Jem…Chapter 97

Chapter 97

 

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Author's Note: Picture used with permission from *lavonia on deviantart.

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Chapter 97
 

*Billy & Davey…………

We were heading out from the motel or we were when Davey cocks his head and he gets this look and man I swear it’s that look that a cat gets when it’s heard something it wants to pounce on.

A second or two later I hear it too…for one of the rooms these assholes are staying in. There’s this “Thwapp.” That sort of sound that you only get when a hand hits flesh.

His coffee goes on the ground and he’s moving.

“Shit, shit…Davey wait the fuck up.”

“No.”

“Davey this shit happens; these guys aren’t guys that you’re used to kid.”

Yeah, Davey’s a hard ass kid he’s young and he’s had my back before but he’s not actually part of the club. Actually he’s a journeyman carpenter that works with a guy I know back home called Tim.

I hear the sound of tape coming off of a roll?

Davey has a roll of duct tape out and he’s winding it around one of his hands and he’s getting a good layer on there and he’s taking out something else from his pockets and wrapping it around the tape and then adds more tape to sort of make it stay there.

It’s a length of chain.

Ow…

And shit too. I move with him to the door and I can hear sobbing.

Okay…okay there’s a lot of bad shit that goes on and stuff in the biker clubs and a lot of it is unsavoury shit and I might sound like an asshole but the “Old ladies” in a club, well they’re the biker wives…they’ve been around and they know full well what goes on and who they get involved with.

But something is going on with the vans and these girls and these aren’t club girls.

It’s abuse.

And given what Davey’s dad had done to him and especially his sister.

He’s pounding on the door.

“What!” Get’s shouted from the other side.

“Pay up asswhipe these girls are free any more!” he says throwing some base into his voice.

Davey leans to the door and he lights a smoke and he gets a draw off of it and then he backs up and kicks the door just as the guy inside was coming up to it. I hear the crunch of wood to flesh.

I step in behind Davey and keeping an eye on the doors for the other rooms.

Davey goes in and one guy is down another has his dick in one of the girls and he’s half turned and yelling. “What the fuck!”

And his next words are cut off as Davey pulls him off and out of the girl and slams him to the ground hard.

I see Davey look at the girl on the bed who is beaten and bloodied and there’s a semi insane look there and he takes and rag off the smoke and he pulls it from his mouth and puts it out in the guy’s ear.

Before he started screaming I heard the wax sizzle.

And I hear the rush from the other rooms starting to come and I step out and right as close to those other doors as I can and I pull my piece.

There’s few handguns that really says boo like a Desert Eagle.

Oh sure there’s all types of good guns and stuff but I like a revolver nice and big and nice and sturdy and with a big barrel it stops the first guy cold when he comes out and he’s staring at it and I cock back the hammer.

“Oh fuck.”

I look him over, he looks scared. I smile and tilt my head to see as the other guys are coming out. “Drop the guns guys.”

One of them looks frisky. “Who the fuck are you and you got any idea who you’re dealing with?”

“Name’s Wild Bill and the club doesn’t hurt little girls.”

They’re looking at me and they see my cut. The guy in front of me is sweating. “He’s he’s one of us guys.”

A big guy in the back is looking at me. “Heard you were here Billy, why are getting involved this is our deal.”

“Family stuff or didn’t Frick and frack in there tell you I told them to bail?”

“They did but here’s the thing this isn’t Edmonton, this isn’t Alberta son and you’re on the wrong side of the Red River Valley.”

Frisky boy cocks his piece. “And we got more guns asshole.”

I do the squint. “This range dipshit it’ll go right through your buddy’s skull here and still take you stupid ass out.”

There’s some more yelling from the room as we can hear Davey putting a beating on the tow guys inside.

It get’s tense when there’s another scream as we heard something breaking.

Two more pull guns.

“You might want to reconsider boys; you really want a shoot out here? With the cops and everything.”

Frisky says. “Cops are owned.”

“Mounties aren’t and with the bodies I’ll leave they’ll definitely be looking.”

The big guy in the back, Frank Bones coughs and spits and lights his own smoke. “Fine, you gotta point, so what are we going to do about your boy in there?”

