♋ beestung
snow rides the wind down
and drives past the window
Dude and I are camping outside the hospital where Crane is in labor because neither of us is allowed in. We consider this a terrible injustice, so we camp on the hospital grounds in protest. And ’cause it’s fun.
Until it gets dark and starts pouring down rain and I realize there’s no TV. “Jonesin’ pretty bad, huh?” asks Dude.
“Pretty bad,” I answer.
“I know something that’s better than TV,” he says, pulling the tent flaps aside.
We watch the rain fall into the grass and mud, spattering across the parking lot. The raindrops are black, blue, clear and silver.
“This is better than TV,” I whisper.
SPRING 1986
When we pulled up to this place in the middle of Nowhere, Massachusetts, we were shocked. Our idea of a recording studio is a rat-infested black hole in a part of town where it’s always night. That’s just all we’ve ever known about recording studios. We love that they’re horrible bunkers in war zones and that so much beauty can be created there.
This place is a mansion at a petting zoo: an enormous house, plus the studio itself and then a barn full of cute animals. Which is nice, I guess; it’s just weird. As creepy as dirty can be, I suppose there was something invigorating about our filthy world—we felt indomitable there, safe. ’Cause we were surviving. Places like this are where clean gets a little not okay.
I can do nature’s version of clean and beautiful, but rich people’s clean, beautiful buildings make me suspicious. ’Cause I figure soon I’ll get thrown out, I guess, but also ’cause I imagine they’re dishonest—hiding something darker. That they must be dirtier than the dirty places.
Why do people think comfort is comfortable? And how much is Ivo paying for this?
As we got out of the van, studio employees grabbed our bags and began showing us around the enormous facility. This place is huge; we were completely disoriented by the end of the tour. There’s actually another studio behind the studio we’ll be working in. The furniture is luxurious and everything is made of polished wood—it even smells good.
I whispered, “What is this?” in Tea’s ear and she whispered back, “It’s fancy.”
Then we were separated, marched upstairs and placed in our own private rooms, alone with our bags. Which I guess is also fancy, but it made me lonely.
My room is made entirely of wood, like everything here, and it has cool medieval windows. They put a cradle next to my bed because I’m pregnant and they had a cradle. I don’t actually have a baby yet, though, so I filled the cradle with tapes.
I couldn’t think of anything to do in my wooden room. I looked out the window for a while, then stuck a tape in the fancy stereo system on my bureau, watching the moon while music played. I don’t listen to much music. The more you love music, the less music you love, ’cause you get picky—we take our religion seriously. Bad music is angrifying and good music is so painfully intense. But I needed some company, so I chose a soundtrack for the moon very carefully and let it be my friend for the better part of an hour.
Eventually, though, the tape ended and moonlight was starting to make the room feel creepy, so I wandered downstairs where Tea, Leslie and Dave were sitting around a table near the kitchen in silence, looking tense.
I took an apple from a fruit bowl on my way over to them and Dave shook his head slowly at me. I mouthed “No?” at him and he mouthed “No” back, shaking his head faster. Quickly, I tried to replace the apple, but before I could, a lady in a chef hat and apron grabbed it out of my hand and put it on a plate. Then she handed the plate to me with angry eyes and a forced smile. “I’m the chef,” she said. Oh.
Balancing my apple on its plate, I walked over to my bandmates. “She’s the chef,” said Dave quietly. I nodded.
Leslie leaned over and whispered, “She took my ramen noodles.”
“She’s making me a glass of water,” said Tea, her hand over her mouth.
“Why?” I whispered.
“Fancy,” said Dave.
Tea nodded. “It’s fancy,” she said.
“We wouldn’t understand,” Leslie smirked.
“No,” I answered, staring at my apple plate. “We wouldn’t.”
Making a record isn’t the release that playing a show or making a demo is; it’s a particularly vivid circle of heaven and hell. Like skiing down a mountain and off a cliff. Wheeeee! Whooooa!
Without lithium in my system, my hands no longer shake, so I can play anything I want, perfectly, the first time around. I had no idea this could ever be a bad thing. When we first started recording, we were on with a capital O, busting our asses to serve the song, re-create the sculpture, give it a body worth its soul. Here we are, makin’ a record that’s not gonna suck. This is important—make this one great!
We were terribly nervous, our muscles never let go (mine didn’t, anyway), but we did it: a perfect first take, technically and magically sound. The song came flying into the room with everything intact—a soul and a body, unkempt and breathing, like anything that deserves to live on planet earth. Enthralled, we worked hard to keep it up in the air, growing it limbs and a heart, a beautiful coughed-up liver. And impossibly, it got real: a lovely, hovering freak. We couldn’t believe it—we did it. On the first try.
As we listened to the final chord fade, we waited, tense and exhausted, to hear that the tape stopped, that we could breathe, then move on to the next song. But “Try it again!” was all we heard in our headphones.
So far, we’ve played one song for seven hours. And thanks to Gary calling us athletes and teaching us to “identify our curve,” we know we were used up and sucking after exactly four takes. The song left the building a long time ago and shows no signs of returning. We can no longer create a body in the room; we’re just playing instruments for no reason, dead notes, getting more anxious and depressed with each take.
