PADRINO: The Beginning of Chapter 21

I stood outside the door for a few moments.  I could hear a Mexican melodrama playing loudly from inside, then a series of grunts which could only be Tom struggling to get on his cowboy boots. Tom yelled, “son of a bitch,” and stomped the floor signifying that the boot was finally on. “I know you’re out there, Colter. It may be Texas, but you can hear that diesel from down the street.”

“I’ll be out here, Tom.”

“Let’s go get,” the front door flew open and then Tom slowly opened the screen door and stepped out onto the front porch. “Let’s go get a cerveza, right? With Ben and Lilly.”

“Yeah, okay. I have to talk to Ben about something.”

“What? Is it important?”

“It’s just something to talk about it is all.”

“All right.”

We rode into town in near silence; Tom decided to switch it up from Nirvana back to Peter Greene. The way it started, this dumb and long, at times frightening and maddening journey. I surely didn’t miss the rain back home, the clouds and the mountains. I would miss this space, the unending sun and heat. The funny thing is that it would take some real time to be able to separate Texas from Canadian whiskey and I guess now low bar vodka. Every time I would think about Texas I would think about the ridiculous struggle to find consistency, to get real answers, and to see peace. All those things shouldn’t be taken for granted in any space on any planet, or state. Although, Texas and this journey brought them more to the surface than I imagine anywhere else. And that’s all fine and truly good. Even without finding comfort, I can find comfort in the feeling of truly living in a time and place that I probably won’t see again. No matter what the annoyance or stupid nature that took place, there was a time to exist and feel different, because in my existence I feel as if there are a lot of times in life that feel similar. This experience isn’t one of those, for better or worse, and there’s some sort of beauty in that. Some sort of reminder that moments are particular, instances don’t always correlate, and the option to keep some chaos dripping from the well isn’t anything to be taken for granted.

PADRINO: End of Chapter 20

I stopped by a local corner store and picked up a six-pack of Modelos that was near the supposed show. I pulled up to the address of the place and peaked through the windows of the orange brute grumbling on the corner. There were trees covering the view and honestly the brute was so Goddamn loud that I had to turn it off in order to potentially hear any music being played. The flyer said that the show had started half an hour ago, but I remembered that time was more or less infinite down here in the lush sun and heat, it just revolved until someone let it know to start or stop again. I waited another ten minutes for noise to start, or to see people coming and going but nothing happened. For the most part on this trip and life in general I have attempted to keep a whimsical spirit when it came to experiences. Especially if those experiences include music, potentially free music within a city known for its musical streets and dingy alleyways of melodic nirvana. I placed a cigarette in my mouth and opened the door of the orange brute. I put my left boot on the cooling pavement, while my right leg was propped on the external footboard. I waited some more, at this point I just wanted to hear at least a string of notes, I started to feel bad for the guys potentially inside that house that I would never meet. I propped my entire self on the footboard attempting to get a better view through the thick surrounding bush for any form of life. The only real sound was the rustling of the birds going back to their high and arching trees and quivering the leaves with every ridiculous hop. Then I heard the kick drum or a subtle strum of the guitar.

I couldn’t go, this wasn’t the experience needed right then and there; the day was fading, the sun was clocking out, and a road had to be driven. Seguin is where I knew I had to be to end this trip in the right way, the true way, and I have comfort that I’ll walk and exist in Austin’s sweet streets again.

Soon enough the road was rumbling under the spinning, jagged, rubber dragoons of the orange brute pointed somewhat in the direction of Seguin. I thought there for a second how many times I had chose the wrong experience throughout my life and missed out on possibly greener grass. Admittedly, it is juvenile to think that there had been a wrong choice and that I am not a mindless bug roaming named and numbered left and right turns, but that somewhere in some high cloud the strings are being pulled between right and wrong. Because how can any swinging dick make sense between the rudimentary and the scaffolding of what makes a wrong experience between the right. When is someone supposed to know that they are wasting their lives every rise and dawn, or even wrap their eggshell minds around the conception that there isn’t anything to waste or any hill to climb? I guess what it all drums up to be is happiness and finding that between the billows of music, people, love, and whatever else. I just couldn’t get it out of my head that I had potentially chose the right way right then and there outside that random man’s house. Obviously, I think for the most part historically I have chosen the wrong road, which is nothing spectacular because unfortunately I believe the masses are with me in the realm of that opinion. Although, as time goes on and I barely learn, what I have luckily been able to figure out is that waiting for at least the right timing can be better than jumping at the throat of the wrong one.

