Rock 'n' Roll Heretic by Sikivu Hutchinson

Author:Sikivu Hutchinson [Hutchinson, Sikivu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Rock music, Black women, LGBTQ, contemporary women’s fiction, African American fiction, queer fiction
Publisher: Sikivu Hutchinson
Published: 2021-03-07T00:00:00+00:00



Sunup on Nashville, a bitter tease of it coming in unbidden through the drawn shade. Rays dappled on Katy’s legs, stretched imperially on the hotel bed, her feet in the pink puffball slippers that had been her one high-end indulgence before she croaked.

“I say take the money,” she drawled. “Take it and run. Negotiate a little something for your boys. The white one and Butch, provided they behave, stay in line. Ditch the prima donna Negro. Reminds me too much of your handkerchief head ex-husband. Who needs all that cutting up and carrying on from a man you ain’t even married to?”

“Take it, and then what?” Rory asked, wet sheets up around her neck. An alarm clock went off somewhere in the room.

“Keep moving. Sharks ain’t sleeping on the bottom of the ocean waiting for blood. They owe you.”

“That all you have to say?”

The phone rang. Rory contemplated it, then lay back down, flush with the urge to masturbate. That and the speed tablet dancing in the drawer were the only things that would divert her from drinking. She’d been too worn out lately to even get off. Divinity’s overture rattled through her head. She picked up the phone, waiting for the familiar click.

“Don’t fuck with me,” she said, in Katy’s bullwhip smacking voice. “I know where you live.” She opened the drawer and crammed the tablet in her mouth.

That night, all she could see was blackness from the stage. The audience scrunched down in dollhouse miniature, mutant angels dancing on the head of a pin. The callers were out there, plotting their next move. The band pushed sloppily through the set. Thurston, Butch, Card barely looking at each other, roaring to wake the dead. She cued up “Swallow You Whole” and watched the black mass part into a row of empty streets, the first gilded glimmer of Cotton Plant teasing from the highway as the boys meandered around, improvising rhythm parts for the unrehearsed song.

“The fuck’s the matter with her?” Butch muttered, riled by the herky jerk change and Thurston’s ear shattering hoofbeats, Card’s tempo lurches. Rory threw down her guitar and walked offstage. They wound down and slunk after her. Jude staggered on, spit out by their headwinds, raising a Jack Daniels’ bottle in the air as she let out a clubbed seal wail and jumped on an amp, a helicopter buzzing overhead.

Butch ran after Rory, grabbing her arm as she went into her dressing room. “Hey, what’s going on, what’s the matter with you?”

She pointed up to the ceiling. “Eye in the fucking sky helicopter. Every fucking where we go, the House is siccing that shit on us.”

“Yeah, Jude practically has her own military detail,” Butch agreed. “But you can’t leave us hanging like that.”

“That’s corporate’s helicopter!” Thurston screeched. “Record execs use it to monitor their intellectual property. They own every ass shake Jude does and they want to practice that voodoo shit on us!”

“Man, shut up! She doesn’t need any conspiracy shit now!” He turned back to Rory.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.