Image: A mild
day, early winter, a beautiful break from the misery of last week, sunshine and
blue skies. A perfect day for the party, and my four-plex is a beehive of
bustling artists, musicians and painters, actors, jugglers, performers of all
kinds. But for the moment we all share the art of housecleaning, making things
bright and shiny, spic and span, clean and fresh, for tonight is the grand
opening of my recording studio. Many people are expected, many bands are to
play, many beers will cease to exist. It is a happy expectant time and we
whistle as we work, looking forward to a night of song and dance, new beginnings
and maybe even some sex.
And then a
yell from the back yard, seems like there is a small fire in one of the wash
sheds. No problem, there is a virtual army of willing bodies and the hoses are
cranked out and the shovels are wielded mightily. And I call the FD, even
though I feel slightly stupid doing so, just to be safe, just to have an
official certifiable death to our little vagabond blaze. And by the time the
fire guys arrive the flame is out, and we vacate, dropping our hoses and
shovels, sheepishly, guilty for leaving only wet ashes for the pros.
Wrong. For it
seems that our little vagabond blaze has slipped quietly through a crack in the
wallboard, up the stud and into the roof. And we are gathered out front,
goofing and joking, waiting patiently to take our safety lecture and get back to
this party business. And we are horrified when our little vagabond blaze
reappears on the roof, transformed, triumphant, bellowing, a hideous snarling
inferno.
A nightmare, a
bad trip, a surreal hallucination, fragmented, a freak show, a neighborhood
circus full of smoke, screams and curses, weeping and laughter and TV crews and
a fleet of large red vehicles. Casual bystanders who want to know what happened
and well-meaning neighbors who want to know what happened and a parade of
notepads and forms and cameras who want to know what happened and I am numb. I
valiantly try to perform, but my voice doesn't work and there is only the image
of me on network, a frazzled blackened freak, staring dumbly and muttering, and
I'm sure most of the viewing audience wondered vaguely if I was on crack or
Valium or both. I was seeing and I was believing, but it was as if I were
viewing the spectacle from a great distance in another time. The capacity for
thought was revoked, I was an observer and nothing more.
A robot, an
automaton, leadenly informing shiny people that the party has been canceled,
reciting personal stats for various officials, avoiding the gaze of my fellow
artists, avoiding the question. What is left and what is gone? Who lost what
and how much and is he going to hug me or punch my lights out, grieve with me or
tear my balls off for having my house destroy the means of his art. I am trying
to shrink. For the first time in my life I don't want to be me, this celebrity,
infamy, sorrow. I want to be away and alone, but I desperately need comfort
from someone, anyone, but I want to be alone, but not alone, close, gone,
non-existent but smothered with warmth and un-conditional love. I want to be
nothing and have everything again, and I want someone to tell me it's alright so
that I can call them a motherfucking liar and then fall into their arms, but I
don't have the capacity to initiate anything whatsoever so I pace and I stare
and I mumble when it is required.
And at last
the party breaks up. It is night and we are permitted to file through the
grisly skeleton of our dreams, the happening party pad of this afternoon. And
one by one our grief erupts, eerie wails from the dark as the little deaths pile
up and are chronicled. It is a selfish personal time and there are no hugs, no
sympathetic nods and pats, no kind words. We are stumbling through a steaming
corpse, lost to each other in the dark, wrapped in personal tragedy, eagerly
looking for the edge of destruction, the magic line where things become alright
again. I am as good as I can be, surveying the damage with a practiced
carpenter's eye, gauging the extent, formulating material lists and a time line,
a general format for re-construction, an inconspicuous inward snap and my knees
fold, involuntary slump downward and suddenly I'm on the floor with my guitar
sobbing and begging and asking why of no one in particular; the whole afternoon
comes crashing down and all I can do is cling to a sodden cinder and heave,
mindlessly stroking a piece of charred wood that was my sustenance for a decade,
my gal, my livelihood, my constant companion through thick and thin, my lover
and the voice of my art, and I want to get up and plug her in but there is
nothing to plug into and there seems to be something wrong with the strings and
my legs are stuck to the floor and my breath won't come and then strong grimy
hands are laid upon me, lifting...
