moonlight, reclined on mildly nasty poolside lounge chairs, a joint stubbed out on the wrought iron.
“The question is, what do you do when your traumas also awaken something in you?”
“What, man?” Eddie’s not sure he knows what Dylan means, but it’s a great time to listen. Dylan’s not the most eloquent of Dethkrunch, Jordy is a brilliant woman, and Spud has a way of producing an argument Nancy would be proud of, but Eddie likes listening to him. It’s a summer crush that doesn’t mean anything come fall. He probably won’t even tell Dustin and Mike about it, the next time they meet up. But on a cozy May night, it’s nice to stretch his legs out on the grimy water resistant canvas and tilt his ear towards the guitarist.
“Everyone’s got trauma. On a scale, obviously. Some people have a dead childhood pet, and some people are brainwashed child soldiers.”
True. Even given that half the Party were child soldiers, there’s still a range of things. Some people are kidnapped and tortured lab experiments, and some have bland emotionally neglectful fathers. “But everyone’s fucked up somehow, you think?”
“Yeah. Because even if you’re a two on the comprehensive scale of stubbed toe to war bride, it’s still a ten to you, when you’re personally suffering it.”
“Okay, sure.” It’s an easy premise. There are no eternally happy people. Life includes suffering. Uh huh, and water is wet.
“But what’s weird is, for some people, the thing they’ve gone through hits their brain in the exact right way to make it an intrigue. A kink, even. And then what are you supposed to do?”
Eddie can’t say he immediately agrees. He didn’t exactly walk away from the spring of 86 with a broken bone fetish. But Dylan isn’t being too subtle with his statement. He’s a weak touch with weed, like it’s not something he does off tour.
“I guess it depends on if it hurts other people,” Eddie throws out. He’s met his fair share of kinksters, and they’re never the people actually hurting others. Not non-consensually, where it sticks. When Dylan doesn’t reply, he adds “we can pretend this is hypothetical, if you want. If it’s easier.”
Dylan exhales roughly into the polluted night sky. His hair is a lot like Gareth’s, shaggy with loose unmaintained curls. It’s pressed into the grey-white and teal canvas now, as he looks up before rubbing his hand over his face.
“At one point, Judith was going to have sex with me after the school dance by doing it on an altar and having the cult watch. A bit of a twist on the classic lose your virginity at homecoming,” Dylan scoffs.
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. He doesn’t feel very qualified to offer an opinion on having a bad ex, never mind one whose attempted murder count reached a second hand’s worth of fingers by senior year. She’s not in jail now, as far as Jordy’s looked into it, but she probably should be.
“And don’t get me wrong, it’s something I didn’t know she’d planned before she led me to the basement. I was pretty fucking stunned seeing all my friends in robes coming out of the shadows. But I said yes. It was the early days, before I felt scared, like I had to fix things. It wasn’t coerced, it was a yes. We were half undressed when we got caught by her grandpa, the police chief. It never went further than that, I pissed her off and turned her against me shortly after that. And that’s good, I guess, that I didn’t lose it to someone who tried to kill me weeks later. But turns out that even though I hate her, and the me I was when I was with her, that night I found a kink I’ve had ever since.”
“You’re an exhibitionist?” Eddie questions, filtering through the details.
“Yeah,” Dylan sighs, expression heavy in the sodium lamp lighting. “Shit, yeah, I think I am.”
Eddie shrugs, sleeves catching a little on the lounger on the way back down. “Unless you’re making people watch that don’t want to watch, or kids, or something gross like that, you’re not hurting anyone. I know it’s not that easy to separate it from its instigation, but I think it’s fine.”
“Really?”
“Really. You should go for it. Good luck in that, man.”
Dylan twists to look at him, to match body language to his casual tone. Eddie endures the observation with ease. There’s nothing to hide, he means what he’s saying. A lot of people he knows have a desire for public attention. They’re rockstars, for fucksakes.
“Thanks,” Dylan says, when he confirms that Eddie can be trusted. “What about you? What kind of babe am I wishing you luck with?”
“Don’t need it,” Eddie replies before he can think about faking a lie. His truth isn’t everywhere, but it can be picked up on by the fans who need someone like him in their life.
“What? Why? Already got a girl back home?”
“I’m gonna tell you this because you seem cool, and I know you already know what it’s like to be persecuted for dumb shit.” Jason Carver and Tracey Whitehead are two sides of the same coin, people driven insane with piety, and charismatic enough to make others listen. Jason’s death and Tracey’s imprisonment haven’t done much to curb their believers.
“Wait. What?” Dylan prompts, sitting up to prove Eddie has his full attention.
