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Out of Bounds (Unplugged)
Chapter 8.
VIII. Finally! The Party
"You're out of uniform!"
"You're drunk!"
"No, really! Lao Ma never wore no hat lookin' like a friggin' lampshade!"
"Buy a clue, fuck wad!"
"Gabrielle!"
"Lemme go! I'm gonna flatten the arrogant bastard!"
"Gabrielle, stop!"
"What! Are you gonna let some pissant insult you like that?"
"What do I care? I know that nothing any... fuck wad... says to me can possibly matter."
"Yeah! Hoity-toity cunt!"
"Now that is totally uncalled-for!" There was the sound of sharply exhaled breath and the dull thud of a body hitting the hardwood floor of the Carpenter Hall ballroom. Dolly Lao Ma took Gabrielle Dolly by the elbow and drew the smaller woman along in her serene progress around the room.
"What did you do to him?" Gabrielle demanded, stumbling slightly as she tried to simultaneously keep up with Ma and see what had happened to the out-cold figure on the floor behind them.
"I merely adjusted his breathing rate momentarily. It caused him to lose consciousness. He will recover shortly none the worse for the experience. Meantime, he is not calling me unpleasant names."
Gabrielle chuckled at that. "So you're not untouchable."
"Not at all," Lao Ma smiled her best enigmatic smile. "I have my pride. But I also know that there are things more important than pride. Such as courtesy." She smiled again, this time in greeting to their hostess and employer for the evening, Dr. Seraphin Selk, the Dean of Student Affairs.
"Good evening, Doctor," Lao Ma said most graciously.
"Good evening, dollies,' replied the Dean. "Are you enjoying the party?"
"Shh!" Lao Ma admonished. "We are not dollies. We are guests from the Xenaverse."
"Oh!" said Seraphin with a knowing nod. She lay a finger alongside her nose and smiled. "And you would be... "
"Lao Ma, most gracious Excellency. Most specifically, at the moment of concealing my chela, Xena, in my bath."
"Then why the hat?"
"As a symbol of disguise and concealment."
"But where is Xena?"
Lao Ma nodded toward a tall, slender woman, in dark hair and heavy, formal makeup. Her hair was pulled back and swept up into a high and intricate style. She was dressed in a floor-length silk robe of dark blue with red facings embroidered in gold threads. Seraphin gasped.
"I didn't recognize her!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands softly.
"But of course. She is... incognito. Otherwise, the importunate Ming Tzu..." Lao Ma indicated a tall man in an intricate long-sleeved robe and a tall pillbox hat standing in another corner, "...should be able to find her, and that we cannot have. Therefore, I conceal her and offer myself and my fair companion... " she inclined her head toward Dolly, "... as diversions."
"But you and Gabrielle never met."
"No, but I came to China ten years after Xena knew Lao Ma and because of the debt that Xena owed her. We both love Xena and yet find ourselves distanced from her."
"And the episode you... ?"
"That is a puzzle," Lao Ma said for Dolly. "To be solved by understanding that the robe Gabrielle wears is one that was received when Gabrielle Dolly, Troll Action Team Agent Specialist (TATAS) with Team Bodiccea, was in New Xenaland acting as a decoy double for the actress Reneé O'Connor in March of this year. It was during the shooting of an episode that she performed this service, and she was provided the costume that she might fit in on the set. It is an actual costume worn by Gabrielle. Watch her tonight and you will receive additional clues."
"Wonderful. Well. I must say. When Drummond told me your plans, I had my misgivings. But it seems that you have fulfilled the spirit of the rules quite well."
Lao Ma inclined her head. "Our thanks."
"Seraphin," Dolly said suddenly. "Can I ask a favor of you on behalf of the band?"
"Sure. What is it?"
"Some asshole was giving Ma shit about the hat and I'd like to show our solidarity with her. Could we... ?"
#
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the Center for X Studies at East College of the Americas is proud to be able to present our own home-grown -- literally home-grown... " peanut shells showered the speaker "...All-Grrl, All Doll Band."
The stage was low, barely a full stair step off the floor. More suited to chamber music recitals than a rock-and-roll dance. Gabrielle Dolly stepped up from the floor and took the mike.
"You guys up front might want to move back. We don't know how big this thing is gonna get."
There was general laughter. The crowd compressed and shuffled backward to clear a space for dancing on the floor in front of the stage.
"Before we get started, I want to make an announcement. Earlier this evening, a drunken individual who can remain anonymous if he wants to for all I care was hassling my keyboard player, Dolly Lao Ma, about a part of her costume. A hat. So. Just to show that you don't fuck with the dollies... gimme my goddamned hat!"
Out of the audience came sailing a wide, conical... lampshade, with a ribbon attached. Dolly caught it on the fly and donned it, neatly knotting the ribbon under her chin.
"And now, a song from our current favorite singer-songwriter, Amanda Marshall. Nobody... but nobody gets the best of Gabrielle Fuckin-A Dolly!"
Xe Doll stepped out from behind the heavy arras at the back of the stage, wearing a double-necked Ovation acoustic guitar on a strap over her shoulder. On her head, she wore the mate to the lampshade Dolly had on. She began the opening flat-picked figure of the song, playing on the 12-string neck of her guitar. After a measure, the curtain was thrown aside by a high, bare-legged kick and out strutted Callisto Dolly, wearing the sexy black leather psycho-Barbie outfit made popular by everybody's favorite Xena villain. And a conical lampshade. Her electric guitar joined Xe's acoustic on the song's intro. Then the arras was drawn apart in a more conventional manner to reveal V'Alaska's drum kit, the band's backline amplifiers, Autolycus and his bass, and Lao Ma's mountain of keyboards. And everybody was wearing a conical lampshade except Lao Ma, who was wearing her straw hat and grinning almost manically.
