Gossip [&] the Devil

Briefly, before the story continues:

You now subscribe to my feed! Take a look on the right-hand side of the page and you’ll find a tiny box for your email, which allows you to know when I’ve updated before anyone else! Sort of like the VIP for this page, if you will. It’s that easy! *informercial voice* Just SET it, and FORGET it!

[Brought to you by your friendly authoress. All opinions expressed herein are the sole property of said authoress, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the entire internet.]

January 31st, 2000, 6:00 a.m. [continued]

I’ve taken a handful of change to pay for the tolls down I-35 in Kansas. I’ve also managed to steal a pack of my father’s Marlboro Lights, and a pack of Djarum Black clove cigarettes from the smoke shop his girlfriend owns. My boyfriend has his father’s gas card, a gallon of water, an atlas and eight bucks. We don’t check the oil or tire pressure. We don’t call in sick to school. These small things don’t matter. In my 14-year-old mind, we have all we need: A destination.

My navigational skills are less than stellar as I chain-smoke against the boyfriend’s wishes in his car. We end up lost somewhere along I-35, thereby turning a four hour drive into a six hour joyride through the flat lands of Kansas. I’ve never stepped foot outside my hometown alone, and as the clock progresses I become anxious, worried that the whole entirety of the world is going to be in the very same line to meet these people and I will have the opportunity snatched from my nail-bitten fingers right before my eyes.

January 31st, 2000, 1 p.m.

We arrive around 1 p.m., greeting the 40 or so people in  line with open arms. Everyone around me shares my enthusiasm, discussing various albums and interviews, singles, vinyls, the Mellon Collie demos [and the ever-mysterious "666" tape] vs. the final product, various guitar sounds and vocal melodies.  Did Billy’s voice sound better on acoustic or electric recordings? I am in fan-girl heaven, able to let my tongue loose to those that understand.

The cold begins to settle in, and I stand shivering in the 17 degree weather, freezing rain sporadically pelting down, huddling under a flimsy cloth awning and readily drinking warm apple cider born from powder packets, courtesy of a local radio station. A record store worker goes on a pizza run although it only ends up feeding the first few in line. A group of older boys in front of me, about 16 years old or so, ask me to hold their place while they run to get sandwiches from Yellow Sub. They leave me their giant, silver, puffy “moon” coat in the meantime, while I apologize in advance for making it smell like smoke. They don’t care, they’re as happy as I am. When they return they bring me and my boyfriend a sandwich too. I could have kissed them.

As I eat I talk to a girl behind me who’s flown from England for the meet-and-greet. She’s holding the Adore vinyl and I’ve never seen it before: A beautiful color shot of a gaunt model in a red rose, almost more impressive than the original black and white album cover itself. I touch it like an ancient relic. Everything of theirs is so precious to me , this music that’s changed my life so readily, these people I’m about to meet. Another boy behind her has the Pisces Iscariot vinyl. I don’t have access to these things where I’m from, and my wide-eyed expressions and elicited gasps are palpable. The minutes crawl by, the sun sets and still we wait.

The world fucking stops when that black van pulls in…

April 20th, 1984, 7:15p.m.

I died as soon as I was born. I wasn’t supposed to live, having fallen out of the womb too soon. With the aid of injections, within two weeks the doctors performed three months worth of developing my heart and lungs. My heart is now a large hotel without vacancies. When a room does open up, it takes years to fill. Modern medicine really is a miracle.

January 4th, 2009, 1:53 p.m.

The Story of how I came to be in this place of virtual webspace, and on various pieces of black and white marked paper bound in books you’ve probably never read, is a long one. [Could you have guessed?] But it’s charming, or so I’ve been told. I’ve met muses, heros, lovers, haters, livers, breathers, movers, shakers and lazy makers. I’ve met the hopeful. I’ve been the hopeless.

I’ll tell my Story in parts, little whispered secrets into a very large, empty space. Let’s see if I can hear my echo. The Story begins appropriately with the first, functioning muse of my career: Billy Corgan.

January 31st, 2000, 12:00a.m.

Singer/songwriter/svengali/Smashing Pumpkins mastermind, Billy Corgan [and company] are having an autograph signing in Lawrence, Kansas. My mother won’t take me, and passes the buck to my father, who’s slumped in front of the glowing T.V. “California is a faraway place,” is his  slurred reply. Both answers are entirely unacceptable, and the beginning pangs of razor edge intuition slice right through my stomach. This isn’t a choice.

I pack the essentials in an old army backpack [The Smashing Pumpkins CD's Machina and Adore, a poster, a change of socks and a bottle of water] and set the mess next to my bedroom door, before I dress how I believe to be “elegant” [ a black slip, ripped jeans, black/gold sparkly tights and maryjanes. Fashion is presentation and first impressions are essential when you have a burning arrow in your side screaming "these are the days, these are the people who will shape your life."]. I have no clue how to arrive at Kief’s Records on Iowa Street, but I’m not scared. I am a mother protecting her potential children, the poems I’d only begun  to write. Both of us need nourishment, and I’ll be damned if I’m to be denied.

I sit, plotting and devising a way to make the four hour drive, listening to mix cassette tapes I’d make for myself recording the Pumpkins from the radio. I have no money, only a will. I call my boyfriend to coordinate and ask for advice.

“I’ll take you up there. I know it means a lot to you,” was his reply.

January 31st, 2000, 6:00 a.m.

I’m 14 and going to run away, but only for a moment. Guided by dim street lamps lining 9th Street and breath making ghost-shapes in the chilly air I walk through the wet grass to my boyfriends house.  He’s 15. Neither of us have a proper liscense, but he has a permit and has recently bought his first car from a reposession sale at Eastman National Bank. A beat up, emerald green beretta, is to be my carriage to the ball, so that I could dance with a prince far more intriguing than I at the time…