k e v i n f r a n k l i n ' s b r a i n g o e s t o w a r
The war at home turned into the war on the patio, the war in between the two petunias hanging on the porch, and then the war in the car, the war in the parking lot, and now the war in the back booth of the bar that Kevin had spent the majority of his teenage years trying to get his band to fill up. Never happened.
His family got along when they weren't together. Placid through postcards. For whatever reason it was the complete opposite when they were forced to share air. Or seating space. I mean, biologically, it made more sense, air was more tangible than religion. Land more hands on than ideals. Each wanted to flank him, snuggle up next to him like he might be digress into flyaway molecules if they removed their hands from around his neck and shoulders. Kevin didn't like the fighting, but he did like the acknowledgement, and since he knew that they no matter what they'd always kiss and make up, the temporary embarrassment of sitting with too loud company and the occasional hurled nacho was a small price to pay for the spotlight.
About fifty feet away, over spilled beer and sweaty gyrators grooving to an intangible beat, a spotlight swung back and forth across the ripped carpet of the stage of The Mystery Box. A middling venue that took pride in it's culture and legacy (read: wear and tear) and considered it a cardinal sin to clean up the popcorn and peanut shells coating the floor in a crunchy, smelly skin. Strings of bare red bulbs swung from exposed beam to exposed beam across the ceiling. They had cheap beers, and it was an easy place for Kevin to get all of his friends and family to visit before he sunsetted. Centrally located. Universally known.
When they'd first arrived he'd received endless hugs, pats on the back and billiards duels. He'd dispatched them all over Coronas and indulged in all the nostalgic stories he and his friends could expunge from the depths of their memories, spurred on by the familiar smell of the place and untalented bands they subconsciously compared their past selves to as they ridiculed.
When he came back, they said, the band was getting back together. Literally, figuratively.
But, as it always goes, tomorrow ticked closer as the bottles emptied. His friends had engagements, work, kids, wives and lives to get back to. They trickled out over the course of the night. Devin had dodged the awkward goodbye when he hit the bathroom. Michael paid his bill. Kim revealed the feelings she'd harbored in middle school that everyone had known about, promised him a little something special if he made it back with his piece. Megan had documented the whole thing with a bulky videocamera, left it on and buzzing along on the table when she left. It didn't come out of her mouth, or maybe it did just lost within her word vomit, but he assumed it had been gifted. And then Marcus left him a pocket sized scrapbook, pictures of the two of them fucking off rubber cemented onto a stack of post its stuffed in between two coasters from the bar the two of them had shared their twenty first bithdays at. It was cute. He was glad he left, because the memory had brought Kevin to tears he'd forced himself to hide behind his eyes.
Come to think of it, the persistent headache plaguing him for the last week had probably been the throbbing ebb and flow of the growing dam of worry and stress he'd refused to drain.
He'd had four 'last smokes' with the guys as the moon rose into the sky and they faded into the night. Each convo transpired the same. They weren't eighteen anymore. They weren't even twenty five anymore. They were adults. Halfway through adulthood. They weren't stumbling through life anymore. They'd laid down paths, filling the cracks of mistakes behind them with the concrete of progress and achievements. But Kev had managed to make it out without a wife, kids...purpose. He felt listless, wandering, as his friends sploshed their drunk vision of the world around them, good willed but haphazardly drew him into their perceptions of how the world worked. They didn't really know him anymore. He didn't really know them. They used to. They used to get stoned, burn incense and listen to Zeppelin in Adam's basement. Hype up the effects of caffeine pills. Take walks at two a.m. just because. Because the world was big, open and invigorating. But life wasn't as simple as meeting up on the weekends anymore. They didn't know that he'd been axed from Home Depot. That he didn't really make it as a Department Manager, borrowed some marked out lumber to fix his mom's deck and got called out on it. They hadn't had the time to visit him at work. That's not a thing that adults do. Not in the real world. He thought he felt good the whole night...but he drifted deeper and deeper into himself as they left.
And now, here he was, the night before he left home, at a little past midnight, sitting alone, ten beers deep. He was drunk. He didn't know what he was waiting for. He was allowing himself a supreme dose of last-man-on-earth syndrome. Everything was about him tonight. He didn't want it to end. And it was rational. It was alright. He deserved it.
Because tomorrow his wandering was to be replaced with bloody, razor sharp regiment.
He didn't know how to feel about genuinely leaving for the core. He knew about how he felt about eventually leaving. He was optimistic. He knew it had to be better than what he was doing presently. But he didn't know about how he was going to feel when the day dawned. That time had passed. Here he was. In the present. It was now. Here was here. And the optimism, the safety in the thought of eventuality, had been replaced with a knot of certainty and resignation.