PINK FLOYD -- ROGER WATERS CONCERT, TACOMA 2017

An Experience Beyond Time

My father called me up some time in May of 2017 and animatedly told me that he purchased tickets for my two younger brothers, my stepmother, my girlfriend, and myself. The tickets at hand had been purchased for the Roger Waters US & THEM tour. Roger Waters was the lead of Pink Floyd, which reigned at the top of the genre of classic rock and overall charts for decades: spanning from the 60s clear to the late 80s and so forth. The most notable members of the band over those years were: Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, and Roger Waters. Due to creative differences around the year of 1985, Roger left the band and the rest of the zany bunch went on to preform under the name of Pink Floyd. A couple others in the band dropped out as well in the following months and years. Gilmour continued on with the name of Pink Floyd creating new material. While Roger went on to preform as Roger and continue on preforming songs from The Hay Days. Roger has, and assumedly will always be, seen as the real mover and creator behind the music. This is the case, because the albums where he had his most influence are some of the most sold albums of all time, Dark Side of The Moon and The Wall. Pink Floyd is most notable for their weird sonic combinations, metaphorical meanings, ballad like songs, and an impactful, resonating sound.

I grew up listening to the packed lyrics, deep guitar, and odd sounds of Pink Floyd almost every day driving with my father, going to his separate projects and jobs he had. My father grew up in some sort of way listening to Pink Floyd as a young man as well, and I know that they shaped him and inspired him throughout the years how they often times have for me. Between my father, my brothers, and myself there seemed to be a magnificent proliferation and credit to Pink Floyd’s music. Passing time like it has been nothing.

Due to current and ever dazzling political tensions running like wild fire, as well as Roger being a starch political junkie himself, there was a great and colossal display of themes and metaphors in the form of images and video throughout the entirety of the performance. It all ran like a fine tuned machine from massive projections behind the stage as well as a multi-display drop down screen hanging from the dusty rafters. All of the screens were beaming neon images of silly political leaders, expletives, and opinions. About a quarter way through the performance Roger brought local Tacoma and Seattle children on stage wearing “RESIST” t-shirts screaming at the top of their lungs that they didn’t need no education. It was gorgeous, blunt, and hypnotic.

The archaic cedar planked, aggressively steep stair cased Tacoma Dome somehow clashed with the seemingly everlasting age of Roger as well as the supposed time capsule of his music. Just as the clanking, disruptive intro of “Money” started a black, blow-up piggy bank softly fluttered throughout the lower levels of the dome. Eventually, Roger’s images would always gradually morph into different forms of currency, gold and generally green.

I couldn’t help but think about the massive brainpower that must have gone into the show. What planning and collecting and creating of images, photographs, sounds, dreams, conceptions, and most of all: people. Not only the chanting children but also the newly enlisted and I assume promising young artists that backed Roger up and helped him hit the higher notes that he simply was physically incapable of making.

He didn’t close with Shine On You Crazy Diamond, unfortunately, but he did close with another great guitar solo: Comfortably Numb. It made me want to jump up and down the sheer cliff like staircases of the dome. I looked over at my brothers with a clenched fist, which was the only display of emotion and bodily movement I could harness in the desperate time.

