Joel Arnold - Fetal Bait Apocalypse - 3 Collections in 1

‘Niles Big Sigh’ was one of their favorite tunes, an all out instrumental full of soul wrenching guitar riffs. A tribute to Niles Ordonez

The rest of the band nodded. They liked the idea.

We got down to business, recording tracks for some of the other songs on their tape. We decided to record Niles Big Sigh at the end, when they were really warmed up and ready to jam.

The day was a long one, and the band sat down for a short break before the last song.

I remember it clearly. Everyone beaming, cracking open fresh beers, shooting the shit, easy laughter. One big happy family. I’d like to remember it that way, keep that image in my mind above all the others. But I can’t.

It’s impossible now.

They started to jam.

A year earlier, after one of their live performances, Billy Ray confided to me, “It’s better than sex. It’s like I’m lost out there and floating on a giant wave.” The smile on his face was radiant. Sweat gleamed like pearls on his upturned face.

He was talking about that ultimate peak in music where everything works together, the notes blending, swooping effortlessly out of thin air, audible gifts from the gods.

“Damn, Billy Ray,” I said. “You must’ve been riding a big one tonight.”

He wiped a clean white cloth along the neck of his guitar. “It was a nice one, but not the big one.”

“How often do the big ones come?” I asked.

He winked. “Once in a lifetime, Sonny. Once in a lifetime.”

After ten minutes of playing, I thought they were ready to stop. The song reached an incredible plateau, then started it’s smooth descent. I knew I had something special on tape, the reels revolving as if spinning gold. I gave them a smile and a thumbs-up. Billy Ray shook his head at me.

They kept playing.

Five more minutes went by. The music swept me away. I closed my eyes and breathed it in, like it was something palpable, something you could ingest and carry with you for a lifetime. How long could this last?

When I opened my eyes, I watched as Jon broke a stick. He effortlessly grabbed a new one from a bag close at hand and kept on playing without missing a beat.

Colin’s face was in shadow, but I could see the drops of sweat falling onto the shiny blue surface of his bass. His hands flew across it as if possessed. It was amazing how they moved. Mechanical, yet brilliant.

Possessed. That’s how Billy Ray played. His solo cut into my soul, lifting the music into a new plane. The sounds seared. At any moment, I thought his guitar would burst into flames. Just listening to it, I felt ravenous. I didn’t want it to end. It was pure ejaculation. But just when I thought the solo was about to peak, it went in a new direction, soaring higher, the notes plugging directly into my brain.

A beatific smile spread across Billy Ray’s face. Sweat poured off it in a river. His eyes danced and sparkled.

Possessed.

Musicians, especially those who’ve played together for many years, have subtle signals. They know how to cue each other with the slightest nod or a barely noticeable lift of the guitar neck. They get to know each other’s signals, each other’s nuances, and in times when they gel, it seems there is some sort of psychic connection, where a player just needs to give a tiny mental push, and the band will start taking a song in a new direction.

But behind his drums, Jon’s eyes were more than subtle. It looked like something bothered him, like he was in pain. A grimace spread across his face. It was as if he was enduring the heat of a flame held under his wrists or trying to lift a car off of some crushed child. I figured he’d been pushing too hard. His chops were too damn tired.

I held up my hand, signaling them to wrap it up. If they kept up at this pace, Jon wouldn’t be able to last much longer. It would be a damn shame for the jam to just peter out like a train running out of fuel in the middle of a desert. Better to end on a high note.

That’s when Nick fell face forward onto his keyboard. The instrument buckled under his weight and crashed, causing a scream of clashing notes and feedback.

I stood up from my console, banged on the glass with my fist, but Billy Ray didn’t even look up. He kept playing. Jon and Colin glanced over horrified, but they too, kept playing.

This was ridiculous. Why wouldn’t they stop?

I pounded on the glass again, then tried to turn the mixing board off. When I flicked the switch, nothing happened. I dove beneath the console to unplug it, but when I touched the cord, I received a shock that sent red-hot daggers up my arm.

I crawled to the door of the sound booth. The brass door-knob glowed with a deadly red light. I was afraid to touch it.

I slowly stood. I turned to face the glass that separated me from the musicians. Billy Ray’s head was tilted back, his eyes thin white slits. There was a smile on his face, yet the sounds coming out of his mouth were screams. Howls. Bubbles of spit broke upon his chin, mixing with the sweat that glowed in the studio’s red lights.

The strange thing was that the cacophony of the keyboard feedback, the clash of all the notes pressed and screeching at once, somehow added to the overall effect, giving a new dimension to the music.

Music. Was it really music?

Or was it the tongues of Hell licking at my brain, pressing upon the areas of pleasure like an old prostitute?

Or was it the delirious cries of Niles Ordonez? Was he somehow contained in the electronics of the mixing board I’d so innocently cared for all those years? Was he jamming one more time through these hapless musicians?

Or was it something worse?

One stick after another broke in the drummer’s frenetic pounding, yet each time, he effortlessly reached down and produced another one from his bag of sticks like a magician. His hands were raw and bleeding, blood splatting on the drumheads, speckling his face. Tears dripped from his wide-open terrified eyes. Yet he still reached into his bag, bleeding hand clenching onto fresh stick. I couldn’t hear his screams over the music.

Shadows hid Colin’s face, but his right hand continued to move swiftly, mechanically, over the two bass strings that remained. The other two had snapped. Sweat poured onto the surface of his bass like rain. He no longer used his pick, and I realized that the skin of his thumb and forefinger had worn off while picking at the strings. The tiny bare bones of his fingers gleamed in the red light.

I looked over at the door. The knob glowed with that deadly red light.

When I looked back through the glass, Billy Ray stared directly at me. His smile beamed wide and bloody. His hands worked violently over his guitar. Three of the strings had broke and hung writhing off the guitar’s neck like snakes.

Colin fell forward onto his bass amplifier, creating a low throb of feedback. Jon crashed onto his drum set, sending the cymbals toppling over. He somersaulted over the toms and lay there twitching.

Billy Ray kept playing.

He walked slowly to the sound booth’s glass, his hands working over his hapless blood smeared guitar, screams issuing from his madly grinning lips. I couldn’t take it any longer. My head felt squeezed in a vice.

I closed my eyes, unable to look at him. I held my hands over my ears.

The music stopped. When I looked up, I saw that Billy Ray had collapsed.

A voice came over the sound system. A deep, sonorous voice. A voice I recognized from long ago.

“ Did you get that one?” it asked. “Did you get that one, Sonny?”

My right ear received a seventy percent hearing loss, which I can correct somewhat with the help of a hearing aid. Other than acting as a holder for my glasses, my left ear is useless.

When I finally got up the courage to listen to the reel of tape, I didn’t know what to expect. I pressed play. There was a static hiss. I turned up the volume. There they were, the Blues Blasters, jamming like they’ve never jammed before.