He knew he was destined to do something that helped others, enlisting had seemed like the de facto avenue for restless altruists these days. His cash on hand had shriveled up. No point or logic to entertaining the idea that he could go back for another degree. He'd come to the conclusion through the social research of his twenties that he needed someone else to tell him what to do, plain and simple. He wasn't a critical thinker. He was a doer when the plan was laid out. It wasn't a bad thing, he just couldn't command. He had other strengths. He had personality. He had dedication. He had a good sense of logic and common sense.
But he wasn't the guy to keep the band together.
Fuck.
He still had his guitar. As far as he knew his thirteen year old pics were still in the tray of the case wearing a coat of dust in his attic.
Damn.
He had a sticker on his guitar case, he could picture it clearly. Hadn't occurred to him in years. A string of black and white safety pins, crisscrossing the thick plastic. It wasn't even broken. He just used to like the aesthetic. It was cool to be broken back then. Cool to be needy. Cool to have cracks in the armor. Drew people in.
He drained the last of his bottle. lined it up with the others along the rim of the table. At the end of the beer bottle conga line, he saw the video camera blinking red. He stared at it. It'd captured the whole expedition of his mental abyss. A truly candid documentation. That'd be fun to watch later.
The last band had finally been called out the stage, owner croaking out the name over the shitty audio system. He could only catch the vowels, the rest slamming against the grate of the PA system. Something something Hoboken.
It was four kids. One that took his rock status too seriously, head to toe in black. Singer. Two girls. One with black hair and glasses had a hot nerdy thing going on, with bangles and a parka over technicolor tights. She took up the drums. Spun the sticks in her fingers for a few seconds. The other girl rocked some short blonde hair, tight jeans and a Joan Jett tee. Stumbled out cradling a triangle. The last guy had a bowl cut. He took his place at the right corner of the stage and picked up his bass in the most awkward fashion possible, starting at the neck. These guys were high.
They didn't acknowledge the crowd before they started playing. They just exchanged glances, nodded in unison and slammed headfirst into the most hair raising and astonishingly impressive tirade that Kevin had ever seen live.
The music started and stopped with an abruptness that mimicked the cliffs and wind of a coaster, and before the first song was even over he'd scanned the place for the merch table.
The drummer, the girl in glasses with a unicorn tattoo on her forearm, directed the band with whip crack reggae grooves that climbed and fell as the songs poured out of them. They didn't break in between songs, just segued via instrumental solos.
At a highpoint the bassist plucked footsteps, and totally in sync, the singer pranced across the stage, bomp, bomp, bomp, up onto an amp and crashed to the ground as the small button nosed percussionist smashed some cymbals together from somewhere in the shadows off stage.
Kevin felt like he was witnessing performance art. The kids had to be on something. They didn't address the audience, played down applause and expanded beyond music into visceral beats and showcasing. The singer walked off stage during a guitar solo, chugged a beer from the nearest table, and shoved some bills on the table before launching into some angsty diatribe about "playing Joseph with a raging hard-on."
Kevin couldn't remember laughing that much, becoming wholly engrossed in something, since who knows when. But he felt better. Each lyric seemed tailored to him. Loss. Leaving home. Regret. Taking the future by the throat. Coasting through life on the precipice of chaos. The guy sang about crashing his car on prom night. Kevin had crashed his car on prom night.
It could have been the multitude of beers stewing in his liver, climbing back up his tubes into the cockpit of his head, but somewhere deep in Kevin, and yet underneath his skin, he felt a connection with them. He felt weird, because they were clearly younger, and it was strange to look up to -
That was it. Some part of Kevin looked up to these guys. There was a primal similarity that overrode his hesitance to appraise such raucous youth at all. He felt kinship. Comradery. They were following their dreams. They were following his dreams. They were playing for him. They were him before the world has tittied twistered him into years of retail and eventual jumping off into the ultimate back up plan.
He found himself applauding to the beat, swinging his head from side to side, tapping his foot. He lived for this music. He might be drunk. He was drunk. But something inside him lived in these guys. He felt better. Felt universal. Felt infinite.
The kids went on and on. An hour. Hour and a half. Two.
The audience explored a narrative labyrinth of teenage dismay and pop culture nuance through a perfect storm of instrumental chaos and the band's hyper focus. Kevin couldn't decide which one to watch...each seemed far too talented, motivated and focused to be this young...there had to be something to it. He couldn't look away.
Until the owner cut the lights on the stage. Cut the lights across the whole bar.
