Like I thought that everything would've made a pretty cool video, but Cliff said that the whole video industry thing sucks, and by the time they got anything of ours out on the air over MTV, our story will have evaporated, even if we laid down some cool riffs with it all. It'd have to have a bunch of those swimsuit super models on fire-- like the chick who graduated early from my high school, and scored herself a Porsche. You probably caught her in Sports Illustrated -- they put her in even though she has red hair. Or else it'd end up on VH1, and even MTV'd throw a flock of dolphins and environmental stuff in for balance to offset the sex and fire and death, all of which sounded pretty cool to me. I pointed out that one proverb thing, that a picture's worth a thousand words, and Cliff said yeah sure , if the picture's of a face or a barn or something, but when it comes down to pictures of the ungraspable phantom of life, words are priceless. So Cliff figured we'd write a book. Plus that way no one could ruin it, Cliff said, unless they read it wrong, and then it'd only be ruined in a private sort of way. But there's not much danger of that-- nobody I know reads.Now I won't be able to say everything exactly as it happened, but Cliff said that that's no big deal, and I shouldn't worry about it; just as long as we get it all down before it escapes our heads, and then if there're any holes we can fill them in with whatever we feel. My verbal handling skills are about as good as Cliff's Rhandy Rhodes guitar solos, so you know Cliff should be the one recording all this in ink and stuff, knowin' all the bigger words that he's always learning out of those thick banned books he's always reading. But he's been shipped off to some camp in California, where he's supposed to get himself some religion. You know how the whole book thing was his idea, but soon as he got out West, he wigged out on me. He sent me a post-card of the Rainbow saying how he's got no time for words, 'cause he's on to some combination unification thing of quantum mechanics and relativity and stuff, which he says came out of either side of Einstein's brain and have hated each other ever since. He's putting all that stuff in our physics appendix thing, if you're in to science fiction. Plus he says he's too much afflicted, and stuff, by Drake's poems to write straight, except for to write out all the speech things we heard-- he keeps rhyming by mistake. He said he trusted my talents and abilities-- but that's mostly 'cause he doesn't wanna do it himself-- usually when Cliff trusts your abilities it's 'cause he doesn't feel like doin' it himself. But I have to admit that this time he might really be pretty tied up, 'cause on top of everything else, his dad's forcing him to take some classes that're gonna make him ace his SAT test things, so he can get into the college of his dads choice, for real ; even though we already just got into Priceton, this past April, as like these phony people. We sent away for application things, and we made up some fake names like River and Cloudy Meadows, and we filled 'em out saying how we were two orphaned brothers whod been adopted by some charitable Black Sabbath roadies. We wrote it down in the spaces provided for events which changed our lives about how wed traveled the world and been cultured by our roady family, having seen the Mardis Gras in the French Quarter, up in France, and Liverpool too, where Ozzy was born. We said we'd watched Bloody Stonehard sell out the Tokyo Dome four nights down in South Europe as a cultural diversity exchange program, and we'd even seen like the historical sights where Pink Floyd rocked down the Wall in Berlin and kicked face-ism's ass for good, and cured AIDS too, for Kurt Cobain's benefit, 'cause he's like dead. They'd changed rules on the SAT things, and let you t ake calculators in, 'cause they don't teach math in high school anymore, so Cliff got his soldering iron out and souped up these two old calculators he had lyin' around and made 'em so they could cruise the information super highway. That way I could look up all the words and things while he worked on the math parts. Then we like interacted some on the internet, and faxed each-other the information we'd found. I even had some time left over to look up the lyrics to Nevermind, 'cause I never could figure out what was gettin' said, but seein' em didn't help much. I guess it was cheating, as we were both working on the same test, and it could've been a federal bust, 'cause we were violating the FCC rules, but hey, we were taking them as a joke, OK? And besides, Cliff said it wasn't anymore cheating than memorizing the words before the test was. If anything, our way was more honest, and on the level, 'cause we just went in knowing what we knew, and didn't spend months preparing some eminent front to fool people that we knew more than we really did. But I did learn something: I'll never get into college, as the only word I knew on the test on my own was "estranged," 'cause Guns and Roses throw up the definition in that old video-- you know, the cool one where Axl jumps off an Oil Tanker and like Slash floats in front of the Rainbow and walks on water and stuff each time his solo comes up, like he's God or somebody. Plus our way was more efficient, too, 'cause we weren't filling up our heads with words that re ferred to nothing in reality, and wasting good space that could be used to know real stuff, like how to play the new Bloody Stonehard riffs. Cliff put some serious time in on our recommendations from our teachers, which was the toughest part, he said, because he had to climb inside the mind of Mrs. Jackson, this one English teacher we both had, though he had her for honors, and I had her for challenged; and to authentisize them he spiced them up with a few words borrowed from the coolest contemporary literature, like Beloved and The Way Things Ought to Be and from that huge brick-like book he kept getting detentions for having in the school-- the one which'd been banned for promoting violence against whales, Moby Dick . He said it would help us if we like lied and checked the minority box, which I thought we were already, being only two of us, but he explained the meaning of the word, so I thought some about it and concluded to him that it would be a good thing to say we were like Chinese, as Greg Shimaku was the smartest in our grade, and always showing up on the honor rolls; but Cliff told me I was a dumb-ass, and it was no wonder I never showed up on the honor rolls, or anything, and that anyone in our position needed to stick with a sure-fire minority; so he put down that we were rich. For our essay questions, Cliff borrowed some old poems from that dead dude Shake-a-spear, and set them down as our own, and told the admissions people we were two expiring poets, or something. I thought it was a dumb-assed thing to do, so sure I was that we'd be busted for copy-writing, and they'd trash our application, as that's like playin' a gig and introducing Knockin' on Heaven's Door as a song you wrote for some friend who died from a heroin overdose-- like Axl would beat the crap out of you. But Cliff said not to worry, because he'd been talking with his brother Drake who'd been going to Priceton, and before he'd wigged out up there and took to livin' in the woods, and killed himself, sort of, Drake'd told him that they don't read Shake-a-spear there anymore.
But like all this stuff is of no matter, really-- we got in, and won us some scholarships too. We could've gone, but Cliff messed up. He tried to have them fax us the five hundred dollar check for our books and stuff, 'cause we needed the dough pretty bad to pay off Columbia House-- they'd been sending around this third party dude to collect. But anyway, the admissions people checked us out, or something, and threatened to prostitute us, in a court of law, just like those ones on cable, Cliff said. It would've been cool if we were out in California, 'cause nobody gets convicted of anything there, ever, and they hang the juries instead, but we were livin' in lynchville USA, Cliff said, so we wrote ''em the letter they wanted saying how we were just kidding, and they could keep their scholarship and give it to someone who deserved it for real, and we weren't prostituted.
