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Cocoon Crash	By : mao Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Goo Goo Dolls Views: 2130 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the members of the Goo Goo Dolls. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Title: Cocoon Crash: Catch Me, Darling
Author: mao
Disclaimer: I don't own the members of the Goo Goo Dolls, their instruments, their music, their thoughts, ideas, past, anything about them at all. I wrote this purely as an exercise in writing and take full artistic license here. The title of the whole piece comes from a song by K's Choice of the same name. The title of this part comes from the song, "Fallin' Down".
Author's Notes: Ok, the plot actually comes into being. Yay.
Warnings: Attempted rape, violence, language.
***
My name at the time was Elisabeth Bloomwood. For all my father's money, I had fine clothes, fine manners, fine taste. I could tell you with just a few notes any piece by Vivaldi, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, or Mozart. I could tell you the name, time, and medium of any piece by Monet, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, or Rodin. I could read Latin and Greek texts in their original languages, could speak French, Russian, Polish, Italian, and Arabic. I could tell you anything about Dante, Eliot (George or T.S.), Dickinson, or Keats. I was a good Catholic girl who helped hide my father's heritage - a drunken Irish father and a Polish mail-order bride. I arrived home from the university to the same life I'd always led, in my neat suits and childish dresses, my nails manicured and pedicured weekly, playing the piano and reading in all my extra time. I always attended parties and was polite, well-spoken, but not so knowledgeable as to ruin my father's career.
I was of an average height, just under the ideal weight for a woman my height, and went running every morning through Central Park. I exercised every day so I would have a decent body. My face was really no more or less attractive than any other girl's - pleasing, even pretty, but nothing truly extraordinary when I wore no make-up. But with the expensive face creams and make up my father bought me, I became something of a beauty. My skin was pale - he didn't like for me to go outside - and my hair glossy, curly, and black, pouring down my back like a waterfall. My eyes were a very dark blue and always topped during the day with pale lavender shadow with a darker color in the crease, black liner, and mascara. My voice was low-pitched, calm, and carefully moduled - had it been any lower, I might have been a tenor. My ears were pierced once and usually held thin dangling gems or pearls; I dressed neatly, with clean lines, and wore hats and gloves.
I was twenty-four, pretty, polite, and bored out of my mind. I found myself noticing the sort of Victorian ideals my father held - that I would be pretty and polite and never mind; that I would marry the man he asked me to and content myself to a life of superficial charity and general uselessness - preferably with Adam Green, the attorney.
I kept trying to find another way to exist, but I must admit I was something of a coward. I was twenty-four and had never lived. I was a virgin with a fine education, a young woman who had never tasted alcohol or pot or speed, had never had a boyfriend. I listened exclusively to conservative classical music and knew little of modern art, politics, or the world outside Manhattan's highest class. I didn't even have a driver's license. All I knew was my father's townhouse in Manhattan and the summer home in Connecticut. I knew Central Park and the yacht.
I was afraid to break away from it. It would have been very easy to drown in that world - to switch from Elisabeth Bloomwood to Mrs. Adam Green, to keep wearing suits and drip gold - to begin dy my my hair when the gray came in, to live in austere white rooms with no pets and raise children in the same cold, loveless atmosphere. I could have, had I not yearned secretly for something wilder - something more bohemian.
It all began early in the morning on September 3rd. The best day of my life, though it started so poorly. I had pulled on my jogging clothes, tied my neat, clean sneakers, and pulled back my hair in a loose, elegant ponytail. I wore a fanny pack in which I kept my wallet - it held a bare fourteen dollars and a credit card - and a water bottle. I joined the legions of people jogging central park for whatever reason - there were the high schoolers preparing for track, the older people in the second flush of youth, and upper class people like me, who wanted to work off the dinner from the night before. I'd been staying with my parents up in Connecticut since my graduation from the university - summa cum laude, may I add - a few months ago. We'd arrived back in Manhattan the afternoon before, I have to admit I was anxious to settle into a routine.
I avoided the other vacuous girls who'd been raised the way I was - Sylvia Russell, Dulcinia Ramirez, Xaviera Ende, Margaret Maxwell - with their silly names, matching jogging suits, and white sneakers. I know I was indistinguishable from them from the outside, and that was all the more frustrating to me. If they caught up with me, they would fill my mind with their vapid chatter until my head exploded. That, more than anything else, was the best reason I could think of to keep running.
