Los Gusanos
As the car inches closer in traffic, I recognize this as the old Shuffleboard courts. Rama asks me what that is. Shuffleboard, (لعبة دفع الأقراص معرباً) is a game you play with a long pole, pushing disks down a narrow lane. I don’t really know the rules, but when I was a child you would see it being played at all of the country clubs and private pools that my dad would take me to. During adult swim, bored and restless, I would watch elders playing in the heat of the sun, their floppy hats and slimy sunblock cream smeared on the sails of their noses, doing shuffleboard like some obscure religious ritual dying out.
Biding her time in traffic, Rama looks it up on her phone. Oh this looks like it could be fun, a cute little game for us to play with your high school friend. She shows me the old postcard of this same court from the 1920s someone is selling on on e-bay; people in skimmer hats and drop-waist dresses playing in front of a white stucco clubhouse. A respectable, good time.
The crowd filing into this Shuffleboard club now are all decidedly more casual, most of them wearing black shirts and ripped jeans. أهل المباذل. They crowd around the entrance as a bouncer (طارد) with an enormous mohawk checks IDs. As we inch closer in line I can see he’s drawing enormous black x’s with a sharpie marker across the back of minor’s hands. The muffled sound of some preliminary screaming and a frenetic, unadorned drum beat is heard. Rama asks me what subculture this is. I’m starting to suspect Molly didn’t invite us to play Shuffleboard.
Worm Boy!
Molly had become a beautiful woman, her arms and neck covered with tattoos and enormous breasts swinging on the sides of a low-necked shirt. She runs to me and buries me in them. I feel a sense of relief, not at being squeezed between her breasts, which is great, but because her immediate physical familiarity with me makes it seem like we’re old friends, not just some random person I went to high school with who I’m trotting out to not seem like I’ve just emerged from my pupal stage (المرحلة خدارة).
Behind her comes an older man in slacks and a polo shirt, who I can only assume this is her father. I wonder why he’s here, he seems terribly out of place amidst the darkening clouds of what is soon to be this hardcore show. A pair of high school kids with septum piercings scoff at him while walking to the bathroom. He gives me a firm, businessman handshake. It is then time for Rama and Molly to exchange greetings, and I wonder how Rama might navigate around this effusive hugging, but Molly doesn’t give her the chance to make any decisions, thrusting her head into the tattooed expanse of her chest. After suffocating her, Molly holds her at arms length to give her a good look. Molly shouts, Oh, wow Waladudah, she is really beautiful. Bravo to you.
We walk around to the back of the same white stucco clubhouse from the postcard to where they have the shuffleboard courts out back. We step over the little gutters between the shuffleboard lanes and avoid groups of teenagers. More and more teenagers are filling up the space, standing in groups on the long green cement lanes, constantly tripping over the shallow gutters where the disks fall, venturing up into the metal and wood bleachers (probably original) to make out. There are cute little string lights hung up over every lane. This place must be rented out for weddings, I wonder if that is what they said this concert was going to be when they reserved the space. The man dressed in a full suit and a skimmer hat who’s frenetic pacing around the space can only mean he’s the manager realizes as much right about the time we arrive. But it’s too late, the kids are here.
Molly then asks how long we’ve been in town, what we’ve seen so far, did I take her to try a plantain hot dog at Shangri-la yet, and do we like sailing. She does not wait for the answer to any of these questions. She instead grabs Rama by the arm and leads her arm in arm over to the little wooden picnic table that Molly has found for us. It is completely covered with alcohol. Buckets of beer, a bottle of white wine chilling in a wine chiller stand, a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of some clear alcohol. Kids eye it all left there unattended like seagulls.
We didn’t know what you wanted so Chuck just ordered a little bit of everything, we’ve got a little VIP section over here.
Chuck acknowledges his own munificence with a wave of his hand, but continues to not say anything. We all squeeze in around the table and Molly starts counting the beers in one of the buckets and then looks up and scans around. She gets up and whacks a kid in parachute pants on the back of his head.
