We hadn't seen any of the guys from the band recently, and we had been wondering when they would be playing again.

"Oh, man! Are they headlining?!" I exclaimed.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Like A Dog. They're playing NoWay Home. Tonight!"

"No shit?"

"No shit. It says right there."

Jack crouched down. "Ah, yeah! Cool."

Like A Dog were some guys we knew from high school. They were a postpunk-type punk band, which, yeah, is pretty vague. They mainly played a slightly deranged guitar pop, twisting bouncy tunes, juxtaposing them with melancholy lyrics. They gigged at the smaller, seedier clubs around town, sometimes underground parties, trying to build their name. NoWay Home was the best club. They played all the different kinds of music punk had become. Thrash, rave, ska, goth, techno-all the disparate channels punk had traveled. Punk was the only real word. "New Wave" wasn't new anymore. "College" and "Alternative" were too self-conscious, too music journalist. We were punk. We were attitude. We were agony.

The rest of the day after that was tedious. It was Thursday, and on Thursdays we got the new comics for the week. This meant that we had to stay late so we could sort them out of their boxes, put them in alphabetical order, and set them up on the display racks. This meant, too, that we had to move last week's new comics from the new rack and into the recent rack, while also removing comics from the recent rack and setting them aside to be filed in the back issue bins. This was all so that the fans could come in on Friday morning and get the latest issues of their favorite titles. They may have gotten their fix right away, making them all blissful and happy, but it made my life hell. There were a couple of comics shops on Melrose and that made for rough competition. Normally, I only worked the morning through evening, and that was on Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursdays were tough. I got there when the store opened and stayed after it closed. Thankfully, I had Fridays off and didn't have to deal with the onslaught, and the rest of the week was pretty light. I could spend most of the days just reading comics and listening to the radio.

When I got off that night, Jack was waiting for me outside the store. He worked pasting up posters around town. I could tell he had gone home and showered. He smelled like cheap soap, not paste, and he didn't have crusty white streaks on his face and hands. When I said, "Hello," he handed me an envelope.

"We got mail today," he said.

The envelope had been carelessly ripped across the top. I took the letter out and opened it. The paper was an off-white color, and the texture was gritty. It had the blue masthead of a real estate company. It said they had bought our apartment building. We had until the first of the year to find a new place to live.

"Oh, my God," I said. "They can't . . ."

"Yeah, they can," Jack said. "It's finished, and there's nothing we can do about it."

"But the apartment . . . it's ours."

"There's nothing we can do, Mason." Jack stuck his hands in his pockets and stepped out of the doorway onto the sidewalk. "No sense worrying about it now. January is six months away. We'll deal with it when the time comes."

He took the letter back, crumpled it up, and threw it into the street.

"Come on," he said.

There may have been no sense worrying about it, but all the way to the club, I couldn't get it out of my head. Jack and I had gotten that place when we graduated. We saved money from jobs and stockpiled graduation checks from relatives we didn't know and put down first and last month's rent and the deposit. I had thought we would stay there forever. Or at least long enough to make it a real home. We had only been there a year. That wasn't enough. We'd barely had enough time to figure out what posters we wanted where.

A car came whining around the corner. An orange Gremlin. Its tailpipe spit and made a loud BANG! Jack howled and stuck his arms up in the air, as if in victory. "Yeahhhhh!" He loved the sudden noise. He loved the surprise of it. I laughed at his excitement and forgot my worries.

"Hey, wanna hear a joke?" he asked.

"Sure."

"What do you call a lesbian dinosaur?"

"What?"

"A Lick-a-lot-o'-puss."

"Gawd."

"Ha!"

Jack punched me in the arm and skipped ahead. I chased after him and we ran down the street screaming and kicking at trash and generally being nuts.

When we got to NoWay Home, the line was halfway down the block. The bouncer at the door was new, and that was slowing things up. It took us almost half an hour to get to the front. Usually, we didn't have to flash I.D. to get in, either, because we went often enough that the guys normally running things knew us. As per usual, Jack walked in no problem, but the new guy pushed me in the chest and said, "Where's your I.D.?"

"Hey, man, let him in," Jack demanded. "He's old enough."

"He don't look no eighteen to me," the bouncer said. "He looks more like twelve."

"What's holding it up?" someone shouted from the back of the line.

"Hey! It's Jailbate. Hey, Jailbate? Wha'samatter? Tell 'em you just want milk in your bottle."

It was Steve and Burton, some guys we hung around with sometimes.

"Hey, shut your face!" Jack yelled at them.

"Here, here, I got my driver's license," I said. "Look . . . I'm nineteen, okay?"

The bouncer took the card from me. "Is it real?" He smirked.

