#halfways expecting the system to fuck me over very spontaneously for no reason

[mywizardruins]

can't wait to have a panic attack for a week straight. anywsys I have a key to a new apartment

[streith-run]

Drabble for #94

Part 2 for the ask from @duzitmatter !! Also, apologies for both the quality and how long it took, I ran out of steam halfway through,, =w=;

"Did they hurt you?"

Amelia shakes her head clear of the thoughts racing through her mind at seemingly impossible speeds as the voice of her newest acquaintance peirced through the haze. Her eyes quickly raise to meet his, and a hint of wild fear lights them up as she feels water running down her arms.

Unable to properly respond to his question, and wanting to give as little away to concern him as possible, the woman simply shakes her head and stumbles over to a fallen log to sit down. Her soaking hair cascades over her hands as she holds her head between shaking palms, taking shuddery breaths as she dwells on the rather traumatizing events of the evening.

She had been turned against. And by a powerful woman that happened to know a lot more about her than she would like. Mama Morgan put out a favor involving her, and she was sure it was a call for her head.

A light breeze kicks in, and Amelia finds herself tensing and holding herself close as she shivers from both the chill and the horror of the situation at hand.

They had tried to drown her this time. And while she was alive now, it wouldn't be the end of the attacks.

These now criminals had tracked her down, knocked her out, dragged her to the river, and tried to drown her. She runs over the events in her mind and with the fresh memories, she whimpers quietly as the water once again seems to be surrounding her, taking whatever entry it could get into her system. At the small sound, she hears a sigh in front of her and is quickly reminded of the wannabe constable's presence.

"What happened? Who were they?" He asks gravely, gesturing towards the wet, lifeless bodies on the ground. The ones who had answered the call Morgan had sent out.

With heavy eyes, Amelia looks up at Able, who had only just managed to show up in time to spare her from the water's cruel grasp. Her wet curls shake and bounce as she shakes her head at him, making an attempt to push the question aside and simply try to swallow the slight fear rising within her. Though, it appears Constable has other intentions than to let her brush off his questions. If he asks, he expects an answer. His eyes bore into Amelia's and he watches her shrink and squirm after a minute or so before mumbling out a quiet, 'they tried to kill me.'

Her answer was as vague and obvious as she could make it, and the taller man can see through her hopes to satisfy him through such a shitty answer with ease, only leading him to push further into the matter.

"They wanted to kill you, so why do they want you dead?" His gaze is fierce and unwavering as he speaks, driving Amelia to lower her own. The ground below is interesting enough anyhow, and considering she is fairly certain that should she meet his eyes directly she will spontaneously combust. Besides, she is more than content to make something a bit more interesting on the ground to keep herself from breaking in front of him.

Unfortunately, the woman can only hold out under the pressure for so long though, and soon enough it becomes too much and she quietly supplies an answer in a voice barely more than a whisper.

"Mercinaries from Mama Morgan... An old contractor. Of mine. It was a hit. Or an attempt at one." A hollow chuckle escapes her as she tries to think on why Mama Morgan was after her. Why the usually trustworthy woman would forsake her as she apparently had, but then looking up at Constable, she spots a familiar polished star under his jacket. It was his badge. The badge she had given him, which marked him as a man of the law. The same badge he kept on him everywhere since he had gotten it. Her eyes widen as pieces begin to fall into place, putting together the image and explanation she was looking for.

And Suddenly, she understood, and with that understanding, came a swell of rage.

It was the party. The party she had begrudgingly allowed him to attend in the den, which was filled to the brim with other big criminals, including Mama Morgan herself. Amelia had invited Able into a den full of snakes and for some ungodly reason, hoped none of them would pick up on his scent and strike. She knew the badge wasn't in plain sight, for the man was far from stupid, but as she thought on it, she found herself only growing more and more angry as points made themselves clear to her.

Able was a lawman in every aspect but legal. He looked like a Constable, he sounded like a Constable, hell, he even walked and acted like one. Even if he wasn't dressed in that crisp blue jacket, there was no denying the air of confident authority that entered as he did. The air of a officer or Pinkerton. The very people criminals compete against. The very people these criminals wouldn't hesitate to kill, and Visa versa.