But what I really want to-- I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Timber. What I really want to tell you about is our whacked out secret society adventure that started back in June, right the same day when we graduated from the tenth grade, and Chapel Hill High let out early, right after lunch, 'cause Travance and Jeremihah had these guns and stuff. Vance had pulled this nine millimeter uzi on Mr. Dehaven, our head principal, when Dehaven'd told him to turn down his Cop Molestor, even though it wasn't Snoop-- it was their own original stuff, which's twenty times cooler. You weren't even supposed to have boxes in the school, but because it was the last day, people weren't hidin' 'em in their book bags like usual, and stickin' with the headphones up under your cap trick. They were sharin' the music with everyone. The whole thing'd happened right in the commons, during second period lunch. All the sophomore chicks-- the fluff chicks is what my sister and her friends call 'em, 'cause they're stupid, or something-- they started freakin' and cryin', and Patty called her mom on her car phone before Mr. Dehaven or anyone could stop her, so they kicked us out before all the TV people showed up, like usual. Patty's mom is a cop. But anyways, it was cool 'cause we were set free as the wind for the summer, and everything. I was, anyway, but Cliff had to do his detentions, even in spite of all the machine gun stuff going down-- Dehaven snagged him on his way out the door to freedom. He had ten racked up, all 'cause of that same whale dissin' book. His tenth grade report card was going to be held 'til he served them, or until he helped a homeless person and wrote a report about it, but Cliff didn't know any homeless people, well enough to bother them, anyway, so he was stuck serving the detentions on this totally immaculate day. That's a Cliff word-- immaculate.
I had a gig that night at the Cat's Cradle with the Feminine Napkin Holders, 'cause I was subbin' for Travis Hinton, who was going to Raleigh to play lead for the Three Flaming Monkey Bunns at the Ritz. Such a beautiful early June afternoon it was , with all the leaves that full bright late spring green, etched against the Carolina blue sky, and stuff. I was just sittin' up in a great old maple tree up on the front part of the college campus next to that confederate Silent Sam soldier statue-thing which stood for all the soldiers who died for our country in that one historical war-- the civilized one. In my head I was goin' over all the songs for the gig, and the chord progressions, and stuff. I couldn't remember about half of 'em, but I was pretty sure I'd know 'em that night when I had my Les Paul in my hand-- there were like three chords to choose form. Cliff'd told me to wait for him up here in Quequeg's Tree, as he called it, for fifteen minutes or so, just on case he escaped out of his five hour detention when Mr. Dehaven went to go empty the morning money out of his Coke machine. There were a bunch of eighth grade skaters whizzing along the brick walkways, baggy pants and flappin' flannel and stuff, and a college girl was leadin' a campus tour on by. She told all the people that Silent Sam shot his gun off whenever a virgin walked by, but like of course he just stayed silent as ever. Everybody was over ten, it looked. It'd been awhile more than fifteen minutes, and I was thinkin' they probably had Cliff in high security, as usually he'd always busted out by now. But I didn't mind so much, 'cause it's an awesome high, when like school's just let out, and you're away up in a tree, just sittin' and watchin' some chicks grabbin' the first rays of the summer and some dudes tossin' an aerobe around.
"Riff!" I recognized the one aerobe dude closer to me. He had on my jeans jacket. It'd been missing for three weeks, ever since the Preppy Death show at the Cradle. "Riff!" He turned but he didn't see me, so I called out again. "Up here!"
"Timber, yo, dude, what's up?" He strutted on up, real slow, looking side to side to count the people watching him walk.
"Where'd you find my jacket?"
"Say what?" His Metallica hair floated on the breeze.
"My jeans jacket." He just gave me this blank look. "Like the one you're wearin'." I told him.
"Yo man." He said, looking down at it like to show for sure we were talking about the same jacket. "This is mine."
"Where'd you get that Nirvana patch?"
"Chill , man." He looked me straight in the eye-- at least his sunglasses did. "My sister gave it to me, got the whole gig last Christmas." He walked right up to the tree, and kind of looked around. "Are you still in for some Brownstone tonight?"
"No." He was wearing my rebel flag bandanna too-- he'd pulled it from the inside pocket where I kept it stashed.
"Change your mind?"
"I never was."
"Why's your name on the smack list?"
"'Cause you put it there."
"What is up with you, dude?"
I didn't say anything.
"All I'm sayin' is it'd help you take command at tonight's show; check you later man. Yo."
Riff tossed his hair, and went on back to his aerobe game, with my jeans jacket. I'd just snag it back at the show tonight, and then when he saw me with it next he'd just pretend like he'd never had it in the first place, and like that'd be the end of it. He's OK, really, even though he's a total thief. He's the best lead guitar player around Chapel Hill, though-- the total best in our high school, and he probably would be for awhile-- he'd just finished his third try at eleventh grade. But he's already had both a single and a CD cut with the Bloody Watermelon label, and he's been getting all this significant air-play on the Trash hour-- if he stays alive it's only a matter of time 'til he's the next Slash or something-- no kidding. We were opening for his band Preppy Death which was head linin' at the Cradle that night. Though the sort of annoying thing about Riff, I have to say, is how he's always rippin' off everything from everyone 'cause he never has any money-- it all goes for all the flour and heroin you've got to take to be good at guitar, and stuff, and amplify your stage presence, so they say. One night he ripped the E-string right off of my guitar during a break-- I saw him break one on stage, and then later on mine was gone. He gets all the chicks too, and a lot of people have it in for him, 'cause he's always hitting on everyone else's chicks, which wouldn't be so bad except his technique's pretty good, and it usually works, and like he gets 'em to do these things-- things I don't like talking about, and stuff. Things that you only ever see in sex-ed. He has none of those moral things, or anything else. His last girl friend is in this mental institution thing out in California-- sex rehab or something. Mindy said he gets you going on this power trip, or something, but I can't picture how it works-- like Riff saying, "hey smoke this, it'll make you as cool as me, and like let me do this, too." I guess girls just don't get the joke. Most likely some-one's goin' to beat the sh-- out of him before he O'D's, but boy, can he whale.
It was cool watchin' the Aerobee. Riff would whip it, and the pink circle would shrink as it sliced on through the air fifty million yards off into the distance, not wobbling in the least, as there wasn't a breath of wind at all anywheres. Riff'd sold some bad stuff, or something, to Jeremy Christianson, who'd like O'D'd last week out back behind the school. He had come back into the cafeteria for help or whatever, and at first Mr. Strickland tried to kick him out 'cause he was wearing a bandanna, but like then he went down and started jerking all over the place, right in the middle of the caf, and Jay had to get stitches after he'd been elbowed trying to get a good position up front, 'cause he and everyone else thought it was a fight. Jeremy died, though, like right there, and the police all came down to question people, and there were five million mini-vans out front with radio dishes on top of 'em, and we got the rest of the day off, just like today. We always get off for drugs, guns and death, and sometimes when it snows, too, though the White House effect is kind of ruining that. Nobody busted on Riff, though, 'cause it wasn't his fault-- he didn't know the stuff was laced with Plutonium or something. He's not that way.
Nobody was supposed to know Travis was blowin' off the Napkin Holders, 'cause it wasn't out yet that he was plannin' on ditchin' them, if the Three Flaming Monkey Buns took him up as their new rhythm guitar, now that Fizzy had dumped them for Fluorescent Gorilla Queen. He was being all gay about it, 'cause he thought he was like moving up, or something, though he was only moving sideways, pretty much-- he was no Riff, and he never would be-- no matter how much he shot up. Cliff and I played in the Wandering Road Warriors, but we couldn't gig too much lately 'cause Cliff'd been getting grounded a lot on the weekends, though really the truth is Cliff could've snuck out pretty easy to play, if he'd wanted to, but mostly he's just not into the scene, so much. He'd rather read a book, or something. Ever since his brother flipped out at Priceton, and took to living in the woods, his dad's been constantly pissed off at him for participating in any cultural events, and all the negative vibes have kind of been getting to him, psychologically and stuff.
