FicWad

*****

Pizzazz: "Now you take the Misfits."
Stormer: "Yeah, that's a name that means something!"
-- Kimber's Rebellion

"Let's haul ass!" Pizzazz said, when we all met in the lobby. We were packed and ready to leave the city.

"Yeah, it's a long way to Chicago and our next gig isn't going to wait," Jetta said.

"Oh joy," Roxy muttered. I guessed she wasn't much looking forward to a long car ride. I wasn't either, especially if Pizzazz was going to be doing the driving. Her driving skills had improved marginally but the worst part was her swearing and screaming at every vehicle that got in her way. Oh well. At least I knew it helped her let off some steam, which she desperately needs to do - almost constantly.

Pizzazz came up to me, mumbled "Here", and picked up my instrument case. Inwardly, I smiled. That was her way of saying, 'Good morning, how are you?' and recognizing that my wrist had been bothering me. Coming from her, that was quite a lot actually.

I followed the band out to where we'd left the car, glad to be free from having to haul my equipment. I only had my duffle bag to carry, and I rummaged around in my purse for my sunglasses. Despite the freezing weather, the sun was out. It was actually a beautiful day. I started to think that maybe things would turn out alright somehow. I mean, at least I had a band I loved being in.

The motel didn't have a parking lot so we had a few blocks to walk before reaching where we'd parked the car. "Hang on, let's stop here," Roxy said as we passed a vending machine. She purchased several bags of cookies and candy bars.

"Not much of a breakfast, but what can ya do?" Roxy said, as she took a bite of a cookie. She extended the other half of the cookie to Pizzazz but she shook her head. Jetta and I did the same when offered.

"Ah, remember when Stormer used to cook for us?" Jetta said, and I smiled at the obvious delight in her voice.

"That was a kick ass breakfast she'd make," Roxy said. "Mmmmm....omelets with cheese and vegetables, baked beans. And the fruit salad."

"And scones that were warm and moist," Jetta added.

"I'll cook for us again at the drop of a hat," I said. "If we ever stay at a place with a kitchen."

I do have to admit that I have a talent for cooking. I'd always known that my bandmates love food. Roxy especially, she even loves vegetables and fruit and she'll gladly eat them when offered. I'd been experimenting with cooking more lately and the group really liked it. But during this tour, and our last one, we were living off the garbage sold in vending machines, fast food, and pizza.

"You're ten times better than any of the cooks we had at the mansion," Pizzazz said, and again I smiled. A compliment from Pizzazz was a rare thing indeed.

Then we reached the car. It was totaled. The tires were all gone, and the seats had been ripped out. No more steering wheel. To top it off, the front and back ends were smashed in. Whether someone targeted us specifically or it was just random, I had no idea.

I sat on the curb as Pizzazz threw a tantrum, joined by Roxy. Jetta paced around. At least we hadn't left anything valuable in the car.

It started to dawn on me that Pizzazz herself could someday be a target. She wasn't really that rich anymore but she was better off than most people, and people knew who she was too. I shuddered at the thoughts that followed and wondered whether maybe Roxy was right and we would've been safer just staying at the mansion. I looked around the street and hoped that no one was watching us.

"We can either buy a new one or rent one," Jetta said, when Pizzazz's outburst was subsiding.

"Fat chance," Roxy said. "I don't think too many of the rental places are still in business."

"There are a few," Pizzazz said. "We could just buy one too but I don't want to spend the money. Or haggle with dealers." Bargaining was not one of Pizzazz's strong suits. She'd grown up always having material things handed to her.

"What about the train?" Jetta said. "We're not far from the station and there's one direct to Chicago."

Jetta's idea carried the day. Before I knew it, we were on board a train en route to Chicago.

*********
"If that brat doesn't stop crying, I'm gonna smash his head in," Pizzazz said. The crowded train continued towards its destination. The Misfits sat together, in a car that contained several children. One infant was wailing loudly.