“Your two little assrags were beating on the girls here.”

“So, who gives a shit their whores?”

“We give a shit, and they’re not whore Frank they’re school kids that are hooked up in all of this which means heat can come down on the club, underage pussy boys…assault…rape charges…you really want to give Marshal that kind of edge?”

Bones growls… “I told them, I fucking told them to play nice.”

“So…let it happen then and we’ll be good for tonight.”

Frisky snarls. “Fuck that man, this is our patch, our spot and you don’t have juice here. We’re going to do what we’re going to do and you and your boy aren’t going to stop us.”

I look at Frank and he nods.

I use my gun to push the guy I had it trained on aside and he exhales loudly. I look at frisky bot and I put my gun back. He’s looking confused and then he grins and I know just by the look in his eyes right now he’s debating on shooting me.

There’s that second where I see his eyes shift and know his next move is his arm coming up and I step in and I punch him in the throat.

He drops his piece and hits his knees and I drive another hard hit to his head with my forearm and use my thick leather studded wrist band to give him a nasty cut on the forehead along with the hit.

He yells and I shut that up with a boot to the guts to take the wind out of him.

Frank starts to move and I back away from the idiot.

“Enough.”

“Fine teach him some manners before it kills him.”

“We’re not done…” He looks past me as Davey comes out and he is stirring a white styrofoam cup he must have got from the room. Two sets of keys are dangling in the hand he’s stirring with…also it’s the taped one with the chain and it’s bloody.

There’s another tense moment as Frank tries to dead stare Davey and Davey takes a loud sip of his coffee.

“We should go Billy we have stuff to do.”

Frank says. “You’re not taking those bikes.”

“You all have rides and they lost theirs.”

“We’re still here they never lost them yet.”

“Can’t ride with broken bones.”

There’s truth to that…not just the fact that you can’t but in a club situation if you can’t ride your bike than you don’t get to ride your bike.

There’s some more stares.

Frank looks at me. “Billy this isn’t over we’re not bailing and I don’t care what your chapter’s saying we have the go ahead…you might have talked a good game when you two first showed up but this is business and it’s personal…it’s not gonna go away.”

“I can’t change your minds?”

“No…and we’re done…you get involved and it gets bloody cops or not. Tonight’s your only walk.”

“Fair enough, we can’t hash this out someplace else?”

“Nope.”

“You willing to trade?”

“For what?”

“What do you want?”

“Jason Powers.”

Davey takes another drink of his coffee. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before that happens.”

Bones is staring at him and as much as I didn’t like the other guy mouthing at me he’s not liking the way Davey is talking to him. I look at Frank. “Hey, I’m not his keeper go ahead.”

They stare again and Davey sets the cup on the railing and offers me the bike keys to hold.

Frank blinks first turning to me.

He’s a hard guy and I’m a hard guy but Davey as good as a guy as he is he’s not right in the head sometimes and you spend enough time in the joint you can smell that on people.

“You got a car Billy?”

“Yeah a rental.” I toss Frank my car keys. “I’ll leave you to clean up Bones.”

I leave and push Davey ahead of me and he still looks like he wants a piece of them but we clear the stairs and we get to the bikes and I don’t take my eyes off of them until we pull off and head to the Pine Tree.

We go slow and take a few extra turns. “That lit the fuse.”

“It was already lit Billy we just know it now. They are going to come at us one way or another.”

I nod. “Yeah, I knew that but this might have them come at us faster.”

“Maybe…, we gave them something to think about and tonight we get busy.”

“Yeah?”

“We Fort Knox Remy’s place.”

“And the girls?”

“We keep an eye out seriously and we fill Mike in and maybe he can piece together stuff for Angel to take to her guy.”

“Isn’t that being a rat?”

“Not with Adam’s shit, that little fucker has no loyalty from me.”

“You told them to walk away if Adam get’s burned then it’s their own fault.”

“Yeah…” I look at him. “Yeah, you know at least you broke two of them enough they’ll be out of action.”

I think I saw him almost smile at that.