Outside a pair of thirty something tourists jumped with the shock. They were walking to their car, suddenly suffocated by the night. All bearings lost. The lights came back. They had a laugh. Jumped in their car and took off down the road, unaware that they'd flip their car forty five minutes when a semi truck merged without turn signals or a head check.
But inside the kids looked around for the first time all night. Kevin looked around for the first time all night. The place was still packed. Kevin was one of a herd. Something special had happened. Something that didn't happen at the Mystery Box that often.
The band was good. The band was special. And the band had made an impact.
But the band didn't pay the electrical bill. And no patron had thought about buying a drink in the last two hours. Not. A. One.
The singer's blotchy face was pixelated and jagged, captured in the one inch by one inch LCD screen of the videocamera, shocked by the sudden lack of lighting abrupt halt of the kick drum. His pupils dilated. He stopped mid croon - looked up like some teenage girl singing the shower, suddenly noticing her brother had walked in with a group of horny pals. He choked out a "thanks alot." The whole band did. Nodded. Weaved their way off, stage left, disappeared behind the curtain.
The Mystery Box screeched withe applause. Chairs scratched the floor as they were thrown back, people thundered to their feet and clapped till their palms went raw. But the kids didn't come out.
Kevin hadn't consciously turned the camera on the band. Some powerful element of his subconscious had recorded the entire gig. But he was entirely aware of it's positioning now. His fingers slid to rewind. The machine hummed as it's innards spun backward. Kevin felt the camera's pulse run through his body, up and down his spine in criss crossing warmth. There was solace in knowing that they existed. That he had a recording. That he'd been part of the experience. Kevin had never had a religious experience before, not to that extent. Not since he was a kid, all pliable, naive and sponging up the misfit world around him.
Something in that gig, in those kids, had broke through his shell. Appealed to him on a human level. Snuck in and comforted him.
This was music. The shared experience. Something eternal. Something that couldn't leave him.
He cut through the impressed crowd, shaking their heads at one another, trying to piece together what had just happened. He sidled to the stage, leaned over and peered in the direction the kids had sloughed off to. Nothing but wires, shadows, empty water bottles and a piece of crumpled up paper.
Kevin swiped it...Pockmarked with handwritten doodles and chicken scratch minuets that turned out to be a set list.
A hand drawn title sat center at the top of the page. Kevin laughed to himself as he took in the words.
"Zoo for the Broken. Zoo for the motherfucking god damned Broken."
©Trenton Jones
His family got along when they weren't together. Placid through postcards. For whatever reason it was the complete opposite when they were forced to share air. Or seating space. I mean, biologically, it made more sense, air was more tangible than religion. Land more hands on than ideals. Each wanted to flank him, snuggle up next to him like he might be digress into flyaway molecules if they removed their hands from around his neck and shoulders. Kevin didn't like the fighting, but he did like the acknowledgement, and since he knew that they no matter what they'd always kiss and make up, the temporary embarrassment of sitting with too loud company and the occasional hurled nacho was a small price to pay for the spotlight.
About fifty feet away, over spilled beer and sweaty gyrators grooving to an intangible beat, a spotlight swung back and forth across the ripped carpet of the stage of The Mystery Box. A middling venue that took pride in it's culture and legacy (read: wear and tear) and considered it a cardinal sin to clean up the popcorn and peanut shells coating the floor in a crunchy, smelly skin. Strings of bare red bulbs swung from exposed beam to exposed beam across the ceiling. They had cheap beers, and it was an easy place for Kevin to get all of his friends and family to visit before he sunsetted. Centrally located. Universally known.
When they'd first arrived he'd received endless hugs, pats on the back and billiards duels. He'd dispatched them all over Coronas and indulged in all the nostalgic stories he and his friends could expunge from the depths of their memories, spurred on by the familiar smell of the place and untalented bands they subconsciously compared their past selves to as they ridiculed.
When he came back, they said, the band was getting back together. Literally, figuratively.
But, as it always goes, tomorrow ticked closer as the bottles emptied. His friends had engagements, work, kids, wives and lives to get back to. They trickled out over the course of the night. Devin had dodged the awkward goodbye when he hit the bathroom. Michael paid his bill. Kim revealed the feelings she'd harbored in middle school that everyone had known about, promised him a little something special if he made it back with his piece. Megan had documented the whole thing with a bulky videocamera, left it on and buzzing along on the table when she left. It didn't come out of her mouth, or maybe it did just lost within her word vomit, but he assumed it had been gifted. And then Marcus left him a pocket sized scrapbook, pictures of the two of them fucking off rubber cemented onto a stack of post its stuffed in between two coasters from the bar the two of them had shared their twenty first bithdays at. It was cute. He was glad he left, because the memory had brought Kevin to tears he'd forced himself to hide behind his eyes.
