Coming Unglued, by akamine_chan
Title: Coming Unglued
Author: akamine_chan
Challenge: ds_shakespeare
Fandom: Hard Core Logo
Characters: Joe Dick
Rating: R
Prompt:
There's daggers in men's smiles.
MacBeth Act II, Scene III.
Length: 2,141 words
Notes: Thanks to sageness for the initial push in the right direction and to sisterofdream for sounding board duties. verushka70 made me feel better and soothed my nerves and shared some insightful discussion about Joe. sionnain helped with the ending, because she's cool that way. Some tiny smidgen of credit goes to miss_zedem, just for fun. Title stolen from Marigold by the Headstones, of course. Mucho thanks to aingeal8c and leda_speaks for keeping this challenge alive and kicking, 'cause Shakespeare is cool.
It was a quiet Wednesday night at the club. The boss pulled Joe off the door, the scarcity of customers making a bouncer and a doorman unnecessary. But instead of going home to an empty apartment, he stayed for the open-mike, nursing a beer and sneering at the posers and wanna-bes.
Frankie Roberts stopped at his table, all fake smiles and handshakes.
Joe hadn't seen Frankie in a long time, but he always had the latest gossip, so Joe bought him a beer and tried to appear marginally interested in what he had to say. He zoned out-nodding and grunting as it seemed appropriate, chain-smoking cheap cigarettes and listening to the rise and fall of Frankie's voice. Frankie liked to drop names, and he was a fucking encyclopedia of where-are-they-nows? in the Van music scene.
Joe perked up a bit when Frankie started talking about Art Bergmann and the new tracks he was working on. They bitched about the high cost of studio time and how Art was lucky to have the friends in the business that he did. Frankie brought up D.O.A. and how much everyone missed Ken, and how the band was doing without him.
They bullshitted for a while longer and then, deliberately, it seemed to Joe, Frankie dropped his bombshell. "Sorry about Billy, dude. Sucks."
Joe, who had been rocking back in his chair, sat forward hard, bumping the table and knocking over all the empty beer bottles on the table. "What? What about Billy?" For a minute it felt like his heart stopped beating and he thought of all the awful things that could happen to Billy. OD. Rehab. Car accident. Arrested. Robbed. Beaten. Married.
Frankie looked at him like he was crazy. "You didn't hear? Oh, man." He rubbed at his face, looking like the bearer of bad news. "Earl what's-his-name is out for good. Billy's in."
The relief made Joe dizzy, for a moment. "You sure, man? Last I heard they were waiting for Earl to get out of rehab, that Bill was just temporary."
"Nah." Frankie took a long swallow of his beer, then eyed Joe speculatively. "The girls in the band like Billy better than Earl-I guess Earl is a real asshole and so they had a long talk with the suits at the record company. Sammy Novak-you know Sammy, right? Represents the band? Anyway, he showed me the contract the record company worked up for Billy."
Joe traced some of the names carved over the years into the crappy wooden table between them. Stubby, Randy, Dimwit, Shithead, Chuck. A partial history of Canadian punk written with switchblades and pocketknives.
"It screws Billy over hard, but what do you expect?" Frankie shrugged philosophically. "It's the music biz. Fuck or be fucked."
"Yeah." Joe raised his bottle in an ironic toast, tasting bitterness, remembering another club and grand gestures. "Yeah, the fucking music biz."
*~*~*
He'd gone home with some anonymous girl he'd met at the club. She was cute and liked to whisper filthy things into his ear as he fucked her in her dingy bedroom.
Joe didn't sleep well that night.
His dreams were confused and frantic, searching for Billy in a dark labyrinth of corridors that smelled of gunpowder and cigarettes.
He woke up hung over and uneasy, missing Billy like he hadn't in years.
Rolling slowly out of bed, Joe staggered into the kitchen and helped himself to some leftovers in the fridge. He stared at the purse on the kitchen counter for a minute before rummaging through it. The chick-Nancy? Sally? Susie? Fuck, he couldn't remember her name, but she had some money in her wallet. He took what he found and let himself out of her apartment before she woke up.
*~*~*
The No More Guns Coalition had a tiny store-front location in a crappy strip mall. Inside they had two desks, a bunch of phones and several filing cabinets.
He'd seen Laura Cromartie in the newspaper, and on the TV hanging from the ceiling at the club. It was a busy year for the No More Guns Coalition as they battled for stricter regulations on guns. They wanted to abolish private ownership of guns, but they were also very supportive of any legislation regarding gun control.
