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If you believe in forever
Then life is just a one-night stand
If there's a rock n' roll heaven
Well you know they've got a hell of a band, band, band
Jimmy gave us rainbows and Janis
Took a piece of our hearts and Otis
Brought us all to the dock of a bay
Sing a song to light my fire, remember Jim
That way, they've all found another place, another place to play
"When does the show start?" Mary could feel the cocoon of shock starting to dissolve, and she didn't much care for the feeling.
"Soon."
"How long do they go on?"
Sissy didn't answer for nearly a minute, and Mary was getting ready to restate the question, thinking the girl either hadn't heard or hadn't understood, when she said: "A long time. I mean, the show will be over by midnight, they always are, it's a town ordinance, but still... they go on a long time. Because time is different here. It might be... oh, I dunno... I think when the guys really get cooking, they sometimes go on for a year or more."
Marvin Gaye stopped finally. He seemed to take hours (days weeks) and Kurt was glad he came in on the end of the set. He listened to the three adults seated in front of him. They were speaking nonsense. He shook his head and interrupted their numb horror with a pronounced "Bulllllshit." They turned to stare at him and out of a world of disgust he was able to manage a spark of pity for them. They looked walleyed and waxy. Sissy had an excuse, she was clearly stoned out of her gourd to deal with the pain of having her finger ripped off by zombie-Frankie Lyman oh dear god give us all a break..."It's bullshit," Kurt said again. "They aren't real."
Sissy raised her bandaged hand, "Keep your voice down or you'll find out just how real they are."
The emcee, a man Kurt didn't recognize, reappeared on the brilliantly-lit stage in front of a row of shining guitars worth millions. He pulled a silver microphone the size of a brick towards his thin lips. "Oh, citizens of Rock n' Roll Heaven! How about that Marvin Gaye?!" The few people scattered throughout the many seats gave a reluctant clappity-clap. The emcee waved wildly. "And next up, kids, well! Well well! I won't waste nobody's time with speeches. Straight from his Winter Festival tour of Crystal Lake is our man Buddy Holly! Put your hands together!" he shouted with an enormous killer-clown smile and the golf clap-clap-clap broke out again. Sissy patted her thigh with her good hand to make a noise. Kurt didn't move. Buddy Holly? Seriously?
Buddy Holly, larger than life and twice as dorky (bless us oh rockin' saint of nerds) with his horn-rim glasses and all, hit the stage and the driving drumbeat of the opening of 'Peggy Sue' washed over Kurt. That song. The beautiful, fast beat of that song, Holly's guitar backing up the pounding drums, the sweet and direct simplicity of the lyrics (Oh, I love you, girl, and I want you, Peggy Sue) had surged into Kurt's 5 year old soul and set his little legs moving in a way that his parents' collection of folk and country never, ever did. Welcome to rock 'n roll, kid, and Kurt had remained desperately, hopelessly in love with music ever since. You never forget your first.
There was a shimmer around Holly's face and black, smoking burns marred his skin. A sharp odor hit Kurt's nose and he leaned forward to grip the back of Sissy's chair. "Is that supposed to be airplane fuel I'm smelling?"
"It IS plane fuel," Clark gasped. "Buddy Holly died in a plane crash."
"They're dead, they're all dead," Sissy groaned. "You blink and you're looking at their carcass. You're looking at Hendrix's vomit that he choked on, or the bullet holes that Marvin Gaye's father gave him, or the noose that..."
"NO, SORRY!" Kurt stood up and waved his arms. "STOP THE MUSIC! STOP IT RIGHT NOW!"
The scattered audience all shrank in their seats as Holly put the flat of his hand against his guitar strings to silence their vibration. There was quiet. Other rock stars began to creep out of the wings to gawk at the disturbance. Kurt was breathing hard. He saw the Big Bopper standing next to Richie Valenz, also reeking of gasoline, and there was Janis Joplin turning blue and Kurt Cobain with a hole appearing in his...
