Chapter 2

Eddie and Joe tied one on at the wake. Joe’s wives too, and almost everyone else there. Joanne stopped for an hour, but by the time they closed the bar, she was wasted too. But Eddie would have the dubious honor of being the most shit faced. And Joe did notice him going off a couple times, usually with members of other local bands who somehow found out about the wake. And his sniffing and hopping and more extreme lunacy suggested cocaine rather than cannabis. He seemed to making up time for however long he’d been sober, catching up with all the drinks and lines he missed.

It started out cool, in a laughing to stop crying sort of way. The crowd managed to weave her story despite not being prompted. After Shawna began things, telling stories of Nigella as a kid, through high school, Moe took over with her friendship in Manhattan, and handed it off to Joe when she introduced Joe to Nigella. It went to Eddie next and then Belle and the other guys in the band. Claire remained mute, as did Joanne. Joanne laughed and cried like the rest of them, but maybe a little bit more. A little bit more hysterical. Drink numbed her. Numbed all of them. It also made things more extreme and shittier.

Things went sour about a half hour after the stories tailed off. During that time, visitors would occasionally stand and say something about Nigella. Paul Westerberg of the Replacements, Grant Hart of Husker Du and Lori Barbero of Babes in Toyland had nice things to say. And it was nice seeing them again, even at such a tragic event. Then it was confrontation time between Eddie and Joe.

Eddie stood in front of Joe, sniffing, slamming down a shot of bourbon and slamming the glass down on the table with a resounding bang. “She should have been mine, motherfucker!”

“What do you mean?” Joe said. “She was your friend and your collaborator.”

“It should have been more! It should have always been more! She was our type. Petite with great tits! But you had to have that ass didn’t you. That fucking world class ass!”

“She didn’t want that! She told me! She must have told you! No shitting where you eat! Fucking you would have fucked everything up!”

“She should never have fucked you! She should have fucked me! She should have been mine! I would never have let her get strung out. Get killed by the shit. You went off and shot it with her and then fucked her you fucking cunt!”

Joe laughed. “You think Nigella would have anyone collar her and claim her? You got to be fucking kidding me! You with your pathetic dick, can’t even get it up for a couple minutes? You out of anyone?”

Eddie hit Joe. Punched him in the gut and the face. Telegraphed so Joe could have avoided it, but he couldn’t believe it. Joe felt both punches, but not enough to take him down. A bruised cheek resulted. But he went on automatic and took Eddie down with a Krav Maga move. Luckily it happened without affecting anyone else, except silencing the crowd. Joe had seen a couple bar fights, like a kinetic spark that ignites a room. A single punch. The receiver upending a table. The return punch affecting another table. And instantly those table occupants are up and fighting and shoving into others. The violence ripples out to encompass the entire bar. You find a way to hide from it or run from it or you become a victim. Or participate. It was isolated enough for that not to happen. Or the CC Club was too mellow a place.

Joe offered his hand to help Eddie. Eddie jerked Joe down with it until he knelt.

“Cocksucker,” he muttered.

Joe could have said something about him being the cocksucker, but chose wisely to apologize and settle onto his ass beside his former best friend.

“Me too,” Eddie accepted. “Pretty shitty thing to say.”

“Yeah. You okay?”

“No. You?”

“No.”

Eddie glared at Joe. Joe shrugged. Eddie laughed.

They somehow got up on their own, and like two boxers, retreated to their corners. Joe’s happened to be right there with his ladies and Belle and Claire. Joe didn’t know where Eddie’s was. Probably some visiting rockers swapping bullshit and being ultra-cool. And enabling Eddie get even more fucked up. Not that Joe didn’t add to his inebriation.

Someone had the idea to order some food, maybe to soak up the alcohol. It didn’t help. It just made things greasy and slimy. Inside and out. Bar food. Greasy and slimy night. With puddles of spilt beer and probably some puke mixed in. It got really shitty. But they kept drinking.

Eventually Shawna came over and pulled a chair to sit beside Joe. One of the few sober people for an obvious reason. Her distended belly probably with his child inside it.

“Joe,” she said. “Time to go.”

“But,” Joe started and couldn’t finish. Even the one word had been slurred.

“They’re closing up.”

