Week 80: Memorials 1 - 8

A young boy lays on his bed with roadrunner sheets looking over his stamp collection. His album is full of stamps from strange faraway islands like Christmas Island or Wallis and Futuna, or wealthy city-states like Monaco or Umm al-Quwain, stamps from countries that no longer exist like Nyasaland or Rio Muni. The stamps combined with the 18th century Salgari adventure books he’s been reading take his imagination on faraway adventures and expeditions to the Ganges Delta, Damascus, or Lake Maracaibo, wherever there is land or water to be discovered the boy will venture there in camel or elephant caravans or maybe in a speedy sloop or schooner, canons at the ready. As the young boy lays on his bed with roadrunner sheets looking over his stamp collection he whistles along to Styx’s Babe as it plays on his AM Donald Duck radio. Babe I’m leaving, I must be on my way….

A grandmother stands on the sidewalk talking to the cops who’ve just arrived, letting them know that there is nothing to worry about, it’s just her teenage grandson having a birthday party with some of his friends, would they want to come in for a beer? Meanwhile the large group of teenage boys and girls slow dances in grandma’s darkened living room. The girls and boys squeeze each other, some tighter, some loser, and all together they sing the chorus to Ebony and Ivory, live together in perfect harmony.

Two brothers and a sister are spending the weekend at their newly divorced dad’s newly acquired penthouse condo. There is not that much to do in the penthouse, everything seems to be fragile and made for adults only. But dad lets them play the stereo, even though he constantly repeats to them that they need to be careful because it is the new top of the line Marantz system and extremely expensive. The three children turn on the radio and out comes blasting That’s the Way by KC and the Sunshine Band. They love this song so they immediately turn it up and run to dad’s bedroom because he has the biggest bed in the world. In one leap all three are on top of the bed, jumping up and down with joy and singing along, That’s the way aha aha I like it, aha aha, that’s the way.

A teenage girl looks out the window of her dad’s trailer. Outside a skinny teenage boy is half drunk and flailing his arms around in an attempt at looking like he’s playing guitar, while standing shirtless on top of the beer cooler. He doesn’t care that it’s late and sings along as loud as he can to Ted Nugent’s Wango Tango, It's a crazed gyration of the rock generation. He knows all the words, and there are a lot of them. His best friend is rolling on the ground laughing, and the girl looking out from the trailer window falls in love.

Two teenagers enter Flipperland and walk right by the opposing rows of pinball machines on each end of the room. Other kids crowd around the machines while AC/DC’s Back in Black blasts out of the jukebox in the corner. At the other end of the room there is a small door. The two teenagers open it and enter into a low dimly lit hallway. The hallway goes about 20 feet, then takes a turn to the right and opens into a small smoky room with a bar and a pool table. A few adults are standing around drinking, playing pool, talking, doing what adults do in bars. The two teenagers step up to the bar and ask for two Budweisers.

A young teenage couple goes to their local Holiday Inn to dance. The Holiday Inn has a nice quiet bar and a small wooden dance floor and hardly anyone is ever there, certainly not any of their friends. It’s their quiet date place and tonight is special because he will soon be going to another state to go to college while she stays behind to finish her senior year. She loves him and he loves her and they dance to Denise Williams’ Lets Hear It for the Boy. A few days later he leaves for college and they will never speak again.

A college student is driving back home for the summer, he’s been on the road for twenty hours straight, stopping only for gas, food and bathrooms. It’s the middle of the night in the middle of the country, miles from any town, and he is cruising on his red mustang searching the radio for a good station. Suddenly he hears a song that he can’t quite categorize. In it he hears a combination he never thought possible – hippie music and hard rock music played in a way that sounded good. He’s hoping the DJ will say who it is once the song is over, but just then his car runs over an armadillo on the road and he loses control. The car goes into a ditch and up the railroad tracks on the other side before flipping over. He watches the whole thing happen as if waking up from a dream and right before drifting into unconsciousness he hears the singer on the radio ask, where do we go, where do we go now, where do we go, and then a growl that turns into a scream.

A collegiate angry young artist spent the night drinking coca cola, one every hour for the past 20 hours, four more to go to finish the case, four more pictures of empty coke cans, then dawn and the performance piece would be over. He sits on a chair facing the dresser that was in the dormitory room when he got there. He grips the armrests tightly and taps his feet in a caffeinated buzz, his stomach doesn't feel too good. But his boombox sitting on top of the dresser is blaring for the umpteenth time in a row, Station to Station and he grits his teeth as David Bowie sings, It’s not the side effects of the cocaine, I’m thinking that it must be love. But it was the side effects of the cocaine.