"Same here. Why don't that little monster's parents shut him up?" Jetta growled.

Stormer's eyes darted around, worried. A group of bored Misfits was not always a good thing. A group of bored, tired, and angry Misfits spelled disaster. She quietly excused herself.

A few moments passed and the infant began another round of wailing, this time louder and accompanied by another, older, child. "I can't take another second!" Pizzazz said. She stood up, ready to give the parents a piece of her mind just as Stormer re-entered the car.

"Hey, guys!" Stormer began. "The next car's a sleeping car. It's quiet in there and there's no kids there either. And believe it or not, there are some empty seats. C'mon!"

"But if it's a sleeping car, then we gotta be quiet too," Roxy said, decidedly unenthused.

"Maybe that's not a bad thing. It's been a long time since we got any sleep. C'mon, before the seats get taken!"

"All right, all right, Miss Bossy!" Pizzazz said. Stormer had to bite her tongue to keep from pointing out that Pizzazz was not one to be accusing others of bossiness.

The sleeping car did not have a 'four pack' of empty seats but it did have two different packs of two seats free.

Pizzazz ended up next to Roxy. After a few moments, Pizzazz heard the unmistakable sound of Roxy snoring. She'd dozed off almost instantly. The snoring sound was irritating but at least she didn't have to listen to those annoying brats anymore.

Pizzazz hated kids. Especially kids with doting, loving parents who lavished them with affection and attention. Who loved them and didn't leave them. Didn't walk out on them or send them away to boarding school because they didn't want them.

She glanced over at Jetta and Stormer's seats, which were across the aisle and a few rows up. Stormer had her nose in some book and Jetta appeared to be napping. Pizzazz, never the most reflective person, took a moment to ponder the fact that her family had lost most of its wealth, uncertainly and chaos loomed in every corner, their tour was not the show-stopping event it used to be, but somehow the persistent insecurity she'd known her whole life was not gnawing at her that much. She had spent the better part of the last several years worried that those she cared about the most would leave her. Right now, she knew that they would not. It was as simple as that.

Of course she didn't admit to herself, consciously, that she cared. Vulnerability was not a place she liked to be in, though after the fiasco with Riot she was at least more accustomed to it.

*******
The train pulled into Chicago - or so we thought. As usual, it was mass panic with us gathering our belongings and trying to dodge the families with wailing kids and older people. I saw Roxy practically elbow someone out of her way. Sometimes I wished my bandmates were not so positively rude to everyone they encountered.

Once we got off the train, we didn't make it very far though. All of the train passengers were herded into a large station with a spacious waiting area. The doors were all locked. A government official, from the American Morality office, made an announcement. He told us that the city needed to "prohibit any criminals from entering" and therefore everyone would be detained at the "morality station" (as it was called) for detailed background checks.

He went on to inform us that this station was not actually in Chicago. We were on the city limits. Those whose backgrounds checked out would be able to board an el train for the city.

I don't suppose I need to mention how thrilled and delighted my bandmates were with that piece of news. Lots of kvetching followed as we waited in line. But they were fairly well-behaved, since we all knew from experience that messing with the Morality office could put us in big trouble.

As we waited, I started to grow anxious with thoughts about these detailed background checks. We Misfits had not exactly been angels over the years, but we had managed to avoid getting any criminal records. Of course Roxy had quite a record from her days on the streets in Philly but I once heard her say that her permanent file had been cleared (whether that was due to the fact that she had been a juvenile at the time or due to Pizzazz's lawyers, I don't know). After our earlier run-in with the Morality Office, we were told that our records had been taken care of too, thank goodness.

But then my anxiety deepened. I dimly remembered something I'd seen on TV several days ago. I fought to breathe at a normal rate as my thoughts spiraled downwards and my fears grew. I felt my face become hot.

"What is it, yank?" Jetta asked me quietly.