Come to think of it, the persistent headache plaguing him for the last week had probably been the throbbing ebb and flow of the growing dam of worry and stress he'd refused to drain.
He'd had four 'last smokes' with the guys as the moon rose into the sky and they faded into the night. Each convo transpired the same. They weren't eighteen anymore. They weren't even twenty five anymore. They were adults. Halfway through adulthood. They weren't stumbling through life anymore. They'd laid down paths, filling the cracks of mistakes behind them with the concrete of progress and achievements. But Kev had managed to make it out without a wife, kids...purpose. He felt listless, wandering, as his friends sploshed their drunk vision of the world around them, good willed but haphazardly drew him into their perceptions of how the world worked. They didn't really know him anymore. He didn't really know them. They used to. They used to get stoned, burn incense and listen to Zeppelin in Adam's basement. Hype up the effects of caffeine pills. Take walks at two a.m. just because. Because the world was big, open and invigorating. But life wasn't as simple as meeting up on the weekends anymore. They didn't know that he'd been axed from Home Depot. That he didn't really make it as a Department Manager, borrowed some marked out lumber to fix his mom's deck and got called out on it. They hadn't had the time to visit him at work. That's not a thing that adults do. Not in the real world. He thought he felt good the whole night...but he drifted deeper and deeper into himself as they left.
And now, here he was, the night before he left home, at a little past midnight, sitting alone, ten beers deep. He was drunk. He didn't know what he was waiting for. He was allowing himself a supreme dose of last-man-on-earth syndrome. Everything was about him tonight. He didn't want it to end. And it was rational. It was alright. He deserved it.
Because tomorrow his wandering was to be replaced with bloody, razor sharp regiment.
He didn't know how to feel about genuinely leaving for the core. He knew about how he felt about eventually leaving. He was optimistic. He knew it had to be better than what he was doing presently. But he didn't know about how he was going to feel when the day dawned. That time had passed. Here he was. In the present. It was now. Here was here. And the optimism, the safety in the thought of eventuality, had been replaced with a knot of certainty and resignation.
He knew he was destined to do something that helped others, enlisting had seemed like the de facto avenue for restless altruists these days. His cash on hand had shriveled up. No point or logic to entertaining the idea that he could go back for another degree. He'd come to the conclusion through the social research of his twenties that he needed someone else to tell him what to do, plain and simple. He wasn't a critical thinker. He was a doer when the plan was laid out. It wasn't a bad thing, he just couldn't command. He had other strengths. He had personality. He had dedication. He had a good sense of logic and common sense.
But he wasn't the guy to keep the band together.
Fuck.
He still had his guitar. As far as he knew his thirteen year old pics were still in the tray of the case wearing a coat of dust in his attic.
Damn.
He had a sticker on his guitar case, he could picture it clearly. Hadn't occurred to him in years. A string of black and white safety pins, crisscrossing the thick plastic. It wasn't even broken. He just used to like the aesthetic. It was cool to be broken back then. Cool to be needy. Cool to have cracks in the armor. Drew people in.
He drained the last of his bottle. lined it up with the others along the rim of the table. At the end of the beer bottle conga line, he saw the video camera blinking red. He stared at it. It'd captured the whole expedition of his mental abyss. A truly candid documentation. That'd be fun to watch later.
The last band had finally been called out the stage, owner croaking out the name over the shitty audio system. He could only catch the vowels, the rest slamming against the grate of the PA system. Something something Hoboken.
It was four kids. One that took his rock status too seriously, head to toe in black. Singer. Two girls. One with black hair and glasses had a hot nerdy thing going on, with bangles and a parka over technicolor tights. She took up the drums. Spun the sticks in her fingers for a few seconds. The other girl rocked some short blonde hair, tight jeans and a Joan Jett tee. Stumbled out cradling a triangle. The last guy had a bowl cut. He took his place at the right corner of the stage and picked up his bass in the most awkward fashion possible, starting at the neck. These guys were high.
They didn't acknowledge the crowd before they started playing. They just exchanged glances, nodded in unison and slammed headfirst into the most hair raising and astonishingly impressive tirade that Kevin had ever seen live.
The music started and stopped with an abruptness that mimicked the cliffs and wind of a coaster, and before the first song was even over he'd scanned the place for the merch table.
The drummer, the girl in glasses with a unicorn tattoo on her forearm, directed the band with whip crack reggae grooves that climbed and fell as the songs poured out of them. They didn't break in between songs, just segued via instrumental solos.