She was chirpy and happy in a perfectly ordinary way and she pretended to not be scared of his Mohawk and torn clothes. Joe thought about growling at her, just for the principle of it, but decided that would frighten her away. And right now, at this moment, he needed her.
So he used his best manners, talked politely and tried not to use the word "fuck" too often. It wasn't that difficult; she threw off a mom-vibe and he kept trying to call her Mrs. Cromartie, in spite of the number of times she insisted that he call her Laurie.
He explained what he wanted to do, and why, and she was enthusiastic, talking the whole while about all the negative effects guns had on their society. Joe just turned on the charm and gave an impassioned little speech about how much guns had hurt the people he loved.
She bought it all, hook, line and sinker.
*~*~*
Joe had been around the scene for a long time and he knew a lot of people.
He made a deal with the Commodore Ballroom, printed up fliers, got the other bands on board. He dug up some young, eager bands like Flash Bastard and Lick The Pole to fill out the line-up.
Joe talked Art Bergmann into showing up by calling in some old favors. They'd been buddies once upon a time, a camaraderie born out of years of slogging through the trenches of skanky clubs, low-life promoters and questionable venues. Art lived in Toronto now, working the retro-punk vibe and promoting a weird environmentally-friendly sort of anarchy that confused Joe.
Art had a way of seeing into people that had always bothered Joe. That hadn't changed over the years. “It'll be good to see Billy," he said quietly. “You haven't been the same without him."
“Fuck you," Joe said before he slammed down the phone.
*~*~*
He got Joey Shithead to agree to come to the Commodore and perform by reminding him of a particularly bad night that they all would rather have forgotten about. Joe still had the scars from that night, and he remembered Joey's promise of paying him back, somehow. Surprisingly enough, Joey remembered, too, and D.O.A. was officially booked for the benefit.
“How's Billy?"
“What?" Joe stared at the receiver for a moment. “Oh, fuck off, Shithead."
*~*~*
It was all coming together, just like he knew it would.
*~*~*
John had hooked up with this really nice chick: Cheryl, Sherrie, something like that. She was actually good for him, she kept him on his meds, made sure he was clean and fed, helped him find a decent job. She liked to take care of John and John thrived under her watchful eye.
She wouldn't let Joe anywhere near Johnny and honestly, Joe really couldn't blame her. John was doing good for the first time in his life-the last thing he needed was Joe coming around and fucking things up.
But Joe's plan wasn't going to work without John, so he snuck around the girlfriend to talk to him. John was calm, calm, dead-eyed and drugged. Joe hated what the anti-psychotics did to him, but most of John's family felt it was better than the screaming. Joe wanted to agree, but just couldn't bring himself to do it.
He liked the other John, the brilliant, talkative John, the one who wrote evocative, insightful, cutting things in his journal, the John that was pithy and witty and stammering. That John was truthful, no matter what the cost. This John was distant and dreamy, quiet and docile and detached.
So Joe waited until John was at his job as a warehouse stocker before approaching him. He quickly explained, trying to fast-talk John into saying yes before John had a chance to think it through and ask questions. Questions that Joe couldn't answer right now.
But John just smiled beatifically at Joe and nodded. “It'll be good to see Billy."
“What the fuck?" Joe was pissed. “This isn't about Billy, this is about Bucky and what happened to him. Getting shot. Having his fucking leg amputated. It has fuck-all to do with Billy."
John was undisturbed by Joe's outburst, just nodded. “I'll be there."
Joe couldn't believe how easy it was.
*~*~*
A friend of a friend of a friend yielded the phone number of Bruce McDonald, an amateur filmmaker and long-standing fan of the Toronto music scene who happened to be in Vancouver scouting film locations. They met at an all-night diner. Joe outlined what he needed and they settled down for some serious dickering over the cost. Joe chain-smoked and bitched and moaned but in the end he agreed.
“Hey, man, that's my rock-bottom price. It's gonna barely cover the cost of my film stock, and that's the cheap stuff," Bruce complained.
“Whatever. It's the record company's dough." Joe stood up and finished off his soda. “Just be ready." He left Bruce with the bill for the food.
Bruce was kind of an asshole, but he was willing to do what Joe wanted, so Joe really couldn't complain.
He needed more money, so he went through the crap in his apartment and took everything he could sell down to the Happy Hocker pawn shop. Between that and the take at the door for the benefit, it would just barely be enough to pay off Bruce.
**
He thought about selling his gun, the one he'd stolen from his old man all those years ago, when he and Billy had left their homes for the first time. They'd been barely sixteen and ready to take on the world.
Joe shook his head. They'd been so young and so stupid.
