bury me — r&v / in every universe

Post by lucius branwen / 10 — fox on May 12, 2024 18:03:16 GMT -5

It's morning again in America, the tv announces.

The campaign ad plays every day at breakfast. White wedding and the nuclear family.

Reagan and Bush get the formal nomination of the Republican Party. Walter Mondale's fighting that re-election, but it's looking rough for him. The LA Olympics closes out, and team USA finishes with a record high medal count in the face of the Soviet boycott. Ghostbusters usurps Prince's five week spot on top of Billboard, plays every ten minutes on the radio, just can't escape that million dollar hook. And by the time it's late August, Roe and Antigone are broken up again.

Over a bowl of cereal, Hal Riney narrates the ad in the background to a montage of idyllic middle class life. Reagan has still got the reinstitution of prayer in public schools on the table, maybe second term's the charm. A godly man with American values, the town says, their family says.

They head out the door, biking the two blocks to the corner where they get into Roe's car for school.

The church bathroom is still on the backburner. They ignore the feeling.

It's fine though. Roe sits next to them in English class, he's back at their cafeteria table and takes the desserts off their tray. They stop skipping lunch now that they're allowed to go to band practice after school. The weather's cooling with each rainfall. Mat starts listening to Hüsker Dü, Violent Femmes, starts a collection of new tapes they've never seen before. They're guessing Maia and Javier are into it.

Over the next week, Mat insists on playing songs off the album every time they hang out at his house. Please, please, please do not go. Deep in the throes of longing, heavy teenage angst, apparently the songs were written in a midwestern high school by the singer, who would know it better than that?

So all I can do is patiently pray, pray, pray, pray, pray. Acoustic bass and a beat. It gets stuck in their head by Thursday. He plays it enough that they end up remembering all the lyrics.

It's the weekend. Roe picks them up Saturday afternoon to go to the movies.

They're still showing The Muppets Take Manhattan at the theatre. Purple Rain, which they've seen. Buckaroo Banzai, which they're not allowed to watch without Mat. The choice ends up being between Red Dawn and Love Streams.

Roe complains a little about it before, but he still buys the tickets. They get M&Ms at the concession and give him the pack when they sit down.

And the movie is, well, European without being actually European. Bizarre with long shots on a character, lots of winding conversations. No, no, that's a nasty dog, Sarah says as she walks through a menagerie late in the film. She tries to pet him between the barking, falls in love with him one minute later when she does, decides to bring him home, you look just like someone I know.

Two hours later, Roe's complaining a lot about it all the way to the Pinto. They look at him in the parking lot for a second, before opening the door.

Oh I get it, they say idly, straight-faced. You wanted to see The Muppets, didn't you. No, we can go again without Mat.

They're trying not to laugh while getting into the car.

It starts raining for like the third time this week, feels like the sky's making up for the months of relentless heat, all the humidity finally washes out of the air. The town's never been so green this time of the year. The suburbs blur by their window, Roe's looking at the road, face casted in the tint of the emerald shade. They rest an elbow on the door ledge. The storm drums at a rhythm that drowns everything else out. He loops them to Mat's house.

The pour's heavy enough that it still gets them damp in the few feet between driveway and garage, so they sit in front of the box fan to dry off until they get too cold. They start flipping through the crate of albums taken from the living room, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Sometimes, they'll just play the ones Mat usually doesn't have on rotation. There's older records in there, Fleetwood Mac, Houses of the Holy, mom gave me some, he told them the summer before.

Roe tunes his bass on the couch. They pull Kill 'Em All out of the box, putting it down on their lap for a minute just to look at. Been a year, and it was the end of summer then too, when they waited for Mat to show up to practice. Roe was learning the bass solo, they kept time on the drums for him.

He turns around when they tap out the bars of the guitar riffs, steps on the bass drum with the hi-hat for the opening of Seek and Destroy.

It's easy, they still remember, listened to the album a million times that summer and fall. They look at Roe, grinning, and he starts playing into the intro.

Maybe it's the croon of the rain. They're glancing up from his hands as he slides into the part where there's a second guitar riff, and he's looking at them. Maybe it's because they actually can play the drums now, no longer tagging along with the beat.

Same song they used to practice all the time, but it sounds different, feels different. They're starting to realize they don't even really need to look at his hands anymore to know, don't even need to think at all when they play. Roe plucks out a pre-chorus fill, they lock eyes then. The bassline hums through them, soft thunder outside. A fire is warm, it would be. What would it be like to walk into it, that holy fire.

Four seasons in the garage. They hit the crash, grab the cymbal. In the pause of silence, they listen to the storm.

Been months since they played well, Mat's been militant on their lackluster practices. And then, easier than breathing, it comes back to them.

They laugh, start drumming the opening again.

By the time Mat's back, the rain's down to a drizzle, twilight lining through the clouds. They're still in the garage when he walks in, opens the door. Stares at them as they play through bits of YYZ, gone back through a year's worth of songs. He's three steps in before they look away from Roe and notice, stopping suddenly, and the cymbal's still ringing.

It falls somewhere underneath Dune on the list of worst betrayals. Worse part is, Mat says while being assuaged in the living room, the one time he misses practice after months, why the hell did they finally sound good.