Someone from Really Red had had the bright idea (and bright it was) to use those pseudo-Japanese screens salvaged from behind the Pier One Imports near Saint Anne’s as baffle boards to separate the drums from the rest of the band. Mary thought it would be fun to set them up in an octagon within which the band crowded so there was barely room to exhale while shutting off the spit and hiss of the fluorescent track lighting, plunging the rehearsal room into utter blackness. Only the dial lights of the amps glowed here and there, like wolves’ eyes round an Alaskan campfire. Charlemagne the bassist counted them in, laughing at the absurdity but eager to play along with the joke. The blast-off bellow sounded like the inside of a jet engine blowing up in a solid concrete hangar. The first jam lasted 8 minutes, all E minor and C with the occasional misplaced Bb which they could blame on the darkness. The second jam ground on (and on) for 37 minutes, with an almost sub-chord riff by Mary propelling them through a tour of Lucifer’s side of the crossroads. Aquinas tried to penetrate the riff, to ride it to some hook, failed, tried again, failed again, failed better and finally, eleven minutes in, caught a whiff of Delta angst and flew parallel to Mary’s repetitive 4-note stutter, while Charlemagne soloed, Jack Bruce and John Entwistle presiding like twin angels of assault and battery. Maurice the drummer drifted in and out, as subtle as a night driver weaving between Charlemagne’s deer-crossing heartstops and Mary’s natural disaster avalanche. No one knew where anyone was, or was going, and then, for whole minutes at a time, they were elbow to elbow, knee to knee, like a quartet of Peckinpah anti-heroes galloping for the dead end of the valley and its glistening Gatling guns.
Twenty minutes along and Aquinas went strident roaring Ahab, mounting the slippery back of the vast whale and all of them wondered, and hoped, that he’d remembered to push the record button on the tiny Walkman which had been placed on the bass amp beside the bong.
-Ain’t lookin’ for mercy / ain’t gonna beg / I’m crawling up the inside / of your leg / no baby ever done me / the way that you done / one part slut / one part nun …
Mary laughed aloud, unheard in the maelstrom, and raked her fingers all the way down the frets to the pick-up, a fake slide howl to mirror the ‘slut’ and a lightning quick claptonism to catch the ‘nun’.
-like an apache princess / you got me staked to the ground / anthill’s crawling / and the sun beating down / gonna save my shot baby / just for you / gonna pump my soul / into your skull …
Oh yeah, Mary thought, give it to me daddy and I’ll give it right back and the Apache princess slithered all the way up the bending G string to end with the pop-pop-pow of the tremolo bar for the vengeance-dripping splutter of that cranial cum-shot.
While Aquinas waited for fresh inspiration he vamped on the same phrase a dozen times in a row, with first Charlemagne and then Mary catching the notes and bedding into a solid funk like a dump truck slamming repeatedly into a chalk cliff.
-Yerrr sooo wick-ed da da da yerrrrr sooooo wickkk-ed da da da …
Dominos in the darkness as Charlemagne caught the mic stand with his bass then stepped back bumped Mary who stepped back caught the cymbal’s edge with her knuckles and everybody fucked up together and came back up for air and in time for Aquinas to begin the deconstruction of his lover’s body, part Dylan, part Jack the Ripper:
-With yer nocturnal knees / n yer hips in the dance / arms round the sun / mouth worth the chance / yer criminal lipstick / eyes set to glazing / from your head to your feet / yer so fu-fu-fucking amazing …
And now Mary was soloing flat out, catscratching fireworks above the fifteenth fret, like bailing water out of a sinking dinghy, trying to outrun the beat, and succeeding as they sped up, racing through a tunnel of pure noise, catching a glimpse of the way out, grabbing for it, falling short and then catching it for real, bass and guitar power-chording E – G – A and slower now, Maurice taking off on a jazzy counter rhythm, all high hat and snare.
E(ther) G(obbles) A(ll).
E(asy) G(irl) A(lways).
E(verything) G(od( A(llows).
And out.
And stop.
A moment of silence.
Four hearts beating, open-mouthed breathing, like the end of a marathon or an orgy.
-Goddamn, Aquinas whispered, that was fucking killer ….
-Fu-fu-fucking killer, Charlemagne laughed.
-Time to book ourselves a gig? Maurice asked, shambling up through the darkness:
-let’s smoke ‘em if we got ‘em, I’m done, I think I busted my bass pedal.
-I think I broke a nail, Mary sighed.