What Kind of Name is Hitchcock Blonde
by September Woods Garland
“Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.”
- Alfred Hitchcock
Eva and Grace and me were on tour, playing shitty club after shitty club, making just enough scratch for gas and food and the occasional eighth of weed when our van broke down somewhere east of Boise. The night was bitter cold and country dark. Troubleshooting the best we could, we guessed the fuel pump had gone out, but not one of us knew how to fix a damn thing on that van. We were punks, not gearheads.
Maybe we can hitch, Grace said.
With all this gear? said Eva.
Nah, I said, sniffing a hint of exhaust in the winter air. We need a new rig.
A set of headlights came into view, slowing as they neared. A lifted F-150 pulled over behind the van, and we braced ourselves for the encounter, wordlessly taking position. When a crew of rednecks piled out, I knew we were in for a fight.
The driver stepped close and lit a smoke. The light of the match cast a shadow across his pock-marked face. I watched him take in the view of Eva and Grace and me, arms-crossed, the F-150’s headlights illuminating our band name, airbrushed across the side of the van.
What kind of name is Hitchcock Blonde? he asked. His cohorts stood laughing at his side, but we didn’t say shit, just let his words hang there in the Idahoan night air.
The big one pushed me aside and opened the door to the van.
Looky here, he was saying as the group eyed our equipment:
The Marshall half stack.
The Peavey.
The Ludwig maple drum kit.
This gear’s ours now, said the driver as he smiled big with a rotted grin.
You inbreds even play? Grace said, giggling between tokes of a heady sativa.
The look she gave Eva and me signalled this was one of those moments in every woman’s life when she must decide. That night, Eva and Grace and me were in agreement.
The transformation was rapid. We’d been doing it a while now, with or without the power of the full moon. Fishnets ripped, tank tops tore, Doc Martens and Converse high tops burst at the seams. Our blonde locks grew wild in the night. We snarled and howled and when the metamorphosis was complete, we stood before the men: a formidable pack. Eva and Grace and me lunged. We scratched and bit, and the boys cried out. The driver pissed his Wranglers as I took a chunk out of his forearm, the squish of his flesh in my fangs invigorating. In under a minute the boys fled whimpering into the darkness, leaving a trail of blood atop virgin snow.
We returned to human form and loaded our gear into the truck. The rednecks had left a carton of smokes and a loaded .45 on the bench seat. I emptied the clip into the van’s windows and tires—just for kicks—and we abandoned the old rig there on the side of the road.
As we headed to our next gig in that lifted truck, heat and Bikini Kill blasting, the question about our name echoed in my mind. I wished I would have answered the guy.
That night we played to a rabid crowd of rural freaks. Hair stained with blood, I howled like the beast society forced me to become. I thought I spotted one of our would-be oppressors in the pit, pumping his fist and banging his head to the driving bass line. I winked in his direction as I growled, throwing myself around the stage. Here’s your answer, I was thinking, in all our raging grit and glory.
September Woods Garland is an emerging writer from the Pacific Northwest. Her flash fiction has appeared in Black Sheep Magazine, Idle Ink, Hello Horror, and elsewhere. She is currently in the query trenches with her debut novel. www.septemberwoodsgarland.com