monster behind the vale

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.001: Ant .002: April .003: Nova .004: Layla .005: Mari .006: Nicky .007: Mark

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Getting to know Silas, in all his darkness, all his chaos, had been one of April’s greatest joys. He taught her how to love, really. She had changed like the seasons under his thumb––sheltered suburban girl-next-door, promiscuous harlot hanging on a cigarette, devoted girlfriend and companion, all of these things and none of them. She had felt rapturous desire, bone chilling longing, the ache and the passion of star-crossed love.   When they had separated, she had written every bit of it off as a drug-fueled haze, nothing more. The truth of it, that she had loved and still was in love with him, heroin or not, was not something she was ready to face. Not even now, looking back into his eyes. Not even now, as he compliments her, as her cheeks flush red (though it remains undetected in the dark light). Not even as he touches her.  No, she would not dare admit she loved him, but as his lips meet her cheek she instinctively melts back into him, almost collapsing into him. It was such an innocent gesture, but she can’t help herself. Her hands, desperate and needy, snake around his waist as she buries her head into his neck. Her body has craved this contact almost as much as the drugs, and as she pulls away again every cell seems to scream with longing. Fuck, she even loved the smell of his sweat.   As the pair of them go backstage, she begins to notice that some people are staring. If you knew, then you knew. But she holds her head up, straightens her spine, and slinks her arm around his. A platonic. harmless gesture. But a statement nonetheless.  “I’ve been, y’know, living I guess. Still trying to write, and perform. But girls like me are a dime a dozen around here…”

There are enough people backstage to provide the illusion of safety. Enough people to keep an eye on him, enough eyes that the looming threat of his bad behaviors circling the gossip rounds and getting back to Ant feels real enough to make Silas nervous. He can do this. He can be a human being for ten minutes.

But when she touches him, Silas feels electric. The familiarity of it all. Her hands on his waist, her skin against his. It’s the best buzz he’s had in months. It makes his skin itch--miles of it littered in scared over puncture wounds like exploded landmines under his sleeves. 

“Nothin’ ‘dime-a-dozen’ about you, love,” he tells her. If they hadn’t happened, if her name hadn’t been so tied to his with rumors and tabloid bullshit haunting her, Silas wondered if where she’d be. Probably not here, leaned up against the chipped wall marked by the scars of acts that played here regularly enough, paint chips flaking off the cement brick and falling on her shoulder. She’d be a real star. “Should let me read some of your stuff sometime.”

Silas reached up and brushed her hair behind her ear--something he wouldn’t have thought twice about before, but immediately regretted. He pulled himself from her, scratching the back of his neck as he turned away. “Sorry,” he muttered. It was too easy to fall into old habits already. And Silas wanted to swan dive into this one.

“Yeah, yeah…” Ant brushed by the title, savoring the stolen weed. He wasn’t so far into it as some of his bandmates; could be said of any of their assorted vices, really. Somebody had to be sober enough to roll everyone over at the end of the night, pick up the broken bottles, put out a bucket. A few puffs wouldn’t hurt, though. Especially when he’d swiped the stuff off Silas. Had good taste in that sort of thing. Snuffing out the butt, Ant cocked his head and took a listen.  It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Not a surprise, either. Unfortunately. His fingers had started to find notes, pick along. They slowed up fast. Fuck. Fuck! After all this time - all this time, and all these miles, the span of a whole damn country. She’d had to turn back up. Like a bad penny. It was April, wasn’t it? Who else would move Silas to punk poetry? The Vale had done a few songs about girls, of course. Nice eyes, great legs, all the ones that got away. That was classic, so far as inspiration went. But pining? They’d never hit pining, before, had they? 

And for bloody April. 

Before Silas even finished, Ant had reached for that G&T. Deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Meditative, like. He’d been trying that, of late. Needed all the help he could get. Ant followed up with a cold gulp of Johnnie Walker, then a sip, more restrained, as Silas’s last chord trembled away. “Well, that,” he started, stopped. Hung up on hoping it was just some stupid coincidence, that he’d overthought a few lyrics. Perhaps Silas didn’t know shit about April and where she’d got to; just suffering some acute nostalgia, for one reason or another. Perhaps April would piss off out of town without Silas catching hide nor hair. And if there was any mercy or grace or what have you out there to be had, perhaps this shit wouldn’t start all over again. Could only hope. 

