David Gates - Preston Falls

He plays it at Willis again and, amazingly, Willis plays it back at him. Either cocaine is a miracle drug or this hook is something a retard could play. "Yup," says the little guitar guy. "That'll work. Okay? 'Walk This Way'? Starts with the drum thing?"

"Let me get my shit together just a minute here," the drummer says from down on the floor.

"Oh fuck," says the little guy. "Fuckin' Sparky, man."

"Hmm," says Reed. "Looks like time to bring in Iron Mike."

The little guy winces. "Oh man? I hate fuckin' playing with a fuckin' drum machine. I mean, what do we have a fuckin' real drummer for?"

"Makes a great conversation piece," Reed says. "You got to give him that."

"No problem, man." The drummer's eyes are closed. "Use the thing for a couple songs, man. I'm gonna be right with you."

"Unbelievable," says the little guy. "Sparky, man."

"Fuck him. Forget it," Reed says. "So what are we doing, again?"

" 'Walk This Way,' " says the little guy.

"Okay, cool. You got the tune programmed in there, right?"

"That's not the point, man. You know what I'm saying? Last time we played the Cabin we played half the fuckin' night with the fuckin' drum machine."

"I don't know, I sort of dug it," says Reed. "Like with his head inside the bass drum? Crowd was into it."

"Hey," the bass player says. "The thing keeps better time than him."

"Hey, fuck you," says the drummer.

"Okay, so 'Walk This Way,' right?" Reed says. "Does it start in E?"

"Jesus," says the litde guy. "No, it starts in fuckin' W"

"And it goes to what, again?" says the bass player. "In that other part?"

"Come on, man. We played the fuckin' song last week. Through B flat to C. Right?"

"Right right right. Yeah, no, okay, man, I remember it. It's just weird to me. Comin' off a E to a B flat. It's like out of nowhere."

"Yeah, but then you're in C," says the little guy.

I 0 5

"Yeah, I know you're in C, but what I'm sayin', Mitch, that little thing is still weird to me."

"Well, that's how the fuckin' song goes, man."

"But it seems like it would make more sense if you went A, B, C."

"Are we gonna play this fuckin' thing or what?" Reed says.

"No, let's fuckin' talk about it for another fuckin' hour," Mitch says. He takes off his Strat, goes back to the board, does something, and the drum machine starts up: Boom boom ba-doom-doom-DOOM. Boom boom ba-doom-doom-DOOM. Boom boom ba-doom —

"Too slow, too slow," the bass player yells.

"That's exactly where we had it last week," says Mitch.

"BuM/V."

"Okay, fine, man. You know so fuckin' much about this tune, man, you fix it how you want, okay?"

"Well, it's gotta go faster than that, man," says the bass player.

"Okay, so put it up where you want it. Put it up your ass, all I care. Can we just play the fuckin' song?"

"I hate this fuckin' song, you want to know the truth," the bass player says. "Why don't we just play a blues?"

"I suggest we play something,'' says Reed. "Not a blues, necessarily."

"Okay," says Mitch. "You fuckin' masterminds work it out and you let me know, okay?"

Willis wants to think this is still banter. But he doesn't know these people, and it's too much to process when you're having such a great time being high, which he really is.

"Okay, okay, fine," says Reed. "Mitch, why don't you just put the thing on sort of a shuffle, you know, doot ta-doot ta-doot ta-doot-ta, doot ta-doot ta-doot ta-doot-ta." He sings in embarrassing fake Negro: "Checkin' up own mah bay-bay, doot ta-doot ta-doot ta-doot, find out what she been puttin' daown, ta-doot ta-doot ta-doot ta-doot." The drum machine is still going boom boom ba-doom-doom-DOOM.

"So that's what you want to play now?" Mitch says.

"Well, not that, necessarily," says Reed.

"So you want like a medium shuffle."

"Well, yeah. Sort of medium."

"Five fuckin' hours later. .," says the bass player.

"Well? So what do you have in mind?" Reed says.

"I don't give a shit. Why'n't we just play the fuckin' song, man? That way we'll have it the fuck over with."

PRESTON FALLS

"Come on, it's a killer song, man," Mitch says. "It sounded fucked-up last week because nobody knew it."

"Like we really know it now," says the bass player,

"Hey, the new guy," calls the drummer, still on the floor. "I forgot your name, man. You do any Stones?"

"We're doing this now," Mitch says.

"I'm just askin' him, man," says the drummer.

The drum machine keeps going boom boom ba-doom-doom-DOOM.

"Shit, man," Mitch says. "I feel like I'm starting to crash already"

Boom boom ba-doom-doom-DOOM. Boom boom ba-doom-doom-DOOM.

"Hey, can't have that," says Reed. "You mind turning that thing off? Drive me fuckin' bananas."

"I'm just gonna be a second." Mitch takes his Strat off and sets it on the floor with that ugly clang of an electric guitar in standard tuning.

"Fuck this" The bass player takes off his bass and goes over and shuts off the drum machine.

"Sweet relief," says Reed.

The bass player looks over at Mitch, who's already snuffling and pawing at his face. "Shit. Is this going to be one of those fuckin' nights?"

"Here, while we're at it." Reed gets the joint out of his shirt pocket, lights it, takes a hit and passes it to the bass player, who takes a hit and holds it out to Willis.

He puts up a hand. "Some reason, I can't play behind that. I might go for a tad more of the other."

"Uh-oh," says the bass player. "I think we got another Spark-man on our hands. Hey, can you play drums?"

The drummer has rolled onto his side to light his pipe, his sloppy stomach bulging out his t-shirt. He sticks up the middle finger of the hand holding the lighter.

"I like to give him shit," the bass player says.

Willis snorts up a pair of inch-long lines. He wants more, but he can take a hint, if that was a hint.

Reed takes another hit off the joint, holds the smoke in, finally lets it out. "By the way. Since we're taking a break. Griff's got to have a name by tomorrow latest so he can put it in the paper."

"Great. We worry about this shit and meanwhile we're not even in tune,'' says the little Strat guy.

"You see?" Reed says to Willis. "Mitch's problem is that he still

I 0 7

thinks this is about competence. But in a way that's cool too. Sort of that little edge of desperation. It's like, for him, he's been busted back down to a garage band. Whole different energy from just being in a garage band, you know what I'm saying?"

"Bullshit," says the drummer from down on the floor. "It ain't even that. Where's the fuckin' garage?"

"Figure of speech," says Reed.

"Fuckin' cows used to live here, man," says the drummer. "We're playing for like the ghosts of cows, man. Dig on it."

Reed looks at Willis. "This is what I'm up against. So, names. Who's got one?"

"Hey, what about the Grateful something?" says the bass player. "The Grateful Cowfuckers, man."

"Well, on some level that's perfect," Reed says. "But I don't think that's a level we can realistically be on."

"You should call yourselves the Robert Blys," says Willis.

"Love it," says Reed. "But — ah—" He goes Ssshewww! and zips his hand past his eyes. "See, he's too much the one thing and you're too, you know, the other. Anybody go for Confucius Say?"

"We already been that," says the bass player.

"We talked about it. We never actually used it."

"Neon Madmen," says Mitch.

"Too college," says Reed.

"Fuck it," the bass player says. "You want to call it that Jap thing, I don't give a fuck."

Mitch has put his Strat back on. "What about just Jap Thing?"

"I don't think so," says Reed.

"Jap thang," Mitch sings, and strikes some totally other chord. "You make mah heart sing."