Authors: Solomon Deep
Oedipussy (23 page)
The wind blew across the bridge and against my back. It tempted my balance. It urged me to shift my weight toward the canyon. I braced against it.
I relished in watching their joy.
Chang materialized through the doors and approached the boys with a fat envelope. They had a short conversation before he went back in. The boys became even more elated, dramatically acting out the conversation with their hands. Chuck spun on his heels to search the area.
He spotted me and walked toward the bridge.
As he approached, his body darkened as he left the outlined of the service lights on the building. Every few steps he was bathed in saintly gowns of white streetlight.
"How'd it go?" I asked.
"It was incredible. The crowd was - Chang said there were three hundred and seventy five people at the show and they had to turn people away into the restaurant because there wasn't enough room - and then he said the restaurant filled up!"
"I stayed for most of the set," I said, "but it got hot by your encore, and there were too many people. I just needed some air."
I paused, and nodded toward the sky above the canyon. "The stars are beautiful," I said.
Chuck walked up to the railing and put his arms on it and searched the gorge and the sky. Sweat beaded down his skin. He took a deep breath.
"This is beautiful."
In the night, under the light of the stars, we both paused.
Water bubbled quietly below. The ambient breeze flitted through the trees, and a tiny chatter of the concertgoers' voices trailed back from their cars a couple blocks away. All sound dissipated into the night sky. The air was clean and remarkable.
"You feel good?" I asked.
"Chang gave us an envelope. It has nine hundred bucks in it. That was just cut of our bar share, and he also let us keep the cover charge money. He thought it wasn't right to keep any of it. He told us he made a killing at dinner. He said he'll give us the merch money once we were done, and he also wants to give the four of us a dinner spread," Chuck said. "You should come back in and eat with us."
"Thanks. I will. I just want to sit here for a little while in the quiet."
"Sure... Listen, we've talked about this, and we want to give you the money from tonight-"
I began to relent, upset even that the discussion turned to money on this beautiful night. Money was the opposite of everything I was experiencing right now. Chuck cut me off from my thoughts.
"-and we want you to know that this isn't payment or anything, but more like an investment in us. We've already spent a bunch of your cash, and we know you're making your own label and all of that, but think of it like investing in the future of Oedipussy. Really. That way, if we need strings, or a new cymbal, or stickers, or whatever, we can just come to you."
"But I was going to get that for you anyway," I responded.
"Which is exactly why what we made will go into an account with you. It can still be our money to spend on the band, just in your hands. The business."
What could I say? The little fuckers were right, and I had no right to refuse it since I was planning on spending more on them.
"Okay. But it’s still your money."
"It's Oedipussy's."
I nodded.
I sat on the railing looking down, down, down into the hole where fate took me. Then, back at Chuck, and the up, up, up, of the future. Music was a glorious revelation that I was still making something happen.
"You know, this is the railing the van went over when we had the accident," I said.
"It was a beautiful night. I was playing the first show with our band. We were called 'The Dawn Ego.' Twin Falls never saw anything like this with their country bands and roadhouse cover bands... We were different. We swore we’d be the next Nirvana, or something.
"We were all packed up and this truck came out of nowhere.
"The next minute, I had this crazy dream about us becoming famous, and sex, drugs, success. More success than I could ever imagine.
"But papercut deep, just under the surface… It was this weird, twisted reality. The real reality. Twenty-five years later I wake up with hardly anything to live for."
I shifted my support corset under my shirt to the left to remove the pressure of it pinching my hip.
"I'm so grateful for you boys. Everything seems promising. It's just a coincidence that your show was here tonight, and I know you want to thank me and everything, but... You're helping. I'm being reborn from this canyon into the beauty of your music. Where you grow, so do I. I'm following you out of the wreckage, just as you're following me into the stars."
"Thank you," he said.
"Thank you," I replied.
The breeze was cool, the air was crisp and fresh.
Five minutes passed.
Ten minutes passed.
"Want to go get that dinner?" Chuck asked.
"Yeah. Go ahead. I just need a few more minutes.”
Chuck walked on.
I sat on a ledge, far from my wheelchair and far from my death.
I watched the stars turn as the universe spun us into the future. We careened through the galaxy at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour.
My heart, however, leapt faster than everything.
This novel would not have been possible without the friendship, work, and brotherhood of many years with many people. Thank you to FortNight, our crew and guests, but most especially to Mr. Berube, Mr. Farnsworth, and Mr. Wood. Thank you also to Mike Gary, Nichole Pagnotta, and Toilet Plunger, Ken McLaughlin, John Sage, Jay Tagg, and J. Michael Wahlgren for many years of friendship and music. Also thanks to several legendary figures, Dick DiCenso, Mrs. Grigatis, Mr. LaPierre, and the great Bonney Bouley for fostering a lifelong love for the art.
As part of the release of this novel, Perpetual Imagination would like to invite you to download a free album written and recorded specifically to accompany this release! This Kindle Edition is being released before the print edition. The album is currently in production along with the print edition and will be released together in the near future.
To reserve your free digital copy of the album when it is completed, simply visit…
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Perpetual Imagination
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2014
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2015
Perpetual Imagination and Solomon Deep
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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except that may be expressly permitted by the publisher. This includes all text, audio, graphics, and design elements herein.
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ISBN (forthcoming with print release)
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
