The Best Revenge?

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.