“Last call,” Joe twirled his shot glass.

“Already done.”

“I didn’t hear it.”

“You don’t need it.”

“Probably not. Where’s Eddie?”

“Trevor and me put him in the limo. He passed out. Trevor put a bucket nearby just in case.” She touched his face with her long delicate fingers. The lights had come up, revealing the shitty night. “Looks like a bruise. At least he didn’t hit your nose.”

“Lucky me,” Joe mumbled.

“Yeah,” she smiled and kissed the bruise. “Lucky you.”

“I guess we should walk home, me and the ladies.”

“There’s room in the limo. It’ll be packed, but you all should fit.”

“Ladies?” Joe asked.

They all nodded drunkenly.

“Let’s go then,” Shawna smiled.

Cheryl, the smallest, ended up the drunkest of the little group. “Mind the help?” she asked.

“No,” Shawna chuckled, and let her lean on her and held her up when they walked through the bar and outside. Joanne and Moe leaned on Joe, stumbling behind them. The blind drunk leading the blind drunk.

Claire helped her lover, Belle. Her wife if things had been the way they should have been. Like Shawna presumably, Joe’s child inside her kept her sober.

Joe’s mother hadn’t come to the wake with them, waiting at the house she owned where they stayed when they were back in town. She got the house out of the divorce, at least the down payment. Her job as basically head nurse at Hennepin County Medical Center paid the mortgage, although, insisting, Claire and Belle helped. Joe’s father remained in his small hometown, taking care of the expanded clinic, his nurse becoming his wife, totally replacing Joe’s mom. Mom said he stopped catting around and settled on her. She was a sweet lady. A shiksa. Joe’s sister Patty stayed there until she finished high school. Then got the hell out.

Claire, Belle and Joe hugged and said goodbye, and Joe’s female high school best friend fell into her car, most unusually but for obvious reasons the passenger side. The car was a lot fancier than the fix-it she had ten years before, a Jaguar sports car actually, but Joe had a feeling she’d probably got it when someone else got tired of fixing it, and made it run. She might have been a rock star, but she’d always be a mechanic.

The Monster’s signature tour bus, the school bus that Joanne bought from Belle’s cousin at an insanely low price, except that it didn’t run until Belle and her cousin, mostly him in the end because Belle was busy with Joe’s show and Eddie’s band in Chicago, got it running, arrived towards the end of the two week residency there, driven by another cousin. She kept it running for many years with duct tape and baling wire. Or so she would say. When they got rich, she had the motor replaced, and the interior became ever posher. With the occasional needed touch ups, the outside remained the same. On the right side Eddie, in what looked like surgeon’s scrubs and a long open coat of the same material, everything white but splashed with blood, a mad scientist glee on his face, surrounded by creatures he reanimated, Frankenstein’s monsters, which were the band of course. Freddy, before she left for Chicago, had drawn the design on the bus, the other side just the band’s logo dripping blood, and Belle’s cousin had it filled in via air brush. The image remained static on that ever moving vehicle. The band frozen in their youth. Even when the blond brothers got replaced, their face and bodies remained. Any chance of being painted over got nixed immediately when the two new brothers said they didn’t care one way or the other. They were as nice as the brothers they replaced. Cooler. Definitely more mature.

“Where to?” Joe asked.

“I told Eddie I’d be with him,” said Shawna.

“He told me,” he smiled. “But he’s not up for conversation.” Maybe Joe shouldn’t have said that. He was drunk. And horny. And it had been a while since they’d fucked.

“Yeah,” she said. “Trevor?”

“Yes Shawna,” Trevor responded obsequiously.

“We’re staying at Joanne’s. You can have the hotel room to yourself.”

“Pick Eddie up in the morning?”

“Maybe noon?”

They laughed.

“I’ll be there,” he said.

He helped Eddie upstairs at Joanne’s, Eddie just conscious enough to stagger in Trevor’s strong arms. Trevor left him on the guest room bed.

Joe’s wives and Joanne weren’t a lot better off. They basically collapsed into bed, mumbling and then passing out. “Come on,” said Shawna. “Don’t worry, I’ll do the work.” She and Joe headed to the very familiar study downstairs.

