And I saw one of the guys had pushed his way to position himself in front of her, and his arm reached up towards her. It reminded me of the video I had seen of Marie-Lise so long ago, where the asshole in the crowd reaches up and is thrown back by her violent kick. I watched this guy’s hand grab the hem of her skirt and tug her forward. She stumbled, catching herself before she fell, but raising her hands from the guitar.
I froze as I watched the panic strike her face, her hands immediately flying to clutch her skirt protectively. I dropped the microphone as the guy continued to yank on her, his lips drawn back from his teeth as he laughed. His gums looked purple and diseased in the red light.
Socks and Edgar continued to play and the microphone began squealing, feeding back, cutting through my stupor and causing the people in the crowd to recoil with its piercing shriek. I grabbed the microphone back up, stopping the noise, and leaped towards the guy, raising it above my head like a baseball bat.
There was a loud, intense thump as I brought the micro-phone down on the guy’s head. Immediately it began to feed back again, but I ignored the grating sound. I don’t know if Socks and Edgar stopped playing. I was unaware of any noise except the shriek of the microphone and the booming as I brought it down against this creep’s head again and again. It sounded like a giant, overwhelming heartbeat, thudding and soul shaking, and I was dimly aware that the guy’s yells of pain were also amplified by the microphone.
I felt hands on my shoulders and snapped my head up to see Edgar had come to stop me. I realized my eyes were burning and I wondered when I had last blinked. All I had been aware of was the pounding heartbeat of the microphone, the squealing as it fed back.
“Cut it out,” Edgar yelled at the guy in the crowd in front of us, and I felt an electric thrill run through me as I realized that I was right, my friend was siding with me.
I pulled myself together and looked at the crowd. All was quiet, and every face I could see was looking at us, aghast. I could tell they were waiting for direction, unsure what to think about what I had done. I realized I was in control here. They would listen to what I said.
The prick stood there, rubbing his sore head like a little kid would have, a mix of fury and confusion on his face.
“Say you’re sorry,” I ordered him in my most patronizing tone, chastising him like the child he looked like. My voice echoed in the silence. The crowd seemed to hold its breath.
“No way, you stupid whore,” the guy said, but he was far away enough from the mike that he sounded hollow, thin and pathetic. His voice broke on the word whore, making him sound even more idiotic and weak.
I brought the microphone down again, hard, onto his head, and the sound boomed hollowly through the room. The crowd began to cheer.
“Listen here, you fucking insect,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the cheers. “You don’t touch girls like that. Do you get it? Now, I know this isn’t my show. It’s a Goreceps show. But if it was my show, I’d kick your ass the fuck out.”
The crowd roar was deafening, and I looked back to see that the guys from Goreceps had come out on stage and were applauding. I realized that they were applauding me. Their singer, Jacob, made a gesture. Security moved in and dragged the asshole away through the crowd.
I stood there beside Fern, who seemed oblivious to it all and was wringing her hands, and wondered why the fuck security hadn’t done anything to stop the guy in the first place.
THIRTY-SEVEN
“You’re breaking new ground,” the interviewer said. “There’s been a rallying of girls in metal. How does it feel to be a role model?”
The tape recorder was sitting on the table between us. I’d never done an interview before, and this woman worked for Blood Sledge, so I was sort of nervous. One of the biggest metal magazines in Europe, and here I was, sitting backstage, on a tour with a great band, being asked what it feels like to be a role model? It was surreal.
“I don’t think I’m a role model,” I said.