In the end, he put the gun back into the kitchen drawer. You never knew when it would come in handy.
*~*~*
Pipe was an easy sell, the easiest sell Joe had ever made in his life. He was bouncing around from job to job, bored and looking to be entertained. His missed life on tour and he fucking jumped at the chance to play with the band again.
He enveloped Joe in a bear hug and spun him around. “You're getting the band back together again."
Joe had to grin at the thought. Getting the band back together. Yeah.
“And it'll be great to see Billy."
Joe was resigned. “Yeah, whatever. I'm getting the band together to help Bucky Haight. Has nothing to do with Billy."
Pipe ignored him, just ran around whooping like a crazy man. Joe shook his head.
*~*~*
Joe stared at the phone, smoking a cigarette. He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and squinted through the smoke. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was it.
He snatched up the receiver and dialed, punching the numbers angrily. The phone rang, and rang, and rang before an answering machine finally kicked in. “I'm not here. Leave a message." Beep.
“Fuck, Bill, it's me." Joe paused, taking a careful breath, trying to slow down the racing of his heart. “Listen, Bucky Haight's been shot, the doctors had to amputate his legs, both of them, and I thought about doing a fund-raising thing." He flicked his lighter nervously. “Raise some money to help with his bills."
He stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another one. The hiss of the phone line was loud in his ear. He thought about what he needed to say, about what would pull Billy in. “Look, I need your help, Bill. I can't do this alone." He took a long drag off of his cigarette. “October 29th at the Commodore." Joe let the silence stretch for a moment. “Please." He hung the phone up with a clatter.
*~*~*
He'd done all he could to set the stage. The rest was up to Bill.
And he'd never let Joe down, not when it mattered.
This time, things would be different. Everything would be different.
*~*~*
The Commodore was packed with a strange combination of aging punks and young wanna-bes. There was a searing energy in the air, a roil of anger and excitement that made Joe's skin crawl and sent nervous tension jittering through him. He checked his watch and deliberately tried to relax.
He couldn't stand still.
Joe listened half-heartedly to the muffled sounds of the opening bands, paced back and forth, smoking cigarette after cigarette. He checked his watch, and ignored the groupies and hangers-on that crowded the room. He downed a beer, wiped his damp palms on his ragged jeans and waited.
Billy would be here. He would.
Author: akamine_chan
Challenge: ds_shakespeare
Fandom: Hard Core Logo
Characters: Joe Dick
Rating: R
Prompt:
There's daggers in men's smiles.
MacBeth Act II, Scene III.
Length: 2,141 words
Notes: Thanks to sageness for the initial push in the right direction and to sisterofdream for sounding board duties. verushka70 made me feel better and soothed my nerves and shared some insightful discussion about Joe. sionnain helped with the ending, because she's cool that way. Some tiny smidgen of credit goes to miss_zedem, just for fun. Title stolen from Marigold by the Headstones, of course. Mucho thanks to aingeal8c and leda_speaks for keeping this challenge alive and kicking, 'cause Shakespeare is cool.
It was a quiet Wednesday night at the club. The boss pulled Joe off the door, the scarcity of customers making a bouncer and a doorman unnecessary. But instead of going home to an empty apartment, he stayed for the open-mike, nursing a beer and sneering at the posers and wanna-bes.
Frankie Roberts stopped at his table, all fake smiles and handshakes.
Joe hadn't seen Frankie in a long time, but he always had the latest gossip, so Joe bought him a beer and tried to appear marginally interested in what he had to say. He zoned out-nodding and grunting as it seemed appropriate, chain-smoking cheap cigarettes and listening to the rise and fall of Frankie's voice. Frankie liked to drop names, and he was a fucking encyclopedia of where-are-they-nows? in the Van music scene.
Joe perked up a bit when Frankie started talking about Art Bergmann and the new tracks he was working on. They bitched about the high cost of studio time and how Art was lucky to have the friends in the business that he did. Frankie brought up D.O.A. and how much everyone missed Ken, and how the band was doing without him.
They bullshitted for a while longer and then, deliberately, it seemed to Joe, Frankie dropped his bombshell. "Sorry about Billy, dude. Sucks."
Joe, who had been rocking back in his chair, sat forward hard, bumping the table and knocking over all the empty beer bottles on the table. "What? What about Billy?" For a minute it felt like his heart stopped beating and he thought of all the awful things that could happen to Billy. OD. Rehab. Car accident. Arrested. Robbed. Beaten. Married.
