Checker and the Derailleurs. Lionel Shriver

jarred. At last she bit too deep, and reflexively he pulled her off him by her ragged wet mop, surprised to find that with the strands pulled taut he could feel her heart beating in her hair. That was when he noticed the frantic pulsing everywhere, the way her arteries exploded on the sides of her neck, at her throat, her armpits, in the shaved cups of her hips—it was amazing, this girl stripped so thin she was like a Compton transparency of the circulatory system. He stared at her veins, their rapid beat and alarming syncopation.

      “Musicians,” she’d whispered over him; he moaned a half step lower each inch her hand descended from his shoulder. She meant it was not all cacophonous grappling, that he understood distinctions, different notes: here not there, and no longer—sustain, cut; press, lift. She would extend her hand and then delay; she played like funk, behind the beat, the little stop, the little reluctance. Checker smiled and thought, Give this girl sticks, but she was more keyboard really, resting her hand light and relaxed like a good pianist—Checker could have balanced pennies on her wrists. Her chords down his side grew increasingly deft, his pecs, nipple, under the ribs, off, to the hip socket, off, less and less, only tickling over the hairs now, right by his balls, but refusing, because it was too obvious, to touch the genitals themselves, like lyricists who leave a line at a rhyme so inevitable that they don’t sing the word at all.

      Only at the end did he shrink back, from the long, scrappy fingers with the tight-in, pointed nails, black—an urchin’s. The urgency went too far. She clutched his collarbone like a ledge; he could see her hanging. His hands slid from her sides, and she slipped down his thighs. Checker’s prick sucked out, bent down, and sprang free of her like a perch that wouldn’t bear her weight. Her knees hit the table. She fell only three inches between his legs, but far enough for Janice to see he wouldn’t hold her up. She had wanted him, but getting him didn’t solve anything. She would need to find later there was nothing to solve, but he refused to teach her that much. He was a man and enjoyed this. He loved her childlike clambering, her skinny athletic daring, the way she climbed and swung and gripped at his limbs like at the rungs of a jungle gym. But he was not her father or brother or rescuer, and her wide brown eyes saw that in horror and went wild, then flat. She rolled completely off him onto her back, her palms to the wood, breathing at the quick, inconceivable pace of a hamster, the tiny rib cage filling up and down, her nostrils quivering, her short black hair frayed and chopped-looking, stricken. She would look only at the ceiling. He stroked her forehead, but would not comfort her too much, because he wouldn’t take back what she’d discovered.

      They all thought they needed saving. They all got a surprise. And sooner or later, the nails came scraping over his arms, eyes clawing at his face. They screamed. Janice was the worst, since of course some of them were calm, pretend-cold, but he could always see the fingers opening and closing at their sides, the muscles springing in their jaws, hear the air grating through their teeth. Checker would spread his hands. He thought he’d given them what they wanted. Instead, he’d come too close—he gave them more than the others and stopped. He let them touch what they could not own. So many Alices, longing for the tiny garden, who couldn’t reach the key. For the girls it must have been worse than nothing. All his memories of that table had an edge in them, like Halloween apples filled with razor blades.

      Little wonder none of these lovelies sprang to mind as Rahim’s bride-to-be. The last favor Janice did him was slashing her initials in the head of his snare, and Checker had known her well enough to see that the gesture cost her some restraint.

      “What about your vocalist here?” Eaton proposed.

      “You mean Rache?” asked Caldwell, no one looking straight at her.

      Rachel immediately began to unravel her sweater, from a moth hole, with such concentration it was like knitting in reverse.

      “Rache do enough for the band, man, I don’t know you want to involve—”

      “Checker,” Rachel interrupted J.K. softly, “would you want me to?” She looked up at the drummer. “Would you like me to marry Hijack?”

      Rachel’s hair was loose today, and washed; it wafted out from her head, and her face was lost inside it. Looking into her eyes was like staring into a dark ball of fur which, with the slightest puff of air from the stage, would tumble away. Checker found himself actually holding his breath. He said absolutely nothing.

      That was enough. A moment later the ball of fur blew out the door, caught on the breeze of its own shudder.

      “You should have said no right away, man,” said Caldwell.

      “I know,” said Checker. “I was thinking of Hijack. Back soon as I can.” They all think they need saving. Checker pulled on his jacket and jogged out of the club.

      “Are they …?” asked Eaton.

      “No!” the band answered at once.

      “It’s just, that wasn’t a great suggestion, Strike,” said Caldwell.

      “Rachel—” Howard hesitated. “Rachel is a romantic.”

      “How the hell did I offend her?”

      “Rache and Check—” Caldwell began.

      “Sweets!” said Howard.

      “Everybody know, Howard,” said J.K.

      “Everybody knows if you tell everybody,” said Howard.

      “Okay, okay.”

      They sat in silence.

      “I’ve never figured out how she stands it,” Caldwell remarked.

      “It’s very delicate,” said Howard, his delight in analysis getting the better of his loyalty. “Like photosynthesis. A perfectly balanced chemical process that by all rights shouldn’t work—”

      “Where you get that?” asked J.K.

      “The point is”—Howard glared—“if plants can turn air to branches, anything is possible.”

      “Howard’s right, Big J.,” said Caldwell. “There’s something real incredible about those two. Like, it’s a miracle little Jackless hasn’t killed herself.”

      “Where is Checker Secretti?”

      A shadow cut the length of the club.

      “What you want with Check?” braved J.K., whose voice sounded strangely high for a 210-pound bass player.

      “His ass in my glassworks.”

      She stepped into the light and the whole band subtly recoiled. Even Eaton wasn’t inclined to say anything smart and private-school. Once more the woman was in her apron and earthy, ancient, unwashed clothes. She hadn’t bothered with a coat, nor had she taken off her dark glasses. Her hair, askew as usual, glittered with sleet. She appeared like the Wicked Witch of the West and Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother all wrapped into one enthralling but appalling creature. You did not know whose side she was on.

      “He got business,” said J.K.

      “He has business with me,” Syria boomed. “You tell him he’s late. You tell him I don’t have time to chase him down in his little clubhouse. You tell him he shows or I throw him in with the next load of cullet. Got that?”

      “Cullet,” Caldwell repeated softly.

      “What?”

      “Check taught us the word yesterday,” he explained meekly. “Broken glass.”

      “My, my,” said Syria. “A for the day, rock star.” She stopped and looked down at him. “You’re cute.”

      “Thank you,” said Caldwell formally.

      “You tell your drummer friend, one more hour, he’s fired.”

      Bang. She vanished.

      “The Towering Inferno!” exclaimed Caldwell.

      They marveled over the apparition until Checker returned.

      When