While my 11-year-old daughter was tying the scarf that was knotted around her neck to a branch overhead in Peoria, Illinois, I was partying my ass off in Atlanta, Georgia.   That Saturday night, the 7^th of June, 2008, I ate the best goddamned mushroom-and-swiss burger in the world at the Hard Rock Café while my baby waved to a passing neighbor, wrote a note in her sketch-filled notebook to say good-bye, clasped her hands behind her back, and leaned forward to her death in her front yard. 

That was the best day of my life.

Just one minute,

Before I let you go

Let me talk to you,

There’s something you should know…

Erin’s job as a training manager for water and wastewater treatment operators occasionally dictates that she attend conferences around the country so that various associations, vendors who manufacture technologies and products related to water treatment and whoever else may be vaguely close to the whole boring but necessary industry could lecture, sell/buy, network and party for a few days.  With her company mostly picking up the tab, all she had to do was get to Atlanta; the hotel, transportation costs, and most of the meals were paid for.

Erin wanted the companionship and help with making the long drive, and I needed to get away from the claustrophobic intrusion of apartment life for a few days.  She had just moved in the night before we were to leave, and immediately my already-small world seemed maddenlingly smaller.  On the other hand, a free trip with a woman who walked on water and the promise of all the alcohol I could possibly drink felt like pretty good reasons to go. She was a paradox to me; her spontaneously detailed-planning was as attractive to me as the confident strut which turned her hips into a seductive pendulum, swinging below the Kleininger-gleam of her honey blonde hair kept in time by her impish blue eyes.  She was adamant that this voyage to Atlanta wasn’t going to be a drag—it was going to be an experience.  She couldn’t have known how right she was.

Driving, stopping, having drinks, having dinner, driving some more, numbing our hearing with road-worthy and boisterous rock music, and discovering that posted speed limits mean absolutely nothing in Georgia (I was ecstatic that I had to drive at 90mph or above just to stay with the flow of traffic), we arrived at the $300-a-night Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta and set to planning our invasion of the Hard Rock Café on Peachtree Avenue.  As we approached the storied establishment on foot, I cheered the neon globe that spun atop.

Once inside, I absorbed, catalogued, and photographed damn near everything in that place; from Eddie Van Halen’s first Peavey Music Man guitar, to the waitress who carried a tray of tall beer-filled mugs on her head, and the stage where the Black Crowes had recently given a homecoming show, I shutter-bugged like the tourist I was.

On Sunday, we went to the Georgia Aquarium, the world’s largest.  I videoed a lazy but graceful whale shark swimming mere feet from my face while young hammerheads lurked along the concrete floor of the massive Ocean Tank. I’d only seen most of these creatures on the Discovery Channel. I ate $7 French fries.

Give me just a minute

To change your mind

Baby, I don’t really wanna be left behind

I’m left behind

Streaking north from Atlanta to Peoria, Illinois, on Monday with our hastily packed-and-loaded luggage and no regard for interstate traffic laws, my jaw clenched and my fist gripped the phone so hard I caught myself admiring its construction.

“You fucking bitch! What did you do to my daughter?!” I screamed at Bethany’s mother, Christina.  I knew in my soul she was the cause of this.  Her cold arrogance hinted none of the desperate devastation that was engulfing me, drowning me.  I’ve always known her better than she could ever know herself, and what was pouring into my ear was the same acidic soullessness I’d come to know and hate.

“She’s not your daughter—she’s my daughter.”

With the ferocious intensity that furrows her brows when she’s focused, Erin handled the driving while trying to keep me from climbing through my cell phone to rend Christina to bits; the conversation was on speakerphone and Erin was hearing every word.  “Try—try to stay calm, baby,” she was saying.  I’d already scratched staying calm off my list of Things to Do Today.

An effort, though, hissed into the phone through clenched teeth, “She is my daughter, goddammit.  Now would you pretty fucking please tell me what happened to my daughter?”

Christina’s tone sweetened with her victory.  It was a game played countless times with only one rule—her way or the highway. The sing-song, disaffected cacophony that passes for her voice matter-of-factly parroted a string of tales with not even the slightest waver. The whole thing was everyone else’s fault, she said.  Bethany was being teased at school for not being rich.  Bethany disobeyed her mother and couldn’t handle being grounded.  Bethany was a pain-in-the-ass, and by the end of the conversation, the sickening feeling that Christina was relieved that Bethany’s characteristic stubborness was no longer going to be a hassle wrenched my gut. 

The newspaper was sending out a reporter to interview Christina. I heard the anticipation.  I heard the…excitement.  Christina’s sense of entitlement and the opportunities she saw for herself overshadowed her ability to understand the truth; my last conversation with Bethany ended with her whispering, “Dad, Mom’s a failure as a parent.”  I’d chided her for speaking disrespectfully of her mother. 

And only you could list

All the reasons why

Christina was only supposed to be a sexual and spiritual conquest when we met over 15 years before in a fast-food restaurant. She was days from turning 18 and I was days from turning 21.  Her wide-eyed innocence of worldly pleasures such as having a beer or smoking some pot was rooted in a life-long immersion into Pentecostal warpings—none of their flock was allowed to even own televisions, and attending social gatherings such as baseball games was the most evil of taboos.  Her wardrobe was restricted to long dresses and loose-fitting long-sleeved blouses—clothes meant to hide from temptation the huge boobs and perfectly round ass I knew was hiding under that get-up. 

On the other hand, I had long hair, tattoos, heavy metal music, a constant thirst for all things carnal, and an unabashed love of self-medication; I was intentionally and purposefully everything her religion stood against. I took great relish in corrupting Christina—smoking pot in front of her and eventually coaxing her into trying it, goading her into incorporating as much foul language as I could, and taking her virginity on the bed that squeaked the announcement of innocence lost. 

To the chagrin of her family—who’d instantly disowned her for hooking up with a “devil-worshippin’ nigger”—and the curious amusement of my family and friends who couldn’t understand what I was doing with “such a nice girl,” we professed a love for one another that was borne of corruption and could never be pure. 

When she got pregnant with Erik in 1995, almost two years after we met, she’d also been boinking the next-door neighbor at the apartment complex in which we were living. For nine long months, I stocked up on baby-related supplies while planning to return them and get my money back if the baby wasn’t mine.  He was, but I never trusted her again.  

We broke up on a weekly basis, it seemed, with her moving out for trivial reasons and moving back in days later.  The days in between became weeks, until she got pregnant with Bethany.  Bethany’s entire pre-natal life was constantly threatened with abortion and eventually, adoption; she never stood a chance—she was doomed to a premature death before she was even born.

It was easy

For you to say goodbye

Earlier that Monday morning, when Erin had left the hotel room to attend a meeting, out of sheer boredom, I decided to check my email from my phone.  A message from my sister sent me spiraling down a hole I may never climb out of.  My mind will only allow me to recall, “…happened to Bethany. She’s at St. Francis. They’re saying it was self-inflicted.”  Frantic calls to 411 provided me with the first steps I would take off a plank leading to nowhere.

The charge nurse at St. Francis hospital in Peoria was out of breath after being paged, “Mr. Lutes!  We’ve been wondering how to get ahold of you!  Bethany’s mom said she didn’t know how, and would tell your family to try to find you.”

