Oedipussy

by Deep, Solomon

  Music seemed to take shape very quickly as my life plan. Not a very good life plan, but a life plan that was built out of the brick and mortar of my imagination. I wasn't even sure how I got to this point. It was hasty. It was irrational. This hasty, irrational, unplanned plan was what I was going to do to get out of Twin Falls.

  I would need posters. I would need to get the word out. I would need CDs and a distribution model, or a record deal, or something to get us started. I would need...

  I needed to practice.

  I entered the house after my musical dream walk through the suburbs of little houses cut from the same die and repeated, and repeated.

  I dropped my backpack in the kitchen, and carefully removed my notebook. I walked down the basement stairs, the slumbery must of stale air swirling around me, and walked straight to my guitar.

  Hello.

  I picked her up, and strummed, and strummed. I made her howl with excitement. I tore through her bones, and slid down her neck, and tickled the bars over the blonde fretboard.

  My practice always began as noise. I would play around in key hammering up and down the guitar in order to get a feel and a fashion of where the strings were that day, slithering my callused fingers delicately over the coiled wires. I didn't know what I was doing last weekend, but this weekend had to be different.

  I started with my easiest song. It was the first one I had written when I began learning guitar. I picked up standard musical notation from a balding jazz guitarist who studied at Julliard and now taught guitar, correctly, to teenagers for twenty bucks an hour.

  My first chords were C, G, E, F, and A. With a successful combination of the above, I danced through what seemed like a thousand songs. It began with nursery rhymes, then simple pieces, and then with my first stomp box it became a metal play-through of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, The Pixies, and I learned tamer stuff like REM and The Cranberries just as quickly. It was all a practice in trying to squeeze out as much as I could from the tiniest thimble of elemental chords. I developed with what little I knew, and had everything I needed to become successful in music.

  As I practiced, I began to think about getting a job at Kinko's. At Kinko's I could get cheap copies. Free copies! I could change my circumstances to find success on the business end with a simple, mindless job and loose ethics.

  So with a flourish, I ran through my songs with skill and determination. I would be ready with a track list on Saturday at the rate of one song a day mastery if I added a new song a day. A new song, play it until I bleed, and then play through the next song. Live a live mix tape. Play.

  Notes careened out of my guitar, and the silent strum of the notes with the volume down created a harmonious echo in the distorted light scream of my amplifier.

  There was no one home.

  I had the opportunity to let my baby call her orgasm in my hands; she could scream through the beams of this suburban home and make it a sexual music box.

  I turned the amplifier up, the dial going from 1 to 2. Nothing. It was there, but not enough. 2 to 3. The small incandescent sparkle sound of electricity moved through the magnets and the warmth of the vacuum tube radiated, but a little more. I went directly to 6, and the white noise was finally recognizably bleeding through the air like a knifeslice carrying the waves of nothingness.

  This is what the power of potential sounded like.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  I stopped there on the amp, and moved my guitar's dial up to 9. It was the Stratocaster's turn to carry the momentum of the moment. Bass, bass, E String, E String, E String, and an F Sharp, and I dove in.

  I screamed over the wail of my baby, a bloody compensation of everything that I lived for. The moment was as electric as the aurora borealis, alone with my eyes closed, and I sang.

  He.

  He walked away with his/

  Guitar in his hand/

  His Hair Torn Grey/

  Sang The Song/

  He waited all day/

  The Day to Arrive/

  The Devil Held On.

  His heart was Grey/

  Rotten Meat Pomegranate/

  Lucky Little Maggot Pie/

  Lucky Lucky Maggot Pie/

  Kill time/

  Knock it off/

  This life'll leave you

  With a stab wound son/

  The Prodigal One

  Killing Time / Killing Time

  I felt like I stepped outside -one- myself as I sang, and tore through the rudimentary -two- hand signals of my song. It was clean, ripe, and -three- made more sense than anything in the world, -and four-.