Frankie looked at him like he was crazy. "You didn't hear? Oh, man." He rubbed at his face, looking like the bearer of bad news. "Earl what's-his-name is out for good. Billy's in."
The relief made Joe dizzy, for a moment. "You sure, man? Last I heard they were waiting for Earl to get out of rehab, that Bill was just temporary."
"Nah." Frankie took a long swallow of his beer, then eyed Joe speculatively. "The girls in the band like Billy better than Earl-I guess Earl is a real asshole and so they had a long talk with the suits at the record company. Sammy Novak-you know Sammy, right? Represents the band? Anyway, he showed me the contract the record company worked up for Billy."
Joe traced some of the names carved over the years into the crappy wooden table between them. Stubby, Randy, Dimwit, Shithead, Chuck. A partial history of Canadian punk written with switchblades and pocketknives.
"It screws Billy over hard, but what do you expect?" Frankie shrugged philosophically. "It's the music biz. Fuck or be fucked."
"Yeah." Joe raised his bottle in an ironic toast, tasting bitterness, remembering another club and grand gestures. "Yeah, the fucking music biz."
*~*~*
He'd gone home with some anonymous girl he'd met at the club. She was cute and liked to whisper filthy things into his ear as he fucked her in her dingy bedroom.
Joe didn't sleep well that night.
His dreams were confused and frantic, searching for Billy in a dark labyrinth of corridors that smelled of gunpowder and cigarettes.
He woke up hung over and uneasy, missing Billy like he hadn't in years.
Rolling slowly out of bed, Joe staggered into the kitchen and helped himself to some leftovers in the fridge. He stared at the purse on the kitchen counter for a minute before rummaging through it. The chick-Nancy? Sally? Susie? Fuck, he couldn't remember her name, but she had some money in her wallet. He took what he found and let himself out of her apartment before she woke up.
*~*~*
The No More Guns Coalition had a tiny store-front location in a crappy strip mall. Inside they had two desks, a bunch of phones and several filing cabinets.
He'd seen Laura Cromartie in the newspaper, and on the TV hanging from the ceiling at the club. It was a busy year for the No More Guns Coalition as they battled for stricter regulations on guns. They wanted to abolish private ownership of guns, but they were also very supportive of any legislation regarding gun control.
She was chirpy and happy in a perfectly ordinary way and she pretended to not be scared of his Mohawk and torn clothes. Joe thought about growling at her, just for the principle of it, but decided that would frighten her away. And right now, at this moment, he needed her.
So he used his best manners, talked politely and tried not to use the word "fuck" too often. It wasn't that difficult; she threw off a mom-vibe and he kept trying to call her Mrs. Cromartie, in spite of the number of times she insisted that he call her Laurie.
He explained what he wanted to do, and why, and she was enthusiastic, talking the whole while about all the negative effects guns had on their society. Joe just turned on the charm and gave an impassioned little speech about how much guns had hurt the people he loved.
She bought it all, hook, line and sinker.
*~*~*
Joe had been around the scene for a long time and he knew a lot of people.
He made a deal with the Commodore Ballroom, printed up fliers, got the other bands on board. He dug up some young, eager bands like Flash Bastard and Lick The Pole to fill out the line-up.
Joe talked Art Bergmann into showing up by calling in some old favors. They'd been buddies once upon a time, a camaraderie born out of years of slogging through the trenches of skanky clubs, low-life promoters and questionable venues. Art lived in Toronto now, working the retro-punk vibe and promoting a weird environmentally-friendly sort of anarchy that confused Joe.
Art had a way of seeing into people that had always bothered Joe. That hadn't changed over the years. “It'll be good to see Billy," he said quietly. “You haven't been the same without him."
“Fuck you," Joe said before he slammed down the phone.
*~*~*
He got Joey Shithead to agree to come to the Commodore and perform by reminding him of a particularly bad night that they all would rather have forgotten about. Joe still had the scars from that night, and he remembered Joey's promise of paying him back, somehow. Surprisingly enough, Joey remembered, too, and D.O.A. was officially booked for the benefit.
“How's Billy?"
“What?" Joe stared at the receiver for a moment. “Oh, fuck off, Shithead."
*~*~*
It was all coming together, just like he knew it would.
*~*~*
John had hooked up with this really nice chick: Cheryl, Sherrie, something like that. She was actually good for him, she kept him on his meds, made sure he was clean and fed, helped him find a decent job. She liked to take care of John and John thrived under her watchful eye.
She wouldn't let Joe anywhere near Johnny and honestly, Joe really couldn't blame her. John was doing good for the first time in his life-the last thing he needed was Joe coming around and fucking things up.