That’s a bold-faced lie, I thought, she’s always at least had my email address—and she’s one to talk about not staying in contact. This woman has devoted her life to keeping me from those kids ever since Erik was first born.  She likes to punish me for being a bad boyfriend. 

The nurse spoke with professionally measured compassion and told me what she knew: Bethany was admitted Saturday night after a neighbor saw her hanging from the low branch of a tree in her maternal grandmother’s yard. I found out later the same passing neighbor she’d sweetly waved to only moments before was the same man who’d screamed and yelled for help while he desperately worked to free Bethany’s neck from her silken resolve.

She spent the rest of the weekend on life-support, her brain robbed of oxygen too long for it to function.  There was no hope, but the hospital had allowed the family to try and talk her back, and “since Bethany’s registered as an organ donor,” she sighed, “we’re going to let her go once the paperwork comes back.”

BAM!  It felt like being hit in the chest with a 20-pound sledgehammer.

“Waitwaitwaitwait…wait!!  What do you mean ‘let her go’?! What do you mean?” The walls of my hotel room swirled in and out of focus.  She’s still alive, right? I can go see her, I can talk her back.  She’s daddy’s girl.  She’s daddy’s angel.  She’s still alive! 

The nurse guessed that everything would be in place that evening, probably in the nine o’clock hour.  That gave me about ten hours.  Peoria was 11 hours away.  I needed the winds at my back. “Don’t you touch my daughter!  I’m in Atlanta, and I’m coming NOW!” 

Bethany was still alive, but she wasn’t coming back. My powers of persuasion couldn’t override the decisions and signatures that would finalize Bethany’s will to cup her hand behind her life and snuff it out. 

And all I’ll ever want

Until the end of time

Is just one minute, babe,

To change your mind

The nurse told me a police detective was assigned to investigate the case, and gave me his contact information.  Christina had conveniently omitted that fact, and was too quick to point out that when she’d attempted CPR on her dying daughter, that Bethany had had the nerve to vomit on her.  Being puked on traumatized her more than the smoldering wick of her only daughter’s body in her arms.

Wait just a minute

Can’t seem to let you go

Look inside me, baby

You’ll see you took my soul

I’d made it to town only minutes too late and now wouldn’t get to see Bethany until after the autopsy and subsequent craft of the undertaker.  Autopsy, undertaker—neither of these words had any business being used in conjunction with my child. 

After booking another room, the endless string of phone calls, fact-finding, questions, no answers, and the coming days of verbal warfare between Christina and me weighted around my neck like a black albatross and threatened to drown me.  I allowed myself to function because none of this was really happening. I was ashamed of the surreality—I needed to see her to believe it for myself. Until then, this was all hypothetical, this was all conjecture.

The funeral was scheduled for the following Monday in order to give the detective, the coroner, the undertaker, and the press time to do their jobs.  I developed a rapport with the detective and he was not bashful in expressing a sincere desire to find something on Christina in connection with Bethany’s death.  “You know she’s a piece of shit, and I know she’s a piece of shit—but I can’t charge her with being a shitty mom, Erik.” He had to have proof that Christina directly caused Bethany’s decision. 

Not even Bethany’s note, which began with “Mom, I’m not mad at you, but a lot of this is because of you,” was enough.  Bethany’s hand had committed this brutal act, but she still had been murdered slowly, and no one was going to stand trial. 

I finally got to see her on Saturday.  Victor, the funeral director, was young but the grief of his profession had etched itself into his fair Aryan features, eroding his youth.  He was sickeningly accomodating and comforting as he led me to “her” chapel, then he and Erin excused themselves. 

She was lying in a cruel grey casket, her face pancaked with an attempt to mask almost a week’s worth of death.  At first, I refused to get any closer than a few yards—this allowed me one last attempt at denial while I paced back and forth shaking my head and repeating “No, no, no, no,” as though this mantra would somehow negate the stark reality that my daughter was in that box.  Then an involuntary wail escaped me and I threw myself on her.

She was so cold and quiet—not at all the affectionate and vivacious clown I’d last seen.  Her eyelids, which had once blinked over sparkling brown eyes, were now glued closed to hide whatever it is undertakers use for cavity stuffing—cotton, I’d guessed.  The lips that had couched the most beaming, disarming smiles were closed forever—sealed by an adhesive and coated with a grotesquely applied lipstick in a macabre attempt to lend them the appearance of life.

My hand rested on her upper chest as I bent to kiss her cold forehead, and in wretched horror, I felt the cause of many, many nightmares to come—tape covering the stitches from the autopsy.  I could feel the brutality of the coroner’s saw hidden under the tape ringing her head. I knew that the tape on her chest, which had become visible in my grief-stricken grip on her body, barely concealed the Y-shaped calling card left by the Peoria County coroner—whom I’d never met, and now hated for pillaging my daughter.  Her torso was unnaturally quadratic—man-made.  Her hands were clasped across her voided abdomen.  With her organs donated and her brain removed, what was before me was only a shell—an extinguished flicker.

Can I have a minute

To look into your eyes

I didn’t even know Bethany had been born for the first two weeks of her life.  Christina and I had split for good toward the end of the pregnancy, and went a couple of weeks without speaking.  I knew Bethany’s delivery was going to be an induced C-section, just like Erik’s, and it had been scheduled for the end of October.  On the 21^st of October, she called me at work—I remember thinking when I heard her voice that the date had been moved up, and we were ready to go. 

No, she’d only wanted my Social Security number, or something.  When I asked her to confirm the projected delivery date, she told me that she’d had the baby two weeks prior. 

“WHAT?!” I demanded.  “What the hell, Christina?  Why didn’t you call me and tell me? This is bullshit!” Appalled and furious, it took near-biblical strength to keep from slamming the phone against the wall.

“Well, first off, I didn’t want you there.” Breathe, Erik—just breathe. “Also, I didn’t think it was my responsibility to tell you—you should have been calling me.”

Seething, I growled: “And this would be a classic reason why I don’t call you—you’re fucking evil!”

I met my daughter for the first time on her 2-week birthday.

Bethany grew into a statuesque beauty.  Her golden-brown skin boasted a complexion that most fairer-skinned people squandered small fortunes on in tanning salons.  She could adorn the most exquisite of dress or the rattiest of playclothes with equal pulchritude.  Her mind was as sharp out of the classroom as in, and I would delight in trading witty retorts and barbs with her.  She could be frustratingly stubborn, but mostly heart-warmingly sweet; I think most of all, I miss those too-few times she would run into my arms and throw hers around my neck. 

I guess I’ve never been all that good at long goodbyes

No last goodbyes

The morning of the funeral, I searched for something to accompany my daughter into the next life.  After a frustrating search, I’d found a music box topped by an adult angel holding aloft a baby angel.  Daddy’s Angel—Rest in Peace, Bethany was inscribed on the base of the music box.  I couldn’t wait to give it to her. 

Victor asked me to stand at the foot of Bethany’s casket and greet the mourners.  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” I spat and stormed out for a cigarette.  I was not about to play a host—this was a funeral, not some goddamned dinner party.  This was my baby’s funeral.

Three hours of sitting in that chapel (kept chilly for preservation purposes, but not cold enough to stave the rivulets of sweat that soaked my deep scarlet dress shirt), the stench of embalming fluid, the beautifully haunting strains of the music box that was played over and over, the endless promenade of translucent mourners, and watching Christina put on an Oscar-worthy performance as The Grieving Mother could not have prepared me for watching my son, as tall as me and sharply handsome, load his sister’s casket into the hearse.  Erin’s hands, assisted by my brother’s and Jeff’s, kept me from collapsing as I rocked unsteadily.