Maybe this was some sort of… coping, moving on. Not that it sounded that way, from what he’d heard so far. They’d only got a few lines in, though, and music moved in mysterious ways, didn’t it? “That was bloody miserable, mate.” Ant plucked a note, then another, eyes on his hands. Dredging up a sigh, he slapped the E string and steeled himself. “Let’s hear the rest, then.” Be lovely, reassuring, really, if it turned out to be a proper break up banger. The furious get-fucked-someplace-else kind. 

Silas groaned and let himself lay back down on the ledge of the pool. His guitar thumping down beside him. If he rolled over in the pool, maybe he would sink to the bottom and never come back up. At least then he wouldn’t be stuck on a sad song about an ex-girlfriend who had turned up to burn his life down again.

Ant was a right wanker. But he wasn’t wrong. The song was the kind of melancholy garbage that only Simon and Garfunkel could have gotten away with. He could spin lyrics but he couldn’t make them sound the way they were supposed to until Ant put his spin on it. Silas tossed his notebook to--actually, at--Ant like a frisbee. “It sounds... iunno, Angrier in my head.”

The sky was blue and cloudless overhead as Silas stared into it. His fingers threaded through the lukewarm pool water and a memory crept into his mind. Playfully discarded clothes making a trail from the sliding glass door all the way to the edge of the pool. A confidence in his own form, stripped bare just for her; like he was at home and not simply a visitor in his own body. Giggling and splashing that turned to gasps and shudders with his head between her bare legs that dangled off the ledge of the deep end.

Silas smiled to himself, despite the way his stomach lurched. “She was at one of our shows last week,” he said, still staring up at the sky. Still smiling, though there was no joy in his voice.

His was a voice she recognized immediately, and one which, if she wasn’t lying, bristled the hairs on the back of her neck a little. She wasn’t sure what it was about her presence that had put him off so much in the past, but sometimes she could swear Silas could give her a hostile, if not downright violent glare. 

Not that she was afraid of him, or anything like that. She simply always drifted towards good vibes and away from the bad, and as far as he was concerned, they were just magnets that repelled.

“Lonely? Who, me?” Mari answered, in her best Marilyn Monroe, batting her lashes open. “I think ‘yer confusing lonely and alone. Two very diff’rent states of being, sugar.” Despite any hostility of the past, she was going to be her unapologetically flirtatious, guileless self. Her eyes wandered to his liquor bottle, wondering if he was drunk, high, or a dangerous combination of both this time around. As far as she could tell, he was having one of his better days. “Where’re the rest of the guys? I could’ve sworn I heard Nicky shouting at the bartender a few minutes ago.”

“It’s just,” he shrugged, drumming his thumbs on his thighs, “You don’t much see people comin’ to a crowded pub to be alone, yeah?” Silas wasn’t drunk, yet. Because being drunk made it harder to resist other things that he definitely shouldn’t be doing. And the closer he inched to the one-year-clean mark, the more he itched to be dirty again. He’d slipped from one bar to the next, escaping his people and looking for a little peace from the tornado that followed them. So, maybe there was just a bit of irony in such an assumption.

Maybe he’d come to be alone, too.

If only he knew how nuts she was for music of all kinds, he’d know why she snorted out a laugh at the question. 

Of course she’d listened to Exit Wound. It took her an entire summer of saving up to afford the bootleg of Skin that the owner of her local record shop continuously tempted her with. It had come all the way from New York City, which made her feel infinitely cooler than she was before possessing it. Nova should never have let Millie borrow it. She’d practically sobbed when Millie told her that her father snapped the record over his knee when he went to listen to The Osmonds and found the paper jacket of Skin behind the wholesome group in a field. 

For two whole years she had only her memory of the track listing to rely on. Skin was a tether between her and the reality she wanted to create during her lowest moments, and when that tether was cut she was lost again.

“Gosh,” she whispered, nodding. I started writing all the things I was saying to myself in my head, the things I’d tear out of my body if I could. His words were nothing short of inspiring. 

“That’s way powerful, man. It used to make me wish I could write a song worth hearing. Still does, even if it’s been a while since I heard it. I’ve never been good with words like that, but I guess I make up for it with the riffs.” Nova wiggled the fingers of her left hand to show off the little callouses.

 “Does Vital let you write like that still?” 

Silas wouldn’t have said he was immediately impressed with the girl’s knowledge. Or, he wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone. He had spent the last several years avoiding acts like the Gemstones if it were at all possible. There was something so polished and produced about the music that made his skin crawl. But for Silas, Violent Vale had never been about the music, it had been about the anger, about getting it out of his body as loudly and forcefully as possible. 

Or maybe--and this as entirely possible--he was just being a right prick.