I'd promised I'd go help Dan pick up the kegs for Jay's bash, as his parents had taken off just today, and I got to hopin' Cliff would show up before soon so we'd have time to get down to the Robert Lee Country Club and go golf-ball hunting before I had to split to warm up with Preppy Death at the Cradle. I remember how crystal clear and sharp it all was, the view from up there in the tree, like the most normal things can suddenly become so perfectly vivid and acquire a haunting sort of magic, or whatever, when there's no more school; a freeze-frame of all the high-schooler people layi ng out, soaking up the sun and sipping out of their coolers, with the Frisbees and aerobes hangin' motionless-- it was a trip; but pretty soon like my butt fell asleep, and I had to start shifting about to get comfortable on the branch, but it didn't help at all, for more than a second or two, before I had to do it again; and while I was busy doing that, I came to thinking about just how long the summer stretched before me, and how it was just going to be so hot and humid all the time, and how the air down around here always hung heavy when the sun went straight up, and how it like made it all so itchy and hard to breathe, even in the shade; and how lonely the afternoons were when everyone else was swimmin, and how this year I wouldn t be able to sneak in t he RLCC pool any more, on account of that new barbed-wire they got strung up around it, and with my mother being married to like the club president dude now-- she'll have the snipers out for me. I got to thinking how it could all really suck, in a way, and it made me sad and all heavy and low; for like just a moment ago I'd been so high and looking so forward to it all, but now I'd lost that high feeling, and my heart was all of a sudden breaking, and the more I thought about how I had no reason to be feel ing down; the lower and lower I sank, and wouldn't you know when I looked up my eyes were greeted by a long, dark cloud comin' down away off on the horizon-- right behind the spire of the main Chapel, and it made it look bone white, and brought out all the details. I noticed these little polished brass statues up there of like angels or something which I'd never seen before, and there was a jet black crow perched on one, to match the incoming cloud, and another roostin' away on top of the cross shootin' ou t of the spire's tip. Like I was ready to cry, and I would've too, probably, but I heard someone yellin' out my name. I looked off over in the direction, and there was Cliff away off in the far distance! He was running towards me, with that big back clo ud rising over him, cutting out across the blue sky, and this gust of wind suddenly ripped through the leaves and like about tore my shirt off-- I'm not kidding. Cliff once told me I was some kind of manic, or something. He said he was too.
Before I co uld dismount out of the tree, he came right on a full sprinting up to me, "To Dath Swamp!" he yelled as he booked on by. And there, not so far off in the distance, hot on his trail, I saw Mr. Broder, our swim coach, going off in full sprint, and hot on his trail was Mr. Janovic too, the school gynecologist, and I didn't have much to say to them, so I was down out of the tree and after Cliff!
Well soon as we made it to the Ghimghoul woods we knew we were home free without even trying-- all we did is do what we always did when Cliff's big brother Drake and his friends used to chase us home. We made a left behind these pine trees, but soon as that was done, we hit the creek, then we ducked down low and hung a left and doubled on back through where the creek had sawed away the land. We heard 'em go on by, like so close to where we were pressed up against the bank that we could've reached out and touched 'em. Off into the distance down the trail they ran. We listened to 'em fading' through the brush, and then we made way on back towards Cliff's house.
"Dude, you crazy?" I caught my breath. "They're gonna kick your ass next time they see you."
"Yeah, really?" He laughed and skipped a stone along up the creek. "Maybe they won't see me again. But like check this out-- this kicks ass. You know how this is Drake's jacket here-- I told you how all the stuff that got sent home. So there I was in Dehaven's office, with Travance and Jeremihah, and Dehaven and Janovic were just sitting there watching, like fags or something, and they dogged on me when I brought out my book-- they'd just banned Lord Jim too, and it's all I had on me, but then I like saw my confiscated copy of Moby Dick on Dehaven's shelf-- you know, and it's not banned anymore, since they found out last week that Herman Melville was a lesbian, so I went for it, but they were being like dicks. So there I was, dude, bored dead, fumbling through all the pockets, lookin' f or money or gum or somethin', and check out what I found!" He shoved this crumpled piece of paper at me, which had this skull and cross bone pirate stuff all over it. Then I saw it was a treasure map, you could tell, all right, for it had a big X marking the spot. I scoped it some. It was a double treasure map, actually, 'cau se there were two X's marking the spot-- three, actually, but one was pretty small.
"Do you think it's real?"
"Hell yeah- dude! Look at these whacked-out places on it! There's the Pirate's Cove by a Carnegie sea, and The Wise Old Owl Nest, out past R elativity Ridge, and here's Blue-Beard Run, and the Red-Avenger's Cavern, and the Sudden-Death Green and Sinner's Sand Trap out on the golf course, and this whole region here's Sycorax's Swamp, and over here, all these building are part of the Prince's Aft er Dark Kingdom. And here, all these French-looking things, like there're just English written backwards; Night-Hawk Hill, and the unnamed-soldier's tavern, out here by the Final Mansion With No Home, and out in the field here, standing all alone, the Oak of Death, and these two points, up along this road, both have the Bronzed Truth Seekers of Uassan Dlo. And check it out! Heres the key that was folded in the map!" There was a poem on it, too:
"Is this of 'round here, you figure? Never heard of like an Oak of Death, or anything."
"It's Priceton, man. Check it out! You see anything else?"
I studied it awhile. "Nope-- these skulls and crossbones are pretty cool though. How'd you get out?"
"Read the poem, ya cretin."
There was a poem on it, and I read it out loud:
Oh, the wicked witch murdered Uncle Walt,
Confessed her guilt-ridden soul in a book, She made the murder look like his own fault, She made it look like his own life he took. All to head the poetry department, Vengeance upon mankind for his past sins, And now Princeton is locked in a ferment, Here's where this fugitive's story begins. Brother, wear my jeans jacket in good health, I stole the manuscript of her confession, Alive, I stalk the Princeton woods with stealth, I must feign this death to save Walt's vision. For when she learned her book my eyes did see, She stole my sonnets, planned to murder me. "Like Drake's still alive?"
"Hell yeah he is! Plus I found this." Cliff held up one of those bank receipts. "It's dated three days after he jumped off the bridge." I'd never seen Cliff so totally up. "Dude, when I saw this, I knew I had to bust out of that office. So check out how I got past Janovic-- the cops came in to bust Jeremihah and Travance, but just then some executive lawyer dude from Rap'n'Rape Records showed up-- you know, the ones they just got signed by, just to make sure the arrest went down right, so that they'd get to be on TV and stuff, and get an authentic clip of them gettin' cuffs slapped on 'em for their video, but still be out on time for their show, and he hit Dehaven and Janovic and the cops up with some hundred dollars bills, and like the cops handcuffed 'em, and they were gonna handcuff me, but Dehaven told 'em I wasn't part of the band, and he and Janovic told me to scat and forget what I saw."
"Cool!"
"Drake's alive!" He hugged me, lifting me off the ground, and twirling me around. "C'mon, the rain's gonna start. I wanna get back home to look for clues in his stuff, before we go up there."
"Up where?" I called after him, hopping the same rocks he used as I 'crossed Water Strider creek. "We?" About a month back there'd been a note on this bridge-- this one cool suspension bridge over a gorge out in these woods at Princeton . It'd been Drake's suicide note, only they'd never found the body, dragging the lake, and nothing'd ever floated up. But nobody'd seen hide nor hair of him since. And the note'd been in his handwriting and all. Cliff'd showed it to me.
It was sprinklin' a bit by the time we made it back to Cliff's house over on Ghimghoul road, and the wind was totally ragin' and rippin' off the leaves and branches, and you'd almost think it was fall, 'cept that the leaves were all a bright June green. There was that warm, new rain misty smell risin' up from the first few drops hittin' the pavement which'd been heatin' up all day long in the sun. That was some pretty freaky stuff about his brother.