Give me that you little twerp (فلعوص). She finishes the undrunk half right there on the shuffleboard court and tosses it in the trashcan where it shatters. Satisfied, she pulls a packet of cigarettes out of her back pocket and lights three up between her lips. She hands one to Rama (ladies first), hands one to Chuck, who smokes it with entrepreneurial intensity, and leaves the last one in her mouth as she winks at me and says I bet you still don’t smoke waladudah, Mr. goodie two-shoes (جودي الصغيرة والحذاء).
Without us asking, Molly tells us about the latest drama. She stands over us, licking her lips as she smokes, inviting Rama and I to follow along with the torrent of her thoughts. Iggy (Chuck introduced us) the investor who owns a boa constrictor, that bitch Janet with the shaved eyebrows, the Skull King. We don’t know any of these people but it becomes very clear very quickly even though she’s the one telling the story that it’s Molly who is the problem.
Excuse me, you all can’t smoke here.
The manager in the skimmer has come to scold us. Molly immediately tries biting the hand he has placed on her shoulder. He pulls it back and stares in disbelief.
We’re not all smoking, Molly corrects him, he doesn’t smoke, She says pointing at me. The manager pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe the sweat beaded on his upper lip, and is about to attempt to muster some authority when he sees someone climbing up a light pole. He runs off.
Good climber. One time at school Waladudah climbed all the way up a tree on campus to avoid going to class.
I was staging a protest! I suddenly remember that happening, I haven’t thought about that for a long time.
He climbed up too high, nobody noticed. He spent all day sitting on a branch unnoticed. So how did the two of you meet? Molly asks pointing at Rama and me, but before she can ignore the question and continue her stream of consciousness, she is cut off by the sound of screaming and distortion.
GOOD EVENING MIRROR LAKE SHUFFLEBOARD CLUB, WHAT THE FUCK IS UP?
The crowd all suddenly comes to attention, their random movements coming to a standstill.
WE’RE DEATH CAP (قبعة الموت) FROM ORLANDO, WE HOPE YOU’RE FUCKING READY
And just like that, the crowd is ready. It starts slowly expanding, moving outwards to the edges of the shuffleboard court, tripping over the gutters and mounting the benches and climbing up into the bleachers. In between the gaps you can see that a pit has indeed opened up, a bald guy wheeling his arms around, a few frowning kids pacing around like a lion in a cage, someone in a Knocked Loose t-shirt doing roundhouse kicks. Crouched on the ground are four guys without their shirts on, playing a game of leapfrog.
WHEN WE KICK IN, LET’S SEE SOME FUCKING MOVEMENT, YOU BETTER PUSH SOMEONE
Rama looks at me in white-eyed excitement
LET’S OPEN UP THIS PIT
A deafening screech of guitar and drums. On the signal, the entire crowd collapses inward like there’s been a fusion explosion. Punching, kicking, spinning, shoving, jumping, tripping, screaming, nodding, laughing, tripping, kneeling, screaming, tripping. The shallow gutters at the edge of each shuffleboard court are immediately causing a problem. Everyone keeps tripping. Someone trips and doubles over a bench. This is the first mosh pit I’ve ever seen take place in an obstacle course.
But the thing that really makes me laugh is the band. High School kids, doing their best to dress like a classic 1980s Crustpunk band. Adorable little punks in their pointy gelled hair, pale faces, leather jackets and face piercings. Are those clip-on piercings? Their singer is using a fake English accent. They’re so innocent, it’s adorable. God, is that what we used to look like?
They’re also fucking terrible, or is that the schtick? It’s a shame too, because we can hear every note. One of these kids’ parents must have bought them a professional sound system. Above the crowd, the old-fashioned lamps and string lights begin swaying like we’re in an earthquake. The manager has his skimmer hat under his arm, looking in disbelief, trying to find anyone of legal age to berate, but the pit has already become a force majeure. God I’ve missed this.
Through all of it, Molly keeps talking. Rama is close enough to hear her, and they continue getting closer to one another. I am thankful to the music for getting me out of having to make small talk with Chuck. He’ll want to give me investment advice or something. How’s he doing with all of this? I look over, but he’s right next to me, sitting right up next to me at the picnic table. I give him a friendly wave. He says something I can’t hear. I make an exaggerated shrug. He leans over and says into my ear
It’s like a kids bop version of Antisect.