“I don’t know if they let me,” he said with a grin as he upended his beer bottle and finished it off, “but they don’t stop me. Not from writing it anyway.” Vale had grown leaps and bounds from where they had been when they released Skin and the label’s influence had slowly creeped into the production and arrangement of their albums. As much as Silas turned his nose up at overly polished pop music, he couldn’t pretend like his own work hadn’t been sanded down into something a bit smoother.

His fingers drummed on the table top in front of him, tapping out the rhythm of the “Exit Wound” bass line. Ant was a genius for what he was able to do . For all the praise he got as a frontman, Silas could barely manage a few chords on a guitar. His fingers weren’t calloused like hers, a small insecurity he harbored. Another thing that he would never admit to. 

“If I can write a song, anyone can write a song,” he said simply. “And you’re worlds ahead if you can actually play an instrument. “I’m shit at that part.”

heard it through the grape vine – accepting

Not well, mate. Not well.  

Silas can be just as self-absorbed as he is self-destructive and showing to the people that he cares about that he actually does care about him comes secondary to the things he wants on impulse. He only remembers that he should have been thinking of them once he’s already fucked up and it’s a realization fueled by guilt. 

This is something he is trying to correct. So, presently, I guess you could say that he shows people he cares about them by actively trying to hold himself together and not fuck up their lives. Sonny, Ant, and the rest of the band have done a lot to put up with him and hold him together so right now he’s very focused on making their lives a little easier by not forcing them to baby sit him all the time.

This was a mistake. It is the only thought to run through her mind as their eyes meet and her lungs feel acidic and burning. It becomes a mantra, a prayer. She suddenly feels her skin begin to crawl, burn, sting, and the only solution is to push herself off of the lip of the stage, launching her petite body right into the pit to feel anything but the burning of his eyes upon her. And she welcomes the bruises with open limbs. There is not an easy escape of him, though. The ghost of their bond slithers from his ear to her own.    He will always be your first and last vice.  She wants nothing but to tuck away and hide from him, never to be seen again, so she stands in waiting at the stage door, arms folded tight across her chest, waiting. She would always be waiting for him. There is no sense delaying the inevitable.  “I guess it’s not, but..” She stammers, struggling for the right words to say. Years apart and the first thing he manages to say to her is how she does not belong. Typical.  “Yeah, I did. It brought back a lot of memories. Fond ones.” She smiles then, timidly at first, but it grows as she begins to settle into herself again. Their love had been like that, too.   

There weren’t many people in the world who really knew Silas. He had built a wall of guilt and secrets and vices around himself. Everyone got their own version of him. The confident rock star who stood center stage. The angry street rat with a violent streak. The absent minded but deeply thoughtful musician. The guilt ridden addict who couldn’t seem to pull himself off rock bottom. April had gotten all of that and none of it at the same time. And somehow she still fell for him.

If she was an inferno, Silas would drown himself in gasoline and run straight into her every goddamn time. Even when he was hanging on by a thread. Even when it would kill him.

“You look good,” he said, his voice so soft the roar of the crowd almost drown him out. People passed by them on their way back stage. The green room where the real party was. He wasn’t thinking about his movements when he took her hand in his, leaned forward to kiss her cheek. His lips lingered for a moment over the warmth of her skin. He hadn’t been warm the last time they kissed and it hadn’t occurred to him that maybe they’d both found their way into a better place. “I’m glad you’re here. Really, love. It’s good to see you. How’s it been?” a smile eases across his lips to match hers as he leads her further back stage. 

These, these were the good times. The breeze eased on by and Ant sipped his gin and tonic, lulled by that thick, heady sunshine, swaying gently in his hammock. Fretting chords on Dennis’s scaly back, where the iguana lay flopped, heavily, on his chest. Dennis didn’t mind. He rarely minded much of anything. Relaxing sort of pal, he was. 

“Mm?” Ant roused, faintly, the ice in his glass rattling as he sat up a bit. They’d been practicing by the pool, earlier, in some loose sense of the word practicing. Seemed Silas hadn’t stopped. Nice to see him so jazzed; the music was good for him, always had been. Christ, Ant could remember the first set Silas had hauled him to. Some nothing band that had gone nowhere, but that night, in that dingy bar, he’d seen his mate light up like a fucking firework. Ah, the bass wasn’t far. They didn’t have a show tonight. He could play his way through the heat. “A good song. That right?” Ant set his glass down on the lawn, scooping Dennis up. Took two hands, these days. Great big bugger. Swinging to his feet, he set Dennis down in the grass. Then, fetching his drink and his guitar, he joined Silas by the pool. A little tune up. There. Ant tossed his hair, brushed it back with a game smile. And took the opportunity to reach over and steal that joint, for a good puff. “Quit your moaning. Lay it on me.” 

