I predicted something so-so.
We got a bloodbath.
We tore up the lawn. We defiled the neighborhood. We brought down most of the rest of the ceiling in Jeff's basement. And under all the drunk and the dust and the smashed drywall, there, too, lies a shard of my restless, idiot soul.
I suppose we all died a little that night. Aside from the thousands of brain cells cooked crisp and lifeless in deepfryer whiskey bottles and beer cans, a few of us, maybe, are a little older, a little wiser, a little more hollowed out. Maybe.
I suppose, too, anything we do is killing us - at least a little - because, instead of doing one thing, we're on another, and we've only got so much time. Instead of spinning the same records again and again, I could be listening to something new and potentially life-altering. Instead of watching TV, I could be learning Spanish or running a marathon or ending poverty. Instead of ripping through eighteen beers and a bottle of whiskey, I could be fighting or fucking or learning to play the bass better so that, next time, we won't be so sloppy.
But this time, there isn't a next time.
This time was it.
Straight Whiskey Black Coffee played our last set. It was a mess. We warmed up and tore into the first song - it was loud, at least, but even though we were on the same frets and more or less the same beat, at least one of us was crushing all the wrong notes. Unbeknownst to my drunk ass, the nut on my bass had come unglued, yanking everything out of tune. By the end of the set, Haggus and I had to stare each other down, droopy-eyed and slumping, to stay in time with one another. Our guitarist was great; the singers were on fire, despite knowing only a few of the words. But that was all right - the crowd didn't know them at all. All the mob wanted was to get half-naked and slam into each other, slick-chested, nipples spiked like the tips of heat-seeking missiles fired from a tailspun fighter jet.
At least we made people lose their minds a little. At least they danced.
That was something.
* * *
Haggus left. Dear old Haggus. He's headed out west like a zit-strewn pale horse and is sure to wreak untold destruction wherever his miasmic ass settles. I wish you all the best, you miserable disease. And to those who find themselves caught in the wake or, Heaven forfend, the resting place, of his bubonic cloud, I'm sorry. Haggus is your problem now.
God knows, Cubatown found itself in the awful throes of a body ridding itself of a longtime affliction. The townsfolk called in their babes and shut up their horses; they turned out the lights and drew their blinds to wait out the terrible madness that whirled around them.
It was like the meeting of a derranged cult. Dressed in the ragged uniform of the devout, those heathens not in the basement ripping down the ceiling were dancing around a firepit like bloodthirsty acolytes, sucking down beer - and inhaling pizza and wings - as if, with enough noise and debauchery, we'd awaken some ancient god to come down and obliterate us all. And maybe we succeeded. My memory, at least, is wiped almost clean by a spooky and otherworldly hand.
We spit, we yelled, we threw beer cans and trash on lawns and probably kept more than a few people awake a lot later than they'd have liked. Sorry, folks. Won't happen again.
You know it won't, because Haggus, that fountain of shit, is gone now.
* * *
There's a little bit of us that disappears every time we meet someone; and we give so much of ourselves to other people in our tiny, peach-tender lives, whether we want to or not. Most of the time we only give and get the slag and lime that hides our rust-and-ruby hearts; but there are those who manage to steal away with a few precious pieces. I'd ask for them back, those caratwights of soul I've lost to you borrowers and thieves, but I'm no better.
How much have I got left? How much have you taken? And how much have I stashed in cracks and behind false walls? If I've got the scale to measure it all, I haven't met the woman or man who knows how to calibrate such a complicated piece of junk.
So I'll drag it around, whatever I've taken and whatever I've got left, and when I'm called forth to answer for my filthy looting, I'll know just how much is in the bag.
~Photo by R. Jeffrey Proctor
