Louder Than Thunder

Once their boxes were upstairs, Eric gave them a tour of the house, bringing them around the rooms on the main floor, the basement – most of which taken up by a rehearsal room with a small platform as a stage and a shiny drum kit in the center of it and a cellar filled with wine, beer and various hard liquors – and lastly the yard, which was so large they couldn’t see the surrounding fence from the backdoor. A large pond did, indeed, occupy the center of the yard with fishing supplies lying in the grass to the side of it, unafraid of thieves looking to steal from houses of the rich and famous.
Eric then brought them back inside to the second living room, where the rest of the Leatherjackets and even a couple members of the road-crew were hanging around and chatting with the television on in the background.
“I’ve just gotta go take care of me other guests. I’ll be back,” Eric said as he pulled wooden sliding doors out from the wall and boxed in the group.
“I see your leg is bandaged again,” Mary remarked as she approached Keith.
“Yeah, well, it needed to be done. Hurts a lot more today though, I’ll say that,” he said, shaking his head at his leg, which was raised on the couch.
“Hello again,” Michelle said as Sidney approached her.
“Hello,” Sidney said, lifting her as he hugged her.
“Someone’s happy to see me.”
“This time off will be nice.”
“Yes, I think it will.”
“Do you wanna hang around here and chat a bit?”
“Sure. I thought after that we’d take a walk around the yard,” Michelle suggested.
“Sounds great. It is a nice day, after all. We could explore a bit.”
“I’d like that.”
They chatted briefly with the others, for a quick catch-up, but slipped out when they found the chance. They walked around and spoke about the future, near and far, enjoying the green scenery the yard held. When they returned to the house, Eric was standing outside with a couple of his friends from the second living room.
“Yeah, I trim them myself when I’m here. They’re not great, but- Oh, Sid, Chell, you’re back! I want to introduce you to Roger, he’s a photographer and he does a lot of pictures for American groups. He said he’d like to get some pictures of the Rag Dolls,” Eric explained, introducing them with hand gestures each way.
“Nice to meet you Roger. I’m Michelle Townshend,” Michelle said, holding a hand out.
“Nice to meet you, Michelle.”
“Sidney,” he said simply, holding out a hand as well.
After Roger shook each of their hands, they stood awkwardly, still holding hands and waiting for him or Eric to continue.
“You two really suit each other,” he said, suddenly walking around them and sizing up different angles of them.
“Erm, thanks,” Sidney said, watching him strangely.
“Would you mind if I photographed you?” Roger asked, admiring the way they looked together.
“I guess not.”
“As long as you don’t want to photograph us naked, I’m alright with it,” Michelle said with a laugh.
“No, no, I don’t do that. I was thinking maybe by the tree over there.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Do it, then! He’s one of the best in the business, you’ll have a nice picture together. When else will you get a photo taken anyways?” Eric ushered.
“I don’t know. I guess now is a good time then,” Sidney said, looking between Michelle and himself.
He was wearing his usual jeans and a flannel shirt, and Michelle was wearing a black sweater with a black accordion-pleated skirt.
“I guess we’re dressed alright.”
“Yeah,” Michelle agreed.
“Alright, we’ll do it.”
“Excellent!”
So, they spent about an hour taking photos among the trees and around the pond in the yard. Eric came and checked on them every once in a while. Once they were done, the photographer shook their hands and thanked them.
“You both photograph nicely, especially together. Will you still be here for the next few days?”
“Yeah.”
“Great, I’ll come back once I have them developed.”
“Alright, thank you so much, Roger,” Sidney said.
“Yes, thank you, Roger. It was nice of you,” Michelle added.
“No problem at all.”
“Anyways, we’ve been gone for a while so we’re going to go back inside.”
They parted ways in the kitchen and Chell and Sid returned to the living room to hear the room alive with laughter and jokes.
“Hey, there you are! Where’ve you two been?” Darlene asked as they entered the room.
“We were having our picture taken, weren’t we?” Michelle replied.
“Were you?”
“I was.”
“I was,” Sidney added.
“Then you were,” Mary said with a chuckle.
“What have you been talking about?” Sidney asked with a laugh.
“You know, stuff,” Keith replied.
“Things,” Mary added.
“Whatnot,” Darlene added with a laugh.
“I think they’ve been drinking,” Sidney whispered to Michelle.
“Hey, where’s Kim?” Michelle asked them.
“She said she had some business to attend to today and after you both left the room, she was gone. I think the limo was still outside so she just hopped back on it and she was gone,” Mary explained.
“Oh, that’s weird. I hope she comes back soon, otherwise I’ll be worried.”
“Alright, well, we’re just going to go upstairs,” Sidney said, leading Michelle back out of the room.
“Yeah, they’re obviously too drunk to get anything more out of. I bet Kim said where she went, but they don’t remember.”
Sidney led Michelle upstairs and into his temporary room.
“Alright, I brought you up here because I want to show you something.”
“I’ve seen it before, so keep your trousers up,” Michelle said as he closed the door to the bedroom.
“That’s not what I meant,” Sidney said with a laugh. “Look what I found.”
Sidney walked over to the chair and desk in the corner of the room and moved the chair aside. He began feeling around the wall, searching for something.
“It was around here. Aha! See this?” he asked, pointing to a crevice in the wallpaper.
From far, it was obviously a small door in the wall. Michelle approached him and crouched down beside him, examining the small door herself.
“Can you open it?”
“Yeah. Who’s room is next door by the way?”
“That’s mine.”
“Alright, just checking.”
He scratched at the space in between, trying to nudge it open with his nails and fingertips. After a minute, he finally managed to pry it open. There was another wall directly in face of it.
“But it doesn’t lead anywhere.”
“Are you sure?” Sidney asked, leaning back from it.
Michelle, curious now, approached it for herself. She pressed against the supposed wall behind the door. At first it didn’t budged, so she used a little more force and, with a grunt and a shove, it popped open. Dust floated about blinding them for a moment, but once it faded, it was clear to see that the door lead into the next room.
“Come on,” Sidney said, as he crawled through the opening, leading Michelle through.
“Does Eric know about this?” she asked as Sidney helped her up on the other side of the small door.
“Why do you think he bought this place? Not just any abode would do for the one and only Eric Archer.”
“I guess not. Reckon that these are all over the place?”
“I’d bet they are. There’s probably one that leads outside, from the basement maybe.”
“Wow,” Michelle said, admiring the view out the window.
“Yeah. Well, now that we’re here,” Sidney said, as he picked up Michelle bridal style.
She let out a small shriek as he did so and then burst into giggles as he carried her over to the bed. He laid her down gently as he crashed his lips into hers in a fierce embrace.
“Oi, close the door,” Michelle said, interrupting the kiss.
“Right.”

