“C’mon, Zachary. What else do you have going on? Relax, I’m not trying to move back in.” Amanda spoke over her shoulder while shifting her things into the dryer.

Except for doing all the laundry, Zach thought. What did she do with the money that he’d bought her out of the house with? Well, the kids’ clothes are in there, too.               

Zack Margriff (one of the first ‘Zachs’ of the modern era, before birth registries were overwhelmed with them) didn’t have to take Amanda to a club on what would have been their thirteenth anniversary. But, a precedent had been set at the end of last summer when they took the kids to a Talking Heads reunion concert at Pine Knob Music Park. Now they waited for the divorce to be final like trains sharing the same track until the switch is thrown. By mid-October, she had moved on from NewWave to punk music. Or, was regressed a better term?

True, Zach had no plans; maybe he’d try to find a decent movie then spend one pensive hour in a bar. Being sober now made him very impatient with the outcome in bars. Two Club sodas with a lime twist and if no female barfly sat down next to him, he was out of there.  Anyway, he needed to be careful with his money after losing one of his adjunct jobs just before the fall semester. He wouldn’t miss trying to teach literature at Baker College, an entry level computer programming mill.

“It’s just this club,” Amanda pleaded. “They advertise on the radio. Punk shows, 70s nostalgia.”

“We were in 7th grade and it was burning out then,” Hector said. “You really don’t know anybody to go with? What about Diane?”

“I wasn’t married to Diane. Everybody at work hates punk if they even remember it. Dianne only listens to country and I’m counting on her to babysit.”

“So where is this place?”

“It’s called The Machine Shop.” Amanda poured detergent into Zach’s washer, custody of which was also being shared. “It’s on South Dort, somewhere. You know Flint better than I do.”

“Yeah, the bars on Dort, maybe. I haven’t been near them in four years.”

“Oh, right. I should have asked you to take me to a titty bar.” 

Zach couldn’t tell if he’d heard a single syllable of laughter or a snort of resentment. “Always game for that,” he told her, calling her bluff. “But, what are the ground rules for after?”

Amanda made a noise of contemplation, a tiny squeal of air between tongue and upper teeth. “Geez, I don’t know. If we go Dutch, does that make it my call? We haven’t consummated our divorce yet, have we?” 

Zach tried to think back through the hectic autumn—getting the one pink-slip, the  

division of community property, all the bank rigmarole to buy out her half of the mortgage. “You know, I don’t believe we ever got around to it.”

“OK, well. I guess we’d better think carefully,” she replied.

“Do you want dinner at Salvatore’s. I think I saw a coupon in the Journal. If I can find it,”

Amanda snorted. “Wow. Listen to you. Mr. Sentimental.”

*

Zach had to admit that he was tired of pizza at sports bars with other part-time faculty, mostly a sausage fest. He was also bored silly with so-called classic rock, angry hoarse-throated metal, the spandex and feather boas of hair bands. But he wasn’t attracted to much else except maybe the alternative and grunge piped into the three, now two, cafeterias at his jobs. Many of the students, eating to the beat, appeared to be dressed as lumberjacks.

The last time he was in Amanda’s apartment to pick up the children, sure enough there were punk-rock CDs scattered near her stereo. Vintage, remastered Clash, and Ramones. She made him listen to “London Calling.” 

“Not bad,” he told her. Bouncing on the balls of her feet she tried to get the oldest child, Andrew, to dance.

After the Pine Knob outing, Andrew still shared his mother’s enthusiasm for David Byrne. Alec, the fourth grader, not so much. Zach heard “Psycho Killer” blaring from the kids’ room one Friday afternoon as they gathered their clothes for the weekend. Was that even appropriate for a Middle-schooler? Well, there was a French lesson in it. “C’est ca sey?,” the boy now asked of every unfamiliar dish Fritch prepared.

*

The Italian restaurant in Davison was as pungent as Margriff remembered from the night he proposed, twelve years ago, and then on a few other anniversaries. He didn’t heed the omens, that first time. The place had a comedy night and the first guy fucked with Zach and then flirted with Amanda at their front-row table. Tonight there was no cover and no wait for a table. The only omen was Amanda’s unfamiliar perfume. The antipasto seemed to have more lettuce and less prosciutto, if his memory served.   

