Broken Bodies in a Deathrock Dancehall
WHO: Ruby Saint, Travis Walker and anyone who might be at the Eagles Dare show, at least to start with. WHAT: Sweaty people, grinding music, and the drinks that Ruby owes to Mr Walker. WHERE: The Tractor Tavern WHEN: Friday night (20th May) WARNINGS: Probably language at least. The rest is TBD.
Outside the Tractor Tavern, Ruby ashed her cigarette on the ground, then placed it back in its natural resting place, between her lips. She had long ago decided that smoking didn’t necessarily need to take up one of her hands – for someone who smoked so much, and who was also so fidgety and always-doing-something, it had been an important discovery. While she held her smoke in place, maintaining a neutral expression, she adjusted her hood, opened up her bag to check the time on her phone, and then pulled out a mirror to give a quick once-over to her face. She wasn’t usually vain enough to be checking her appearance in a mirror right outside the venue, but walking in with skull paint on was one thing, walking in with smudged and ruined skull paint on was quite another. Fortunately, everything was fine and she dropped the mirror back in her bag and finally retrieved that cigarette from her lips to hold it between black polished nails for a moment.
It was 9.40pm. She had started out from work with vague intentions to get there earlier than this, but Ruby the Procrastinator had ended up doing a million and one little things that had nibbled away at her time, from drinking with Paige while she showed off her new ink (A 3-inch hot pink Misfits skull on her hip, a freebie courtesy of Travis Walker), to the obviously time-consuming activity of painting stark black shapes on her face in contrast to her white foundation, giving the overall impression of a skull. It was all just a bit of fun for her, really. Any excuse to dress up and go a little bit crazy. Ruby just didn’t do ‘standard’. It wasn’t an attention-seeking thing (although she had accepted and made her peace with the fact that she would probably draw a few glances), it was more an ‘I’m having a good time and if you don’t like it you can get lost’ thing. She was her own judge, jury and worst enemy all rolled into one.
Only when her cigarette had been smoked to the filter and disposed off, she shouldered her way in through the doors and was met with a broad and knowing grin from the guy in charge of the guest list. ”You Ruby?” For a brief moment she frowned slightly, just tipsy enough from the drinks she had had at home to have forgotten for a moment about her face, until it clicked “Yeah! I am. Travis put me on there, huh?” She jerked her head toward the paper before him. Travis had already told her she would be on his list somewhere between her stealing bits of his take-out and him buzzing pink ink over her hip while she ground her teeth together. But – if there was a silence, Ruby often filled it with words. ”He sure did, now gimme your hand I gotta stamp ya, then you’re free to go.” She reached her hand toward him, wrist turned upward to present him with an area to stamp and he flashed her a grin ”There ya go, crazy. Have fun.”
She headed for the bar, shouldering her way between groups of guys, mainly, and a smaller percentage of girls until she had squeezed her way through and was able to grab herself a beer, and then nudge her way through the crowd to the front. She had come on her own, but with the vague notion that it was the kind of place she might run into someone she knew, and she found herself smiling and waving at a few vaguely familiar faces as she moved around the place. Being short and slight had its drawbacks and its bonuses at shows like this. The drawbacks being the obvious ones of not being able to see anything over people’s heads, and getting nudged around a lot, but Ruby worked the bonus of being able to squeeze her way through tight spaces and around people to work her way to the front, one row back from the front one and slightly off to the side. She didn’t really want to get dragged into a pit full of huge sweaty guys today. She would stand her ground when the crowd got rowdy, but she wasn’t quite in the mood for getting right in the thick of it – she was still protectively nursing her hip. She slid off her hoodie and dropped it into her bag, to reveal a plain black skinny tee, which had been cut across the neckline so that it sat across her shoulders, slipping down slightly on one side but ignored. She jammed her free hand into the pocket of her skinny jeans and took a sip of her beer, waiting for Eagles Dare to appear on stage.