Plush by Kate Crash Read Free Book Online Page A

practice in front of a crowd before the festival madness starts. We gonna be big bitches!” And he does a stage dive off a Barcalounger onto me.
    Life is coming back to me.
    We walk out onto the splintery porch. Dusk. Heat. I think I will start to sleep out here because the spam Draco & Sketch are always frying up and burning fills the house with that smoky, dying-animal smell that makes me nauseous all the time. They keep disappearing to play a little more game, smoke a little more this or that, or fuck in a back room so it catches on fire. Bongs n’ spam. This is not a rock-n-roll romance!
    I grab a stick as a mic.
    “LET’S DO THIS!” Donnie yells and does a drum roll on my leg and I laugh:
    “This is the craziest yard I’ve ever seen.” The beat up backyard has gone un-raked for centuries. Leaves and trash cover broken dumpster things upon things. The pit-bulls in the neighbor’s yard scream murder-laughter. I hope there aren’t holes in the fences for them to come after us. The ditched child-seats are rusted and crying, unhinged. Why do they have old child-seats randomly around their big trees? A dust devil swirls up. Oy! runs out and dances around my feet. We set ourselves up in formation like the porch is the stage. Donnie in the back is drumming on the bench. Jack sways and sings the notes that he hits on his ampless electric. I have to sing soft so we can all hear each other. I hold my arms up and sway like it’s the real thing: I imagine all the junk in the yard are fans. Yes, yes, yes! I imagine the crowd -an endless stadium of screaming mouths – screaming for me. I imagine streamers popping out and fireworks and all those things that comes with money and success. I jump off the porch like the rock-star I think I am. I fly. I fly and the world is mine!



12     March 10, 2006
    We head in the pickup to the practice show. I’m so excited: my first show in Austin! Yeah! On stage, we’re going to be like the real bands like on TV to probably, like, a hundred fans! The boys are amped!
    We pull up and go inside, and the moto-gang-like, bearded barman points to the exit sign out back. Maybe a giant bowl-like theater will await us there…?
    In the yard of a bar. A YARD! Not even a real stage and not even inside – just a pile of dust and five flanneled guys chugging beers. The mic is half broken and feeding back. No sound check and Jack is too high. The monitors aren’t working right – just emit a loud buzz – and the sound guy has disappeared and all the levels are off. But we try anyway to sound something more than chicken scratch.
    No one claps after the first song. They all just drink and text and chat amongst themselves. HAYLEY! THAT’S IT: I will be outrageous and amazing. I will make them love me! 1-2-3-4. I sing harder, and the only things you can really hear are the snares and kick and not me at all. I try to scream louder since the mic fades in and out. This is the worst show EVER. Jack looks at me and frowns and then goes behind his amp and uses some type of drug – I can’t see which. The audience doesn’t care.
    I try to dance and jump up around harder, faster, wilder. NOTICE ME! DAMN IT! NOTICE ME! This reminds me of when I was nine and I couldn’t set myself on fire bright enough for the world or my dad to know or notice me at all. Jack was on his three-week stint with the water polo team, so he was away at a meet in the town next to ours, Edcouch. It was just me and all my loneliness.
    I wanted to have my father back, to play with him again, to feel like a family, and for him to just sit down and talk to me. I decided if my dad saw me all bloody like I got hit by a car, that he would feel bad and decide to be a dad again. Maybe he would call my mom, she’d come back home, and all the broken pieces would fit back together. My life would no longer feel like half a jigsaw puzzle. I went into the kitchen drawer and pulled out all the little fast food ketchups – dad never bought