Oedipussy (11 page)

"Small, but intense. They have been great. Different than what we're used to."

"Good. I know, but it is chumpystuff." Chumpystuff? "How much school do you have left? It's time for bigger shows and the album."

"Two weeks - less? Last day is May twenty-seventh, I think. School has been the hardest part, but we'll figure it out. Only two more weeks."

"Okay. How about we get the ball rolling right after that? May twenty eight you take a plane down to Nashville for the record. Rest a couple days. If you take a week to record it, we are only talking about another two weeks turnaround for artwork and packaging - prelim, that is - for you to sell at some real shows."

"That sounds fine - I don't really need to go to graduation, but the guys might want to. I can double check. This sounds like a reasonable request, though... Is it normal for a band to record an album in a week?"

"No, but I think you guys can do it."

"Okay."

"Spackle!" Spackle? "And I have here a date for your first few post-recording shows in a couple weeks. For the most part you're going to be filling in on other tours where the original opening acts dropped out. I tried to get you on some grunge bills, but a few of them are whatever we can fill. There are two reasons for that - one, is that we're simply trying to get you exposure, and two is that record companies usually try to get their own bands on the same bill to save money, save on promoter costs, vans, equipment, whatever."

"Okay."

"So here they are. We have you opening for a band called 'Radiohead' on December sixth in Boston, another a few days later with a band 'Toadies,' the next day, a band called 'Bush,' which is funny because you're actually covering for Toadies who couldn't be there that night-"

"-wait."

"What?"

"I am confused."

"Okay, about what?"

"You said we would be going to record the album in a couple weeks, but then that we are opening for these bands in a couple weeks."

"Precisely."

"Okay."

"What?"

"Well, we have dates we are talking about here, right? I'm confused."

"What are you confused about?"

And then I saw Hirons. I saw him in his office.

He was tapping a pencil on a pad. His secretary was sucking his dick under his desk. He looked down at his lap and shook his head, pointing to his phone. 'Can you believe these guys?' he communicated. The secretary shrugged with the cock in her mouth for a moment, and continued bobbing. The tight curls of her red hair bounced like a pompom.

Was it me?

"Okay, so you said you are flying us down in a couple weeks,” I said, “and we're both talking about May twenty-eighth."

"Yes."

"Ninety-four? And the first show we are doing with this 'Radio Head' or whatever is December sixth, this year?" I enunciated my words. "Which you said is also two weeks away?"

"Don't worry about the logistics, Todd. We'll have it all taken care of. Just don't late." What? His grammar was even a mess.

"I'm afraid we'll too early."

"Talk sense, Todd. If I were you, I would be afraid of being too curly," and over the phone I heard him waggle his eyebrows at the secretary who pushed his swivel chair backward until it 'tinked' the plate glass window. Without taking his dong out of her mouth, she flipped herself backward and around. Her pelvis landed at his head, and her feet landed on the glass. Her skirt lifted with the gymnastic feat. Her pink, shaved pussy landed in his face.

"Let's touch base in a couple weeks and see where we are at," he continued. He cleared his throat. "YUMYUMYUMYUMYUM!" His voice became cartoonish as he began devouring her, the words popping in comical fonts over his head. Todd heard squishing of muscle and flesh over the receiver.

"Okay," He replied. He didn't entirely know what he had agreed to, nor what the appropriate phone etiquette was in this particular circumstance.

"Don't miss your gigs over the next couple weeks." Hirons managed to eke out. He breathed in through his nose as he bit. Bone and cartilage crunched, blood sopping from his mouth and soaking his suit. "Good. Buy. Todd."

"Goodbye, Mr. Hirons."

"Byron Wyman!"

The line went dead, and on the other end Hirons and the secretary ate, and ate, and ate.

Until, pop!

They were no more!

The recording studio in Nashville was wood. Cathedral ceilings breathed. Thousands of mechanistic and oppressive slats of wood were individually installed on the walls and the ceiling and the floor by hand. The room was a grinder with wooden bars that would collapse like a mandolin egg slicer at any moment.

Soon the slats would slice.

We stood with our instruments.

Microphones stood around the room, and cables, and everything was far away from everything else.

"Okay, I think we're ready," I began.

We were frozen still. Silence. The vapid void of nothing sucked by the room's acoustics. There was nothing - no movement, and all as statuary. All sound dissipated into blackness between the wooden slats.

"The Dawn Ego, track one, take one," I said, because that's what I thought I was supposed to say... Or the engineer was supposed to say it.

"...and then," the engineer said.

I didn't understand.

"And then, what?"

Click, "...and then,"

There was no movement from behind the glass. They were wax figures with unmoving mouths. It was difficult to see behind the glass, but they were like Gerry Anderson puppets in a ship staring from the space window. They were twice removed from us by thick double panes of glass, tinted just so. They were in another plastic universe.

"And then, what?" I repeated.

"And then," click, "and then," click, "and then," click, "and then," click "and then," click "and then," click, like a metronome, tick, tick, tick, and then, and then, and then.

I turned to Kurt who was standing stock still stunned, his mouth only open a tiny crack, and I noticed some of the sound came from his mouth hole, "and then, and then, and then," in complete synchronization. The sound was nothing like a voice, though. There was no movement of air, like a treble-cackle from a fast food drive through speaker, "and then, and then, and then, and then,"

I walked to Steve, my knees wobbly and unsure, and everything felt dizzyingly strange and new. Steve's plasticene marionette shell was like everyone else's.

He continued, "and then, and then, and then, and then..."

I had a hard time breathing, like I was carrying around a metal railroad spike in the middle of my chest and I had to make room for all my organs.

"and then, and then, and then, and then,"

Tick, tock, tumbling about the time, turning down three hours to one, and two weeks to take turns talking.

