“I didn’t. You did. The bandage keeps medicine on my hand. I’m sorry. There wasn’t anything we could do. We tried everything the doctors said. Please don’t say that. I don’t want to know that. I can’t live with that.”
12:21AM - Whimpers and sobbing. The fence rattles under her feet followed by panicked breathing.
“Ahh!”
She grunts.
“It burns. Take it out. Please. Let me go.”
There is a struggle. Bethany screams again. Accompanying hers is a darker monotonous tone. It’s similar to being, but isn’t quite, feminine. There are hints of an indefinable animal sound. It begins simultaneous to Bethany, increasing in volume and pitch until it nearly overtakes her before both voices stop.
12:30AM - I smell the foul meat again. A thin haze is sinking from the high ceilings in my control room. An ashy residue coats the mixing console and computer keyboard. Bethany continues breathing steadily inside the chamber.
12:35AM - She whimpers. She is mumbling the same pattern repeated in our previous experiment. I push the master fader up. I think she’s apologizing this time.
12:40AM - Scraping sound again. It’s moving away from the microphone. Is she backing off from something? Her breath is really fast, a nervous panting, moaning. Wet slapping sounds against the baffling come from the opposite side of the chamber. These blows have purpose…intention.
12:46AM – It’s difficult staying objective while listening to her pleading.
“Let me out of here! If she comes back, she won’t leave without me. You can’t let her take me. Please. I didn’t do anything wrong. Oh my grace, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
12:48AM - I stand by the door outside of the control room. Her whispers follow me. My hand hovers above the lock holding the ring of keys. I know which one fits, there’s a worn down spot from my thumb on the fob. I have to wait at least until the one-hour point. Each of her shuddered breaths wrestles my heart. It’s got to be worth something. Too soon, and it’s all for nothing. Nothing…ironic that nothing’s what this is all for.
12:59AM - I hold the key against its hole, the brass end only a hair width away from entry. I wait. I wait.
1:23AM - She stopped crying fifteen minutes ago. Her breath has all the qualities of an echo. One breath in is two. The second breath nearly imperceptible from the first. She exhales beside herself. But it isn’t herself she’s breathing along with. Is it? Someone…something else is in the room…breathing with her.
1:43AM - There are two people (?) breathing in the chamber. It took ten minutes for the breaths to split apart and become definably individual breaths with spaces I could see between them on the screen. Over the next ten minutes the second breath grew louder until it equaled that of Bethany’s. The two have yet to speak. I did hear fabric rustle, skin scratching and Bethany hissed in pain once.
2:01AM - I can definitively see the moment when the two distinct breaths split apart on the waveform. Bethany is in the middle of a conversation with what seems to be a female sounding voice. Bethany continually speaks to it as “Allie.” Re-reading Bethany’s application email, Allie is her deceased younger sister. I am only able to discern words from Bethany’s side of the conversation at this point. “Allie’s” responding half of the conversation is garbled and concealed by a thick layer of static distortion that my EQ controls can’t clear out at this point. I will try again during post.
2:07AM - The voices fell quiet momentarily. Thirty seconds later Bethany shouted and started crying. Her words were unintelligible between the sobs. I know I should open the doors. No one ever lasted this long in the Orfield Labs’ chamber.
Am I listening to her hallucinations? Her dead sister can’t really be in there, can she? I’m afraid if I open the door, I might find out. I don’t think I want to find out. I could leave her in there until sunrise. It’s not that much longer. Then…then it will be light outside. It’ll be safer in the light. More people around. Tom gets in around 7:30. He’ll be here to help with the engineering and the outboard equipment.
I used to sit in my parents' walk-in closet with two blankets draped over me. Sport coats and pants brushed across my neck, pressing close to the back as I could get. I wasn’t hiding. My parents weren’t beating me and I didn’t have any brothers or sisters threatening to give me wedgies. Finding the quiet, that was my hobby.
