Choke
In Winter
He came into her life very quickly. Had things been different, had there been no Slipknot, no Kittie, no tour, no money—then, she knew, things would have gone slower. He was a shy boy at heart, and only in the context of his band did he find his extroverted self-confidence. Herself, not so much. She was still very antisocial. In fact, he scared the crap out of her at first.
It was December of 1999. She met the band; she loved their first album, and couldn’t wait for the second. She awed at the sight of their faces—how rare an opportunity! Who else got to see their faces? Practically nobody! They all looked somewhat normal, like guys you’d see at the supermarket in the shady part of town: maybe a little creepy, a little intimidating (especially in the case of Mick), but overall, they did not stand out. Except for one.
She had to look down slightly to meet his dull eyes, whose color she, at first, could not decipher—green or blue, green or blue? They were surrounded by a modest coating of eyeliner: the only guy in the band who wore makeup. Free of mask and stage paint, his face was very pale, his cheekbones low, his forehead tall—but it fit him well. He kept his long, pin-straight black hair tucked behind his ears and center-parted, with two big chunks of bright red on either side of the part.
She played her show with all the passion in her body—she’d seen the effort they gave onstage, and she thought if she could imitate that, she could exhilarate not only the crowd, but also them, him. As she and her band walked off, they found the nine men meandering around backstage, waiting impatiently for their turn to go on. The infamous Number One sat on the floor, legs splayed out like a ragdoll’s, as he leaned forward to touch his toes for his pre-show stretches. All of a sudden, he jumped up and rushed to one of the large, industrial-sized garbage bins. He lifted his mask and heaved the scarce contents of his stomach into the bin. His band mates laughed at him. He laughed at himself. He wiped his mouth with his bare hand, then ran the hand through his hair, and dropped to the floor to continue his stretches.
Before he lowered his mask back over his face, however, Talena saw him glance at her, still grinning with a smear of sick on the corner of his mouth. In that split second she tried to find control of her lips, but they were numb; by the time she forced them to smile back, he’d already looked away.
That was the moment she knew she liked him.
The girls cleaned up as quickly as they could, and returned to watch Slipknot’s show excitedly from the side of the stage.
---
In the hotel room that night, Talena hugged her arms around herself, cuddling in her new Slipknot hoodie that she’d wrestled through a crowd of overzealous fans to buy at the merch table. She could have gotten one just as easily before the show, but she’d thought, just because she was on a tour with a band she enjoyed—it didn’t make her any better than the rest of their fans.
Morgan was on a rave about Mick Thomson’s long, flowing “death metal” hair. Mercedes jumped up and down on the bed as she yelled, “Morgan’s got a crush! Morgan’s got a crush! Morgan loves Mick!” Fallon climbed up on the bed and joined her. Morgan screamed various curses at them. Talena watched, and although she giggled, she kept quiet.
“Fuck you guys!” Morgan bellowed. She turned to point at her bassist. “Talena loves Joey!” Just like that, the girls shifted their mocking from Morgan onto Talena.
Talena pulled the hood over her head and tugged the strings so that it constricted to cover most of her face. “Come on, guys, I do not,” she moaned.
---
The next morning, the two bands dominated most of the hotel’s continental breakfast room and slowly wreaked havoc on it, stealing cups of juice and yogurt and bananas and oranges for the long bus ride ahead. While they ate, Talena couldn’t help but stare as Chris, Paul, and Joey poured a cocktail of orange and grape juice in lieu of milk into Paul’s Raisin Bran, mashed it up, then dared him to chug it all.
“It’s not that bad,” Paul declared after he finished it with ease.
“Too easy, man,” Joey said. “Next time I’ll add my piss to it. Right, Clown?” he called across the room.
Talena laughed and shook her head at him. What a boy, she mused. When he spoke about gross, boyish things, she noticed that it did not repulse her the way it would with any other boy. Perhaps it was simply because he was in Slipknot, and such behavior could be expected, but she still wrinkled her nose at some of the other members—but never Joey. She loved every word that came out of his small, doll-like mouth.
---
Another city. Another hotel. Talena and the girls waited in the lobby for their room assignments. Slipknot’s buses had fallen a few minutes behind theirs, so Talena made a pretend trip to the vending machines on the other side of the lobby so she could see them arrive. She watched out the window as they hopped off their buses and ran toward the entrance. Joey hoisted himself up on Clown’s back, legs around his waist, and made Clown carry him through the doors.
Once inside, he dismounted Clown. He noticed Talena retrieving her candy bar. She sucked in her breath.
He approached her with a wide, cocky grin, and leaned against the machine as sexy as James Dean. “Hey. You goin’ swimmin’ with us later?”
