Darkwing Duck
Checker Davis and Sheila Jensen met when they were kids. Sheila's cousin Mick was working as an apprentice grease monkey for Ducall's, same as Checker, but Checker was off the books, because he was only 11, so Ducall told folks he was just letting the kid watch while the guys worked. Nobody outside knew Checker worked hard there, and Ducall taught him all about machines and paid him under the table. Not much, but enough to buy ever more books and save up a bit.
So one saturday little Sheila, just beginning to blossom into womanhood, traveled all the way to Ducall's to visit her cousin. It was right about the time Checker was being sent home for the day. He walked out to see Mick giving Sheila a few smokes and the little girl lit up one for each of them.
She offered one to Checker. "Wanna smoke?"
"Smoking's bad for you."
"Don't you ever do anything that's bad for you?"
And that was the day Checker met Sheila, and the day he started smoking.
They were fascinated and repelled by each other immediately.
At first Sheila just ignored Checker after giving him the smoke and a light. Mick introduced them, but she just kept talking to Mick for the next few minutes. Still, she kept glancing at Checker up and down, little grins but never when she looked at him. Then the shop boss yelled at Mick to get his ass inside and give him a hand, and Mick swore a bit and told Sheila he had to go, but they could hang out when he got done in three hours. Even though Sheila lived 87 miles away and had no way to get home but hitching, and she knew nobody else in Carton City, she just said "Maybe."
Then for no reason she ever thought of, she spun to face Checker and eyed him speculatively. "Where are you going?"
Then for no reason he ever thought of, although he had been planning to go home, he crushed out his cigarette under his boot and instead said, "Wherever...
Darkwing Duck
Checker Davis and Sheila Jensen met when they were kids. Sheila's cousin Mick was working as an apprentice grease monkey for Ducall's, same as Checker, but Checker was off the books, because he was only 11, so Ducall told folks he was just letting the kid watch while the guys worked. Nobody outside knew Checker worked hard there, and Ducall taught him all about machines and paid him under the table. Not much, but enough to buy ever more books and save up a bit.
So one saturday little Sheila, just beginning to blossom into womanhood, traveled all the way to Ducall's to visit her cousin. It was right about the time Checker was being sent home for the day. He walked out to see Mick giving Sheila a few smokes and the little girl lit up one for each of them.
She offered one to Checker. "Wanna smoke?"
"Smoking's bad for you."
"Don't you ever do anything that's bad for you?"
And that was the day Checker met Sheila, and the day he started smoking.
They were fascinated and repelled by each other immediately.
At first Sheila just ignored Checker after giving him the smoke and a light. Mick introduced them, but she just kept talking to Mick for the next few minutes. Still, she kept glancing at Checker up and down, little grins but never when she looked at him. Then the shop boss yelled at Mick to get his ass inside and give him a hand, and Mick swore a bit and told Sheila he had to go, but they could hang out when he got done in three hours. Even though Sheila lived 87 miles away and had no way to get home but hitching, and she knew nobody else in Carton City, she just said "Maybe."
Then for no reason she ever thought of, she spun to face Checker and eyed him speculatively. "Where are you going?"
Then for no reason he ever thought of, although he had been planning to go home, he crushed out his cigarette under his boot and instead said, "Wherever I want."
They smiled at each other, and started walking down the gravel drive, and talked, like kids do.
He knew more than anyone she'd ever met. He was like an entire library, like a psychic, like if the internet had dirty blonde hair and a denim jacket.
She was more full of life than anyone he ever met, like a string of firecrackers, like a jungle cat, like if God made a girl with a heavy metal song for a soul.
But while she loved his mind she hated how he was so full of thoughts his eyes got distant when he talked about them, how he drifted away from where he was and who he was with. She wondered if she was angry he was neglecting his own life for a head full of dreams or if she was jealous he drifted away from her so easily.
And while Checker found her thrilling and vivacious, he hated that she was so excited to do anything that it didn't seem to matter to her what she did, so long as it was exciting. He wondered if he was angry that she seemed to live life so pointlessly, so meaninglessly, or if he was jealous of her obviously intense but completely indiscriminate connection to all the things she did, to all the people she knew.
They spent almost a week straight together that first time, like kids do sometimes, until the stark differences between the two of them gave root to hate. They played and joked and listened to music older than either of them on an old, old boombox Checker had. Checker came up with crazy ideas and Sheila dared him to actually try them with her. They walked around town writing song lyrics and jokes on buildings with chalk. They wrote "kill the earth" on a gas station, and "question the answers" on Checker's school. Checker picked the lock on the church's bulletin sign cover, greatly impressing Sheila, and they rearranged the letters to spell "who are we to judge?" She talked him into stealing smokes and beer from a gas station, and called him a pussy when he felt bad later, when he snuck a twenty onto the counter. She sneered and told him the clerk would just find it and keep it, he was still a thief. He told her it was the gesture that mattered, that it was a symbol. She told him he was retarded, and asked if he believed in God. He said he didn't know. She didn't either.
She tried to get him to take some pills. He was horrified, and tried to take them away from her. She became enraged and pulled a knife, said she'd kill him if he tried to take her shit. He backed off, but there was no fear in his eyes, only shock that she had DRUGS, and valued them more than a person's life. Each was disgusted, and they both walked away from each other. Sheila found Mick and had him give her a ride home. Checker went back to Ducall's and the library, a little more of a hermit than usual for a while.
In one way of looking at it, you might think it could have ended there. A brief childhood incident each would barely recall in one or two year's time, for time passes differently for the young.
But if you could see it another way, it was already too late the moment she handed him that cigarette. Fate doesn't care whether you like people when it weaves your lives together forever. Though whether it was fate that brought and kept them together was open to debate.
They wound up meeting up again, of course. They couldn't escape it if they tried...and they occasionally did.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chant played guitar very well, but she prefered piano. Unfortunately, though their styles were nothing alike, she was compared to Tori Amos, just because nobody could see past the fact they were both female and pianists. Still, she prefered the Tori Amos comparisons to the Courtney Love comparisons.
She seemed almost a virtuoso on any instrument she put her hand to. More than anything else it was her tendency to move on once she'd attained a level of excellence that kept her from becoming a legend of technical mastery of any of the instruments she played. She simply decided she knew that instrument well enough and turned to another she did not know yet, whether trumpet or accordion, harp or glockenspiel. Some told her to stick with the guitar or something, a crowd pleaser, an arena rocker. But her band defended her artistic technique.
After all, she could already play better than any of them except Freeman and they were painfully aware of it, they didn't need her making them look even worse by comparison. Some critics already wondered why she didn't perform every piece herself for the albums, and just have her producer assemble the tracks in the studio.
She sneered at anyone who suggested that to her face though, and said Anubis was a band, not a person. She knew why she needed the rest of them, and would never tell a soul except Ben, one night after one of their first times making love, when she still felt so awkward, so eager to connect with someone.
"I couldn't stand it without them, Ben. They take away some of the attention. That's why I chose such lunatics. So they could take some of ther heat of those spotlights off of me. If it was just me up there Ben, even more alone than I already am...I think that I would die."
Ben didn't mention her suicide attempts then. He could only wonder how much worse shape she could be in if she thought she wasn't almost dying as it was. He could only hold her close, and whisper prayers to a God that she whispered was dead.
Ripsaw