  A kept man in the shower/

  a kept man in the stall/

  a kept man knows nothing/

  gets nothing at all.

  Kill Time/

  Knock it off/

  This life'll leave you

  With a stab wound son/

  The Prodigal One

  Killing Time/Killing Time

  I needed to tear this house down with sound. Tear it down and rebuild the house and the city with my art and my work and my brilliance to keep the strength and the-

  Keep me posted/

  Knock on wood/

  Know the price/

  Don't ask if I'm dead.

  Kill Time/

  Knock It Off/

  This life'll leave you

  With a stab wound son/

  The Prodigal One

  Killing Time/Killing Time

  -and four, one, two- open your eyes.

  I stopped.

  Jenny was at the bottom of the basement steps, and my fingers mashed a crunchy A Sharp and F and wavering G and A. Cacophony.

  Jenny stood, her shoulder length amber hair bobbed above her collarbone. Her hands lay over her mouth, her breasts puckered together under her v-neck, her eyes a golden horizon of surprise and awe.

  She bounded across the room and directly into me. Her arms encircled my neck, her mouth on mine. We passionately kissed as the muffled sound of the strings of the guitar scruffled over the knit of her shirt. Garbled mash as I peered out of the corner of my eyes, reached for the cable to yank it from the amplifier, and a pop and a buzz as it was freed.

  She pulled her shirt over her head, and she knelt before me, tugging at my belt.

  I tactfully pulled my guitar over my head, and delicately placed it on the stand as she worked her magic. I was somewhere else entirely in a moment.

  Chapter 3

  "Well?"

  The tippytap of rain falling down the gutter ticked through the walls of the basement. Three young men and a stunning young woman expectantly stared at me on a snoozy, rain-driven Saturday. John was able to gather everyone together and get them over to my house to try again. No work. No excuses.

  Jenny wore a tank top, loose sweatshirt, jeans, and thigh high boots. I wanted to send her ankles above her head so I could have a better look at those boots.

  John Xiong sat on a milk crate surrounded by his deconstructed drums. Moments earlier we had darted through the rain to transport them into the basement through the bulkhead. He wore a white tee with pegged sleeves and black jeans. He was strikingly masculine, with a quick appearance with close cropped hair and the air of Asian sophistication about him. You could tell who he was long before you learned about his advanced placement calculus courses. He was a focused and driven young man; a bit outside of the definition of anti-establishment, but the kid knew how to play the drums.

  Kurt Lobel was on the floor with his legs splayed in front of him, a mop of hair, a flannel, and Chuck Taylor All Stars beneath torn jeans that seemed to unravel off of him. He was a cliché - everything that The Gap considered its targeted customers, even though he didn't seem to notice. His army surplus backpack lay beside him, matching his bored countenance.

  Kurt was my lead guitarist. I needed him, and it was difficult to keep our relationship going because of his fickle nature. He needed me, too, but we
needed to keep a distance of only professional talk and time together. It was a relationship of interested disinterest, or a cramped awe - worshiping his work, but at the same time pleading a distinct hatred for the crap he asked me to critique. He was a prima donna. He was that girlfriend who asked if she looked fat in something, but you knew that there was no correct answer that wouldn't lead to a fight.

  Standing behind all of them was Steve Harvester, funk-bassist extraordinaire. He was thin, and stood as a confident, quiet man. Chinos and a matching straw fedora-type thing over his short-cropped hair, Ray Bans, and grey eyes that were diminished and shrunken by their hefty lenses. He looked cool. Cool like a bassist. Clean and sharp, he visually vibrated tasty beats.

  This was my band that had not been formed yet.

  I hadn't a moment to waste.

  Amp 9.

  Strat 9.

  Hum, click, stomp the box, and rock it.

  I pulsed through the first song energetically, and a rainbow of hard sound coursed through my arms, to my hands, and massaged through my shiny black appendage, kicking the rock to their faces in waves of pulsating sound sound sound, and grunge, fuzzy grunge.