Jeff Farran was a hulking Irish hellraiser, and one of my dearest long-time friends.  We’d hit it off famously when we met at a party and never lost touch, even after I’d moved to Ohio.  Impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit and evoking rumors that I’d brought a bodyguard, he risked his job to pay his respects to Bethany and to offer his titanium support.  He was never so far away he couldn’t protect me—from myself, mostly. 

And only you could ease

The agony I feel

And how I pinch myself

Because this can’t be real

The 10-hour beeline from Atlanta had felt like the longest drive of my life.  It was a jaunt across a street and back compared to the agonizing crawl to, then through, the cemetary.  Winding and twisting through the historic Springdale Cemetary, I was convinced they were intentionally taking the scenic route, “Come the fuck on!” I growled, pounding the steering wheel. 

The hatred boiling in me for Christina was not abated upon learning she’d been caught by Victor spitefully trying to remove the music box from Bethany’s casket after the chapel emptied, and was admonished to have a little respect for the dead.  This fresh knowledge was one more straw on my back as I sat behind her at the graveside service.  Only Erik, sitting next to her and displaying the maturity and poise I’d tried so hard to instill in him, kept me from fulfulling my fantasy of garroting her with my tie and exacting a small measure of justice.

The freshly dug hole and the mountain of dirt that was to serve as my daughter’s eternal blanket had less impact on me than did the two gouges in the ground next to the grave.  Left by the backhoe commissioned to digging Bethany’s grave, those marks are unmercifully still visible a year and a half after the funeral. 

The graveside service concluded in a blur and I needed to talk to Erik.  I’d bought for him a cell phone so that he could contact me anytime he wished, unencumbered by his mother’s interference.  He followed me to my car.  I looked back to say something to him.  Christina was in tow.  “Back off,” I warned. “I want to talk to my son alone.”

“Nope, you’ll do it right in front of me.” Her smirk was the final straw.

I’ve tried so hard to remember what happened next, but the screen in my mind is blank…and red. I can only remember screaming, “You fucking killed my daughter!”  Bedlam.  Chaos.  She later claimed in court I lunged at her.  Others say I couldn’t have—my brothers, Erin, and Jeff all had seen this coming, and were already herding me into the car.  Christina may never know how badly I wanted to see her strung up, wrapped in concertina wire, and showered in brine in that instant.

I would like to say that I remember tearing out of the cemetary, careening and speeding—not caring if I wrecked and killed us all.  I would like to recount the décor of Gorman’s Pub, where I inhaled many shots of whiskey in rapid succession.  I would like to say I remember asking Erin to take me back to Bethany after we’d dropped Jeff off at his car.  I would like to say, in honor of Bethany, that I remembered being back at her grave, now desolate and seemingly forgotten.  I can’t say any of that, though.  But Erin can:

“It took us a few minutes to find it again, she was so far back.  We got out of the car and I think we were surprised that it was all over—nothing but tractor marks on the ground and the dirt was already over her grave.

Sobbing quietly, you just started talking to her, saying how sorry you were and how much you loved her—telling her everything you would have said if she was there.  ‘I would have protected you.’ You damned the ants for walking on her grave, demanding them to get away from her. 

Your demeanor started to change—to desperation, maybe? ‘OK, this is enough, Bethany—stop. Just come back.  You’re not in trouble but you need to stop now. This isn’t funny.  Come on baby. I will protect you. Daddy is here now’.  You begged her to talk to you, ‘Just give me a minute. Why did you do this, baby?? You can’t take it back, Bethany!!  You didn’t have to go this far; I would have listened, I would have protected you – I’m sorry!!  Please come back.’

  You took off your shirt and decided that you were going to dig her up but she had to help you. She had to give you another minute—just one.  You could change her mind.  You would be “better” but she had to help you. ‘Reach out your hand Bethany! I can get you out of there but you have to help me.  Okay baby, I understand – you’re tired…okay you rest.   I’m coming.  Daddy will be right there, baby – wait for Daddy’.  You said to nobody, ‘Find me something to dig with!’ and looked around for a tractor or shovel or anything to help you dig. On your knees, you started to dig into the dirt with your hands, begging her to help you.  I would try to hold you but I don’t know if you even knew I was there.  It was just you and her. 

You laid down on her grave. You decided you weren’t leaving. You stayed like this for awhile, defeated.  Eventually, you asked me to go to the car and get a glass and you placed dirt from her grave in it.  I picked up your clothes and baby-step by baby-step we walked back to the car. ‘I don’t want to leave her here alone.’ It almost killed both of us to do that.”

I’d never ask a thing,

Except for just this one last time

One more minute, love,

To change your mind?

In the weeks that followed, whether or not I’d allow myself to live through each day was a question not even I could answer.  Erin, watching me deteriorate, was sure she’d find my smoldering wick every morning.  I wanted to reassure her, but I couldn’t.  I was seized with fits of sudden rage, usually culminating in me hurling something across the room.  We’d been so excited about her moving in with me, about waking up next to each other.  Now, it seemed we woke only to my screams and sobs from the nightmares. My mind, though, had mercifully hidden the anguished episode at Bethany’s grave from me. 

Emails and phone calls came pouring in—all offering condolences, and some recounting stories of Christina’s treatment of the kids.  Ironically, most of the people who’d been reporting to me were her family.  She and I engaged in a legal war of attrition with Erik being my estranged objective. She cleaned house by setting up a fund obstensibly to pay for the funeral. She raked in about $10k just that I know of.  She spent not one dime on funeral expenses, Bethany’s plot, or even a headstone for her daughter despite a columnist in the local paper imploring the public’s help in defraying those costs.  While my baby lay in an unmarked, unpaid-for grave, Christina treated herself to (among other things) a brand-new laptop computer and gambling trips.  Exhaustive efforts by the police determined the misnamed “memorial fund” was a private account, inscrutable under a fraud investigation. She was spitting on our daughter’s grave. 

I paid for the plot with borrowed money so Bethany would finally have a place to call her own.

The clothes I’d worn for the funeral were bagged, never to be worn again.  The dirt from Bethany’s grave was enshrined in a glass vase vigorously hunted for that purpose.  I began lighting blue candles inside the vase, always blue; it was her favorite color.

I’m always a minute late

Because the clock won’t wait

I was wrong to hesitate

And it’s cost me everything

            Erin got pregnant a couple of months later.  I was happy.  She was not.  We moved from that matchbox-sized apartment in Newark to a house in “historic” Uptown Westerville.  We soldiered on, fighting each other—and ourselves.  She struggled to see the pros of a child being born to parents with deep emotional wounds, and I struggled just to get out of bed and face another day.  I needed an outlet besides the copious amounts of alcohol and cocaine that I was using to numb myself.

Music has never let me down, has always been there for me, and has always spoken the words I couldn’t.  When Erin bought a portable recording studio for my birthday in September, I found that I could have my own voice.  “You need this,” she said.  “You need to write.” I threw up some flimsy walls made of scrap wood in our basement, laid some salvaged carpet, bought a couple of cheap microphones, and christened the basement “My Studio.”  I experimented with the equipment to become familiar with it, recording songs I’d had sitting around, hoping eventually the music would come—and I would be ready to speak. 

