Sex Panthers Ch. 02

It was another Friday night at the Wal-Mart parking lot. The Sex Panthers were once more tearing up the night with the hard rocking guitars and heart-breaking vocals. Maggie stood on the roof of the Pink 57 Chevy, her Fender Jaguar guitar held tightly in her hands as she sang a song about stabbing a man in the heart for revenge. Lady Ashley was backin' her up on bass, her fingers pressed against the thick strings like she was holding the manhood of her lost lover.

"Take my love, it's a butterfly. Pull its wings, watch it die! Ya, ya, ya!" sang Maggie. 99 was on the side-lines, keeping time on her drums. The night was young, but the Panthers were younger. Whatever secrets the night held, they would rip them away from the night's cold embrace and keep them for their own.

Just then, a car sped out of the parking lot, but not before a young man was tossed out of the back. He slid across the asphalt, clothes tearing as the man's face grinded against the rough surface. The car shot off into the dark, its red taillights were like a middle finger towards the man's misfortunes.

"Shit! This is what we get for practicing at the Wal-Mart parking lot! I told you this was a stupid idea," shouted Lady Ashley as she laid her bass against the car. Maggie ignored her as she ran towards the man, which wasn't easy to do in high heels.

"Are you alright?" asked Maggie. She bent down to face the man, her red hair fell over her face like a blanket that covered both their faces from the judging eyes of the world.

"It was the Fire Wheel Gang," said the man. He tired pushing himself off the ground but Maggie stopped him. She wasn't so sure he should be walking after suddenly being violently tossed out of a car.

"The Fire Wheel Gang? Ah hell! Let's leave this bruiser. He deserved what he got, fuckin' around with guys like that," said Lady Ashley. She stormed away, her stilettos stabbed the pavement as she walked back to the car. Maggie looked closer at the man's face. His lips trembled and his left eye twitched in and out of focus. His one good eye focused on the ground, as if to hide the shame of his prior decisions in life. This man wasn't even a man at all but a scared boy trying to act tough.

"It's ok L.A. This boy's not a threat. That's all," said Maggie. Her words seemed to spark something in the boy's heart. He pushed Maggie aside and tried standing up. Maggie noticed his pants were torn.

"What do you mean, not a threat!? Don't you know who I am?"

"Yeah, a bitch!" shouted Lady Ashley from the car. Maggie turned to give her a stern look before returning to face the boy.

"You wanna tell me what happened?" asked Maggie. She reached out and held his hand in hers, reassuring him that she wasn't a cold bitch like her friend. The boy turned red, obviously, as he felt Maggie's warm hand caress his own.

"It was part of my initiation into the gang. I was supposed to—"

"It doesn't matter what you were supposed to do. What's important is that you didn't do it," said Maggie. She stood back, giving the boy some space to breath. 99 walked up beside her. Her suit jacket was buttoned up to protect her from the cold.

"Trouble," she said. Her eyes bared down into the boy's face, making him feel like he was at school getting called out by his hot English teacher.

"99 is right. You shouldn't mess around with the Fire Wheel Gang. They're bad news," said Maggie. The boy's face hardened, trying to prove how tough he was in front of a group of girls that didn't give a shit.

"I can't let them get away with that! I'm gonna go up to their hideout and shut them down!" Before Maggie could stop him, the boy was already gone. Maggie and 99 were left standing alone while Lady Ashley was busy listening to The Shanger-Las on the car radio.

The next day, the girls were at their apartment, workin' on a new song for their debut album. Pretty-Tony loved their music, or possible just loved them, so much that he signed them for a record deal to see how they'd go. Maggie strummed her guitar, but her thoughts lingered on the boy from last night. She wondered if he'd be ok. He had such an innocent face, the kind of face that made a girl take pity on him and adore him at the same time. Maggie's right hand brushed the strings of her guitar as if she were pushing the boy's hair away from his face.

"Maggie! Stop thinking about fucking that boy and stay on beat!" said Lady Ashley. Her voice snapped Maggie out of her daydreams.

"Well, I'd be able to stay on beat if you could give me a goddamn base line!" retorted Maggie. Lady Ashley's nostrils flared out like some savage animal.

"The hell you say!?" Their argument was quickly halted by 99 rapidly striking the symbols of her drums.

"Enough!" she said as the chiming sound of her drums faded out. The two women cooled down, knowing that arguing would only end up in them getting kicked out of the apartment.

"I'm just worried about that boy," said Maggie, "He's too young to be getting involved with a tough crowd like the Fire Wheels."

"Hmph, you don't know the half of it," said Lady Ashley. She folded her arms under her breasts and leaned against the wall. Her face hid a long kept secret that was trying hard to burst from her lips as a warming. Maggie looked at her, knowing her enough to understand.

"Tell me where their hang-out is. We're gonna go over there and rescue that boy before it's too late."

Thirty minutes later, the Panthers parked their car in an abandoned parking lot at the old I-Max movie theatre. The theatre had seen better days, but now it was a hang-out for small time gangsters and up-and-coming prostitutes.