Amelia had led him to the vipers nest and Mama Morgan wasted no time in weeding him out amongst the rest and placing a pin on the both of them. When he chose to speak with her, as Amelia had advised against, he only added onto whatever suspicions she may have already had and confirmed them.

So thanks to her foolishness and hope that all would turn out well, she and her closest friend were both in danger. She had once again fucked things up and once again she would end up paying for it one way or another.

As her anger intensifies towards herself, she finds herself protecting onto the man who has done nothing but help her up until this point.

"Able you fool. I told you there was no place for a fucking Constable in the den of thieves and murderers. Now all you've done is poked the goddamn Hornets nest and either way, I'm going to take the fucking fall for it."

[jim-reid]

Eyewitness - The Jesus and Mary Chain Riot

John Harris / Q Mag Witness: Various Event: The Jesus And Mary Chain Riot Date: March 15, 1985 Location: North London Polytechnic

Having carefully whipped up a minor furore with their "buzzsaw pop" and fun-sized live shows, Scotland's premier Scuzzadelic oiks found themselves at the centre of - eek! - a real-life breach of public order. John Harris rounds up the culprits and gets some feedback. Neil Taylor (NME writer and first journalistic JAMC champion): The article about what happened at North London Poly was the second or third piece on the Mary Chain that I'd done in a week. I'd done a review of the show at the Three Johns pub in Islington - there were 20 people there, and a week later 200 were claiming to have gone. The piece caused quit a sensation for the band: I said they were the most exciting group I'd seen since Joy Division. I'd spent the last three years writing about English pop groups who were influenced by ideas that had this cuddly DIY outlook - The Wedding Present, Shop Assistants, BMX Bandits - and then along came this band who had a real Fuck You attitude. You could tell the potential was larger. Jim Reid (JAMC vocalist): People were waiting for something to react to. There was nothing around at the time: the early '80s was probably the lowest point in musical history. People wanted a bit of nastiness, trashiness. We kind of knew what we were up to. Some people were going to see what we were doing as genius, and some people were going to see it as an insult. Even at some of the early gigs, violence broke out. There were always people who were outraged by what we were trying to pass off as music. But North London Poly was different. It was on another scale. We were quite shocked. Alan McGee (Creation Records head honcho, then also Mary Chain manager): You've got to see it in context. Gigs now are not a threatening experience, but gigs in the mid-'80s - because it was just after punk - had this kind of football element. Once you crossed the boundaries of good taste, it just seemed to appear. Neil Taylor: What happened at North London Poly was a result of what happened at the Fire Station on the Old Kent Road - which was packed - and that was a result of what happened at the Three Johns. At the Fire Station, people were complaining that the band wouldn't talk to the audience or that they'd only played for 15 minutes. At the same time, their popularity was building - so by the time they got to North London Poly, it was quite a volatile combination. Some people actually wanted to be abused, everyone wanted to know more about it, and it just flared up. Alan McGee: Meat Whiplash went on first. Halfway through the set, Stevie, the guitar player, threw a wine bottle into the audience. He was a nutter. Somebody got on stage to belt him, but he and the rest of the band ran away, except for Eddie Connolly, the bass player. So he got socked. The next band on was the Jasmine Minks, and they went on carrying clawhammers. They wanted people to see they were tooled up. I said, "What the fuck are you doing?" and they said, "If it goes off, it goes off." So the audience had a bottle thrown at them, the second band went on with hammers... is it any wonder it all went off?

