David Gates - Preston Falls

"Hey, you want to do that?" Reed says. "We should be doing that— that's a fucking fabulous song."

"What about Air Bag?" the drummer calls.

"What the fuck does that mean?" says the bass player. ''Air Bag? I mean, what is that about}''

"I was just thinking, you know, about these cars with air bags," the drummer says.

"Air Bag," says Reed. "Done deal. Objections?" The bass player only shrugs.

"Hey, the new guy," calls the drummer. "What Stones shit you do?"

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"You fuckin' burnout," says the bass player. "You can do my stones."

"So are we going to play this thing or what?" Mitch says. He checks his low E. "Fuck, I'm out."

"What? What are we doing?" says Reed.

"Well, I can see where this shit is heading," the bass player says. "Sparky, man, will you fuckin' get up off the fuckin' floor?"

"Fuck him," says Mitch. He turns on the drum machine, hoom boom ba-doom-doom-DOOM.

"I thought we were doing 'Wild Thing,' " Reed says.

"Well, could we fuckin' do something?'' says the bass player.

"Hey, I know. What about we do a line?" says the drummer, still down on the floor. "Shit, that could be like a saying: 'You want to do something, do a line.' I feel like if I did a couple lines I could really get into some playing."

"So get up off your ass," says the bass player.

"That's the problem, man," the drummer says. "I think I might be too fuckin' ripped."

"Shit," says the bass player, taking off his instrument. "What am I, your fuckin' servant?" He brings the stuff over, and the drummer rolls back onto his side while the rest of them circle around.

After these next two lines, Willis finds he's gotten up to a place where it seems a long way back down. He sits on the carpeting and tries to work out a theory about how the mountain landscape could be encoded in microminiature into the molecules of the coca plant, which would account for this steep lofty feeling. Like what is that thing— ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny? Maybe this is a little specious; he's sure it is. Still, it's cool to have come up with the word specious.

"Fuckin' Charlie Watts," the drummer's saying. "I love that motherfucker. Hey, the new guy. You do any Stones?"

"You know something? We should be doing some real biker shit," says Reed. " 'Born to Be Wild,' shit like that."

"What's your point, man?" says the drummer. "Fuckin' Stones ain't biker shit? Man, a biker stabbed some son of a bitch to that shit, so you don't know what the fuck you're talkin' about. I seen the movie of it, man, several fuckin' times."

"What are we, onto the sixties now?" says Reed.

"That wasn't the sixties, you dick," the bass player says.

"Altamont," says Reed. "Nineteen sixty-nine."

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"Well, that's a fuck of a lot different from the «xties," says the bass player.

"Oh really?" Reed says. "That's an interesting remark. How is it that 1969 isn't the sixties?"

"Shit," says the bass player. "Will somebody tell fuckin' Perry Mason here what the fuck I'm tryin' to get across?"

"Danny," Reed says, "you're stretching my sense of camp to the breaking point."

"Yeah, whatever the fuck that means," says Dan.

"Hey, are we gonna play or what?" Mitch says. "I'm really pumped to play, you know?"

"I've been trying to mobilize you people to play for two hours now," says Reed.

"Hey, I don't think I can make it, man," the drummer says. "I feel like I might be too wasted to play."

"Well, if we ain't gonna play," says the bass player, "let's fuckin' get ripped."

"Listen, speaking of ripped," says Willis. "I'd be glad — I don't know if this is tacky, but if people are like chipping in or something."

"Yeah, I don't think you have to sweat it," Mitch says. "Old Calvin just—"

"Hey, Mitch?" says the bass player. "Why'n't you shut your ass?" To Willis he says, "Don't worry about it, man."

"What the fuck?" Mitch says. "I thought this guy—"

"Mitchell," says Reed. "C'm'ere. Talk to you for a second?" He takes off his Les Paul, walks over and parts the plastic sheeting, holding it open; Mitch takes off his Strat and follows him out. The bass player puts his bass back on and flips his amp off standby.

"They're bringin' in a new drummer, man," the drummer says from down on the floor. "I'm not fuckin' stupid. See, I get too fucked up to play."

"That ain't what they're talkin' about," says the bass player.

"Yeah, sure. Then it must be the latest stock quotations, man."

Willis can make out the two blurry forms on the other side of the cloudy plastic. The bass player begins to play what sounds like the hook to "Start Me Up." Willis guesses it would be politic to make some noise too. "Cool, you want to do that?" he says. "What Keith does, he takes off the bottom string and tunes to G. That's how he plays all that stuff."

"No shit," says the bass player. Willis absolutely can't tell if he's

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genuinely surprised, or putting him down for saying something everybody already knows, or just doesn't give a fuck.

"Are we in tune, gentlemen?" Reed's back; he and Mitch are slipping guitar straps over their heads. Willis knows Reed's looking at him. But when he finally can't stand it and looks back. Reed's checking his watch. "Night's still young," he says. "So. Enough of this shit."

Drops of rain on the windshield. Then more drops. Willis turns the wipers on, and the rubber blades fart against the glass. You need either a higher intensity of rain or a lower frequency on the wipers; as it is, it's just a fucking disaster. Chuck D is rapping about how they Got got got got got me in a cell, some infantile fantasy about a jailbreak, and the wipers are going this way and that way and this way and that way, supremely out of sync with the drumbeats.

Willis is headed home, crashing like a motherfucker. Gray daylight now, but he keeps the headlights on because the speedometer and all the dashboard shit look cozier lighted up, like having a fire going. But this music's irritating the fuck out of him. Even the name. Public Enemy: like it's some big irony. He flips up the little handle on the tape deck and yanks it out of the dash, and that by Jesus shuts the son of a bitch up. He rolls down the window, heaves the thing backhanded right across the road and into the brush, then the bag of tapes after it, plastic cassette boxes flying open in the wind, clattering on pavement. In the mirror he catches them scattering in an instant of red taillight.

This road should be familiar; it's just that the rain and fog are fucking everything up. And it really pisses him off, because he is not lost. He thinks about stopping the truck and getting out and chucking the God damn guitar and amp over the side too. But he's sort of out of that mood now and on to money worries. Up ahead he sees a billboard with the Marlboro Man slinging what looks like a pair of leg braces over his shoulder. Shit, so he's somehow crossed over into New York State? Vermont has that billboard law. Actually, they must be branding irons. Leg braces, Jesus. Willis himself used to be a Marlboro Man, in the sense that he used to smoke Marlboros. Oh, years ago. He could do with a fucking Marlboro right now. Maybe he'd better pull over somewhere.

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put the guitar and amp in the cab out of the wet and see if he can't nap a little.

Sometime after the billboard he passes a picnic area: green-painted tables, green-painted trash barrel with a crow perched on the rim. He finds a driveway to turn around in and doubles back; the crow flies away when he pulls in. He shuts the engine off, his ears still roaring, gets out, smells the good piney smell and lets rain soak his hot head. He starts to shiver. He wrestles the amp out of the back and sticks it on the floor of the cab on the passenger side, then tilts the seat-back forward to put the guitar case in the space behind. And there's the duffel bag he never remembered to bring into the house, with the.22 inside.