“They’re threatening Angel, Angel is family, Jenna is family…Nin’s family and I’ll go to war for my family Billy.”

“You’ve already been I heard.”

“Yeah…” He throttles up and he pulls away heading towards the gig. I let him have a couple of bike lengths the rest of the way there…

*Angel and SLB………………………………….

The girls all cheer when I sing that little line and we’re kind of all jazzed up to go and play. Josie and her friends also got in on the cheering and that just picked things up a little too.

We all head inside and it’s a bit chaotic but in a good way as they’ve let people start to come inside and we have the stage curtain pulled and we see Molly there waiting for us and the guys duck out of the curtain with Billy and Davey to talk and stuff while I make introductions.

Oh my….

Yeah Molly likes my girlfriend.

She’s caught one look at Raven in the outfit she’s wearing and it became a long look and one that was that look where you’re mouth gets dry and your palms get damp and she’s staring at Raven’s chest a good three mini check outs before she makes herself get a hold of herself.

Raven doesn’t help by shaking her hand in that smokey lesbian it’s not a handshake but me touching you sort of way. Even if it’s still a handshake.

I slip up to Raven and slip my fingers around her waist.

“No fair, she’s had a crush on you for awhile. And I am so not going to have a three way Ms. Rockgoddess.”

She kisses me. “I’m just having fun, once she gets to know me the magic will wear off.”

“It hasn’t with me.” I kiss her back and I don’t know the energy of the place, tonight there’s just this really good vibe in the air and it’s getting inside me. Well maybe the amazing intimate time and stuff we did before this helps too but I slip her a little tongue this time and return her on of my kisses.

I go slow…these kinds of kisses should be slow and not something like you trying to chew the other person’s gum while it was still in their mouth.

And yeah a sloppy kiss is kinda that gross.

I get a smile on my face as Raven’s hands slip up and down me and I love the feeling of her hands tightening to a grip where my corset narrows me off. And she’s so beautiful and hot…hot can be romantic too and with her being just taller than me in this really nice way and the way that she smells.

Turned on definitely but it’s not that stiffy thing though my nipples are at full attention under my inserts right now. No this is so much more an under the skin kind of heat.

I break the kiss and step back out of her touch and start the checks for my guitar and look over at Molly. She seems to have gotten a hold of herself and is in geekette heaven talking to Mike. I smile because she seems okay with him too and Mike’s really into the whole audio and video tech speak and I hear Molly say. “I’ll be right back I’ll get my bags.”

Her bags turn out to be two medium sized duffels and her and Mike are setting up her gear which has a digital camera on a tripod and the set up a couple of web cameras too at different angles and she has two laptops that she’s setting up along with ours and then some more web cameras pointing at the crowd.

Okay already I’m thinking that she’s so worth the hiring.

I we take a quick pee and another make up check and I sneak a look at our crowd and we’re busy. Some new faces and a lot of our regulars enough that Mr. Walker is at the cash himself and there’s even more tables moved out and the hostess desk too.

We have to be at max capacity and there’s drinks going and the bar is going non-stop with the tapis styled food.

I can’t help but to slip up behind and wave at the crowd of people that are there. I see stuff like my brittle but they have these espresso cups of pan roasted nuts with spices and salt and chillies and rosemary. Quebec smoke fish bites with those little pancakes under them and sour cream and chives, date stuffed prunes wrapped in bacon or maybe prosciutto? Fries potato lace balls and some bits of sushi like things and puffs and some things like a cracker with a local cheese and a local farm’s preserves.

I love the little signs they have at each platter with locally marked and there’s a lot of it. I filch one of the prunes with the date inside and the bacon and it’s in a basted sauce that’s really spicy to cut the sweet and I nom-nom on it and give everyone a thumbs up and I head to the stage and up the stairs as the curtain is being pulled by Molly and I take up my guitar.

“Hey everyone!”

They cheer back.

“What a great night, I see a lot of friends here tonight that we love to play for and jam with and a whole lot of new friends here too. Gotta just say that’s all sorts of awesome. So you all ready to hear some music!”

They cheer back even louder and our opener is such a classic and one we’re so good at that we get the guitar perfectly right and I’m stepping up to the mic and start singing.