Within the next year, the girls recorded more singles and another record. Though Michelle’s permanent home was with Sid, she wasn’t there often as they started touring again. They did another small tour of the UK as an opening act, and by the end of the year they were leaving Britain to tour America and Canada.
Darlene and Mary had moved out into their own places after the smaller tour and Kim stayed with one of them and all times. Eric let them rehearse at their place sometimes, but mostly they would rehearse at Darlene’s flat so that she wouldn’t have to move the drum set around.
It went on for a while with no contact. The Rag Dolls and the Leatherjackets got together for the occasional party or business related get-together, but with both groups so busy with their careers, it was hard for them to find time where they weren’t busy or too tired to function.

Dear Chell,
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? It was nice to hear from you. Despite the time, my feelings for you have remained. I don’t know if they’ll ever change. Even if I ended up marrying another girl from convenience, I don’t think I’d feel the same way I feel about you. I wanted to make sure you knew. It’d be putting the right dress on the wrong girl.
Thanks for the best wishes, by the way. It’s been hard without Keith. I still can’t believe it; dead at 27, like the rest. I think our generation has some more learning to do about, well, not over-doing it. No one will ever replace him. Even though we haven’t released anything to the press, we’re pretty sure the band is over. I can’t imagine having anyone else be the voice of the Leatherjackets. It wouldn’t be right to us or the fans. I’m sure you’d feel the same way.
I hope we can get together sometime soon. I’d really like to see you again. I don’t want to be with anyone else, so maybe we can make things work out. What do you think?
-Sidney

Dear Sid,
It’s nice to hear that. I feel the same way. I’m sad to hear that the Leatherjackets won’t go on. I know how much playing music means to you. I hate to suggest ways to move on, as I believe that is something one should do on their own; however, I want to suggest that you start a new band or try to continue recording on your own, if it’ll make you happy. I’ll even offer you to play back-up with us, if you’d like the position. I haven’t asked the girls yet, but think about it. We’d be able to spend more time together that way too.
Speaking of spending more time together, I wanted to confess something to you: I miss you as well, and I love you. I’ve never been one to do things the proper way - neither of us are, I suppose - but since you don’t seem to want to get on with it, I’d like to ask you to marry me. I mean, if you’d like. We wouldn’t have to worry about things like distance and time. Beside, things are slowing down with our band too, so we could both spend time together at home and we could work together too. Maybe we could work as a duet on the side.
Besides ourselves, I’ve been having these recurring dreams about the mod who died at that party all those years ago. It’s been killing me, driving me crazy, and I don’t know why. The event was louder than thunder in the world of mods and rockers. They’ve sort of disappeared, actually; it was so loud it drowned them out. I don’t even know what I am anymore, aside from a musician and writer who loves you.
-Michelle Florence Townshend

Dear Chell,
I’m sorry to hear you feel that way, because I see so much more within you. Who cares whether or not you’re a mod? I don’t. I guess that means I’m not a rocker anymore either, but it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t think it should matter to you either. You’re smarter than that, I know you are and I know that you know you are.
We don’t need to figure it out right now though. We’ll figure it out together. We’ll have eternity, in fact. This is me saying that I would love to marry you, Michelle. Michelle Townshend.
I’ll see you at home soon, I assume. Can’t wait until then. Love you.
-Sidney
PS: Only a rock concert is louder than thunder.