It finally did in late April of ’09.  I was watching TV, mildly stoned, and a melody began playing in my head.  I knew this was my chance to speak.  I sprang from my vegetative state and apologized to Erin for ruining our relaxing evening, “I’ve gotta go to the studio—now.”

She understood immediately what was happening, “It’s coming, isn’t it?”  It was. “Go,” she urged. I wrote the music and lyrics, recorded the drums, bass, and three guitar parts in less than two hours.  I was damned proud of the song; it was well-structured, aurally conveyed my grief, and the lyrics were as good as any I’d written—they were too good. When I wrote them, I thought I was merely stringing together words that were honest and heartfelt, but rhythmically cohesive.   I couldn’t wait to show Erin.

When she read them, she went white as the blood drained from her face, and tears welled in her eyes.  “What?!” I asked, confused.

“Erik, this is almost word-for-word what you were saying to her that day.  Holy fuckin’ shit, you do remember.”  She’d known all this time that I couldn’t remember, but we’d chalked it up to the Jack Daniel’s I’d pounded at the pub. 

“No, I don’t.” I was scared now.  I was scared that I’d opened a Pandora’s Box. 

I had. The next night in the studio, I prepped to record the vocals.  The vase of Bethany’s dirt and a lit blue candle as my muse created an atmosphere much like a séance. As the music blared through my headphones, I opened myself and allowed it to fill me. I started to sing. I sang the words that months ago, I’d screamed in denial and desperation. 

I started to remember.

I went to bed that night very drunk, my eyes burning from crying my way through the vocal session, and revisited by the desire to follow Bethany’s lead.  I admired her.  Emboldened to take the most final of steps in order to alleviate pain and torment that never seemed to end; she was a hero to me.     

Singing that song ripped open the scars of my grief that had just started to heal as I looked forward to the baby.  I’d become consumed with writing and releasing an album dedicated to Bethany.  I’d earned my GED, enrolled in college and every minute spent in class was dedicated to Bethany.  I’d sent myself on a mission to be successful—for Bethany.  Now, I just wanted to join her. I fell asleep that night planning my death.

I know I can’t forgive

You’ve left and still I live

One more minute’s all I ask

Shayne Bethany Lutes, her middle name an obvious tribute to her dead sister, arrived the next day—a month early, while I was contemplating the method by which I would die. A divine intervention? Who’s to say? But she saved my life; I wanted to live again. 

Just one minute

Just one—and I swear I’ll never let you go

This past October, I went back to Illinois.  I saw friends and family. I visited Bethany’s grave as I always do when I’m back home. She is no longer alone, but watched over by a 30-something year-old woman who loved to help neighborhood kids and one day just dropped dead of a heart attack not long after Bethany died.  I don’t know her name, but I thank her every time I’m there for keeping my baby company in that awful place.

I talked to Bethany under a chilly, overcast Central Illinois sky.  I updated her on goings-on, stories of her baby sister, and I repeated my litany of apologies.  I took my laptop and played “Just One Minute” for her. My head hung in deferential plea.

I so badly needed her approval. 

As the last notes played, the sun forced its way through the barricade of clouds to shine a few moments’ light upon us.  She was smiling.  My tears were forcing me to taste the pain before dripping onto the laptop’s keyboard. I was smiling, too.

I watch. 

I swell with immeasurable pride.

I question.  I question whether or not I can pull this off without fucking it up.

No, I insist, fucking it up is not even an option. 

†††††

Being a father again at 37 wasn’t exactly something I had etched into my day-planner.  I’d already had two children.   My son was 13, and I had just lost my 11-year-old daughter to suicide.  For immensely complicated reasons, I missed out on a lot of their lives –not my choice, mind you.  I didn’t get to witness either of them taking their first steps.  I was excluded for more birthdays than for those I attended.  I grew to hate Christmas, I was bitter on Thanksgiving Day, and Easter held none of the symbolic renewal for me. 

I would withdraw from the damnably merry families and their complete little lives with their disgusting Christmas trees and how-cute-the-kids-are anecdotes; I’d simultaneously stifle that crippling pain of emptiness without my kids while silently praying that someone would recognize that I didn’t really want to be left alone to brood and include me in their festivities.  I would seclude myself anyway, afraid to infect anyone with my curdled attitude.  Not being a terribly great actor, I always knew that my heartbreak would materialize on my sleeve and people would give me a wide berth in order to maintain their unblemished, joyful moods.  I couldn’t blame them –I wanted to stay away from me, too.  Sometimes I wanted to stick a gun in my mouth, the despair was so intense.  That would ruin a family function, wouldn’t it?

ΩΩΩΩΩΩ

The number that showed up on my caller ID was Erin’s, but the voice that I heard from the other end was not, “Erik, it’s Rashawn! Erin’s water just broke!” 

Microseconds after the words had gushed into my ear, I barked simply, “I’m on my way!” Have you ever watched those cartoons where the character moves so fast from a stationary position that whatever object he’s holding (phone, gun, pencil, etc) is suspended in mid-air –spinning or hanging –as the suggested inertial effect? That’s how fast I’d kicked into overdrive and was on the move.  While my instinct and newly-acquired parental knowledge automated my movements, I couldn’t keep up with the sudden cacophony that now flooded my head. 

What the hell? The baby’s not due for another month! Where are my shoes? I’m too old for this shit! We were supposed to have a ready-bag for this!  We’re not ready!  The baby’s not due for another month! Where are my keys? Do I pack a bag? No –just get to the office, pick Erin up, and get her to the hospital. Oh my God!  It’s happening!  The baby’s really coming!  WHERE ARE MY KEYS?!

My Ford Explorer has seen much better days, and I’m still convinced that it hasn’t forgiven me for the whipping it took that chilly April day as I mounted it like a sick steed, and forced it to gallop to Clintonville.  Slamming through gears and jamming the accelerator to the floor like I was competing for position in a neck-and-neck horse race, I could almost hear the truck whinnying and snorting –trying to accommodate my impossible demands.  Breaking all the laws of God and man to reach Erin’s office in due time, I challenged the police to stop me for speeding. 

I stormed into her office and snatched her up like a trauma patient.  I paused only to visually confirm her water had broken –the evidence forming a wet stain on Erin’s maternity-jeans.   I hauled her out the door and into the passenger seat of her Corolla (which is newer, faster and more reliable).  The entire operation was the practical equivalent of tossing her over my shoulders like a sack of potatoes and sprinting.  Since I’d gotten the phone call from her co-worker, I’d forgotten how to walk.  Every footstep was a run.  The irony?  Erin was cool and calm.  She chuckled at my anxiety, and I silently cursed her for being so nonchalant.

“Goddammit!  We need gas; we won’t make it to the hospital on fumes!” How many times had I told her to keep at least a quarter-tank of gas in her car? Once? A hundred times?

“Honey, calm down.  I’m ok, it’s ok.”  She shifted in the seat, the amniotic fluids likely making her uncomfortable and grossing her out. “We should go to the house and pack up some things before we go to the hospital,” She leaned back, and I was hunched forward, nearly touching the windshield with my nose while I weaved in and out of traffic, flashing my lights and willing drivers out of my way. 

From the gas station to the house to the hospital, I challenged the police to stop me, and I spoke aloud my wish for a police escort, “And think of it, I’d get to speed legally!”  A demonic grin flashed from the driver’s seat.