"Nothin'," I said. "Just bored with waiting in line." But I noticed that Roxy and even Pizzazz looked mildly concerned. I made myself smile and just told myself that everything would turn out ok; it always does.

Finally, it was our turn. The guard asked how many were in our party and when Pizzazz said four, I thought they would keep us together. But instead we were ushered into separate rooms, and I found myself sitting in a small one with cement walls and ceiling. The sparse room contained a desk and two chairs and lots of fancy equipment. The officer sat down on the opposite side of the desk.

He was a young man, not any older than his early thirties. The look in his eyes was disturbing. I handed him my identification papers, and he then asked me a series of questions about my background. He asked for my name, date of birth, place of birth, and social security number. He asked the whereabouts of my brother and questioned me for a bit on what Craig was doing in England. He asked me whether I had spent any time in jail and whether I had ever gone to court over any violation more serious than a traffic ticket. He even asked me what books and magazines I had read on the train.

The officer then had me hold a finger under a scanner. The computer read the fingerprint and the officer stared at the readouts for a minute.

"So far, so good," he said. I felt a twinge of relief.

Then the man rummaged around in a drawer for some equipment. He put on a pair of plastic gloves and said, "Now hold out a finger. This will just hurt for a second - it'll feel like a pin prick."

"What's it for?" I asked, trying to sound casual.

"There's two things this new blood test can do. We can tell whether you have any drugs in your system - at least the most common ones. We don't need to do those cumbersome urine tests anymore. We can also use this test to tell if someone's a homosexual. We run the results through the DNA scanner. Don't worry, it's standard procedure; we have to give this test to everyone. Don't want any riff raff in Chicago. Most cities are gonna start adopting these soon - they have to if they want to keep their funding from the Department."

My hand trembled as he drew the blood. I silently began to pray. Maybe I would pass the test. I knew I was a lesbian but I'd never actually acted on it before (once I circled a women's bar four times but never had the courage to go in). So maybe the test would pass me right over.

"You nervous?" he asked. His voice was devoid of concern; it sounded more like curiosity than anything.

"Um, well no. It's just that....what if I get a false positive?" I was grasping at straws here.

"You won't," he said, as he drew the blood. He entered the specimen into the machine. "The Department has put a ton of funding into this - this test here is the result of a breakthrough. You don't get any false positives from these tests. False negatives happen a lot though but they're working on ways to clamp down on those."

A spark of hope! So false negatives happen "a lot." Maybe I'd be safe. As the computer took its time reading the specimen, I silently prayed harder. `Please, God, please not after I've been so good, after everything I've been through. Please please please, not when being a Misfit means more to me than anything in my life.'

The officer looked surprised when he read the results off the computer screen. I already had tears forming when he said, "You'd better come with me."

**********
"You ladies do know this is the last el train tonight, don't you?" a conductor asked the three women who were waiting in the station. "We're leavin' in ten minutes and the next one's not till morning. You can't spend the night in the station either and you don't wanna be out on the street." The station was deserted except for the Misfits and one or two station employees milling around.

"Buzz off," Pizzazz snapped. The Misfits were tired and cold, and very eager to get to their motel in Chicago. Pizzazz couldn't wait to take a warm bath and climb into a soft bed. She felt as though every muscle in her body ached.

"Where the 'ell is she??" Jetta asked. It was a rhetorical question. Over an hour ago they had asked an official if he could check on their friend's whereabouts. All he'd told them was that he had no idea but sometimes they hold people for questioning if something doesn't check out.

"I'm gonna hit her for making us wait! Sheesh, Stormer's the last one of us who I'd have thought would have any trouble," Pizzazz said.

"Yeah, what they got on Miss Goody Two Shoes?" Roxy wondered, though there was no malice in the nickname she'd just dubbed Stormer with.

Several more minutes passed. Finally, an officer led Stormer towards the rest of the group.

"Well, it's about f---ing time!" Pizzazz said. As they came closer, though, she noticed that Stormer's hands were handcuffed behind her back. Her face looked like death.