Ha! That’s funny. I love Antisect, how does this guy know about Antisect?
I saw them, you know.
Saw who.
Antisect. He is speaking directly to my ear drum.
No shit, yeah, I really wanted to see them when they did their reunion tour.
No, I saw them in ‘85 when “Out from the Void” first came out.
No shit!
No shit, look how how old I fucking am.
Haha. He tells me about his time squatting in Birmingham in the 80s.
No shit, what were you doing in Birmingham?
Lots of fucking cocaine. One time he did lines with “Rainy” the bassist from Discharge. I nod along and watch as the singer thrashes around on the stage, looking for a good place to jump into the mosh pit. Another kid trips over a shuffleboard lane and skids across the floor like a bowling ball, knocking over three other people. Chuck tells me Molly says we used to be in a band together, what kind of music did y’all play. I tell him some of our influences—Earth Crisis, Chain of Strength, Minor Threat — as the kids figure out that the bleachers are an ideal place to jump off from into the crowd.
Oh ok, straight edge?
Yeah, straight edge, damn this guy knows his stuff.
Rama has a fresh cigarette in her mouth, nodding along to Molly, undisturbed by the noisy chaos. Molly strokes her hair. Rama catches my eye and smiles, threatening to burst into laughter. She starts holding hands with Molly. Molly cups her hands to make it clear that she is telling Rama a secret. Rama looks over at me with feigned outrage, shaking her head in disapproval. I am so distracted that I don’t realize that Chuck has also gotten intimate with me, this middle-aged man whose slack-clad knees are intertwined with mine. He has his arm over my back and is telling me a story about seeing Jello Biafra at the laundromat. The singer is inviting anyone in the pit who wants to take turns screaming into the mic. I ask Chuck to repeat his previous statement and he puts his nose up against my cheek.
Jello asked if I had any quarters.
WE ARE DEATH CAP FROM ORLANDO, THANK YOU ST. PETERSBERG, HERE’S ANOTHER ONE CALLED STRIP MALL HOLOCAUST
The young singer spits a mucous bound spit glob into the air and, upon catching it between his wet lips, proceeds to death growl. He’s young, but he’s got charisma.
While the manager in the Skimmer hat pulls off a kid’s sneakers while trying to get him down off a lamp pole, I watch Molly mouth indecipherable words across from us. All of a sudden she is familiar. I recognize her mannerisms, how often she sneers, her enthusiastic nodding, she has traveled through time to be here now. I was being cynical, I do in fact know her. Vague but potent memories return from thin air. It is nice to see her again.
Molly stands up suddenly like she has just remembered something, and grabs Chuck’s hand, standing him up and away from his position curled around my body. We’ll be right back, she announces. She drops her half empty beer bottle on the ground and it shatters all over the concrete floor. Fuck. Don’t step on that, we’ll be right back. Molly and Chuck skirt around the mosh pit, barely missing a flying plastic cup of liquid, and disappear into the women’s bathroom.
I waive at Rama and smile. She sticks a berating finger out at me. Does she actually hate this? She gets up and comes and takes Chuck’s place, her knees entwined with mine. She brings her face close enough to say something serious. I’m keeping a secret from her and she wants to know if I planned on telling her. She digs her nails into my thigh.
Oh no, even though she is thoroughly enjoying their company, she has nonetheless discovered the thinness of my shared history with Molly. No that’s not it. She wants me to be honest: When was I planning on telling her that I used to be a skipper?
Fuck. Of course Molly told her. Rama can tell from my reaction that it’s true.
I can’t believe you. This whole time I’ve been going on and one about Animatronics and Imagineers and the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow and you were just going to keep pretending you didn’t know what I was talking about? Is that why you were so cagey when I asked if you thought I should change my dissertation project to be about Orientalism in the Magic Kingdom? I can’t believe you have never mentioned you used to work at Disney World.
