Louder Than Thunder

Another Saturday night, another dozen clubs. Many let this lead their lifestyle. If
they couldn’t last, some purple hearts would fix their blues and they’d be dancing all night. The boys would get their suits pressed. The ones with tailors in the family were heroes. The girls would pick dresses that would stand out and were still sophisticated, but also carried hints of rebellion – hike up those hemlines and bring out the colours. Forget the flowers and go for bold. Hair could be short for both genders and girls were seen with their short five-point cuts, but the girls who kept theirs long would do flips or bouffants – slap on the eyeliner. Get a job and buy yourself a scooter so that you can go where you want anytime, anyway, anyhow, anywhere. Invest in a parka so you don’t ruin your suit while riding.
They were the mods.
On the other side of the spectrum, there were those who kept the greasers alive. They didn’t care about what was hip and, though they also rebelled, they didn’t rebel with shock and innovation; they rebelled by living the traditions of the previous decade. The staple was a leather jacket, jeans, biker boots and many also sported silk scarves. The boys did their hair in complicated swirls and pompadours, which only kept their shape when helped by tons of hair grease. The girls wore leather jackets as well, with rockabilly dresses and curly pin-up styled hair. Diners were often hang-outs; they would meet for cokes and play Elvis and Chuck Berry on the jukebox.
They were the rockers.
Perhaps this much was obvious, but mods and rockers rarely got along. Mods were clean and hip, while rockers were greasy and nostalgic. Mods liked uppers, while rockers stayed sober aside from alcohol. Mods preferred free hair while rockers liked lacquer to help it hold its place. Mods liked suits and dresses, rockers liked leather. Mods liked unique, rockers liked looking the same. Mods liked new, rockers liked old. Mods liked scooters, rockers liked motorcycles. Night and day.
A few large battles took place between them; the newspapers called them riots. They bothered each other from time to time, but as long as you had a group with you, you were alright. If you were alone and a group of mods or rockers came by suspecting you to be on the other side, you had good reason to be very afraid. For that reason, they were mentioned often in the paper, striking fear into the hearts of conservative parents who were worried that their children were barmy hooligans running about and getting into trouble.
At a local mod club, another band making the club rounds was just beginning its set. The poster on top of the stage read “THE RAG DOLLS” in thick red letters. The group of girls strode onto the stage and began plugging in their instruments. Most of the crowd didn’t mind, but there were those few who began to protest the fact.
“Girls don’t play electric!”
“ ‘ey, get off the stage!”
The blonde-haired brown-eyed bassist turned to the crowd. Her harsh black eyeliner accentuated the bitterly angry slant in her eyes. She stamped down hard in her white go-go boots – one of her prized possessions – as she yelled into the microphone.
“I’d just like to tell the wankers in the back to either listen and dance, or fuck off.”
And like that, the whole audience changed their mood. Suddenly, it was a challenge – one that the boys in the back weren’t brave and confused enough to take. Though the audience continued to murmur as they waited for the music to begin dancing, they were ready to listen.
The guitarist walked over to her microphone, dark shaggy hair threatening to cover her icy blue, dark-circled eyes as she looked wearily over the crowd. She rolled up the sleeve of her black sweater and waited with her hand over the strings. She turned to their last member.
The drummer, who had layered sandy coloured hair and a freckled face, smiled her famous child-like smile and a glint appeared in her hazel eyes. She looked and dressed like a child of the beach. She raised her hands, holding drumsticks, above her head, her sneakers hitting along with the kick drum as she counted in.
“One, two, three, four!”
The guitarist and bassist came in with a riff that was leaning towards furious for their day, age and gender. The drum beat was hard and just fast enough to dance to without being over-the-top. The crowd went about their usual activities: dancing, hanging around and attempting to chat over the music.