But every runner has to stop for a drink of water, and even I will admit that Central Park has a reputation. I made the mistake of stopping in a rather deserted area, back to the bushes, to take a drink of water.
I was just putting the bottle back when I felt cold metal against the base of my neck, parting my hair, and a gloved hand over mine. A low voice ordered me to go into the bushes, to not turn around. I did as I was told, convinced I was about to be raped, robbed, murdered, chopped into bits and dropped into the Hudson River. It happened often enough to worry about it but not often enough to stop jogging. I dropped the bottle and did as I was told, half praying the bottle might leave a hint as to my whereabouts.
As he dragged me into the bushes and towards a rock formation, I wished suddenly and fervently for those girls I always avoided to show up, for their empty words to appear around the bend, and this man to worry, panic, and let me free. But I wasn't so lucky.
He threw me - rather hard, may I add, into the rock formation. He took my fanny pack, flipped through it, and took the money with a derisive snort, discarding my wallet and credit card, tossing the whole bag carelessly to one side. He held a gun casually, and his face was covered with a stocking, which gave his features a fuzzled, uncertain look, and terrified me. All my martial arts training, my self-defense, trailed out of me weakly, from my mind down my body, through my feet into the ground.
He held me against the rock, both my wrists pinned by his one hand, the stone digging hard into my back. He undid his belt and pants and reached for my spandex shorts. I have to admit - and I'm ashamed of this - I let out a tiny whimper, and he paused briefly to whisper something in my ear. I think he meant it to be comforting, but I replied as harshly as I could, with words I'd only heard in movies on television.
"Eat shit," I told him, my voice wavering. He slammed me hard into the rock, scraping my back, and then backhanded me, hard. Although he wore thin gloves, it hurt, and I saw blood smearing on the back of the glove as he pulled his hand away. My head rocked backwards when he did it, and collided dizzily with the stone behind me. He was reaching again for the shorts when it happened.
A dog jumped on him from behind. A huge dog - a mutt crossed between an Old English Sheepdog and a German Shepherd. The man fell forward, on top of me, and I struggled, but was pinned beneath him as the dog attacked him. I gagged at the unclean smell of him, but in a moment, a man burst into the clearing, calling a name.
"Bethie!" He yelled. It was vconfconfusing for a moment, because Bethie is what my mother calls me when we're alone and she's drunk - which was becoming more and more often, as she told me terrible stories of my father and the maid. He pulled the dog off the mugger and stared at the scene for a moment. He glanced from the mugger's undone pants to my terrified face, and I could see in an instant he made up his mind. He pulled the other man from me, yanking his shoulder hard. He flung him around, swinging him almost, and the mugger crashed into a tree. He was up and running in an instant.
I collapsed on the ground and the dog came after me, licking my ears and face and washing the newly-drawn blood from my cheekbone.
"Bethie, lay off," the man chastised the dog. He'd apparently decided the dog and I were more important than chasing down the mugger. He knelt beside me, gently put one hand on my shoulder, and brushed my cheek with the other. "Are you ok, miss?"
I took a quick stock of myself. Out fourteen dollars - no big loss. Sore and bleeding - not good. I nodded slowly, noticing my head ached when I did that, and spoke. My voice was higher and yet barely a whisper, and it quivered where it wouldn't nory.
"Fine, fine, yes, fine, yes, I'm fine," I told him quickly, an absent part of my mind noticing I was babbling somewhat incoherently. He helped me try to stand, but as I reached nearly my full height, my knees buckled in sudden fear and understanding of what had happened. He caught me instantly, and helped me begin walking.
"Miss, do you want to go somewhere and sit down a moment?" I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I had nothing in my stomach to throw up yet, but didn't trust my digestive system not to scrounge up something new.
I don't know how we got there - I vaguely remember subways, difficult walking, and the wet nose of the dog against my thigh - but eventually we ended up in a small flat in Brooklyn. He deposited me in the sitting room - a tiny, dank room with heavy curtains shutting out the fresh morning sunshine - on a couch that seemed to be all springs and stained material. He'd said few words to me on the way there, mainly checking that I was alright, that the mugger hadn't done anything to me. He left me there, the dog's nose butted against my thigh, and disappeared down the hall.