When I turned ten, dad told me to choose an instrument. Music ran in the family. That and he knew the correlation between the musical and mathematical sides of the brain and how it would help my grades. Sitting on the floor in front of my mom’s feet one Sunday night to watch PBS broadcast the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing Benedetto Marcello’s Oboe Concerto in C minor, I picked the oboe. In the age of hair bands and arena rock, it wasn’t an obvious direction, and certainly not an easy one to help make friends with either.
Sean Holt, my teacher, lived two towns away where he worked on his Master’s Degree in music at whatever college he went to. I never cared to ask. I only knew he played saxophone and sang with cover bands in addition to teaching kids like me so he didn’t have to get a real day job. We talked about girls as much as we did building my embouchure for the double reed.
“Get the reeds nice and moist,” he said in our first lesson. “Pretend they’re your girlfriends long, hard, sexy nipples. Lick them. Rub your lips up and down over them.” I remember my cheeks burning and the stirrings of blood flooding away from my head into my crotch.
Sean looked at me with a wicked grin. Shifting in my seat to hide my erection, he knew he struck a nerve in this young boy. “Ever kissed a girl, kid?” I shook my head staring at the instrument in my hands but not really seeing it. “It’s okay, bud. Give it a little time. Trust me, you picked the perfect instrument. It might not be cool like a Les Paul and a giant stack of amplifiers.” He made air quotations to emphasize the word cool. “When it comes to knowing what a woman wants you to do with your lips, there is no better way to learn than getting a beautiful tone out of that piece of Grenadilla in your hands.”
It took three weeks of struggling a constant stream of goose honks and owl screeches behind my closed bedroom door before I finally found the right placement and pressure on the reeds to push a middle C out of the thing.
***
2:30AM - I’m at the door again, pressing my ear against the cold, hard surface. I know it’s stupid. There is no possible way I can hear anything from inside beyond all the concrete and the baffles or even the darkness. My teeth ache. My eyes push inward to the back of their sockets. My ear pulls against the flat surface creating suction that wants me to become a part of it. My heart beat is racing, the tattoo of a great army’s feet marching to war.
2:35AM - The crackle of fire, damp logs popping as they catch flame on a cold, wet night. The distant cry of children lost from mother’s embrace. A mountain awaking from eons asleep to trample all who dare to appear in its path. Beneath it all…laughter, quiet, slow and… satisfied.
In high school I placed an ad in Musician Connector looking for like-minded people to start a band. Nothing remotely like what’s on Top 40 radio or the YouTube charts. My new compatriots would require a powerful sense of adventurousness and bravery in the threat of physical danger.
This was the ad:
Do your ears yearn for substance beneath the lies of what our modern, corrupt society deems listenable? Are you ready to break waves and steam ahead into tomorrow’s quiet revolution? Is your will as strong as your mind? Will you scream praising the silent gods by my side and face the ignorant masses when they attempt to drown the true message of emptiness?
I called the band Anticipa… The philosophy was simple. The execution would be much more difficult than expected. I mean, what did I think was going to happen? We weren’t your typical Frat party band. We sure wouldn’t wear tuxedos at weddings or Bar-Mitzvahs. I intended on attacking the Providence club scene, striking with only precision gigs, sucker punches, in and out. No muss, no fuss.
&nbs
p; Fuss did happen. Definitely more fuss that I wanted. I guess it’s fitting the first bit of messiness happened at a former X-rated movie house on Broadway called The Kingswood Theatre. In the early 2000’s a group of community hipsters revamped the dilapidated old building and restored it to its former glory becoming an in demand, beautiful venue for music, dance and other touring performances. Local artists were offered first shot at opening act slots. You can find a couple of TEDx talks in the main room online.
I cobbled together a mix of experimental noise tracks that I stole from obscure Eastern European artists buried on deep web music blogs that nobody read. I used a free domain builder to quickly put together a simple website with pages of solid black or white. If clicked in the upper right hand corner, the hijacked sounds would play and a message form would appear to be filled out in order to contact the band for booking.
