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maidenjediTITLE: It's Bound to Scare You, Boy
FANDOM: The Stand by Stephen King
RATING: R
PAIRING: n/a
SPOILERS: the novel
DISCLAIMER: Not mine and I'm not selling.
SUMMARY: Larry Underwood and a stranger. Los Angeles, 1989.
Written for![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
ninety6tears for Yuletide 2014. Lyrics from 'Eve of Destruction' by Barry McGuire (the title, too) and 'Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?' by Stephen King.
Also on AO3.
They have poorhouses in California, too.
He had a feeling, Larry did, that what his mother meant when she said "poorhouses" was some Dickensian hellhole. She thought of a debtors' prison so rank and foul it belonged in literature, not reality. But she wasn't so far off, really, because to Larry, the California poorhouse he'd tripped into most often was indeed rank and foul and just as impossible to escape. But it came soaked in cheap bourbon whiskey and wrapped delicately in Marlboro smoke.
The only difference Larry could see was that here, one paid one's dues and received in return a Pabst or a Miller Lite, maybe whiskey neat if it'd been a good week in tips. One could hide, maybe, sitting at the bar, back to the world. Pretend that it was a nicer joint, even for a moment, and that was worth something, Larry guessed. But turn around, open one's eyes, and reality smacked one right across the kisser.
Of all the gin joints in the world, this was the sleaziest. And Larry knew from sleazy.
On that particular winter night, he was drinking the usual, a cold longneck of no distinction. The tips that week had been shit. He'd done some solo work at a joint one step up from a strip club, without the class. It was alright, it paid and that was what mattered these days. He'd been trying to write, something that the Tattered Remnants could use if they got picked up for a few gigs, but it'd been six months (no, longer, closer to a year if Larry was honest) and the well was pretty damn dry.
And so he came here, for no reason at all except that the beer was cold and the company nearly non-existent. He wasn't feeling social, you could say.
The bartender passed Larry a second beer before the first one was properly disposed of. Larry tipped the fresh longneck in the man's direction without shifting his gaze.
When the jukebox was turned on, there was a barely audible collective groan from the regulars. No one came here to listen to pop music. If anything, they came to escape it.
Larry only sighed inwardly as Barry McGuire's scratchy voice flooded the room. Fucking cheerful, wasn't it.
He might have been able to just tune it out altogether, but lo, a nearly empty bar with plenty of seats, and the stranger who undoubtedly plugged his quarter in that godforsaken machine sat right next to Larry. Humming along, even.
Singing along.
"And you...tell me...over and over and over again my friend....ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction."
Larry avoided turning around and spitting on the dude's shoes or something equally uncouth. But only just. He stared ahead, drank his beer. Considered the wisdom of leaving it there on the bar, half gone, just to get away from the guy.
The song went on, and the stranger hummed over the rim of his whiskey on the rocks. He piped up again to sing just one line.
"You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace."
Larry wasn't so annoyed that he didn't notice how the guy's pitch, even the scratch in his singing voice, matched Barry McGuire's almost perfectly. It was enough to get him to glance sideways, quickly, to make sure the man himself hadn't materialized. And it wasn't him, of course.
Just a stranger.
The song ended, and the very walls seemed to heave a sigh of relief. Silence returned, uninterrupted but for the click at the pool table as the eight ball sunk.
Larry polished off his beer with one final swig. He was about to pull out his wallet when the stranger spoke.
"Another one. On me."
Now what the hell.
Larry turned and refused. "I'm done for the night, thanks."
"Oh come on. I insist. I heard you play, two nights ago, at the Revue. Consider this a delayed tip."
When it came down to it, Larry was creeped right the fuck out and he knew, he did, that he ought just adios the hell out of the place. He didn't move, though, as here was a chance for a free beer, and he had nowhere to be, and three beers wouldn't be enough to lower his guard if the guy turned psycho on him.
"Okay," he said.
They drank in silence, which Larry didn't expect, though the ambiance made up for it. A couple of guys had started another pool game behind them. Click, smack. Another one sunk, and another. A peel of drunken laughter, in concert with someone's timely snort-cackle, came from another corner. A patron down the bar asked if the television worked, for fuck's sake, because the Lakers were playing. The Lakers, man!