  This was alternative rock, and the tip off of the future self as I rocketed my art into the stratosphere of their minds. Jenny beamed with her fingers in her ears, Steve was focused, John tapped his fingers and feet planning the beat, and Kurt was as stolid as ever as he listened - never anything to indicate any semblance of excitement, joy, sadness, or fear in his face.

  The last chord resonated through the speakers in a fuzzy hum.

  They stared, waiting for me to say something. I thought, even lacking accompaniment it was perfect this time.

  "So, that was the first one..." It was hard to sound confident when the reaction I was looking for was so subjective. They stared. "I have been hitting that for a while now - felt terrible that I really messed it up last time, but this time I nailed it... I have four more. So, I guess the real reason I brought everyone together was this - this is my proposal to you. This sound. I want to start a band with you guys, and I know we can do it."

  "We're seniors in high school, man." Kurt stepped on opening the first volley into the conversation. He continued, "What do you expect us to do?"

  "I expect you to play guitar with me, Kurt." I responded matter-of-factly and truthfully, "And John, you play the drums, and Steve you play bass."

  Moving down the line of friends sitting around, my eyes landed on Jenny. "Jenny, you can't play anything, so..."

  "It's ok, I'm just the eye candy."

  "Exactly. You're our first album cover."

  Furrowed brows surrounded me as I examined everyone in the circle thinking about their membership in this new tribe.

  After this moment of inviting them back to watch me play, I realized that I really hadn't spent much time with them at all.

  When Kurt first came up to me in the hallway two months earlier it was to talk guitar. He begged me to come play with him at his house. Or, was it listen to him play? A week later in a run-down ranch with cinderblock furniture and a shabby mattress on the floor of his bedroom, he strummed and plucked a little on a Les Paul. We talked about music, our training, and compared our chops when he gave me a go on his beautiful guitar.

  I knew John the longest. He worked at the movie theater at the little strip mall. Our first bonding was joking about the name of the plumbing supply business in town, Twin Screw.

  Where did Steve come from, though? I only spent a total of three hours with the guy, one of which he watched me mash my guitar strings. I senselessly illustrated a monstrously insane, ridiculously inane lack of talent.

  He came via Kurt.

  If there was one thing that stood in the way of our success, it was Kurt's simple, predictable cynicism. It was obvious that we were all about music and our talents, but our relationship didn't extend beyond that. The band was simply the next logical step in the friendship of the four of us. But what I didn't get was, why was Kurt was the first person to speak up?

  "Listen, man," I responded to Kurt, "this is what it is all about - this is why we've come together! Why did you drive Steve here? I don't know the guy - and I don't know how you know him. Where does he even go to school?" I turned my gaze to Steve. "Are you even in school, or are you in college or something?"

  "I go to Saint Lawrence's - I'm a senior too," Steve replied. He was clearly unsure of the resulting confusion everyone had, and clarified, "home of the Fighting Briquettes."

  "The Fighting Briq - never mind." I felt like I needed to sell it more, but not lay it on so thick that I lost sight of the goal. I needed to get everyone together in order to start a band. That goal would be lost on Kurt and his disquieting, muffled emotional clarity. "Listen, I have a whole business plan."

  "A business plan?" John asked. "Let's hear it."

  "First, we practice once a week - whatever day works for everyone and that we can all get together without there being some sort of exception to the rule. This would be our sacred time. Next, I am going to go get a job at Kinko's so we can get copies and flyers and whatever we want made up. I'll pay for them. Third, we set a goal. In two weeks we will make up a demo with what we’ve practiced-"

  "Two weeks?" Kurt was stunned.

  "Two weeks – we’re all professionals here, and we can do it in that time if we are focused. Besides, it’s a demo. We can screw it up as many times as we want."

  "Two weeks..."