I tell her I had mostly blocked it out. My mom was staying with her sister for a few months so we lived in Orlando for a while and it was just a summer job. Imagine acting out the same skit 50 times a day, debasing myself in front of hordes of tourists, pretending to navigate the riverboat around animatronic elephants and bushmen.
Well I hope you don’t mind doing it one more time for me, on our own private tour, God I could spend the entire week at the Magic Kingdom.
Okay, well, if we only have one say I do recommend the classic one-two, Magic Kingdom in the morning Epcot in the afternoon, there is a canonical route we can do to maximize our time and your experience.
She squeals, my native informant! This is going to be great, she kisses me on the cheek. She keeps looking at me, I smile at her. We kiss on the lips. She opens her mouth and I taste the cigarette. Yeah, this is what I want.
I put my arm around her as we both look out at the crowd, now fully parted around a tall shirtless man wearing a skimmer hat who seems to have shoved and pushed his way into the spotlight. Wait, is that the manager’s skimmer hat he’s wearing? For once, Rama doesn’t ask me what’s going on, which is good, because I have no idea where moh pits come from.
When Molly and Chuck come back out of the bathroom the moshpit has expanded again and now blocks their way back to the table. Molly holds out her elbows just like she used to, and charges through the crowd. For his part, Chuck uses his seeming appearance as a middle aged business man to avoid being shoved or pushed. Molly makes it through the crowd, but just before she makes it back to our table she winks at us, turns around, and goes back for more. As she leaps to punch a stranger in the head, the music stops with the last growl of the teenage boy. The first band has been precise and violent, and their set is over in less than 15 minutes. Molly screams at them for being cowards, and then comes over to the table and takes a shot of whiskey with Chuck out of a condiment cup. Now that the music has stopped I can hear my ears ringing.
They’ll be here soon.
Who will be here soon?
Molly tugs at her nostrils and ignores my question. You guys making out?
Rama asks, so, you and Molly were friends in high school?
Molly looks coy, yes, unfortunately yes. Just friends.
Why unfortunately? I ask. Did I do something wrong, Molly must remember things differently.
Oh Waladudah, so innocent, so naive. You think I came to listen to you play all those times because I was a huge Gusanos fan? I was trying to get you to fuck me. Or, well, let’s be honest, to fuck you.
More vague but potent memories. Her telling me I could touch her breasts if I wanted to during the middle of a science lab. Helping her into a friend’s car after she overdosed. Maybe we really were friends.
Oh man, I suddenly remember something else, Molly, do you remember that one time when we stole my dad’s car and you me and Bryan drove all the way to Orlando to see Thursday?
What do you mean we? I was the one who stole his car. You couldn’t even drive then. He still can’t! Rama offers
Waladudah what are you doing to this girl? Is she your chauffeur? Like I was when Bryan brought those shrooms , you both were worthless, remember how I tried teaching you how to parallel park and you almost crashed into a fiberglass egg? Haha, I do remember that.Wow, look at us, rehashing old memories, we’re being so normal.
Who’s Thursday? Rama is trying to keep up with our stream of consciousness.
Oh just some embarrassing post-hardcore band we were both into in High School.
Wait, what’s post- hardcore? I can’t keep up with all these genres.
Waladudah, Waladudah, does this poor girl even know about Los Gusanos?
What’s Los Gusanos?
His band.
No fucking way
Molly punches me in the arm, Waladudah was the singer, he was fucking wild, I saw him one time get his head split open in the middle of a show and he scooped the blood from his foreheard into a jar and drank it.
What?!
Molly nods , her pupils dilated to the corners of her eyelids.
And why do you call him Waladudah?
We’re saved from any more embarrassing stories by the next set. The group of five take the stage in matching green jumpsuits, and begin playing what sounds like four different frantic songs at the same time. I take a look to offer my veteran judgement. it’s a real variety show these kids are putting on, whole different vibe than the last band, this is new weird shit. Truly unpalatable. I look over at Chuck, he motions with his shoulders to say he thinks they sound okay. The mosh pit loves it though, renewed energy. Two pairs of kids are playing shoulder wars. Some other kids have found out how to access the shuffleboard disks and have started launching them with hands down the lanes. They’re bumping into people’s feet and knocking people over. A light breaks.