During that split second when she'd seen her bandmates' faces, Stormer questioned her decision. She'd begged and pleaded to at least be given the chance to bid farewell to her friends. It had seemed like a good idea. She owed them an explanation; she owed them at least that much. But now, as her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach and a new lump welled up in her throat, she wished that she were anywhere but here. Maybe it would have been much better to not see them again than to have their last moments together be one where she'd see disgust on their faces, directed at her.

"What's goin' on?" Roxy asked, without her usual bravado.

"I, um...you guys there's been a problem," Stormer said. There was one thing that she had resolved - no matter what, she would not cry. No matter what they said to her, she would get through this and not be seen bawling like a baby. `But then again, what does it matter now?' she thought to herself. 'I don't think I can sink any lower in their minds.' Her face was burning. She mustered her voice again and said, "You see, there's....I failed one of the tests. They're gonna keep me here for some questioning."

"Failed the test? What is it, luv?" Jetta asked. "Which part did you fail?"

"Well, I...um ---"

"She's a dyke, is what she's trying to say," the officer said. It was the same official who had administered the test to her. He'd given her a second test just to make sure. He found himself quite enjoying her humiliation.

"A what?" Pizzazz asked. She'd thought he said one thing, but she didn't believe her ears.

"Your friend failed the homosexuality test," the officer answered. "We've got a lot of officials at the Morality Office who are going to want to talk to her tomorrow."

"Is that true?" Roxy asked, looking directly at Stormer. "Like....are you gay?"

Stormer nodded though she couldn't meet Roxy's gaze. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Stormer then took a quick look at the Misfits' faces and saw more surprise than anything else. Then she looked down, not being able to bear more. The el train conductor called out, "Final boarding call! Anyone who doesn't want to spend the rest of the night outside the station better get on board right now."

"Y-you guys had better go," Stormer said, her voice quivering. "I just wanted to say goodbye."

There were a few seconds of stunned silence. The officer roughly grabbed Stormer, "C'mon, sweetheart," he said, yanking her away from her bandmates and back towards the station.

Jetta touched Pizzazz's and Roxy's arms. "The train's starting to move," she said quietly. "Let's go."

The three made it on board just before the doors closed for the final time.

*******
Stormer's cell was dank and cold. "What's gonna happen to me now?" she asked the officer. Her body felt numb all over.

"You'll stay here for the night. Tomorrow you and the other criminals are gonna be questioned. You'll probably go to jail. Each city's handling it differently so I can't say how long your sentence is going to be." He then stopped in his tracks. "You know, sweetheart. I haven't filed my report yet." A disturbing tone crept into his voice. His eyes looked her up and down. "You're awfully pretty for a lesbian."

Stormer didn't know what to say so she averted her eyes. The bare cell had a bad odor and, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw something small moving.

"I could be persuaded to not file those papers and just let you go," he continued. "If you'd be willing to cooperate with me."

As revolted as she was, Stormer forced herself to track with him. She realized that she might have a chance at getting free. "Cooperate with you in what way?" she asked.

"Oh, I think you know what I mean. Come back to my office and I'll show you. I've got a couch in there."

"If I do this....you'll let me go?"

"Yes."

Stormer allowed herself to be led to the office.

**********
Outside of the station, it was freezing cold. The wind ripped relentlessly across my face. I tried to bury myself inside my coat and scarf.

I wished the cold would make my insides feel as numb as my fingers and toes, but it didn't. I'd never felt more degraded or more disgusting in my entire life. The ordeal with the officer had been physically and mentally sickening. I'd tried to tune him out as he called me all sorts of filthy names. I'd tried to remind myself that I had done this with guys before but this time it was a hundred times worse. I wanted a shower badly.

But even worse than that was the feeling I got when I thought of my bandmates. Well, they didn't yell at me or tell me to stay the hell out of their lives. Of course the officer didn't give them much of a chance to react at all before he dragged me away. But they boarded that train and left me. Maybe they can still do their gig tomorrow. Maybe they can just forget about me, find another musician.

