Digging Press

Record Store Sid and Nancy
by Jules Archer

I only date musicians. Take ‘em home. Take ‘em to bed. String players. Because of their hands. God, do you know what they can do with those hands? Fingers? It’s like a goddamn powerhouse built right in. Forearms, lean and cut, tan like deer hides. Blue tattooed and knuckle-scarred hands and fists.

Fiddle, bass, guitar. Anything they can pluck, I’m in. I’m game like that instrument there. Resting on stage. Against a speaker. Pick me up. Nestle me against your waist. Your shoulder. Your chin.

I’ll wipe myself off.

*

Favorite venues, there’s a long list. Out back, alleyway, curse word scrawled walls; I wait until a show’s over. They pack it out, load up, and I get in. Some are so easy it’s dangerous. Others, I have to work harder. But I don’t want to be their girl. Their behind-every-man-is-a-good-woman story. For one night, I just want their hands.

*

I tell my best friend I wanna be like Nancy and she yells at me in front of a record store. “DO NOT BE LIKE NANCY. SID KILLED NANCY. I HOPE TO CHRIST YOU DO NOT END UP LIKE HER.”

She has good hands too.

She’s a seamstress.

*

His name is Reno. He’s in dreads and wears Keds. One I tolerate easier than the other. He plays the electric guitar. Handles it with a gentle sturdiness. He goes Jimi Hendrix on my vagina. I scream, but into fist, pillow. Finished, exhausted, he makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for us on top of the sticky motel comforter, brushing crumbs off with slender fingers. He has to be on the road in five hours.

I watch the clock on the nightstand.

Swallow soft crust.

Jules Archer is a chugger of wine and has an unhealthy obsession with serial killers. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, >kill author, and Foundling Review, among others.

Stories @ Digging Through the Fat: Volume 2, Issue 1
February 11, 2015
Photography by: Gessy Alvarez