TWENTY
We were just about done with the hill. One more day, two tops and then the rest of the summer from morning until evening would be ours. No chores. No yard work. No nothing but playtime.
Mom had gone out and gotten us a special treat for lunch: McDonald’s cheeseburgers and French fries, Cokes to wash them down and after we had finished our lunches and had thrown away our trash, we headed out, letting mom know that we’d be back sometime before dinner.
We went over to Steve’s first, knocked three times, waited a minute or two, and when no one answered we moved along next door to Cory’s. There our knocks were answered by Cory’s mom.
“Hi, boys,” Janeal Dayborne said.
“Hello,” Jason answered. “Is Cory home?”
She let the door open wider and the coolness from the air conditioner hit us like a wave where we stood in the heat, prickling our skin.
“Can he play?” Jason asked.
“Oh, I suppose so. What do you boys have planned for this afternoon?” she inquired and stepped aside to allow us access to her meat locker of a house.
We entered and stopped just inside the entryway. The sweat drops on our brows felt like tiny icicles. “Maybe go exploring or something. We don’t know yet,” Jason told her.
“Well, he’s back in his bedroom listening to his record player. Go ahead and go on back.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Jason turned to head down the hall toward Cory’s room and as I started to follow I looked up at Mrs. Dayborne. She stared down at me with a look of wonder as if I were some beautiful new species of flower that she’d just discovered. It made me a bit uncomfortable and I quickly darted up the hall and found Jason knocking on Cory’s bedroom door.
Before he answered though, Christy opened her door and stuck her head out to see who was visiting. She was dressed in a blue blouse, cutoff jeans and flip-flops. The French braid done up on her head made her look a bit older than her twelve years.
“Hey guys. Whatcha doing?” she asked.
“Seeing if Cory can play,” I said quickly.
Jason gave me a look that pretty much said, ‘Shut up. I’ll do the talking,’ and turned to Christy. “Yeah, we were just comin’ over to see what your brother’s up to. What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” She rolled her eyes and said, “Mom’s making me clean my room. It’s not even that dirty.”
From what we could see through the foot wide gap in her door, it appeared as though someone had detonated some form of explosive near the center of her room. There were clothes draped over the headboard of her bed, posters hung askew by single thumb-tacks from the walls. Barbie dolls that looked like they’d been partying all night lay passed out across the floor, slumbered in their drunken stupor.
Cory opened his door then and said, “Guys! Come check this out!”
He seemed excited about something. We followed him into his room as Christy shut the door to hers. He led us over by the window where his record player (the kind that came in a box with a snap and a handle on the front, made by Fisher Price), sat on an end table low to the floor. In the player was a Led Zeppelin album turned to side A. The songs that showed on the green circle in the middle were:
1. Black Dog
2. Rock and Roll
3. The Battle of Evermore
4. Stairway to Heaven
“This is just plain creepy,” Cory said bending down and turning the player on. He then set the needle down and when it proved to be the wrong spot, lifted it and set it down again. There was a second or two of fuzzy static and then the opening guitar solo to Stairway to Heaven began. It was quite sweet and relaxing to hear. The solo went on for about half a minute or so until Robert Plant started in with these words:
There’s a lady who’s sure
All that glitters is gold
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven
At this time we turned to look at Cory, wondering what it was he felt was so creepy about this song. It was just a hippy stoner tune from the decade before, although it was very pretty and haunting in its own way.
Jason finally asked him, “So what’s the big deal?”
“Yeah, this isn’t creepy,” I added.
He gave us a look that said to be patient which looked odd coming from a kid who had absolutely none of it himself.
“You have to listen to the whole song first. Just listen,” he said.
So we did. For what seemed like an hour. I think the song lasts for seven or eight minutes but to us it seemed like forever.
And then at a certain point, It must have been about halfway through, he pulled out a piece of paper and said, “Okay, listen right here. I wrote the words down to this part so you can understand them. Read them aloud with the music so Ricky can tell what he’s singing.”
Jason grabbed the paper and laid it out in front of him on the floor where we sat and he read aloud as Plant droned on.
If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow
Don’t be alarmed now
It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen
Yes there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on
“Yeah, so,” Jason said. “It’s just words to a song. That ain’t creepy.”
“Okay,” Cory said with excitement in his eyes. “Now turn the paper over.”
On the other side Cory had written down an equal number of lines as were on the front. The words were different though.
Cory turned off the record player and Plant’s voice got deep and slow as the record came to a stop. “It took me all morning to copy this down. I had to replay this about a hundred times to get the words right. I think it’s pretty close to what he’s saying. Trust me. It’ll creep you out.”
He then put his finger on the now motionless record and started turning it around backward. What came through the speaker instantly gave me goose bumps on my arms. It sounded like a demon talking from the depths of hell. At least that’s how I perceived it back then.
Jason read the words aloud after Cory had played the record in reverse, though I could make out most of them as he was doing it. They said:
Oh, here’s to my sweet Satan
The one whose little path would make me sad
Whose power is Satan
He’ll give those with him six-six-six
There was a little tool shed where he made us suffer
Sad Satan
“No way,” Jason said with a chill. “That is creepy.”
I was speechless. That record and that low pitched, guttural voice definitely freaked me out.
“You want to hear it again?” Cory asked.
“Yeah. One more time,” Jason said.
I had had enough the first time. I didn’t want to hear it again. “No. Don’t play it again. That’s satanic,” I said.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Cory told me. “It’s just words. It can’t hurt you.”
“Jay,” I pleaded.
Jason, looking a bit annoyed that he had such a wimp for a brother, said, “Just plug your ears and hum. You won’t be able to hear it that way. Okay?”
I nodded and stuck a finger into each ear. Cory started turning the record backward again and when it was done they were both grinning at the wonders of Cory’s find.
But of course there is no truth in it that Led Zeppelin was speaking to or of the Devil on their album. I mean you’d have to be pretty damn cleaver to be able to record not only one song but two using the same lyrics going forward and in reverse. It was just a coincidence. But still it was one of those things that I heard in my youth that stuck with me and would make me break out in goose pimples even years later. I don’t think I’ve tried listening to a record backward since that day nor have I really had any urge to.
After the second playing they began to lose interest, or maybe they had begun to freak themselves out too. In either case, Cory pulled the needle off the record an
d closed the lid to the player.
“Alright, so what’s the plan for the day?” Cory asked.
We all looked at each other and Jason said with a shrug, “I don’t know. You seen Steve around? We went by his house but no one was there.”
We all stood up and headed out of Cory’s room and Cory said, “I saw him about half an hour ago. He was with Jackie. He said he had to run down to Stater Brothers to get stuff for his mom. Let’s see if we can meet him halfway back.”
“Let’s go,” Jason said and we went back into the bright and still cloudless afternoon.
“Be back later,” Cory shouted over his shoulder as the front door slammed behind us.
When we had first gone into Cory’s house the air conditioner had cooled and seemed to energize us. Going back out into the heat of the day had the opposite effect. The sun, in the middle of the sky, pounded us with fists of heat and sapped the energy from our bodies.
Frisbee Page 24