An hour and a half later, their set was over and they headed back to pack up their equipment. Their manager, a man only five years their senior who often wore suits – a mod himself – and sunglasses, joined them then. He grabbed a couple of Darlene’s drum cases.
“Well girls, how did it go?”
“Some blokes in the audience felt the need to call us out again,” the guitarist explained.
“Look, Michelle, I know you girls have a problem with this but that’s the way boys are. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
“Well I don’t think that’s right. It’s not fair to us either.”
“It’s all just in fun.”
“It’s degrading!” the bassist with the flip-do snapped as she dropped off her bass’ case in the back of the car.
The car belonged to their manager and was often used to bring things to gigs and back safely. It was shiny and well-cared for from the exterior, but ran like a broken record.
“Mary, I’m telling you, they loved you! Did you see them dancing?”
“They all dance! They always dance!”
“Well, more of them danced when you played then the band that played before you. And did you see the band that came on after? Lots of people straight-up left when they came on.”
“I tell you, Paul, one of these days we’re gonna trade you in for someone who understands us,” the drummer, the only American, said as she pointed a drumstick at him.
“Darlene,” Paul warned.
“I’m serious! We’ve been playing these rounds for almost a year; I think we should move up. Why don’t we start playing house parties or something? Weddings, birthdays, I don’t care! I’m tired of playing these sleazy clubs where the pseudo-mods hang out. They’re just a bunch of punks. They might as well be rockers.”
It went quiet as they piled in and Paul jutted the car to start. They began driving down the dark foggy road. Rain threatened to fall as they neared their apartment.
“I didn’t leave California for this,” Darlene added in.
“She’s right, though,” Mary said to Paul as the car stopped near a curb.
“Are you really gonna start?” Paul asked, as he put the car into park and began rubbing his eyes.
“Yes. I wanna play the good clubs,” she stated as she crossed her arms, refusing to leave the car until they had struck some kind of deal.
“You will. I’m just working to get you there. It’s not easy, alright?”
“Come on; get us one club on Carnaby. Please try or we will start looking for someone else.”
Paul turned to look at Mary. He removed his sunglasses to reveal a tired and slightly sad look in his eyes. He understood that this was serious. He looked around at all the girls’ eyes, staring at him and waiting for a response. He didn’t need to hear their side to know that they all agreed. Paul turned back to face forward and he sighed heavily and set his hands back on the wheel.
“Alright. I will try to get you one club on Carnaby.”
“Thank you. I’m glad we have an understanding,” Mary said coldly as she jumped out of the vehicle.
Michelle turned back to him shyly.
“Thanks, Paul,” she said, stepping out as well.
“Yeah, thanks for at least trying to understand,” Darlene said as she followed suit.
They removed all their cases from the trunk before waving at Paul. Once he drove off, the girls picked up their cases; the two string players helped out with the numerous drum boxes. They entered the lobby of the same old apartment that Mary and Michelle had been living in for a year and a half, and Darlene, almost a year.
They took the same heavy walk up the stairs they did after every gig and trudged over to the ugly wood-chipped door to their apartment. After opening the door, Michelle picked up her guitar case and Darlene’s tom-tom case again and dragged them inside and the other two followed. They dropped their cases in the corner of the living room, their usual spot.
The whole house was plain and just barely working. Every other week there would be something else that stopped functioning and their landlord was a lazy middle-aged man who hardly ever did anything on time. The worst of it was when the bath stopped working and they had to go down to the recreation centre every day for a whole month just to take their daily showers.
Darlene fell onto the couch and was asleep within minutes. Mary headed over to the bathroom to wash her makeup off while Michelle went straight to bed.
She flicked on the light of their shared bedroom. Two single beds lay across the room, parallel to each other. The bedroom had a few posters on the wall of rock ‘n’ roll musicians, including the likes of Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. The closet was small and their clothes were spread out between hangers and a small dresser on the floor of the closet.
Michelle kicked her Chelsea boots off beside the bed, climbed in without changing and waited for some kind of dreamy sleep to find her.

The next morning was a rush. No gigs on Sunday nights for The Rag Dolls. It was a work day for them. Michelle entered the living room where Darlene was still sleeping and Mary was strumming on her unplugged bass guitar. She looked up at her friend.
“Is it nine already?” Mary asked, looking over at the pastel yellow clock on their wall.
“Yeah,” Michelle replied. “D’you want to wake ‘er up? I’ll make breakfast.”
“Sure.”
Mary replaced her bass guitar in its case and then proceeded to lazily poke at Darlene’s cheek.
“Wake up, Darlene. You’ve got to go to work soon.”
A moan ensued from her slightly hanging mouth.
“Come on, you’ve got deliver the mail, ol’ girl. Get up.”
Her poking became faster and faster until Darlene couldn’t ignore it any longer and waved her off.
“Fine, I’m up.”
“Michelle’s cooking.”
“Alright. Does anyone have to use the bathroom before I shower?” Darlene asked as she stood up and stretched her arms.
“No,” Mary said as she sat back down and placed her bass back in her lap.
“Michelle?”
“No!” she called from the small, cramped kitchen.
“Okay.”
Once Darlene was showered, she grabbed her oatmeal and ate it quickly before heading out the door in her mail girl uniform. Michelle ate, took her shower and then stopped in the living room before heading out.
“What shift are you working?” she asked Mary.
“Two o’ clock to ten,” she replied.
“Alright, see you at ten.”
“Alright. Don’t leave me dinner; I’ll eat at work.”
“Ah, the benefits of working as a waitress,” Michelle said as she wrapped her pea coat around her petite, boyish frame.
Mary smiled slightly. She liked to pretend she was never happy and that being tough was her personality, but of course she had a soft spot that only her friends were allowed to see.
“See you, Chell.”
“See ya,” Michelle said as she grabbed her bag and headed out the door.
She walked down the road about seven blocks before arriving at a store with a colourful display; a collage of record sleeves covered every inch of the window, sill to sill. Michelle entered from the cold and drizzly London morning into a warm and familiar place.
She looked around at the records and knew she was at home. She checked in with her boss and sat down behind the counter, said ‘hello’ to her fellow store worker and then watched the customers.
Not many people roamed the store this morning. Church was still in session, so, many children were brought along, too young for their decision on the matter to mean anything to their parents.
Michelle’s mind began to wander as she looked down on all the records, lining around the aisles, waiting to be another getaway for another music lover. A few music magazines also stood in a display near the entrance, waiting for someone to spy their favourite singers and musicians and pick them up.
Michelle could see it as clearly as she could any other time she tried, and she didn’t have to try very hard: Mary, Darlene and herself posing for the cover shoot, a few people who thought they knew what they were about interviewing them and asking the simple questions and they would challenge the interviewer, and some letters from fans who loved their music and what it meant to them, maybe even some with questions.
She could see it all so clearly and it was all she ever wanted and more. She really just wanted to be heard by people who would listen to the lyrics for once, but Michelle was no moron. She knew what it came with and she questioned how much she wanted it. She knew, however, that it was the only way for it to happen.