Friday Morning. A week and a half spent in a constant blur. I woke up sprawled out on my bed, nothing but the sound of a box fan rumbling are heard through the early morning hours. Two weeks had passed by and school was coming to a close. The semester was almost over. I've been waste deep in research for the plethora of research papers that I had to still write. Misery just isn't the word. You can find me in the Library drudging through the isles. Searching for books. You can find me in the corner of the third floor shelving unit between classes and until midnight, nose deep in some boring textbook. I can be seen in front of computers, zoned in, black rings under my eyes, searching library databases for newspaper articles and declassified documents to prove my thesis. I've finished two papers thus far, only one more to go.
In a half asleep state, rolling out of bed, I stumbled to my bathroom to take a piss. From the bathroom, I heard the high pitched buzz of my cell phone reverberating off the book on the floor next to my mattress. Fumbling back to my room, I saw it was Greg. I snapped the phone open and mumbled what I thought was hello.
"Huh?!" shouted Greg, "Come too and talk like a fucking human."
I cleared my throat and repeated much clearer, "Hello?"
"Get Home, Practice in three hours, no excuses, show Saturday." Greg hung up without getting a response. That's how things were for him. He didn't like you to say anything. It was his own joke that made you laugh out of hate. It's hard to describe, it was hilarious because you knew he was doing it but it was aggravating at the same time. You couldn't say no. You couldn't get a word in edge-wise. Greg liked to surround himself with people who were the most obnoxious people on the face of the earth. That described our band. A collection of douche bags ready to make people the most aggravated they'd ever been or ever wanted to be. It's not like we wanted people to dislike us, it was just our humor. We got it, that's why we were friends.
My dirty laundry, my clean laundry, my messy room, my world of filth and sorrow. I was leaving it again. It was my salvation from the outside world, a home I never wanted but never wanted to give up. Every thing's packed. All the stuff I need for the weekend packed in a rucksack I had purchased from the army surplus store two towns over. Into my rusty piece of shit car and off home.
Through the same front door. Up the same steps. Through the awkward silence and the stench of misery. Into the room I've come to hate. The room that gave me shelter and brought me steps closer to the edge. I placed my things on my bed and walked into my dads room to see if my mom had left any of my laundry on his bed. From the corner of my eye I saw it. It was barely visible, I had almost forgotten that he had had it. I stepped into my fathers closest and grabbed the lock box from the top shelf. I knew where the key was, with everything else that was important in my fathers life, rolled up in his sock drawer next to his rosary beads that my grandmother had left him. I picked it up and rubbed it between my fingers as if it was the answer to every question I've ever had. Like it was the only thing that could save me. I placed the key into the slot and turned. The mechanism turned over and allowed the top to pop open a little bit. I slowly picked up the top and peered in to see that my dad's handgun was laying dormant. You could see the violence in the barrel, pent up and ready to explode into anything that was dumb enough to provoke its anger. I picked it up and admired it's beauty.
I ran my fingers over the metallic gray silver. Safety is just a trigger away. I take one bullet and place it in the chamber. I put the barrel of my fathers gun into my mouth and took a deep breath through my nose. I let the air fill my lungs. In my head I pulled the trigger. I let the bullet exit through the back of my skull shattering some of my teeth on its way. Slowly I crumble to the floor and in mid drop I blink slowly and see the world turn light. I'm back and the guns still just in my mouth. I pull it out, I didn't want it. I didn't want death. Not that way. I wanted to fade out and have no one remember me. I don't want to leave the world with the burden that I have come to carry. I remove the bullet from the chamber and place it back into the case. The gun placed safely into my fathers safety deposit box. I re-lock it and place the key back into his top drawer for safe keeping. I push the lock box back on the top shelf of his closet and walked away. I close the door behind me and lean my head against the wall next to the door. "Show Time." I tell myself.
