Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Roll - 21104.01

By Cristina Fiore

It was a beautiful evening in Chicago. The sun was setting as gravcars flitted by the 20th century townhouses in a stark contrast between the new and the old. The 1969 Dodge Charger seemed right at home.

Cristina Fiore had grown up a few blocks away from here with her huge clan of a family. Things had changed a lot in the last few years – this part of town used to be a borderline war zone. Now, gentrification complete, it looked so much better it was almost unfamiliar. As the Charger rumbled down the main street the Starfleeter shook her head in disbelief.

She smiled as a familiar sign jutted out over the sidewalk. The bar it belonged to was the only name she recognised from those darker times. The Charger pulled up outside and the raven-haired Fiore climbed out. Her hands nestled in the pockets of jeans as her short black leather jacket flapped open in the breeze, a faded green t-shirt visible underneath. Emerald-coloured eyes took in the wooden facade over old-fashioned double doors, ‘KICKSTAND’ emblazoned across the top in a heavy gothic script. The place did its best to look like a biker’s tavern, or at least as much as it could when the whole frontage was stuck onto what had been a bleeding-edge-modern building.

The place looked just as she remembered it inside as the door creaked open, with a scarred wooden bar and battered tables. The customers were different though. Rich kids trying and failing to look like poor kids mostly, interspersed with middle aged men wanting to live in a bygone era. It used to be full of gangers, lowlives and the occasional emo headcase who just wanted to play their music.

Settling on a stool next to the bar, Crissy smiled. Mal Corley ran things himself, only now apparently without the endless rotation of desperate wannabes serving as staff. The crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes were deeper and the mop of white hair was a little thinner but he was still the same wiry old man.

“What can I getcha.”

“Una bottiglia per favore.”

Mal froze, before he looked up and broke into a huge grin.

“Crissy Fiore! Damn! How long has it been? Never thought I’d hear that accent again...”

“Yeah, well. I’ve been busy.” Crissy smiled as she took the ice-cold beer bottle that was shoved across the bar at her.

“I heard, I heard. Starfleet, right? How you doin’?”

“They call me Lieutenant Commander Fiore these days. Chief Tactical Officer, USS Ticonderoga.” There was no small measure of pride in her voice as she rattled off her position.

“Jesus Christ! Never thought you’d do it. Weren’t long since you were on that stage yourself swearin’ it was all about the goddam music.”

“Yeah, well. I grew up.”

“Never thunk that’d happen either.”

Crissy made a face across the bar and Corley chuckled.

“So how’d you do it? What got you outta here an’ into the big bad universe?”

“That’s a long story.” Crissy took a sip of beer.

“I got time. Some of these punks spend so goddam long in here they got time too.” Mal started gesturing across the room. “Hey! Yeah, you! Get over here. All a’ya, get over here. This you gotta hear. How a girl goes from wastin’ her life by my stage to a Starfleet commander. Talk a lil’ sense inna ya.”

It had barely been five minutes since she walked in but now Crissy had an audience.

“I guess I better not disappoint” she said with a wry smile. She took a long gulp of beer and then set the bottle down on the bar.

• * * * *

Officially I joined Starfleet because I was captivated by a flying display when I was 12. Pulling on the uniform was all I ever wanted from then on. That’s what I tell every Midshipman who comes to report in on their first day, and it’s my answer every time someone senior asks the question too. It’s not a complete lie. I just got... well, derailed I guess.

To understand why you have to understand what things were like then. I’m one of six. My Dad was one of five and my Mom one of nine. They all had their own kids and partners and hangers-on. That’s not a family, that’s a country, and we all lived across a dozen houses on 11th Street. There was no getting away. It can get claustrophobic and when you’re a girl in her late teens, you chafe.

First time I came here to the Kickstand I was terrified. This part of town was a no-go. Nothing like it is now. I ordered the strongest drink I knew the name of and sat in the corner. In my tiny teenage mind it was a big act of rebellion. Bootleg booze and music my Dad was doing his best to banish from the house. Then I saw my first bands step up to the stage and I guess I got hooked from there. It was all so real. Those guys had the power to reach these... these knifethrowers and psychos and make them headbang along to their tune. My life had been so clean and sheltered up til then that I’d seen nothing like it. It hit me like a metal bar.

I decided there and then that I wanted to be a part of that. At first I’d duck out of the house when no-one was watching. Before long I was here every day, and eventually I got noticed. One of the guitarists it was, a big guy with a heavy nosering who called himself Quohog. He hit on me, promised to show me the good times. A sane person would have steered well clear but girls at that age aren’t sane. They definitely aren’t after their first line. I forget what it was called in those days but it was the kind of stuff that gets you a long time in a cell.

Hooking up with Quohog got me my first taste of the stage. I loved every second of it. Standing up there, a band behind me, everyone in the palm of my hand... It was so intense. I felt so alive, like everything I’d experienced up until that point was a pale shadow.

I ditched Quohog and hooked up with another guy. Gigs made me so damn horny and a guy who spent most of his time wasted was no use. I joined up with one of the more established bands eventually. My amore of the week let slip that their last singer had been killed in a brawl. I guess I should have taken that as a warning but I didn’t.

I wound up playing most nights. The guys used to get loaded up before they went on stage and I was no different. One time I actually passed out in the middle of a set. Came round backstage, puked my guts up, and went back out there.

Unbeknownst to me my family were scared. I was skipping school for weeks at a time and rarely went home. I didn’t want to – the moment I set foot back in that house I felt like this suffocating weight was back on my shoulders and I couldn’t breathe. I kept everyone at arm’s length. I didn’t want to live that life any more. I wanted the other one I had here.