Leaving the venue we grabbed our t-shirts and exited with wide eyes and warped minds. It was all a decent Armageddon out into the gentle late night with a soft summer breeze dancing between the droves of zombies exiting the near sensory overload. There were a lot of “wows”, and minor disputes about Roger’s platform on the basis of hypocrisy, which there always tends to be. I give a guy like Roger a pass on just about everything. I do this mostly because he’s an artist and if the cost of projecting worthwhile, resounding messages results in another hypocritical, perhaps delusional old rock star -- then so be it.

The cover of the t-shirt displayed hands reaching towards each other redolent of God and man and the Sistine Chapel. In the backdrop there was the smoke stakes in blazon bright red and blue aligning with the cover of the underrated Pink Floyd album, Animals. North American tour dates were drenched on the back, displaying a rigorous schedule and the reaffirmation that Roger is in a race against the dismal image of age. I couldn’t help but think that this was going to be the farewell tour, but perhaps that’s selfish. I hope not, but the notion cannot be ignored. In some sense I can’t believe Roger doesn’t just throw up his arms and sulk away into some bright, shiny place forgetting about the world he is so inspiringly angered by, although the tours and the music do pay. Thankfully, the classic music of Pink Floyd is as transcendent as it is and for better or worse it is sickeningly ironic that it has to be. 

ROUGH -- The Start of Chapter 17

We rode out of Port Aransas down the stark highways of south Texas. It was the early evening and the heat started to slowly wane. I rolled down the window and lit a cigarette feeling the warm air wrap around the cabin of the orange brute. What sunny, endless days down here, what beautiful glory a sun state can reign down on you. The tropical green trees started to get a little more brown as the miles ticked on and the more north we got, never too harsh, but just a few more shades of tan and cocoa-colored leaves. It amazed me how gradually and perfect yet diverse vegetation and waterways can change not only through the country but just a state. Sure, Texas is a monster, but it’s just one piece of fifty no matter how gargantuan it may be. I thought of the dark blue depths of the Malibu Pacific, the Mediterranean and Adriatic, the Puget Sound of Seattle, the dark mysterious canal ways of Paris, and the light tans and true baby blues of The Gulf, I thought of the evergreens and large timbers of the northwest and then the infinite out stretching arms of grandiose oaks of the south, of Texas. Once I noticed there wasn’t any reminisce of the salty air of The Gulf I became instantly nostalgic and nearly threw around the orange brute back south. North, we must press on before The Oak closes and there won’t be any beer mixed with the odd, random, and beautiful company of the dusty little town of Seguin.

Tom woke in a shaking fright. “Mother Mary. That was a weird dream, Colter. I gotta piss, by the way.”

“What was the dream about?”

“Shit. Fuck, I think I was in Alaska. You were there too. We had got done fishing or some shit and we were tossing back vodka, drinking some White Russians.”

“Dreamy.”

“Yeah? And well a fuckin grizz appeared in the distance and you were taking a swig from your drink and you didn’t even see the cocksucker, but you were holding a knife, a filet knife.”

“This is really detailed.”

“As they usually are. Kinda haunting to be honest, Colter. Well, I grabbed the filet knife from your hand, you know for cutting the salmon and I grabbed your drink too, and I took a big swig.”

“Naturally.”

“And I just slammed that Russian back and threw it at the big grizz. I wasn’t gonna let him eat our fish, right? He didn’t care much for the glass. So, I had to do something else. I just charged at the motherfucker with that filet knife. Just a little filet knife, Colter. Then the grizz’s face turned into Max’s face then it all just burst into flames. That’s when I woke up, when the flames started up. Is that a sign?”

“Christ.”

“Is it?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“What do you think about stopping and letting me piss? I need to collect my thoughts, right?”

“I want to hear more about the dream.”

“Excuse me? That’s it, I told you all of it. I am not a liar.”

“Maybe you should to call Max?”

“Fuck that guy.”

“All right.”

“Colter, I’m gonna whip my dick out and piss on the fucking floor unless you stop. And you do not want to see my dick!”

“We gotta get back, clean up, and head to The Oak! We can’t stop. Don’t you know what is at stake?”