"Drop those flowers
Back away slowly...
Drummond always loved it when the dollies did the rollicking song by the Canadian songstress. And it most certainly suited Gab Dolly, who proudly crowed the chorus...
"I'm a tough, tough game
That no one can master.
I'm a tall, tall tale
That no one believes...
He knew he was the lucky one.
When that song was over, Xe and Gabrielle came down center. Xe was still wearing the Ovation and Dolly was carrying a tambourine. They sat perched side-by-side on the lip of the stage. The crowd backed away to give those behind a clear view. The rest of the band backed up against the amps, and Lao Ma sat down behind her keyboards. Mitchie stepped onto the stage and moved Dolly's vocal mike down to the floor in front of them and positioned it between the two of them.
#
Drummond, standing in about the third row of people ringed around the dance floor, suddenly found Mick Tan standing next to him. "Hey, man," he said quietly.
"G'Day," the Ozzie said pleasantly. "Have a Tim Tam?"
"Sure," Drummond said, accepting one. "What are they?"
"An Australian snack. They're quite good."
"Yeah," Drummond agreed around a mouthful. "Have a Pringle?" He tilted the can in Tan's direction.
"Sure. Thanks, mate. So what's up? What are they going to play?"
"I have no idea. It's something they've been working up in secret. But it's bound to be apocalyptic, or they would have told me."
"Good oh. Hope it rocks."
"Oh, you can count on that."
As the scene was being set, Dolly was all involved in the doing of it, watching Mitchie bring the mike stand down, helping her adjust it, smiling her thanks at the woman. Xe, on the other hand, sat quietly, her gaze directed at the floor in front of her slippered feet. When her lampshade hat and Dolly's collided, she doffed hers and laid it on the stage behind her without lifting her eyes from the floor. Then, when it all was ready, she sighed and took her guitar in her hands and spoke into the microphone.
"Earlier this year, I met my soul mate."
Dolly stopped vibrating and leaned her head against Xe's right shoulder, letting the lampshade-hat slip down her back on its ribbon tether. Xe Doll looked down at her and smiled, then turned her attention back to the microphone.
"A poet, a biker... a strong person, who is strangely vulnerable. Open to life and all its experiences, she gets hurt a whole lot more than she should."
Sappho Tarkasian, standing a few feet from Drummond, sucked in a deep breath. Her eyes were big and round and her lips pressed tight together.
"When we got our advance copies of the new Amanda Marshall album, Tuesday's Child, there were a lot of songs we really liked and wanted to learn. But just this last week, I finally gave a good listen to this next one, and it hit me. Hard. It was about Sappho. About me and Sappho." Xe Doll looked up and out into the audience and somehow she found her shorter lover through the crowd of standing people.
"She's not gonna like this, but... we have to, Babe. I love you."
Xe Doll took up the guitar and began to play a delicate finger-picked pattern that rang through the PA and into the room. Then she began to sing.
Standing on the edge of time...
... and her voice cracked and choked and tears began literally pouring down her cheeks in endless sheets. Callisto picked up the pattern on her guitar and the band vamped the intro while Xe recovered her composure. "Sorry," she said quickly before she began again in earnest.
I'm standing on the edge of time
...
And made it without incident through the verse.
And every night's a hunger I can't satisfy...As the chorus was sung, the full band came in playing the majestic bed to the vocals. Xe Doll and Gabrielle Dolly soared together, their voices weaving in and out between themselves in tight harmonies that fairly wept. Indeed, both of them now had tears sheeting down their cheeks, but they were able to carry on, their strong wills overcoming the emotional pain dealt them by the meaning of the lyrics.
It's the secret that I keep
...
'Cause I'm lost inside a dream
That's out of bounds
The bass viol figure that walked up a staircase of two steps only to twist back on itself like an Escher drawing. Then the instruments retreated to just drums, acoustic guitar, and a gentle piano for the second verse. Xe sang lead and Gabrielle provided a bed of harmony. Callisto and Lao Ma sang backing vocals, buoying Xe Doll up when she faltered, which she did. But somehow, the stumbles added to the power of the performance. The singer herself was overcome by the power of the song and could barely keep up the strength to go on.
I close my eyes and it's so real...
...
And baby it's the kind of rush that terrifies...
And Callisto's guitar took the first solo that was a single, weeping note over the rest of the band playing the chord progression...
I wanna surrender
I wanna give in...
After the middle-eight, Cally again took up a solo riff that ripped your heart out with its sorrow.
...Baby please don't be leavin' me here
'Cause I'm lost inside a dream
That's out of bounds
As the majestic sound of the guitar, bass, and keyboards wound down to a final, Day-in-the-Life chord that held forever, a spattering of applause swelled into a thunderstorm of adulation. Dolly stood up, waving her hat, and pulled Xe Doll to her feet. Dolly was bouncing on her toes and obviously soaking it all up, while Xe Doll was embarrassedly nodding her head and refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Then Dolly spotted Sappho struggling to get through the crowd and she threw a quick hand signal to Mitchie, who moved in and relieved Xe of the guitar just in time for the tall, dark woman to be hit and tackled in a fierce hug by one short, dark, curly-haired poet laureate. Xe Doll wrapped her arms around Sappho and just stood there smiling as she rocked from side-to-side.
Then somebody shouted... "Look! Outside! It's snowing!"
Next: IX. Finale! The Party | Previous: VII. Brainstorming a Snowstorm