#geddy’s waist are you kidding me right now

[invisible-airwaves]

Girlhood is just questioning whether you want to look like them or be with them

[belladonnaandulriched]

the dead of night | chapter one

I had no idea if I could stand up right, but then again I watched Frankie lift himself up on the ground as if he was doing his own push ups. He brushed himself off and turned to me with a hand extended out. I held onto his hand; he used his other hand to set onto my shoulder to help me up.

When he and I were face to face, he gazed on at me with a frightened look upon his face.

“What year do you think it is?” he asked me in a low voice; I glanced over at Hannah and Joey nearing us. I returned to him and shook my head.

“What are you guys doing here?” she asked us.

“We were—looking—for something,” Frankie sputtered and I could

“We were looking for something, too,” Hannah replied as she put her arm around Joey's lower back: I spotted her hand on his hip. The solemn look on her face told it all. Francine had just gone missing.

“D'you guys call the police?” I asked Joey.

“Francine's parents did, but neither of us felt like it was going to help matters,” he confessed with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Yeah, especially since she went missing in Canada,” Hannah added, to which her face fell. I never realized how much she resembled to that of a doll with her full round face and milky skin and her deep dark eyes. Kristina had long blonde almost silvery white hair which reminded me of Hannah's near black locks, but if I recalled it well, Hannah was part Native American like Joey himself; except she was also part Scandinavian rather than half Italian like him.

All I knew from their story was that they met when they were kids and they separated some time in middle school, because she moved over to Rochester and he became Mr. Hockey Player. They found each other again when he entered the fold at Anthrax and we had put out Armed and Dangerous with him, and then I had no idea what happened after that. They separated again after Spreading the Disease and then we let Joey go before State of Euphoria, and there they were again. I had my hair back again, though.

“Yeah, Scott, I remember you sayin' we had to put production on hold just to find Francine,” Joey pointed out with a slight smirk on his face. Didn't really help matters, but I knew Frankie and I had to go along with it. But then again, Joey was still babyfaced like when he first joined, so all I could assume was we had gone back to just prior to our showing him the door.

“Uh, yeah,” was all I could say. He chuckled at me and all I could feel was my face growing warm.

“Yeah, I remember you actually calling up me and Joey and saying 'production is being put on hold because it's an emergency we're dealing with here',” Hannah recalled, complete with a telephone gesture up to her ear. So they were living together. “You don't remember doing that? You also told us to meet you here at this very corner.”

“Yeah, it was like just this morning,” Joey added.

“Of course I remember it!” I exclaimed. “It's just—I didn't think you guys'd get here as quickly as you did.”

“Hey, if it's Francine or my mom or anybody we care about, we're gonna get here stat, Scott,” Joey assured me.

“Stat Scott,” she echoed. “Gonna stat some Scott.”

“Bit of a tongue twister, too,” Frankie pointed out, which made the two of them laugh.

“Well, come along—I see Nancy and her new boy up ahead,” Hannah gestured up the block. Frankie shivered and followed her along; I ran my fingers through that stringy hair around the crown of my head and followed suit. Frankie and I emerged from the alleyway to the sidewalk and the street, where we were met with those tall buildings making up the skyline of New York City. I wondered who Nancy was as I stared up at the apartment buildings on the block. Something metallic drifted up above the rooftop of the building closest to us. I didn't what it was but something about it made me squirm in the soles of my shoes. I peered down to the street before us.

A pillar of smoke floated up from a manhole cover and vaporized into nothing. Next to the pillar was a small neon blue light on a post. Something moved in the light and the smoke.

A ghost. A faint ghost about the color of the blue neon emerged from the fog. Three more appeared from the vent on the storm drain before they vaporized into nothing.

Nightmares. Nightmares were all I could think about.

I could hear them talking to one another next to Frankie and me.

“It's okay—we're gonna find her,” I heard him whisper to her. I turned my head to find Hannah putting her arms around Joey's svelte waist, and his resting his hand on the back of her head. I wondered about the warmth between the two of them, and it made me miss Kristina even more.

I glanced up at ahead to another dark haired woman standing on the corner with—

“Is that Geddy Lee,” Frankie blurted out.

Joey and Hannah glanced over at us with beaming grins on their faces. I couldn't resist the grin on my face at the sight of that hooked nose and those feathery bangs over deep set eyes. He looked nothing like from this era, however: he had shed his long hair by this era, or so I thought. I wondered about him, especially when they entered our view and I noticed his skin was smooth, much like Joey's face.