Silas flipped his notebook back open. It’s so old and worn in that it’s hard to find enough space to write anymore. It lays flat on the ground and the light breeze flutters a few pages turned until it settles on exactly what he’s looking for. It’s scratched out and written in the margins and scratched out again. But somewhere towards the bottom of the page Silas managed to string the words together into something he could work with.

As much as the heat wore the energy out of him, he still loved this part. He crossed his legs and put his back to the pool, pulling his guitar into his lap. He didn’t play on stage, hadn’t actually learned to play at all until they were in the studio recording “Skin.” Where the hell was he supposed to get a guitar when he could barely afford a meal and blew all his scratch on smack and blow? But he strummed a few of the chords he’d taught himself.

“It’s called Phantom Limb.” It was rough and he wasn’t half the musician as their real guitar player. But he sang the lines he liked the most. 

“Saw me off at the knee but it’s still part of me like the ghost of a bone you still feel like home”

It was so obviously about her. But her unexpected appearance at their last show had rattled him to his core. And suddenly all Silas could think about was how easy it would be to fall carelessly and recklessly back into her.

Still buzzing from the high of a great set, Nova bounced through the mad crowds with enthusiasm, electric green bellbottoms swished around her ankles. It’s a wonder how so many people were able to pack inside one house, but you wouldn’t catch her complaining. The energy of the room, alone, was something she could ride out for the remainder of the week. 

Being so new to the game, still, and thoroughly uninterested in the suits that littered the place, Nova looked for any reason to avoid business conversations. She’d been advised by their manager not to speak to anyone she wasn’t 100% comfortable with anyways. You never know who could be a journalist disguised as a superfan. The thought kinda made her sick, but no more than her fellow Gems, that was for certain.

The mansion was a place worthy of exploration, and she intended on seeing as much of it while she was free from obligation. 

Really, she was just looking for somewhere private to spark the joint in her pocket, but she found something even more spectacular upon climbing the last step up to the loft. Her platforms clacked against the floor as she moved closer, slowly though, so as not to wake what was most definitely Silas Loch of Violent Vale, asleep on the couch. 

“Far out!”

But then it dawned on her… the image of Millie with tears streaming down her face pressing a newspaper against Nova’s bedroom window. Popular Rock & Roll Frontman Collapses in New York.

‘First of all, they are Punk’, she remembers saying in an attempt to calm her friend way back when. It is the first thing that comes to mind, again, upon recalling the article.

“Shit…” she whispered and moved closer, hoping for the best despite expecting the worst.

The moment she witnessed the soft rise and fall of the singer’s chest she relaxed and moved closer still, then dropped to the shag rug in front of the couch. She rested her chin on the coffee table between them. 

“How long did it take you to write Exit Wound?” she asked quietly. It was something she’d always wondered.

She moved so quietly Silas hadn’t didn’t even realize she was there until she was crouching like a skittish little creature on the opposite side of the coffee table. Like she was afraid to get any closer to him. Silas didn’t blame her for that.

He opened one eye, rolled his head over to look at her. She was one of the Gemstones. Jade, if memory served, which it usually didn’t. His brain had a nasty habit of failing him when he needed it the most. “You’ve listened to Exit Wound?” Silas asked, his eyebrow quirked up in amused surprise. The song was on their first album. The one they’d recorded so Sonny could prove that they had something worth bringing to The States was a hard record to come by. Though, he supposed if anyone could get their hands on it it would be someone in a world famous pop band. 

Exit Wound was still one of his favorite songs he’d ever written, a rage fueled tirade about his own short comings. Even seven years later, the two minutes of verbal-abuse directed towards his seventeen year old self left him feeling cathartic every time he performed it. Silas peeled himself off the couch, slouching with his elbows propped up on his knees. “I had all the lyrics written in maybe thirty minutes,” he said, reaching for his beer bottle. He stares into the mouth as if the memory of it is hidden somewhere at the bottom. “Me and Ant were crashing at the venue because we didn’t have anywhere else to go after the gig. Or... I didn’t and he stayed with me. I don’t remember. I was sober, but itching, dig? And I started writing all the things I was saying to myself in my head, the things I’d tear out of my body if I could. It felt good to get them on paper, you know? I woke Ant up he pulled that sick baseline out of his ass then it was just like we’d had the song our whole lives.”