A wan smile hung from the other, “You’re crazy.” 

Over the curb and around the car at the light.  Flash lights.  Try to cut through Roush Hardware at Westerville Center. Growl in frustration at red light and even lazier traffic that just doesn’t understand my need for it to move the hell out of my way.  Flash lights. Will light to turn green. Make hard right turn at 75mph, probably on only two wheels.  Haul ass, weaving in and out of traffic.  Flash lights.  Almost there.

☺☻☺☻

      I’m sure I hurt her when I wrap her tiny body in my arms and squeeze her like I do.  I don’t mean to.  I can’t help it.  I try to channel the adoration and love I have for her into her, so she feels it.  I hold her tight enough that it might appear as though I’m trying to fuse us together.  Maybe I am.  If we’re fused together, then I’ll always be there to protect her.  I need to protect her. 

The morbid possibilities I entertain are infinite.  I worry she may stop breathing in the middle of the night.  I worry she might contract some heinous virus and die.  I worry she will fall and bump her head, and be dragged into some miserable coma.  I worry some sick sonofabitch will nab her. I worry I’m going to falter; I’m going to fail her in some way. I worry she will need me, and I won’t be there –just like before…

†††††

            When Erik and Bethany were born in 1995 and 1996, respectively, the average American household didn’t have the Internet.  If you wanted to know what to expect as an expectant father, you had to sit down and read a book, like What to Expect When You’re Expecting.  I ask you – who in the world has the time for that? Go, go, go!  Everything I knew about fatherhood at the age of 23 was what I’d grown up with and, frankly, it didn’t amount to much.

Changing diapers and feeding babies was something that I had to do. Being a father wasn’t transformative, it was an inconvenience.  It was a hiccup.  I didn’t know any better. And don’t you know –when you don’t appreciate things or people in your life the way you should, Fate will come thundering along in his cold black chariot swinging a rusty guilt-infected scythe to lay your soul wide open, and wake you right the fuck up by taking away that which you had taken for granted?

            All you can do is learn from your mistakes.  When confronted with a situation you’ve faced before, one in which you have faltered or completely screwed up, you unlock that mental safe –the one that stores your Contingency Plans for [insert life-changing circumstance here].  You begin the process that first recalls All The Stuff You Didn’t Do Right The First Damned Time, and hopefully you adjust accordingly; you step up to the plate, remember your lessons, and Do Better This Time Around.  I guess that would be true of anything, from putting your hand on a hot stove burner to just not knowing enough. 

            This time around, I was armed with the Internet.  The ‘Net affords the immediate answers to life-and-death answers (like, “how to save a laptop that’s had coffee spilled on it”) that I didn’t have at my fingertips in 1996. 

After Erin and I had her pregnancy confirmed in September of ‘08, I subscribed to a weekly email newsletter sent by a website known as babycenter.com.  Synchronized with the projected due date in May, the newsletter gave me a week-by-week synopsis on how the baby should be developing in utero, as well as articles and features written in order to better educate the expectant parents by obstetricians, nutritionists, pediatricians, and other baby-related professional-types.  I eagerly gobbled up most of what I read, and as the pregnancy wore on, I felt more and more confident in the role I was about to play.  Even though this was to be my third child, it felt like it was my first.  In a way, it was.

I was older, wiser…wasn’t I?

            Leave it to a psychologist to shake your foundation and bring you back to reality.  Dr. Jerrold Lee Shapiro wrote an article for the newsletter called “Seven Fears Expectant Fathers Face.” According to him, they were:

• Security fears (Am I going to be able to provide for my baby?)
• Performance fears (Am I gonna pass out at the sight of blood during delivery?)
• Paternity fears (Is the baby even mine?)
• Mortality fears (I’m thinking about the end of life now that I’m about to face the beginning of one)
• Fear for your spouse’s or child’s health (Bad things can happen during childbirth)
• Relationship fears (Is Baby Mama still going to like me after the baby comes, or am I to be relegated to mere errand boy and post-partum whipping post?)
• Fears of “women’s medicine” (Does watching a doctor prod and poke in places a man would rather not think of as “anatomy” shiver my timbers?)

            I wasn’t worried about the baby’s security –I knew that if I had to sell every ounce of blood and semen in my body, she would never need for anything.  I wasn’t worried whether or not she was mine, or whether I’d be able to hold up in the delivery room (I’d watched Erik’s Caesarean delivery with great interest).  To the best of my recollection, I never missed a regular visit to our OB/GYN, so I wasn’t afraid of women’s medicine.  The prospect of Erin neglecting me in favor of the baby wasn’t even a vague concern –we already knew the baby was going to be a daddy’s girl.  More accurate was the specter of Erin being neglected by me.

            And as heartless as it may seem, I didn’t really worry about Erin’s health at risk during the course of delivery –she’s a bad-ass. 

What I did fear, though, was something bad happening to the baby.  I feared her being stillborn, even though we kept tabs on the heartbeat, and even though I had bought Erin a baby heartbeat monitor.  I feared her having the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, being oxygen-starved, and having to live as a vegetable.  I feared having that unconditional parental love constantly tested by having to forever care for a vegetable. 

ΩΩΩΩΩΩ

            I am sure I looked like a complete jackass bursting into the maternity ward at St. Ann’s, wresting the wheelchair out the door, and beating the hell out of it because it had the audacity to not open for me in my moment of need. I had forgotten how to breathe and think, let alone perform the simple task of opening a wheelchair.  “You looked so cute trying to do everything right,” Erin said later.  Usually, when a woman tells a guy he looked cute doing something important, it means he looked like a complete jackass. 

            Strap her in.   Race to the registration desk.  Be prepared to take the head off any staff who doesn’t immediately respond to Baby’s impending birth.  Meet charge nurse who wields the demeanor of a drill instructor. Orders are barked, she is running this show. Dad is put in his place.  Reconsider head-removal.  Drum fingers.  Announce imminent birth on Facebook.  Hurry up and wait.  Make phone calls.  Drum fingers.  Almost there.

            She arrived less than seven hours later.  Shapiro’s article said that dads who took part in his survey “secretly” counted toes and fingers.  There was nothing covert about my instantaneous inspection and assessment.  Shayne Bethany (Last name omitted) had ten fingers, ten toes, a full head of hair, a healthy cry…and my heart.

☺☻☺☻

            I don’t have to feed her, I want to.  I know she’s getting nourishment.  I don’t balk at changing diapers; I’m vigilant about her hygiene and health.  The first time she ever pooped (a milestone in any new baby’s life), she let go right in the palm of my hand, leaving a black sticky puddle.  There was no disgust, no frustration.  I cried.

I love making her laugh.  Her wide, bright, toothless smile rights even the greyest of days.  She lights up when I enter the room, and it melts my heart without fail. I’ve learned where she’s ticklish, and just to hear her laugh, I’ll go for her “giggle spots.” 

When she cries, though, it slices into me like a samurai’s calculated attack.  Hearing her wail in pain when she got her first shots reduced me to a dithering, apologetic blob.  I could swear I saw betrayal in her eyes, too.  How could you let them hurt me like this, Daddy?

      It’s for your own good, honey.  I promise.  But know this is the only time I’ll ever allow anyone to hurt you.  You are my redemption.  I must protect you from the entire world.  Not everyone gets a second chance.