Lady Ashley walked up to the ticket window. She didn't even give a fuck. Her knuckles banged against the glass three times. The curtain pulled back to reveal a gangly looking man with a mess of blondie hair falling over his face like a dog.

"What's the password," asked the man. His voice sounded like a knife being dragged along a paved road, hard and with a hint of self-inflicting emo.

"Dean Martin is Frank Sinatra two-point-o," said Lady Ashley. The boy stared at her, amazed that such a bomb-shell like her new the password to a beat down place like this. He pressed a button which unlocked the entrance to the movie theatre. Lady Ashley walked right in, not giving the man a second look.

Inside, the theatre was filled with a thin layer of smoke that clung to the walls like a baby sucking on her mom's bosom. Neon lights were placed around the walls which bathed the otherwise dark room in a hue of pseudo-sexual colours. A tall black man wearing a chinchilla suit and matching hat sat at a table playing cards. People that saw him said he looked like a mixture of Sam Cooke and Malcom X, charming and beautiful but with a hard face that's experienced the bullshit of good ole American racism. When he say Lady Ashley, he stood up and grinned, revealing a row of perfect teeth. They were shark's teeth that claimed whatever they touched.

"I never thought I'd see you again, Blue-Devil," said the man. Maggie and 99 looked at each other, never hearing anyone call their friend that before.

"Hello Jerome, it's been a long time," said Lady Ashley. Her voice was smooth, almost seductive. She walked over to the table, her eyes focused on Jerome's questionable hat, which made him look like a 1970s drug dealer straight out of Harlem.

"Have you come back to work for me? I can still make you a star on those streets," said Jerome.

"Sorry doll, but you know how much I hate red lights," said Lady Ashley. She grabbed a free chair and sat at the table across from him. Jerome, seeing that there was no way to turn her into the five dollar whore he always wanted, decided to sit back down.

"What brings you here if you don't wanna work," said Jerome.

"Last night some of your guys took a kid out for a joy-ride, only, the kid didn't seem too joyful. You know where he is now?" Jerome took a moment to figure out what Lady Ashley was asking. When it finally hit him, his face lit up like a Christmas Tree.

"Oh that punk-ass! Yeah, he came storming in here last night trying to act all tough just cause we roughed him up a little. So, we had to... teach him a lesson." The gang around Jerome started to sneer as they were all in on whatever twisted punishment Jerome placed on the boy. Lady Ashley looked past Jerome to a door. Heavy moans could be heard coming from it along with low rhythmic music. It was the type of music that was only meant for one purpose. Immediately, Lady Ashley ran towards the door and kicked it open.

Inside, a very large black man with pink hair, and no shirt, was standing over the boy from last night. The boy was on his knees... his mouth completely full. The man held a gun to the boy's head; his finger twitching over the trigger.

Maggie screamed as she saw the boy, which made the large man jerk his head to see what made the god-awful noise.

"Oh lord! Oh lord!" said the man as he brandished the gun at the girls, "don't ya'll move! I aint even tryin to be rude, but I just need ya'll not to make any moves. I aint even tryin to be rude!" As the fat mad continued shouting, the boy took this moment of distraction and bit down hard on the thick meat that chocked his mouth. The man shouted as he raised his arms in the air. At that moment, Lady Ashely quickly ran towards him and kicked him hard in his fat stomach. The heel of her stiletto dug into the man's flabby stomach which caused him to double over in pain. As the man lowered his face, Lady Ashley brought her knee up and smashed it hard against his nose. Before the man could react, she grabbed the gun from his hand and pointed it at his head.

"The hell's going on in here!" shouted Jerome as he and his rough-boys entered the room.

"Don't nobody move or green-mile over here gets messed up!" shouted Lady Ashley as she pressed the end of the gun against the man's pink hair.

"Oh lord! Oh LORD!" shouted the man.

"Take it easy Tonka! That's one cold bitch you're dealing with," said Jerome, "Now, what do you want?"

"Here's how this is gonna go down. The girls and I, along with your used up boy-toy, are all walking out of here. And if I hear about you messing with that kid again, then I'll have to come back, and you know you don't want that." Lady Ashley and Jerome locked eyes, but it was no point in trying to talk a deal with a cool chick with a gun, especially one who didn't need one to take care of every son-of-a-bitch there.

"Alright. Take him and get the fuck out of my club!" shouted Jerome. Maggie ran towards the boy and helped him to his feet. 99 just stood there, amazed by the situation she found herself in.

"It's ok. We're taking you out of here," said Maggie. She wrapped an arm around his waist and held him close to her as she led him out of the club. Before they were out, Jerome called back to them.

"Good luck with your shitty music career. What do you call yourselves? Sex Pistols?" 99 turned around and punched Jerome hard in the face, breaking his nose

"Panthers!" she shouted.

"Yeah, we aint no one-hit-wonder!" added Maggie. And with that, the Sex Panthers, along with the boy, walked out of the sex club and into the cold night of forgetfulness.