Eventually it got to the point where my uncle tracked me down after one of my rare appearances at home. He was Starfleet law enforcement, and it took all kinds of courage to risk being seen in these streets. He saw what was going on, saw the people I was hanging with and the state we were getting into. A week later there was a raid on the Kickstand.

Even through the haze I was in I remember that night literally like it was yesterday. Starfleet Security smashed the doors in at midnight. I was upstairs in one of the rooms. When they came crashing in I was on a shabby mattress on top of some guy whose name I didn’t know, music thundering so loud I didn’t even hear the boots and shouts. Could have been the chemicals or the sex. Whatever. They threw blankets over the pair of us and hauled us away.

I remember being in the back of a wagon with nothing on but a filthy t-shirt and this blanket wrapped around me. My whole world was spinning. Faces were melding together, warping and twisting and dancing. I’m not sure how much I knew about what was going on, but when my Dad turned up in the holding cell at the stationhouse, I swear to God it was like every chemical in my body vanished. I felt stone cold sober, and I can tell you in the state I was in that was an achievement.

He just looked at me. I don’t think he knew what to say any more than I did. His daughter was half-naked in a Starfleet jail wired on hard drugs having been arrested whilst banging away like an animal with some loser. He took out a PADD and took a picture.

“I hope one day we can look back at this and say this was the turning point. This was the day I got my Crissy back, and this jackal that had taken her over was banished.”

I remember the disappointment in his voice. My uncle must have warned him what was coming but it still hurt him to see it. He told me later that it was the lowest point of his life. He showed me the picture and even now I can’t recognise myself. I had so much makeup on that it was smeared all over my face. My hair was a clumped mass and my eyes were wild, barely focussing on anything.

Security released me the next morning. I got lucky. They wanted the dealers and the gangers that were in that night. I had a clean record and they gave me the benefit of the doubt. My uncle somehow kept my name off the system.

My family came together to clean me up. All the petty little vendettas were shelved, and that only ever happened in dire emergencies. They locked me in my room whilst I detoxed, took it in turns to feed me and talk to me. Later on my brothers walked me back to school and escorted me home whilst my Mom took it upon herself to get me caught up with what I’d missed. At the time I hated them for it. I felt like I’d been recaptured after tasting freedom. But the cleaner I got the more I was able to appreciate just how different the real story was. They saved me, and they rebuilt me.

It was my Dad who made the breakthrough. He had a garage out the back where he used to mess around with old muscle cars. He used to take me out there to help him. At first I wasn’t interested but then he took me out in one. I forget what car it was but I felt that rawness again. Gravcars get you from A to B without any fuss or sense of occasion. This thing was something else. It roared, it bellowed, it spat and it bucked if it didn’t think it was being treated properly. After that, whenever he worked on the car I’d go out with him without being told. It had that... that realness I was craving.

We spent most of the time talking. At first he just wanted to make sure I wasn’t hanging out with the gangs again. Then it was about how school was. He gave me much more leeway with that than I’d had before. He and my Mom used to be my back about assignments and tests. They knew when these things were better than I did. But they backed off. They let me run things myself. Baby steps towards taking some responsibility, but it worked.

Then my talks with my Dad moved onto my future. Like I said earlier I had always wanted to join Starfleet. That wasn’t a lie. There was so much I admired about it then and still do now. You just don’t find organisations that are that dedicated to big ideals and mean it. Get in and you can stretch every horizon. And I had come so close to throwing it all away. For a while I thought it was all over but he made me see that it wasn’t. If I took control of my own life and turned it back around then I could still be that Starfleet officer I dreamt of becoming when I was younger.

He took me outside one day and gave me a set of keys as my uncle opened the garage door. Sitting inside was a car, a 1969 Dodge Charger. I was made up. Dad made a big speech, about how I was taking the keys to my life. The car needed to be rebuilt just as my life did. It could be symbolic of how everything could come together. When it was ready it could take me wherever I wanted to go. Just like my Starfleet career could when I was ready for that.

• * * * *

Corley spoke as Crissy reached for her beer.

“So ya got ya fairytale moment then.”

She smiled.

“Yeah, you could say that. The whole clan turned out when I graduated the Academy. Everyone. Even the distant relatives.”

“That’s somethin’.” Corley reached behind him. A row of pictures, pictures Crissy hadn’t seen before of bands playing, stretched across the wall. He took one down and passed it around.

“This is her playin’. She was good. Hypnotic. Couldn’t take your eyes offa her. Only time back then she came alive was when she took the stage.” Mal sounded almost rueful, before he looked back up. “I shoulda seen what was happenin’. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be” Crissy replied. “I made the mistakes. Me. No-one else. I’ve wondered whether I would have made it in Starfleet if I hadn’t had this to drive me on.”

“And?”

“I don’t know.”

“So sex, drugs and rock’n’roll leads to a Starfleet career? Sounds good. You got ten minutes?”

The shout came from the back of the room. Crissy fixed the speaker with a piercing glare that would have nailed him to the wall.

“There isn’t a day goes by where I don’t regret what happened and what it did to those I love. You stupid little boy.”

Mal diffused the tension in a heartbeat as he pulled a gleaming red Stratocaster from behind the bar.

“Give an ol’ man one last song. I got no drugs and I ain’t offering sex. Just askin’ for some rock’n’roll.”

Crissy smiled, her anger vanishing.

“When you say it like that...”