There are some songs that get an instant reaction and this is one of them.

I saw him dancin' there by the record machine…
I knew he must a been about seventeen

The beat was goin' strong
Playin' my favorite song …..

An' I could tell it wouldn't be long
Till he was with me, yeah me… I mic the crowd and I get them yelling or the girls yelling “Yeah Me!”

And I could tell it wouldn't be long
Till he was with me, yeah me (I mic the crowd again for another “Yeah Me!”, Singin'

(And the crowd gets right there with me as the Pine tree starts to go right into the groove and dance and shout along with me as I sing.)

I love rock n' roll!!!
So put another dime in the jukebox, baby
I love rock n' roll!!!
So come and take your time and dance with me!

Ow!

*I Love Rock and Roll.* By Joan Jett and The BlackHearts has to be one of the most powerful and most covered songs out of rock and roll and likely one of the biggest covers for female bands and vocals.

Then we actually go right into *Don’t Wanna* By Starlight Butterfly and it’s one of first times we’ve had one of our songs this close to the opening of one of our shows. We will get there I just think we need a really good tune something striking like this.

*Bleed Like Me.* By Garbage and yes I will always maintain this band has never gotten the credit that it deserves.

*Fortune Favors the Bold.* By Starlight Butterfly and it’s a tune we should play more and it’s all of us into it more and more as it’s our kind chick rock tribute ballad metal rock but as a girl band’s version of it.

I’m rocking the tee-shirt look with this one too with that sparkly Jem girlie meets up for a gig with like Pearl Jam.

*Rock Your Little Heart Out.* By AC/DC is next and that’s one of their good songs that can be played and sung by a guy or a girl and it’s also a good song to get everyone dancing. Which I do a lot getting all frenetic and stuff as Brooklyn does the guitar solo stuff.

It’s like a switch…a girl dancing and having fun and cutting loose usually will start the others doing it and heck our regulars have already been dancing.

But I love seeing this catch on to the new faces.

A few more get them moving songs.

*These Boots* By Joan Jet and The BlackHearts gets them moving and Joan is always good for a lead into Alannah Myles and her song *Rock this Joint*

And we’re hot and warmed up and Kim and Brook and I strip off our band tee’s and we get hoots and cat calls and okay it’s so selfish of me but I’m last by just a few seconds and maybe, just maybe mine’s a little louder?

But it’s got us feeling the power coming off of the crowd which lets us almost bounce into…

*Because I’m Awesome.* By the Dollyrots one of my favorite bands ever.

*Oh Love* By Greenday…this is another song that has people singing along it’s a good tune but this is also in that age group for here too college kids and vocational college kids through to those mid —twenties to still having fun thirty somethings and Greenday while it’s dated compared to the newest stuff it’s generational stuff.

*Can’t Stop.* By The Red Hot Chilli Peppers…. Another song I like and that opening just gets me going and dancing with it too.

Get them dancing, dancing means a good time and it means they drink and they burn off energy and they eat and all of that means sales and tips.

And yeah as much as this is fun it’s also a really good idea to think about the place you’re playing at. Or it is a must for us if I want to do this the way that I see us working out in the community in my head.

Now the Chilli Peppers vibe is a lot like Train’s so we slip from Can’t Stop to *Drops of Jupiter* and I do a mix of soft sing and belting it out at times like their lead singer does.

And I sing some of it to Raven.

And me singing to her leads us into her starting up and singing as I get my harmonica and start playing it as we go into. *Run-around* By Blues Traveller. She is really good at the fast power singing of these lyrics.

That’s a really classic tune with a ton of funk and character and soul to it and it’s still fun enough that we follow it up with a nice jump into *General Handgrenade* By Trooper.

And there’s just enough vintage rock there that it pairs well with the older rock sound of *Dream on* By Aerosmith and that has just enough ballad likeness to it that it lets me slow things down to the end or our first set.

I start slow and build into my “Whitney.” Song as sing and belt out *I Believe* By Starlight Butterfly.

Mike lowers the lights just enough and I put my all into it and I belt it out and two hand grip the mic stand and I get really into it.