Cliff's was the prettiest and best house around, pretty much, I'd have to say-- not that it was huge or had a lot of moshing going on in the front yard or anything, but it was sizable, all right, like brick and painted white, with a stone fence the whole way around. That afternoon the way it stood out against the huge grey sky made it look like it'd been polished with Turtle Wax. Stone fences are cool. At any rate, it was a castle compared to the shack I lived in over in Carroboro. You see, Cliff's dad worked for the main church at the top of the hill-- fort God, while my dad worked for the Lighthouse church away out in Chatham county-- the one for all the black people. My dad's also like the assistant to the head groundskeeper, at the Robert Lee Country Club, but I still don't think he hauled it in anywhere close to what Cliff's dad did. He'd just been voted Chapel Hill's Confederate son for the second year in a row.
Anyways, there was Tammy, Cliff's girlfriend, or something, sitting out on a rocking chair on the porch in her spandex and stuff, listening to her Sony Sportman. It was cool 'cause all the other chairs were rockin' along with her in the wind, like all her ghost friends were there. She was always in spandex.
"Hey y'all, ready to go running?" She was trying to tie her hair back 'cause it was blowing all over the place. She was really athletic-- she's on the wrestling team at Chapel Hill High.
"You'll get hit by lightning."
"Oh C'mon! Just around, with me and Megan. There's a tornado watch too."
"Can't." Cliff said, like walking by her, and she grabbed his hand.
"Well look, I know you've probably got fifty million plans, but you've got to come on over to Jennifer's tonight. You too, Timber." She smiled at me. "Especially you, Timber-- I think you'll want to go. Christy said some thing about a dream about you, I think." She had a pretty cool smile-- Tammy did, but her hair was kind of red.
"All right, cool."
"Catch you there," Cliff said. "We've gotta go."
"Mark it on the calendar, guys. Megan's dad just harvested his latest crop." A blue flash ignited the sky, and the thunder rolled on overhead like a fleet of freight trains.
"All right," Cliff nodded, "We're there."
We went on down to the basement where they had all of Drake's stuff and began opening all the boxes and trunks and everything. There were clothes, and more clothes, and all of it nice and Polo and button-down stuff, and everything, and then there were books, and more books-- all of them like huge with names I could barely even read, like "Multi-bi-cultural D ifferential Inner Calculus for Scientists and Engineers and Postmodern Intuitivists," or something, and there were a bunch of stuff about that Indian Shake-a-spear guy, too, who like Ms. Jackson had just banned from diversity studies, 'cause they'd discovered his words were meaningless.
"That's wierd," Cliff said.
"What's wierd?"
"There's like not one notebook or anything anywhere."
"Yeah?"
"Well either his roommates forgot to put them in, didn't want to put them in, or they weren't there to be put in."
"Yeah?"
"Either way, we're gonna find out."
Cliff slid his guitar out from under the couch, where he kept it hid away, and plugged it in to his brother's amp- he cranked it up.
"Dude, you tryin' to get grounded?"
"Naww, he's at a wedding rehearsal, or something. Grab Drake's guitar, there-- I've got to teach you this new riff for the chorus of Death's Bride."
Drake's guitar was a thousand dollar Strat, and I could feel every cent in it-- the thing was though, he only ever played classical stuff, I mean old classical stuff, with sheet music. He was really good, although I'd never seen him-- I'd just heard him, 'cause he never played out in the public anywhere. Cliff's riff was a piece with a lot of cool classical stuff in it, and we jammed for a b it, and lost ourselves in it, like you always do, and I totally found a way into the lead, and Cliff took over the rhythm-- it was a cool riff, especially for Cliff-- he said it was a funeral march. But of course you know it that it turned out his dad had forgotten his wedding sermon at home, or something, so when he heard us whaling away in the basement, down he came, and we didn't even see him like 'til he'd yanked the plug to the amp out of the wall. Well Cliff was busted, as his dad'd thought he'd sold the guitar, and everything.
"Son, it seems you lack a refined ear, in addition to honesty." He was pretty tall, and kind of looked like Clint Eastwood with a beard-- you know the type.
"Get over it dad." Cliff kind of sighed under his breath, not looking up.
"Don't try me, boy." His dad walked up and grabbed hold of his ear. "You told me you ridded yourself of this instrument, boy. And as for you," he looked at me, "I'll give you ten seconds to get your uninvited influence beyond the boundaries of these walls."
"Call me later, dude." Cliff nodded to me.
So I took off out of there, into the slanting river of rain, and WCKCHNG! It was so close the thunder came before the lightning, and rocked and rattled my bones-- I felt it more than I heard it. I realized I'd forgotten my distortion pedal again, for like the fiftieth time-- the one I left there like two months ago, so after I hid my stuff under the shed, where it wouldn't get wet in the rain, I snuck back in Cliff's, after some contemplation on it. His dad was a total hard-ass, you see, and there's no tellin' what he'd do if he caught a hippie sneakin' around, which is what I was, basically, 'cause I had this long hair. Their old dog Hamlet 'roused up, but I knew he wouldn't bark, or anyt hing, 'cause he'd seen it all before, and nothing excited him enough to make him bark, anymore, 'cept for the neighbors Siamese cat, Muffin. I stopped by the kitchen to get an apple when all of a sudden I heard them walking up the basement stairs, so I ducked in the pantry and had a seat on the barrel of apples they always had in there, only it was about empty, it being spring, and all.
"Please sit down, Clifford, and lend an ear to your father. As you well know by now, I'm never angry, but only deeply concerned. Very deeply-- especially in light of the recent incidents."
"Yeah."
"I have no wish to argue with you, so just hear me out, son. OK? I sincerely hope you understand every word I utter is for your benefit."
"OK." Cliff said like he was totally bored.
"I feel we're growing apart. . . I see you have great difficulty resisting the temptation of your generation's muse-- every youth does, and it is to be expected. For the morbid, money hungry, vicious, aging baby boomers in Hollywood tempt the children of this land and of the world with the candy of jungle rhythms and bared flesh, long before y'all have had a chance to develop a sense of judgment of your own. Your development is arrested."
"You're born with a sense of judgment, dad-- you're talking about colonization in like my mind and stuff, with like family values and things. No offense, but I've got my own mind."
"So that's what they're teaching y'all in that public school? I would like to meet the man who plunders my tax dollars so. For I'm not talking about any sense of judgment-- I'm talking about a rational sense of judgment-- the cornerstone of Western Civilization which is rooted in the mind, son-- in the silent part of the soul. And while you're yet down here upon this earth, and within my four walls, I'll do my duty to the Lord, and attempt to instill it within you, as I wish I would've done for your brother-- for there are higher truths-- truths which exist beyond opinion. Did you read The Book of Values I gave you?"