  "-and I will buy the recorder. Eight tracks, isolated. We can do this."

  "...ok?"

  "Then, in that time I’ll try my best to make some contacts." I started talking very quickly. "I don't know how, but I will. And I will have people at the clubs around here to take our demo tape - all of which I’ll pay for - and listen to it, and get us some gigs. Then we'll play."

  They looked at me with wide-eyed astonishment and disbelief. The questions swam in their eyes, and their hair-tosses, and the shifting of their Doc Martens.

  "So, okay, so let’s say we take this on, no biggie, right?" The commas dripped out of Steve's mouth. "The one thing that my folks are killing me about is college. SATs. Getting everything all set. What about that?"

  He seemed to be the only dissenter in that category.

  "Well, do your college stuff."

  "Then what, though?"

  "What, what?"

  "Okay, so when am I going to do that and all my school work?"

  It was clear that I would need to sell the idea to them individually.

  "When you normally would. This is one night a week."

  "I don't know..."

  "Don't know what? No, this won’t stand in the way of any of that. Trust me."

  "I guess..."

  "Why are you here, then?"

  "To play music."

  "Then, let's play music!"

  The logic was almost pristine, colluding with the intense rush of simplicity. Let's. Play. Music.

  There were times that I would find myself saying that there was a method to my madness - my irrational impulsive drive to do something huge and stick with it. Up to this point, however, I would create, synthesize, and manufacture without much rhythm or drive.

  This time, I wrote a few songs and had them entirely constructed. I just needed a group - a band of brothers that were willing to follow my guidance and leadership into this unknown. We were everything that the future held for us, and it was all in the sound, waves, and a brilliant display of humanity and focus on the jumping-off point of our freedom and adulthood.

  "Then," Kurt spoke with an impulsive clarity and promise, "let's stop talking about it. Let's make music."

  In a moment Jenny squeaked with delight, unable to hold back her emotion for this moment of enthusiasm and camaraderie.

  "Let's meet back here for the first practice in one week. Same time. Let's do it in the afternoon so everyone can work, or whatever with their night." My leadership and diplomacy was staggering, fresh, and outside of my
character. This was my dream coming to life. "John, do you want to set up your kit and lay down some beats for this stuff before you go? Get some of it done today?"

  "Let's do it."

  "You guys can stay if you want – it’s up to you."

  They stared back at us, but didn't seem to know what their plan was. I called to order the pizza, and we all helped assemble John's drums. We ate. Steve and Kurt stayed to listen to my remaining songs and observe the work we did. They listened, studied, and we moved forward.

  John and I worked through all of them, only missing the bass and the solo guitar accompaniment.

  This was the beginning of our first practice. Tickled with energy and drive, I focused for our future in these first moments. I was protecting my future with a barricade of sound. So started an invisible wave-barrier of freedom, experience, and a wholesome heartbeat in rock and roll.

  Chapter 4

  The modem squealed, cracked, rushed, beeped and whooshed. The newer computer our family shared in the living room opened a connection to America Online.

  "Welcome... You've got mail!"

  A variety of screens came up - email, notifications of the latest news stories, notifications of the comments that had recently been made in my groups, chat rooms with conversations to catch up on, and my friends that were online.

  This was now a mess of information that was no longer of any use to me. I was a slave to popular culture for so long. I remember having live discussions online with my friends from all over the country about who was going to win the MTV Music Video Awards as they aired, as if this was any indication of true art in the world. It was as if this approval was exactly what I was looking for - some sort of vindication of my tastes in the scheme of the world and the eyes of some faceless, unnamed "judges." These conversations would go on for ages, as if they mattered. As if any of it mattered.

  Perhaps the best of these conversations, the only one of any substance and an approach of a global truth, was the chat we had as Dana Carvey introduced Nirvana a couple of years earlier. I wasn't on AOL yet, connecting to the internet through a dialup relay service, but the theme of the thing still echoed today.