Here's the conclusion of the Walking Wounded story. It's in two entries, since it seems to be a little longer than WordPress likes. So, if you scroll down after reading this part, you'll get the ending. That makes the order sort of weird, but it seemed the best solution.

They took the stage with real confidence, almost to the point of cockiness. As if, Starling thought, the final applause and encores were guaranteed. She noted with interest that they had a female drummer. She'd forgotten that Vinnie Frank had introduced them. Meeting Alex had driven everything else out of her mind. She looked at the band.

Alex's thin, pale arms against her black t-shirt, somehow made her look young and defenseless. Vinnie combed his hair and made sure the points of his collar were properly erect as Alex tapped her mike and said, "There is..." She paused. "There is a Walking Wounded between where you are w and where you should be. This is called Special Reaction."

Starling was floored.

Alex was magic on stage that night. And, as Vinnie remembered Craig telling him when he joined the band, the whole thing rose and fell on Alex.

If she was off-stride, the rest of them could only be competent. But if she was at her best, they were all raised up with her. And that night she was at her best, tall, fragile body twisting around the microphone stand as her amplified howl sliced through everybody in the room. She looked like she was in the middle of a hurricane and the microphone stand was the only thing keeping her from being swept up into the air and away.

They were working up an incredible momentum, almost from the beginning of the set, each song crashing right out of the end ofthe last. Lenore drummed viciously, sweat flying from her in all directions. Her usually full red hair was plastered to her head and shoulders. Very early on she'd discarded her jacket, rolled up her sleeves and loosened her tie. Vinnie turned his attention back to his bass-playing.

Then, as they roared recklessly into the second section of "Fever Eyes," they almost lost the rhythm until Lenore's solid pulse brought them back together again. Craig's eyebrows raised a fraction, then lowered again, and Vinnie knew he'd have something to say about that lapse at the next rehearsal.

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"I wonder if this will distract Alex-" Raymond began.

"Distract her?" Vinnie said with a snort. "Within a week they'll be knee-deep in pet names and in-jokes, and they'll probably be wearing each other's clothes."

Raymond finished his beer, looking uncomfortable, and said, "Vinnie, maybe we should be pushing on."

Lenore put out her cigarette as Vinnie got up, and said, "Can I get a ride from you, Vin?"

Vinnie, halfway into his leather jacket, nodded. "Sure."

They left, and Craig stretched out on his mattress. He closed his eyes for a minute, then opened them and started filling his pipe.

"So, you should tell me some things," Alex said. "Information."

Starling smiled. "What do you want, ancient or modern?"

"Modern."

"I manage Flesh Resistors. They're good."

"How did you get connected with them? What did you do before?"

"I met them through a performance organization I was working with. Theatre pieces and shock-art, you know. We did everything we could think of. Locked people in and experimented. Anyway, some of the people in the group decided to form a band. When they left, I followed them. I can see when something's going to be big."
Lenore leaned over and kissed Vinnie before getting out of the car. He pulled away from the curb as she walked up the path towards her house.

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A scene I'm writing now, which will be coming very soon, refers to the unreliability of Alex's memories of her early life. That made me think of this story, which will be included somewhere when I rewrite. Since I'm not sure yet where it will go, I thought I would preview it here.

Alex stood looking out her window. Occasionally a car drove down Main Street of the small New England town of Ross. Alex's apartment, over the town's General Store, was rather cold, but she didn't turn up the heat. She liked the way the chill made her feel.

She reached over to her desk and picked up her a small flask, which was filled with bourbon. She cradled it against her sweater for a moment, then opened it and took a sip.

Vinnie walked up to the Snow's front door, combing his greased-back hair. He stuck the comb into his back pocket and knocked. After a moment, Mrs. Snow, Craig's mother, opened the door and said, "Oh, hello, Vinnie. Craig's downstairs. Go on down."

Vinnie opened the door to the basement and walked down the rickety stairs. The smell of dope was strong in the air. He wrinkled his nose, thinking of the free beers he'd get at the gig later that evening.

Craig, Walking Wounded's guitarist, was sitting in his sagging old recliner chair, eyes closed, headphones on, dope pipe dangling forgotten between his long fingers. A very familiar sight.

Vinnie switched the speakers on, so he could hear what Craig was listening to. It was a tape of the last Walking Wounded rehearsal. Vinnie listened for a minute, noticed himself making more than his share of mistakes on the bass, then switched off Craig's headphones.

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Hi. As you may have noticed, I didn’t post an entry last night. There were a couple of problems which had to be solved. One was that the entry I wanted to post was a deleted scene, much longer than the one I posted before, and it was apparently too long for WordPress to deal with.

Compounding this was the fact that I kept losing my internet connection. Eventually, I gave up, deciding to set up the deleted scene as a separate HTML file which I would link to from here. And then I decided to check for another dial-up number to call, and found that the number I was calling wasn’t listed anywhere on the ISP’s website. One disadvantage of not using the proprietary Windows software (since I’m not using Windows) is that I don’t get notifications when the dial-up numbers are changed.

So, I’ve updated the numbers and set up the file with the deleted scene, so all we need now is a small introduction.

In the original version of the Carly story, before it became part of U-town, Pete was among the group gathered in Duffy’s overnight, and it was he who went to the protest with her, not Nicky (who wasn’t there). Of course, being Pete, he thought about making a pass at her, but, unlike Nicky, he didn’t actually do anything about it.

That night, she came back to the apartment with him to sleep.

This is a deleted scene from U-town. It would come somewhere in the chapter Curse the Darkness, since it is after Pete learned starling's real name, but before he learned certain other things.

Pete has done a day of factory work...

At six o'clock they blew the whistle and Pete was glad to be done. His skin felt like it had a thin coating of machine oil all over, with little bits of metal grit sticking here and there. His ears buzzed, and his right arm and left calf ached.

He was walking without conscious effort as he got off the train. He just shuffled along with everybody else, pleasantly tired and numb, enjoying the thought that, unlike the others, he didn't have to go back the next day. He thought he might not even eat dinner, he might just collapse into bed.

Actually, he felt like buying a bottle of whiskey with some of the money in the envelope in his pocket, and drinking all evening. The image of himself passed out at his kitchen table with a half-empty bottle of booze beside him, that had some appeal. But he knew that in reality he simply didn't like hard liquor.

So, on his way to the apartment from the subway, he stopped off and bought four quart bottles of beer. He thought he might have a fine drunken evening with Carl and starling.

The only problem was that Carl had just left, and starling wasn't in a particularly sociable mood, and that left it mostly up to Pete.

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