Roach, the drummer for the Dynamite Chicks and Hat Confusion, finds herself cornered by an old friend who had been lost in her ruined memory.

This story is featured in my collection of short stories entitled Short Songs, featuring characters from The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright series.

     Roach bided her time as she kept her hands behind her back, trying her best not to look impatient.
     She was waiting for a couple with a stroller to move so she could check out the ceramic and wax skulls.
     She eyed the next aisle, looking ahead to all of the tables with paintings, carvings, prints, jewelry, and all manner of artistic offerings.
     She was at the Reno Punk Rock Flea Market, an alternative art market that was showcasing quite a few bands, along with the numerous independent artists. She was in an indoor soccer field with what looked like a hundred different vendor tables.
     She had come to Reno with Molly and Preston as their new-wave band Hat Confusion was going to be playing on the second day of the art market. Hat Confusion was now technically her side gig, being as her main band The Dynamite Chicks was taking off.
     Molly and Preston decided they were going to check out the market when they were there to play, but Roach was advised by her local friend Passout that it was an event she was going to want to visit beforehand, on a day when she would not be hauling equipment back and forth.
     The stroller couple finally moved on and she looked over the skull carvings.
     She politely chatted with the artist for a few moments, hoping that her bright eyes did not mean she was hoping to make a sale as Roach began a subtle wander to the next table.
     She walked slowly down the aisle, looking over every vendor table. She glanced around the crowd. She had already spotted a few people she recognized, fellow musicians from bands that were playing that day, but she had not yet run into any of her Reno friends.
     She made a beeline for the extra colorful stand with a large frame decorated with various macabre and hilarious depictions of popular cartoon and muppet characters. She was talking to the couple running the stand while admiring a custom made Al Bundy doll that looked as if it had been made out of a He-Man action figure.
     A woman wearing a Bratmobile shirt walked up to the stand, looking over their collection of stickers. Roach did not really pay her any mind until she suddenly snapped her head around and looked right at her.
     The woman had a round face with a thin, pointy nose and wide, dark eyes. Her hair was a mop of chaos: rust colored locks that were completely random, with some strands straight, others wavy, some quite curly, and other clumps of hair being snarls that were threatening to become dreadlocks. Her hair of utter chaos only accentuated her wide-eyed, steely stare.
Rusty hair rounded a couple who was admiring a GG Allin doll and walked up to Roach. Roach assumed she was a fan. Roach did not get recognized as a member of The Dynamite Chicks nearly as much as Molly or Miranda, or either of their guitarists, but it wasn’t unheard of for people to make her out as a Dynamite Chick once in a while.
     “Roach! How the fuck are you?”
     “Heya,” said Roach cautiously.
     “I ain’t seen you in such a long time!” smiled the woman as the lines in her face furrowed with her wide smile.
     She took hold of Roach’s hand, holding onto her the way an affectionate grandmother would. “How fuckin’ long has it been?”
     Roach gave a slight shrug and shook her head slightly. “I couldn’t even tell ya,” she said with her best polite grin as her mind clicked away, trying to remember who the woman could be.
     Rust-colored hair let her hand go. The rusty haired woman started asking the couple running the stand about a Frankenhooker clock, letting Roach take a closer look at the Al Bundy figure.
     Suddenly rusty hair put her hands on her hips and looked right at Roach. “I think the last time we saw each other was when we were both at Gilman, when Robby’s band Heat Stroke played, right?”
     “Could be,” said Roach, trying her best to hide her confusion. “I think I was drunk at that show. I was probably drunk at that show.”
     Roach was not sure if she had been especially inebriated for that particular show, but she had done so much drinking during her early Gilman Club days she knew it was a safe answer as her mind whirled away, trying to remember who the woman with the piercing eyes could be. She was feeling more embarrassed than distressed. Since the woman had such a distinct look, she wondered why she was having so much trouble recognizing her.
     It was more than obvious that she knew her, especially since she had mentioned her friend’s band Heat Stroke.
     “What are you doing in Reno?” asked rusty hair. “Is your band playing this gig?”
     “Yeah, tomorrow around one.”
     Roach kept trying to place her. Occasionally Roach would run into someone who remembered her, but she could not remember them. It was not an uncommon occurrence since she circulated so many club and music scenes.
     “I’m surprised you’re still playing with Thigh Gap,” said rusty hair. “I didn’t think that band would last that long.”
