20120518

discord

This is from something I'm working on, sort of.

 I helped my bandmate move his old couch into his new apartment this afternoon--the couch that used to occupy the attic we used to hang out in all the time back in high school. That couch was old. That couch had stories to tell.

Once we'd finished he offered some beer and we sat on the new couch--the spoils of victory--and my friend put on some Radiohead.

"Man, this takes me back," he said. "I remember the first time you came here and introduced me to Radiohead. I was hooked from that weird wind at the start of Planet Telex."

"Except, I didn't bring that album. I brought OK Computer."

"Are you sure?"

"Does it matter?"

He shrugged and said, "I guess not."

Of course, it did matter. That had been the day my friend got it in his head that we should be in a band, and talked me into talking my parents into getting me guitar lessons. The actual band didn't materialize until I'd come back from college, of course, but it was a big day, and one of us didn't actually remember it, which meant that in all probability neither of us did. How many times had we told that story? How much had it warped in the telling, until our memories were just of the stories we'd been telling?

The vision came to me then: the two of us in high school, working on some homework or other. I dig around in my bag for my math book and find the CD I picked up earlier and say something like "You want to put on some music?" and we do, and we probably even enjoy it. But there is no big moment. The album is incidental to the question he asks me later: "Wouldn't it be cool if we were, like, a rock band?"

We shared stories for the rest of the evening, but I found myself doubting all of them, his and mine both, and no amount of alcohol would shake this nagging doubt.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Accidentally moved to your blog instead of mine. I curse you, lousy keyboard. Started reading. Nice. Memories of a long lost life, for what it's worth.

weaselsoup said...

There is some really nice stuff on here Rob. you have sort of a michael marshall smith kind of thing going on in lots of these vignettes. it's very effective. & i like the kind of fractured thing you do with the little repetitions sometimes.

Chaos said...

I like it.