April 21, 2008
Tour Blog: Traverse City, Part 2 — Infiltrated
From the moment I saw the bastard impostors, I knew something bad had happened. I didn’t know what, exactly. I just knew, off the bat, that it wasn’t Girth. Plenty of folks have tried to impersonate Girth over the years—he’s a favorite of those standup comics who claim to find the metal scene ridiculous even as they desperately try to impersonate and impress with their own, shall we say, limited musical skills. They get the voice or the mannerisms, sometimes even both, but there’s something about his swagger—maybe you have to be married to understand. I could tell if a man walked in the room dressed identically—hell, cloned or whatever these mad scientist assholes were up to—and know from the way he walks that he’s not my Girthy.
Since Mikey was throwing such a shitfit about breakfast, I decided to take everyone out—except the impostors. I told Milligan, “You and Carl were going to stay behind, remember? For some old Midwestern bonding?”
“Of…course,” Milligan said. Nice adaptability. Abramovsky would have slit his throat by now, but we can’t get away with such things in America. At least, not as easily. “We’ll just stay here and do what men do.”
“I’m sure you will,” I said. “Come on, guys.”
We took a tense drive to a quiet diner in the center of town. After we ordered, I dropped the bombshell: “Those two guys back there—they are not Girth and Carl.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Mikey asked.
“Just trust me,” I said. “We’ve been infiltrated.”
“By who?” Lacey asked.
“Christians,” Riffs gasped.
“Wooster promised they’d leave us alone,” Lacey countered.
“That was before we took a shit all over our promise to him,” Mikey noted.
“Fair enough,” Lacey said. “Who they are doesn’t matter much. What’s important is finding Girth and Carl and getting rid of the impostors.”
“How do you expect to accomplish that?” Lacey asked.
“I have ways,” I sneered. “I’ll find out their plans and counter them.”
We went back to the motel to pick up the fakes for our sound check/rehearsal time. For some reason, both seemed reluctant to leave the motel room, but I reminded Milligan of how important it is to “him” to check out the performance space before the show. He no longer seemed thrilled about being a member of Abysmal Crucifix, but he and Strosby did finally get in the van. We drove across town to the university, made Milligan and Strosby do most of the unloading, and got everything going for the rehearsal.
To my surprise, both Milligan and Strosby had done enough research to become at least as proficient as Girth and Carl are at their respective instruments. The rehearsal was tight. Too tight.
Afterward, I dragged Milligan back to the dressing room for a little mid-afternoon fun. Don’t call me a hypocrite, because what Girth did in Milwaukee is totally different — I had to do this for the greater good, not for some cheap thrills. Besides which, we didn’t fuck to completion. Once he got into the heat of it, I bashed him across the forehead with the butt of a .45 I generally keep hidden in the dressing room couch.
He didn’t fall down unconscious — that rarely happens on the first hit outside of the movies — but I didn’t want him to.
I aimed the gun at his bleeding face and growled, “What have you done with my husband?”
“He’s in the bathroom of the motel,” Milligan said, raising his hands in a gesture of peace and terror. “So’s Davenport.”
“What are you fellas up to?” I demanded.
Milligan’s fear turned to rage, and he barked, “Fuck you!”
I fired at one kneecap, causing him to scream in agony. “Fine!” he roared, giving up more easily than expected. “We’re going to use your husband’s existing fame to broadcast tonight’s concert across the world, then parlay the international goodwill into a Presidential bid, then use our executive powers to take over the world.”
I nodded with approval. “Good plan. You realize I’ll never let that happen, don’t you?”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever seen whose file is classified in the U.S., Russia, China, and the United Kingdom. You’re a dangerous woman. Of course I realize you’ll try to stop me. But you’ll fail.”
“Not if you bleed out,” I said, leaving the dressing room.
I regrouped with the rest of the band. We took a drive to the motel, saw signs of a struggle but no signs of Girth or Carl. They weren’t in the bathroom.
“Dammit!” I snapped.
“Forget about them,” Mikey said. “They obviously got away…somehow. We need to concentrate on a plan.”
