Oedipussy

by Deep, Solomon

  Watching them, I enjoyed myself. I felt the thumping magic of their presence as they worked through their set. There was no question that they would be performing their encore.

  On Thursday, Susan brought me to the print shop. Against Chuck's advice, I got them to quickly engineer and rush order as many CDs as they could make before the show and deliver them to the venue by six so we had something to sell besides shirts.

  Thursday night in bed, I relented.

  I understood what was in my control, and what wasn't.

  I gave up trying to prepare, and I hoped the boys were studying and preparing.

  I hoped everything was going to work.

  I hoped it would be the best concert that Twin Falls ever had, and that her audience would revel in our work.

  I hoped that art and beauty would be synonymous with our show.

  Everything would begin the following night.

  Friday.

  I lay awake looking at the daubed plaster ceiling, hoping in the darkness.

  I hoped until the sun crept up.

  Chapter 25

  The Shanghai was as an opulent pageant of Oriental design. It was two stories tall, and took up an entire city block. It was more spectacle than restaurant, with live music, an exciting hibachi, a luxurious buffet, the best hospitality in town, and delicious authentic food.

  Tonight, it was our palatial arena.

  I sat arranging the merchandise table while the band loaded their gear onto the stage through door behind a big drape in the lounge. They were professional, their attention directed entirely on their silent teamwork. Watching them made me nostalgic for The Dawn Ego’s historic coffee shop load in.

  The printer delivered a hundred and fifty CDs to me at the table. It was more than I was expecting, but I wasn't concerned about being able to sell them. I fanned them on the table with the shirts.

  Oedipussy was one, and they were real. It shone off the microphones, and off the Octopus Oedipus Ouroboros on the bass drum head. We were making magic in this small pond. In Shanghai.

  Chuck ran to my table at the front of the room.

  "Hey. Looks like we're all set. Can we do a sound check with you up here?"

  I wheeled to the man on the sound board. The band ran through their instruments and vocals. I helped the man tweak. They tweaked. Everything seemed so easy, but perhaps that's what comes from so much preparation that everyone would be ready at the actual event.

  The boys may have been nervous, but I couldn't tell. I was surprised at how little concern I had. I knew they would be excellent.

  They finished their song with a few minor tweaks, but they were perfect.

  I met the boys at the back of the bar.

  "What time is it?" I asked.

  "It is seven forty five. Fifteen minutes until door."

  It had come to this.

  "Do you guys have everything you need?"

  "Yeah. We do," Chuck replied.

  "Water?"

  "The bar is passing it up on to the stage as we go."

  "I noticed it’s a little cool right now, but I’m sure it'll heat up once you're jumping around and the bodies get in here. Do you need towels?"

  "That isn't a bad idea..."

  "Okay, I'll ride across the street and get you some at the sports store there. They should still be open. We still have forty five minutes."

  Chang, the tuxedoed owner of the restaurant, came over to discuss how we wanted the performance to go. He personally wanted to introduce the band at eight thirty, and to assure us that his bartenders and doormen were all set to take care of the ticketing and merchandise. Everything would be tracked and taken care of before they left, including Chang deciding to add an unexpected twenty percent of the bar and door revenue back to the band.

  "We want you to come back. You are very nice young men. We are excited about the online response," Chang told us. "Very good marketing for you and for the Shanghai."

  The boys thanked him and shook his hand. As Chang walked away, we rejoiced.

  "I’m going to go get you those towels,” I said. “You guys make sure you have everything you need set up, and I'll meet you at the back door when I come back." They nodded.

  The lounge wasn't open yet, so the boys brought me down through the back. While the room was huge, the geography of the building was confusing. I was surprised that we were still level with the pavement at the back of the room as with the front. I easily rolled out onto the street through the stage doors.

  I turned. Pools of street light guided me up the street.

  "Todd!" Thom shouted to me as he got out of his car. The engine of the little red thing clicked as it cooled. His giant mass squeezed out like gelatin.

  "So glad you could make it,” I said as he bent over for a bear hug.

  "I wouldn't miss it. Very excited to hear your band play."

  "It's not mine, Thom."

  "It's your project. It's yours. They’ll be excellent."

  "Thank you."

  "This might not be the right time, but I’m happy I caught you. I got your parents." He bent back over into his tiny car and produced two small cardboard boxes.

  I looked at my mom and dad's names. They were typed onto cards. The cards were pasted to the cardboard boxes resting in his meaty hands under a streetlight. I held my hands out.

  "Thank you."

  He stood in silence, I sat.

  What do you say in times like these?

  "I can't wait to hear what you think," I offered.

  "I better get up there for a good spot," he joked, jutting his chin toward the restaurant. A serpentine line curved along the building and down the street. Their audience was going to be An Audience.

  "Thom,” I said. “Thank you."

  I rode two blocks up the street to the used sporting goods store, Twice As Nice. I bought six fresh white towels for the boys. I headed back with my parents on my lap.

  The line was even longer. Countless college-aged kids shifted in the cool night air.

