Scriptor Press - The ElectroLounge

10
All senses blinded, Americus knows nonetheless that a guitar has passed to him.
“Play it, Daddy.”
“I can’t. I can’t feel it or see it. I don’t even know how I know I have it.”
“Am I here?”
“Yes.”
“All we have here are our minds. Play the guitar with your mind.”
“Why all this?”
“Because you wanted to know! This is what it was like for Franny when she died.”
“It’s not like it was for me.”
“You told me you fought it.”
“Yes. I fought it like a bastard.”
“She’s not fighting. She’s letting go.”
I try to arrange my thoughts to be able to play my guitar.
“Rebby, hold me, OK? Stand behind me. I’ll lean against you a little bit & use you
for orientation.”
“OK.”
Rebecca is strong. I know she’s there because there is a warm, sturdy sensation
among my scattered thoughts. I concentrate on this sensation, rest lightly against it.
Slowly, I compose a series of interconnected thoughts that altogether comprise my
body. Almost like a sequence of equations, or even more like trees in a forest whose branches
& roots all mingle.
Guitar comes hardest. I haven’t, after all, built a functioning body. Just a centering
simulacre.
So I need not so much a stringed wooden instrument as the affect of one. I need
what the music is.
Stymying. I find ease in conjuring a set of strings, or a guitar’s hollow body, one
piece or another, but I can’t make music. I just don’t know how to do it.
Then Rebecca begins to hum a Beatles song. “Norwegian Wood.” Sweet. Quietly
funny. She shifts to R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.” & then Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a
Dream.” I pluck notes, vibrations, chords from each of these & the many more she offers up.
I learn to build up the music from within, a small bit at a time. A mosaic of sound. It
gradually becomes enough.
“Thank you,” I play for her in notes & kisses. She laughs. She holds me steady.
“This underworld,” I say inside my mind, directing these words out in ripples toward
Soulard. “Dreamland? Permanent Dreamland?”
Death, too. Art. The cosmos. Acid. Nature. Real reality. Far more than what we
allow ourselves.
I begin to play. Very simply. Guitar thick with John Lennon & George Harrison
sounds. I begin to feel better.
“Don’t!” Soulard thunders throughout my mind. Behind me, Rebecca buckles. I’d
like to take a swing at the bastard for that.
Do you think you can do this without consequences? Do you think this is a free ride?
Are you so sure you & Franny & Rebecca are going to return together?
“Why shouldn’t we?”
Everything affects everything. That music you have right now is a weapon. Don’t
relax here. Ever.
“Is this a trick?”
No tricks, Americus. Play your guitar. Pay attention. Make sure you can feel Rebecca
behind you as you move forward.
The Cenacle / 54 / April 2005