I heard a door open and slam shut, and a much-larger man, sweaty with sleep and much-dyed red hair sticking out in all directions, boxers his only clothing, lumbered into the room. He blinked at me a moment, taking in the rips and blood on my clothes and the cuts on my face, and let out a low whis He He continued past, infuriating me, as if I wasn't there, and I heard his voice rasp quietly in the kitchen.
"John, man, who's the chick?"
Then, the blonde man. "I don't know. I met her in the park. She'd been attacked, but Bethie scared him off." I have to admit I was feeling quite faint at this point - it was already lunchtime, and I'd had nothing to eat. Not to mention the shock I'd had that morning in the park, the exercise, I hadn't had any water, and it was pretty warm in there...my head was fairly swimming and I leaned uncomfortably back on the sofa, trying not to breathe in its rank scent.
"Well, that's ok then," came the red-head's voice again. "I was afraid you'd met some high-class dame and was beatin' her up and shit. Shades of your father, y'know?" His voice was gentle, even hinghing, but I could hear a note of warning there. Shades of his father...? I didn't have a moment to think about it, because the dog had wandered over and now lay her head on my lap. I brushed her hair with my fingers absently - my parents didn't like or approve of animals inside the house and nev never had a pet.
John, the blonde, laughed as well, but it sounded slightly bitter. "Rob, you know that's not happening. I could never do that." There was the sound of tap water, opening and closing a refrigerator, drawers moving about, some rustling of plastic. "Could you make something to eat? She's probably hungry, and so am I?" I heard his footsteps coming out of the kitchen.
He appeared in the doorway and let out a short laugh at me and the dog. He sat near me, on the edge of the battered coffee table, and set his burdens down. Antiseptic, rags, bandages, and some ice. "Made a friend, have you?" His voice was a soft, rumbling baritone, and his accent was clearly from New York - upstate, too, not local. Although I'd spent most of my life in Manhattan, I'd been trained not to sound like it, and I - like most of the people I knew - carried a faint hint of the upper crust of New England in my vo I h I hated it, had always wished for something grittier, more realistic.
He gently reached out and placed a hand under my chin. He lifted it up so he could examine my nosebleed and cuts, and pulled me slightly towards him.
Whoa.
It was a second, an instant, forgotten in the stream of time. But his hand, pulling my chin forward like that...for just a moment, I felt something deep in the pit of my stomach, something strong in my throat, pulling downwards, yanking from my brain through my heart into the pit of my soul. It was the first time I'd ever felt something like that, the first time I'd ever felt every hair on my body stand up simply because someone touched me.
He began dabbing gently at the area between my nose and my lips with a damp rag, wiping away the blood that had been flowing sluggishly from it. When that was clean, he moved on to my cheek, cleaning it and applying antiseptic ointment to the slight scratches there. He finally moved up to the cut above my eye, wiped away the blood, cleaned it, applied a butterfly closure.
The whole time he did this, he spoke to me. In words, in phrases, in brief sentence fragments, and all the time that wonderful voice flowed over me. I learned so much about him in those few gentle moments - he was called John Rzeznik, spelled with two z's. He had grown up in Buffalo. He was a singer and songwriter and guitarist with a band called the Goo Goo Dolls - no one I'd ever heard of, not in my Ivory Tower - and he lived with his friend and bassist, Robby. He was working for the time as a peanut roaster, but was working on getting a job as a bartender.
And the whole time he spoke and cleaned, dabbing gently at me, his hair flew into his eyes - perfect eyes, the same delicate blue as a robin's egg, thick with lashes, boarded up as store windows. I saw the way his lips formed the words - red lips, which were clearly used to smiling but hadn't in so long, perfectly formed lips. But his voice was what captured me - rough, slightly too harsh, deeper than most men I knew, but well-used. Beautiful, flowing as a brook in the woods. And so soft - his hands were rough as well, the guitar callouses on his fingers like pads - but his voice, rough as it was, wouldn't ever bruise.
Finally he sat back, looked at his handiwork. "You clean up nice," he joked and I smiled then burst into tears. It was too much too fast - graduating, living this same boring life, not having a job or a life of my own, the mugger, the near rape, and this beautiful man who wanted to help me when he could have left me to my fate or deposited me at a hospital. I didn't want to go home to my parents - not yet, with my bruises and my butterfly-bandaged cut on my forehead, my face swollen and clothing torn.