He got a better look at the stranger, now his apparent companion. Young. Longish hair that reminded Larry very forcefully of Jim Morrison. A blue jean jacket with one of those ubiquitous smiley face buttons on the lapel.
A pretty non-descript, normal-looking person. Except for maybe the boots. Pointed-toe, black, scuffed. Larry stared down at them, almost fascinated at the creases lined with fine road dust.
He blinked, hard, and went back to his beer. He was just about done and ready to thank the guy and move on with his night when the stranger spoke.
"I've had better whiskey."
Larry shrugged. "Yeah, well. It's whiskey, right?"
"Yeah." The stranger drained his glass. "Does the trick, whatever that is." He scratched his cheek and Larry noticed a ring on his hand, a plain band and a black stone. Nicer than anyone else in this joint could probably afford.
Larry couldn't help himself. "What brought you here, since the whiskey leaves much to be desired?"
"Just in town on business. Thought I'd get an idea of the local flavor."
Larry was certain that was a double entendre. Couldn't be anything else on this side of town; L.A. boasted much better places for people to "sample the local flavor." And now he was seriously wondering if by taking the drink, he'd been saying yes to a whole lot more.
The stranger kept talking. "You ever play any place better than the Revue?"
That forced a smirk onto Larry's face. "Yeah. Occasionally."
"Good to know. That place is a rat hole. You're better than that. Anyone ever tell you so?"
They had. Many times. Rudy used to say....well. What did it matter what Rudy said.
Larry just shrugged. "Been better times. Will be again."
The stranger grinned, a creepy, false grin that made Larry's skin crawl. "You never know."
They sat silently again for a minute, and Larry flagged the bartender to settle his own tab. The stranger ordered a second whiskey.
"You didn't play anything original the other night."
"I don't, at places like that." Why the hell was he talking to this guy? He should really just leave, now he was settled up. But he kept going. "I don't have anything really new, either. Been stuck in a rut, writer's block or some kind of shit like that."
"Yeah, I've been there. In a rut. That's a good way of putting it."
"Do you play?"
Because he sounded like Barry McGuire and he looked like Jim Morrison. Just a little. Around the edges.
"Nah. Sang some in school is all." And now the stranger looked serious, frowning down at his hands. "I think."
Larry felt uncomfortable. What the hell was this? "Listen, I need to...."
The stranger looked up and Larry looked right into his eyes. Not for long, but in that moment Larry felt very much afraid.
There was nothing there, in that blue gaze. It was cold. So damn cold.
The jukebox started up again, the same Barry McGuire tune, as though the machine refused to play anything else. Someone must have decided they liked the place better with a little background noise to drown out. The lyrics didn't seem to give the stranger the same energy they had before. He shut his eyes, and whispered a line.
"And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'..."
By this time, the bartender was watching them, and looked at Larry and hooked a thumb toward the stranger. Larry shrugged. You got me.
The stranger shook his head a little, as if to clear it. He waved his hand at Larry. "Oh, hey, never mind. I just recognized you and figured hey, why not, you know?" The grin was back. Larry was fixated on it. "Gotta get goin' myself. Lots to do." He drained his glass in one swallow, and reached for his wallet, dropped what looked like a one-hundred dollar bill on the counter.
"What kind of business?" Larry, for fuck's sake, what are you doing?
The stranger's grin stretched wider. "A little of this, a little of that. I'm in the people business, I guess you could say."
Larry really did not want to know.
"Well, thanks, uh, for the beer."
"Anytime, Larry. Anytime."
Larry turned and tried very hard not to run. He tripped a little at the door, nearly fell onto a woman dressed just as scantily as she could get away with under the law. She laughed at him, pushed him away. "Uh-uh, boy, I don't dig that shit. You gotta cough up the dough first." And she laughed again, high as a kite, and pushed past him into the bar. The door was stuck open and Larry heard someone shout to her as she entered the room. "Can you dig it? Can you dig yo man, honey?"
She answered in the affirmative and laughed, and someone finally came over and swung the door shut.
Larry straightened up and walked away. He was far from drunk, but felt ill. The feeling nearly overcame him at the corner as he waited for the traffic to clear so he could cross - he actually doubled over - but as he walked, it faded.