Three months later the Kingswood messaged me with an invitation for Anticipa… to open for the most popular underground Post-Rock band of the moment, ConsentOfTheBullet. None of the members of Anticipa… owned musical instruments and I mentioned this in my response to the club. This apparently made us seem more insurgently titillating and contrarian to the mainstream, so they offered to provide us with a back line of gear free of charge.
I met with the band inside the Anechoic Chamber leaving the door open; I gave them my list of songs for the performance. Each member agreed to my terms and expressed their dedication to the cause. We didn’t meet again until the night of the show at sound check.
The four of us inspected the rented guitars and amplifiers with an air of authority adopted by watching ConsentOfTheBullet handle their equipment. I watched Kevin, our drummer, accept a pair of sticks that the headliners loaned to him.
“I’ve heard some great things about you guys.” Long brown hair hanging over his eyes, a sweaty rocker dude elbowed me on the arm. “I’m Rick. I play bass with Consent.” I nodded and backed away a step. His clothes looked slept in for more than one night. My first impression of the guy was “Moist.”
“Can’t wait to check your set.” He said giving me the thumbs up. “We should all grab a drink after.”
I turned to focus my attention on the wide array of knobs on the amplifier. With no idea what each one did, I turned them back and forth two or three times making certain they all were set to 0. Going around the stage, I did the same to the bass and keyboard amps. I then set about unplugging all of the microphones. I watched Kevin remove all the cymbals from the drum set and carefully place them flat on the floor behind the stage.
“Hey guys, fifteen minutes.” The soundman’s voice burst from the monitors on the edge of the stage. I flashed him a quick smile and waved. “Cool.”
Kevin and I walked off stage to our dressing room. He wore a Red Sox cap sitting at an angle on the top of his good sized afro. With no shirt on, the octopus tattoo covering his back became more dramatic than the tentacles poking out of his sleeves that were normally all you could see.
We sat quietly in the dressing room. No one paced nervously or fidgeted hands in our laps. Each of us gazed ahead, unfocused on any object present. The burble of multiple voices in overlapped conversations in the club got louder. With the number of people in the room increasing, the energy followed close behind. There was a noticeable vibration in the walls coming through from the excited crowd.
The lights dimmed signaling us to move to the stage. I asked the owner not to introduce Anticipa… before we went on, so the audience continued their buzzing and took little notice of us putting on our guitars. I fiddled with the tuning knobs on the headstock and approached the microphone.
I opened my mouth wide then closed it and stood in silence with my hands at my sides. To my right, Sharon flattened her dress under the bass’ strap. The stage lights teased at the purple stripes she’d put in her hair the previous night. Greg sat with his fingers hovering just above the keys bending forward waiting for a signal to start playing. Behind the drums, Kevin hung the pair of sticks straight down from his left hand.
The crowd slowly settled down and waited for our first song. I stood still not touching the guitar with my hands. The rest of the band remained frozen in place. The lights were hot and close. The only movements on the stage were the beads of sweat dripping down our faces.
We steadied ourselves through the first few uncomfortable minutes. I remembered not to lock my knees for fear of passing out. Each time I felt the energy of the crowd shift I leaned slightly into the microphone and opened my mouth. I’d immediately close it again and lean back without making a sound. In the corner of my eye, Sharon snapped her head to the right flipping her hair. The moment it settled down her back, she returned to the identical position she stood in before.
“Come on already!” a voice shouted from the crowd. None of us moved. We were broadcasting almighty silence. The quiet was louder than any riot band performance the Kingswood had before us.
“This is bullshit,” a woman said close to the stage. I opened my mouth at the unplugged mic again in an attempt to regain control of the show. Instead, a plastic cup half full of beer flew against my cheek. The cool liquid felt refreshing against the heat of the stage at first, then we lost the crowd.
“You suck!” “Fucktards!” “Bring on a real band!” “Yeah man, we want some music!”