Molly looks at her phone, they’re here!
Who’s here?
Without answering she charges back through the crowd.
There is a kind of distorted breakdown, where the bass guitarist cuts one of his strings off with a saw which is still plugged in. It’s so fucking loud. Instead of death growling the singer makes ape sounds. She pounds her chest, tears stream down her face. They’re apparently working in fake crying into sets now. Rama’s brows are furrowed.
Molly was telling me this is called hardcore music?
Well, technically I would call this noisegrind, but yeah sure.
Jesus, that’s a good name for it. I am not a noisegrind head.
Ha ha, me either.
Unbothered, Chuck opens up the mysterious bottle of white alcohol. As he pours more shots into condiment cups he explains what it’s called, where it’s from, how much it costs, and how much it’s likely to get us fucked up. Rama and I can’t hear a word he says.
In a short reprieve, while the lead singer growl recites a chapter from Moby Dick , Molly comes back and says okay we’re next.
Who’s next?
But before Molly can answer, which she wouldn’t have anyway, the band comes back in with the guitarist stomping on his guitar. It makes pure splitting distortion. I rip off some pieces of napkin from the table and make them into little earplugs for Rama. She thanks me with a kiss. I make some for myself too.
Unable to converse, Chuck just keeps refilling our condiment cups. and Molly keeps wordlessly bullying us to drink, causing the bottle of clear alcohol to disappear quite quickly. It also doesn’t taste like anything, not even like alcohol. That’s a bad sign. I can’t feel myself getting drunk, I can’t even hear myself think.
A heavy-set kid trips over the last shuffleboard lane and comes skidding in underneath our table. In surprise Rama knocks over the bottle of whiskey and it tumbles over and quickly pours through a hole in the table onto him. We all look on glassy eyed and laughing as the kid, pinned underneath the table, gets soaked. Rama eventually stands the bottle upright and then Molly turns it back over to get out the last bit. Chuck laughs. Once saturated, I help pick the kid up and give him a brotherly pat on the back. You get back out there, you hear! I say, standing him up, like I’m coaching youth sports. But stay away from anybody who’s smoking, you might spontaneously combust!
I watch him disappear into the crowd like an animal I’ve released into the wild, and laugh at the image in my mind. Then I almost fall over myself from standing up, I’m drunk.
As the guitarist gets switches instruments, having shattered the one he was stomping on, we finally get a short break. Molly now refers to Chuck as Captain Chuck, laughs at his boat shoes, dares him to go into the mosh pit, and says if he doesn’t we’re not going to come out on his boat with him. What are our plans this weekend, we could all head down to Sanibel Island, Waladudah isn’t making you wander around vacant lots is he? Rama tells her that she actually quite liked the Crab Kingdom.
Well don’t follow him into any bramble, it’s not what’s you think. He’s not going to try to fuck you in there, he’s just looking for snakes. I am trying to keep myself from spinning. Oh I’ve really done it this time. I think this is where it came out.
What’s wrong waladudah? You’re not drunk already? come on help us finish this bottle, don’t tell me you’re still fucking straight edge.
Rama’s eyes light up, what is straight edge? Like someone who’s sober?!
Molly rolls her eyes,
-oh no it’s worse than that, it’s a whole sanctimonious order. He was a complete pain in the ass about it.
Rama keeps looking like she needs the full explanation.
-So, like, we were in the hardcore scene, I guess you don’t have a hardcore scene in Egypt, but then there was this annoying subsection of the hardcore scene that emerged, well it has been part of it since the beginning with Minor Threat, of fucking dorks like Waladudah who thought what was really cool was self-control.
She makes a sign with her hands or masterbating an invisible penis.
-Self control?
-NO drinking, NO drugs, NOOOOO casual sex, ughhhhh, and then the truly self-righteous ones were all vegans.
-Oh my God, Rama is shaking her head, it all makes sense, you ARE straight-edge.
-I am not! I haven’t been since I was in high school.
-But you were!
