Bud Smith: F 250

Ethan had a girl with him. Italian. Dark eyes. Long hair pulled back. Maybe 20. She’s not only my type, she’s everybody’s type.

“Bull dykes manning pleasure cannons,” yelled Ando with his eyes shut, “and worrisome kids afraid of anything that’s not a computer, I got your answers right here!” He grabbed his crotch and faked a long moan. That was the end of his reading. The long moan.

“Gail, baby! I need a tissue,” Aldo said, bowing.

“Big crowd tonight,” Ethan said spitefully. He was pissed we played on the side without him.

“Sure, yeah. Empty house,” Seth said, shrugging.

Ethan didn’t introduce the girl, but she was giving me the eye. So I stood up and said, “Lee,” while holding out my busted up hand to her.

“Denise,” she said, smiling.

Ethan warned me that I had to be real careful with his guitar, because it was a collector’s item — irreplaceable. I just nod. Guys got six guitars, doesn’t even play any of them. Each one cost a boatload more than my truck.

Gail gave everybody beers and handed Denise some quarters for the jukebox. Denise tried to find something to play, but she was lost.

“What’s good?” Denise was looking at me.

“Any button on there. Close your eyes and push.”

The headlining band streamed in. They had real equipment. There was a gaggle of people with them too. Thank God. There was ten people in the bar right before we were about to go on stage.

I was so relieved. I was happy. An audience … finally.

I took a look around, counting as we were up on the little stage: twelve people. Oh … fourteen people, counting Aldo and Gail. That’s great!

I took Ethan’s guitar out of the case. It was beautiful. But as I looked down, I realized, just as Seth started the count off on his sticks, that Ethan’s guitar is strung upside down. He’s left-handed.

“I can’t play this,” I said, but no-one could hear me over the drums. There’s no microphone.

I tried my best to fake it through the songs, but it was pretty obvious that shit was all wonky. It was just me and Seth up there; I didn’t have any place to hide. I turned all my pedals on and just made some swirling noise that circled all around the bar.

Ethan and Denise left after the first song. The headlining act went outside and stood on the street, smoking cigarettes and drinking beers away from our noise.

Aldo and Gail watched from the bar and even clapped when we were done playing. They were the king and queen of the underground and thought everything was art. I love them like the mother and father I never had.

He was a supernatural drummer.That’s how people knew him. He kept time and backbeat in line with the movement of tides. Passing comets. The shifting of tectonic plates beneath the surface of the magnetic earth.

Seth, to me, was the kid whose dad died when he was six. The guy who had three cats, who had a Star Wars X-wing poster hanging on his closet door, who used to sometimes buy two boxes of Lucky Charms, separate all the marshmallows from the first, add all those marshmallows to the second, and throw away the remaining cereal.

At Lagoon House, he usually fell asleep on the pink love seat — his long legs hanging off the ripped arm, stuffing spilling out and making the back of his knees itch. He was in love with flea markets, swap meets, comic book shows. He was always in corduroy pants or corduroy shorts. I figured his diapers must have been made of corduroy too. He drank beer like it was water and had a coke problem that we never talked about. He thought it was a secret.

Seth claimed to hate hippies, but every girl he ever dated was either a hippie or had just been in a tie-dye shirt when they met. Case in point: Shannon, who he couldn’t stand to be around. He smoked everything: gift wrap, newspapers, whatever was lying around. He was serious and sensitive and had raised himself really.

“Mom dumped me at Aunt Kathy’s and split. Nevada. Carson City, Nevada. No idea what’s there. Just her.”

“Well, man. At least you got a brother.” I meant me.

“True that.”

He also had a real brother. Mark. Yeah, Mark who worked for the government and lived in Chicago. I’d never heard of anybody who worked for the government and lived in Chicago.

“He’s a spook. CIA. Like James Bond but with curlier hair, and he drives a green Volvo.”

Seth counted the entire time he played drums. You couldn’t lose him if you tried. He couldn’t handle college though. Most people I knew were like that.

He always wanted to watch My Cousin Vinny. We had a VHS that was almost worn out. Tracking was horrible. Warped, garbled sound. He had the hots for Marisa Tomei.

He was good at Tetris, Dr. Mario, Othello. Drove a maroon 1990 Nissan Sentra that was barely big enough to fit all his drums. He played real-life Tetris with that car and those drums, stuffing in the kick drum, toms, snare, and cymbals. It was amazing to watch. If he had a full car smashed solid with his drums and you needed a ride, he’d say, “Dude, there’s plenty of room for you.”

Somehow you’d get in there and it was impossible but somebody else would need a ride too and Seth would say, “Oh! Come on, climb in. We’ll get you in here somehow.”

He was good people, but when he was too drunk or too high he changed. He became a different person. You’d forget it was a thing that could happen, but he’d be sitting across from you, usually Indian style, his head tilted back a little, looking out through the slits of his eyes, and he’d say,” KISS is the best band that’s ever existed.” It’d turn your blood cold.

“Not this again.”

“Yes,” he’d grin and then bounce out of the room. When he came back, he’d have a KISS album. It could be on vinyl or cassette or CD. It didn’t matter. Whatever was available to play the KISS, he’d come back with that. Guy had their music tucked in all kinds of secret spots. He traveled with it. Trunk of his car. Suitcases. Hidden under mattresses in hotel rooms.

Seth would tell me why Ace Frehley, the Spaceman or Space Ace, was the most amazing guitar player as Detroit Rock City got turned up as loud as it’d go. You’d just have to sit there and deal with it. Otherwise, he’d get mad as hell, almost fight you over it. So I’d just nod my head for a little bit and listen to Seth iterate why KISS was such an important band, if not the most important band, in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.

You couldn’t make fun of their makeup or say their songs had no art. For your own safety, you had to pretend they’re “alright.”

It was only because Seth was so high or drunk. When he was sober, I don’t think he’d ever put KISS on once — not even once. He’d cross the threshold with that one last slug of whiskey, that last pill, then … KISS, all KISS, for about twenty minutes. Then he’d go puke for a while. When he came back, everything was fine. You could talk about something else.

A theory I had, and one I’ve never proven, was that his dad, who’d died when Seth was little, had been a fan — a true fanatic. Maybe a roadie. Maybe he even died on tour with KISS. I thought that the crate of KISS records in Seth’s room had come from him, this mysterious ghost father KISS fanatic, who even now was painted up in Heaven with white grease makeup and giant, knee-high, silver platform boots.

But later, I found out Seth had bought all the records at Englishtown flea market while I was away in California.

Lagoon house was trashed. Dirty laundry. Spaghetti plates.Gunked-up silverware. Pizza boxes. Beer cans. Milk jugs.

We couldn’t keep the place in any kind of order. Strange degenerates came over almost every night, partying with us, leaving an army of empty bottles lined along every flat surface in and around the place. It was the party house.