“ConsentOfMyCock!”
More cups of beer, candy bars, potato chips and other food items purchased from the snack bar rained down on us. Sharon ran to the wings. Kevin stayed in position until an apple caught him on the temple and knocked him backwards off his drum throne unconscious to the ground with a limp thud.
Greg held tight until a man with a long red pony tail behind his deeply widow's peaked scalp ran on stage and grabbed me. He tried to rip my guitar away and head-butted me. I remained still despite his attacks and watched in shock while Greg punched him in the throat and kicked at his crotch.
Before any further damage could be done, three large men wearing yellow windbreakers with the word “SECURITY” in large white letters across their shoulders pulled us into the dressing room and slammed the door closed. I wiped my bloody nose on my sleeve. Everyone else sat on the couch breathing quickly. I smiled at each of them, clapped my hands and said, “Good gig guys. That was perfect!”
“Perfect?” Exasperated, Sharon threw her hands in the air. “There’s a riot going on out there.”
“I know.” I laughed. “Isn’t it great?”
“You are seriously fucked up man,” Kevin growled.
“This is what you signed up for.” I pointed at the door. “So a song is good or bad, who the fuck cares? Every single person out there is going to remember us. They’re going to look back ten years from now and tell people that they were at the Anticipa… show! They saw a band pay tribute to emptiness in the greatest way possible. They saw the bravest band in the world.”
“That wasn’t brave.” Sharon put her face in her hands. “That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, and I ain't doing it again, that’s for sure. I quit, man!”
“Yeah. I’m all about peace and quiet too bro, but I’m a pacifist. No violence for me.” Kevin squeezed Sharon’s shoulder.
I looked at Greg who hadn’t said a word yet. He put his hands up in the air shaking his head.
“I expected some kind of reaction from the crowd, but I didn’t think they’d throw stuff or try to kick our asses.” His bottom lip was beginning to swell from being punched by the red pony tailed man. “I took piano lessons for ten years too. I really do know how to play. This is all just too out there for me, dude.”
“Wow.” I couldn’t understand them not seeing the beauty in this moment. Being witness to how a few short moments of silence could drown out years of cacophony changed me. I felt loneliness more hollow than the vacuum of space. I knew then I had to find the right way to spread the silence so that everyone would understand what I knew. No more shock totems or performance art for the static seeking masses. It needed to b
e something more subtle and profound to rise up from below. Proof that truth hides in the quietude.
2:41AM - The WAV files are flat. Bethany isn’t breathing. There isn’t any sound in the chamber. I should open the door. I’m so scared.
2:53AM - My legs won’t stand me up. I can’t get to the door. My eyes are burning. My ears have anachronistically returned to their vestigial urges and are twitching at the hint of any sound. The nothingness in the room is crawling through the microphone cables into the computer and flowing in all of its empty glory from the speakers. My wish is becoming my deepest fear. My beloved silence is now a horror. Silence is not God, but the opposite.
2:59AM - Where is she? I can’t contact her unless I open the door. I refused to install a talk back mic and speaker for fear of noise leakage inside the chamber. The room must remain pure with as complete a silence as physically possible. In all of my extrapolations, I never once considered this outcome. I need to open the door.
3:01AM - No. I will wait until sunrise. The weather channel says sunrise is at 6:30. Only three hours more.
3:10AM - I smoked a cigarette to calm my nerves. I quit years ago. Rummaging through the kitchen drawers I found a half-crumpled pack of Camel Light 100’s. A bit stale, but the smoke felt good on my throat and the nicotine is giving me a nice buzz I needed even more than I thought.
3:15AM - Bethany is breathing again. I think. There’s more than enough evidence on these audio files to show more than one person in that room. She doesn’t seem to be frightened. The breathing is long and slow. I walk to the door. The breathing continues hushing at me from the speakers. The farther I walk from the control room, the louder the breathing seems to get.
Dark Designs Page 11
