Death to the Lizards!

In the smoky back room of a Bay City coffee house Tim Marks peered out at the crowd. His turn next. Into his fifties he knew he was way too old for this shit. But the back alley was the perfect set-up for what he needed. The prep; simple, effective.

Young punks, teens and twenties, sat in the audience amidst masses of self generated fog from the cigarettes they openly puffed. They lifted coffee mugs to their lips to sip substances with far more punch than coffee. This was an underground club, a place where children of the wealthy gathered to be bad. Some could wake up, but not all.

He spotted them. The offspring of the elite. Deja Monique, daughter of movie star Vu Monique sat next to Sunset Diamond, son of music mogul, Dave Diamond. Dressed in chic black and stylish, bored expressions, they sat, eyes peering.
Time to see if they’d fall from the tree.

As he stepped on stage, his back-up band hit and sustained a C-five triad. Tim felt the sounds waves wash over him like a clean, mountain stream. The sound of the chord made Deja and Sunset twitch. The rest of his audience raised their voices in approval.

But inside he knew they still craved blood.

He picked up the mic and over the din of cheers asked, “Got your lizard stomping shoes on?”

Expressions changed to amused, half-drunk raucous cries of, “Yeah!” and “Death to the lizards!” filled the room.

Yeah, just a roomful of spoiled, dumb kids, programmed to the hilt. But Tim knew if he kept pulling back the layers and layers of implanted ideas and actions, a few of them had a chance.

He lowered his voice. “Yeah, death to them…” the crowd hushed wanting to hear. “You know how the show goes…keep it quiet first, but help me sing…ahhh…”
In whispered voices the crowd sang, “…ahhh…”

The sound shimmered across the room. Tim could see it in their eyes; the ones who’d been to his show before had a light in them. Not a bright light, more like a pin-prick. Still, it meant they were coming back to life. He glanced at Deja and Diamond. Both stared daggers at him and their eyes…not black, but a sick jaundice yellow. Yeah, easy pickings.

He continued in the same awestruck, whisper and sang a third above the current note, “Ladies….ahhhh….”

“…ahh…”

He took the note a fifth above the first on and said, “Band sings, ahhhh…”

“Ahhh…”

He let the tones hang in the air a moment until the sound of raw, human voices filled the club with it’s holy sound. He cut them off. Even in a room of drunk rowdy, over-grown children, the sound gave them pause.

“There…” he whispered. “You feel it. Our weapon against the evil…and we know it’s there…”

His bass player struck a low, ominous note to the rhythm of a heart beat.

“You know they’re around when nothing makes sense. The man tells you he needs more tax money because he has to spend it…to make more money. It makes no sense. The man will tell you he is good, but does more evil than the worlds biggest sinner. Remember your note and sing louder….ahhh!…”

“Ahhh!”

The harmony wrapped around his soul and lifted him. Once again, he would do this.
“Yeah,” he said and his audience quieted. Deja and Sunset twitched and gazed at each other uncomfortable. Oh, don’t even think about getting away.

“Hey!” a voice called, “I wanna know something’.”

Tim waved for his band to halt. “Let the man speak,” he said.

The punk stood, a plaid fedora on his head, black coat with blue jeans and dangling black tie. He teetered and bowed. “Thank you, uh…” a loud belch erupted from the bottom of his gut.

Laughter mixed with comments:

“Aw…sit down, Loser!”

“You suck!”

The Punk raised an index finger and wagged it at the group. “No, no, no! I jes’ wanna know one freakin’, stinkin’, thing. Izzat okay?”

A shout from behind told the Punk, “Sit down before you fall down!”

“Let him speak,” said Tim.

The punk straightened himself and gave a silly bow. “Thank you, sir. You are a scholar ‘han a gentleman. All I wanna know is one or two little things…”

“Dude, the whole show is waiting on you. Speak.”

“’Hokay. Why do you hate lizards? Whud they ever do to you?”

Tim laughed. “I don’t hate them for the hell of it. If I hated them I’d screw up, then they’d catch me. It’s all self-defense. They declared war on us along time ago and I’m just a soldier behind enemy lines.”

The Punk stared at him open mouthed a minute then burst into laughter. “Dude! You are so out there, yer in!” He thrust a fist into the air. “Yeah! Death to the freakin’ man! Death to the lizards!”

“Who-hoo!”

Tim spoke into the mic, “Time to call ‘em out…”

He stared down his audience and sang...

"Why’d it take so long for me to see that if I don’t kill you, you’ll sure as hell kill me?

I’m walking, I’m talking, I’ll say to you today, that if you don’t back up I’ll blow you all away….

Death to the Lizards!”

The audience leaped and replied, “Death to the lizards!”

“Death to the Lizards?”

“Death to the Lizards!”

“I live out here in the valley of the shadow, keeping it low…lower than your muther,
If you see me comin’ and you haven’t run yet, you better make tracks cuz  I’m your angel death, Death to the Lizards!”

“Death to the Lizards!”

“I quench my thirst with the river of life, so look out bitch, I’m down for this fight…Right? Rights? You wanna hear your rights? In the name of Jesus Christ, you better take flight.

 Death to the Lizards. Sing! Ahhhh-ahhhh-ahhhh!"

“Ahhhh-ahhhh-ahhhh!”

“Ooooh-oooh-ooooh!

“Ooooh-ooooh-oooh…”

It happened in a nano-second. Deja and Sunset vanished. Next, the scream.

“Lizards! Oh, my freaking God! Lizards!”

Waves of fright and commotion sent people hurtling towards the exits, but his roadies blocked the ways. “C’mon people it’s part of the show!”

“What the hell?”

Tim noted that these looked like giant, black iguana-like creatures. Deja and Sunset ran back and forth in sheer confusion for a moment, then roared and plunged, as Tim had thought they would, out the east exit. Close to the sewer.

“I got this!” Tim bellowed into the mic. “Sit down and get ready!”

He leaped from the stage and plowed out the back door. In the alley the two juveniles waited for him. The young ones always waited, still arrogant enough to think they had a chance. Sunsets side frills exploded from either side of his neck. Deja recoiled with a loud hiss. Tim yanked the already silenced Rueger from his side holster and shot them both in the head. Shovel parked by the exit, he used it to flip open the storm drain and stuff the massive lizards down, enjoying splash sound as they were being washed away. He dumped the bucket of bleach water he’d also parked outside, just to rinse any blood away, and returned to back stage.

The two stuffed heads they used for props were placed by the back curtain. Tim snatched them each by a head spike and hoisted them high as he stalked back onto the stage.

The band had started a rock song, some kids were dancing some still watched the battle video. When Tim re-appeared wild, insane cheers broke out.

“Yeah!” he shouted. “They tell you what to think, how to feel, what you ought to be!” He threw the heads back stage and cried, “Remember what you were meant to be and be it!”

“Yeah!”

He waited for the cheers to die down before an amused smile nudged across his lips.

“All right ya’ll,” he said, “wait till ya hear our next song…”