-Old habits die hard waladudah, look at this poor girl, what have you done to her?
Rama shakes her head, how did I not put this together before? It all makes so much sense, the aescetism, your disdain for normie culture , your being such a lightweight. Rama starts laughing. Wow, the skeleton key, you’re a straight-edge guy, that’s what I was missing.
I think that’s how it went. I remember Rama wasn’t mad or anything, we started making out at that point, maybe under the melodramatic influence of the next band, a screamo band from Jacksonville whose drummer is dressed up in a dinosaur costume. They announce all of the names of each song between songs.
This is called you’re crushing me with your enormous hoof, your love has left me brontosaur
This one is called, My heart is bleeding because you’ve stabbed with with your beak, why are trying to ptero out my heart?
These goofy ass kids. Molly looks mad and storms up to the front. I tell Rama we used to have a song called “The big corporations are dumping something in the water that’s turning everyone into an asshole.”
What did you all sound like?
Ummm, I guess like vegan edge metal mixed with surf rock.
Ha, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Okay, NOW, we’re up next, Molly reassures us. I don’t even bother asking anymore. She starts badgering us again, trying to convince us between each song to go out on Chuck’s boat. She promised we’d see lots of birds. You’d see a lot of mangrove forests if you come out with us on the boat this weekend. Right Chuck, you’re not going out on it with your fucking wife and kids this weekend are you? Chuck seems unphased and opens us all up another round of beers. Rama asks what kind of a boat Chuck has but before he can answer the Screamo band begins their next song with a 30 second acapella scream. The mosh pit claps in admiration. The kid is going to fuck up his voice if he keeps singing like that.
When he finally starts singing in Earnest, the band’s singer is not actually singing about dinosaurs, he’s singing plaintively about lost love, the end of the summer, losing control, being a fool for you, it’s practically romantic, and Rama and I start kissing right there in public, it’s like I’m right back in high school, she is putting her hands on my neck and the back of my head and lets me run my fingers down her neck. I guess it was me who was being the coy one After all. the melodrama is also working on Molly and Chuck. Molly starts sexually rubbing Chuck’s inner thigh, and he starts pretty flagrantly playing with her tits. At one point he pulls her breast out of her shirt and squeezes her nipple. Nobody cares. Molly gets up laughing and stuffs her tits back into her shirt while walking away into the crowd.
I look over at Rama and she is intently staring at an iphone map of the Western Coast of Florida. She is intent on this boat trip. She keeps zooming in and out, and putting in directions to judge distances. She asks Chuck something and he points things out to her on the map. They both look like they’re plotting something. If we get on a boat I’m going to definitely throw up. Rama sees me looking and tries to tell me something but I can’t hear over the music. Then all of a sudden it stops and we hear a familiar voice on the microphone.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND VARIOUS OTHER FUCKOS, MAY I PLEASE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, FOR ONE NIGHT AND ONE NIGHT ONLY, WELCOMING BACK TO ST. PETERSBURG ITS UN-PRODIGAL SON, PLEASE GIVE A WARM WELCOME TO LOS GUSANOS
I look up. Fuck. It’s Molly on the stage, standing next to Josh and Tristan, and Kyle, all aged but all recognizable.
WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU WALADUDAH.
Rama nudges me, I think she’s talking to you.
WALADUDAH, WHERE ARE YOU?
I stand up as the mosh pit turns to look at me. I am drunk. I have the protective cloak of drunkenness around me. I look down at Rama, she is starting a chant
WA-LA-DU-DAH, WA-LA-DU-DAH, WA-LA-DU-DAH
She smiles at me. She chants louder. The mosh pit starts echoing her chant. She laughs and holds out her arms to them, encouraging them to chant louder. She gives me a wink. It’s just that I feel something for Rama, something urgent and embarrassing. And so I’ll do it. For her, I will debase myself completely: for her, I will become Waladudah.
