Alliieah White-moncrief, “Behind You”
If he was going to take up any more coveted air time then you were going to stomp right on set and drag him off yourself. At least that’s what you told yourself but in reality he carried on with his eternal performance, sauntering about, hollering his music out to an adoring audience while he strums on a fiery red electric guitar, his hair impeccably gelled back but miraculously some loose strands manage to fall in front of his smug face, his jacket bejeweled with rhinestones that could feed every starving child in the world, and you continue plodding through the monotony of the backstage.
Despite your protests to the producers of The Nightly Night Show that we should give some time to the people of the community. Despite many afternoons devoted to telling obnoxious old men that lifting up some aspiring musicians might be a groovy idea. Despite all the outbursts your fellow cast and crew members had directed at you whenever their acts got cut for more air time with the real money maker. Despite it all, Howie Keys was a force of music that everyone agreed needed to be worshiped. The level of sheer star power that made the sun writhe with envy. Plastered on every flickering box T.V screen in America. Blasted through every jukebox found by someone willing to sacrifice nickel. It was all him. Nothing but him, everywhere.
Everytime that rockstar sounded his guitar and began humming out a tune you felt your skin crawl, like every fiber of your soul was tearing itself apart and screaming. That might have just been the actual screaming that shook the building. Teenage girls screeching out any affectionate gibberish their tongues could conjure.
“I love you. I’d sell all my organs just to go to one of your concerts.” An adolescent girl in a checkered fit and flare dress and her hair tied back in a curled ponytail fell to the ground sobbing. The pitch black mascara, tear streaks and red eyes made it apparent that this was not the first time she had broken down into a similarly dreadful state recently. “What about my dog? Would you take my dog?”
“Let’s go dancing. Let’s go dancing all night long.” The rock and roll star sang out in a rumbling tone.
You could feel the sound ricocheting off the walls of your mind and picking little holes into what was left of your sanity. The pang of your headache grows more extreme with each romantic chorus.
You turn, your kitten heels clicking against the cement floor as you storm off. You swing the back door open. That sound. That terrible sound. It was burrowing under your skin and pulling your bones away from your joints. You are now in the backlot. The sun was blazing and the production assistants were loud but the air was fresh and that song was finally gone.
“Have you talked to Dean?” A slim man in a fraying suit rushes over to you. Sweat trickles down his forehead. You’d assume this was because of the unbearable heat but you’ve seen this man in air conditioning, standing next to an icebox with its door swung open, and he was still sweating back then. Everytime he greets you he brings a series of desperate pleas for a big break with him.
“I did.” You nod and try to turn away.
As you walk away, the man in the fraying suite follows suit. Each step you make is recreated in his frantic movements,
“Because I think I’ve got a good thing going. You know with my stand up. If he gave it a chance it could be a real gas.”
“I’ve told you. I’m not in charge of Mr. Dean’s decisions.”
“Please try. He’d dig it.”
You grind your heels deeper into the pavement with each step you take, he steps further. You halt in your tracks. You are now a few paces outside the studio door once again.
“Let’s go dancing. Dancing all night,” the horrible voice sang out once again. This time burrowing deeper.
You cover your ears, which you are sure must be bleeding at this point. That horrible sound. How could you ever escape it? It followed you all the way out the way here. A thought strikes you. It has found you. You are a target. You are being targeted by the melodic noises.
“Hey miss?”
You look at the man in the fraying suit. God, he’s such a pain. There was something so wrong about him. The way his smile curled. The thinning of his hair. Every part of being was crooked but maybe also symmetrical… You couldn’t tell anymore. You feel that your mind is half gone. He’s always pestering you. Of course he said it was the sake of his idiotic stand up but that wasn’t it was it? No, he was a spy, you decide. He had been tracking you. Telling the sound where to find you.
“What? Cat got your tongue?”
You scream. Your throat, burning from the fearful screech. It powers you to run and run until you reach some ruby red cadillac. It is not yours. You couldn’t afford it anyway but whoever the maladroit doofus who owned it was, they left it entirely unlocked. So arrogant to assume that they had immunity to being the victim of theft. Must have been one of those rockstars or movie stars.
You sit in the front seat. You aren’t a car thief but you need shelter from the horrors of music. You close your eyes. Your heavy cat eye eye-liner weighing down your eyelids. You breathe in and out, calming the nerves that are bubbling under the surface. Without your hand turning the dial, the radio began to play.
“Let’s go dancing. Dancing all night long.”
You shoot up. Sitting ramrod straight. It wanted you dead didn’t it? The air in your lungs travel like the bullet trains you saw reported on T.V. You scream once again, rushing out of the wretched vehicle. You throw the car door behind and it slams sharply. You stomp your way through the backlot to spot something. Red and white striped tins sitting stacked in front of a wall. Each filled with a gallon of gasoline and marked by the words “Fuel/Combustion”.
You feel it calls to you. It’s embracing you and telling you it has the solution. You’ve never met it but it feels like your closest and oldest friend. It agrees with you and says:
“You’re not crazy. The music does want to kill you.”
The tin loves you. It’s sweet and gentle. It’s wise like a grandparent and loyal like a childhood pet. It only wants what’s best for you. It wants you to be safe. So you grip a tin with your manicured hands. You head right back to where you started. Though it pains you to hear echoes of that song again, now buzzing in your vein. It is so motivating.
Some chicks are leaning against the side of the studio building. Each with one hand in the pocket of their respective coats the other hand daintily holding a cigarette. They giggle over gossip about someone’s love life. Their teeth whiter than the wall behind them and their hair higher than the sky. One of them is clicking a lighter on and off with her hand. You steal the lighter away and let it accompany you back into the studio.
You’re back in. The sound is roaring.
“Let’s go dancing. Dancing all night long.”
As you stare at the pathetic display of singing and screaming, you unscrew the cap of the metal tin and drop it to the ground. It spills at your feet. Staining your kitten heels and rolling down in a puddle all the way down to the musician’s heels. You two are now connected.
You click on the lighter and drop it to the ground. The building grows warm. The screaming persists. Rather than being cheers it transforms into fearful cries. Still annoying but you smile because the song finally ends. You never have to hear it again.