It’s not for the reason(s) you might think. There isn’t any hardcore drama involved, at least not on my end. But frankly I feel besieged, beleaguerd… we’re way beyond the limits of mastication here. Every lesson I have with Dr Filip feels like I’m wasting his time. I don’t have the chops, I’m not as obsest with playing guitar as I need to be in order to do right by my professors and my bandmates. It should be a fun hobby, not a chore, or a job. So, I’m out.
This fact started to dawn on me way back at that party in Maury County, at Izzy’s parents’ mansion, where Jude got blind drunk. I was chilling with Rachel awhile, following her from room to room, getting a bit more tipsy with each conversation till I found myself in the library, admiring a shelf dedicated to Nabokov, Vonnegut, and Pynchon… maybe there’s a lit-loving Cornell alum in the family? There was also a baby grand sitting right outside the door—I’d plunkt a few of its lowest keys passing by on my way in to the tiny book-nook. Then all of a sudden I hear someone start to play the third movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” sonata, the really fast heavy-metal sounding part. Competently! Full tempo and everything. It was fucking insane. I thought, I am in the presence of an athlete. This is a level of performance I will never attain. Who is that? I peekt around the threshold to find out. It was this girl I hadn’t seen before, tallish, sandy hair, bob cut. She glanced up at me briefly but didn’t make eye contact, didn’t stop or stumble in her playing. Once it was clear she wasn’t interested in small talk I slipt back into the bookshelves and pretended to inspect the four-volume 1975 edition of Nabokov’s controversial translation of Eugene Onegin while she kept on.
“But, Sean, piano and guitar are two vastly different instruments,” I can hear you saying. “Why would you let that discourage you?”
Yeah, no, shut up. Trust me. I really don’t have it in me. Sometimes you just know, ya know?
(We did end up talking later. I askt her if she was in school for piano. She said no. Her dad is a session player tho. Lucky, natural born talent. Forget her name.)
So I begin to feel very foolish here in the classical guitar program at UNash and as the guitarist in a power trio, which makes audiences think I’m the front man. This has led to a growing stage fright—literal performance anxiety—something I haven’t been able to bring up with Jude or Ceejay because I’m embarrast. But at every show, my stomach gets a bit more fugged before we go on. (At our recitals a week ago I almost had a panic attack. Dr Filip was there with a bunch of “bennah-nas” to supposedly help soothe the nerves. Didn’t work.)
With liquid courage I had tried to talk about this with Jude at the party, but when I found him he was so wasted he hardly recognized me. His eyes were hidden behind his hair, and he flickt me the bird from a sitting position before taking another pull from his bottle of rum. Well, that is one answer.
Now, Jordan and I did find time to talk it over during Fall Break, the night before Chad fell from the third floor balcony. Ceej and Jude were on their way to see Cat Power. Ceejay had taken off with my lighter, my one and only. He’d also taken the last of some vodka Rachel had given me, when I thought I’d told him he could have a drink from it. Just took the handle right out of the fridge. I was griping to Jordan about this when it all came tumbling out: “I can’t even look forward to shows any more. My gut’s doing flips the whole day leading up to it, no matter what. It’s the worst.”
“Eh heh, did you sign a contract?” he askt with trademark snicker. “No one’s forcing you to play in that band.”
“Of course not,” I agreed. I couldn’t see him; he was on his laptop on Jude’s side; we were talking over the back-to-back hutched desks that divide the room.
He rapidly continued, “Like, I know like with music school and all, like it requires a bit more tact but honestly dude—you don’t owe it to them. I know it seems like you do but you don’t!” This was something I needed to hear, apparently. I knew Jordan was done with the band at this point. I think he had already told us. “Besides, guitar players are a fucking dime-a-dozen in Nastyville.”
Hah. He usually knows what to say to cheer a person up.
“By the way, Sean, will it bother you if I go jerk off real quick?”
Jordan’s always been That Guy. Later on in the weekend he took a dump in our bathroom, and it just so happend to drop in the shape of a dick-and-balls. He made me grab his camera out of his backpack so he could take its picture. Then he printed that picture out and taped it to the bathroom door, so now we have this photo of a phallic turd adorning the entrance to our shared shower/toilet.
In spite or perhaps even because of this grossness of character he easily makes friends with most everybody—except Ceejay. Which I think is more of a Ceejay problem than a Jordan one. They got along at first, Ceej a bit baffled at Jord’s manic grab-ass routine, but his patience quickly wore thin and pretty soon they were getting into arguments over the stupidest shit.
So there went our plan to become a Germs-like four-piece, and we went back to playing instrumental versions of our songs like we’d been doing.
And it kinda feels like everyone expects me to pick up the slack.
Not only Jude and Ceejay—I even have Jeremiah encouraging me to do it. To sing, to lead. Sometimes I go over to his place instead of Rachel’s when things start to bug me. We sit out on the patio with his telescope and look at the mountains on the moon.
“Those guys need a leader,” he tells me. “You could do it, man.”
He does this “you’re mature for your age” shtick quite often. It doesn’t work on me. People have been telling me that my whole life. I just change the subject.
“You know the planet they discoverd this year? Mike Brown and them?”
“Yeah, I remember—Xena.”
“Well they found a moon orbiting it. Named Gabrielle.”
“No shit?” Jerry leans back in the dark. “Heck of a job, Brownie.”
As our thoughts slowly turn from the Kuiper to the Sun Belt, to the scores of scatterd Katrina refugees who’ve sometimes shown up at the Muse looking for goodwill and entertainment… who came north to Memphis and Nashville, instead of west to Houston like much of the rest, with the same sad stories of losing everything to the terrific, merciless floodwaters… we think, When will such a disaster come for our city? and, Will it be wind, water, or worse?
(O, shit—that was the piano girl’s name—Gabrielle.)
Final random item: Monday night, one week ago, when I stormed off to Rachel’s (for real this time) we got high and watched Futurama on Adult Swim. It was the episode where the alcoholic robot Bender runs away to become a chef, tho he lacks any culinary talent. He follows some space bums to a stellar hobo jungle and comments that he’s seen bigger transient encampments in Eugene, Oregon. For some reason this throwaway line tickled Ray’s funny bone and she burst out laughing, the way girls only do when they’re stoned.