"Like it was plagiarized-- I'd already read all those things elsewhere--"
"This culture's dead. Are you hearing me? Your brother's," his dad paused. "As long as you're livin' under the roof I provide--" his dad coughed. "And please eradicate that distracting habit of saying like every other word. It's painful to hear y'all's generation speak, boy-- it echoes of all those relativistic shenanigans-- nothing is anything, it is only like something. But words mean things, I tell you. You really did cheat yourself by getting expelled from Exeter; more than you'll ever know." I heard his dad get up and start pacing about the kitchen. "Had I only known the extent to which the baser forces of man have overtaken this world! Uncle Walt was a fine, fine man, the fin est of poets. He'd been my poetry teacher too, and when a soul as white as his turns upon itself-- it's a sign of the times, a sign of the times up there. Priceton's been sold to hell-- those liberals got to him, they did. For I genuinely believed I had sent Drake to the Princeton were I had once attended; a gentleman's school, where words yet meant things and we voyaged there to learn of knowledge for the sake of knowledge-- not for mere empowerment. Where the idea of a truth yet existed, and formed the inspiration and guiding light for all of our endeavors. Yes son! We were driven by a sense that the truth could be obtained-- not by a senseless political panic for power which so many succumb to at this institution where the weak minded, having no intrinsic beauty, destroy all sense of beauty for all other men and women, so t hat they might satiate their crass, violent will to power. I had mistakenly believed I had sent Drake to an institution where men were yet men, and a man's word was more important than the diploma he bought, and where women were yet women, my son, and something beautiful and inspirational, rather than the mortal enemy and object of our desire which they have been cast as in this fallen society. But where we once had our spiritual dignity, and our soul's integrity, y'all now have but your appearance and your material possessions, reflecting the fact that where once the leaders of these institutions were good Christians, they are now economists." Like suddenly there came this humoungous thunderclap which rattled all the jars and cans in the pantry there where I'd stationed myself, and his dad faded back in as the thunder rolled on across the sky, like it was a duet. "I know it must be hard for y'all to conceive of a world where tru th and duty dictated a man's life-- for the Hollywood elite and liberals rape your souls at such an early age. It's no wonder y'all are, you're all-- what do they say-- slack ers. How can you even envision a meaningful community-- for a community is the result of men who were created equal united in a common purpose-- but now the only common purpose is to outdo your neighbor by hook or by crook, son. By hook or by crook is how the bitter women and liberal minorities play-- by whatever means necessary. They have not a whit of truth within their souls, and the concept of eternal love is utterly foreign to their nature." The thunder shuddered again, but his dad was up to the challenge, and like his voice boomed over it. "Oh, free enterprise and liberty are great things, but I fear them in a moral void! In the name of peace, freedom, and capitalism, they have rampaged across the fields, uprooted all higher culture, razed the individual's sense of responsibility towards higher truths, pillaged man's monuments of rationale, burned all religion, and the thick smoke, ash, and soot have risen to the sky, blocking the white light of our Lord, and a darkness has fallen across this land-- but this is not the worst son! This is not yet the worst! My greatest fear is yet to be realized-- a beast, shrouded by night, shall be free to take root and spring from these barren fields of man's collective soul-- for he grows now, in the silence and darkness, in the shadows of man's perceptions, unheard, and unseen in this deep, deep, deep midnight in mankind's soul."
"Uh, huh."
"Do you not know of what I speak, foolish youth? I'm understating the bleak reality. For yesterday there was a beacon, a beacon fueled by the collective consciousness of men, which kept a man upon the straight and narrow, and in your brother's memory, my child, you must have faith-- or you too shall be utterly lost!"
"But yesterday we had World War II-- you know? There were a bunch of white men shooting each other, and throwin' people in ovens. And before that you had--"
"And the Nazis were defeated-- were they not? By the combined Christian faiths of the world. For without faith, look to the depths to which one might fall in these callous days! Look what happened to Russia, and look at what's happening to us today! We are but a hair's breadth from tyranny, where the conceited liberal liars prosper, where those lacking depth of soul and aptitude for meaning are running the world with their brutal jungle music and shallow displays of flesh. Look at the filth on y'alls TV! On y'alls MTV! At this, y'alls Beatrice and Bum-head! Is not tyranny the next logical step in this vacuum? If you succumb to the forces of what the Hollywood elite tempt you with; if you succumb to their wicked dealings, you shall lose your way, and then your soul, as did your brother! You'd better pray to the Lord that Rush restores democracy! For as Twain once said, a man without a faith is a walking corpse."
"I think you're mixing metaphors."
"Dammit son, don't get smart with me! The soul is a reality, I tell you. As much as this table here." He like pounded on the table. "A reality which the scientists and biopsychiatrists and what have you try to deny me-- running wild in their gangs through the palace of noble culture, wielding their PhD's like clubs, dealing Prozac as the key to heaven; but it is my reality, I tell you! It is John Milton's reality!" His dad got up, and started in like he was Henry Rollins, or something, and he told a poem about a bear:
"Or let my lamp, at midnight hour/ Be seen in some lonely midnight tower/ Where I may oft outwatch the Bear/ With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere/ The spirit of play-dough, to unfold/ What worlds or what vast regions hold/ The immortal mind that hath for sook, /Her mansion in this fleshy nook." He made the word nook last three minutes. "We memorized those immortal words in Uncle Walt's class-- bless his soul. And until they club the life out of me with their paper degrees, they shall not deny that I exist! F or just as a fire can consume the wood," he pounded on the table again, "So can the darker forces of this world consume a man's soul! It is what's happening to your generation, as you all become those, those what do they say-- grungy slack ers; it's what happened to your-- his-- as did." He stopped and took a deep breath. "Take a sane man, son, take a sane, honest man and place him in this structureless context; will he not become mad without a faith? Without a system of justice? Without an order in wh ich to develop that rewards strength of character and integrity and shuns vacillating liars? For in spite of all our mutual beliefs, I could never get your father to believe in our Lord the savior, Jesus Christ. Let Uncle Walt's and Drake's shared traged y be my testimony. No academic--"
"I don't think Drake's dead."
"Nor do I son! The better part of him!"
"I really don' think-- nevermind."
His dad took a few paces. "No academic discipline can fill the heart of a man with the love and integrity that our Lord Jesus Christ can, and so he lost the way. A man's mind needs a place to sleep, a shelter from the cold and dark November rain, a plac e where his soul can pause on its trek and rest in peace, and this, my son, is what faith provides. As Einstein said, science sans religion is worth nothing. "
"Takin' attendance at church isn't going to change anything."
His dad turned up the volume, to like eleven. "My words fall upon deaf ears! Your generation has become jaded by the technological assault on your senses; immune to heartbreak and remorse, and without those two megaphones of the Lord's to awaken you to the morning light, your consciences have withered, and you exist but in the shadowlands, where there no longer exists any sense of personal responsibility, as Rush was saying today-- you are taught that all is motivated by oppression, all art and greatness and genius is but the white man's plot to dominate the earth. Where all superior thought is seen as demonic, and one must never think , but only feel -- but look; without a firm foundation of thought, without a supporting structure of logic and reason, the flesh of feeling and the human spirit are reduced to a formless fen, the spirit an amorphous morass. Such a bleak, nihilistic piture of humanity the liberals paint, where man is so fundamentally evil that a government must be instituted to restrain him."
"Like and conservatives have never restrained anybody."
"Yes-- the conservatives constrain you to hard work, and honor, and duty and cheerful optimism, viewing men's quests in a noble light, whereas the liberals constrain you to a world of darkness, to a world where the only noble act is to escape the reality- - to lose yourself in the pseudo peace and love of nihilism-- drugs. And son, I do n't know how good an influence that Timber character is-- with that long hair, and the broken family he's come from. Drugs are a one way road to perdition. Look at that gun toting Kurt Cocaine. Your voice!"
"Timber's pretty cool."
"You know I know his mother; she's joined the congregation. "
"Yeah?"
"Have you been tuning in to Rush at lunch time yet? Do they have a radio in your school cafeteria? I'm still going to write them about having a Rush room-- while they're passing out contraception, I can 't see how they could deny you a Rush room-- his show is the best contraception in this land. I've heard stories about that Timber character's father. He sings in his sermons."