"I SAID STOP THIS! THIS IS TOO STUPID! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE NEXT, MAMA CASS WAVING A HAM SANDWICH? SHE ACTUALLY DIED OF HEART FAILURE, YOU KNOW!"
"Boy, you best be sitting down," the mayor of Rock 'n Roll Heaven, one Elvis Aron Presley, said as he stepped out of the wings and maggots tumbled to the floor through his politician's grin.
"No, sorry, the King is not the actual mayor of this nightmare. He's not here. That's not Buddy Holly up there. That's not, oh, wow, One Eye. That's not Mama Cass and put that down! That's not funny! And this? None of this is Rock 'n Roll." Kurt stood in his stadium seat. "THIS IS NOT ROCK 'N ROLL!"
"Oy! Reckon he'll sit down when we take off his legs?" said some British rocker from too close behind Kurt and Mary screamed at what she saw back there.
Kurt didn't even turn around. "What is all this? Some hateful bluenose's idea of what rock is? What rock musicians are? Does he think gospel or country musicians all die peacefully in their beds? Does he think Mozart's death was easy?" Kurt looked around. The venue was filling with familiar faces. He'd gone through a morbid phase as all teens do and spent time on Dead Rocker websites. He recognized most of them. "Most of these poor guys died just like everybody else. They had accidents or got sick." Real grief crossed his face. "This is stupid."
"Sit down, you're rockin' the boat! Sitdownyou'rerockin'theboat!" someone sang and Kurt did turn around then with a jerk. There was no Sid Vicious with a chainsaw back there. It was Blaine and he was grinning. Kurt grinned back and felt his blood rush through his veins. He wasn't alone in the funhouse.
He stepped up from the seat to the armrests and faced the stage again, his arms wide. "I'm your friend, you can talk to me," he sang softly. "I read your face, I see misery. Just pick your heart up off the floor. And try, try again."
"What's that?" some skeletal wraith said.
"That's rock 'n roll, too. By Dr. Hook. That's the song I heard on the Classics station when I realized...when I realized life was going to be hard for me. You should have seen me crying over the radio. Then there was R.E.M. telling me that everyone hurts but just hold on. Hold on. And sometimes in our lives, we all have pain. We all have sorrow but, if we are wise, we know that there's always tomorrow. And it's MY milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard!"
"Rip his lips off and kill him."
"Sit down, John! Sit down, John! For God's sake, John, sit down!" sang a choir in beautiful harmony. Kurt whirled around and all his friends in Glee-club were there, mocking the monsters. "It's ninety degrees! Have mercy, John, please. It's hot as hell in Philadephia!" They were ranged behind him, Mr. Schue directing, Artie and Mercedes waving, Blaine smiling up at him, everyone a barrier between him and the creeps in the shadows. Sissy, Clark, and Mary were as quiet as rabbits. Sissy was still numb and confused. Mary's eyes were hard. Clark was quivering and he held his arms up in surrender as if someone had a gun on him. Mary suddenly stood up. Clark gripped her arm, Sissy pawed at her, but she jerked free of both of them and stalked over to Mr. Schue. She pressed her back to his. She was guarding him. Mr. Schue grinned down at her and didn't move. He had her back, too.
"Mayor, I want all those yodeling losers in pain. Right now!" said the ragged mouth-hole of Tom Petty. "Why else did I vote for you?"
Blaine gave Petty a Double Bird salute, gently kissing the tips of each middle finger as he did so. "Guy, you're not even dead yet."
Petty looked embarrassed. Kurt went on with a gasp, "Listen to me! And when you're stuck in your room...stuck everywhere with no end that you can see and college is a million years away but will college really be any different? And there's nothing I...you can do. Nothing but turn the rock on and dance. If I had the chance I'd ask the world to dance but now I'm dancing with myself! And it helps! It helps when nothing else will." The club was now sweetly humming 'America the Beautiful.' Kurt turned around to give them a dirty look and then he went on. "Now whose stupid vision of rock 'n roll is this? This rot and death and evil? Bring him out!" He stepped up again to the back of his seat, as high as he could go, his arms pinwheeling for just a moment before he steadied. "WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?!"
