Oedipussy (17 page)

I opened another file.

This was a journal.

‘November 8, 1992. I think that mom and dad are fighting again. I got an A on my Macbeth test.

August 4, 1991. Went to the dentist with Ken. He had two teeth ripped out by the dentist and it took a long time. I was there with Rebecca, and she let me kiss her in the foyer. I don't know why.’

I forgot about Rebecca. I forgot about Ken. I forgot about everything, it seems. It didn't matter.

I would give anything to be able to talk with Jenny. I should have been less vain. I should have made different decisions and moved on to marry her and gone to college and I could have started a family and everything would have been safe for a while.

I cried more.

I resented the injury. I resented my family. I resented fate and the whole big pile of shit that I was sitting upon. My gigantic nation of shit dreams.

Fill one hand up with wishes and the other with your shit and see what fills up first.

I had so much to live for, then. Where is it now?

And the room spun, up, and up, and up, and up.

In the next file, a list of band names. Apparently I copied it over? I studied the words, and tried to focus on them.

Only one came into focus.

Oedipussy.

I was going to get right up and write that down in the kitchen and call Chad back. Was it Chad? Chuck.

I had to pee.

I stood up.

I fell forward into my bureau, and the computer monitor fell, and the corner knocked me in the head.

I forgot I couldn't stand up.

The room spun up, up, up, up up. The room spun up.

I lay on my stomach, the hum of the computer lulled me to sleep.

I dreamed of nothing.

When I awoke the next morning, I was covered in piss and the computer was still running. The smell wafting from the bottle of bourbon made me ill, and my body stunk of sulfur and vinegar. My head throbbed. Everything was crooked as my stomach burned out a sloshy, bilious belch.

There were some small corners of the rock and roll lifestyle I could have if only I was patient and pathetic enough to allow myself the opportunity. I gave myself the opportunity to be pathetic without hesitation.

"What’s your deal, here?" Chuck's mother Carol stared at me.

Chuck and his mother arrived at four in the afternoon. I managed to clean up after myself, reorganize my ancient computer components, and draft up and print a contract for his band. After a shave and a shower, they arrived.

"Trust me, it's a lot more pathetic than you think," I responded.

"That's what I'm worried about. I don't want my son coming to some creep's house who’s going to try to get him and his friends drunk and rape them. Then I'd have to come down here with my shotgun and get my nice blouse messy." She was funny. Her razor blue eyes were unflinching. She pulled a strand of shoulder length blonde hair to the side and around her ear. "I have all the time in the world."

"Twenty five years ago I was in an accident. A van I was in got in an accident and fell into Snake River off the bridge -"

"Oh, I remember that. A drunk guy came and his car smashed into it and pushed you over. You were all seniors at the high school. They spent a year arguing about how to put better barricades up."

"That's it."

"-But everyone died."

"Except for me. I was smashed up pretty bad. I was in a coma up until a few months ago."

"Seriously?"

"My friends are dead, my parents are dead, and I almost died a few times over the years. But there was one thing that never changed - even in my coma. Twenty years and I only thought of one thing."

"Which was?"

"Music… My friends and I were coming back from our first gig at The Caffeine Machine. Our band got one show in that night. No more birthdays, college, girls, music - especially music. Nothing.

"I don't know why, but when I saw your son and his friend at the copy store, I immediately wanted to help them.  I knew I could help them. It’d give me something to do, and maybe I could somehow live through them and their music."

Chuck came around the corner and back into the kitchen. He sat down next to me at the table, and across from his mother.

"That’s where I am a little confused. You don't want anything for this?"

"I’m disabled. I have an income from a trust and life insurance my parents set up. I don't have anything to do with my time and money. Really. Do you know why I was at the Kinkos, whatever the copy shop is called? I wanted to try to get my job back just so I could interact with people. Twenty-five years later, here I am trying to get my teenage job back. Pretty pathetic if I ever heard it."

"It's something,” Carol replied.

“That’s the same night I met Chuck."

Chuck looked at his mother as she continued.

"Well… So far I’m surprisingly not weirded out by this at all. I should be, but I'm not. What do you think, Chuck? Ready to go over this contract?"

He shrugged and nodded in an indifferent teenaged way, which translated to a strong affirmative.

Over the next half hour, we covered the essentials of the contract - what my responsibilities were, what theirs were, what I would cover, what they would cover, and a variety of other stipulations and clauses that I made up in the hour before they arrived. I kept repeating that this was really just an agreement to follow, and we could break it if anyone needed to. I would have final production say and ownership in anything that I was paying for including recordings and gear (but that we all would own their work equally as shares in the business), but I insisted that I was not a lawyer. I most certainly wasn't a lawyer.

"...and they can have practice space here, Chuck said?"

"Oh, yes. The basement is dry and safe, and it’s still set up from when we’d practice. There’s a big space, and the neighbors can't hear the music. I'll show you the space? I mean, you could practice anywhere in the house, but I am literally never down there and you can just keep all your gear there. It won't be in the way, and no one will touch it."