Afterward, the drive south on Dort Highway no longer tugged at Zach’s anticipation. What in the hell had he been looking for? Variety, he would have said. But women? Men? There was nothing to be found in any of the old places but topless exploitation; or the leering, furtive, musical chairs of peep-booth tag. He let no one in with him and soon returned to the show-bar in frustration. What a waste. Five-dollar fruit punch just to have an unfamiliar ass thrust in his face. 

But, Amanda couldn’t say she’d never taken advantage of her beery and priapic prodigal. Now, he resisted a glance at the neon enticements of Deja Vu. All new girls!  But where was The Satin Touch and Bottoms Up? The Flint area had been knocked off its feet by the abandonment of General Motors. Before it could find some legitimate commercial purpose, the Dort Highway strip was bludgeoned into a coma by the crack epidemic. Now cell-phone stores and check-cashing usurers proliferated. 

This Machine Shop was actually closer to Burton than Flint proper. Zach fit his tired Cavalier into a parking spot next to a dumpster at the back of the lot.  The thaw of an early November snow had left puddles for them to dodge in the pot-holed asphalt. It was only nine o’clock. Where would you park if you arrived later. The place wasn’t that large to begin with. 

“I’m leaving my purse under the seat,” Amanda said.

In an adjacent vehicle, a forties something biker lacquered his Mohawk, fluorocarbon mist in the lighted rearview mirror. A head of indeterminate gender bobbed in the driver’s lap. Zach jumped when the vigorous activity in the neighboring vehicle caused someone to elbow the horn. 

“Never mind that, please,” Amanda said. 

The Margriffs climbed out. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry,” Zach said. He locked the doors  and patted his wallet. 

Amanda strolled toward the side entrance while Zach eyed the perimeters of the lot. Inside the entrance, a bouncer examined their faces with a pen-light. “Five dollar cover tonight,” he shouted above the recorded pre-set mix.

A few more people pushed into the tight entrance space behind them. The bouncer’s light skipped across crow-footed mascara, noses and lips of many piercings, an army-surplus greatcoat giving off cannabis vapors. Who were all these near middle-aged people? Had they all delayed their Halloween?  The female companion of Greatcoat, in black, wet-look, pleather, had piled up her white-blond hair as if for a prom. They wore matching dog-collars. From some secure spot on her person, Amanda thrust forward a ten dollar bill.

When his eyes had adjusted to the murk, Zach spotted an empty table. He led the way, nudging around chairs. The tiny dance floor was already jammed. Some of the dancers were trying to engage the roadies in conversation. Others taunted and berated  them. Fritch couldn’t quite hear the specifics, but wasn’t punk supposed to be rude and confrontational? Amps, monitors, an armory of instruments and speaker stacks made the stage even smaller. Two security guys tried to keep the crowd from leaning on the stage. Black graphics on a bass drum proclaimed Flogger in a barely legible graffiti font.

“I never heard of ‘em!” Fritch yelled above “God Save the Queen” which he recognized from Amanda’s collection.

“We had our heads up our asses for most of twelve years,” she shouted back. Amanda was wide-eyed. “And, don’t think you can get out of dancing! I’m gonna pee before the band starts!”

When she’d wriggled out of her seat, Fritch returned his attention to the stage. A roar of applause went up from the throng on the dance floor. A shirtless, graying man in pipe-stem jeans and combat boots had emerged from backstage. A few women whooped. His jeans were shredded down the front as if he had actually been subjected to the lash. He flaunted six-pack abs, or was, perhaps, emaciated. The old rocker smiled and winked then began removing Styrofoam mannequin heads from a canvas ruck-sack. He placed these at careful intervals along the front. The security guys now pushed the crowd back more firmly. The musician retreated backstage, brushing his hand through salt-and-pepper hair beginning to dampen..

A younger woman wearing a change apron arrived to take Fritch’s drink order. “Ten minutes left on the Specials!” she shouted. “Three-for-one ’til the show starts!”

Since it had taken ten minutes for her to get to them, Zach decided to take advantage. There was no sign of Amanda yet so he hollered her old favorite McMaster’s and Coke, plain Club Soda with a twist!”