The station was in the middle of nowhere. Nothing nearby but a huge abandoned factory, a gigantic warehouse that stretched for miles, and a few decaying buildings. I huddled in the entranceway of one of those buildings, trying to get out of the wind. I wished I'd had some of Roxy's or Jetta's street smarts. There were several suspicious characters milling around and I had to hope that none would take an interest in me. But in some ways, I just didn't care anymore either.

I had no idea where I'd go next. I was out of the Misfits for sure. I had a decent amount of money saved but I wasn't sure what my legal status was now and how hard it might be to retrieve those funds. The officer said he wouldn't file the report on me, so I guess I was a free woman....but how long before I get caught by another blood test? How many cities would let me in without doing one of those tests now? I considered that perhaps I could call Craig....England was falling apart too but last I'd heard I think it was maybe doing better than here. Maybe he could somehow come and get me and bring me back with him. That is, if he would want anything to do with me once he found out my secret. I thought that maybe I could go crying back to Kimber Benton, but then again she didn't seem too comfortable when I told her....and her bandmates are so much on the straight and narrow that I can't believe they'd help me. Maybe if I pleaded with them that I'd seen the light and was trying to reform.

But even then, I'd miss my former bandmates so much. I wanted the Misfits. The thought that they now despised me was the worst. It was worse than anything the officer did to me.

I was too devastated to think anymore that night. I tried to cry but I think I was out of tears. So I sat in the entranceway. Each breath I took caused an assault of pain and fear and misery.

I couldn't sleep so I just huddled there, absolutely heartsick. The minutes and hours plodded by. I wondered if maybe this would toughen me up for good. Maybe I'll be like how my former bandmates were not long ago (and, to some extent, still are) - someone with a hard shell around her heart, someone who can't ever be hurt again. I guess if you get pulverized enough, something kicks in and protects you, makes you incapable of feeling so you don't have to ever have another heartbreak.

************
Silence reigned on the city streets in the final hours of the morning. The darkness would defer to light in an hour or two, and the streets were fairly deserted by now. There had been talk of instituting a curfew to keep the normal nightly chaos at bay, but at this hour no one was stirring. The air was crisp, and sharp as a bayonet, and the promise of sunlight would not be sufficient to keep the freezing weather at bay. The impending day suggested even colder weather than the previous one.

Stormer vaguely became aware of someone touching her shoulder.

Through the haze, she began to hear voices. Very tired voices.

"Did she pass out?"

"Let's try to carry her."

Stormer opened her eyes. Her foggy mind wondered whether the images before her were the result of her most fervent dream. She rubbed her eyes with a numb hand.

"Good, you're awake," Pizzazz said. Her voice was its usual straightforward tone. "Help her up."

Stormer watched incredulously as Roxy and Jetta slowly, gently hoisted her up and each supported one side of her.

"Can you walk?" Roxy asked. Her voice couldn't be described as tender but she wasn't harsh either.

"I....I think so. My feet are really numb," Stormer's voice was throatier than usual. She wanted to ask, 'Is it really you?' but was at a loss for words.

"Poor dear, you probably have frostbite," Jetta said. Stormer was stunned to realize that the appellation 'poor dear' was not said with any detectable sarcasm.

Roxy and Jetta half-carried Stormer towards a waiting taxi. During the slow walk, Stormer couldn't help but to stammer, "You...you came back for me." Her eyes were bleary but when she looked at her bandmates, she saw unmistakable concern. Their actions, though, spoke even louder than that.

"Yeah, well don't get all mushy about it," Pizzazz replied. Stormer thought she may have even seen a small smile, maybe even an indication of relief, on Pizzazz's face.

Despite the miserable night, Stormer felt a small smile show itself on her face. Her numbness began to thaw.


TO BE CONTINUED