“The easiest way to stop them is to just cancel tonight’s show,” I said.
“But then you’ll lose all that publicity,” Lacey whined. “I mean, it’d be beneficial for everyone if we got Girth—the real Girth—to perform for cameras that are hijacking satellite signals to broadcast him the world over.”
“Here’s a compromise,” I said. “If we can’t find the real Girth and Carl, we’ll pretend like this afternoon never happened. We’ll play with these fakes—they’re good—and we won’t act unless they’re using this opportunity to assault viewers with a radical political message.”
“More radical than Girth’s?” Lacey said.
“Girth doesn’t have a political message,” I said. “Not really. He’s just outraged about everything, so he whines about it.”
“Isn’t that libertarianism?” Riffs asked, making Mikey laugh.
“This is no time for jokes!” I roared.
“I wasn’t joking—”
“We have to think of Girth,” I said. “So we’re clear: we will not act unless they begin spouting inflammatory rhetoric. We’ll just put on a good show with the fakes.”
“What’ll we do if they do get political?” Mikey wondered.
“My keyboard has a built-in compartment to hide a Mac-10,” I said.
Everyone looked at me, agog.
“At a time like this, it doesn’t seem so crazy, does it?!” I snapped. “Also, there might be a minor problem with the impostor bleeding to death in the dressing room as a result of a bullet wound.”
Lacey gasped.
“We’re going to have to play that one by ear,” I said. “Now, come on. Let’s look for Girth.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening searching for Girth and eating. No luck finding him, so we proceeded according to plan. I got to the dressing room, and although there was a thick, still-wet pool of blood on the floor, Milligan was nowhere to be found.
About 10 minutes before showtime, he and Strosby burst through the door. No limp, no blood — nothing. He could have probably danced like Fred Astaire if his Girth-molded physique had allowed it.
“Surprised?” he said coyly. “Come on. Let’s hit the stage.”
He and Strosby strutted past us onto the stage. The crowd went nuts. I sighed, adjusted my wig and false eyelashes, and followed. So did Riffs and Mikey. We got into position and launched into “Phone Sex.”
The instant it ended, the crowd roared with approval. Distantly, I heard Girth screech, “NOW!”
I looked in Milligan’s direction, but he was busy posturing for the crowd.
The canoe dropped so suddenly, and with such speed and force, that it pinned Milligan beneath it. My Girthy, with Carl next to him, stood triumphantly within it. Carl immediately leaped from the boat and dive-bombed Strosby, killing the drum set. The two of them went head to head. I watched, admiring the real Carl’s surprising dexterity considering his size, until Strosby somehow pinned him and started to slam Carl’s head repeatedly against the hard stage floor.
I whipped out the Mac-10 and shouted, “That’s enough, motherfucker!”
Strosby looked up at me dumbly. His facial expression morphed into a sneer, at which point he pulled a bowie knife from an ankle-sheath. Before he could plunge it into a terrified-looking Carl, I fired. Strosby dropped the knife harmlessly beside Carl, then dropped his body into a disgusting puddle of blood, flesh, and bone.
I glanced toward Girth, who had disconnected the canoe from the hydraulics and was helping the on-site crew take it offstage. Milligan looked worse for wear, but not dead. He clearly had several broken bones, many of them ribs, and probably some organ-related trouble. He’d live.
Some pre-med students who worked as athletic trainers brought in a stretcher and hauled both of the men offstage. On one, they wanted to perform wild experiments. On the other, they thought it’d be nice to take him to the hospital, especially when Girth let them know he was Dr. Milligan — apparently quite a prominent figure in Traverse City.
When it was all settled, Girth came toward me and gave me the tonguing to end all tonguings.
“I love you, Girthy,” I said when I caught my breath.
“Come on, let’s rock!” he shouted.
Written by Margo Atwater on April 21, 2008 6:41 PM
Permalink |
Happy Heartland Tour -- The Midwest '08
| Digg It
Post a Comment
Powered by Ajax Comments