Jack shoved him in the shoulder. "Yeah, it's real. Let him in, you pud."

"Don't be pushing me."

"It's real! It's real! I'm nineteen."

The line was getting restless. It pushed forward, sucked together, all heads and eyes down on me. People started grumbling. Mumbling. Someone was going to kick my ass, someone was going to do it to the bouncer, a third would take us both. "Baby with the bathwater!" Burton jeered. "Baby with the bathwater!"

"I think I'm going to keep this," the bouncer said. "It's fake."

"Like hell!" Jack exclaimed. "Give him his fuckin' I.D.!" Jack's face was turning all red, and his fists were opening and closing instinctively.

"Dude, just give me my license and I'll go away, all right?"

"No, Mason. You're coming' in. You always come here. Just 'cause this pud . . ."

"Jack . . ."

Somebody threw a bottle, and it popped against the wall above the bouncer's head. He stood up and looked around. "Who threw that?" he shouted. "Who was it?" His lips were pursed.

"Shut the fuck up, asshole," somebody replied.

"Look, no one's gettin' in till I'm ready . . ."

"Eat dick."

By this time, Lenny, the head bouncer, had noticed something was going on and came outside. "What's up out here?"

"I don't believe this kid's I.D. is real, Lenny," the new guy said.

"This kid?" Lenny asked.

The new guy nodded.

"I've been letting this kid in for almost a year now. I think I would have noticed a long time ago if his I.D. was fake. Don't you?"

Lenny was a veteran bouncer. He had worked at CBGBs when it was hoppin' in the early eighties and, most recently, The Whiskey on Sunset. He was fired from there for beating up Axl Rose before Guns 'n' Roses hit it big. Axl kept pissing on the floor backstage, and, after several warnings, Lenny let him have it. When Axl got famous, he also got Lenny canned. Not long after, Lenny's brother opened NoWay Home, and Lenny took over things there. Me and Jack sometimes came early and listened to him talk about being a roadie for Sid Vicious and breaking up pits at Germs shows.

"Sorry, Mason," Lenny said. "New guy. Bouncing always boosts the testosterone when a guy's starting out. Makes 'im dumb."

"'s okay," I said.

I snatched my card from the guy's hand. I stuck my tongue out at him and waltzed inside.

About half the club was already full. People were dancing to Public Image Ltd. and beginning their search for the cool confines of oblivion at the bar. Jack and I went straight to the stage to grab a spot on the barricade. Waiting, we compulsively hunched over-both because we were used to having hordes of people at our backs during shows and because NoWay seemed to be designed to make you feel like you had something heavy on your shoulders. The walls were slanted in, and the ceiling was domed. Below it were fat beams-practically whole trees-that criss-crossed one another, creating a dizzying web of wood. Ropes were wound around the beams, their ends dangling down toward us. Some nights, when I looked up through the web, I thought maybe I saw shapes of things moving around up there, but they always moved too quickly for me to catch focus.

The walls were covered with layer upon layer of music posters and flyers and ads from fashion magazines, one pasted up over the other, another over it, constantly changing as new things came in, were ripped out, and taped up. Lights were few and dim. Darkness was the ambience. The goal was doom. The place smelled like cigarettes and incense, and when it was empty, it was very cold.

People filed in, filling the dance floor, crowding the bar. More die-hards came to the stage and packed up against us. It was beginning to warm up. By the end of the show, we'd be covered with sweat and ready to pass out. By then, though, the heat wouldn't be oppressive any longer. There was freedom. The music. We could let go. I could. It was just me and the music, if I liked. No one else mattered.

The DJ played The Dead Kennedys' "Holiday in Cambodia," and the pit moshed and slammed wild. The crowd was getting restless because it was a quarter after nine and still no band. After I took someone's elbow against my ear, Jack moved behind me and became my shield. Few dared to slam into Jack, and the ones that did were slammed back, usually not making their way back over again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see guys leaving the ground, being tossed up into the air by their friends or leaping off of somebody's shoulders. Some would fly over and land on top of the crowd, rolling over heads and bending necks till someone would finally get mad and throw them back down or just break under the weight. I always hated doing that. You got people hitting you and hands where you didn't want. If Jack wasn't around, guys bigger than me would lift me and throw me up there. Once I got sucked down into the pit and couldn't get out. All I could see were people's legs, their jeans pressed against my face, stepping on my hands with their boots. I screamed and screamed and finally got to my feet and shoved my way out. The guys who had tossed me saw me, laughed, and threw me up again.