He started humming to distract himself. He got through half the Creedence he knew by heart before he'd chased away the remnants of "Eve of Destruction."
Los Angeles shouted and screamed around him; it wasn't late, the night was really just getting started. It was warm for January, something Larry hadn't really gotten used to even in all the time he'd been here. New York would be fucking cold, he thought, but everyone'd be out anyway. The last winter he'd been there, he and Rudy'd taken their girls out for one of those tourist trap buggy rides in Central Park, and they were cold alright, but Larry sang for them all at the top of his lungs and his girl had put her hand high on his thigh and they were all laughing, even Rudy was laughing and Larry concentrated on that remembered sound and nearly drowned out every song lyric that threatened to spring to mind and drive him mad.
The nausea was gone when he reached his building.
He fumbled a little with the key, and the extra seconds outside were enough for Larry to think about how dark it was over here, and how the alley was six or seven feet to his left, and how they had rats here, too, even in L.A. But then the door opened and he was washed in light and the rats mattered not at all.
He felt a little mad.
He walked in, saw the elevator opening and a woman stepping in, and he called to her to hold it open.
By the time the elevator doors closed, the only thing on Larry's mind was a tune he'd never heard. He hummed it, trying it out. It was new - it didn't belong to Barry McGuire or John Fogerty or Don Henley - and it was coming to him easily.
A little madness never hurt.
The woman standing next to him smiled. "That's nice. What is it?"
He hummed it again. The elevator came to a stop at his floor, which was apparently her floor. How nice.
"Don't know yet," he said to her as he reached to hold the door for her. "Dig it?" He hummed again, confident in the notes this time and louder.
She walked down the hall a few steps, humming back at him. She swung around, her skirt lifting up just enough to get the imagination going, and smiled at him. "Oh, yes." And she winked at him before continuing her trek down the hall.
Larry went to his own apartment, cracked open the last beer in his fridge, and sat down to write.
By the next morning, his encounter with the stranger seemed to him to be a bad dream.
-
"I know I didn't say I was comin' down, I know you didn't know I was here in town, but bay-yay-yaby you can tell me if anyone can.... Like that. What do you think?"
It was a practice session with the Tattered Remnants. Larry sang through the lyrics to his new song a couple more times for them, hoping to get it in the set for their upcoming Berkeley gig.
Barry Grieg nodded. "I like it. I think we can round it out a little, add some bass." Larry grinned. Barry always wanted to add more bass. And Larry was fine with that, just fine, because here was the first new song he'd written in longer than he cared to remember, and it was gonna get played and heard.
They ran through practice, mostly original stuff except for the kind of thing the club in Berkeley had requested, 60s stuff.
"Eve of Destruction," Barry said, tapping his foot to start them off.
Larry felt his stomach drop and he sang, but badly. It took an hour more of practice before Larry could sing it. He couldn't think why he was fucking it up, but he got over it. Kind of.
The next night, they played "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?" and the crowd was loud and appreciative. Barry shot a thumbs-up at Larry. Larry grinned and turned back to the mic to finish the set, feeling like he owned the world, or at least this part of it.
--
In the audience, a young-ish man with flawless skin and dark eyes tapped his foot to the music and hummed along through most of the set. He was unobtrusive; hardly anyone noticed him, unless they had the misfortune to brush against him, and feel a deep, sick foreboding for the rest of the evening for no reason whatsoever.
He had that effect on people.
Like everyone in the joint, when Larry sang the bridge to "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?" this particular audience member stood up and hollered his appreciation. But it was later, at the end of the set, that the man known in Los Angeles as Remy Francouer really got into the music. He sang along, a dark and glittering grin on his face, and as he looked out at the crowd surrounding him, he wondered if any of them felt the way he did that night. Like it was the night before Christmas and you still believed in Santa Claus. The hour before your first real date with that girl who might, maybe, probably let you touch her tits if you were polite enough and charming enough. When you're called in for what you think is a dressing down but you get a raise and a promotion instead. The day before the first day of your senior year, and then the very last day.
