"who? he ain't related to me"

when i heard him say, “it’ll be good practice and there’ll be lots of loose women there,” i figured him to be half right. true indeed, it had been a while since i’d been to a rock show, but i wasn’t so sure what he had in mind would limber the limbs for the upcoming Queens debacle.

maybe i’m wrong, but i don’t think Pittsburgh’s ever been widely known for its singer / songwriter scene. and i didn’t think it was blowing up under my nose, i didn’t think there was enough drugs involved to get me through this, and i didn’t think the Doktor was telling the truth when he said there’d be “loose women.” and i planned to fuckin’ tell him about it.

which i did.

and which he didn’t give a fuck about.

so…we showed up at the place around 10:30 at night. a lot of people go to bed around here at 10:30 at night. and we find this guy passed out in the gutter. i almost tripped on him as i got out of the car.

“Jesus Christ,” i said, “i almost tripped on him as i got out of the car.”

“what are you talking abou…HOLY SHIT!!! my man is knocked Out!!!”

“grab that stick and poke him. i think he’s dead.”

“ok.”

after a good eight or twelve whacks, a few guys appear from down an alley and seem relieved. they thank us. “rough night,” they say, and smack the passed-out guy in the face a few times. he sorta wakes up and they put what i think is some coke up his nose. he really comes alive after that, and they disappear just as fast again down that same alley.

we still had a little bit before the band went on. “but it’s not a band,” the Doktor said, “they’re like a duo. acoustic. harmonica, i think. kinda like Dylan, only better.”

“really.”

“yeah man. here, hit this.”

while we’re killing time, this guys stumbles up to the car and plants himself alongside me on the hood. the Doktor and i, we’re lookin’ at each other like one of us might know what the fuck’s up, and the guy just kinda sits there for a minute before offering to trade us some of the beer he has left in a crushed up 12-pack under his arm for a hit of the joint.

“alright,” i say.

“fuck that,” says the Doktor, “i hate Keystone Light.”

“what difference does it make,” i began, but was cut off by the drunk sitting next to me on the hood of the car.

“ish cool. itsh awwrite. lisshen…” and he went on in that drunken slur for a minute or so, telling us to come to the bar up the street to hear him sing some songs.

“let him hit it,” the Doktor said, “he might be able to get us back stage." so i did. let him hit the joint, i mean. i didn’t really care to begin with, and when he took the rest of it to the head, he slid off the hood and ambled up the street.

“what changed your mind,” i said, “you wanna go back stage and suck his dick?”

“naw man. groupies.”

i let it go at that. we’d be lucky if we weren’t the only ones at this place on a Tuesday night, nevermind these guys having groupies to spare. we were going to a bar that didn’t have a back stage. it probably had a meat locker or freezer or something. plus, i ain’t ridin’ on no one’s dick, youknowwhatimsayin? fuck him and his crew unless i’m gettin’ paid too, younamean?

anyway, we get to the place, order some drinks, the place is dead anyway. and then the guy from the hood of the car gets up on stage and starts blowing in this harmonica. only he kept calling it a “harp” and kept saying he had to “tune this puppy,” or something like that. he even took a moment to point us out in the crowd [and i use the term "crowd" in the loosest sense of the word], and proclaim with a chuckle, “i know those dudes.”

fabulous.

about twenty minutes into his “harp tune-up,” the other guy joins him on stage. it was the guy from the gutter – the one i nearly stepped on earlier – and he goes into this long story about how he spent last night in jail and how he just got out in time to make it to the show tonight. at least that’s what i could make out between him sniffling. “it’s probably gonna be our best show ever,” he said.

it started out well enough. he was strumming on an acoustic guitar, singing about some hard luck story that was punctuated with these blasts from the “harp” that sounded like a train that kept a’rollin’. only that’s not all he was doin’, the harmonica player. i remember thinking he was really into the song, but maybe he was just drunk. he picked a few inopportune times to holler out some of the lyrics like he was back-up singing. the guy on the guitar, he was glaring at the harmonica player through these half-slit eyes. i think the song was supposed to be a quiet affair, or at least a little more intimate than all those yelps and screams from the harmonica player allowed.

the Doktor looked over at me and shrugged. “not bad,” he said, “i was thinking that…”

“not now, you fool,” i said, and clapped his ear with my hand. “WATCH!!!”

so the song’s around the bridge or the chorus or whatever you music snobs call it, and the harmonica player has this blissed-out, closed-eyed zen thing going, still yelling back-up lyrics in a voice that drowns out the singer and makes the volume levels spike. a couple of times, he hollered out different lyrics than the singer and nothing happened.

but one time was different. no sooner had he fucked up another line when the singer took the guitar and smashed it right across the harmonica player's face. i mean right in the mouth. it was fantastic. there were splinters of wood everywhere, like someone shot confetti out of a fuckin’ cannon. the harmonica player flew backwards into the drumkit. it was covered with a sheet or something. i guess it was the house kit, or maybe these guys were planning on playing with a full band later on.

whatever.

well, the harmonica player was spun around face down in the kit and was trying to get back up, and the singer whacked him again right across the back with what was left of the guitar. but alls that did was seem to make the harmonica player angry. he rushed the singer and tackled him to the ground, pulling the mic stand down on top of them and wrapping the cord around the singer’s neck.

“these guys are brothers?” i said.

“fuck if i know. i thought there’d be more women here.”

“shhhhh…you should be watching the stage. these guys could teach you a thing or two about rock and roll.”