I headed over to Greg's parents garage where we'd been practicing since we first met. That garage has seen so many musicians and so many styles of music, so many personalities. I punch in the garage code that I know by heart and walk in, half a ghost, with my black notebook tucked under my arm. Jerry is sitting behind the drums as always except he's not smiling as usual. He looks a little dazed. His shirt was off because it was hot with all the amps running. He was tall and lanky with blond hair, yet he insisted on shaving it. You could see his tattoo across his chest that read, "DEAD ENDS" along his collar bone. He nodded at me and said hello. Smitty was sitting on an old stool we found in the garbage with his bass in hand. His hair was much longer but he tucked it behind his ears and usually kept it under a backwards Chicago White Sox hat. He was hard at work trying to learn the last part of what seemed to be one of our new songs. Tim was sitting across from him struggling to keep his patience while trying to show Smitty the new part. They were always like that. At each other's throats. They really did love each other but were both really stubborn and in search of perfection. Well as close as you can get in a hardcore band. Greg filtered in behind me from the house with a grape soda in his hand. He put his hand on my shoulder and breezed past me. He plugged in, turned me on and handed me my microphone. My 400 watt Peavey speakers buzzed in approval. We made sure we were all at a reasonable level and then there was a pause. Greg looked at me and said, "We want to play a few of the new songs tomorrow if you can get them down today."
I responded, "No Problem, lets start then." We clicked in, "...Two, Three, Four!" Everything came in real heavy and grimy. It had so much heart behind it and at the same time it had no heart at all. The first words that came to my mind that seemed fit to open up that song lyrically was, "ADAPTING TO DAMNATION!" It seemed to work perfectly. Everything else seemed to settle behind it. After a half an hour I had lyrically put that song to rest. I stored it to memory and we moved on to the next song. The next song started really fast, real punk sound into a spiteful drive that was reminiscent of integrity. After four hours of impressive material I had finished putting together the last of the material we had. I was surprised how fast it all fell into place. Granted I'd practiced them a few weeks ago with no lyrics, I felt like I came in knowing what I wanted to accomplish. The band was real driven too. We then pressed through the rest of the set and packed up shop and packed our trailer for tomorrow. We couldn't practice during the day because Jerry had work until 4 pm.
After the load in we all sat around, we didn't really say anything for a while, we didn't have to. We were all on the same wave length. That's how the day ended. Us sitting together like always in Greg's living room, zoned into the TV. One by one filtering out. Tomorrow was our first show back. You could tell that everyone was really anxious to see what was going to happen. Was I really going to be a time bomb waiting to go off. Will the noise save me or kill me. One never really knows with these things. They just happen moment to moment.
Saturday arrived with no accord. I was just struggling to process the sun. I just wanted it to go down. I did nothing all day but watch TV and eat leftovers. Things were sort of returning to normal in my house. As normal as they were going to get at least. My mom and dad returned to their normal everyday routines. They just didn't seem like they wanted to do them anymore. Teddy was still on everyone's mind. As if he would ever leave, they were all just dealing with it better. I seemed like I would never pull through. Everything was as gray as normal with small bits of black to fill in the dark areas. I arrived at Greg's house at around 4 to print directions and head out. It usually takes us a half an hour to pack everything after we fuck around but everything was already packed so we didn't need to worry about that.. Everyone was already there and we just fucking around and throwing a frisbee around. We jumped in the van after I printed out directions off of the worst online mapping system, maptrip.com, and headed out. The guys did there usual routine pre-show ritual of listening to old rock and hair metal. Bruce Springsteen blared through the speakers and graced our ears with "Born To Run." It's funny how a man can be so famous and not have one number one hit. They sang along and rejoiced in the world they were part of. I sat in the back, removed from the group. I layed down on the back seat and just let myself drift in and out of conscienceness. Part of me was saying, you need to do this, the other part was saying, it's too soon. Maybe I should have just stayed home but I was past the point of no return. We were already on the highway doing 75 watching white lines pass by us.