And this is setting up the mood for the slower second half of our show when we do some of our power play stuff.

The lighters are out and there are people actually singing along with me…this hasn’t been out that long either and that’s both really…really cool and kind of humbling.

The song ends and there’s a lot of applause and we take some bows and I wave to them all.

“Look we’re going to be back in fifteen, we need to take a break and get fuelled up for the second set just like you all.”

We close the curtain or rather Dad does and we head for first the juice or I do and then after killing that the bathroom. I’m so glad that we have the use of the staff ladies room instead of the regular one.

It’s surprising how fast the time goes though in a break…drink…use the bathroom, wipe off some sweat and stuff and retouch our make up and then a bottle of water and sip it slowly and sort of hold some in the back of my throat for a few seconds at a time before swallowing.

It’s not something that I need to do because I’m sick or anything but it’s a just a good way to de-stress my voice it works best with me with either cold water or hot tea.

We slip out and get a few of the bites of things we don’t really need the food but it’s a one bite kind of thing and we all sort of play it up…well we kind of don’t have to because the stuff is excellent and Raven get’s this thing they’re just bringing out and that this little two spoonfuls of crá¨me brule in an espresso cup and she has one and she does the foodgasm thing.

Which turns heads and some of the other girls there are definite fans of hers and she gets another and she spoon feeds me it in front of everyone.

Oh…

It’s rich cream brule with that burned sugar crackle topping but under it in the creamy custard is this ball of that Lindt Swiss chocolate that they must have frozen before they backed these so my bite is this creamy yummy thing with this melty to where it’s barely holding shape chocolate and then the bitter but sweet crunchy thing of the burnt sugar crust.

I do not have to fake a foodgasm.

I suck at the spoon as she’s feeding me both bites and she scoops out anything left with her finger and she feeds me that too.

I suck on her finger.

All the way back into out back and I notice I’m not the only one because Brook was sort of feeding Mike stuff too.

But I’ll admit that we did it to help the sales. I mean if the band playing is snacking on the bar food and raving about it or well…what Raven and I were doing then people will likely buy more of the food that’s there.

And well they actually are…like I said we have a lot of girl fans in town and there is a fairly strong L community here and while The Pine Tree isn’t one of they old spots to come it seems to becoming one.

Hey…all girl band with two lesbian leads and in a café and it has both food and drinks and serves some of that tapis styled stuff and it’s not in Toronto or one of the bigger more mainstream cities.

The Cat is awesome and it is the heart and souls of the teen to college club scene in town and it is always doing well but it’s really a good thing that there is something else in town too.

Kimmie was actually the first one back and she’s texting on her phone and taking some self pictures too of her behind the drums and a few rocker Roxy Moogle poses and I take the phone and take a few of her really posing in a kind of sexy way and text. [Hey Max, wish you were here. Angel.]

Then I pass her back her phone and we get ready for the second half of the show and when the curtain opens there’s some camera flashes and the lights dim and I’m playing the keyboards and as soon as I start to play there’s a reaction. The hairs rise on my arms and the back of my neck in a good way… and Raven starts to sing.

I swear there are songs that are just tailor made for a smoking sexy woman’s voice as she starts in on. *Faithfully.* By Journey.

I am doing a video of this with her singing this while we’re driving or something…it is a late at night driving song so full of feeling.

And when she gets to saying Faithfully she doesn’t say a word and the crowd in the club all goes…. “Faithfully…”

There’s people holding each other and doing the leaning thing and there’s a few whistles as she slows down to a finish and I sing. *Washed away* By Starlight Butterfly and we go from that one into.

*Lover of Mine.* By Alannah Myles with Raven singing that.

I slip into that like we’re singing to each other as much as we’re singing to the crowd sort of thing and I do *Please don’t Go* By Starlight Butterfly and then Raven does *Everything* By Starlight Butterfly and then when the chords start to play there’s a lot of whistles and there’s clapping too.

It’s like the café turned into one of those cosy little music hall concerts as I start singing *Invisible* By Starlight Butterfly and like it’s been lately there’s this sort of semi goth crowd that sort of seems to get it…and they like it.