I cried, inconsolable for some time, and then I felt the most delicious thing in the world - his arms reached out, warm and strong, and wrapped around me. He was so gentle, but there was a feeling of strength held at bay as he did this. He let me rest my head on his shoulder as I sobbed, but through my tears I began to wonder. Why was he being so nice to me? He hardly knew me, knew nothing about me - knew nothing that I just needed someone to hold me. And then I heard the singing. He rocked me back and forth, crooning gently. I couldn't catch the words - all I heard was that sweet melody, and slowly, ever so slowly, my tears came to a halt and I sat back, wiping my reddened eyes.
I couldn't bring myself to look at him, but he just sat there for a moment. Then, suddenly, my stomach let out a huge gurgling noise unlike anything it had ever done before. I gasped with horror, one hand to my mouth, and he laughed. He stood, offered me a hand.
"You sound hungry. How about some breakfast?" I took his hand, allowed him to escort me into the kitchen. Inside, Robby, the red-haired man sat at a small table. He'd donned some clothing - thank goodness! This wasn't awkward enough! - and bacon was frying on the stove. There were eggs cooked in all their grease, toast with thick butter, and orange juice and coffee already poured. My mother would have had a coronary just looking at all that grease, not to mention eating it. I was delighted.
The three of us sat and breakfasted together. I was silent at first, watching how the two of them interacted with one another. It soon became clear that although John had appeared perfectly sane and normal with me, he was the 'little brother' of the relationship. He would steal bits of bacon from his friend's plate, tease him mercilessly about the way his hair was still sticking out, anything that seemed to come to mind. And Robby, in turn, would chastise him or give him a nuggie, whichever seemed more appropriate.
Soon, I found myself joking with them, tossing words with them, ng ang as if I'd known them forever. It was immediately comfortable, of course. It took me a moment, even with my new, rebellious mindset, to bring myself to eat all that grease, and I held my utensils more delicately than they did. I was simply more mannered - no elbows on the table, no talking with food in my mouth, that sort of thing. By the end of the meal, though, they would never have allowed me into Tavern on the Green with the way I was behaving.
When the food was gone and the dishes had been cleared - I found myself helping John wash them as Robby disappeared for a few minutes to comb his hair - we all sat down again. They immediately became all business, wanting to know about me.
"Who are you?" John began. "I mean, how exactly did you get into this?" I was relaxed enough now to explain. I gave them my first name but not my last - I was afraid they would know my father's industry and instantly hate me. I told them I lived in Manhattan, but was vague about the location. I told them about the university, about the run this morning and the mugger/rapist.
"Well, Lis," John said, leaning back as I finished. "You can stay here as long as you need to." Need to? I wondered. I certainly didn't want to go home, but did I need to avoid it?
Yes. The answer popped instantly into my head - I absolutely could not go home yet. Although my parents had to be wondering by now what had happened to me, they would simply assume I had returned home and showered, changed, eaten, and gone out shopping as my plan had originally been without them noticing. It wouldn't be for several days of not seeing me that they'd even think to ask the maids where I'd gone. I was alright for probably a week, if I wanted.
"Tonight would be nice," I told them.
"No problem," Robby said. "In fact, we've got a gig tonight, if you want to come." He was leaning back in his seat, feet propped up, hands behind his head, grinning at me.
"A...gig?" What was a gig? How come I had never heard of it?
"Yeah, y'know. A show, a concert," Robby continued. I nodded as if I understood. I had an idea, though I knew they didn't play the Chopin or Mozart I was accustomed to.
"Alright," I said with a nod. "That would be nice. I don't have any clothes, though..."
"It's ok," John said as my words trailed off and crashed into a wall. "I'm off today; we'll go shopping."
We hurried down the street. I was lost, had never been to Brooklyn before, had no clue where I could find a nice dress for that evening. Maybe some new pumps, too...and some cosmetics, of course! I was thinking to myself as we rushed along. And then it occured to me...did he expect to pay for everything?
"I do have a credit card. I can pay for things," I told him as I tried to keep up with his mugh longer stride. "I just don't know where there is to go," and he turned, looked down, and smiled at me. For a moment, I felt something inside me might burst because...well, have I mentioned his teeth? I have never seen any that gleamed so brightly, sat so straight, were so white and clean.
"I know," he told me. "I just needed to get out." Things were more comfortable after that.