     Roach was starting to understand why she could not recognize the wide-eyed woman with the witchy hair. Her band Thigh Gap was one of the earliest bands she played with. At the time, she had been playing for more than a few bands when she had been recruited into her friend Batty’s chaotically organized band Thigh Gap, an act that had been inspired by such AM favorites as Bachman Turner Overdrive and ELO.
     She did not last long with that band, deciding she would rather stick to more hardcore acts. Roach realized that whoever rusty hair was, she knew her from a long time ago, meaning she must have looked quite different at the time.
     “Man, that band was over years ago,” said Roach. “Tomorrow I’m playing with my retro band Hat Confusion.”
     “No shit? What, like old-school punk?”
     “Naw. Old new wave. My friend Molly started that band a few years ago to piss off the punks.”
     Rusty haired threw her head back and laughed, a loud braying laugh that made a few people glance in their direction.
     “It worked, right?” asked rusty hair.
     Roach shook her head. “The whole thing backfired. Turns out everyone really likes it.”
     Rusty hair let out another laugh. Roach turned to the stand.
     “I think I’m grabbin’ this here Al Bundy doll,” said Roach as she picked up the pre-packaged action figure.
     “Oh cool!” rusty hair looked closely at the Al Bundy figure. “Ouch. That’s kinda expensive, ain’t it?”
     “It’s an original piece of art. I think it’s actually pretty cheap for what it is.”
     “Yeah, that’s true.” Rusty hair looked around. “I could easily spend way too much money in this place.”
     “F’real.”
     Rusty hair wandered over to the next table as Roach bought the Married With Children action figure. Roach still felt like talking to the couple, asking them about their other pieces of artwork, including the GG Allin action figure, but she decided to wander away in an effort to put some distance from herself and rusty hair, at least until her frazzled mind could dig up who she was.
     Moving to another table, she looked through a colorful series of mugs, many of which depicted naked people and women wearing skimpy lingerie. She picked up a black mug with the words “Fuck. Mosh. Die.” on it.
     Roach was contemplating a “Sad and Horny” mug when rusty hair appeared by her side once again.
     “Oooh! Check these out!” said the wide-eyed rusty hair. She picked up a mug depicting a woman’s mid-section. “You buying one of these?”
     “Yeah, I’m thinking of buying this one,” said Roach as she held up the Sad and Horny mug while her mind started reeling again, searching her ruined memory for any clues as to whom her new gremlin could be.
     “Are you sad and horny?” asked rusty hair.
     “Well, more horny than sad really. But I really like this mug.”
     Rusty hair started talking to the bright and smiling woman selling the mugs as Roach tried imagining rusty hair with different hair colors, as many of Roach’s friends changed their hair color all too frequently. She imagined her with blue, red, pink, and the standard black hair that so many people seemed to prefer. She reasoned that if she hit upon a specific color, it might jog her memory.
     She also tried to imagine her wearing different clothes. At the moment she was wearing the basic band t-shirt and black jeans, the standard punk uniform. She tried imagining her in leather jackets, flight jackets, as well as boots and braces.
     It then struck her that she might not be an old friend or club scenester at all. Roach remembered Skye complaining about all of the music industry reps who kept coming up to her at random events, trying to sweet talk her into a major label band contract, or trying to get her to sell her record label. Roach’s mind whirred away at the possibility that a mainstream music label might be trying a covert strike by trying to influence someone else in the band, that rusty hair could be a shill for a mainstream music company.
     Rusty hair picked up one of the mugs as she chatted with the seller.
     “What’s your name?” asked the mug woman as she wrapped up rusty hair’s purchase.
     “I’m Fraz. I’m in Reno for the weekend!”
     Roach rifled through her memory for the name Fraz. She had known a Frazzle and a Fritch, but Frazzle was much older than her new gremlin, and Fritch was a tall and skinny man.
     Fraz sided up to Roach, bumping into her with her shoulder. She pointed at her brand new mug depicting a naked woman. “Clamp would love that, wouldn’t he?”
     Roach’s mind raced at the mention of her old scene friend. Clamp was a shadowy scenester and drug dealer from her teen days. The tall and sketchy-looking Clamp would appear sporadically at a few select clubs. No one knew when or where he would pop up or on what night, appearing basically at random. He was a dealer who specialized in psychedelics such as LSD and magic mushrooms, and he only circulated among a few tight-knit club cliques.
