Love Is the Law by Nick Mamatas Read Free Book Online

shows held in some asshole ’ s basement or a Polish American hall—Nazis liked playing in the clubs of their former victims, of course disguising their intentions to gain power—were listed alongside real house shows, club gigs, and college events. There was something going on virtually every night, and all of it invisible to anyone not already in the know. Hardcore was a lot like magick: ritual, rage, and rebellion. Something that most people knew nothing about or were terrified by. Some marginal few discovered, embraced, and were consumed by it. A few brave folks even made it out alive at the other end.
    There was a show tonight, in a basement on Woodhull Avenue. A few years ago, that was just a road through a wood connecting a development to Nesconset Highway, but now it had about a dozen identical houses and even a shitty little strip mall with a deli and a locksmiths ’ anchoring it. Not a good place for a show, but the band had an intriguing name: Abyssal Eyeballs. A reference to Nietzsche ’ s old saw about staring into the abyss until the abyss stares back, probably. But that could be a Nazi group, or an anti-Nazi group. Or some art fags who liked silly names and found abyssal eyeballs euphonious and obnoxious in equal proportions, as I did. At any rate, it was a show and five bucks, nobody turned away.
    Greg had to call his mom to get permission to go. “This is your fault,” he hissed at me, pointing at his injury. “I used to be able to go wherever the fuck I wanted.”
    “Pfft, you don ’ t even have a car.”
    Anyway, permission was granted thanks to his mother ’ s answering the phone through a haze of Valium and we had some time to kill, so I made him, and Grandma, some grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. I giggled at myself the entire time. Greg even struck up a conversation with Grandma about life on Long Island. Her father, my great-grandfather, was a German immigrant to Brooklyn who wanted a life for his family away from the grime and crime of the big city, so he looked in the newspaper and found a cheap house in Port Washington. But he got his presidents wrong and got on the LIRR to Port Jefferson. Great-Grandpa was very confused when he got here and asked the ticket agent for help. “Well, you can go all the way back to Jamaica, and then get on the train to Port Washington,” the ticket agent had said. “Or I can show you my house. I happen to be selling it.” And that was the great two-family Victorian that went to my father after Great-Grandpa died and that we all lived in until my father discovered crack and sold all the furniture and then let the bank foreclose on it. Grandma didn ’ t mention that part. Grandma and Greg even watched an episode of Wheel of Fortune together, while I flipped through some of the materials we had salvaged from Bernstein ’ s files. Every so often she ’ d turn to him and ask, “Oh Lord, what happened to your face!” He ’ d say, “A dog bit me,” and she ’ d mention her friend from grade school whose leg was nearly torn off by a wild dog back in Brooklyn.
    “Greg and I are going out, Grandma,” I told her finally, and her face lit up.
    “Oh, wonderful!” she said. “Well, do have a good time.”
    “Uh, bye, Mrs. . . .” Greg said. Grandma didn ’ t offer up her surname, perhaps having forgotten it, so I said, “Seliger,” and Greg repeated it and Grandma told him to call her Helen.
    “You should,” I said when we were out the door. “Helen is her name.” But he didn ’ t laugh.
    It wasn ’ t a long walk, but it was getting dark earlier now that the fall had come. A few plastic jack-o ’ -lanterns in the windows and on the porches of the homes on either side of the street leered at us. I was glad to have grabbed the big cop flashlight from atop Grandma ’ s fridge to light our way.
    “How are you going to explain the gash on your hand to your mom?”
    “I ’ m not,” Greg said. “Don ’t need to. She won ’ t notice.