But Joe's plan wasn't going to work without John, so he snuck around the girlfriend to talk to him. John was calm, calm, dead-eyed and drugged. Joe hated what the anti-psychotics did to him, but most of John's family felt it was better than the screaming. Joe wanted to agree, but just couldn't bring himself to do it.
He liked the other John, the brilliant, talkative John, the one who wrote evocative, insightful, cutting things in his journal, the John that was pithy and witty and stammering. That John was truthful, no matter what the cost. This John was distant and dreamy, quiet and docile and detached.
So Joe waited until John was at his job as a warehouse stocker before approaching him. He quickly explained, trying to fast-talk John into saying yes before John had a chance to think it through and ask questions. Questions that Joe couldn't answer right now.
But John just smiled beatifically at Joe and nodded. “It'll be good to see Billy."
“What the fuck?" Joe was pissed. “This isn't about Billy, this is about Bucky and what happened to him. Getting shot. Having his fucking leg amputated. It has fuck-all to do with Billy."
John was undisturbed by Joe's outburst, just nodded. “I'll be there."
Joe couldn't believe how easy it was.
*~*~*
A friend of a friend of a friend yielded the phone number of Bruce McDonald, an amateur filmmaker and long-standing fan of the Toronto music scene who happened to be in Vancouver scouting film locations. They met at an all-night diner. Joe outlined what he needed and they settled down for some serious dickering over the cost. Joe chain-smoked and bitched and moaned but in the end he agreed.
“Hey, man, that's my rock-bottom price. It's gonna barely cover the cost of my film stock, and that's the cheap stuff," Bruce complained.
“Whatever. It's the record company's dough." Joe stood up and finished off his soda. “Just be ready." He left Bruce with the bill for the food.
Bruce was kind of an asshole, but he was willing to do what Joe wanted, so Joe really couldn't complain.
He needed more money, so he went through the crap in his apartment and took everything he could sell down to the Happy Hocker pawn shop. Between that and the take at the door for the benefit, it would just barely be enough to pay off Bruce.
**
He thought about selling his gun, the one he'd stolen from his old man all those years ago, when he and Billy had left their homes for the first time. They'd been barely sixteen and ready to take on the world.
Joe shook his head. They'd been so young and so stupid.
In the end, he put the gun back into the kitchen drawer. You never knew when it would come in handy.
*~*~*
Pipe was an easy sell, the easiest sell Joe had ever made in his life. He was bouncing around from job to job, bored and looking to be entertained. His missed life on tour and he fucking jumped at the chance to play with the band again.
He enveloped Joe in a bear hug and spun him around. “You're getting the band back together again."
Joe had to grin at the thought. Getting the band back together. Yeah.
“And it'll be great to see Billy."
Joe was resigned. “Yeah, whatever. I'm getting the band together to help Bucky Haight. Has nothing to do with Billy."
Pipe ignored him, just ran around whooping like a crazy man. Joe shook his head.
*~*~*
Joe stared at the phone, smoking a cigarette. He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and squinted through the smoke. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was it.
He snatched up the receiver and dialed, punching the numbers angrily. The phone rang, and rang, and rang before an answering machine finally kicked in. “I'm not here. Leave a message." Beep.
“Fuck, Bill, it's me." Joe paused, taking a careful breath, trying to slow down the racing of his heart. “Listen, Bucky Haight's been shot, the doctors had to amputate his legs, both of them, and I thought about doing a fund-raising thing." He flicked his lighter nervously. “Raise some money to help with his bills."
He stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another one. The hiss of the phone line was loud in his ear. He thought about what he needed to say, about what would pull Billy in. “Look, I need your help, Bill. I can't do this alone." He took a long drag off of his cigarette. “October 29th at the Commodore." Joe let the silence stretch for a moment. “Please." He hung the phone up with a clatter.
*~*~*
He'd done all he could to set the stage. The rest was up to Bill.
And he'd never let Joe down, not when it mattered.
This time, things would be different. Everything would be different.
*~*~*
The Commodore was packed with a strange combination of aging punks and young wanna-bes. There was a searing energy in the air, a roil of anger and excitement that made Joe's skin crawl and sent nervous tension jittering through him. He checked his watch and deliberately tried to relax.
He couldn't stand still.
Joe listened half-heartedly to the muffled sounds of the opening bands, paced back and forth, smoking cigarette after cigarette. He checked his watch, and ignored the groupies and hangers-on that crowded the room. He downed a beer, wiped his damp palms on his ragged jeans and waited.
Billy would be here. He would.