I looked at the rock I’d just fallen off. It was a rose quartz stone the size of a giant disco ball. Absynth Eve was still standing on it. Her car was parked alongside, tunes cranked top-volume and all 4 doors flung wide. We were in a strange place, twilight was shining & something about it was Right.
‘You’re listening to the Dead Zone,’ a voice boomed through the speakers, ‘On The Rock!!’
I stared at the sky astonished, laughed away some tears. Absynth Eve fell off the quartz stone in amazement. We looked at each other like, ‘Is this really happening?’ It felt like an Omen from a synchronistic ally. A song played on the radio, a few minutes before, that hurled me on my ass literally – but that was only the Warm Up Act.
Then the clock struck Grateful Dead Hour on the local Classic Hits station & the evening turned out like a song.
‘I think,’ I recollected faintly, ‘They do the Dead Zone every Sunday.’
‘Huh.’ Absynth Eve wondered. ‘Is today Sunday?’
‘Got me.’
And the strange music began.
YOU TOLD ME GOODBYE
HOW WAS I TO KNOW
YOU DIDN’T MEAN GOODBYE
YOU MEANT PLEASE DON’T LET ME GO!I WAS HAVING A
HARD TIME
LIVING THE GOOD LIFE…
Strange, beautiful & powerfully sad… I stared at a cloud through kaleidoscoping streams of tears. Curled my arms around my knees and rocked back and forth; somehow this sated my anguish. Then rolled on my side to face the rose quartz stone. Realized the rock, like everyone, has a Dream.
Someday it hopes to be a Dance Floor.
Meanwhile, the rose quartz swings a Day Job. It is our friend’s gravestone. My friend has by far the dopest gravestone around.
I took a long look at that rock and asked a thousand times why.
The next song was good for dancing. Not the greatest song ever, by far, but it’s got a beat that shakes. Do with it what you want to. At that peculiar moment I swore it was the greatest song ever played on FM radio. We had minds to dance on a friend’s grave, and Hell In A Bucket has the one line that goes:
THERE MAY COME A DAY
I WILL DANCE
ON YOUR GRAVE!!
And we danced to it.
Imagine that.
Like Pirate Treasure. Only better.
It was better than Booty.
My jaw dropped. Eyes widened with raw delight. I thumped, pummeled & ground my bare feet into the sun-drenched earth; ecstatic in a way I hadn’t felt since I plumb don’t know when.
I haven’t had so much fun with my dead friend since my dead friend died. I get the feeling my dead friend hadn’t had that much fun since the last time he was alive.
There were minutes in that hour which were less ecstatic and not precisely fun. They played Brokedown Palace, the one that sings ‘Fare You Well, Fare You Well – I love you more than words can tell!’ I didn’t dance on my friend’s grave, then. I crawled across it and cried
Things live in this world. Things die. So it is.
Welcome to Planet Earth. Please enjoy your Doom.
Oh, one more thing: Jump the turnstiles – never pay for the Ride!
I spoke with Absynth Eve on the telephone yesterday. She told me about how she’d just read Worthy Challenge at the library. Said she clicked for musical accompaniment, as suggested, and cranked the song out at top volume from her tinny laptop speakers.
‘Yeah, then a Sober Person accosted me,’ She griped, ‘He looks at me all in this whiney voice and goes MISS!! You Are In A Library! I was like, You Miss Being In A Library? What’re you talking about – We ARE In A Library!!’
‘That’s the problem.’ He fretfully stammered, ‘I know we’re in a library!’
‘Lemme get this straight.’ She eyed him warily, ‘You miss being in a Library, but your Problem is you know we’re in a Library. Um, yeah. Dude…are you OK?’
‘NO!!’ The Sober Person shot back a little too loudly, ‘I mean the problem is you’re in a library! But you don’t seem to REALIZE it!’
‘Excuse me,’ Absynth Eve replied, ‘Mike E wants me to play this song but I can’t hear with you yelling. Do you mind keeping it down? Or should I send you to find someone who works here, so they can ask you to leave?’
‘I work here!!’
‘No shit?’ Absynth Eve shook her head, ‘So that’s what your problem is!’
The Sober Person could contain himself no longer. He laughed. And regained his composure. ‘Look,’ the guy said polite-but-firmly, ‘I need to ask you to turn off the music.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we’re quiet in the libraries. Don’t give me a Hard Time, please? I’m just doing my Job.’
‘Ah.’ Absynth Eve said, ‘I get it. You’re taking your problem Out On Me!’
‘Well,’ the librarian fumbled words, ‘Not precisely as such, but…will you turn it down at least?’
My friend started the song over, stood up and gazed at him with curious eyes.
‘Hey, are you a Writer?’ She asked.
‘Why, yes! Well. Not a quite published writer specifically. But I hope one day…’
‘Make you a Deal, pal – keep your trap shut long enough so I can play one song…and by the time the song is over you’ll have a story to sell.’
The Sober Person said nothing, just stared. He didn’t know the game but felt certain he’d been Beat.
Absynth Eve laughed, swayed to the music & winked. Then she bounced nimbly onto the table, feeling positively jazzed, reached her hand out to the stunned librarian, flashed her gold tooth and – in her surly yet child-like british accent – asked:
‘Care for a little Dance, shall we?’
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