Kurt half expected Bugs Bunny to appear, chuckling, with a pencil in his hand but he didn't. Something else entered then. A soap bubble floated in front of Kurt's face and popped. It was followed by another bubble and then another. The air was suddenly full of them and they reflected the brightness of the spotlights. They were blowing in a rainbow stream from behind the stage. Standing before them was a friendly, smiling man with an orchestrator baton in his hand. Flanking him on either side was a crew of squeaky-clean...what were they? Beauty queens and Mormon missionaries? Every hair in place, every tooth straight and white. Extremely white. White, white, white. Creepy. Their leader with the baton stepped forward. "Well, this rocka and roll isn't good like the lovely champagne music is!"
"You. It figures," Kurt said grimly as the zombies screamed as one and stormed the stage.
"And now the lovely Lorraine will show us her broadsword technique. Let's give her a huge hand!" A severed fist was flung through the air but Lorraine ducked it with panache and began to swing. And sing, she had a lovely voice. A bouncy blonde woman began to hammer out an accompaniment on an upright piano that appeared out of nowhere. She'd occasionally look up to beam sunshine out at the audience. Joey Ramone was sneaking up behind her with a meathook.
Kurt looked away. Yeah, the brawl was on. Mary was cursing and fighting everyone. Clark was under his chair. Artie stood, picked up his wheelchair, and slammed it down on Phil Ochs. Ochs crumpled to the floor, his green skin splitting. A tap-dancing couple, grinning as vacuously as Barbie and Ken, were being pursued by a growling Beyonce. Wait, she wasn't dead either!
"Hey, do something!" Blaine shouted as he ran past with George Harrison in hot pursuit.
"If it weren't for the Beach Boys the Beatles would have fizzled out within four years!" Kurt shouted after them.
George skidded to a furious stop. "Not bloody likely!" he shouted and was decapitated by a flying drum cymbal.
Blaine turned back, breathing hard. "The Rolling Stones were and are cooler," he said as he ducked George's flailing body which was still staggering around.
"Thanks, mate," said Brian Jones as he sauntered past. He was whole and well and so was John Lennon who he joined. He said something Kurt couldn't hear and Lennon laughed as he gazed tolerantly on the melee.
"And now we'd like-a to welcome our guests, the Osmond Brothers! With their very speciala guest singer, baby sister Marie Osmond!" A little girl in a pinafore pulled the pin out of a grenade with her majestic teeth and lobbed the explosive at Stevie Ray Vaughn. His plumed hat went flying in the explosion. "Isn't she adorable?" Welk sighed. "Good, wholesome family entertainment." Meatloaf (also not dead) jumped him from behind and he hit the floor with a crunching THUD!
Kurt abruptly lost interest. "On second thought, let us not go to Camelot," he mumbled and crawled down from his high horse/vantage point. "It is a silly place." He turned his attention to Blaine.
Who was standing in front of him. Without his shirt on. Where on Earth had it gone? Kurt didn't know and he didn't care. Skin, skin, beautiful skin. He wiped his sweating palms on his slacks. "H...hi," he said. His friend's chest was smooth and and lightly freckled. There was a blast from a nearby flamethrower and Kurt shyly looked up at Blaine's face to see how it looked in the firelight. It looked warm and red and the taller boy smiled down on him. "Uh. Hi, Buh...Blaine," Kurt stuttered again. "I stand by what I said, though. Everything I said." Kurt felt a slap on his back and turned around to see a tall, gawky man in horn-rim glasses pass by. He didn't smell of gasoline at all and he grinned at Kurt before he disappeared into, or out of, the shrieking mass.