She scribbled on her pad. Some sort of balsam essence wafted from below her waist relieving, momentarily, the club’s pall of cigarette smoke. “Eight bucks!”

Fritch dug out a ten. It was going to be a short night unless Amanda was carrying more funds. The waitress made change then zigzagged away, empty longnecks on a tray above her head. Amanda finally returned.

“Was the john pretty third-world?” Zach asked. The recorded music had stopped abruptly in the middle of The Stooges’ “Gimme Danger.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “They have a condom machine in the Ladies room. Did you order?”

“Yup. Hope it’s still your favorite.” Now, lights near the stage went down. Even the bar lights dimmed.

“Just warning you. I wiped the seat but couldn’t avoid contact.”

The people on the dance floor began clapping and stomping in unison. Zach felt additional bodies moving around them toward the stage.

Zach raised his voice: “Hey, I’ve had my shots!”

 Barely perceptible movements on the dark stage brought renewed shouts from the crush. The crowd’s suspicion of activity in the pitch-dark was suddenly confirmed by the thumping of bass drum, apparently with a mic inside. A few rim-shots and a riff of bass tuning provoked a harmony of sustained screams. Zach’s hands moved toward his ears.

The chord to begin Flogger’s set came with an eruption of light inseparable from sound: A crackle of electric flash from klieg and footlights stabbed, blinding, the noise not so much music as explosion. A high squeal of controlled feedback from the lead paired with a one-chord bottom sustained by bass and rhythm chugged like an assault weapon. This roar slid up the frets then came to a close with a long, sucking whoosh, the noise reclaimed as if by a giant vacuum. It was the shirtless guy, lewdly aiming the phallic guitar at the front row. The instrument dangled as he let go to take the front mic in both hands. The feedback and bass resumed, slightly dampened. The front man wasn’t so shy now. His earlier shucks expression had become a sneer of contempt. The bass player, a lady in the ubiquitous torn jeans and a gauzy, peasant blouse, approached her mic on scuffed Doc Martens, her eyes vacant, her smile a tad demented. Her very short, dark hair was bobby-pinned behind her ears. She chomped a cud of pink bubble-gum between pink-glossed lips.

The front man glanced at her then grinned crookeldy at the lead player. Perforated jeans there, too; a brown leather jacket, no shirt, crouched in front of the Marshall speaker stack. His four-note opening line was still bristling with feedback as it repeated, repeated, the singer making everyone wait.

“No! Fucking! Keyboards!” The singer suddenly howled into his mic, now held like a communion chalice. “This is for Sid and Nancy!”  

The crowd screamed its approval. Fritch wondered how the music could get any louder but then it did, to the thunder of fifty bodies jumping to the beat. These folks must be doing some kind of cardio in their real lives. The woman hammered her bass, the smile never changing. After she’d sung the first chorus, “Bod-ies! Bod-ies!” she shifted from behind the mic to spew a generous pink stream of something into the front row. The mob shrieked and sang along, bouncing hands above their heads seeming to reach for her illuminated spittle.  Her lower jaw, worked on the bubble-gum for another mouthful. 

“I am not an ani-maaal! Not an ani-maaal!” the singer rasped, torturing his vocal chords. “I am not a dis-charge!”

Zach eyed Amanda who mouthed: “What. The. Fuck?” But she was smiling, too.

He shrugged and leaned to scream in her ear: “It’s something about abortion!” 

“What?” she shouted back.

Margriff gave up on communicating. Amanda had returned her attention to the spectacle, hair flailing to the beat. He knew that a venture onto the dance floor was imminent. 

Amanda held off through covers of Clash and Stooges tunes. One of her drinks was already gone but they must certainly be watered down. She hunched forward, ready to propel them into the fray. Still, she hesitated at Elvis Costello’s “Pump it Up.” Zach thought he saw envy in her expression the aerobics of the folks out on the floor.

The song ended and some exhausted dancers moved back toward the tables. Renewed screams greeted the bass player’s introduction: “Suzie…was just…a headbanger!” With this, her right shoe launched one of the mannequin heads high above the dancers. Amanda leaped at the first Tommy-gun chords. “Let’s go!”