I charge into the mosh pit with my fists held up, I goosestep, I do a somersault and a roundhouse kick, fall over into the shuffleboard gutter, am helped up by a guy in a viking helmet, promptly chest butt him to the ground, and then leap up onto the stage. We start our set with “Manatee Massacre”. I don’t remember many things about high school, can barely remember where Los Gusanos ever played, don’t remember Josh or Tristan or Kyle’s last name, but I remember every goddamn word of “Manatee Massacre.” I sing:
SCARS ON YOUR BACK
FROM THE GASPARILLA NAZIS
THEY INVADE YOUR HOME
AND KILL YOUR BABIES
The band, our old band, plays fast and furious, I take my shirt off and dance around the stage. The band plays the opening to “Gargantuan pile of shit called Tampa” and I remember those words too. Me and Kyle smash our heads into each other. I do an old school death growl, to show the kids how it’s done. Tristan stops in the middle of a song to push the manager off the stage. He gets back on the kit and starts playing the opening for “taking shots of DDT” and I sing the words while sticking my finger into the corner of my mouth, my signature fish on a hook gesture, and I stick my tongue out like a worm. The crowd loves it but it immediately triggers my gag reflex. I was already so close to the edge that the vomit comes immediately. It splashes on the ground in front of the stage. Everyone backs up. The band stops as I fall to my knees. Tristan stands up from behind his kit to see if I’m okay. Without looking up I sing
TAKE THIS FUCKING SHOT OF DDT
The band starts again. The mosh pit starts again. Some kids start running down the first shuffleboard lane and sliding into my vomit like it’s a waterslide. People are laughing, other people are vomiting. We do our cover of Too Drunk to Fuck by the Dead Kennedys.
Went to a party
I danced all night
I drank 16 beers and I started up a fight
But now I am jaded
You’re out of luck
I’m rolling down the stairs, too drunk to fuck
I’m too drunk to fuck
You’re too drunk to fuck
Too drunk to fuck
I’m too drunk, too drunk
Too drunk to fuck
I’m too drunk to remember who I am. I’m too drunk to remember what else happened. Everything else is vague but potent. Hugging the other band members, promising to go on tour. We get off the stage and I climb a light pole. Molly is sitting on Chuck’s lap, pushing her breasts into his face. Molly throwing a bucket of ice on the manager. Chuck leaving to take a phone call and Molly comes and sits on both of our laps to tell us something. She put both her arms around us to tell us, something about what it was like to grow up with me, something tender and perceptive, then, as if emerging from the chaos of her feigned behavior into a person with insight and wisdom, saying something revealing and shockingly true. I just can’t remember exactly what that was.
I remember It happened on one of them Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah days. Now that’s the kind of day when you can’t open your mouth without a song jump right out of it.
I remember a hardcore version of the Disney song Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah. I’m thinking to myself that’s an odd choice, and I turn to look at the band.
I remember three musicians in blackface, standing in front of a pair of confederate flags on poles on either side of the drum kit.
I remember Molly and I saying WHAT THE FUCK in unison.
I remember the mosh pit unsure how to respond to what appears to be the world’s first Minstrelcore band.
I remember the pit no longer being fun, a decidedly aggressive feel to it. I remember seeing someone throwing punches.
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh, my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine headin’ my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!
I remember Molly and I standing up and charging into the crowd. I remember Molly spreading her arms, jumping over the lanes, flying through the whole crowd straight up to the stage, I remember punching somebody, people cheering, crawling up on the stage, boot polish on our hands, smearing it on the confederate flag, punching someone else, us singing
Nazi Punks
Nazi Punks
Fuck Off!
crawling over the drum kit but, the bassist holding up his bass guitar like an enormous axe, I remember kicking him off the stage with his boat shoes. The manager and the police, the confederate flag on a pole, a lance, Molly’s ankles, someone’s hands, Chuck’s stomping, running up bleachers, stage diving, lights torn down, police in the mosh pit, flood lights come on, grabbing Rama’s hand. Run. I remember Chuck taking the other flag pole and javelining it into the middle of Mirror Lake.
Kissing in the back of a car
Eating at a diner.
Standing on the deck of a ship moored in a fancy marina
moonlight on the water
Kissing on the back of the boat
singing “Nazi Punk Fuck Off”
howling at the moon
