I liked the directness to the lyrics. They weren’t trying to be fancy or poetic, they just conveyed their message. They weren’t great artists who would be held up for public acclaim or approval. They just knew how full of bullshit most people are, like I did, and they were creating music based on pure emotion. I admired it.
I started buying metal magazines, which talked not only about other bands I wanted to check out, but also about the members of the ones I already liked. DED was my favourite; they had been my initiation into this secret world, and I wanted to know who they were as people. But aside from accumulating photos of them, it was hard to learn much about them from these magazines other than their names: Balthazar, the singer; Ed and Sid, the guitarists; Victor on bass; and the drummer, Chaos.
Because I could find little information about them, I could make up my own story for them. I imagined them to be very much like myself, isolated and angry. They’d been lonely, until they found each other and formed their alliance. In a way it was better to be able to fantasize about who they were, and that they would like and accept me, rather than learning potentially disappointing facts about them. I was free to write in my journal and speculate to my heart’s content.
xXx
“Rachel, I know you’re listening to more than one band in there,” Dad said to me one night that summer as we ate dinner together. “But I can’t tell them apart. It all sounds the same to me.”
“Oh, there are differences,” I said cheerfully. “You just have to listen closely. None of them sound exactly the same.”
“I think I’ll leave that to you,” he said.
“I can’t even tell the songs apart,” my mother said. “It really does all sound the same.”
“It sounds like Dracula,” my sister mumbled into her casserole.
xXx
I was very happy that summer and I think that’s why Mom and Dad didn’t complain or try to wrestle the CDs away from me. It was totally expected that they wouldn’t understand the finer nuances of the music. They weren’t supposed to. But I was able to. And I knew there were other people out there who would understand it as well. I just had to find them.
xXx
There were two things I was preparing myself for that summer. One of them was Brandi and another year of shit from her that I worried would be more violent. I never wanted to be as weak as I had been after that exam. The other thing was to express how I felt on the outside. I didn’t fit in with Brandi and her pals, and I wanted to show that as strongly as I could, for them to know just by looking at me that I rejected them and everything they stood for. And, if I was able to express how I felt by looking a certain way, maybe I would finally attract another soul like myself and start meeting more people who felt like I did.
I hoarded black clothes and started brushing my hair, which only fell to my shoulders, so that it covered half my face. I bought some black eyeliner, which Mom very reluctantly agreed I could wear in small amounts. I dug up a pair of black winter boots that had buckles on them and could pass as kind of cool. I needed to change how I looked, but I knew my parents would freak out if I demanded a new wardrobe. So I adapted what I had. I wanted to be ready for when school started. I wanted Brandi to know she wasn’t going to be able to get me.
FOUR
That fall I went back to school steeled. Ready.