"She cheated on him."
"But there's hope son, for you to gain the faith. Just always be true to thyself, and then as night follows day, so it follows that you can't be false to any other man. I tried to make Drake understand--" Then his dad kind of half whispered. "An angel ."
"Don't touch me." Cliff said. Just then the phone rang, and his dad answered--
"Hello? Yes, hello. . . We ordered Cinemax. . . it's not coming up. Yes, yes HBO's working fine. . .OK, free what? No, not People Magazine. Yes, we'll take the shoe phone. . .yes sir, red.'" And his dad put the phone down.
"Now why don't we get those guitars in the classifieds-- or anything else you'd like to sell, like those books underneath your bed."
"What book?"
"Those catch books--Catch 22 , and Catcher in the Rye."
"What'd you do with it?" Cliff sounded like he'd been lit on fire.
"I've warned you about those anti-American New York books--"
"What'd you do with them?"
"I've relieved you of their existence."
With that I heard Cliff scoot his chair back, and book out of the room. He slammed the kitchen door so totally hard that I expected to hear the glass shattering, only it didn't. Like the whole thing was pretty wild, though, in a father and son sort of way-- my dad's never said that much to me in my entire life. After a bit I heard Mr. Raft sighing an d muttering something to himself, and then I heard him walk out and start the Mercedes up, to head on back to his wedding rehearsal, or whatever, and I took off down to the Waterfall fort, through the rain and all, as I knew that's where Cliff would surely be-- it's where he always goes to sulk when one of his books gets trashed or banned, or something. The worst of the storm had passed on by, and there was just that steady and warm, windless rain. Some random lighting tagged on behind, streaking down here and there, but I didn't worry so much about it. Either it had my number on it or it didn't. It felt pretty cool, so I just walked, catching rain drops in my mouth.
2
The Waterfall fort is down underneath where Sand Run flows over a sort of overhang rock. It's pretty neat. It's always perfectly bone dry there, and everything, even when it's raining, and there Cliff was sitting, watching the white sheet of water tumble over the edge. He offered me the can of Skoal without looking up to greet me.
"What's up, dude?" I like yelled over the rushing water.
"Nothing man."
"Yeah."
He just sat there awhile, looking straight ahead. "Just thinking, and stuff."
"Yeah? Like what."
"Nothing really. Just about how everything sucks."
"Yeah." We sat there a bit, not saying anything.
"Like Chapel Hill."
"Yeah-- your dad bummin' ya?"
"A bit, but mostly it's just the whole Chapel Hill scene." He shook his head. "Who's anyone trying to kid anymore? It makes me puke, with everyone getting Gibson Les Pauls from their mothers for Christmas, and flannel shirts, or whatever, growing goatees, and then like thinking they're like rebels, or something. It's phony-- they all know the same three chords, even."
"Yeah, but if you can play them real fast, you kinda are."
"If they're detuned, right? I mean they're trying to look like Bloody Stonehard, they're tryin' to sound like Bloody Stonehard, only its hard to suck as bad. But what the f---, even Bloody Stonehard is embarrassed to be Bloody Stonehard-- they know they're phony Pearl Jam wanna bes-- you can tell by the way they're so goddamned whiny about everything. At least Pearl Jam's embarrassed to be themselves, you can tell. All this alternative crap-- alternative to what ? And then when they can't sound like them, they'll tell ya it's like 'cause they're just too f---in' original to help it. Nobody's going anywhere, really fast, but then that's what like makes it so cool to them in the first place. To suck is to be cool. You know, Rolling Stone could take absolutely any band, and make 'em famous."
"Some of 'em are OK."
"You ever read any of their lyrics? They suck. Don't call me daughter. Nothing means anything-- intrinsically, at least."
"Yeah."
"Then there's like those masters of originality being all sensitive in like dresses saying how he hates videos, but it's like then why the f-- are you in videos, dipf---? F---head record companies believe in it, and like the fashion industry, too, and twelve year olds, but that's about it. It's dead."
"Yeah, kind of, I guess. But something new--"
"F---in' Beavis and Butthead-- I mean they're twenty times more original than any of the bands these days-- Kurt couldn't compete. I mean the irony of them watching that Aerosmith video in total reverent silence, and Butthead saying, 'this is the coolest video I've ever seen.'"
"Yeah, Rag Doll's a cool video."
"They were cool and all, for like a day, but s---, Timber, that ain't us. It's what adults want us to be, or like what they expect us to be, like f--- that-- it's what they are. They're the one's creating it . Greenday's them."
"They're funny, like when they told everyone at Lollapalooza to--"
"But dude, don't get me wrong, I'm not against it-- I'm not saying if you don't make MTV then you're automatically good, like all the ass munch's around here always are. It's cool to suck-- like they could make it big, if they wanted to, but they're not selling out. The thing is though, they couldn't sell out-- there's like nothing about 'em anyone would want to buy. "
"Yeah, somebody new always like comes along, though."
"But how can you be new when you look the same, act the same, shoot the same stuff, and everything. How'll you ever be able to tell if like you're original or if you're just the ultimate non-conforming conformist. The thing is you won 't. And that's why all these new rock stars get like all these complexes, and shoot themselves, 'cause they know they didn't invent anything-- the whole corporate industry was already set up, and they tri ed out and got hired for the spot 'cause some fifty-year-old-bald butt pirate thought they were cute. I don't wanna grab my crotch for anyone."
I nodded and he turned and looked at me, and spat out his dip.
"You feel it too? Timber, man-- I don't know what I'm sayin'. It's just this restless feelin' I've been gettin'; it's borin' around here; like we could go trip on acid at Dave's tonight, or somethin', or smoke Jennifer's dad's latest crop, or go high f ive everyone at Ray's forty kegger, or whatever , and like around in Susan's Cabriolet with the barley babes and go bounce moshing with Dillon Fence at the Duke Coffee House tonight, or stand and stare at Preppy Death, only I'd have to shoot up if I wanted to enjoy 'em any, but we'd just be kidding ours elves-- you know, you can kid away a whole summer, and then slack away another, and another, and you would never even know it until you were like ninety five, or something-- summer could really suck, if we let it."
"Yeah, but like what else?"
"F--- yeah what else, let's get out of here. The millennium's starin' us in the face--why's everyone still bein' gay?"
"Yeah, but like where? Seattle?" I joked him.
"Yeah, Seattle. We could start a band-- we'd like wear bell bottoms and stuff, and like maybe some acid queens would think we were like a Blind Cantelope cover band. You know, that's the thing-- the bands around here wear their humility with an arroganc e, but the thing is they've got nothing to be humble about."
"You think it's different anywhere?"
"I don't know." We just sat there awhile, staring into the clear sheet of water, and like if you let your eyes kind of go out of focus, you could like pretend that all the water was like this window, and it was really cool, 'cause like the way off distan t lightning would turn the whole sheet an electric blue, now and then-- the whole thing would like light up like a neon sign, only cooler-- as cool as the virtual reality video game they had at Dave's Videodrome.
"The thing is-- this sounds crazy, but I don't want to be a Rock'n Roll star. You know?" Cliff looked at me. "Drugs bore me. Like the thing is nobody's makin' Rock 'n' Roll anymore anyways-- Rock 'n' Roll's makin' people-- it's like our parents have auditions now for the best rebel, and then it's all so cute, 'cause we have our grunge, just like they had their hippies. But the thing is, this time around their doing it so we'll drink Pepsi." Cliff laughed. "Hey, that sort of rhymes-- no one makes Rock 'n Roll anymore; you can buy it in a store."
