I am wearing leather pants. They are Fire�s, and they love his ass more than mine, but they still don�t look half bad. My top is ripped up fishnet, and satin and cotton stitched together by one of Fire�s ex-girlfriends, and I am paranoid about my boobs. He lent me a pair of Doc Martens and a snarl, and we exit his house with a flourish.
This identity feels loose: I have to break it in. Fire is laughing, but I want him to help me with a sneer. We pull over and have a brief, but intense sneering contest. I think he wins.
The band is amazing: gross guitars and homemade dreadlocks, girls in corsets and tailored suits made solely of fishnet. They sound like Bob Marley if he spent years coming up with the best way to destroy his music. Fire gets me a beer with his fake ID and I drink it, but that is the only thing that passes my lips. Pretty punk boys keep asking me if I want some pills, if I want some papers, but I pull up my punkette like a pair of stockings and give them a leering no. I feel dangerous and attractive.
Fire pulls me into the mosh pit like the moon pulls the tides, and he shows me how to slam and stage dive. There�s barely a stage, but I like it. The music is like an ear infection, but the guitarist is cute and he�s been looking at me all night. This is a pleasing way to be, though I am glad I�m not wearing a skirt. One girl in a mini fell onto a cluster of nasty-looking boys, and I saw more than one hand thrust up her skirt. Fire maneuvered his way over, and I saw him lift her to the back, where she got down shakily.
Time slams away, and then the band is packing up and Fire is looking behind the bar for his bag, which he had carelessly slung over at the beginning of the night. I feel fizzy.
The guitarist comes over to me. He�s not that much older than me, I find out, barely 21, and he has a scratchy little goatee. I play with it recklessly, and he flicks his eyes over to me, trying to decide what to do. We go behind the bar and he kisses me hard and deep and not anything like I�ve been kissed before, by half-drunk high school boys half-dead with nervousness.
And then I pull up my punkette stockings and tell him I�ve got to go. To his credit as a lusty hyper reggae-punk artist, he nods and lets me go. He probably has a girlfriend, I realize, heading back in the car with Fire.
The drive back is sort of shaky; I forgot how heady punk can be live. The last show I went to with Fire was over a year ago: we went to see the Bouncing Souls and had crappy balcony seats. I felt like I was at the opera.
Fire�s house is quiet and still. He offers me his bed, letting me know that he�s driving me home wicked early and that I�d better get some sleep. I borrow more clothes (a giant Germs t-shirt and some boxers) and brush my teeth with my finger.
Fire�s bed is sort of hard but not lumpy. I fall asleep quickly and easily.