6:00 pm rolls around and we had arrived at our destination. It was the first show we've played at home for a long time. By home, I mean New Jersey. It seemed as if there would be a decent number of kids there but I was surprised to see that there were more than I had imagined. About 300 kids packed into a small elks lodge excited to see the bands. The energy that I once felt when I was younger was exerted from each kid from wall to wall. When We were so much smarter then we were now. Everything was fun. Everything was chaos, passion, blood, sweet, violence, peace, love, and war. Did I change, or did the music? Is it the same or is it different? I find myself asking that question everyday. Regardless, I spent the majority of the show in the van while the rest of the guys went out and fraternized. It was no disrespect to the bands playing. I've personally supported all the bands with all my heart. I just couldn't face the world that me and my brother had shared for so long. Now I have to bare the cross alone. I have to carry it alone through a crowd of people who have no idea what's it like to lose everything and be expected to act alright. I couldn't face that reality. Just a few more minutes lost in my headphones, with a pen strapped to my hand and a pad of paper to calm my wandering mind. I just kept trying to write lyrics. I wound up spending all my time writing catchy one liners to put into songs. Nothing substantial, just pieces to the puzzle that were bound to fall into place sooner or later.
Smitty and Tim came out and told me we were on next and we needed to load in and begin setting up our drums and other equipment so we could quickly move onto the stage and play our 9 song, 30 minute set. We unloaded the trailer rather quickly and began piecing together Jerry's drums. People kept staring at me as if they had just seen Jesus Christ himself risen from the grave. The "GOD FREE YOUTH" would have become believers right then and there if that was the case. Friends all came up to me just to say hello. You know they wanted to talk about it but I tried to avoid it as much as possible. I appreciated them coming out, I just didn't want to go on stage upset. The last thing I wanted was that. I tried to keep to myself in the back as much as possible, trying to keep my eyes down to avoid any unwanted conversations. I heard the music stop and knew it was our time to set up. We pushed our stuff out to the front of the stage and moved it up. The stage wasn't anything phenomenal, it was probably about a foot off the ground but it was something. We had our things set up and began to sound check. Kids filtered in from outside. They had put out there cigarettes and came in to enjoy the noise,the chaos, the emotional breakdown. I turned around and looked at all the eager faces. Some of them old friends and some of them new friends. Some of them people I've never seen before in my life. I looked at the rest of the band to make sure they were all ready and got the signal of approval to go ahead and start. I felt the pit in my stomach finally hit the bottom and I just said the first thing that came to mind, "From the Heavens above to the balance below, We're HOLLOW EARTH" ....two....three...four....The guitars slammed in hard and heavy, the crowd erupted and pushed to both sides. Kids began jumping off tables that were lined up on the sides for bands' merch onto people. All crawling along the crowd, surfing there way to the front. Kids were front flipping, running back and forth. They pushed for room as it all made sense of itself. As it built up, everyone started pushing to the front. Kids jumped up and tried to steal the mic as I began yelling my head off, "We are the hopeless, the outcasts, the outsiders, the faceless, modest men who's country birthed them for hatred....." You could barely hear me over them. Twenty to thirty kids crowded around trying to be the most dedicated. I've never felt anything like that before in my life. I almost lost it halfway through our set when someone yelled from the back, "We love you Teddy!" It took every ounce of being to hold back the river of tears that began welling up in my eyes. I just wanted to disappear but I for the first time I felt relief. This was my therapy. This is what I needed to keep me balanced. We played our last song and it ended in pandemonium. Every kid was screaming at the top of there lungs at the end of the song. "I LIVE A LIFE OF MISCONCEPTION AND MISERY!" It was all well and good but it was missing something. It was missing Teddy. The most dedicated. The greatest.
We finished up and we packed our trailer, collected our gurantee and I just sat in the van until Greg came walking out. He looked at me and said, "We just got offered and month long tour of the United States. It's already set up, we'd leave in a month. Everything is paid for. Can you do it?"
I looked him in the eye, unsure of what I was going to say and just blurted out, "Let's do it, there's no anchor on this vessel anymore." He left ecstatic. I felt like I needed to get out. I had nothing keeping me here anymore. No job, schools over soon, Teddy's gone. I needed to go out and find myself again. I felt this was the best way. I'd either come back better or I wouldn't come back at all.
Time to drift.
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