Three weeks ago I presented my
music for Joe’s Game at Palomar College. Most of my fellows were nervous
speaking on stage. I had rehearsed my speech. I made the audience laugh,
telling them that if they felt nauseous, as though they were fighting their ways
through a sewer, then I succeeded as a composer. The crowd loved the song. The
mix was just right. Tom took my request for the E.Q. into consideration,
lessening the bass so that the audience might hear the trebled frequencies. I
didn’t hear a single word of criticism for it. Gabe’s Mom liked it. Tom liked
it. Kouji liked it. Several people asked me when the game would come out. I
told them I’d keep them up to date. Mom and Dad loved it; they were proud of
me, for once, again. And they were happy with the illustration that my sister
made for it. Though personally I wish that she’d made the hair less dirty
blonde and closer to the platinum hue that I described. But she knew it would
not be perfect.
Friday I came in to finish my lab
hours for that class. There was only one guy there: the proctor. He was about
nineteen years old. I showed him all the music that I’d made in Doctor Byrne’s
class that semester. Gabriel joined us after some time. We rocked out to
psychedelic classics by Air, by Pink Floyd, by Funkadelic, etc. At some point
Gabe and I left for thirty minutes; I know because “Moon Safari” was paused
twenty-nine minutes in. Our little session brought Z out of his shell. When we
returned from our free lunch with food for the proctor, he was listening to Z’s
most recent mix. The girl’s vocals weren’t up to par. But Z would fix that.
Saturday my parents came for the
first time to see me play xylophone. It was the first time that I let them
watch. They did not know I had a solo. My blood pressure spiked during the slow
oboe solo leading into mine. But I nailed it. Tom again went out of his way,
even in the midst of business, to commend me. Mom’s pride went through the
roof.
Up on stage, I did not think of
Kali. I did not think of MacKenzie. I might not have even thought of you.
I am still convinced that Kali
loved me, though it’s easier for petty girls, however talented, to blame me for
it. It was never I that knew she had a boyfriend. That was her cross to bear;
she had simply to pretend that it was ME sending HER the “vibe” and not her projecting
her own affections. Any projection by its nature comes with some degree of “creepiness”.
The Personal Unconscious is one scary place. Why else would people neglect
their dreams? At least my sister has the honesty to confess her fears of
studying them.
Your letter helped me with the
confidence. It all ways does.
Monday I hung out with Joe all
day; we set a record for ourselves. I talked him down from his episode. I
administered some herbal tea. He played Spyro the Dragon and then joined me
upstairs for a musical consultation session. After we had our plans in order
for the soundtrack, he drove me back to his house to play Doom. We had the
fanfare we had written stuck in both our heads, even if it occupied different
rooms within our brains.
I would have left his house after
Doom drained me, but I chose to stay. He talked me through some dark
forebodings. When he drove me home, I was refreshed. All though he fought off
all my optimism and good graces, I told him that I saw good in him. I told him
I saw good within myself, as well. I was a positive influence.
This was more or less what Ben
told me time and again. He came down Tuesday, as planned, all the way from
Oceanside. He was still working at the same restaurant. All the bartenders were
fired because of a case of --------. George got promoted after sleeping with a
new girl. The new girl got fired. She spilled the beans after the fact about
the other bartenders. George moved back to Ohio. He plays with his old band
again.
Christian joined us soon
thereafter. I treated him to herbal tea and what remained of what my sister would
call “oven pizza”. We hung out downstairs for about half an hour prior to
rehearsal, getting acquainted. As Christian wrapped up his pizza I took both of
his guitars upstairs. We jammed for two and a half hours. It was the longest
recording I had ever made. We were all ecstatic and tired. Ben even left
without his effects pedals, though my father noticed them just in time so that
I might call Ben and return them to him. He appreciated that. I’d never let
something like that just sit around in my home without making an effort to
return it. Not if the man had a use for it outside of hoarding.
I still think of you each night.
I tell myself what you told me. I guard it religiously against the World.
I have concluded that vengeance
would be too easy. Even my successes cannot be considered acts of spite.
Moments of joy are so complete and precious that our foes don’t cross my mind
until they’ve run their course. External success is so fleeting that sometimes
I forget I over had it, and when I’m disgusted by humanity I hear the voice of
failure in my ears. Our foes want me to bear the burden for their failures.
They’ve all ready figured out just how to blame me for them, arguing at the
same moment that they blame me that it’s me that’s blaming them. I guess that
this must be what snipers do when they take someone’s life for “being a threat”
to their own lives. Joe called it “intimate”. For me, the distance is the very
epitome of intimacy. Only a coward would stoop so low, even if he were firing
from on high. At any rate, it only works if I forget what I’ve accomplished. I
must make myself a target for the bullet to hit me. The moment I remember who I
am and what I’ve done without them, I am sheltered from the sniping cowards.
Vengeance is too easy. Success does
not satisfy it, for success is too great to be contained within it. And
vengeance would not satisfy success. Yet it is comforting to know that if this
project fails, and if I fail to do what you had TRULY wanted of me, the
foundation of a local scene of artists, then I would be protected. There is
nothing they can do to me. They’re cowards. Even if I had to go against the
World in its entirety, I would have YOUR World to look forward to in death. Its
fleeting intimations colour every day of productivity and wonder. And I know
that if that world should fall from sight, and I am left only in agony and
turmoil, there is nothing I need to keep secret from this fallen world. I can
be ruthless to my heart’s content, for they that wronged us have no recourse.
There is no authority they can appeal to without furthering their own exposure.
I control entirely their image, which is all they have. And it is only out of
that same mercy that you praised in me that I leave that image alone, confining
it only to those small crevasses that only they would haunt repeatedly, when I
could tell this tale on a much larger scale, met with applause. This is why
their final words to me are weak and feeble, tugging at my pity. Joe is right;
who ARE these people? It’s beneath a man.
[({Dm.A.A.)}]
P.S.: According to Ben I’m
thought of fondly by the servers at the restaurant. When I asked him if my
return would be awkward at all, he was surprised to think I’d think that. When
I asked him who it was that spoke so well of me, he mentioned Holly and, after
a pause, MacKenzie. Maybe it is time to pay a visit. Maybe she will finally
serve me.