  I rode down the street and behind the building to the double stage doors. I was greeted by the boys and their families. Their smiles beamed.

  "Everything you’ve done for these boys is incredible," Chuck's mother said. "I was skeptical, but in all sincerity I have seen such a change in Chuck over the last few weeks. They are better musicians and better boys now, because of you." I tried to keep my composure as I was introduced to Mark and Adam's parents and was greeted with more striking praise. I’ve never been thanked so wonderfully.

  They hugged their children, turned, and entered the lounge together. Peeking through the doors as they entered, my line of sight was blocked by a wall of people. The room was packed.

  Chang emerged through the doors.

  "You guys ready in five?"

  The boys nodded. I handed Chang the towels.

  "When you go in, could you could toss two of these next to each of the boys’ instruments?"

  Chang obliged and disappeared back through the open doors with the towels.

  I put my hands out beside me. My mother and father slept on my lap.

  Chuck took my right hand, Mark took my left, and Adam joined everyone together.

  "Tonight is the real beginning," I began. "The beginning of Oedipussy. Most bands have some strange growing pains, problems, personalities; but it's incredible that three men were able to come together to create something magic in the short amount of time you have. Management and guidance is just a way to make sure you’re your best selves - but as musicians, friends, coworkers, social media campaigners... You guys have so much talent and skill that I feel like I did so little...

  "Thank you for inviting me and allowing me to be a part of your work and your world over the last couple months to help you put this together. I’m an old, broken man. I could never do this. When I was your age, there's nothing I would have wanted to do more than be here with you tonight. Since I can't go back, and since I am who I am, and since you are who you are, helping
you be the best that you can be is enough. Your music... your success... this is enough for me."

  I felt our hands get tighter, and tighter as I spoke. We strengthened our grip into one force. Here we were. We were more in the now than ever.

  "We can't thank you enough," Mark said.

  "You're a real mentor and leader," Adam responded.

  "This has been the best time of my life, making art with you," Chuck finished.

  We released our grip. One by one, the boys knelt to hug me, and they hugged each other. I would have killed them if they let anyone see them do this to their image as a band, but my heart leapt in my chest at the camaraderie and love they shared.

  As we embraced, everything became a hush on the other side of the doors. The roar of glasses stopped clinking, the ambient music faded out, and the energetic buzz of the crowd dissipated. There was silence.

  "Ladies and Gentlemen," Chang began, "welcome to Twin Falls' most beautiful venue for live music and home of authentic Schezuan, Cantonese, Hunan, and Hibachi cuisine." We broke our embrace, and the palpable electricity arced on the hairs on the back of our necks. The boys slowly walked toward the doors. "They are making waves on the Internet, and their sound is unlike anything you've heard before..." They looked back at me, and smiled. "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Shanghai is proud to present: Oedipussy!"

  The crowd erupted. I watched as the boys bounded up to the stage, their backs bathed in dim red light.

  I only followed them partway into the building. I watched from below on stage right. Hundreds of people, ecstatic and alive, stood on the precipice of the future.

  Chuck approached the microphone.

  Click, click, click went the drumsticks as Chuck was airborne.

  His hand came down onto the strings, and white light faded in. Everyone took a breath in through their mouths, wide-wide-open.

  I looked out onto the emptiness of the canyon from the bridge.

  Music and excitement echoed from the open stage doors at the Shanghai not two hundred feet from where I sat in my chair.

  This was the bridge our van careened off. Everyone I cared about slowly disappeared over twenty years. I’ve been gone.

  Oedipussy was in their encore, and so was I.

  Through the darkness, I focused on the expanse.

  The stars opened like a dark blanket of laser beauty over my head. Below, the rocky clay pot of nothingness was barely visible. The sun's photons bounced around the earth and off the moon and back down to earth and off the rocks and into my eyes.

  I stared into the void behind the guardrail, and something called to me.

  I wheeled as close as I could. It seemed somewhat new, unscathed, and clean. I picked up mom and dad's boxes and put them on the railing. I put my hands on the railing, and pulled myself out of my chair and up and over the metal with my hands. My legs were wobbly beneath me, but I was able to keep still with my upper body.

  I pulled myself up, extending and locking my arms on the railing, and I howled. I was a pommel horse gymnast. I was a wolf.

  My back arched, and I pulled my hips above the guardrail, and up onto the second metal reinforcement. I sat. I picked my legs up and swung them around under the light of the moon.

  I sat on a railing above the canyon that took me. I sat next to the ashes of my parents.

  I felt so worn down.

  The thumping of the song ended, and the echoes of the cheering crowd wafted on the air. Cheer. Softer, cheer. Whispercheer. Everything felt so real for the moment.

  I shattered another scream that carried itself in the air and washed through the gorge. It was a word that seemed to begin as 'why' but changed into 'what' as it came out. It dissipated into the stars, and the gorge responded, '-ut,' '-ut,' '-ut,' softer and softer into nothingness.

  And then I had the idea... What would happen?

