Saturday October 6, 1990, 8:55 p.m.

Snakebite paced back and forth beneath the flickering marquee. A few of the fluorescent lights were out, creating a striped effect. Apparently, the people who ran the Phoenix Ballroom were a bit short on letters and had to improvise e’s out of threes and l’s out of upside-down sevens. The Phoenix Ballroom wasn’t so much an actual ballroom but an old movie theater with the seats gutted out and a thrust stage improvised out of plywood jutting from the main stage, where a silver screen once acted as a backdrop. It was named for the old concert venue back in the 1960’s, even though the kids who often went there for shows then grew up to be the adults who didn’t approve of the music played there now.

Of course, Snakebite didn’t much about any of this, considering she had never even set foot in the place. She had bragged to all of her friends, or at least the other kids who let her sit at the cafeteria table with them at school, that she went there “all the time” and even knew some of the guys in the bands personally. Snakebite took their silence to be a sign of their respect and how impressed they were by her “worldliness.” She just bought another pair of black combat boots at the Army surplus store and wore them with the black leather miniskirt she had found at a thrift store. It hung a bit low on her hips since it was a bit too big, but she knew she looked good. Then again, maybe a miniskirt and fishnets weren’t the most practical idea in the early Midwestern autumn, but it was worth shivering a bit.

Where the hell were they? She said she’d meet her friends in front of the Phoenix Ballroom right before the show, and she could already hear the opening band warming up. The scream of electric guitars and the thrum of bass combined with ample feedback from cheap amps always “turned her on.” At least, this was what she always told her friends when they were talking about music. She read the underground magazines and wanted nothing more than to run away to New York and go to CBGB’s. Snakebite wished she had been born much earlier, so she could have been there in the days of The Clash and The Sex Pistols. Hell, she would have rather been anywhere else at any other time. Instead she was just wasting her time in Splitsville, Middle-of-Nowhere, where her only friends were skateboarders who didn’t know shit about skateboarding and burnout losers whose idea of a good time was skipping class and smoking on the roof.

She knew her parents worried about her. When she tried to sleep at night, she would hear them arguing about whose fault it was. Sometimes they’d sigh when they’d see her dressed for school and say “You’re such a pretty girl. I don’t know why you have to dress like that.” Her dad would try to make jokes like “Is it Halloween yet?” Or they’d get calls from the principal when she would get caught on the roof with the others and say “You used to be such a good girl. I don’t know what we did wrong.” Snakebite didn’t know what the big fucking deal was, it wasn’t like her grades were completely going down the toilet. She wasn’t knocked up. Hell, it wasn’t like anyone was interested in her anyway.

Where the fuck was everyone? The first band was starting to play and the bouncer was starting to stare at her. Snakebite wished she was already 18 or knew someone who was so she could have some cigarettes. That would at least give her something to do while waiting for everyone. Her index and middle fingers twitched in the air next to her hips as if itching for a cigarette. Snakebite leaned against the wall, closed her eyes and groaned. They weren’t coming. If they were, they were probably already in there. She had two options:

1) Go in and kick some ass for those losers ditching her.

2) Go home and forget the whole damn thing.

She was about to walk away when she heard approaching footsteps. Before she could open her eyes, she was jarred by a voice.

“Cindy! Cindy! Hey, what’s up?”

Just when Snakebite thought that the night couldn’t get any worse, Phil had to show up. She could have sworn that she heard the bouncer laughing at her. Phil was in a couple of classes with her and they had worked on a class project for Consumer Ed or some pointless shit like that. Apparently, to him, that meant that they were the best of friends and that it was ok to follow her wherever she went, at least when her friends weren’t around.

“Nothin’, and the name’s Snakebite. What the fuck do you want?” Snakebite would have smiled if the impulse to glower wasn’t so necessary after seeing that cheesy, ridiculous grin fall off of Phil’s face.

“I don’t know. I heard you say that you were going to be here and figured…” He looked away at the store display across the street.

“That what, I’d welcome your company? That I’d fuck you in the balcony seats? What?” Snakebite wished that she did have a cigarette so she could put it out on Phil’s forehead and teach him a lesson.

“I’m sorry…Snakebite.” They spent a good moment just standing there and not looking at each other until Phil asked “Why do they call you that anyway? I don’t think I’ve ever really heard anyone call you that.”