After she helped him take off his clothes, he managed to sit up somehow and watched her take hers off. With her slim body, her belly stood out. Six months pregnant. Joe caressed the bulge. “Beautiful,” he said.

“Like I swallowed a beach ball,” she said, kneeling down and taking his half hard cock into her mouth.

“You’ve never been more beautiful,” he told. “Literally full of life.”

She chuckled with her mouth full. The buzz added to the pleasure. But it still took longer than it should have to get him hard enough to fuck her.

“Sit on my face?” he offered.

“Okay,” she said. After he scooted on the bed, she ended up on her side, upper leg high, opening her pussy for his lips and tongues while she continued attending to his cock. Joe tasted a hint of urine, but mostly her delicious sweet musk. Proof of her horniness in abundance. He pushed through the fog of liquor to concentrate. Somehow it worked. She moaned around his cock. Then just her hand fisted him while she moaned his name and shivered.

“How do you want me?” he asked.

“You could fuck me from behind me on our sides. But I’d rather look at you.” She rolled onto her back and lifted her legs up, framing her belly. He kneeled, his hands flat against her fine ass, his cock tapping playfully around her opening. He brought his thumbs in and had them slide along the petals of her labia, up across her distended clit, gently pinching it between them. “Fuck,” she moaned. “Fuck me,” she added.

The thumbs became his guide, leading his glans inside the slight gap of her slit, making it wider. He pressed down, entering slowly. His balance threatened to desert him, so one hand went up and held the back of her thigh. The other remained where it was, teasing her labia and her clit with the thumb, though he gripped her ass harder. That wonderfully firm round ass. His cock went inches deeper before withdrawing to the edge of his glans. Her inner labia gripped it, wanting it back. Another downward thrust brought him a couple more inches in. Then back out. Then deeper still.

“I wish I could watch,” she murmured.

“There should be a mirror in the desk.”

“Why?”

“Rachel.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.”

“I think I know. Rachel was on the outs with Eddie. She crashed here and invited some scuzzy couple over, and the guy ended up offering coke to Joanne’s kids.”

“More than offered,” Joe said. He’d been slowly fucking her, but losing his erection. It ended up slipping out.

“Where was Joanne?”

“Triple S’s. Shit shower and shave. Not the last but ... She wasn’t long. But she saw Charlie lean over and snort, and Essie sniffling.”

“Eddie wanted to kill Rachel.”

“Me too.”

“Why keep the mirror?”

“Guilt. Reminding her to be always careful. And we did snort sometimes, me and Cheryl and sometimes Joanne joins us.”

“You’re not hard.”

“The mind is willing but the flesh is weak.”

“Honestly?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t think I’m a cow?”

“I told you you’re beautiful. You practically glow. What’s going on?”

She sniffled.

Then they heard sounds from upstairs.

“Shit,” Shawna muttered. “Eddie’s awake.”

“The guy was dead to the world!”

“I thought so too!”

“Let’s get dressed.”

Suddenly sober, Joe dressed fast. So did Shawna. Both commando to speed things up.

He took the stairs two at a time, stopping at the top to a blinking Ella. “What’s going on Daddy?”

“Ssh, Baby,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”

It wasn’t obviously.

“Stay away, Eddie!” he heard.

And Eddie growling in a weird sing song voice. “Share Cheryl. Join Joanne. More Moira. Only you Moe. Only you Joe don’t share. Share Cheryl. Join Joanne. More Moira.”

“Get off me!” Moe yelled.

“Daddy?” Ella sniffled.

“I’ll take care of her, if that’s okay Elephant?” Shawna offered.

“Okay,” Ella squeaked.

Shawna and Joe nodded and she went with Ella into Ella’s room.

“Joe?” he heard behind him.

He turned and saw a scared and worried Charlie.

“I’ll take care of it, okay?”

He nodded and closed his door.

Joe went to the master bedroom door. It was locked. “Open the door, Eddie.”

He heard a cackle. “Hey don’t move,” he heard after.

“Fuck you Eddie,” he heard Cheryl say. The door unlocked and he rushed through, seeing Eddie pulling Cheryl away. A naked Eddie, his cock half hard. A second later he was on the floor in agony. Cheryl knew Krav Maga too.