"and then, and then, and then, and then,"

AND THEN, AND THEN, I KNOW, I KNOW!

"and then, and then, and then, and then,"

Always knocking, never stopping,

"and then, and then, and then,"

And the ceiling’s gears began its grinding descent, as in the distance I heard our music. Softly, softly.

"and then, and then, and then, and then,"

and the wood creeeeeaked like a pine being squeaked against its own moist innards to wrench down a branch, or even better, the chalky clack and squeak of birches softly swaying in the winter and landing together to rub, rub, rub it out,

"and then, and then, and then, and then,"

and the wood kept coming closer, as if the interlocking mechanics of it was built for this one purpose. It was a recording studio that could fold into nothingness, compact and transportable and ready to take in a briefcase in a moment's notice. The wooden clockwork was engineered to do this one task: to enfold into itself.

"and then, and then, and then, and then,"

When the slats reached my bandmates, it cut into them like egg with nary a reaction from anyone in fleshy shiny slices. They were aspic. So it did the same with our amplifiers in licorice sheen, and the momentum continued the cut toward me.

"and then, and then, and then, and then"

and our music got louder, it screamed, and I lay on my back. Limbo lower, if only I could breathe, and it stifled me as it pressed into my ribcage and began to compress it.

"and then, and then,"

There was a little snap.

Painless, really.

It sliced, and I felt my yolk spill as I closed my eyes.

I was holding my breath.

Longer.

Precise and long.

Compressed and salient, salty dough.

Pressed firmly through, squeezed through, pushed and squeezed through the other side.

Our music.

A fushhhhhhhhh like snow on a television.

Da-de-dah dah. Baddah,

one-

              two-

                            three-

                                          one-

                                                        two-

                                                                      three.

Breathe in, goddamnit!

And I did, and the snow sound pushed through the other side of the floor into the cheer of thousands? Hundreds? Disoriented, and feeling here, jolted awake and hot, hot, hot.

Black floor, spilled beer, dark room. I did everything to get up, and spun around. The stickiness of gaffer's tape up my arm; rotten, old, and putty that won't come off for days. On my hands and knees, and something coming off my arm.

Mic cord. The mic cord was wrapped around my arm, and I wrenched it free.

A needle. A needle hung and swung, and drool dripped down from my mouth.

Hands and knees, dizzy and malformed.

I moved from my hands and knees a little to the left to gain my footing, and my guitar swung from behind me and hit the stage, Bawwwwwwwwww, until I grabbed it with my needlearm and muffled the strings.

Standing, standing.

I took hold of the mic stand, and the cheers grew.

The room was different. Poles, poles, I was on a stage and there were silver poles, and heads. Black snakes stretched to the black ceiling from the poles. Heads and poles, and lights! Oh glory, the lights.

The room was electric. Hundreds of bodies bounced, and hair clung and hung from sweaty foreheads, holding on to one another and reforming the sea-crowd of heads with the humming heat and happy happy holiday of our song.

It was December sixth.

And so our song played and played and played, the band riffed true against the maelstrom of crowd and rock and everything that was here that was so true.

It was, in fact, December, and Hirons Byron Wyman had taken care of everything for us before he ate his secretary and she ate him. That was the best situation a guy could hope for. Sexual obliteration.

To my left, Steve was in a trance, hopping through his riffs with scientific accuracy. His eyes rolled into his skull.

And then, Kurt was wailing on through his rhythms, apparently waiting for his solo.

And then, Kermit was popping through his kit in perfect mastery of syncopation, robotic in scope but ragging the three-four time just enough for it to sound human.

And there were horns to my right where a trombone and a trumpet were screaming. And a woman jumped to the stage and had a bottle of whiskey. Jumping in time, grabbed the trumpet's mute and filled it to the top with bourbon. She tore her shirt from her body. Black bra and a big black ouroboros tattoo across her chest, she winked at me and chugged the bourbon from the cup of the mute. With an arm in the air, still jumping and still jumping, her breasts jiggled in waves and her eyes were mesmerizing and hypnotic.

Our eyes connected for a moment. My heart pounded. I could have sworn we smiled and cried. She turned, dropped the empty mute, and jumped into the crowd.

and then, I ripped the needle out of my arm because it felt like an orgasm with her and with everyone, everywhere. I picked up the neck of my guitar, swimming in sex.

and then, I turned the knob on the guitar to ten.

and then, I made my G with my left hand.

and then, I laid down into the strings with heroic power, stretching my arm straight down into the chordal cream and pulling up the harmonious gods from the depths of hell to join us on stage.

and then, the waves of audience were waves like pixels and stars moving like haunts with the melodies. Kurt began jumping, laying into his guitar as he melodramatically joined in with melodious machinations.

and then, the beat locked in as Kermit slam, slam, slammed into his drum, drums, drums. The beat, beat, beating with passion, shun, shun.

and then, I pulled the needle out of my arm.

and then, Steve powered in, ba-doom, doom-ba-doom, doom-ba-doom-ba-doom, becoming the sex, the baseless intercourse undercurrent and through the bodies of the people. They were ecstatic and true, and all the watts the bass powered into them with waves and vibrations that were more true to them than their own hearts. More true than their hearts, can you believe it!? Mercy.

and then, I pulled the needle out of my arm.

and then, I powered and strummed, and there was a little blinking red light in the light and sound booth. I stared at it while I played, and mascara and black eyeliner ran down my face, and I saw it at the same time, and I was a big face and all of this was happening too fast, way too fast, and the light and the sound pumped like a heart.

and then the crowd was a big heart, and I beat with it.

and then, I pulled the needle out of my arm.

and then, the song crescendoed in strength, power, and tempo.

and then, I turned in front of the crowd.

and then, I pulled the needle out of my arm.

and then, I jumped backward.

and then, I fell.