Swinging Tire

10

When I finally find the nerve to move, it's past midnight, and when I arrive at the Hell House, only the burnt smell is left of the barbecue.

The fist person I see is Duff, unusually drunk.

"Axl!" He greets me, smiling .

I give him a hug, almost buckling when his weight fall entirely on me. "Duff, what...move man, we'll both fall!"

He sits back again and I look at him, surprised by his teary face. "Duff bro, what's wrong?" I ask, crouching by the crooked couch he's sinked upon.

"M' fine", he mutters, and I pass my hand through his hair, but he swats me away, grimacing. Strange things happen all the time in the land of alcoholic stupor, so I let him simmer in whatever piss he's sitting on.

I search for Slashs face in the crowd, deciding against running over to him like a love stricken girl, and head for the punch bowl instead, observing how Izzy has a girl plastered on a doorway, playing with her tits, pretending to be into her while controlling the room from under his cap. I know the bastard too well by now to know there's no innocence in his actions.

A couple of friends come to talk to me, and I forget Izzy for a while, and when I turn around, I'm face to face with Steven, that wasn't smiling for once.

"Will you move outta my way, Axl?" He asks, hissing like a feral cat.

"The fuck bitten you?" I ask, mightly pissed, shoving him as hard as I can over the punch table.

Slash positions himself between Steven, that keeps screaming obscenities at me, and avoids my balled fists carefully, heading me towards the back door in the process.

"What the fuck is wrong with him? What the fuck is wrong with people tonight?" I ask Slash, furious at everyone. "Tell Steven to stay well out of my way or he risks wearing the punch bowl as a necklace for the next few weeks!"

Slash chuckles slightly at that, wich makes me relax a little, but his face falls serious again. "Steve thinks he's protecting me."

"Protecting you? From me?" I ask, gobsmacked.

He lights a cigarette and stares at me nervously. "Word came out you had a grand time these past few weeks." He says, sucking the smoke in.

"That's just what I needed to hear, that is. I had a HELL OF A TIME, YOU HEAR ME? A HELL OF A TIME!" I scream at him, at my wits end.

"Put you voice down!" Slash hisses at me.

There's people watching us from the inside, so I kicked the door shut.

"What makes you think I had a grand fucking time, uh?" I ask, lighting my own smoke, fighting with the wind.

"I mean, Axl, it's ok, it's not that we have anything going is it? You can screw whoever you want, I don't care."

"You don't?"

Fuck that stings. Not only the fact that he thinks I'm screwing another guy, cos a chick wouldn't be a problem, but that he doesn't care.

"I mean. We don't have anything, right?"

He looks up as he says that.

"I haven't fucked another dude, if is that what you're thinking. I haven't in fact been laid since we parted ways. I've been locked up and fucking miserable!" I say finally.

"I, I heard..."

"What the fuck have you heard ? From whom?"

"Forget about it." He says.