Don't you understand what I'm tryin' to say, can't you feel the fears I'm feelin' today? If the button is pushed, there's no runnin' away, there'll be no one to save, with the world in a grave....
It was coming.
FANDOM: The Stand by Stephen King
RATING: R
PAIRING: n/a
SPOILERS: the novel
DISCLAIMER: Not mine and I'm not selling.
SUMMARY: Larry Underwood and a stranger. Los Angeles, 1989.
Written for
Also on AO3.
They have poorhouses in California, too.
He had a feeling, Larry did, that what his mother meant when she said "poorhouses" was some Dickensian hellhole. She thought of a debtors' prison so rank and foul it belonged in literature, not reality. But she wasn't so far off, really, because to Larry, the California poorhouse he'd tripped into most often was indeed rank and foul and just as impossible to escape. But it came soaked in cheap bourbon whiskey and wrapped delicately in Marlboro smoke.
The only difference Larry could see was that here, one paid one's dues and received in return a Pabst or a Miller Lite, maybe whiskey neat if it'd been a good week in tips. One could hide, maybe, sitting at the bar, back to the world. Pretend that it was a nicer joint, even for a moment, and that was worth something, Larry guessed. But turn around, open one's eyes, and reality smacked one right across the kisser.
Of all the gin joints in the world, this was the sleaziest. And Larry knew from sleazy.
On that particular winter night, he was drinking the usual, a cold longneck of no distinction. The tips that week had been shit. He'd done some solo work at a joint one step up from a strip club, without the class. It was alright, it paid and that was what mattered these days. He'd been trying to write, something that the Tattered Remnants could use if they got picked up for a few gigs, but it'd been six months (no, longer, closer to a year if Larry was honest) and the well was pretty damn dry.
And so he came here, for no reason at all except that the beer was cold and the company nearly non-existent. He wasn't feeling social, you could say.
The bartender passed Larry a second beer before the first one was properly disposed of. Larry tipped the fresh longneck in the man's direction without shifting his gaze.
When the jukebox was turned on, there was a barely audible collective groan from the regulars. No one came here to listen to pop music. If anything, they came to escape it.
Larry only sighed inwardly as Barry McGuire's scratchy voice flooded the room. Fucking cheerful, wasn't it.
He might have been able to just tune it out altogether, but lo, a nearly empty bar with plenty of seats, and the stranger who undoubtedly plugged his quarter in that godforsaken machine sat right next to Larry. Humming along, even.
Singing along.
"And you...tell me...over and over and over again my friend....ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction."
Larry avoided turning around and spitting on the dude's shoes or something equally uncouth. But only just. He stared ahead, drank his beer. Considered the wisdom of leaving it there on the bar, half gone, just to get away from the guy.
The song went on, and the stranger hummed over the rim of his whiskey on the rocks. He piped up again to sing just one line.
"You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace."
Larry wasn't so annoyed that he didn't notice how the guy's pitch, even the scratch in his singing voice, matched Barry McGuire's almost perfectly. It was enough to get him to glance sideways, quickly, to make sure the man himself hadn't materialized. And it wasn't him, of course.
Just a stranger.
The song ended, and the very walls seemed to heave a sigh of relief. Silence returned, uninterrupted but for the click at the pool table as the eight ball sunk.
Larry polished off his beer with one final swig. He was about to pull out his wallet when the stranger spoke.
"Another one. On me."
Now what the hell.
Larry turned and refused. "I'm done for the night, thanks."
"Oh come on. I insist. I heard you play, two nights ago, at the Revue. Consider this a delayed tip."
When it came down to it, Larry was creeped right the fuck out and he knew, he did, that he ought just adios the hell out of the place. He didn't move, though, as here was a chance for a free beer, and he had nowhere to be, and three beers wouldn't be enough to lower his guard if the guy turned psycho on him.
"Okay," he said.
They drank in silence, which Larry didn't expect, though the ambiance made up for it. A couple of guys had started another pool game behind them. Click, smack. Another one sunk, and another. A peel of drunken laughter, in concert with someone's timely snort-cackle, came from another corner. A patron down the bar asked if the television worked, for fuck's sake, because the Lakers were playing. The Lakers, man!