And they sort of sing along with it too.

I’m moved a lot by that sort of thing any time that it happens because that’s not just Angel me but there’s so much of the pain and stuff I lived through as Jase that it’s just so personal.

I take a minute to step back and have a drink and get my guitar and start to play back up and we stun and shock everyone as Kimmie is pulling a Peter Criss and the lights shift to her as I’m back on the keyboards again and she has this tiny-powerful voice…that whole Asian thing.

Raven has Kimmie’s phone and she’s holding it and she’s filming it for Max.

The reaction though of the crowd is amazing…leaning…hugging or holding each other or friends holding hands and there’s nothing else just that and some lighters out but everyone just.

I’m almost crying y’know…this is such a moment for us and for her and I don’t understand it but the last chorus of the song she actually sings in Japanese.

There is serious applause when she’s done and she’s wiping off tears and her smile is so huge.

And while I’m at the keyboard I look at Raven and I start to play and to sing to her one of my favorite songs and I plat *Carousel* By Starlight Butterfly and she sort of plays along with it but she sort of holds herself and her guitar as I’m doing that until I’m done and she switches her guitars with Brooklyn and she pulls over a folding steel chair close to me and she sits and the light settles on her and she plays.

She’s doing this extended version of the intro for it and it’s just really cool guitar riffs and it sort of has a very “Silent Lucidity” feel in it until she gets into the chords for the regular vision and the applause starts to swell up and I think I heard a sob out there somewhere as she plays and she sings *Oncology* By Starlight Butterfly.

There’s a lot of lighters out now and this song means so much to me but it means so much to a lot of other people now too.

Raven follows it up with a stripped down soulful version of *Forever and Always* still sitting where she’s at and while we are like this I do the keyboards still and she’s playing and we do our duet version of *In the Arms of an Angel.* I start doing Sarah McLaughlin’s part in that duet like she sang with Pink and Raven just has that rising power in her voice and it’s such a great song to sing together.

We go from that one to Raven singing *Billy Holiday* to me and then we get ready and we look at the crowd.

“There’s a little bit left for time tonight so we’d figure that we’d take some requests for tonight.” Raven says.

There’s a lot of shout outs and stuff but *Oncology* was one by a landslide and so was *Open Arms* By Journey an song we covered before and one I enjoy singing a lot and the last song we do from the requests is for *Invisible* it’s really nice that we got two out of the three songs that we were doing as our stuff.

And of course we end the show with our signature song By Trooper. *One for the money, two for the show.*

Everyone pretty much stays around too and there’s still take out orders going out of the finger food stuff and we shut down playing but we leave the video stuff running and we talk to people and we meet people as they come up to us after the show to talk.

Dad and Uncle Mitch and the guys are doing security and we sort of need at least a way of keeping a flow of traffic and stuff and we’ll selling our stuff pretty fast too and Josie eventually makes her way over to us with tears in her eyes and hugs us.

“I lost a sister to cancer, too fast and too you and this…that song is just.”

“I know.” I hug her back. “Raven wrote that for me and the first time I heard it I bawled like crazy…cancer touches everyone and that’s why we’re donating half of the profits of that song from our i-tunes sales to The Cancer Society.”

I mean we’ve actually been doing that pretty much from the start and I-tunes is actually really good at helping you set stuff like that up but I’m mentioning it too because it’ll go on our video feeds and if some one doesn’t know about it from our downloads then they might hear me talking about it and click to buy a down load.

Yeah I think there are some songs though that we might actually do this with other charities that we support too.

I’m really touched by a lot of the comments and I give out a lot of hugs. It’s very cool meeting all these new folks and some are from a few towns over…Harper’s point is sort of in small town country here. We’re on the lakes but we’re also just one of those small towns that you pass.

And so are a lot of the towns around us. So it turns out that we’re getting word of mouth from some of the students from those towns that travel here for college and stuff.

We’re kind of doing it, the idea I had.

I mean its small scale but there’s people that came tonight because there’s stuff to do here in Harper’s Point now it seems.