“Uh—no, thanks. I don’t swim,” she stuttered. Besides, swimming with Slipknot seemed to pose an immense threat of drowning.
“Me neither, actually,” he laughed. “I just sit and watch them try to kill each other.”
An hour later, she sat on one of the cheap plastic chaise lounges at the hotel’s indoor pool, flipping through a music magazine. The girls enjoyed the pool to themselves for now, squealing and splashing and racing each other to the opposite ends.
“Aw shit,” Morgan said suddenly. “Here they come.”
Talena perked her ears to notice loud masculine voices approaching the pool doors. Chris, Craig, Sid, Mick, Clown, and Jim walked in first, some wearing just their trunks and others modestly wearing tee-shirts as well. They all grinned as if they had something typically diabolical in mind. Talena and the girls in the pool braced themselves.
Next came Corey and Paul, who each held an arm of fully-clothed Joey as they dragged him toward the pool. He squirmed violently, but the two average-sized men overpowered him with ease. “Shit, shit, shit! No,” he shouted. “I will fucking kill you, I swear! Corey!”
“On the count of three, Paulie!” Corey secured Joey’s arms while Paul lifted his legs. They swung him back and forth like a sack of flour, gaining momentum in his small body. “One, two, three!” They let him go and he soared into the middle of the pool with an impressive splash. Everybody roared with laughter, except Talena, who could not stifle her maternal, protective concern for Joey.
He resurfaced, almost livid enough to boil the pool water with his rage. “You fucking assholes! You’re dickheads!”
Paul stopped laughing long enough to grab Joey’s hand and hoist him out of the water. Joey shoved him viciously, but Paul barely moved.
“Just another day in Slipknot,” Clown told the girls as he stepped into the pool.
Joey wrung out his hair, grabbed a towel, and stomped over to the chaise lounge next to Talena’s, his shoes squishing the entire way. He sat on the chaise and kicked off his shoes, peeled off his socks. He unbuckled his baggy camo pants, which hung even lower on his waist from the wetness, and pulled them down. Talena gaped at his black polka-dotted boxer shorts until he modestly tied the towel around his waist. He pulled his knees to his chest and sat in his sopping wet tee-shirt and shorts, pouting.
Talena watched him for a few minutes and noticed he was shivering. She snatched one of the girls’ large beach towels and draped it around his shoulders. It felt okay to do so, since he’d just been pranked and humiliated—it made him less intimidating to her. She admired his pale bare legs, the lean muscles in his calves and ankles from playing the double-bass pedals.
“Thanks,” he muttered, sounding a little surprised. “My band mates are fuckin’ jerks.”
“Mine, too, sometimes.” She offered him a soft smile.
He returned it, then pointed at her magazine. “What are you reading?”
“This stupid magazine I found at a truck stop. There’s like, maybe, two articles about metal in here.”
“All the more shit to make fun of.” He stood and sat down again on the edge of Talena’s chaise. She instinctively scooted over to make more room for him to sit right next to her. Their legs and arms touched. Her teeth chattered, but he did not seem to notice or care. He grabbed his pants from the floor and retrieved a black Sharpie from the pocket, which she assumed he kept there in case he met a fan who wanted an autograph. Sometimes she forgot they were in a famous band. She turned back to the first page and they sat there for a long time, drawing vulgar things over pictures of pop stars and crummy rock bands. Once they’d covered every last face with a giant hairy penis, Joey eyed the vandalized magazine and asked, “Can I keep this?”
“Of course,” she said. She wondered why he wanted it, or what he planned to do with it, but by then her mind and lips were so numb she had not the strength to ask.
He leaned back in the chaise, then motioned for her to do the same. She lay next to him, her gaze just a little too close to his mouth.
“Hey, Talena!” Morgan called from the pool, where she was receiving a ride from a doggy-paddling Mick. “Whatcha doin’ over there, Talena?”
She simply raised her middle finger in response. Joey chuckled.
He whispered to her, “Hey, Talena, have you listened to our record?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know the song ‘Scissors?’”
“Of course. I like it a lot.”
“I wrote that song,” he declared. “Top to motherfuckin’ bottom. Guitar, bass, drums. Even the lyrics. The other guys will never admit it, but it’s true.”
“Wow,” she said. It was all she could say. The bragging tone in his voice excited her.
Then, without warning, he slipped his still-damp arm around her. His body tensed for a moment, as if expecting her to pull away, to slap him and yell at him, but he relaxed when she stayed. Her entire body filled with molten warmth. Her mind denied it at first; he simply could not be paying attention to her—she was just a teenage girl in a band vastly inferior to his. She’d written no songs. She told no jokes. She wasn’t crazy and entertaining like Morgan or Mercedes. Why was he touching her? Yet, somehow, he was.
