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tense then release (2000)
i'm back at this
shitty bar, in this shitty town. suburban rats congregate here
to gnaw at each other. their burning stink and ache stains the
air, fake derision clambering over manufactured libidos, and here
i am. i walk in and every head turns to look as every head always
does for every body that walks in. a table of trimmed, waxed,
and coddled jackasses laughs. this routine gets old.
i guess the guys in the band figured i still live here, in this
town. that's alright; i've been outta touch, & they can hack it
here. they've got their own self-contained space, the vitriol
doesn't seem to bleed into them. two of them are basically married
to their girlfriends, & their music gives them all the peace of
religion. nothing gets under them. i admire that; i'm too frenetic.
i do the interview at the billiard pub next door. it's an easy
thing. chill. shoot the shit with guys i've known for years.
"so ask some questions." Tom.
"fuck that. talk to me. tell me something interesting. get cheezy.
i mean, music journalism is cheezy. don't sweat it." we chat.
joke. fall in to the genre label game.
"Fucking Metal"
"Not-Stupid Metal"
"New Age Metal for the Millennium"
"Progressive Millennium Metal"
apparently, Chuck is engaged to his dog and recently had a one-night
stand with a cougar. a real old one. Brad calls her "a cougar's
grandma." i give Chuck props for that. "i'd be into that, for
sure. fuck. no problem." at this point, i'd do anything. i'm so
fucking tense. fucking-tense. from not fucking. it's because i've
given up. why bother trying? especially in Deadmonton & fuckin'
Stalbert. this town, this little suburb of a frontier-town colony
has always hated me. anyone who didn't was like family or an idolizing
fan. no touching. i mean, there ARE no freaks here for me. they
all take off to fucking Toronto. now even Dennis wants to go there.
dman. so i sit in this clean little kit-assembled pool bar, making
jokes with my prodigy metalhead friends.
"hey, Babeage, you know Duke's the only one of us remaining in
fat-camp?" Brad.
"yeah?"
"i'm done, & Ron didn't go back."
"damn!"
"yeah!" Chuck. "it's STILL fat-camp!" the community music college.
"see?! they're STILL fat!! man, that shit makes you fat!!" he
points a finger, long and skinny like him, into Brad. "print that
this time! it didn't get printed last time." this is the band's
second cd release, second feature by me in the magazine. i believe
in these guys. they know what they're doing, and they kick my
ass.
"man," i say, "i doubt they'd run it."
"fuck them." Chuck.
"i know."
"I mean, look." pointing now into Ron. "you don't lose the weight.
it's permanent, man. it sticks with you. fuckin' look!" the guys
in the band who went to college have gained weight. it's ironic.
metaphorical.
we make jokes, me & Duke & Brad, quick cerebral slang dirty jokes.
"my friend," Brad, "why are you not imbibing?"
"scratch. can't afford no nectar. not on these paycheques." i
lift my pen, squint at it in the bright pool table light.
"what do you drink?"
"scatch."
"scotch?"
"scatch."
"scatch." he howls laughter. "gatcha. How much is a scatch here,
for a man of your talents?"
"three-se'en-fy"
"Babeage, that's nothing!"
"it's too much. Bud's has it for two-eighty. i'm a scatch whore—"
"a scatch whoooore. scatch whUre." Duke.
"dass right. I work fo' scatch. so pay up, bitches!"
"shut up, whure. i got your scatch right HERE." Chuck.
"fuck you, cougar boy."
the easy texture these boys carry with them is appealing, but
it's lost on me. i'm lost in a blinded quotidien delirium of contraction.
i'm shrinking against my desire, less for all that i want and
don't get. compacting myself into a spring-loaded package, ready
to blow. one gentle touch will throw the latch & demons will careen
out of me screaming banshee-like, roaring deafening past the girl,
scaring her, thrilling her, rounding & brightening her eyes. i've
seen it before. done it. Montréal, sigh. Leduc, cringe.
i'm fixed on afterglow. i'm so wound up that getting off isn't
the issue. the fucking has fallen away. it's the semantics that
rivet me. the idea of a beautiful soul seeing my lock & using
their key. the desire, not the caress of the woman, of the person,
the mind, the eyes. wanting fingers on the puzzle cube of my whirring
atoms. smiling. every chick i see now is a hand on my cheek, a
grip on my shoulders, tits in my face, a curved landscape to roam,
to spread myself over like a fresh new homestead. a knowing voice
sliding between my muscles. a fucking meat tenderizer.
we wrap it up, Duke asks for a ride home. i'm sticking around.
he gets a lift from someone else. I hover around Tad and Miller
like a fuckin' groupie, desperate for something to do, for people
to occupy my mind. they're playing foozball. i want their absorption
with simple distractions. video games, movies, pool. i make tense
jokes. about sex. Tad suddenly loses two games. he's afflicted.
he's always got at least six girls going. always. never older.
never. he's addicted. he talks girls al the time. about them.
to them. new. every week, another fresh green teen who adores
his routine tricks and bright face. he's distracted. they flow
through him, under him. i bust into his voice-mail with his password
that i guessed and feel bubbly treble spilling everywhere.
"i missed you today. was it me or you?"
"hi! i just got in the door!"
"call me on the upstairs line, k?" damn.
we migrate next door, to The Crown. i shouldn't stay here. be
here. people have wanted to beat me, here. and sexual ghosts are
everywhere. the perfect goddess we called Rack Attack three years
ago. three fucking years. not-fucking years. her smooth curved
pale face. amazing feminine bounty. razor brain. fire spirit.
she seduced me every goddamned weekend when i worked beside her,
spinning cds and novelty gameshow prize wheels. and all the others
i wanted & my friends got. for a night, a month, a year & always
me skulking home degraded, furious, sad. and i'm here now. again.
after so long. i should leave. i don't.
i'm so goddamn tense, i'm fucking losing it. i'm not making any
sense. i'm yelling nonsense at everybody, racial things that have
Tad reeling in laughing awe. i'm so tense, i don't give a shit
about a damn thing. they're everywhere, these moving statues,
clad in age-old cling-and-show got from the latest billboard.
they can't hold a straight line, they're darkness howling out
of cleavage at me from every angle. i'm surrounded, eyes darting,
panicking. they breathe into the air like a pump into the cock
in my head. i'm crazy now. a crazy cock. i've reached capacity.
i'm an angst sponge that nobody has wrung out in a long, long
time. there's no more room in me for tension, worry, hatred, frustration,
fury, wonder. it's all oozing out of my pores now. it scents the
room, souring the thonged perfume and gelled cologne. it moves
through me, amplified. from the air, through me, bullying into
semantic spaces between my friends & people i don't even know.
i'm yawning out obnoxious crap everybody knows & feels & sublimates
& fucks away. they resent the unseemliness of my chaotic release,
projection. they want to never talk about it. like shit on their
tables. and here i am forcing it into their air. it disintegrates
into noise. pure screaming. i'm Tom Green, without his total release
and receiving of incredible prize-won beauty. he shows no resisitance.
he gives in always, and receives all. and now i am him. screaming
madly not-to the music of the lounge lizard one-computer-band.
the people love it. laugh. cry. howl. point. smile. i've drowned.
i respond to questions with screams, gurgling vomits of noise
with eyebrows like flags.
nothing changes.
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