"Yeah," I said. "But like what else is there?"
"Everything! We could discover some fundamental law of nature this summer, if we set out right now to do it, or we could write a book." He stood up and walked over to the edge.
"About what?"
"About life. Whuddaya think? We could become the minds of our generation."
"You mean like the voices?"
"I mean the mind" He looked at me like I was insane. "We already have eight million voices-- Lemon Wanger's a voice of our generation, Bung Hole Cu tter is a voice, and everyday the Hollywood elite's out marketing a new one naked on some magazine cover in Food Lion for you. I'm tired of heroin addicts bein' my voice. But like who's gonna span the depth of this culture? And don't give me that line like that this culture's shallow, 'cause here I am, and I'll kick anybody's ass who says I'm shallow-- there's more to me than f---ing shampoo. And don't give me that other line either that great thinkers never get recognized 'til after they're dead-- the wierd f----ed up ones don't, but where's the Shakespeare of our day? Who's the Plato? Who's gonna be like the Aristotle? Where's the Einstein of our generation-- that could beus , man. We could do what Rock is too old and sick with cancer to do-- we could give our generation a vision. We could write the Moby Dick of like our generation. The MTV-- no screw that-- I'm not the MTV generation." He thought for a bit, then nodded, slowly, "We're the nameless generation, dude." Cliff sat back down next to me. "'Cause everyone's trying name us to get their face on a magazine cover, but f---that-- we're nameless. The adults are givin' us all this polished, rehashed 90210 rock'n roll and stuff, but like that doesn't mean I have to eat it. I'm a loser-- why don't you kill me. That's not my anthem, it's my parent's, and we might as well. I don't have lowered expectations. I hate to disappoint everyone-- it's like I'm lettin' my generation down by thinkin'. Whuddayah say? You wannna do something-- something cool?"
"Yeah-- but like I'm not so good at this vision thing. I wouldn't know what to write about."
"Shut up. It's only 'cause you've never been out of Chapel Hill. All you know is the Cave and the Cradle-- your whole world's some smoky dim room of posers and distortion. Like for starters why don't you road trip on up to Princeton with me, and dig up this treasure thing. It's cool up there, the people. There's something going down man, and it's not happenin' here-- you feel that callin'?"
"Uh-- not really, too much, I guess."
"It's different up there, man. People read."
"Like what?"
"Books-- and, oh yeah, I hear her callin'. And even if it's nothing-- you know, it's more than the scene around here. It's an excuse to get out of here, dude! And plus they've got the smartest men alive up there at Priceton, and an awesome library up t here I've been wanting to check out. There's this one dude I really want to talk to-- he's the modern day Einstein-- not the one in the wheel chair I was telling you about, but like just as cool."
"I thought you just said we don't have an Einstein."
"We don't-- this guy's practically's as old as Einstein-- you know, he's so old he was never assaulted by rock'n roll-- not even Elvis or the BG's. His mind developed totally intact. He built an atomic bomb when he was fifteen is how smart he is. But anywa y-- this map is the coolest thing that's visited here in Chapel Hill in over a century-- don't you see? It has all the markings of a top-notch adventure on it; tra vel, mystery, and death. Now that's what life's all about, and if we just set out to some strange land somewheres, go forth, and look death in the eye and speak the truth we'll have a book! Twain had the Mississipi, Conrad had the Congo, Melville rampage d the seven seas, and like what do we have?"
"The Cat's Cradle?"
Cliff almost hit me. "Dude-- I'm dead serious. Now look; we could catch that five-thirty Friday freighter, like we used to ride up it up to Durham-- you know, down by the bluffs where i t slows down. It runs all the way up to New York-- I've checked it before on a map. We've got about an hour." He looked at his watch. "An hour and a half. Whuddaya say? Yes or no? In or out for something which won't suck?"
"So Drake's really alive, you think."
"Hell yeah, he's alive. Like where's his ghost, if he's dead?"
I laughed.
"What's so funny?" Cliff looked at me.
"Ghosts." It was funny seeing Cliff like so serious about something like ghosts.
"Yeah?" He looked at me. "So?"
"You don't believe in ghosts." I told him.
"Hell yes I believe in ghosts."
"OK dude."
"They're scientific facts-- also I saw one once."
"Uh huh."
"Yeah, dude." He nodded. "There's one which haunts around Ghimghoul castle-- right after storms when I was little I used to go over there, 'cause that's when he came out."
"Is that right?" I straight-faced him.
"Yes way, man-- and the thing was I saw it wearing Drake's jeans jacket a couple weeks back-- this was before Drake'd sent it home, even. Go ahead, laugh. There's more in this heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy, dude."
"So then how's Drake still alive, if you saw the ghost?"
"It's a good ghost. C'mon man-- Priceton's callin'. Man or mouse?"
"Uh, my dad was like planning on my help-- you know, building the deck, like that carpentry stuff he's doin' this summer."
"Tell him you're goin' on a fishing trip, with me, or something. Tell him I'll help you guys when we get back. I will, too-- hey, I've got nothing else."
"Uh, like I dunno."
"C'mon man-- there's just this feeling I have. Like now-- these spirits don't hang around, and if ya hesitate and miss the tide, you'll be grounded for eternity, in Chapel Hill-- the next Chapel Hill. I mean dude -- now that grunge is dead, we get to be it. But if like you ride the high tide out over those treacherous rocks in the first few hundred yards, then the seven seas are yours-- we could get stranded in the shallow waters here, man. Let the generation-x-slackers inherit all that is slack , pot and College music, and all that empty crap-- the world's declining dude, but I'm not the world, yet-- so don't confuse me with it. I'm fifteen and I'm goin'." He got up. "Plus Drake wants us there for some reason-- he knew I'd be wearing that jack et. You in or out?"
"I really am supposed to, you know, help, and stuff."
"Yeah, I know." He got up. "Like you've got to help the Feminine Napkin Holders open for Preppy Death, anyways-- where would they find another rhythm guitarist in this town-- th e next Greensboro?" Cliff laughed. "But seriously-- like Christy had a dream about you-- cool stuff to check out. So I'll catch ya later this summer-- I'll look for you on the cover of Rolling Stone , naked. But Ahab's Ahab, dude." He said. "And I'm there--see ya." And he took off. I watched his blurred silhouette through the waterfall, jogging on down the trail.
So I headed on home, but halfway there I remembered my distortion pedal which was still at Cliff's, and there was no way I could play with out it, so I had to double on back. On the way I swung a short cut through the Ghimghoul woods, so I had to go on by Ghimghoul Castle again. The clouds were breakin' some, with great huge silver linings glidin' 'cross the sky, 'growin' bright as they passed 'neath the sun, and then fadin' back to gray. A tiny hole appeared for a second, and a shaft of sunlight solid as a gold bar shot on through, but the hole closed up again, quick as it'd appeared. All the clouds and everything had that strange kind of deep sea green light to them, and it painted the stones in Ghimghoul's Castle a kind of greenish color. The castle was some type of underground society thing for the Carolina college kids, and Cliff and I had snuck in there once, 'cause we'd heard they had these sacrificial ceremonies and stuff, but all it really turned out to be was about thirty guys with like six cases of beer watching a video tape of the Duke basketball game-- but the castle itself is pretty cool-- it actually looks like a castle, with the type of stone walls that are good for climbin'. Then I saw something. I saw this tiny flickering light-- two tiny flickerings of light behind one of the windows, like eyes, and I braced myself, ready to take the hell off! Then what happened is the l ights started moving-- moving on closer towards the window! It came close enough to the window that I could make out it was a skull with like these point lights in each socket, and as I took off, I realized it'd been wearing a jeans jacket, with a Nirvana patch-- my jeans jacket!
