Week 91: Memorials 9 - 12

There’s the Blue Öyster Cult symbol, a combination of a cross and a question mark, painted large behind the twin bed were a crucifix once hung. There’s the collection of military miniatures, painstakingly painted and placed in perfect military formation, an impending battle. There’s the killer record collection neatly stacked on the shelves, the Ramones, Queen, the Stooges, MC5… The three kids in the older brother’s bedroom aren’t trying to find the secret answer to sex, they aren’t paying attention to any of that. They are sitting on the edge of the bed, barely on it, almost more standing than sitting, staring at the older brother’s little twelve inch TV on top of the desk. An Ozzy Osbourne concert is playing live on MTV just months after the death of guitarist Randy Rhodes. Ozzy is the Prince of Darkness himself and to these three Catholic kids he rocks. The set is a medieval castle, the band is flawless, and Ozzy’s voice is piercing perfect, Don't need no astrology, it's inside of you and me. You don't need a ticket to fly with me, I'm free, yeah. And a giant cross made of laser lights spins above Ozzy’s head until it turns itself upside down. The three teenagers stare in awe and they feel they’ve had a life changing experience. But they are just starting their lives.

The weekend in the mountains was not turning out like he’d planned. He had been wanting to talk to her since the last time he visited, and had decided this time he would do it. He had thought of every possible way a conversation between them could go, all the possible responses she could have to all the possible things he could say and all the possible responses he could have to all her possible responses. He had spent a lot of time thinking about this, yet he didn’t’ feel ready. So when they ran into each other on the sidewalk in front of their neighboring mountain homes, his tongue was glued to the back of his teeth and she ended up being the one that invited him to her house. Lucky for him they had a piano. He knew he was clumsy and awkward, but playing the piano he felt like he had something to offer, even if it was just a clumsy and awkward version of the Theme for Mahogany. And she knew the song! Do you know where you’re going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you? He wanted to kiss her and hug her and tell her he had always and forever would love her. But he didn’t, and he would never see her again, because by the time he was old enough to be brave, she was falling asleep on her boyfriend’s lap in the back seat of car speeding through the narrow mountain roads of the distant Sierra Madre range in Mexico.

Younger in age than the life she’s led, she sits in the little median-of-a-park outside Kellogg’s 24-hour diner in Brooklyn. She came on the L train from Bushwick to meet her guy and now just sits on a bench stretching her long sleeve t-shirt over her hands in a failed attempt to keep warm. Her guy is going to be late and she’s sick, so she’s scanning the bums standing around the door of the diner cause maybe, just maybe Frank will be there, and he owes her some. But Frank’s not there, Frank is shitting his soft bum diarrhea right into his pants in the crowded holding cell of the Union Street Police Station. As if she knew about the mass vomiting reaction Frank is causing at the station, she smiles to herself, and then notices her guy taking his time, riding towards her on a bicycle that looks like it belongs to his little brother. She asks him, have you listened to Vico-C’s new record? Then takes off her headphones and puts them over her guy’s ears as Vico-C raps, aquel que habia muerto de la tumba salio, y ahora contrataca con lo que aprendio (the one who had died is back from the grave, and now counter attacks with the stuff he learned). Her guy compliments the dope beat of the music and gives her what she came to get. She says, see you later, and heads for the Kellogg’s bathroom for the last time, feeling good about life, and singing along with Vico-C, Dale paso al rey de reyes cuando llegue a tu ‘section’, Repartiendo las buenas nuevas de ‘salvation’, A lo unico de lo que queda de la ‘generation’ (Make way for the king of king when he reaches your section, spreading the good news of salvation, to what’s left of the generation).

The Captain and Tennille were blasting on the living room stereo of my friend’s family beach house. I was on the brink of puberty, and staring at the Lynda Carter poster my best friend had on his bedroom wall. Not Lynda Carter in the Wonder Woman costume, this Lynda Carter was wearing a shirt tied into a knot in the front with her thumb hooked on the waist of her jeans weighting the jeans down so that her belly button showed, a really nice belly button. She stared right at me and I stared back at her and ignored the insistent whispers of my friend calling me to look out the window. Uncle Johnny and his new girlfriend are doing it on the hammock outside, he said. But I never went to the window, so I don’t know if they were really doing it or if it was just another one of my friend’s deluded exaggerations. They say your life flashes by you when you are dying, so I guess that was the extent of my life cause that is the only scene flashing by me right now. I know I’m only nineteen, but I’m sure I have more memories than just this one. My friend, meanwhile, is frantic and talking something unintelligible while he drives. He’s sweating and freaking out, yet I don’t feel at all like I was just shot in the head. I am comfortable, leaning back on the car seat and thinking about that poster and Toni Tennille’s voice, Before you ask some guy for his hand, now, You keep your freedom for as long as you can, now, My mama told me, You better shop around, aah-ha-ha, You better shop around.

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.