“That’s because it’s something that only my friends call me.” She crossed her arms. That was a complete and utter lie. She never even had the nerve to even suggest it to her friends at the lunch table or on the roof.

“So, does that mean I’m your friend?” She looked up at him, in his khakis and button-down shirt, to find that goofy grin greeting her again. He sort of looked like a puppy. The sort of puppy someone named Snakebite would want to kick and throw in a dumpster.

Cindy didn’t know what to say. She rubbed her eyes, already exhausted despite it being so early in the night. Beneath the dim light of the marquee, she could see the black lines and silvery powder smudged on her fingers.

“Come on,” Phil said gently, taking her by the wrist. “The show’s already started.”

Before she could protest, Phil already handed the bouncer the six bucks to get both of them into the show. The whole time he had stood there like a giant pillar of flesh and black leather. He looked like a biker or something, but it made sense to Cindy that the club would want someone intimidating to watch the door in case a throwdown happened. Maybe someone would get into a fight while she was there.

It didn’t seem likely. The large floor was sparsely occupied by small fringes of people in the back, in front of the stage, along the walls. Oddly, it didn’t occur to anybody to stand in the middle of the floor. Despite the name “Phoenix Ballroom,” nobody danced or did much of anything but stand around looking around the room, most likely to see who else was there so they could avoid contact.

Cindy noticed that Phil had let go of her wrist upon entering the main theater area and was looking to her for guidance. She nodded toward the front since even shouting seemed futile in the sonically-charged room. The paint on the walls seemed to crack and peel at each wave of sound and strobe of light. Standing in front of the amps amplified the experience to the point where Cindy was convinced she would fall over, heavy boots or no. Even the makeshift stage shook and rattled beneath the amps.

After a brief attempt at tuning his instrument, the lead singer who also played bass started up another song. He was a tall, skinny guy with dark circles around his eyes which looked like they were there naturally from sleepless nights on the road, performing, and partying, as opposed to Cindy’s eyes which were ringed with makeup. His hair was flaming orange and stood straight up in spikes, much like the steel in the leather bracelets he was wearing. Sweat poured down his face and neck, causing him to glow and shine despite the dim house lights. He scowled. He glowered. He picked up a bottle of whiskey on the floor, took a shot, and spat it at the audience.

Cindy was in love.

He seemed like the sort of guy a girl called Snakebite would like, the sort who would actually call her by that name. She stared at his fingers running along the frets of the mint-green bass. His hand reminded her of a spider with its slim fingers and knobby joints, but a pale, flesh-colored spider with five legs instead of eight. The fingers moved so fast beneath the blue-gray light. Cindy couldn’t help but wonder how those hands would feel touching her, for images such as this and not those on television or in magazines were truly the fuel for adolescent, hormone-soaked fantasies.

She couldn’t take her eyes off of him, even as his group was leaving the stage to make way for the headlining band. Of course, she didn’t care anything about them. She just wanted to see more of the flame-haired sex god she had just witnessed for moments onstage earlier. She wanted to see everything he had to offer. She did not want to see these other guys in baggy clothes with arms covered in tattoos. For one thing, their lead singer was a fat bald guy.

“I love these guys.” Phil’s voice shook her out from inside her own mind. “I can see you were into the band before, but I’m more of a hardcore person than punk.”

“What?” It almost hurt her eyes to look directly at Phil with his mundane clothes and nondescript face. “Oh, that. I wonder how he gets his hair like that.”

“With practice, I suppose,” Phil smirked, “Although that time would have probably been better spent practicing his instrument or, better yet, singing.”

Cindy frowned. Phil didn’t have to be so petty in his insults. Why would he say something like that? It was unnecessary. Still, she didn’t feel like she needed to defend the guy whose name she didn’t even know to Phil, of all people. She had half a mind to walk away to another secluded corner of the club, perhaps to try and find out if the lead singer of the opening band was still around. Then again, Phil did pay her way in. She shook her head. No. She didn’t ask him to do that. She didn’t ask him for anything, so screw him if he thinks that she owes him something.

She stood next to him anyway. If someone as boring-looking as Phil was could be into the loud, angry music that was starting to fill the darkened theater, then there might be something else worth looking into.