I booked through the woods all the way back to Cliff's house, and I got sopping wet even though the rain'd stopped, 'cause the leaves on all the bushes and brush'n stuff painted me 'til I was soaked. I'll admit I was totally freakin', 'cause like of course I believe in ghosts, even though I'd never seen one before. And like it'd been wearing my jacket! I yelled out for Cliff, upstairs and downstairs, in the garage and in his shed, but he wasn't anywhere around, so I just went downstairs to pick up my pedal, and there was a note there from Riff.
Saw your pedal here and picked it up for the gig tonight. You suck without distortion.
--Riff.
I ran the long way home, around the Ghimghoul woods, so I didn't have to see that stupid castle anymore. I couldn't figure out what the hell Riff was doing in Cliff's basement, though, unless like he was stealing stuff, but he'd left a note, so most likely he wasn't swiping anything-- anything big, anyways. And all of a sudden this feeling hit me and I broke into a walk. One of those feelings that kind of hits you off guard, and it's strange and new, so like you have to take some time out to figure out what's up with it. I didn't feel so much like playin' the gig tonight-- and it wasn 't just because of what Cliff'd said, either. I liked Bloody Stonehard, at least their first album, even though they like ripped off Nirvana-- I like Lithium, and Rape me is a cool song too, even though they're both the same song, kind of, like all their songs are, really, but still, there's something cool about them. I mean Cliff's right and stuff, about a lot of it, but it wasn't like I was thinkin' what I was thinkin' just 'cause of what he said. No, it was somethin' in the air, and I would've been feeling this way anyways-- like either it's raining or not, and eventually you'll know which one, no matter what anyone says, depending on whether or not you get wet when you walk outside. The thing that sucked about the gig that night was that I could already picture it all perfectly, and whenever you can picture things perfectly before they happen, and they suck in the picture, then they almost always suck a bit more than what was in your head-- at least things like gigs. I mean it's always worse than what you imagine, and all I could imagine was all the regulars hangin' out in the smoky room with the low rock-like ceilings and everything, spray painted brown and black with that insulation stuff poking through here and there, and you could bet like the one chick with the purple hair would be there, and her friend who looked like Liz Phair who like always faked stage fright pretty good and sang at the open mike nights these songs about sex in the chapel, who totally sucked-- and like that one kind of pretty pretty one, only she always murdered her face with black lipstick on her upper lip and red on her lower. You could bet they'd all be moshing in the front row for the Feminine Napkin Holders. And the Moran brothers, and their whole crowd with all those spiked mohawks and nose rings and stuff, who were always in the front row for the bands that had the chick bassists. They'd all be doing bongs out back in Steve's Cherokee before the show, sandpaperin' hole into their jeans, or something, and I'd get the same old lines from Melina, on how I'm missing out on the higher reality 'cause I never drop acid anymore, or anything. Actually I never did.
I was freakin' about that ghost wearin' my jacket, when it hit me that it wasn't really my jacket! Cool, I was saved! I mean after Riff'd said it was his, I didn't really argue, so the underworld or whatever couldn't really pin the jacket on me. But then I figured that ghosts were probably pretty spiritual, being spirits and stuff, so they probably operated on lik e an abstract level where like the true owners were the true owners. But any lawyer from Divorce Court would pin the jacket on Riff, I knew, so that settled me some, but except then I saw that that would only be if they were my lawyer, and Riff would have one too batting for him, so to clear it up I said aloud, "It's not my jacket. It's Riff's Jacket."
"We know dude-- Yo." I jumped forty feet in the air. When I landed there was Riff-- he'd snuck on up behind me. "Christ-- how's the valium dude?"
"Uh, no-- hey what's up." He wasn't wearin' my jeans jacket.
"I got your distortion dude--" He tossed the pedal to me. "You were gonna forget it at Cliff's again."
"Uh, yeah, I got your note. Were you just like at Ghimghoul's castle?"
"No." He looked at me. "Why?"
"Well what were you doing in Cliff's basement?"
"What's it to ya? " He looked at me.
"Just wonderin'."
"Cliff's dad sold me Drake's guitar." Riff was carrying a guitar case-- I hadn't even noticed. "I was just pickin' it up-- is that OK with you?"
"How much?"
"Cut a deal; his dad's pretty cool-- he's a holy dude and stuff, so like money's no big deal, you know. I'll check you tonight. Look, if you change your mind about some liquid-- I'll have enough, so just ask. OK? Or stamps, or anything."
"Dude, I wouldn't shoot up, or anything tonight, if I was you."
"Why-- undercovers?"
"No, I just like saw something."
"What's up?"
"Like I don't know-- back at Ghimghoul's castle."
"Christ Timber-- just say what you mean-- for a change; I've got this life to live, dude."
"I saw death, and he was wearing your jeans jacket."
He stopped and gave me this look. "Yo Dude, that's pretty heavy-- you'd better come again with that one."
"I saw death, and he was wearing your jeans jacket."
"What the f--- was Johnny doin' there?"
Johnny was the baseplayer in Preppy Death-- his nickname was death.
"No, dude--" I explained. "Like it was this skeleton wearing your jeans jacket."
"Look man, I didn't take your jacket, OK?"
"I'm just warning ya to look out."
"OK, Timber." He like laughed and looked at me, walkin' backwards. "OK, I'll do it for you, buddy. Yo." He saluted me with the devil sign, like tossed his hair, and turned and took off.
I watched him turn the corner and headed on off to his dad's house, and I was relieved it was all settled about the jeans jacket. Like I'd tried to warn him, too, but he was being a dick.
I drew the cool early evening air in through my nose, and it had that fresh smell to it-- you know, that one fresh springy smell that doesn't really smell like anything except for itself-- you know the kind I mean, and if you don't, you're missing out, so first chance you have, go out sometime right after an afternoon June thunderstorm, and breathe deep, and then you'll know what I mean. There was still a whole lot of daylight left, but the sun had crossed that point of no return, there was no denyin'. It sent the creepy crawlies up my spine, along with this premonition feeling of the mystic dusk, and in my mind I pict ured the risin' moon over a wide opened field-- I dunno, but I have a feelin' it's somethin' that only happens in Chapel Hill, and probably only if some girl had dreamed about you the night before. But this time something'd blown in with the storm, or it was more like something'd blown out with the storm, is what it was, or had gotten washed away down the storm sewers with it, like colored chalk drawings on the street, 'cause intertwined along with the cool freshness, there had come along a hollowness to haunt the air, or something.
The links stop here-- BeaconWay Press Ahoy! Drop the crew a line!
[Poetry] [Great Books & Classics] [Shakespeare] [Classics] [Classic eCards] [American History] [Great Books]
[Summer Reading Challenge] [Tutors] [Great Books Forums] [Greatest Conversation] [Cairn Studios]
Join us before the mast for Moby Dick year.
READ THE GREAT BOOKS
DR. ELLIOT'S NORTH AMERICAN GREAT BOOKS TOUR
TERM PAPERS, RESEARCH PAPERS, ESSAYSFree postnuke hosting, blogging, and photo galleries @ mobynuke.net BUY THE GREAT BOOKS
Join The
Great Books Renaissance! myspace.com/americanrenaissance