The Candle Dancer / The Way That You Found Me Read Online Free Page A

and the movement sent his unwashed stench upwards. Doll was unperturbed. Having known extremes herself, she wasn’t frightened of them in others. She sent me off to the nearest service station to buy cheese sandwiches and a bottle of mineral water.
    ‘I’ve only got five dollars left.’
    ‘So? You’ve got a credit card, haven’t you?’
    I set off for the two block walk, wondering if the servo would still have sandwiches. I glanced back and saw that Doll had arranged things so the man’s head lay in her lap. She was chattering and laughing, occasionally bending her head over him. I felt humbled by the shadowy pieta they made, lost to the indifferent passersby.
----
    III.
----
    We were practicing in Dad’s garage when the police came.
    All three of them had just done a line of coke, and I was furious. Doll had brought the stuff, laughing as she unrolled the sealed plastic bag with a flourish. She wasn’t taking the band seriously. We started up after the line and it wasn’t till our next pause that we heard the knock.
    Dad led them in, thumbing to them over his shoulder. As usual, Dad looked rather like a bed that needs new sheets. He turned up the dimmer switch. Doll blinked and stopped gyrating her hips, her eyes glittered madly inside the Breslin-style rings of kohl. Benjy put down his drumsticks and assumed a sober expression, but Selima kept strumming her bass guitar softly, blowing at the wisp of black hair that fell over her face. Both cops were around forty-five: a shortish plump guy who seemed more senior, followed by a redhead with a bizarrely bushy, orange moustache.
    ‘You have to stop. There’s been a complaint,’ said the short policeman, after he’d said his name—which I instantly forgot. I mentally re-christened him Shorty.
    ‘But you can play till ten on a weeknight—it
says
in the council guidelines,’ I said.
    ‘Not if it’s disturbing the quiet.’
    ‘But—we’ve got to be able to practice!’
    ‘We could hear it from the street. It’s too loud.’
    ‘Who complained?’
    ‘We don’t know who the complaint came from.’
    ‘I know who,’ I said, bitterly. ‘It’s that guy two doors up, bloody Bill
Dudley. You know tried to kick our door in, once? Never even introduced himself. Never said,
hey guys, we’ve got a bit of a problem
.’
    ‘What’s your name?’ said Shorty, flipping open a notepad.
    ‘Suzanne. Suzanne Fitts.’
    ‘Do you get called Suzy? You know, like Suzy Quatro?’ asked the red-haired cop. Shorty’s pen paused over his notepad. He shot his colleague a droll, sideways glance.
    ‘Well,’ he said, defensively, realising he’d made a blunder. ‘She’s got the pants for it…’
----
    Predictably, I never heard the end of that one.
    ‘
Ewww
, she’s got
the pants
!’ yelled Doll, after the police retreated down the driveway, escorted courteously by Dad. I looked down at the black leather pants, bought two weeks earlier on eBay and stretched over my sturdy legs like the hide on Benjy’s drum.
    ‘
Suzy
,’ said Benjy, with his slow grin. ‘Never saw it before.’
    ‘I’m not Suzy, I’m Suzanne, and could we just drop it?’
    ‘More like he wants to get
into
your pants,’ said Selima.
    ‘Yes,’ said Doll, slapping her thigh. ‘She’s
got the pants
! And he wants to
rip them off
you, honey. The drought is over.’
    ‘This is serious,’ I said, angrily.
    ‘It could get serious. He’s a cop,’ agreed Selima, setting Doll off again.
    ‘No, dickhead, I mean
here
. We’ve got nowhere to practice if that prick keeps making complaints.’
    ‘We have to play quietly,’ said Benjy.
    ‘Well, it’s mostly
your
fault,’ I snapped. ‘You play so loudly the rest of us have to turn ourselves up to hear ourselves.’
    ‘I can play with the brushes,’ he offered. He never took offence at anything, Benjy. He was a sweetie, actually.
    ‘But we need to really open up sometimes,’ said Selima. Doll was still laughing.
    I scowled.
    ‘We have to