I came to several conclusions that day.
The most important was this: no one in Brooklyn wears, sells, or has even heard of Versace, Christian Doir, or Gucci. The clothing I ended up with wasn't even knock-off; it was completely different from anything I'd ever bought or worn before. The dress was black, yes, but so short I was nervous about wearing it. It had thin straps, and the material was silky, but it was clingy and a cut I never imagined wearing. I found no pumps but instead ended up with tall, black-leather boots. I found a pair of old, second-hand jeans - would you believe I'd never worn them? Denim old but comableable, pale blue, fit like a dream.We went back to their flat with my purchases, and me as giddy as a school girl.
I ended up make-upless save for a plain red lipstick I'd bought on the spur of the moment - a dark, bloody color I'd never worn before. I was certainly feeling rebellious. I left with them, met up with their drummer - a tall, quiet man nameke -ke - and found myself immersed in a world I hadn't even known existed.
The club was dark, with flashing lights and scantily-clad bodies. There was a bad smell coming from the back somewhere, and people jostled around the dance floor to a dirge I could barely identify as music. The band onstage did not hold still, they thrashed with their instruments, flying about the stage, tordsords that hooked the guitars to the amplifiers flapping behind them as the drummer crashed. The lights were thin, colored, and flowed everywhere at once. Immediately, it was all too much for me.
Johnny took my gently by the arm and led me to the bar, which sat near the door. He ordered me something I'd never heard of, and told me to take a sip, that it would help. I did, the sweet/bitter taste of it stinging my tongue and throat. And then a delicious warmth flooded me, from my toes up, and I took another sip and it tasted better. Slowly the club lost a little focus, became deliciously fuzzy aboue ede edges, and I felt more alright with it. The music turned into real music, and I could feel myself relaxing.
The next thing I knew, I had finished the drink and was on my second. The whole place was looking better now, calmer, less insane. Johnny touched my arm, looked into my delighted eyes, and yelled over the noise that the band was going to perform in just a few minutes. I nodded, waved him away.
I found myself again, in the middle of a song, dizzily bouncing around the dance floor. I was crashing into other people, my hair sweaty and whip-like. Men were watching the way my skirt rose and fell, and - here's the best part - I didn't care. It was wonderful, that feeling of everything being ok, of being watched over by my guardian angel on the stage - John had met my eyes more than once since their set began - and being able to be free. I had a third drink as they moved into a ballad and the people dancing took a break.
Slow, haunting, beautiful chords than broke my heart. And the words I managed to grasp as they slipped past me... "And you could lie beside me, maybe for a while. And I won't tell no one your name." I blacked out.
"Lissa?" It was Robby, shaking me and hng mng me up. "Time to wake up, honey." The bar had been a very comfortable place for a nap, and I was having trouble moving now, but with a lot of work and some support from a clearly slightly-inebriated John, we made it back to the flat. Robby made up a bed for me on the tired couch, then stumbled tiredly off to his room in the back. John and I sat on the couch, leaning drunkely on one another, watching the television. It was a fuzzy reception, all black-and-white, and yet we sat t, fa, fascinated. He finally made as if to stand and leave.
"Lis?" He was drunk, even I, gone as I was, could see that. "I'll see you in the morning, kay?" He looked tired, but there was something in his eyes...some gleam In't n't seen before. I recalled his hand on my chin earlier, the flash of something unfamiliar and beautiful.
"Not yet," I told him. I reached out, touched his cheek, curled my hand around under his chin, pulled him to me.
It must be said that I'd never kissed a man before. When I was young and thought my parents loved me, I'd kissed them before going to bed, before my father left for work, that sort of thing. But this was something different; I didn't know what to do, where to put my hands or my body.
It was intense. The heat was strong, the warmth, the taste of the vodka, beer, and sheer John-ness on my tongue...I hadn't meant to kiss him with my tongue, but when I pulled his face to me and began kissing him, his arms wrapped around me, his tongue invaded my mouth...it was my first kiss, my first french kiss, my first time sitting in the dark with a boy, the television on, and his hand crept up my thigh.
Drunk as I was, I probably would have kept going, but there was a sudden crash of thunder outside that pushed us apart. We sat, confused, staring at the ceiling, when it began to rain and it finally dawned on us what had happened.
"I'm goin' to bed, Lis," he told me again. And I let him.
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Cocoon Crash