     Roach’s mind went through her mental lineup of the more common scenesters of those social circles. Most likely Fraz was an old San Francisco punk, since that was where Clamp usually hung out. But he had also been a dedicated hanger-on for The Moxie Toxies, the decidedly unclassifiable band that had played at the Gilman Club more than any other place.
     Roach also realized she could not have been a music industry shill, that she knew too much about her and her past to be an undercover schmoozer.
     “What the hell ever happened to Clamp?” asked Roach, hoping the question would prompt Fraz to reveal a better clue as to who she was. “I haven’t seen him since the Klepto Club closed down.”
     “Fuck if I know. The last time I saw him was when he was going out with Tie Down.”
     Roach’s eyes got wide. She remembered Tie Down as a well-known dominatrix who worked at Fantasy Makers, an S&M house just North of Berkeley. Several of her friends had worked with her and she had met her a few times around the punk scene.
     “They were going out?” asked Roach in genuine surprise.
     “Yeah. I mean, I think so. Maybe they were just doing kink stuff together.”
     Roach was beginning to wish her friend and fellow Dynamite Chick Miranda was around. Miranda knew most of the punk scene sex workers. She would have been able to help narrow down the possible origins of Fraz.
     Roach started walking down the aisle, making her way through the crowded market shoppers. She realized any attempt to lose Fraz in the crowd was futile as Fraz sided right next to her.
     Fraz pressed her shoulder against Roach and whispered in her ear. “You remember what Clamp said to me after we had that one night stand?”
     Roach’s mind whirled again. As well as she had known Clamp, she also knew that he had been a very private individual. He rarely talked about his personal life to most of his friends.
     Roach also remembered that her and Clamp had run into each other often enough and had gotten to know each other well enough that they would occasionally have long talks, talks about their lives, and that Clamp confessed to Roach that she was one of the few people he really trusted, that he rarely opened up to anyone as much as he did to Roach. She was trying to remember if he had ever mentioned any sexual conquests with someone who fit Fraz’s description.
     Her friendship with Clamp was also during a time when Roach’s indulgence in excess was at its peak. She was almost always at least a little bit stoned or buzzed when she haunted clubs and punk scenes, and she was often quite drunk or really stoned, as well as occasionally tripping on something Clamp had given her. It made digging into her past far more difficult, trying to remember people, places, and shows through all of the past excess that had blurred her mind and especially her memory.
     Roach clenched her teeth, seething at herself. Why could she not remember who the hell Fraz was?
     “You got together with Clamp?” asked Roach.
     Fraz suddenly stood straight and froze. Her face dropped as she looked at her with sudden hard eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”
     “What?” asked Roach as she stopped in place and felt flush.
     Fraz narrowed her stare as her eyes became cold. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
     Roach fumbled with her hands and bobbed her head around. “You gotta know that I was almost perpetually wasted back in those days. And I was in… fuck if I can remember how many bands.”
     “You’re in bands now,” said Fraz, almost sounding as if she were pleading. “An’ you still get wasted, don’t you?”
     “Yeah, I still drink and toke it up now an’ then, but I don’t do the hard stuff anymore. And the bands I’m in now… They’re with people who got their shit together. Fuck, more than half of my bandmates are clean and sober. You know that wasn’t true back then.”
     Fraz’s eyes suddenly started to wander, as if she were looking for something that she had lost.
     Fraz’s face turned into a grimace as her eyes grew cold. “Well isn’t that fucking fine. After everything we went through together, you don’t even fucking remember me?”
     Roach shrugged and held up her hands. “Honest, I’ve been trying to remember, but…”
     Fraz turned around and walked quickly away from Roach. Roach’s embarrassment kept her from moving as she watched Fraz disappear into the crowd.
     She noticed a man in a Horror Pops shirt walking up to her.
     “Hey Roach!”
     “Hey Preston. What are you doing here?”
     “I thought about what you said, about checking this place out today since we’re gonna be doin’ band stuff all day tomorrow.”
     “Cool.”
     “Who was that you were talking to? She looked familiar.”
     “You know who she is?”
Preston squinted in the direction Fraz had stomped off in, as if he could still see her. “She looks really familiar. But I can’t for the life of me figure out where      I know her from.”
     Roach rolled her eyes. “Thanks Pres. You’re really a big help!”