“Will you please just tell me what you’re talking about, Mort?”

“Keith told me this morning that he’s sublet this place to some guys in another band.” Mort had stopped fussing with the wing nut, sat very still now and stared up at the ceiling, past the ceiling to some invisible point beyond.

And the old anger swept over her, then, hot and immediate and utterly devoid of focus, as perfectly indifferent to who it hurt as Keith’s addiction. The small voice, silly, timid whimper that always made her think of some milksop’s cartoon excuse for a conscience, ivory white and angel wings flitting around her head and shoulders, the voice that raised its hand politely, that begged her to think first. But Mort was convenient, Mort was here and now, and the hurting words were already slipping across her lips.

“Jesus Howlin’ Christ, Mort. Fuck! Do you just sit around with your thumb up your ass while he’s out pulling this shit?”

“Hey, Daria,” Theo said, rising up slowly from her nest in the La-Z-Boy, “Don’t think you’re gonna take this one out on Mort. It’s not his fault your boyfriend’s a piss-for-brains junky.”

“It’s all right, Theo. She’s just mad-”

“No, Mort. It’s not all right, goddamn it. If she wants to scream at someone, she can wait until Keith decides to drag his butt up here.”

The door swung wide, impeccable slapstick timing, slammed hard against the wall, and Keith, as tall as Mort was thin, tall and hard for his habits, stepped across the threshold. He carried his guitar case in both hands like a tough in an old gangster film, violin hiding a tommy gun. Had carried it around that way for months, since he’d used the case to take a swing at a skinhead and the handle had broken off. Keith kicked the door shut behind him, and something tacked to the wall, one of a hundred flyers or handbills, came loose and fluttered to the floor like a big paper moth.

Daria managed to draw a deep breath, wasted attempt at scrounging some sort of calm, and leaned her bass gently against the nearest speaker. Very slowly, she turned to face the guitarist. And saw at once the stupid glaze, pupils like saucers and his face slack as hot butter behind its goatee and stubble shadow. It would be worse than useless arguing with him now, she knew that, but the angry thing had wound itself so tight inside her, and she imagined its electric hiss and crackle, power lines down on wet tarmac, blacksnakes coiled on scorched earth.

For a moment, no one said anything, and there was only the anger and her heart and the faint sounds of the last work traffic stragglers down on the street, a car horn filtered through the foam rubber and egg cartons stapled to the walls.

“So, what’s your plan, Keith,” and her voice sounded detached, ugly distance, and she thought again of something deadly and black underfoot. “We gonna start rehearsing in the fucking street now?”

“What?” and his blank eyes, lids at half-mast and cold gray stones barely visible beneath the overhang of his thick eyebrows, couldn’t have looked more innocent, more surprised. “Oh, hey, Mort…Jesus, man, didn’t you explain this thing to her?”

“I just told her what you did, man.” Mort wasn’t looking through the ceiling now, stared down at his tennis shoes, instead.

“Jeez, man, you were supposed to tell her how it is.” Keith’s words came out slurred, fuzzy with the junk slogging through his veins. “Look, Dar, it’s only for Mondays and Sundays, okay? It’s not a big deal-”

“Fuck you,” Daria spat back, cutting him off. “Just shut the fuck up, okay?” and she was on her feet now, the free end of the cable dangling threateningly from her hand like a weird bullwhip.

“Me and Mort are out busting our asses trying to hold down jobs to pay for this place and get a few decent shows together, and what are you doing, Keith? Huh? Why don’t you just tell me what exactly the fuck it is you think you’re doing?”

Keith rubbed at his chin, shook his head slowly.

“Mortie, man, will you please talk to her.”

“No, Keith, this time I want to hear a goddamn answer from you!” and she took a sudden, vicious step in his direction, snapping the tangled cable tight. Her bass fell over, clatter and clong to the floor, and she winced at the noise, but kept her green eyes steady on Keith.

“Hey, Dar. I was just tryin’ to help some guys out, okay? They need a place, and I was just tryin’ to help some guys out.”

“Bullshit! That’s a load, and you know it’s a load, Keith,” and she turned away, picked up her bass from where it had fallen and began checking it over for damage.

“You don’t even give a shit about us, Keith, about your own music.” Her cheeks felt hot past flushed, angry-burn, blistered inside out by her rage, and she spoke with her back to him as she carefully tested volume and tone control knobs, each brass tuning peg.

“You expect us to believe that you’re out there posing as some kind of rock-and-roll angel of mercy, that you care whether or not-” but then she found a fresh scratch an inch or so above the output jack, hairline violation of the smooth ebony resin, and ran a callused index finger softly over it.

“Tell me how we’re supposed to get ready for a show when you’ve rented this place out from under us. We’ve got Dr. Jekyll’s this Saturday night, and then the big show at Dante’s. Or did Dante’s just kinda slip your mind?”

“Just forget it, okay, Daria,” Keith mumbled, still holding on to his guitar case, holding it like James Cagney. “Just forget the whole fucking thing. I’ll call Jack and Soda and tell them the deal’s off.”

Daria hooked the bass over one shoulder, closed her eyes, and spoke slowly, choosing her words more carefully now. The rage had almost passed, and she felt shaky and a little ill, the dimmest threat of nausea squiggling around in her belly like tadpoles.

“You do that, Keith,” she said. “And listen, I swear to god, if you ever pull anything like this again, I don’t care how bad you need money for a fix, you’re out on your ass. Do you understand?”

“Hey, whatever you say, Dar. You’re the boss lady.”

And then Daria marched away to the skanky little toilet at one end of the room, trailing the black cable out behind her. She shut the bathroom door hard, but the cable-half in, half out-got caught in the way, and the door swung slowly open again.

Keith set his guitar down, ran one hand through his spiky mud-brown buzz cut.

“So, Mortimer. I guess you think I’m one mondo asshole too.”

“I think you went way too far this time, man, that’s all. I’ve always known you were an asshole.”

“Yeah. Thanks, man.”

“Hey, that’s what I’m here for,” and Mort lightly smacked the edge of a cymbal with two fingers.

Theo pushed the magazines aside and climbed over the arm of the La-Z-Boy, wide corduroy gash and bulging tufts of white stuffing, chair hernia. Neither Mort nor Keith said anything to her as she got up and followed Daria and her black rubber excuse for bread crumbs to the john.

Theo stepped inside the bathroom, little more than a shit closet really, and pushed the door quietly shut behind her. Daria’s bass cable was wound loosely around her left hand like a ropy bandage; she slipped it off and laid it on the edge of the sink, feeling awkward, knowing she was absolutely no good at this, wise-ass Theodora Babyock, never any good at consolation or the sympathetic shoulder to cry on bit. Just like now, worrying more about her inability to be the good mother goddess, dispensing tenderness and understanding like Easter jelly beans, than Daria’s need for comfort.

“Hey, are you gonna be okay?” she asked, and god, that was lame enough all right, Daria sitting there on the edge of the crapper, arms tight around her bass, face buried in her hands and everything hidden beneath her blood-red hair. She wasn’t crying; Theo had never seen Daria cry, and she had a feeling no one else had, either. She was just sitting there, breathing too hard and too fast, a dry and graceless sound stranded somewhere useless, the stillborn expression of something she knew Daria would never even admit to feeling.