It was December of 1999. She met the band; she loved their first album, and couldn’t wait for the second. She awed at the sight of their faces—how rare an opportunity! Who else got to see their faces? Practically nobody! They all looked somewhat normal, like guys you’d see at the supermarket in the shady part of town: maybe a little creepy, a little intimidating (especially in the case of Mick), but overall, they did not stand out. Except for one.
She had to look down slightly to meet his dull eyes, whose color she, at first, could not decipher—green or blue, green or blue? They were surrounded by a modest coating of eyeliner: the only guy in the band who wore makeup. Free of mask and stage paint, his face was very pale, his cheekbones low, his forehead tall—but it fit him well. He kept his long, pin-straight black hair tucked behind his ears and center-parted, with two big chunks of bright red on either side of the part.
She played her show with all the passion in her body—she’d seen the effort they gave onstage, and she thought if she could imitate that, she could exhilarate not only the crowd, but also them, him. As she and her band walked off, they found the nine men meandering around backstage, waiting impatiently for their turn to go on. The infamous Number One sat on the floor, legs splayed out like a ragdoll’s, as he leaned forward to touch his toes for his pre-show stretches. All of a sudden, he jumped up and rushed to one of the large, industrial-sized garbage bins. He lifted his mask and heaved the scarce contents of his stomach into the bin. His band mates laughed at him. He laughed at himself. He wiped his mouth with his bare hand, then ran the hand through his hair, and dropped to the floor to continue his stretches.
Before he lowered his mask back over his face, however, Talena saw him glance at her, still grinning with a smear of sick on the corner of his mouth. In that split second she tried to find control of her lips, but they were numb; by the time she forced them to smile back, he’d already looked away.
That was the moment she knew she liked him.
The girls cleaned up as quickly as they could, and returned to watch Slipknot’s show excitedly from the side of the stage.
---
In the hotel room that night, Talena hugged her arms around herself, cuddling in her new Slipknot hoodie that she’d wrestled through a crowd of overzealous fans to buy at the merch table. She could have gotten one just as easily before the show, but she’d thought, just because she was on a tour with a band she enjoyed—it didn’t make her any better than the rest of their fans.
Morgan was on a rave about Mick Thomson’s long, flowing “death metal” hair. Mercedes jumped up and down on the bed as she yelled, “Morgan’s got a crush! Morgan’s got a crush! Morgan loves Mick!” Fallon climbed up on the bed and joined her. Morgan screamed various curses at them. Talena watched, and although she giggled, she kept quiet.
“Fuck you guys!” Morgan bellowed. She turned to point at her bassist. “Talena loves Joey!” Just like that, the girls shifted their mocking from Morgan onto Talena.
Talena pulled the hood over her head and tugged the strings so that it constricted to cover most of her face. “Come on, guys, I do not,” she moaned.
---
The next morning, the two bands dominated most of the hotel’s continental breakfast room and slowly wreaked havoc on it, stealing cups of juice and yogurt and bananas and oranges for the long bus ride ahead. While they ate, Talena couldn’t help but stare as Chris, Paul, and Joey poured a cocktail of orange and grape juice in lieu of milk into Paul’s Raisin Bran, mashed it up, then dared him to chug it all.
“It’s not that bad,” Paul declared after he finished it with ease.
“Too easy, man,” Joey said. “Next time I’ll add my piss to it. Right, Clown?” he called across the room.
Talena laughed and shook her head at him. What a boy, she mused. When he spoke about gross, boyish things, she noticed that it did not repulse her the way it would with any other boy. Perhaps it was simply because he was in Slipknot, and such behavior could be expected, but she still wrinkled her nose at some of the other members—but never Joey. She loved every word that came out of his small, doll-like mouth.
---
Another city. Another hotel. Talena and the girls waited in the lobby for their room assignments. Slipknot’s buses had fallen a few minutes behind theirs, so Talena made a pretend trip to the vending machines on the other side of the lobby so she could see them arrive. She watched out the window as they hopped off their buses and ran toward the entrance. Joey hoisted himself up on Clown’s back, legs around his waist, and made Clown carry him through the doors.
Once inside, he dismounted Clown. He noticed Talena retrieving her candy bar. She sucked in her breath.
He approached her with a wide, cocky grin, and leaned against the machine as sexy as James Dean. “Hey. You goin’ swimmin’ with us later?”
“Uh—no, thanks. I don’t swim,” she stuttered. Besides, swimming with Slipknot seemed to pose an immense threat of drowning.