Carol looked at Chuck. Chuck indicated he wanted to go down and take a look. I wheeled to the door to the basement, and opened the door and invited them to walk down. I turned the light on, pulled myself out of my chair, and slowly made my way down the steps.

I stopped halfway down, just low enough to see them.

"Do you want some help?" Chuck asked.

"No, I’m fine. So, I'll probably end up watching from here or listening from the kitchen and we can debrief afterward. Something like that."

"So you wouldn't even be in your own basement while these kids practice?"

"I'll be fine. Can hear perfectly well upstairs - it'll be loud enough."

Relief and understanding washed over Carol's face - watching me slowly inch my way down a step at a time brought to light the humanity of the whole thing. I wasn't going to rape and kill the children. I was simply a man determined to do something kind and selfless in hopes that it might come back to me in the talent and success of the kids. I was the mind and body of loneliness and sorrow.

It didn't make any sense.

"What do you think?" Carol asked her son.

"This is fine."

Carol turned her attention to me. "I think we're in agreement, then."

We signed the contract in the kitchen. I explained what my next steps were - mail ordering a PA system and hardware. Chuck's job was to get the rest of the information to the other boys and get them on board.

They left. I was alone.

Finally, something miraculous. I was getting back in the game. So what if I couldn't play, or be the center of the universe's attention? There was no guarantee that my original trajectory would either. I needed to be the center of something, and this was more realistic. I didn't think I had a concrete concept of that as a teenager, but today I knew that these kids were only way I was going to move forward.

Today, the closest I could get on my own was as a sideshow attraction. The best I could hope for was to live fast and hard like Ian Curtis, banging through my disability with musical electricity. But how would I play my guitar? How did I seriously expect to woo crowds with my thinning hair and gaunt face? How could I show them I wouldn't live past my twenties? No epilepsy, just legs that didn't work. No music and thunder, just holes and age and emptiness.

I already died before I turned twenty.

What do people do to give their life meaning?

If I had children and a wife, they would be my biggest fans. They would worship me, and hold their hands and their lighters in the air. But this body and this mind were so short for this world, lacking years of fostering allegiance. I was already failing. I was already on my way downhill.

But Jenny...

Oh, if only I had Jenny, I would have everything. I would have my perfect other.

What was I getting at with this?

To see my best friend again, it would be heaven. To have intimacy that is compatible with mine, divine. To laugh at a moment’s notice. To experience the joy of her support, praise, and being such everything. She. Everything.

And she wouldn't mind if my legs didn't work.

And her opinion of my work, and her watching me in the darkness of wherever we were playing... That was all I would ever need.

She was all I would ever need.

What happened to Jenny?

I thought to call her again. I touched the phone, and removed my hand. I don't know why I thought it. ‘If only I tried it again it would work.’

What did I want?

I wanted the home, happiness, and the worship. I worshipped her, and she worshipped me.

I wanted everything to be the same as it was before.

Why was everything so goddamn complicated?

I rolled to the junk drawer in the kitchen and removed a pen and a little pad of paper, and I began to draft a letter.

Jenny,

I'm sure that you haven't thought of me for a long time. In fact, I know you haven't. I do wonder if you've been thinking of me at all, and if you know what happened to me the last night I saw you.

I am out of my coma. I’m still in Twin Falls wondering where you have been. I wonder if you’re happy. I wonder if you wonder about me like I wonder about you.

I’ve had a dream over the past twenty five years that we ended up together, and everything was okay. I was a famous musician and you were there for me. I woke up paralyzed and all of my friends and family are dead.

Everything can happen over twenty five years.

My address and phone number are the same, and I copied them below. I would love to hear from you.

Until then,

Todd.

Then I folded it into an envelope and addressed it with a big "address forwarding requested" on the front.

I started to weep. I wept for my life, and for Jenny. I continued to weep for Jenny. If only, if only, if only, Jenny. If only you were here. If only we could go through this together, I would be so much stronger.

I could use a bourbon. I was hungry, and I needed sustenance. Spiritual, artistic, bodily, and soul'd sustenance. I needed the food of the muses. These kids weren't the only way I would be able to do it, but they were the most practical.

I was going to produce and manage of these three boys, and I was going to bring them the success and tools they needed to make everything happen. I was their road to success. They were my road to contentment.

I lay on the couch that night. I stared at the colors of the television flicker on the ceiling. How wonderful it would have been to have some photos or videotapes of Jenny and me. There was nothing. The flickers on the spackle reflected fuzzy tape of us playing the trivia game, and clumsily making love, and something. Why hadn't we captured our youth? For this situation? For when we were perfect?

I wanted to watch everything when it was perfect.

We never thought we'd get old. We never thought.

My face scrunched up, and again I cried. In the dark. Alone. Lonely. For my high school girlfriend.

Why? Why, why, why? I asked as I traced 'J-e-n-n-y into the upholstery in cursive with my fingers, wet with tears, and dozed off.

I dreamt I saw the back of her head. The wind made her hair dance in a shifting breeze. I whispered, 'Jenny,'.... 'Jenny,'... 'Jenny,'... But she didn't budge. Her head was plasticene, and I was looking at the back of a dead mannequin.