Our high-strung Liverpudlian producer Gil just met us—he doesn’t know the good takes are over and he missed them. To him, it just sounds like we need more practice, which makes him nervous. “Try it again!” he calls out whenever we get to the end of the song. The repetition is unbearable.
And if we ever get a good take of this song, there are a dozen more waiting, just as intense as this one. Ivo didn’t choose any of our fun songs for this record—the country-punk ones that are such a relief to play. Probably ’cause he’s English. “Country” isn’t his country. I was cool with that at the time, but now I’m realizing that every song on this record is gonna hurt and hurt bad.
I know how lucky we are to be here. I know how few bands ever get to this point. I remember all the work we did to earn this opportunity, how many years of practice and playing out. I know a lot of money is at stake and a lot of people are relying on me; I know our futures depend on the performances we capture now; I know, I know. But this is like being trapped on a roller coaster.
’Cause even when a take is dead, I’m not—the song grabs me as it races past, like “Fish” did at the video shoot, thrusting shapes and colors and memories in my face. And because of the baby, I can’t disappear, can’t hide. I have to sit through every single goddamn note. I can only describe the effect as . . . anguish.
If I were a crier, I’d be in tears.
♋ catch
catch a bullet in your teeth
But my bandmates are here and their presence is comforting. It’s their record, too. I gotta keep it together for them.
Technically, we’re sitting in a circle facing each other, because that’s how we said we prefer to work, but we’re so far apart, it doesn’t matter. I can’t watch anybody else’s hands ’cause I can’t see them. And Dave isn’t even here. He’s in an isolation booth behind glass. Our amps are in other isolation booths, behind more glass, so there’s no actual sound in the room, no pulsing energy—just cold measuring. The record is supposed to sound live, like the demos,
but this feels more like an operation than a show: clinical and cruel. Guts as plain old organs.
I don’t like science anymore, I think, I can’t like it—we’re chaos people. I want my art back.
The studio and control room are both enormous, full of more shining glass and that clean polished wood that’s everywhere here. The carpet is plush and elegant. It’s . . . someone else’s world. We don’t belong here.
We can’t even talk to each other ’cause I’m the only one with a mic. I whisper into my bandmates’ headphones, “I don’t like fancy,” and they shake their heads mournfully at me.
♋ rat
it occurred to me that someone might not understand our world
Our poor producer hasn’t stopped running around the studio listening for a “booze” since we started recording seven hours ago. He’s really hyper. Ivo sent Gil to us, having made the match himself. “Gil’s a good one,” he said. And Gil does seem like a good one; we all feel sorry for him, he’s so frustrated. He came all the way here from Liverpool, just to pace and sweat. We blame oursleves.
“I hear a booze, I hear a booze! Do you hear a booze?” he chants, racing around the airless studio, running his hands through his curly brown hair. We hold our instruments, wide-eyed, hands over the strings to keep them quiet, and watch Gil run back and forth.
When he bends over to look behind an amp, his glasses fall off. Swearing, he dives after them, freezes and stares into a corner, then turns to look at us. We stare back blankly. It’s like watching a cat chase a mouse, except that I’ve heard of mice. Booze is studio lingo with which I’m unfamiliar. Gil uses a lot of words we don’t know. “Is that it?” he asks no one in particular. “Is that the booze?”
Finally, Leslie says. “Gil, we don’t know what a ‘booze’ is.”
“A booze, a booze,” he cries frantically, testing cords and inputs and tapping microphones.
The assistant engineer, a young American man who came with the studio, follows him through the room, looking sheepish. “I think he’s hearing a buzz,” he says quietly to Leslie.
Her face lights up. “Oh! I know what that is!”
“Gil’s speaking English,” clarifies Dave into his snare mic from behind glass.
Gil is a lovely man, just a little keyed up. “Of course I’m hearing a booze, there is a booze! Don’t you hear it?” He flicks a switch on the back of an amp, checking the grounding, and we hear a snapping sound. “Aaah!” Gil yells, jumping backwards and sticking his finger in his mouth. “Another fucking shock!” he yells through his finger. “What the fuck’s the matter with this country? It’s been shocking me since the bloody plane landed! I wore me jumper and me pumps today, and I’m still getting shocked!” Leslie shoots me a look.
Tea looks deeply confused. “But you aren’t wearing a dress, Gil,” she says carefully. “Or high heels . . .”
Gil looks at her, his finger still in his mouth, then he grabs a fistful of his sweater and says angrily, “This is a jumper!” Pointing at his sneakers, he growls, “These are pumps!”
“Gil’s speaking English,” whispers Dave into our headphones.
By midnight, the buzz is gone, one song is done, and the workday officially ends. I yelled all day long. It felt . . . unkind.
What we did was, we took the song apart, played each piece separately, then stuck the pieces back together. In my opinion, it didn’t work. We’d torn the song’s limbs off, sewed them back on and then asked it to walk around the room. Of course, there’s no song left anymore; we killed it. It’s just a corpse—a neat, clean, sterile corpse—and corpses can’t walk.