Limited space dictated confined movement for any dance. The dancers, with a little breathing space now, continued to bounce, almost straight up and down, their hands flailing above their heads. Then another mannequin was booted across the thicket of outstretched arms. The dancers fanned out from where it hit the floor. Anyone near it stomped  and kicked Styrofoam until it was just Styrofoam. A buzz-cut fellow dancing in a black trench-coat brought the heel of his combat boot down with some malice. Catharsis? But, for what? The dot.com bubble? The 9/ll recession? Zach wasn’t taking it that hard.

 Three more heads were pummeled by the melee which now spread out into the tables. Zach saw Amanda’s soccer-style kick keep a skittering white bust within the kill zone. Crusts of Styrofoam littered the floor as the trampling continued through extended choruses. Deafening guitars masked the dying squeaks of closed-cell foam being ground under foot. Amanda bounced toward him off another dancer but managed to get in a final stomp. Damp with exertion, she collided with Zach. She wasn’t laughing, now.  

When the tune ended, Zach was gasping. Since getting sober, he’d taken up jogging but this was a different kind of exertion, apparently. Then add smoke.

“Look at you! Just look at you!” the lead singer taunted, shallowly panting himself. “You sick fucks! What was their crime?”

“Look at you,” the bass player echoed.

“Look what you’ve done to poor Suzy and her mates!” the singer continued. “You’re all des-picable!”

“Bloody despicable!” the lead guitar added.

“Look at you!” Bass repeated, spitting again. “Bloody despicable!”

“One, two, three, four…,” the front man bellowed. Flogger exploded once again with a choreographed leap of the three musicians. “A-breakin’ a rocks in the, a-hot sun…”

Everything old is new again, Zach mused. He wanted another minute to recover but Amanda was already hopping at the table. Not even breathing hard. Come to think of it, she hadn’t had a cigarette all evening. Those quit-smoking hypnosis tapes must be working. She should be wheezing and clutching her chest. He gamely resumed bouncing.

“Faught the fuckin’ law but the….law won.”

Amanda was good for only two more numbers, until their throats were raw from others’ smoke. Back at the table, she chair-danced and nursed her remaining drinks. She didn’t force him back onto the floor. Margriff was grateful when she slipped into her jacket.

*

Amand told him to drive them back to the old house. Zach brought the Cavalier up to sixty-five on the Interstate. Was she just intending to pick up her car? 

“You were really getting into it,” he said. A pre-coital tension had begun to build. Well, it had been a five month draught for him. The defroster sighed over the low radio. Zach turned off the radio. “I’ve gotta say, it was a bit alarming to witness.”

“It was good music. You’ve got your jogging. I need to let off steam some way.”

“Poooor Suzie, though.” Fritch laughed. Was Amanda not seeing anyone? 

“I don’t know. Maybe she had it coming.”

“Just hope you weren’t thinking about me while you were stomping her.”

They rode in silence past the Davison exit. “Hey, do you remember when we went to the drive-in to see Deliverance?”

“That thing? Why?”

“You were so upset, you wanted us to leave. We didn’t even screw later.“

Amanda sniffed. “Well, it was horrible.“

Margriff chuckled in the dashboard lights. “Really? Worse than destroying those heads?”

Amanda was silent as they passed the Elba exit.

“Or, I’ve maybe I’ve been an awful influence since then,” Zach added. “I guess I’m sorry for that.”

He watched her dig into her purse. She placed it back on the floor without finding a cigarette. “It just surprised me. These city guys are supposed to be on this innocent camping trip. I wasn’t ready for the violence.”

When Zach peeked over. Amanda straed straight ahead. He mentally kicked himself for diverting the mood. “How about ol’ Burt Reynolds, though. You see him sneaking through the trees and you start to have hope that he’ll get them out of it. He puts an arrow right through that one rapist’s neck.”

Amanda sighed. She turned toward Fritch with a glimmer of a smile. “It was just Styrofoam, Zach. And nervous energy. But, I would’ve booted that redneck fucker’s head for real.”

“I believe you,” Zach said, his own apprehensions beginning to grow about how  this occasion would end.  “I don’t think there’s anything to be nervous about, now.”