“You’re doing this shit again? Oh, don’t worry about old Tom. You give him shit about this and that, you beat him up, you listen to his stories, but you won’t stop for whiskey or even a little piss. Not even a little piss.”

“Tom, just hold it.”

“I’m gonna whip my fucking dick out, you prick.” Tom went for the end of his shorts and began to reach up into the depths. I punched him in the arm and he punched me back. “Fuck you!” Tom yelled. I laughed and kept laughing. His eyes grew and he started to manically laugh too, perhaps mocking me. He grabbed me by the shoulder and dug in his hardened and strong farrier hands into my back. I stepped on the pedal of the orange brute pushing the speed from seventy-five up to ninety. We were the only ones out there on the rustic south Texas roads, running between the waltzing and entwining beams of light ricocheting off of the occasional swamp. The middle ground and the real sublime of Texas where the clime doesn’t really know where to run or where it’s fecundity will truly take place. The chirping of the Grackles couldn’t be heard from this incredible now one-hundred mile an hour American made speed, even the slow hunting halos of the Red-Tailed Hawks were blurred. Not a sound to be listened to other than the jocose hum from the orange brute and the distant cries from Tom. “You’re torturing me, I get it. You’re torturing old Tom, real nice.” I pressed further, nearly to a hundred and ten. “YOU’RE a CUNT! I’m really pullin it out this time! That’s it!” I let my foot off of the pedal and the hums started to drag out lethargically. Hell, we can’t have too much fun I thought as I patted the dash of the orange brute. The monster wanted to keep running, I could tell. Eventually we slowed down enough to a manageable speed and I turned down an empty street.  

CHAPTER 14: PADRINO

“Put on that Nirvana, Colter. Let’s listen to Kurt.” About a Girl is the first record on the album, and Tom immediately fell into a slow, meandering grunge trance as soon as he heard the first chord strumming off of that sad guitar of Kurt’s. The following song is, Come As You Are. Tom started bouncing his hands up in down drumming along with Dave Grohl. “I gotta memorize this, Colter. Start it over. Okay, okay, you hear that? That’s the first cord. Oh, Kurt is so good. Okay there we go, the second cord. Motherfucker, what’s that lyric? Start it over again.”

“What are you doing?”

“Colter, I’m trying to memorize it, right? I’ve always loved this song, but now I gotta memorize it. Dontcha want to make music? Do music? Oh, that reminds me, we should memorize Man Of The World, too! Peter Green, right? I need to take guitar lessons.”

“Are you okay?” Tom gave me his usual mouth slightly open wide-eyed look, and he crossed his arms. “Well, yeah, Colter. This is about accomplishing something real, something great. No bullshit.” He held out his left hand and pinched his fingers together, and gently shook them near my face. “Life, Colter. This is life.”

“Memorizing Nirvana, and Peter Green?”

“Who else?” Tom said. I shrugged. His wheels were turning, I could see actual capacity showing itself, it was encouraging. It’s generally a good thing when a drunk strives for more than a gleaming new bottle filled with their inherent vice. “As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy, take your time, hurry up, the choice is yours, don’t be late.” Tom held his head low and slowly moved back and forth whispering the words to himself, and then springing up randomly and yelling a lyric. “It’s all contradictions, Colter. He wants them to come as they are, but not really.” Tom yelled over Kurt’s lyrics.

We pulled into the driveway, and Tom hopped out to get the gate. He sprang up in the air, and ran into the tall grass, and held up the bottle of Pendleton. I pulled in the orange brute to the carport, and Tom ran up to the driver side. “You threw it?”

“You pissed me off.”

“Well, I guess I must have. Where’d you throw that from?” I nodded towards the porch. “Jesus, I know you played football, but that’s quite the fuckin throw!” We sat on the swinging bench on the front porch, and passed the bottle back and forth. Tom shook his head, and rubbed his face. “I gotta tell you something. It’s about the music, and I guess my behavior.”

“What?”

“I got cancer, Colter.”

“What?”