“Corroded Coffin is very gay. Very. Man, the straightest among us is still extremely bisexual. Needing luck to score a girlfriend or boyfriend is an at home thing. On the road, we all just secretly hook up.”
“No shit? No way.”
Eddie shrugs. “We play better when we’re not pent up.”
“That's so cool,” Dylan gasps as he comes to terms with what Eddie’s admitted. Better than Mike trying-to-unlearn-his-dad’s-lessons Wheeler warning him about AIDS, like he’s not far more aware than the little butthead could ever be.
“You think?”
“I could never with Dethkrunch. Jordy had a crush on me in high school, and even though she’s way past it, I think she’d kill me if I suggested casual sex. And Spud is just Kinsey zero, incredibly straight, not an option.”
“Unfortunate, man.” Eddie knows straight people. He just doesn’t get them. Men are beautiful, with their body hair, and wide shoulders, and demanding cocks.
“I’m bi too, by the way,” Dylan confesses, like Eddie didn’t pick that up when Spud wasn’t an option due to his sexuality, not his gender. “And even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t tell anybody. Nobody needs to know your band’s secret. What does identity matter against the music you can make?”
Well that doesn’t seem quite right. Eddie’s identity is music, not inconsequential to it. Corroded Coffin works on lyrics together, laying them on top of melodies Jeff composes, and while they stick primarily to fantasy and the gore of real life, there’s the occasional sex song. To a one, they’re all determinedly gender neutral. He wants to stay on Chiron Records enough to not drop male pronouns, as does the rest of the band, but they know who they are enough to mention cocked hips and wicked tongues. His music is gay, because he is. Still though, he appreciates Dylan’s words. Nobody wants to get outed before they’re ready.
“Thanks, man. But I’ve known me forever, so back to you and your revelation. The obvious answer is to wait until you’re in a city big enough for a sex club, and see if the management will let a newb go to town on centre stage. But I figure there’s a reason you haven’t already done it. It’s not like I’m the first to ever conceive of a place like that.”
“I mean, even if I did find a place I don’t have a partner.”
“Yeah, that’s why you negotiate a scene.” Eddie rolls his eyes. Sometimes vanilla people come off as, like, wretchedly bad at communication.
“Uh-“
“If you never learn to negotiate you’ll never learn how to arrange your thoughts when I say I think I could sweet talk Corroded Coffin into watching us fuck,” Eddie continues.
Dylan just about chokes on his tongue, spluttering for air like it’s ten minutes and ten years ago and he’s inhaling his first joint. “You’re kidding me.”
“Okay, prime example of an attitude to not bring to a sex club,” Eddie replies, amused.
“Shut up about the sex club, what do you mean your band will-“
Eddie grins. “What it says on the tin, bud.”
“You’re sure your guys will be up for it? It’s one thing to fool around with each other, or have orgies, or whatever. Which, as an aside, is a totally badass rockstar event, if I haven’t already made that clear. But yeah, telling them you want a stranger in on your band thing? Are you sure-?”
“It’s a band thing, but it’s not a band thing. You have your own band, it’s not like you’re begging to join up.” Dethkrunch wouldn’t merge well with Corroded Coffin anyway. They’ve got a much more theatrical aesthetic, and a fifty fifty chance everyone’s wearing pancake makeup on stage. Grant would never.
“Definitely not. Jordy and Spud would kill me if I ever tried to leave the band,” Dylan says.
“Right. So we all get that. Grant and Gareth and Jeff will get that you just wanna get some action under scrutiny, that it’s nothing that can hurt them or the band. I can talk about it with them tomorrow?” It’s a two hour drive to their next venue, Eddie’s got lots of time to bring it up.
“Okay,” Dylan says, looking a bit surprised at himself for committing. Eddie wonders if little baby teenager him looked the same when he said yes to Judith’s wild plan in that high school basement. What he’s sure of is that he and his friends won’t hurt Dylan in the same way she did.
“So I’ll talk to them tomorrow, and when they say yes-“
“If-“
“When,” Eddie emphasizes, he knows his bandmates, “we’ll negotiate the details of what we both like. That’s a kink thing too, in case you didn’t know. There’s supposed to be a lot of talking, not just springing upon.”
Eddie stopped believing in signs from the universe a long time ago. That’s the kind of belief that destroys someone who gets bullied day in and day out. Finding out about alternate dimensions and true psychic abilities only compounded the disbelief. It’s harder to fight something if you think the universe says it’s destiny. But in this alone, Eddie sees the poetry of the world. Dylan coming to accept himself in a town called Phoenix? That’s a scene that could be a lyric, one day.