            The other day, I was chatting with a friend on Facebook.  He just so happens to be the police chief of a certain city in which I reside.  We chatted about the economy and its effect on rising crime statistics.  We chatted about the decay in morals and standards.  We chatted about being protective fathers.  I told him that if I could lock my daughter away until she is 50, I’d be ok with that –after all, I know how boys are.  He reminded me of his daughter, who’s attending Ohio State, and told me, “Enjoy it while it lasts, Erik.  She’s not going to be that young forever, and you can’t protect her from every little thing in life. You’ll have to watch her grow up, eventually.”  But I don’t want to. I don’t ever want her to venture from under my wing –how else can I shield and protect her?  I don’t ever want her to wander any farther than my arms can reach –how else will I catch her if she falls? 

Just hold on loosely, but don’t let go
If you cling too tight babe,
you’re gonna lose control.
Your baby needs someone to believe in,
And a whole lot of space to breathe in.*

†††††

True to its stealthy nature, the holiday season is fast approaching.  Erik Jr. is still going to be kept from me, and Bethany is still going to lie in the cold ground on that windswept, lonely hill in Springdale Cemetery.  It doesn’t get any easier, ever. 

            But I will have a new addition to my woefully diminished family this year.  I will have a reason to smile and partake in the revelry that comes part and parcel with this time of year. 

I will be witness to Shayne’s first taste of home-made turkey gravy.  I will watch her gleefully rip the wrapping paper off her first Christmas gift, only to abandon the toy I thought she’d love in favor of chewing and shredding the paper.  

I will scoop her up into my arms, and I’ll smother her with kisses, and nearly suffocate her with hugs.  Except for her eating the wrapping paper, those scenes will replay themselves every year.

In April she’ll be a year old, and I will take innumerable photos of her painting her angelic face with the rich frosting from her first birthday cake. Only my own death, my last fear, will prevent me from watching her blow out every candle thereafter. 

I have to hold on loosely, though.

 I know I can’t fuse her to me. I know I can’t protect her from everything.  I will do my damndest.  Where I have failed before, I will not fail this time.  Not everyone gets a second chance. 

It was the 16^th of June, 2008.  I was due to put my 11-year-old daughter in the ground in a couple of hours.  Finding something special to put in her eternal box was proving to be beyond trying.  Because her death was so unexpected, I had no opportunity to bring something of more sentimental value. 

I was combing Northwoods, the Peoria, Illinois mall for something – anything – that my little girl could be proud to take with her into the afterlife.  I knew she liked Bobby Jack, a popular cartoon monkey.  I knew she liked Chris Brown, the now-embattled R&B singer.  Although I looked for trinkets with either the monkey or the singer, I knew in my heart that neither would be appropriate.  I could say I was getting frustrated, but that would only begin to describe the never-ending swirl of emotions that made me unsure of even my footsteps. 

I’d scoured the mall.  I couldn’t find anything.  I was infuriated and ready to throw in the towel.  The funeral would be starting soon, and I would have to show up empty-handed – and empty-hearted.  I swore to myself, I swore aloud.  I cursed God yet one more time, “It’s not fucking fair!  She’s just a baby!”  I stormed through the mall, daring any of the unsuspecting shoppers to bump me, or smile at me, or even look in my direction – I was ready to channel my rage and despair anywhere. I hated everyone I saw instantly. Those with children drew my ire especially.  Damn them, and damn their happy lives. It’s not fucking fair!!

I’d taken the steps to the lower-level of the mall, ready to head for the car, inexplicably on the opposite end from where I was parked.  As I rounded a corner, I saw the shop.  “Things Remembered.”  Then (and I swear this is no exaggeration), I was literally pulled into the shop, down the far right side of the place, and directly to a section near the rear.  “Now what?” I wondered, as I stood there, waiting for the revelation to complete itself. 

The pink felt top and the slightly lighter pink bow that wraps the second box belies its true purpose.  It was not a gift given in congratulations.  There was no memento that recalls a birthday or a Christmas memory. 

There.  The epiphany was now complete.  The angels beckoned almost audibly.  I knew as soon as I saw them that they were what I was looking for the whole time.  To write anymore of this, I must open this second box of three. 

Perched upon a floral-bedecked foam green base concealing the twist-to-play music box, is the adult or mature angel.  The angelic garb flowing, wings sprawled as if to show either pre-flight or (as I suspect) excitement and joy during movement – excitement and joy because s/he’s holding aloft an infant angel.  The scene is one I’ve seen hundreds of times.  There is pride, joy, love, and protection here.  This baby angel is safe.  Not even Satan and his minions would dare try to harm this baby. 

My baby angel must have this to take with her. I picked it up without even a second’s thought, and carried it to the counter where I would have it inscribed with “Daddy’s Angel – Rest in Peace, Bethany.” 

I didn’t know the tune that played when it’s twisted, and I still don’t.  It was played and played and played in the chapel of the funeral home on that darkest of sunny days.  There exists a large part of me that never wants to know what the music is.  All that matters is that my little girl had something to carry with her, and an angel to guide her.

Another exact angel was bought for me to keep.  Even the inscription is the same.  I can’t set my gaze upon the angels within the pink box, which are set inside the larger silver gift box. 

I mentioned a third box, didn’t I?  The box that holds the most precious gift – the one box I never wanted to see closed.

She’s in it.

 Rap music has almost always offended my sensibilities as a human being and a musician.  On the surface, it requires little-to-no-skill or talent, glorifies the worst of urban and American life, and, truthfully – just gets on my goddamned nerves. 

And hey – is it even music? Have I been not been just in my relentless attacks of its existence and the culture that accompanies it?  I’m disgusted at the complete assault on the English language that seems to come packaged with this so-called “phenomenon.”  Isn’t 50-Cent unforgivable for dropping the “s” in “Cents”?  And, hey, Nelly – if you’re going to take a pick-axe to my language, at least take that stupid Band-Aid off your face.[1]Is bling really something anyone should adorn, along with the jeans that these “Gs” seem to have to hold up around their waists because they’re 22 sizes too big and that’s “phat”? 

Sam Kinison lampooned rap music in a stand-up several years before he died: “(Rappers) all grab their dicks – you know why? Because they don’t play any fuckin’ instruments!” I took that assessment to heart, identified with it, and used it to bolster my claim that rap was not real music, and therefore, could be dismissed as pure drivel.  In fact, I was convinced that whoever came up with the idea of calling it “rap” simply forgot to add the “c” at the beginning of the word. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that I while I could feasibly sit at home and put myself through the hellish experience of listening to rap for hours in order to gain a bit of insight, I’m actually going to have to (gulp) visit a hip-hop club and experience the whole damned vibe.  I ask around, and Baby’s Mama suggests a place called Rosie O’Grady’s.  Rosie’s is on Morse Road, she says, and she even knows the weekend bartender. In one breath, she assures me I won’t have to dodge stray bullets and then in the next says, “It would be funny to just drop your ass off there and see how long before you call me to come and get you.”  I am already envisioning shady drug dealers and ex-cons, sizing me up and conferring amongst themselves about who gets to pull the trigger on this Uncle Tom, and now she’s going to stoke the already out-of-control flames of my imagination?  I decide right there and then I don’t like her anymore. 