Jim Reid: We were watching what was going on from backstage. It was obvious that a bunch of people had come to cause trouble. There were a gang of people who were up for a ruck: probably people who'd read about the gig at the Three Johns. We'd heard there were people in the crowd with baseball bats. And there wasn't any security! People could get on the stage if they wanted - and there were people out there with weapons! They could just get up and pound your head in. Everyone was very uptight. Neil Spencer: I turned up with my girlfriend, just in time to see the Jasmine Minks. I was anticipating enormous problems with the audience - they crammed in all these people, and they weren't prepared for it. There was no security, no system in place to take care of what was likely to happen. It got out of control partly because of the dialogue going to and from the stage: people shouting about whether they actually were the "best band in seven years", which was a comment I'd made in my review, responding to Jim Reid's attitude, people shouting "Rubbish!", pushing and shoving. Jim Reid: I'd had enough beers to feel kind of numbed. It was definitely Dutch courage. I could see the people who'd come to cause trouble right in front of me, making gestures, saying they were going to rip my head off. I was too drunk to be scared. We played for 15 or 20 minutes, and then it was just chaos. Joe Foster (early JAMC producer, soundman, guitar tech): There were some guys at the front of the stage who pulled Jim into the crowd, with the basic intention of ending his career as a singer. I dived off stage, slapped a couple of them and jumped back up. But the college security guys wouldn't let us back up. It was like they wanted us to die! Neil Spencer: They came on. Two and a half minutes of feedback, general abuse. They started to perform, and a fight developed. They went off stage, came back on stage, the equipment got pushed off, and the police were completely incompetent. It was impossible for them to deal with it. There was no animosity towards them: they were just caught in the middle, with their helmets falling off. Joe Foster: Someone knocked a PA stack over and it all went downhill. It seemed to last forever. I remember going out front, finding all these student girlies hurling speakers at each other. Jim Reid: I think it was Pete Astor (of the Weather Prophets) who told me that there were all these Japanese girls at the back, pulling at the curtain, shouting, "Liot! Liot!" Neil Taylor: I did actually get thumped. One person came up to me and hit me, for having partially created all of it. It wasn't Chris Eubank territory, but it was a punch. I got out of there pretty quickly. Jim Reid: After we came off, we were in our dressing room, and we heard all this pounding on a door down the corridor. It was an angry mob banging on a cupboard door, thinking it was our dressing room! I remember peeking out of the door, watching these people shouting, "Get the bastards! Get the bastards!" I don't know what their problem was: maybe we played too short, maybe we went on late... maybe people had been listening to all this crap music for too long. Neil Taylor: I wrote the story. I phoned up the NME and said, "Hold pages two and three!" It was a news piece, a double page spread. Very factual. And it was great for them, because suddenly everyone was after them. They went from calling me up and coming down on the coach to having record companies fly them up and down. Joe Foster: It was after that gig that the whole riot thing seemed to take off to an incredible extent. And it made us feel that we were right to be kicking against all this crap: people saying, Ooh, Boy George is a great singer, and all that sickly stuff. You know, 2,000 rioting maniacs can't be wrong... Alan McGee: Once it went off, it was out of control. People say I hired people to start it, which is absolute rubbish. I wasn't trying to have a riot; I was 24 years old and I thought I was Malcolm McLaren. I was just having a laugh. But it changed me. Up until then, it had all been quite voyeuristic: cranking it up, seeing what happened. When it actually did go off, it was horrible. This all relates to the whole Blur/Oasis thing, actually. You know they were going to do gigs in Bournemouth on the same day? I said to Noel, "This is a very dangerous thing. I've been through this shit with the Mary Chain". The minute you start doing Blur v. Oasis in Bournemouth, you'll get football fans coming along for the fight. Jim Reid: We played the Electric Ballroom in Camden a few weeks later, and that's when it all got to be a bad joke. I think at the beginning it happened for the right reasons. It was sort of spontaneous, even though trouble was expected. By the time we played there, people were coming with copies of the NME under their arm, looking at the photos of North London Poly, like, "This is how you do it..." It took a while to get away from it. We'd keep walking on stage and being met with a shower of bottles. Funnily enough, I got beaten up about three weeks after it, by people who said they'd been there. Four or five guys beat the shit out of me at a Nick Cave gig, saying, "and if we ever see your drummer again..." Alan McGee: The Mary Chain used to regularly get their heads kicked in at that time. Them and The Birthday Party just brought out the violence in people. Neil Taylor: Was it a riot? The weekly papers referred to it as a riot, but if you go back to my piece, it's only the headline that has the word in it. But, you know, I'd say 40 people fighting is getting there. It wasn't aggression against law and order, which is what you'd usually expect a riot to be; and there wasn't that much aggression against the band: it was just something that was brought out in people by the very nature of the experience. It was all fantastically exciting.