I crawl upstairs to my wooden room and run a bath, trying to wash off this day. Dirty and clean are confusing me. Some clean is seeming dirty and some dirty is clearly clean:
A living song is dirty, a dead one clean.
Art is dirty, science clean.
Cities are dirty, nature is clean.
Crazy is dirty, health is clean.
Us poor people are dirty but pure of heart, and rich people are clean on the outside but so dirty where it counts that they hoard money they don’t need. Is that right?
This all seems true, but there’s something wrong with it.
My belly dances in the water. Tiny heels and fists push my skin around. What an adorable monster. I stay in the tub for hours. The water gets cold.
I don’t know if I’ve let music down or music’s let me down. Whatever.
I decide this is no place for a baby. With this thought, I choose the baby over music, and water becomes my friend again. Somehow, this bath washes off all my song tattoos.
♋ some catch flies
i am clean
Gil’s wife is as pregnant as I am, back in Liverpool, so Gil and I talk baby together at breakfast. While we talk, the chef fusses around us with an angry smile and then leaves to go bang metal things together in the kitchen. “Apparently, babies’re very small,” says Gil, staring into the distance. “And noisy.”
He’s afraid his wife’ll go into labor while we’re making this record. “I’m not usually this nervous,” he says, cleaning his glasses with a shaky hand. “Every time the phone rings, I nearly jump out of me skin.” He glances at my protruding belly, pressed against the table, and his pale face gets a little paler. “And you aren’t making me feel any better.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s, you know . . . pregnancy’s very beautiful,” he adds, distracted, sucking down another cup of tea. Then the phone rings and Gil does nearly jump out of his skin, shuddering impressively. When the phone is answered and no one tells him to get on a plane, he exhales and replaces his cup on its saucer with a sigh. “Do I seem nervous to you? I mean, exceptionally so?”
“Well, I don’t really know you. You do seem a little . . . caffeinated, I guess.”
He stares into the distance again. “Yeah,” then pours another cup of tea.
The chef races into the room and stands at the table, staring at us. When we look up, she asks us if we’d like another pot of tea. She stresses the word “another” as if we’d already drunk enough for ten people because Gil has drunk enough for ten people this morning. “Yes, please!” Gil answers, a little too loudly.
“Maybe if you didn’t drink so much tea, you wouldn’t feel so tense,” I suggest.
“Huh?” He looks into his cup. “Tea calms me down.”
“It does?”
Gil thinks. “Maybe that’s just in England.”
“I hear tea’s better there.”
He squeezes some pale brown liquid out of a tea bag and frowns. “Yes,” he sighs. “Yes, it is.”
I walk into the Chattanooga church holding my grandmother’s hand. The building is cavernous, echoing with loud organ music. The people around us are dressed up: the women wear pearls and diamond pins and smell like hair spray, the men wear suits and string ties and smell like mouthwash.
My hair is always down, my mother makes all my clothes and I’m usually allowed to go barefoot. This morning, though, I’m wearing a starched, store-bought dress and tight, hard, unyielding shoes. My hair is pulled back so tight my eyebrows are on wrong. I’ve been pressed and primped to the point of immobility because I have to go to church.
I want desperately to leave. Outside is right outside and I can’t get there.
Jesus would hate this place, I think bitterly.
I can’t scream anymore. In these headphones, a real lung-ripping scream would sound like an explosion. I mean, if you just stand in front of the microphone not making a sound, you can hear your clothes. Singing is like a freight train running through your head, and screaming is just . . . out of the question; it can’t happen.
Back in my real life, when evil would kick in, it wanted the explosion, wanted my lungs ripped open and I did, too. Screams’d just fly out of my mouth then, but right now, I’m wasting everybody’s time, singing as if the words and notes were dead. Expensive hours are going by while I . . . I don’t kno
w, my version of humming along. I sound like anybody. I fake scream: a tame yelling that sounds like loud singing—just stupid.
But I don’t care, because it’s safe. The song can’t get me or the baby if I fake it. It reaches for me when it races past and I lightly step out of the way, watch the roller coaster from a distance. No heat, no pain, no nothing. I’ve shaken off the witch’s curse and the Doghouse.
Last night, after the tattoos went spinning down the drain, there was nothing left underneath but some girl wrapped in a towel.
Standing in front of the mic, useless, I realize I no longer think like a musician. I try to remember what that was like. What did I used to say?
That I had a calling, I was on a mission.
That music is beautiful math, that it’s owning violence.
Songs are electricity, my religion.
Music is how we respect hurt and happiness.
Hmmm . . . nope. I feel like I could just wander off.
♋ firepile
count the tires one more time
count the times i let the air out
So we move from take to take, erasing every vocal I put down. It’s Gil’s job to coax an authentic performance out of me and instead, we’re just taking a lot of walks. Gil’s going quietly crazy. “Take five,” he says cheerfully, through gritted teeth. “Come outside with me, Kris. Let’s take a walk.”
Rat Girl: A Memoir Page 28