It’s Wednesday night.  I’ve found a sitter for my little one.  And though I’m not too sure what I should wear, I’m spiffy.  I’m redolent of Axe Touch Shower Gel (because it’s manly, and I like to smell like a man – no pansy-assed Dial soap for me), Right Guard Arctic Refresh Ultra-Gel, and Tim McGraw cologne (which I’d lusted after and whined about until Baby Mama bought me a bottle for Christmas last year, and I use oh-so-sparingly). I’ve shaved with my trusty Mach3. I’m sporting my sexiest pair of Levi’s, my favorite satiny almost-dress shirt – which is black and has really cool subtle grey stripes printed vertically, and a silver-ish motif of birds lofting skyward from a tree that I cannot identify. I’m wearing my Italian-made Structures (fine leather dress boots that you can presumably only buy at the ever-upscale Sears).  I look good.  I’d fuck me if I were a girl. 

So what is music, anyway?  Well, to me, music is loosely defined as the offering forth of auditory coitus.  That’s right – ear sex.  When Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour coaxes those notes out of his guitar the way he does, shimmering and slicing like an aural scalpel, then that’s ear sex.  When John Lennon said that all we needed was love- that was ear sex. John Bonham’s and Tommy Lee’s very different but equally orgasmic percussive attacks amount to ear sex.  Why?  Because those examples are the embodiment of emotion becoming sound.  How much emotion can be conveyed in the steal-point-click arrangement of rap music?[2]

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines music as “1 a: the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity b: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony.”  Well, already my theory that rap isn’t music is being shot to hell.  While I would challenge anyone to find the comparable instrumental harmonies in Snoop Dogg’s song “Drop It Like It’s Hot” that one would find in say, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” I have to admit that if rap is nothing else – it’s definitely rhythmic. 

I found Ron Wynn’s article, “Is Rap Music? If It Quacks Like a Duck…” online after an exhaustive search for a no-nonsense approach to rap’s genesis and contribution to music and society as a whole.  Wynn, a writer for Nashville’s The City Paper, asserted that “Though still a stepchild to many in the family of music lovers, the pervasive presence of rap renders academic the cavils over whether or not it is “music.” Rap is created by people who are apparently expressing their experience of life through replicable patterns of sound and rhythm, that is, music. It is produced and distributed by the “music industry,” and its “consumers” respond like pop music lovers have over the several-generation evolution of the mass-market recording industry. So, since it walks, quacks, swims, and eats like a duck….”

Ok, Ron.  I’ll bite.  It’s packaged to look and sound like music.  But I’m not convinced.  Just because you’re a high-falutin’ reporter guy doesn’t mean you know everything.  I’ll just go see for myself. 

A few minutes after 8pm, I pull into Rosie O’Grady’s parking lot.  There are no more than six cars parked.  I stall the inevitable and light one more cigarette.  The marquee advertises a karaoke night on Mondays, a mug night on Tuesdays, and ladies’ night on Wednesdays – hey, that’s tonight!  Since I won’t be here for Thursday’s reggae night, I don’t bother reading beyond that.  It occurs to me that I haven’t the slightest clue what to expect here. Is there going to be a live rap act, or perhaps, just a jukebox? Even better would be a live DJ that I can clandestinely bribe into sliding an Ozzy Osbourne CD into the player. Uh-oh, cigarette’s gone.  Let’s do this.

I’m immediately astonished.  It’s actually a nice looking place.  Rows of red bulbs line the ceiling trim, giving off a seductive glow.  An unoccupied VIP booth (roped off and elevated,  presumably, to accentuate its prominence) folds itself around a small round table with an empty ice bucket that I’m guessing has seen its fair share of Patron. I spot the bar – ah! The bar!  Four (giant) bottles of Grey Goose vodka serve as the back bar’s crown, each slickly backlit with a neon of different color.  I’m almost impressed. For some reason, I’m both taken aback and relieved that there really aren’t many people here.  I count four souls huddled at the bar and laughing frequently.  I zero in on a barstool to their right, and then see the barmaid. She’s white. 

Why does this surprise me?  Already I’m learning that either I really need to get out more, or I had preconceived notions on what I could expect to see here tonight.  I’m going to play the safe bet, and suggest both might be true. 

“What can I get ya, hon?” she asks. 

“Killian’s, please.” I’m determined to stick out like sore thumb.  Besides, I’d already had a Killian’s before leaving the house, and to dump a Corona on top of that would have been just…gross.

Upon reflection, it’s interesting (to me, anyway) to explore whether or not my dislike for rap music and hip-hop culture is a form of mildly entertaining self-loathing.  I am part black, after all. True enough, I am the only mixed-race kid in my family and was pretty much “raised white” (whatever that means); and my exposure to black culture, my agreement with the stereotypical socio-political expectations of blacks in America[3] and the number of black friends I’ve had over the years has been limited.  I know and tell jokes about every ethnic group, even blacks. But does that justify the upturned nose I offer to that genre of “music”? 

I note my comrades-in-drink.  On my immediate left, an old white guy sits, half-turned towards his court, telling jokes.  To his left is a black woman, 40-ish, who might have been vaguely attractive except for the missing teeth (which gave her a cartoonish “piano-smile”countanence).  She’s sandwiched between the Joker, and a hulking black man, laughing gregariously with the white guy.  It’s easy to gather that he’s with Piano-face.  A more diminutive black dude with cornrows, which are covered by a Reds ballcap turned at an angle,[4] rounds out the group, and I am convinced inside of 30 seconds that he thinks I’m a cop (I’ve heard it before – “You look like a cop”) and I won’t make it outta here alive. He’s sneering at me, I just know it. As soon as he starts fiddling with his cell phone, I know I’m in deep shit.  I immediately chide myself for not being smart enough to at least try to blend in – a FUBU shirt, baggy jeans, Lugz boots, a sideways ballcap – would it work? Once you hear me speak, probably not.  How many “thugs” are peeved by sentences that end in prepositions? 

I’m terrified that if I whip out my pad and pencil, I’m going to confirm Cornrow’s suspicion and wind up being the lead story on 10TV’s 11 o’clock newscast.  I can hear it now, “A very stupid Westerville man was found dead in a grease dumpster tonight after he thought it would be a good idea to be somewhere he shouldn’t have been.  Police say the victim was found with a mechanical pencil stuck in his neck. Coming up, Obama’s quest to make ‘Gin and Juice’ our new national anthem.” 

The barmaid, Linda, is a 30-year veteran of drink-slinging, and has been at Rosie’s for two years.  She’s mostly all-business, and dismissively sets about doing barmaid stuff once I’ve pulled from her all the four-one-one I’m going to get.  Fine, you just make sure I don’t go thirsty, lady – got it?

The place looks a lot bigger on the inside than it does on the outside, and beyond the bar, I see a couple of rows of pool tables.  While my eyes scan my new surroundings, my ears tune into the music coming out of one of the many ceiling-mounted speakers.  Am I hearing…? I’ll be goddamned!  That’s “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” by the Offspring!  Simultaneous to this ironic observation, I spot the dance floor, backed by a giant projection screen and displaying the music video for the accompanying rock song.  I find out later (albeit, not much later) that once the live DJ shows up, the musical variety takes on a noticeable shift. 

The Hulk notices me laughing at the old man’s last, departing joke, and for some odd reason, sends over a Killian’s for me.  I raise my bottle in genuine appreciation and stiffen internally for the first beats of a song I don’t immediately recognize.  Turns out, it’s Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing,” re-mixed rap-like.  I guess it’s not so bad.  I guess. 

