West of Mars -- the Meet and Greet

No one noticed it until just before showtime. "Uhh… Mitchell?" Eric asked, standing over the band leader and peering down at his head.

"What?" Mitchell growled. His hangover was proving more stubborn than he'd anticipated and he'd already chugged the four quarts of orange juice that the band's tour rider specified -- and sent out a runner for two more. That meant, he was sure, he'd get halfway through the half-hour set and have to piss. Hopefully, there'd be a bathroom nearby. If not, he'd be decorating the venue.

Not that he'd never done that before.

Eric was touching his head, picking at his hair. Angrily, he swatted the lead guitarist away. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Your hair." Eric swallowed audibly. Mitchell, through the throbbing head and now the heartburn from all that orange juice, decided to let him say whatever it was that he was scared to. Then he'd kill him.

"It's … green."

Mitchell turned away and grabbed the nearest lock of past-his-shoulders hair. As he held it up, he could see it -- and it wasn't as faint as he'd hoped. "Fuck," he groaned, drawing the word out so that it was more a sound than an actual word.

"Three days in a pool, blondie," Trevor giggled, coming over for a look.

Mitchell very deliberately placed a fist in Trevor's gut and shoved him away. "Lemon juice," he ordered, looking around. They had lemon juice, he was sure of it, because Daniel put it in his tea.

The drummer hustled to hand over the little plastic lemon. Mitchell grabbed it and leaned over one of the sinks in the dressing room's bathroom, squirting the juice straight on his head and working it through his hair, trying to get it to bleach back to almost-white. Fucking stupid color for hair, he thought as he squirted and rubbed, squirted and rubbed.

Eric followed and helped. "Dans, send for more when you see a runner!" he called.

"Just steal some from the crew," Trevor said. He was leaning against the doorframe, watching as if this was better than anything he'd ever seen.

Then again, this being Trevor, it probably was. At least until the next greatest thing came along.

"Is it working?" Mitchell asked, the fumes making his eyes water. "My neck can't take much more."

"Uhh… no," Eric said. "And M, I hate to tell you this, but …"

"Spit it out."

"It's really green."

"Holy shit!" Daniel said, coming in the bathroom and poking at Mitchell's head. "How'd you make it worse?"

Mitchell jerked up so fast, he cracked his head on the faucet. He let out a wordless yowl and jumped up and down, a hand clapped to his wet hair, until the first jolt of pain faded.

Daniel clapped him on the shoulder as he left the bathroom, hopefully on the trail of more lemon juice. "Better fix it fast," the drummer said.

Mitchell stared at his reflection. He didn't need to get close to the mirror to see it. Green. His hair was green. He looked like a fucking polar bear at the height of summer, except even polar bears had some white left to them. He couldn't say the same. Not really. Not without exaggerating wildly.

Trevor, bent over at the waist and holding his gut, broke into peals of laughter.

"Trev, shut the fuck up. You're not helping," Mitchell told him, fighting a wave of panic. They had a show to do…

"FUCK!" Daniel roared, storming into the bathroom. "Charlie just came in. Dudes, we're on!"

They froze, giving each other terrified looks. They were about to take the stage, and their frontman, the one person everyone looked at, had very wet, very green long hair.

And the hot stage lights would probably only help one of those two problems.

Labels: creative writing, fiction, Green Hair Week, novel excerpt, outtake, short story

# posted by Susan Helene Gottfried @ 4:52 PM