“I got skin cancer, Colter. Alopecia. It’s in my skin. Fuck, at this point it’s everywhere.”

“Tom, stop.” Tom held out his hand, and showed me a rough patch of skin right above his right thumb. He shoved his quivering hand near my face. I didn’t, or couldn’t say a word. He took my left hand and pressed it on his forehead right where his hairline used to be. “Feel that? You see it in the light?”

“I saw that the other day, but I thought you had hit your head when you were drunk.”

“I don’t do that.” I slowly took my hand away. “It’s not contagious or nothin, right?” Tom said.

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.”

“Oh it’s okay. I know.” Tom’s eyes started watering, and so did mine.

“What are you doing about it?”

“Nothin. I can’t do all that shit, Colter. Where’s the quality of life in that bullshit? I don’t got it in me.”

“You gotta fight! That’s what people do! You’re meaning to tell me you aren’t going to fight?”

“For what? A couple more years after putting myself through hell? Fuck that.”

“What about your family? Or me? Or anyone?”

“It’s my life, Colter. Don’t worry; you’ll get that big orange thing. The brute, right? And the house. Maybe some dough too if there’s anything left.”

“I don’t give a fuck about all that shit! What about your grandchildren? Have you told you daughters?”

“You have to swear to me you won’t say a fucking word. Not a fucking word!” I stood up and lit a cigarette. I couldn’t handle this sort of information sitting down. I grabbed the bottle from his grasp, and took a deep swig. I pinched my eyes closed, and shook my head. “What? Tom. You want me to shoulder all this?”

“You have to, Colter. It’s my life, and I trust you. You can’t tell your father especially. You can’t tell your damn father. You can’t.” The light outside was grey in the adolescent morning and the sun started peeking through the rich oak trees bringing about weird prisms of light. I swayed there on the front porch, and walked out into the gravel driveway kicking the occasional pebble. I turned my head to the sky and it was cloudless and the last stars were slipping away out of view. The cicadas started purring their perverse insect discourse, drifting in and out in distant ripples, proclaiming sex and at the time I assumed nothing else. Apparently they ascend out of the salt of the earth every seventeen years to mate and feed a new generation of birds, and squirrels, and raccoons, and whatever can live off of the pointless bug. What I heard from them that morning was their attempt to emulate a rising, receding, and crashing of waves, reaching to connect to the osculating and revolving world they inhibit. When people argue the notion of a world built off of design I think of the stupid insect and marvel over the idea of a white bearded man twenty stories tall shooting the breeze and fucking with us until the day we figured out his grand joke of our world. 

“You hear those little fuckers?” Tom yelled from the porch. I grounded out my smoke and walked back to the porch and sat back down again. Tom put a hand on my neck and messed up my hair. “I know you can handle it. I only got a few more years. I found out about it two years ago. That’s when all this shit really started rolling. You know, the drinking. I’m just doing what I feel like doing. I’m moving to Texas, I’m living out here. I just want to be normal, Colter. I want to be a normal guy.” I started to tear up again, and I put my face in my hands. “What the fuck, Tom? This is bullshit.” We sat in silence for what felt like a long time, but I had no idea if it was. Tom stomped a foot, and light out a long exhale. “You know, I am scared though. I really am. Can I have a smoke?” Tom started to fully cry now, and I stood up with my back turned to him. I couldn’t look at him, because I started to cry too. “I really am scared, Colter.”

What do you tell a supposed dying man when he tells you he’s afraid to die? What do you do when a dying man just wants to drink and drink away till he’s nothing but the sickness that is consuming him? Is it courageous not to fight? To let it take you, and live as much as possible before it does? These are the questions I mulled over then and still am now. These are the questions that will poison my brain when I can see whatever is going to eventually come for me.

Tom started quietly singing Man of The World. “And I need a good woman, to make me feel like a good man should, I don’t say I’m a good man, oh, but I would be if I could.”

“That’s Peter Green, Colter. That’s Fleetwood Mac, Colter.”

“I know.” I said.