Since the stage was empty, some of the punks decided to expand the dance floor. They climbed up and pogoed around and gloated, flipping everyone the bird and hocking gobs at us. The bouncers came out and took their positions behind the barricade. They grabbed at the punks on the stage, who dove over the bouncers' heads and into the crowd before anyone could nab them. They turned it into a game, climbing up again and diving out, flirting with being 86d from the club. One time, a guy tried to stage dive, but the crowd scattered. He dropped like an overturned rocket and smashed hard into the floor with his face. Blood spurted in every direction, and his nose caved in, and when he got to his feet, there were a few teeth on the floor. He just started slamming some more, blood running down his face and onto his chest. There was no pain. There was no care. Only the music. Only the drive-the grind of guitars and the pound of the drums, propelling him forward, throwing us all ahead.

After The Dead Kennedys, they played Fishbone's "UGLY." Then Like A Dog came out. We were surprised because we had expected On Your Last Nerve to open because they were on the bottom of the poster. Yet, hearing the familiar strains of their opening song, a charge shot through me. Anticipation. Like the moment after you hear the rumbling of thunder and you wait for that flash . . .

The band came on without their singer. Enshrouded in darkness and dry ice, they began to play. The music was slow at first. Acoustic guitar, a light brush against the cymbals, faint keyboards. Then came a great surge as guitars flared up and Mike pounded down on the drums. On cue, the lights came on. Tristan, who had slipped out after the rest, was there at the microphone. He enjoyed the mystique, sneaking out last, cloaked in the black, to magically appear in the spotlight-each time a revelation-his slender form in place, wide shoulders leading down in a diagonal direction, like a knife blade, to the edge of his cuffed, black jeans. White T-shirt gave way to pale, skinny arms. A long face and coif of hair-sandy blonde bangs rising from his forehead and cresting over like a wave. He had on small, round sunglasses, and I wondered if his eyes were closed behind them.

The music was swirling around Tristan, and he paused, waited a second, stood in it. Then he reached out and held the microphone with both hands, leaning forward, tilting the stand toward us, and then whispering, singing, thrusting out his life-his words. Over and over,

The words were far back inside me. I could feel them. It sounds stupid when I say that . . . but I could. His words. Words that come into you soft and leaving their mark without you realizing it. Words that crawl under the covers of your mind without waking you, letting you know they are there by little, gentle taps on your ears, touching ever so slightly, but enough. Tristan's pain fell from him. Pain I understood. Pain he and I alone shared.

I guess it was what confession must be like. Only I didn't have to say anything to be cleansed.

Behind us, the crowd was growing even more restless. This wasn't going to placate them. They wanted to slam hard, but the music was too soft. They began to shove to the front, smashing the Dog fans-or Doggies, as I called them-who had gathered there. Angry boys started shouting things over our heads. "C'mon! Move it!" "What fuckin' is this?" "You pussies!" They gave Tristan the finger and spit at him. The band took a couple of steps back, except for Tristan, who stayed. Tristan persevered. He had to give the words.

After fifteen minutes, Lenny's brother, George, pulled the plug, and they brought out UFOria. The audience had gotten too hostile. Lenny had to come out to help hold the moshers back, and they were about to pull the guys from the doors. Leaving the stage, Tristan's head hung low.

UFOria was a hardcore band, and the crowd got excited and screamed and yelled and started to really mosh. Jack and I stayed for the beginning of the set. It was all pretty basic, nothing special, but the punks in the pit trampled over the top of it like it was the best thing they'd ever heard. A guy with a mohawk sailed above everyone, holding himself straight, spinning like a drill. He came down and people crumbled beneath him. I saw a few of the Doggies-girls mostly-ripped from the barricade. One girl clung to it and refused to let go. The punks grabbed her by the ankles and tugged as hard as they could, scraping the skin from her hands and releasing her into the shuffle. A skinhead got shoved into the empty space she left behind, hitting the barricade so hard that he almost puked his guts. He was bent over and coughing, and I thought blood would squirt from his eyes, his face was so red and contorted and horrid.

But no matter how violent or mean the pit got, or how many people ended up bloodied and broken, Jack was not shaken once.

Bored, we left the pit and went to the backstage door. We were permanently on the guest list.

The backstage was accessed through a drafty brick corridor covered in graffiti. There was one central room with a couch and a TV, and it was full of guys from bands lounging around smoking and drinking. A few people had scribbled their philosophical and poetic breakthroughs on the walls, probably etched at the moment of enlightenment, when whatever they were on really kicked in. Mike Ness and Dennis Danell had signed their names next to a drawing of the Social Distortion skeleton; John Doe had put in his hancock; Lux Interior wrote something foul about young girls and heavy artillery. Tristan had even lent his hand, composing many couplets directly on the brick, a lot of throwaway phrases like "Perversity is the better part of squalor" and "Taste the Plague." His pockets were always filled with scraps of paper, all containing quickly jotted thoughts, lines, sayings. His room was littered with them. He was constantly writing. Every time I saw him, he'd be grabbing something and scribbling down words. He just had to get it out, he told me, just had to get it out so he could move on to the next one.

