I lay on the threadbare rug that covered the concrete of our basement floor. The cold, hard, smoothness of the blue cement pained my back, but is tempered by about a six pack of beer. I search for the song Leslie told me to play--"skip ahead, play this one first." I find the groove--last song on the first side--and let the needle drop. The snap-crackle-pop of the vinyl record begins, slow and toneless. A guitar, quiet, low, electric, strumming, floated in over the vinyl distortion. Arpeggios of C and F, let rung out like a bell, followed by a single repeating note: BRRRINGG, DA-DA-DADA-DADA, BRRRRINGG, DA-DA-DADA-DADA. It was barely audible; a thud, the bass drum like a heartbeat: boom. Boom. Boom. Then it gets faster--the guitar is no longer sustained chords, the drums are now slowly building the rhythm: BOOM-BABOOM-BABOOM-BABOOMBA, BOOM-BABOOM-BABOOM-BABOOMBA. An electric viola, just this side of distortion, sounds a long, high note above, like a flatline, fighting the heartbeat of the drums. And then...
The voice. Monotone, Long Island accent, slow to start, almost stuttering, sleepy, barely able to get the words out. "I... don't know... just where I'm going (BOOM-BABOOM-BABOOM-BABOOMBA goes his exhausted heartbeat)... but I'm... gonna try... for the kingdom... if I can... cause it makes me feel like I'm a man" Suddenly the bass drum is thundering--BOOM-BADABOOM-BADABOOM-BADABOOMBA; the feedback on the electric viola is deafening, a squall piercing your ears. The guitar: like lightning, stuttering chords, running up and down the fretboard. "When I put a spike into my vein/You know that things aren't quite the same/and I guess but I just don't know...
"And I guess that I just don't know." And it slows again. The thunder stops. Just a low rumble. The viola is still the long, drawn-out squeal. The guitar is sustained, ringing out C and F chords. "I... have made... a big decision. (BOOM-BABOOM-BABOOM-BABOOMBA) I'm... gonna try...to nullify my life... cause when the blood begins to flow (BOOM-BADABOOM-BADABOOM-BADABOOMBA) when it shoots off the droppers nick/when I'm closing in on death" And the guitar starts stuttering again, the squall is constant, the heartbeat, pounding out of my chest.
And then it stops again. "I... wish that... I was born a 1000 years ago.... I... wish that... I'd sail the darkened seas/on a great big clipper ship." The thunder and squall, build again, and again release into drowsiness. And in that drowsy heartbeat, in the monotone voice of sleep, sleep like Morpheus, god of dreams, god of opiates, when all has returned to normal, you hear it.
"Hheeerrrooiiiiinnnn... be the death of meeeee/Heeeeeeroo-eeeeiin it's my wife and its my life because a mainline to my vein leads to a center in my head and then I'm better off than dead" And the feedback sending shivers, pain up your spine, the nihilism, and the vile, the anger, the bass drum like a horse, galloping, the viola as fast as it can go, the stuttering guitar like an amphetamine kick, faster, faster, until the drums disappear, "when the heroin is in my blood/and my blood is in my head/then thank God that I'm good as dead/and thank your God that I'm not aware/and thank God that I just don't care/and I guess I just don't know/ohhh... and I guess... that I just... don't... know." The heart returns, beating like normal. The guitar rings out arpeggios, the viola's long, sad note, and it ends, the quiet electric guitar with one last C chord. The pops and fuzz of the vinyl returns, then disappears with the needle automatically lifted back to its resting-place.
I can't stand up.