He got a better look at the stranger, now his apparent companion. Young. Longish hair that reminded Larry very forcefully of Jim Morrison. A blue jean jacket with one of those ubiquitous smiley face buttons on the lapel.
A pretty non-descript, normal-looking person. Except for maybe the boots. Pointed-toe, black, scuffed. Larry stared down at them, almost fascinated at the creases lined with fine road dust.
He blinked, hard, and went back to his beer. He was just about done and ready to thank the guy and move on with his night when the stranger spoke.
"I've had better whiskey."
Larry shrugged. "Yeah, well. It's whiskey, right?"
"Yeah." The stranger drained his glass. "Does the trick, whatever that is." He scratched his cheek and Larry noticed a ring on his hand, a plain band and a black stone. Nicer than anyone else in this joint could probably afford.
Larry couldn't help himself. "What brought you here, since the whiskey leaves much to be desired?"
"Just in town on business. Thought I'd get an idea of the local flavor."
Larry was certain that was a double entendre. Couldn't be anything else on this side of town; L.A. boasted much better places for people to "sample the local flavor." And now he was seriously wondering if by taking the drink, he'd been saying yes to a whole lot more.
The stranger kept talking. "You ever play any place better than the Revue?"
That forced a smirk onto Larry's face. "Yeah. Occasionally."
"Good to know. That place is a rat hole. You're better than that. Anyone ever tell you so?"
They had. Many times. Rudy used to say....well. What did it matter what Rudy said.
Larry just shrugged. "Been better times. Will be again."
The stranger grinned, a creepy, false grin that made Larry's skin crawl. "You never know."
They sat silently again for a minute, and Larry flagged the bartender to settle his own tab. The stranger ordered a second whiskey.
"You didn't play anything original the other night."
"I don't, at places like that." Why the hell was he talking to this guy? He should really just leave, now he was settled up. But he kept going. "I don't have anything really new, either. Been stuck in a rut, writer's block or some kind of shit like that."
"Yeah, I've been there. In a rut. That's a good way of putting it."
"Do you play?"
Because he sounded like Barry McGuire and he looked like Jim Morrison. Just a little. Around the edges.
"Nah. Sang some in school is all." And now the stranger looked serious, frowning down at his hands. "I think."
Larry felt uncomfortable. What the hell was this? "Listen, I need to...."
The stranger looked up and Larry looked right into his eyes. Not for long, but in that moment Larry felt very much afraid.
There was nothing there, in that blue gaze. It was cold. So damn cold.
The jukebox started up again, the same Barry McGuire tune, as though the machine refused to play anything else. Someone must have decided they liked the place better with a little background noise to drown out. The lyrics didn't seem to give the stranger the same energy they had before. He shut his eyes, and whispered a line.
"And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'..."
By this time, the bartender was watching them, and looked at Larry and hooked a thumb toward the stranger. Larry shrugged. You got me.
The stranger shook his head a little, as if to clear it. He waved his hand at Larry. "Oh, hey, never mind. I just recognized you and figured hey, why not, you know?" The grin was back. Larry was fixated on it. "Gotta get goin' myself. Lots to do." He drained his glass in one swallow, and reached for his wallet, dropped what looked like a one-hundred dollar bill on the counter.
"What kind of business?" Larry, for fuck's sake, what are you doing?
The stranger's grin stretched wider. "A little of this, a little of that. I'm in the people business, I guess you could say."
Larry really did not want to know.
"Well, thanks, uh, for the beer."
"Anytime, Larry. Anytime."
Larry turned and tried very hard not to run. He tripped a little at the door, nearly fell onto a woman dressed just as scantily as she could get away with under the law. She laughed at him, pushed him away. "Uh-uh, boy, I don't dig that shit. You gotta cough up the dough first." And she laughed again, high as a kite, and pushed past him into the bar. The door was stuck open and Larry heard someone shout to her as she entered the room. "Can you dig it? Can you dig yo man, honey?"
She answered in the affirmative and laughed, and someone finally came over and swung the door shut.
Larry straightened up and walked away. He was far from drunk, but felt ill. The feeling nearly overcame him at the corner as he waited for the traffic to clear so he could cross - he actually doubled over - but as he walked, it faded.