Sean, Like A Dog's keyboard player, was on the couch watching "Green Acres" with one of the members of On Your Last Nerve. Tristan was standing in the corner, staring blankly at the tube.

"Jailbate! Jack!" Sean said. "What'd you think of the show?"

"Short," Jack said.

"But intense," I added, sneaking a look at Tristan. He didn't visibly acknowledge whether he was listening or not, his glasses fixed and unwavering, the image of the TV shimmering across his lenses.

"No shit." Sean half rose up off the couch. He was getting incensed. "'Too rowdy,' they said. We said, 'No shit, they're a punk crowd.' They said, 'But rowdy in the wrong kind of way. We were scared they'd hurt you. We were scared they'd damage the equipment.' Well, it's their own fucking fault for putting us on a bill with thrash bands. They always put us on bills with thrash bands. We don't belong there."

"It's your name," the Nerve guy said. "Like A Dog. It says beat me. Hurt me. It says thrash. You've gotta change the name."

"No name change," Tristan blurted out. "Name stays the same. Like. A. Dog."

End of argument.

The name issue was a sore spot for Tristan. One day, I had found him in Johnny Rocket's on Melrose. He was at the counter, head in his hands, elbows propped on a stack of flyers for a show. He looked despondent. I sat next to him.

"What's up?" I'd asked.

"They want to change the name of the band," he said. "Everyone says nobody understands it. They all misinterpret it. But it's Kafka. It's from Kafka. They tell me nobody reads Kafka. I can't be expected to change the name of my band because the world is full of idiots."

I wanted to tell him I liked the name. I wanted to say to him that it said something to me about the nature of music, about the relationship between star and fan, both dependent on the other. Both give to each other, but ultimately take, ultimately treating the other like crap. It says something about the way we beat each other into submission. How we crawl to our heroes on all fours and lap at their feet, scared to lift our heads and be found unworthy. How music pets us, subserviates us, and coddles us. We are all dogs. Yet, even still, in those greatest pop moments: release.

I said none of it. I hadn't read Kafka and didn't want to get it wrong. I didn't want him to think I was one of the idiots.

"Those who are meant to get it," I told him, "will."

Tristan took his head from his hands and looked at me with a big grin on his face. "Exactly," he laughed. "That's it exactly."

I had never seen him really smile before. His whole face rose with it.

Only now, in the back of NoWay, his features were sagging, and his mouth was sad. He ran his hand through his hair and stomped his foot to bring a high cuff on his pants down closer to his ankle. "We were on tonight, Mason?" he asked me.

"Very," I said.

"Yeah, we were into it, weren't we?" Sean said.

"What about you, Jack?" Tristan asked. "What do you think?"

"I'm too disappointed to think," Jack replied. "I think you were starting a great show, but . . ." He shook his head.

"So do I," Tristan said. "They seemed determined to ruin us."

"Where the hell were our people?" Sean demanded. "We advertised. Why didn't they come?"

"We even thought you were headlining," I said. "Your name was first on the poster."

"That's 'cause I made them," Tristan said. "I figured if I did the work, I might as well invert the order."

"Shit, if our people had come," Sean said, "they couldn't have yanked us. The swell would have been on our side."

Tristan looked scornfully at Sean. "There is no swell for us," he said. "We have no people. We're nothing. We'll never be anything, because we're no good. I'm no good . . . just a mediocre talent . . ." His voice choked off. He pulled at the hair on the back of his head, groaned, and stormed out the back exit.

"Oh, shit," Sean laughed. "There he goes, in one of those moods again."

"I'm telling you," the other dude said, "you've gotta dump that guy. He's too fickle. He's like a girl. You never know what he'll do. He runs off and kills himself, and then where's your band?"

I wanted to yell at him, tell him he was a moron. Of course there was no band without Tristan. Like A Dog was Tristan. He was the band because he was pure, because his words were true. But I couldn't do it. I balked. I was embarrassed of myself, and I stuck my hands in my pockets as deep as I could push them. My cheeks burned.

Jack asked if maybe we'd better go, and I said I thought maybe we should.

"Well, see ya later, then," Sean said.

"Yeah, see ya later," the Nerve guy said.

I waved to them, quietly, and left.

Look for CUT MY HAIR, coming this August from Crazfish/MJ-12. Order Code: MAY001495. For a different preview of CUT MY HAIR, check out Crazyfish Online at http://www.crazyfish.net. Look for an interview with Oni Press Editor and CUT MY HAIR author Jamie S. Rich next month at PopImage, and an advance review of the novel in late June/early July.

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