“Hey, you two,” Joey squeaked out; his voice quivered and waved with excitement.

“There they are,” I heard Nancy say. She showed off a big red wine colored smile at us and gestured towards the four of us.

“Ah, the infamous New Yorkers,” Geddy's Canadian accent cut through me like a knife. I couldn't believe it when he neared us.

“Scott, Frank—this is my friend Nancy Kensington,” Hannah introduced us. “Art student from Seattle.”

“And I've met ya already,” Joey replied with a wink of his eye.

“I know you have,” Nancy taunted him with a grin on her face.

“By the way, what even happened with you and Chris?” Hannah asked her.

“We broke up—it went downhill pretty quickly, like... over the course of a few months. Dominique and Matt broke up, too.”

“Oh, damn,” Frankie remarked.

“Yeah,” Nancy raised her dark eyebrows in answer. “He and I broke up but I found him, though.” She glanced over to Geddy and those large specs over his narrow face, to which he nodded his head from side to side.

“That girl also disappeared in Toronto, too,” he pointed out. “We came together out of intensity.”

“Francine?” Frankie corrected him.

“That's right! She went missing in the dead of night in Toronto.”

“He's more of a cop than a cop,” Joey cracked, which brought a laugh out of all of us.

“Well, let's get out of the street, shall we?” Nancy suggested as she adjusted the shoulder strap of her bag. “You guys look cold and I feel like there's something watching us.” She peered up at the apartment buildings again, and I followed her gaze to the metallic object up above the rooftop.

“What even is that?” I asked her. “Do you know?”

“It's a drone,” said Hannah. “I'm glad it's way the hell up there, too. Joey said he feels weird when one comes closer to him.”

“Yeah, Lars and I were over in Boston a while back and we saw one of those,” Joey recalled.

“I've seen a few up in Canada, too,” Geddy added as he put his arm around Nancy's shoulder. “You get like this shaky, frightful feeling within you—like you're about to be attacked by something vicious.” He pointed across the street to a small bright lit cafe.

“Let's go there—looks warm and toasty in there.”

“We can have a cup of Joey and a glass of wine,” Hannah declared.

“Exactly!” he laughed. Joey and the girls stepped towards the curb, and Frankie stood next to Joey with his arms folded across his chest, even though he wore a light sweater. Geddy, meanwhile, turned to me. I could see those eyes of his digging deep within me behind the gradient shades. He gestured for me to come closer to him.

“What era are you from?” he asked me in a low enough voice for me to hear over the slight noise of the street.

“The pandemic era,” I said. “Frankie and me both—we came back to find Francine and for me to meet up with—someone dear to me.”

“A young lady?”

“Yeah. A girl I went to school with and—kinda had a thing with. It was totally a secret so no one from that era knows I'm here.”

“Well—Alex and I came back to redo things for Presto and Hold Your Fire, but apparently year numbers are things you can miss upon time travel, especially when you have a wild mind such as mine. We wanted to hit it through again, so we tried again.”

“And now—you're here.”

“We're here. Well, I am, anyways. Alex is back home with his girlfriend and his baby.”

I raised his eyebrows at him.

“And yes. Neil is with us, too.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but no sound came out. He gestured for me to come in closer to him. He peered over at Joey, Frankie, Hannah, and Nancy at the curb.

“I know how transient everything can be,” he whispered to me. “I know how things can end, and so quickly.”

Something caught my eye.

I recognized her long platinum blonde hair down to her waist. Like one of the ghosts roaming about the street, except her dress and her cloak whipped behind her in the winds rather than become part of the scenery. I knew that guitar case on her back anywhere. Geddy followed my gaze.

“Is that her?” I nodded my head.

“Kristina!” I exclaimed and my voice echoed over the pavement before us. She turned her head to show me her deep set dark eyes, a sharp contrast to that long blonde hair. Her eyes fixated onto me. I thought I would never see those eyes again following the release of Volume 8.

The corners of her mouth curled up into a warm Mona Lisa type smile.

“Kristina!” I repeated, to which she hurried towards me. She gripped onto the strap of her guitar case and hurried over to me: strands of her long blonde hair streamed behind her head. Her black lace skirt billowed behind her legs like a sail. A firm feeling emerged inside of my throat. Over twenty years without her, and yet it was about to hold off for the time being for me.

“Hey, Scott,” she greeted me in that kind voice once she came within earshot.