At a highpoint the bassist plucked footsteps, and totally in sync, the singer pranced across the stage, bomp, bomp, bomp, up onto an amp and crashed to the ground as the small button nosed percussionist smashed some cymbals together from somewhere in the shadows off stage.
Kevin felt like he was witnessing performance art. The kids had to be on something. They didn't address the audience, played down applause and expanded beyond music into visceral beats and showcasing. The singer walked off stage during a guitar solo, chugged a beer from the nearest table, and shoved some bills on the table before launching into some angsty diatribe about "playing Joseph with a raging hard-on."
Kevin couldn't remember laughing that much, becoming wholly engrossed in something, since who knows when. But he felt better. Each lyric seemed tailored to him. Loss. Leaving home. Regret. Taking the future by the throat. Coasting through life on the precipice of chaos. The guy sang about crashing his car on prom night. Kevin had crashed his car on prom night.
It could have been the multitude of beers stewing in his liver, climbing back up his tubes into the cockpit of his head, but somewhere deep in Kevin, and yet underneath his skin, he felt a connection with them. He felt weird, because they were clearly younger, and it was strange to look up to -
That was it. Some part of Kevin looked up to these guys. There was a primal similarity that overrode his hesitance to appraise such raucous youth at all. He felt kinship. Comradery. They were following their dreams. They were following his dreams. They were playing for him. They were him before the world has tittied twistered him into years of retail and eventual jumping off into the ultimate back up plan.
He found himself applauding to the beat, swinging his head from side to side, tapping his foot. He lived for this music. He might be drunk. He was drunk. But something inside him lived in these guys. He felt better. Felt universal. Felt infinite.
The kids went on and on. An hour. Hour and a half. Two.
The audience explored a narrative labyrinth of teenage dismay and pop culture nuance through a perfect storm of instrumental chaos and the band's hyper focus. Kevin couldn't decide which one to watch...each seemed far too talented, motivated and focused to be this young...there had to be something to it. He couldn't look away.
Until the owner cut the lights on the stage. Cut the lights across the whole bar.
Outside a pair of thirty something tourists jumped with the shock. They were walking to their car, suddenly suffocated by the night. All bearings lost. The lights came back. They had a laugh. Jumped in their car and took off down the road, unaware that they'd flip their car forty five minutes when a semi truck merged without turn signals or a head check.
But inside the kids looked around for the first time all night. Kevin looked around for the first time all night. The place was still packed. Kevin was one of a herd. Something special had happened. Something that didn't happen at the Mystery Box that often.
The band was good. The band was special. And the band had made an impact.
But the band didn't pay the electrical bill. And no patron had thought about buying a drink in the last two hours. Not. A. One.
The singer's blotchy face was pixelated and jagged, captured in the one inch by one inch LCD screen of the videocamera, shocked by the sudden lack of lighting abrupt halt of the kick drum. His pupils dilated. He stopped mid croon - looked up like some teenage girl singing the shower, suddenly noticing her brother had walked in with a group of horny pals. He choked out a "thanks alot." The whole band did. Nodded. Weaved their way off, stage left, disappeared behind the curtain.
The Mystery Box screeched withe applause. Chairs scratched the floor as they were thrown back, people thundered to their feet and clapped till their palms went raw. But the kids didn't come out.
Kevin hadn't consciously turned the camera on the band. Some powerful element of his subconscious had recorded the entire gig. But he was entirely aware of it's positioning now. His fingers slid to rewind. The machine hummed as it's innards spun backward. Kevin felt the camera's pulse run through his body, up and down his spine in criss crossing warmth. There was solace in knowing that they existed. That he had a recording. That he'd been part of the experience. Kevin had never had a religious experience before, not to that extent. Not since he was a kid, all pliable, naive and sponging up the misfit world around him.
Something in that gig, in those kids, had broke through his shell. Appealed to him on a human level. Snuck in and comforted him.
This was music. The shared experience. Something eternal. Something that couldn't leave him.
He cut through the impressed crowd, shaking their heads at one another, trying to piece together what had just happened. He sidled to the stage, leaned over and peered in the direction the kids had sloughed off to. Nothing but wires, shadows, empty water bottles and a piece of crumpled up paper.
Kevin swiped it...Pockmarked with handwritten doodles and chicken scratch minuets that turned out to be a set list.
A hand drawn title sat center at the top of the page. Kevin laughed to himself as he took in the words.
"Zoo for the Broken. Zoo for the motherfucking god damned Broken."
©Trenton Jones