  Looking over the precipice into the abyss I had the urge to take one more dive. To show Mother Nature and gravity that if I could do it once, I could do it again. All that would be left is my chair, as if I never existed. It was an intense momentary magnetism; not a need to die, but a need to live.

  I opened mother's box. I sloppily tore the cardboard in a half moon. There was a plastic bag with clumpy ash sand. I took the bag out and tossed the box into the canyon. I slowly poured her into the air. She became a powdery cloud, catching in the undercurrent of the breeze. Some cloud wafted into my mouth.

  I dropped the bag.

  I did the same for Father.

  He fell like dead weight. His sand careened straight into the blackness like a brick.

  The cheering was muffled with the slamming of the double doors. I looked to the back of the restaurant. The boys spoke to one another below the service light. They hugged and celebrated, positive and joyous.

  In the silence, I could barely remember the life I once led. Once, my optimism drowned negativity. When I was young I wasn't even aware of it, as if negativity wasn't even possible. When I was young I was alive. These young men were the true metamorphosis of myself. I felt alive again.

  The wind blew across the bridge and against my back. It tempted my balance. It urged me to shift my weight toward the canyon. I braced against it.

  I relished in watching their joy.

  Chang materialized through the doors and approached the boys with a fat envelope. They had a short conversation before he went back in. The boys became even more elated, dramatically acting out the conversation with their hands. Chuck spun on his heels to search the area.

  He spotted me and walked toward the bridge.

  As he approached, his body darkened as he left the outlined of the service lights on the building. Every few steps he was bathed in saintly gowns of white streetlight.

  "How'd it go?" I asked.

  "It was incredible. The crowd was - Chang said there were three hundred and seventy five people at the show and they had to turn people away into the restaurant because there wasn't enough room - and then he said the restaurant filled up!"

  "I stayed for most of the set," I said, "but it got hot by your encore, and there were too many people. I just needed some air."

  I paused, and nodded toward the sky above the canyon. "The stars are beautiful," I said.

  Chuck walked up to the railing and put his arms on it and searched the gorge and the sky. Sweat beaded down his skin. He took a deep breath.

  "This is beautiful."

  In the night, under the light of the stars, we both paused.

  Water bubbled quietly below. The ambient breeze flitted through the trees, and a tiny chatter of the concertgoers' voices trailed back from their cars a couple blocks away. All sound dissipated into the night sky. The air was clean and remarkable.

  "You feel good?" I asked.

  "Chang gave us an envelope. It has nine hundred bucks in it. That was just cut of our bar share, and he also let us keep the cover charge money. He thought it wasn't right to keep any of it. He told us he made a killing at dinner. He said he'll give us the merch money once we were done, and he also wants to give the four of us a dinner spread," Chuck said. "You should come back in and eat with us."

  "Thanks. I will. I just want to sit here for a little while in the quiet."

  "Sure... Listen, we've talked about this, and we want to give you the money from tonight-"

  I began to relent, upset even that the discussion turned to money on this beautiful night. Money was the opposite of everything I was experiencing right now. Chuck cut me off from my thoughts.

  "-and we want you to know that this isn't payment or anything, but more like an investment in us. We've already spent a bunch of your cash, and we know you're making your own label and all of that, but think of it like investing in the future of Oedipussy. Really. That way, if we need strings, or a new cymbal, or stickers, or whatever, we can just come to you."

  "But I was going to get that for you anyway," I responded.

  "Which is exactly why what we made will go into an account with you. It can
still be our money to spend on the band, just in your hands. The business."

  What could I say? The little fuckers were right, and I had no right to refuse it since I was planning on spending more on them.

  "Okay. But it’s still your money."

  "It's Oedipussy's."

  I nodded.

  I sat on the railing looking down, down, down into the hole where fate took me. Then, back at Chuck, and the up, up, up, of the future. Music was a glorious revelation that I was still making something happen.

  "You know, this is the railing the van went over when we had the accident," I said.

  "It was a beautiful night. I was playing the first show with our band. We were called 'The Dawn Ego.' Twin Falls never saw anything like this with their country bands and roadhouse cover bands... We were different. We swore we’d be the next Nirvana, or something.

  "We were all packed up and this truck came out of nowhere.

  "The next minute, I had this crazy dream about us becoming famous, and sex, drugs, success. More success than I could ever imagine.

  "But papercut deep, just under the surface… It was this weird, twisted reality. The real reality. Twenty-five years later I wake up with hardly anything to live for."

  I shifted my support corset under my shirt to the left to remove the pressure of it pinching my hip.

  "I'm so grateful for you boys. Everything seems promising. It's just a coincidence that your show was here tonight, and I know you want to thank me and everything, but... You're helping. I'm being reborn from this canyon into the beauty of your music. Where you grow, so do I. I'm following you out of the wreckage, just as you're following me into the stars."

  "Thank you," he said.

  "Thank you," I replied.

  The breeze was cool, the air was crisp and fresh.

  Five minutes passed.

  Ten minutes passed.

  "Want to go get that dinner?" Chuck asked.

  "Yeah. Go ahead. I just need a few more minutes.”