Read the novel here, a chapter at a time, or buy the book on Kindle at Amazon.com.
Sylvia
You’re
an evil, dirty girl with evil, dirty thoughts.
Paul
One of a drummer’s
favorite moments is when one of his bandmates sits behind his kit and tries to
play. The results are plenty amusing, owing largely to the counterintuitive way
that a drummer uses his limbs as independent kingdoms. This rewiring takes
countless hours of playing, but the rewards are phenomenal. Occasionally, you
will find yourself so fully engaged that your hands will do something you
didn’t really ask them to, as if they have declared themselves as sentient
beings.
Tonight,
I am pushing these faculties to the max, as Smeeed and I lay down the rhythm
tracks on our recording project. He has taken five drum mics and clipped them
to my snare, three toms and a bass. A sixth dangles from the ceiling over my
cymbals. He positions another mic before his bass amp, checks all the levels
and we’re off.
You
might compare the recording process to building a house. The drum and the bass
are the foundation, outlining the structure of the song. The other players may
then add their studs, crossbeams and joists until, layer by layer, they have
completed the edifice. Then Smeeed sits for hours before his computer, picking
out window treatments.
In a
better-equipped band, we would lay our foundation while listening through
headphones to a scratch recording of the full band. In our case, we’re working
from memory. “The Man” is not bad. We’ve been playing it for a year, and the structure
is pretty straightforward. “Fool” is not so easy. We’ve only been playing it
for three months, and have not entirely fixed it in place. Our first attempt is
a train wreck. After that, Smeeed and I discuss the structure until our brains
are bleeding. Concluding that we’ve been playing the changes off the vocal
cues, I tape Pamela’s lyrics to my bass drum and sing along in a wide-mouthed
whisper so Smeeed can follow. At the same time, I’m trying not to work too hard, because the best recordings
capture two opposite qualities: sounding tight while playing loose. Or the
drummer’s equivalent: concentrating by not thinking so much.
I’m
in a weirdly good space for all of this paradox, because my brain is packed with imagery. Jasmina and I have
wandered into the wilds of sexuality, and although getting there was half the
fun, we still have a ways to go. Granted, any first coupling is an awkward
endeavor: body placement, likes and dislikes, roughness, verbosity, the “freak”
factor. But I assumed I was dealing with a pro. Thinking like a woman, it could
be that the introduction of actual feelings
is throwing her off, but at one point she was eyeing my principal pleasure
device like an amateur plumber. “Hmm, I wonder what this does?”
My
brief but active stint as a married man left me in the familiar role of
instructor, and eventually we succeeded in bringing all the parts together. The
greatest satisfaction came in lying together afterward, knowing that we had
finally crossed the threshold.
All
during the act, Jasmina left her blouse on, unbuttoned for ready access. In her
post-coital dreamstate, she had let it slip, exposing a zig-zag line running
from her shoulder to the fabric just above her elbow.
“Yaz?
What’s that?”
“What?”
“On
your arm.”
She
pulled the shirt back on and gave me an expression that I couldn’t translate
until later: equal parts embarrassment and fear. She kept moving her mouth to
speak, but nothing came out.
“A
tattoo? A scar?”
“No.
Not…”
So
many of our conversations orbit the subject of reason, I thought it a good
direction to go.
“Yaz?
You know you can trust me. You told me the worst already, and I haven’t told a
soul. If we’re going to be doing… this,
it would be best if you showed me everything.”
She
bit her lip and nodded. I helped her take off the sleeve. The line ran all the
way to her wrist in perfect, 90-degree cuts. I traced the scarred ridges with
my fingertips. Jasmina began to cry.
“I’m
sorry. It’s a… release, a bad habit. I don’t always… like myself.”
The
crying segued into song, whimpering lines of hurt and pain. I wrapped her up
and took it in through my pores.
“You
think it’s a keeper?”
Smeeed’s
sitting on a stool in front of the computer, lining up the tracks of the recording.
“What?
Oh, yeah. I guess we’ll find out for sure when we add the other parts.”
“Okay.
I fucked up a change in the final bridge, but I think I can patch it in.”
Photo by MJV.
No comments:
Post a Comment