Imagine if we could have something in town most nights and the busy nights more than a few things…and getting known for bar bands…people still will travel to see live music.

I’m happy and doing really good until this woman comes up to me and the girls and her mum is on speaker phone and she’s losing her husband to cancer and then she’s crying and I’m crying and we’re all crying.

This is one of reasons why.

I pull the woman over to the stage so we can all sit with her and talk with her mother and her dad too.

Oh god he’s there too on speaker phone.

“Mr. Roberts.” (Sniffle.) “I’m so sorry that you…that your diagnosis was that bad.”

“Well me too girls it’s not enough time.”

(Sniffle-weepy-voice.) “No…no it never is.”

“I really enjoyed that song, heck I licked most of the show from the stuff I got to hear of it.”

(Sniffle.) “Good, it’s really important that we get to have people like you listening sir.”

He laughs a little and it makes my heart do good and ouch things just hearing that.

“Listen girls I…I just wanted to say that that song of yours it says the stuff that I’ve need to find the right words to say to my girls. Thanks you so much for that.”

More group crying and sniffles.

“Thank you sir.”

“No ladies thank you and god bless okay.”

(Huge Sniffles.)

“Okay…”

He hangs up and there’s more hugs and it takes awhile for us and the people around us to get through the feelings from that and we kind of get through the rest of the people and the meet and greets and we were smiling and we were all pretty good until Dad comes over to us and he steps right into the middle of us and pulls me an Rayne and Brooklyn and Kimmie all together in this big hug.

“I’m so proud of you girls.”

Yeah we’re crying all over again pulled into that hug with him and all getting squeezed.

……………………………….I needed a break after all of that and I go to the bathroom and wash my face and get out of the make-up and back into my band tee while the girls are doing tear down and Rayne’s doing the add up with Mr. walker and that’s good.

I mean she is really getting to know the stuff for all of this.

I watch for awhile and some of the staff bring a tray of the leftovers and thankfully there’s coffee which I need but I get my books and sit close and watch but there’s a song in my head.

We all lose people…we do and sometimes there’s songs for that and sometimes there’s not and this, this has me thinking a lot about some of those kids that never get to have that… I know that there’s people out there that have lost kids…Cancer, S.I.D.S, Miscarriages…and even maybe for girls like me or the genetic ones that can’t have children either…it doesn’t mean there’s no pain there.

So I’m trying not to cry as I’m writing and drinking hot coffee to wash down the lump in my throat and finally I think it’s done and some hastily jotted down notes and I get up and I pull out the small amp and my guitar and I sit on the edge of the stage and start to play and sing.

*Mother’s song* By Angel for Starlight Butterfly.

Precious child…
I still have you in my heart.
I my dreams…
In my soul.

Baby mine…
I missed you today.
I missed your laugh.
I missed your touch.

Our time was too short before you went away.
Sometimes I hold my breath and hug the pain.
So many times they say it’d just be easier…
To say, you weren’t mine and just a dream.

Mommy loves you…
I always will.

(Chorus) My sweet love…My precious child.
You are my love.
You are my love.
Bunny child, velveteen heart.
What I feel…It makes you real
Real to me…
And Mommy loves you…I always will.

Baby mine…
I missed you today.
I missed that smile…
That I could feel.

Precious child…
You’re still my heart to me.
You’re still my hope, you’re still my love.

(Chorus)

Our time was too short before you went away.
Sometimes I hold my breath and hug the pain.
So many times they say it’d just be easier…
To say, you weren’t mine and just a dream.

(Chorus X2)

I let out a ragged and shaky breath and the place is quiet, it’s really quiet and I look up and there’s people staring at me and there’s a lot of tears in the eyes of people too and I can see some pain there on a few faces.

Some of the staff…Brooklyn, Dad’s. Mr. Walkers…..

He’s the one that talks first.

(Cough) “Angel…could you please play that again?”

I nod and take a breath and look at Brooklyn who nods at me that it’s okay and she gives me this slightly broken hearted look though and she leans into Mike and says or asks him something and he holds her really, really tight.

I sing but I almost lose it when I see Daddy looking up and talking to the ceiling…