He started humming to distract himself. He got through half the Creedence he knew by heart before he'd chased away the remnants of "Eve of Destruction."
Los Angeles shouted and screamed around him; it wasn't late, the night was really just getting started. It was warm for January, something Larry hadn't really gotten used to even in all the time he'd been here. New York would be fucking cold, he thought, but everyone'd be out anyway. The last winter he'd been there, he and Rudy'd taken their girls out for one of those tourist trap buggy rides in Central Park, and they were cold alright, but Larry sang for them all at the top of his lungs and his girl had put her hand high on his thigh and they were all laughing, even Rudy was laughing and Larry concentrated on that remembered sound and nearly drowned out every song lyric that threatened to spring to mind and drive him mad.
The nausea was gone when he reached his building.
He fumbled a little with the key, and the extra seconds outside were enough for Larry to think about how dark it was over here, and how the alley was six or seven feet to his left, and how they had rats here, too, even in L.A. But then the door opened and he was washed in light and the rats mattered not at all.
He felt a little mad.
He walked in, saw the elevator opening and a woman stepping in, and he called to her to hold it open.
By the time the elevator doors closed, the only thing on Larry's mind was a tune he'd never heard. He hummed it, trying it out. It was new - it didn't belong to Barry McGuire or John Fogerty or Don Henley - and it was coming to him easily.
A little madness never hurt.
The woman standing next to him smiled. "That's nice. What is it?"
He hummed it again. The elevator came to a stop at his floor, which was apparently her floor. How nice.
"Don't know yet," he said to her as he reached to hold the door for her. "Dig it?" He hummed again, confident in the notes this time and louder.
She walked down the hall a few steps, humming back at him. She swung around, her skirt lifting up just enough to get the imagination going, and smiled at him. "Oh, yes." And she winked at him before continuing her trek down the hall.
Larry went to his own apartment, cracked open the last beer in his fridge, and sat down to write.
By the next morning, his encounter with the stranger seemed to him to be a bad dream.
-
"I know I didn't say I was comin' down, I know you didn't know I was here in town, but bay-yay-yaby you can tell me if anyone can.... Like that. What do you think?"
It was a practice session with the Tattered Remnants. Larry sang through the lyrics to his new song a couple more times for them, hoping to get it in the set for their upcoming Berkeley gig.
Barry Grieg nodded. "I like it. I think we can round it out a little, add some bass." Larry grinned. Barry always wanted to add more bass. And Larry was fine with that, just fine, because here was the first new song he'd written in longer than he cared to remember, and it was gonna get played and heard.
They ran through practice, mostly original stuff except for the kind of thing the club in Berkeley had requested, 60s stuff.
"Eve of Destruction," Barry said, tapping his foot to start them off.
Larry felt his stomach drop and he sang, but badly. It took an hour more of practice before Larry could sing it. He couldn't think why he was fucking it up, but he got over it. Kind of.
The next night, they played "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?" and the crowd was loud and appreciative. Barry shot a thumbs-up at Larry. Larry grinned and turned back to the mic to finish the set, feeling like he owned the world, or at least this part of it.
--
In the audience, a young-ish man with flawless skin and dark eyes tapped his foot to the music and hummed along through most of the set. He was unobtrusive; hardly anyone noticed him, unless they had the misfortune to brush against him, and feel a deep, sick foreboding for the rest of the evening for no reason whatsoever.
He had that effect on people.
Like everyone in the joint, when Larry sang the bridge to "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?" this particular audience member stood up and hollered his appreciation. But it was later, at the end of the set, that the man known in Los Angeles as Remy Francouer really got into the music. He sang along, a dark and glittering grin on his face, and as he looked out at the crowd surrounding him, he wondered if any of them felt the way he did that night. Like it was the night before Christmas and you still believed in Santa Claus. The hour before your first real date with that girl who might, maybe, probably let you touch her tits if you were polite enough and charming enough. When you're called in for what you think is a dressing down but you get a raise and a promotion instead. The day before the first day of your senior year, and then the very last day.
Don't you understand what I'm tryin' to say, can't you feel the fears I'm feelin' today? If the button is pushed, there's no runnin' away, there'll be no one to save, with the world in a grave....
It was coming.
