STARRING: ED ON LEAD VOCALS
SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE, RI
The rain started up on the way out of New York and had been pelting the top of the bus ever since. Thunder rumbled and growled in the distance, and I could hear the germinating dread in the sighs and whispers of the other passengers. Despite the fact that storms come and go all the time, there are certain manifestations of nature that remind us of our place on this hostile planet. It’s all tied into that same primordial part of our brains that, thousands of years ago, motivated our ancestors to sacrifice their fellow humans on altars dedicated to the torrential chaos of nature.
Anyway, back to the bus. I’d been riding in this cramped metal box for close to three days now. Seat F3. Greyhound. Atlanta to Boston. I could smell the different cities on the clothes of each passenger that shuffled past me to their seats. As a blind dude, the way people smell kind of takes the place of the way they look. Occasionally I’d catch a whiff of some exotic type of perfume and assume it belonged to a beautiful woman, and then sometimes I’d inhale the stench of rancid breath and picture some kind of freakish vagrant.
I’m on my way to Boston because of a fairly mysterious message I got via MySpace. I’ve played a few gigs around Georgia, and apparently some booking agent liked one of them enough to invite me to an indie showcase up in Boston. I can strum a decent guitar, but it’s the blindness that people pay to see. Folks like a blind musician. Makes them feel all warm and fuzzy, especially when they’re getting drunk.
I did the math, and playing a show in a city with more than 600 people could significantly increase my chances of becoming a well-known singer/songwriter. It meant leaving my dad alone for a week or so, but he assured me that he’d be able to make ends meet. I had a feeling that dad just wanted me to have a chance to visit Boston. He’s damn proud of his Irish roots, and he’d be happy to drink any of those Boston micks under the table.
The bus careened through the storm for another hour or so when things unexpectedly and abruptly went to shit. From the very front of the bus, I heard a popping sound that reminded me of a piece of meat that has spent too much time in the microwave. Then screaming. Loud, panicked wails that caused me to dig my fingers into the seat in front of me and clench my teeth as I waited for the inevitable impact of the bus crashing into who knows what. The bus started to slowly veer to the right, but someone must’ve grabbed the wheel and corrected its course. A few more pops echoed through the bus, and I jumped as something warm and sticky splattered across my face. The screams were going full throttle, like a church choir speaking in tongues.
Very nice. I like how different it feels. Even the tone and structure make it seem like someone else is telling the story. Well done, sir. I is excited for more.
ReplyDeleteBlind musician allows for some interesting sensory experiences. If you explore further it could be cool. However, he's cool just as he is...
ReplyDeleteMe gusta mucho, hombre!!
I've never thought of that. How do blind people "picture" other people? To a blind person, how would you imagine someone to be if they were beautiful or freakish? What would be your frame of reference? I suppose you'd have felt enough faces to get an idea of how they kind of go together, but ascribing subjective perceptions of beauty or ugliness...how would that work if you had no visual comparisons?
ReplyDeleteDude, I know! The whole time I was writing this, I was like, "How does a blind person comprehend people's physical characteristics if they can't see them? What would a blind person's concept of beauty and ugliness be? How would they judge others?" Needless to say, it was hard to write and I just hope I did an okay job with it.
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