Kurt turned back to Blaine to celebrate that cool little moment. Without a word or a warning Blaine bent and took Kurt's mouth with his own. The Glee club cheered and Mercedes's clear, strong voice rose in song. "At laaaaaaast, my love has come along!" The stage exploded in a fountain of blood and limbs and Osmond teeth and Kurt kissed him back and reached out and touched. Touched that soft skin. Reached out. Touched. Touched Blaine at last and they broke for a moment for a breath of air, each other's air, and then they closed again. Kurt's arms squeezing tight and he could feel the ripples of Blaine's ribs. His entire body against his own entire body, oh, god, and he firmed that kiss to make it count and...
...the radio alarm went off. "...sixty-four degrees with a slight chance of showers beginning around two PM this afternoon. Right now the time is seven AM on this beautiful Saturday morning and we've got the Righteous Brothers for you!"
SATURDAY! He'd forgotten to turn the alarm off for the weekend. Kurt sat up in bed like Frankenstein rising off his slab. Slowly. Deliberately. Horribly. Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes fell off his chest and tumbled to the floor.
"If there's a rock 'n roll heaven you know they gotta hell of a band!" the brothers sang.
Kurt leaned over and picked up the book again. It was a typical work by King. Very, very heavy. One swing was sufficient and the radio, and the shelf it was sitting on, shattered into a hundred pieces. Saturday. Saturday, damn it. He had only himself to blame. He collapsed back into his bed with a half groan, half sob.
And that damn book was going straight back to the library.
Right after he met Blaine for lunch. Smiling, Kurt's eyelids drooped and he was overjoyed to drop back into sleep again.
End
PS: A long way away and several years before, Mary woke with a start. She got her bearings and realized she was still angry. Still weary. Clark, you bastard, you left me in that cafe. You got us lost in the first place. No, he hadn't, it was just a dream. Just a dream. Clark was really a good guy and a good boyfriend and all that, right? Wrong. Oh, god, the truths that are revealed in nightmares. Enough. Enough of denial, enough of making excuses, enough of Clark. Goodbye.
Before the petulant man-boy even realized what was happening Mary packed up and left him. Why?! Why?! he wanted to know.
These boots are made for walkin', she sang, and that was the only explanation he got. Then she was gone.
End
PS PS:
Elvis woke up with one hell of a headache. Ow, he thought. That kid in the wheelchair hits hard. Then the dream fell away as the Colonel started beating on the door. Wake up, get up, get goin', boy. Time to give the people what they want! Time to make me some money!
Elvis stared at the door and his beautiful face warped into a mask of resentment and hatred. Oh, yeah, that was one hell of a dream. Making other people hurt as much as he hurt. He took a deep breath. Wait, what the hell? The Colonel was dead, dead for years! And Elvis... he was home. In the bathroom. He turned around and saw himself on the floor. He took a step back at his condition. At his state...what a state!
Regret and realization hit him but they didn't stagger him. His was a condition of understanding. He felt he would soon understand everything but first things first. "I told you to knock it off," he said and a paternalistic sorrow entered his voice as he looked down at himself. "You could've gone with a little dignity but don't listen to nobody. Not even yourself."
There was another, gentler knock on the door. Elvis slowly answered it, peeking out with the door cracked so no one could see the disgraceful wreck inside. It was a woman, a hippie woman dressed in pearls and buckskin, not at all beautiful but with a wide smile. And he knew her name was Janis. "There ain't no dignity in life, you know that," she said.
"I do now," and they shared a rueful laugh together. He stepped out and closed the door. Janis took his hand. "Where are we goin'?"
"Rock 'n Roll Heaven."
"Not THAT place!"
She laughed again. "No! Hell, no, what did we ever do to deserve that story? No. We're headed to the real deal. Where the good people go. Where they deserve a good show. But only if you want to."
He slowly smiled. "I want to. Mama will love it."
They left Graceland and headed eagerly down a bright road.
The End, for sure.
.