Chapter 3
The Story | The Authors |
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Two months later they played their first Saturday night dance in the gymnasium of Chiswick Memorial High School, chugging and noodling through such classics as "Roadrunner," "Yummy Yummy Yummy," "Fire in the Swimming Girl," "Mr. Brocolli," "We Sell Soul" and the full head-on assault of a "Sheer Heart Attack/Bohemian Rhapsody" medley featuring the bespectacled Willian Grant nimbly switching from Voxx Jaguar to Mellotron mid-song (the frug-ing crowd's attention diverted by Matthew Hickey's daring falsetto) followed by a livid take on "Venus in Furs" replete with Hickey, stripped a pair of grimy sweatpants, performing Gerard Malanga's infamous 'whip dance' to the horror, delight, or consternation of all present, depending on who you asked in the hallway the following Monday... | |
And then they all lived happily ever after. | |
then he said that you are so money and you dont even know it!! | |
So Hickey — suddenly, quite out of the blue, was, socially, somebody,
for the first time in his life, and to say his newfound fame went to his head
would be an understatement akin to calling Mike Tyson a mild-mannered
gentleman.
He developed a taste for speed — benzedrine and crystal meth — and in no time (this was before the truly adverse psychochemical effects began in the form of those bizarre premonitions and hallucinations which would so shape his destiny in his later high school years) he had shed the last of his baby fat. Where once had hulked an awkward, doughy pudge of a crewcut Mama's boy, there now stood a lean, sinewy rock and roll dynamo, boasting an eagle's nest of dreadlocks, crazy-eyed with chemical thunderstorms howling down the rails of his bloodstream, sweating bufotinous sweat like a Haitian toad (flecks of it left bleach-spots next day on the clothes of the crowd, and strange white places underneath where their flesh went numb for weeks), clutching the mike stand for dear life as the band behind him ripped through their triple-fast speedcore version of Ozzy's "Crazy Train," then segued into the number for which they were fast becoming legendary, the Hickey-Weaver-penned "Saturday A.M. Fever," for which Hickey would slip offstage to trade his drenched leathers for a tattered bathrobe which had fit him when he was eight or nine, but now of course was hopelessly undersized. He returned to the stage and (conveying a deep sense of intimacy toward each member of the crowd — which was what people found so haunting — while behind him the band taught a simple blues riff the complex arts of Punjabi contortionism) took the microphone, squatted down at the front of the stage, and began to croon his postmodern morality play, this tale of sadness and dissipation which never failed to bring the house down. | |
Well you can tell by the way I use my robe [he sang, softly, yet more forcefull than Mario Lanza! Read on, reader-onner, and mark what flows from these blackly bubbling creeks of evil] I'm the master of my abode My housemates and their Friday night dates Know what in the morning awaits I said it's alright, don't be shy My bathrobe ain't got no fly So as I squat, you'll understand The precise details of my gland Whether you're squat or lean or tall Gonna show you my balls, show you my balls See 'em dangle smelly beneath my hairy belly Gonna show you my balls, show you my balls Ah, ah, ah, ah, show you my balls, show you my balls Ah, ah, ah, ah, show you my baw-aw-awwwwwwwww-awlls Onstage, of course, the shameless Hickey was pantomiming this exactly, the threadbare hanging upon to reveal the Hickster family jewels. | |
EEEEEeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhwwwwwww. The sound system ground to a halt.
People stopped their gyrating and looked around as if expecting the lights to
go out as well. The hickster took note of his position and suddenly began to
feel self conscious as a wave of ridiculousness began to swell in the back of
his head ready to flow into his frontal lobes. He looked back toward the sound
system to find Assistant Adjunct Vice Principal in charge of Social Affairs
Hadley standing with the freshly plucked power cord in his hand and a deeply
engrained smirk of abhorance.
"We'll have none of that!" yelled Hadley. "Jerome I want you to take this young man into custody for performing a lewd act as a minor in front of minors!" "But Sir I don't know if that's...." "Silence! Do as I say! He needs to learn his lesson. Let his father come pick him up from the station. See if that teaches him." |
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