“Me neither, actually,” he laughed. “I just sit and watch them try to kill each other.”
An hour later, she sat on one of the cheap plastic chaise lounges at the hotel’s indoor pool, flipping through a music magazine. The girls enjoyed the pool to themselves for now, squealing and splashing and racing each other to the opposite ends.
“Aw shit,” Morgan said suddenly. “Here they come.”
Talena perked her ears to notice loud masculine voices approaching the pool doors. Chris, Craig, Sid, Mick, Clown, and Jim walked in first, some wearing just their trunks and others modestly wearing tee-shirts as well. They all grinned as if they had something typically diabolical in mind. Talena and the girls in the pool braced themselves.
Next came Corey and Paul, who each held an arm of fully-clothed Joey as they dragged him toward the pool. He squirmed violently, but the two average-sized men overpowered him with ease. “Shit, shit, shit! No,” he shouted. “I will fucking kill you, I swear! Corey!”
“On the count of three, Paulie!” Corey secured Joey’s arms while Paul lifted his legs. They swung him back and forth like a sack of flour, gaining momentum in his small body. “One, two, three!” They let him go and he soared into the middle of the pool with an impressive splash. Everybody roared with laughter, except Talena, who could not stifle her maternal, protective concern for Joey.
He resurfaced, almost livid enough to boil the pool water with his rage. “You fucking assholes! You’re dickheads!”
Paul stopped laughing long enough to grab Joey’s hand and hoist him out of the water. Joey shoved him viciously, but Paul barely moved.
“Just another day in Slipknot,” Clown told the girls as he stepped into the pool.
Joey wrung out his hair, grabbed a towel, and stomped over to the chaise lounge next to Talena’s, his shoes squishing the entire way. He sat on the chaise and kicked off his shoes, peeled off his socks. He unbuckled his baggy camo pants, which hung even lower on his waist from the wetness, and pulled them down. Talena gaped at his black polka-dotted boxer shorts until he modestly tied the towel around his waist. He pulled his knees to his chest and sat in his sopping wet tee-shirt and shorts, pouting.
Talena watched him for a few minutes and noticed he was shivering. She snatched one of the girls’ large beach towels and draped it around his shoulders. It felt okay to do so, since he’d just been pranked and humiliated—it made him less intimidating to her. She admired his pale bare legs, the lean muscles in his calves and ankles from playing the double-bass pedals.
“Thanks,” he muttered, sounding a little surprised. “My band mates are fuckin’ jerks.”
“Mine, too, sometimes.” She offered him a soft smile.
He returned it, then pointed at her magazine. “What are you reading?”
“This stupid magazine I found at a truck stop. There’s like, maybe, two articles about metal in here.”
“All the more shit to make fun of.” He stood and sat down again on the edge of Talena’s chaise. She instinctively scooted over to make more room for him to sit right next to her. Their legs and arms touched. Her teeth chattered, but he did not seem to notice or care. He grabbed his pants from the floor and retrieved a black Sharpie from the pocket, which she assumed he kept there in case he met a fan who wanted an autograph. Sometimes she forgot they were in a famous band. She turned back to the first page and they sat there for a long time, drawing vulgar things over pictures of pop stars and crummy rock bands. Once they’d covered every last face with a giant hairy penis, Joey eyed the vandalized magazine and asked, “Can I keep this?”
“Of course,” she said. She wondered why he wanted it, or what he planned to do with it, but by then her mind and lips were so numb she had not the strength to ask.
He leaned back in the chaise, then motioned for her to do the same. She lay next to him, her gaze just a little too close to his mouth.
“Hey, Talena!” Morgan called from the pool, where she was receiving a ride from a doggy-paddling Mick. “Whatcha doin’ over there, Talena?”
She simply raised her middle finger in response. Joey chuckled.
He whispered to her, “Hey, Talena, have you listened to our record?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know the song ‘Scissors?’”
“Of course. I like it a lot.”
“I wrote that song,” he declared. “Top to motherfuckin’ bottom. Guitar, bass, drums. Even the lyrics. The other guys will never admit it, but it’s true.”
“Wow,” she said. It was all she could say. The bragging tone in his voice excited her.
Then, without warning, he slipped his still-damp arm around her. His body tensed for a moment, as if expecting her to pull away, to slap him and yell at him, but he relaxed when she stayed. Her entire body filled with molten warmth. Her mind denied it at first; he simply could not be paying attention to her—she was just a teenage girl in a band vastly inferior to his. She’d written no songs. She told no jokes. She wasn’t crazy and entertaining like Morgan or Mercedes. Why was he touching her? Yet, somehow, he was.