The next song I hear I definitely don’t know, and its hypnotically throbbing beat is vaguely seductive in its sway, electronically pulsing an image into my head – I can safely imagine a stacked, leggy blonde mynx in skin-tight lamé pants suggestively grinding her hips and shaking her ass to suggest copulating would be a heavenly experience –or, I simply need to get laid. 

The next thing I know, The Hulk is sitting next to me, buying me yet another round as we swap cursory introductions.  His name’s Kelvin Lindsey.  Turns out, Lindsey’s a former OSU football player.  He tells me he’s just turned 50.  The guy doesn’t look a day over 30. I call “Bullshit.”  He shows me his ID, and sure enough, he’s 50.  He’s warm, genuine, and I don’t feel so out of place now.  Hell, even the trigger-man is on this end of the bar now, cutting up with us.  I am now officially Having a Good Time. 

Alright, the sociological aspect of this little experiment has been completed.  It would be accurate to say that some of my hardened disdain for rap/hip hop and its culture is truly rooted in my aforementioned limited exposure to blacks, period.  I don’t know the first thing about black or rap/hip hop culture even now, except that if I’m going to get shot tonight, it’s probably not going to be by these guys. I’m definitely not a homie, but I’ve proved to myself I can hang with ‘em, yo.

But what about the music?

I strategize mentally on tactics for approaching the DJ. I see him back there, in his corner booth, elevated – well, I see his profile – the neon behind him is preventing me from seeing much more than that.  Should I sidle up to the booth and shout, “Yo, dawg!”?  Again, I stick out like a sore thumb here and no one’s going to believe I’m urban anything.  This might take some figuring…

…or not.  Before I can plot too hard, and fry the few brain cells I have left, the DJ is standing next to me, ordering.  Providence? Fuckin-A!

He’s not only agreeable to talk with me, he’s eager. He’s a slight man, dark as coal.  His wire-frame glasses and carefully-chosen casual attire suggest that he might be a bit of a nerd. He goes by the handle “DJ Exclusive,” and when I ask him if he can define the difference between hip hop and rap, he breaks it down for me.  “Hip hop has a real story to tell,” he explains, “like, they have a message.”  So? Doesn’t 50 Cent claim to have a story to tell? Isn’t he classed as a rapper?  “Opinions on that vary from person to person.” 

I’m right.  He’s a nerd, a DJ-ing, very articulate nerd.  He mutters nothing about “bitches,” and “gats.”  Instead, I fight to shake off the effects of the six or nine beers I’ve had so I can keep up with him.  But am I gonna worship his command over the English language or shake him down?  Breathe, focus, repeat.

OK, Mr. DJ Exclusive, let’s say we find someone from Montana, who’s never listened to either rap or hip hop – what CD from each would you present to said Montanan as a definitive example of each?  “Well, definitely, NWA’s[5] Straight Outta Compton would be my rap choice, and Tupac’s Makaveli would define hip hop, because he did some rapping, but most of songs were about the message.” Interestingly enough, my internet searches on Tupac have him considered largely as a rapper. 

Alright, sure.  But does this stuff have any real musical value?  Is it really music?  He straightens out a bit, “How do you define music?  I mean, there’s counting beats and stuff [for rhythms].  It’s music.  How is it not?”  I take another angle, and ask him where the musical talent comes in. 

“Any moron can put ‘bird’ and ‘word’ together and make a rhyme,” I counter, unwilling to give up the fight, “and you just basically told me that sequencing the loops and drum beats isn’t anything more than point-and-click.  So I wanna know where musical ability comes in.”

He ponders a moment, and then admits, “That’s a real good question.  A tough question.” I have him – I’m going to win this argument!  I ask him about “gangsta rap,” and his take on its social contribution.  “It’s both a blight, and a valid form of expression,” he says. “I mean, these guys are telling a story too, really.  It’s raw, and it’s ugly, sometimes.  But it’s still expression.” This DJ’s no dummy.  It’s time to go for the jugular.

Well what about the 13-year-old kid out on the corner slinging dope because ol’ 50 told him to “get rich or die trying?”  Isn’t that a testament to the lack of validity? “That’s more of a parenting thing,” Exclusive tells me.  He’s unflappable, and if I poured hot water down his throat, he’d piss ice cubes- he’s that cool, that fucking smart.  I’ve put my tail between my legs now, and wave a white flag in concession. He senses I’m withdrawing and, to help me save face,  graciously steers the discussion to how hard it is to take someone seriously with overly-large t-shirts, ballcaps turned to the side, and pants so baggy you have to hold them up to keep from facing exposure charges.

And you know? I’ll be damned if he isn’t right.  As the interview winds down, my ears pick up the song coming over the speakers.  Is it ear sex? No, but there is something musical about it.  There’s an organized sequence of notes, it’s rhythmic, and it’s not altogether despicable. Ear sex it’s not –maybe closer to masturbation.  It wouldn’t be my preferred choice, but if I were stuck on a desert island, it would be better to have this than nothing.  I consider this on my drive home, punctuated by a stop at McD’s.

I believe it was composer Eric Salzman who said, “There is a music for everybody.”   

I would guess, then, that applies to the culture surrounding the musical genres.  When I think about it, some of the stigmas attached to rock and metal are pretty much deserved. 

Motley Crue did some horrendous things with women, as documented in their tell-all, The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band. Norwegian black metal bands garnered infamy for burning down churches and killing themselves and each other.  GG Allin, a hardcore punker who was known for assaulting his audiences with urine, feces, and whatever else he could get his hands on, planned to gun down members of his audience and his band on his planned final concert – luckily, he died of a heroin overdose before he was able to carry out his farewell show. 

I’m still not a fan of rap or hip hop.  It’s still musically boring to me, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I shell out one red cent for 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Trying (which I suspect would have sold considerably less if it had been titled Work Really Really Hard for Your Money, and Go to College) I still think it’s silly to wear those stupid baggy jeans.  But if nothing else, my excursion infused a nanoscopic amount of “live and let live.”

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary also defines music as “2 a: an agreeable sound.”  Sure, I’ll live and let live – and as soon as I get home, I’m going to crank up Endgame, the brand-new CD by Megadeth.

[1] “Hot in Hurr” – Give me a break.  Say it aloud, go ahead.  It doesn’t sound right, doesn’t feel right, and therefore isn’t deserving of the butchery levied by Nelly.  That must explain the Band-Aid – it’s a defensive wound, courtesy of the English language.  Go, English language!

[2] That’s right; I said “steal.”  How much money has Puff Daddy-P.Diddy-Puffy Who-the-hell-ever He Is Combs made by simply adding different lyrics and a hip hop drum track over hit rock songs?  Well, I’m not going to offer up a dollar figure, it’s a rhetorical question. I do remember reading that Andy Summers of the Police (who wrote “Every Breath You Take’s” hypnotic guitar riff) was pretty pissed off when he heard P.-Whoever’s remix of that song.  Can’t say I blame him.

[3] I almost feel they smack of reverse-racism and entitlement.  I mean, if whites suggested a White Entertainment Television channel, the outcry would be skull-shatteringly loud.  There can be an Ebony magazine, but not an Alabaster.  “Black Pride” and “Black Power” are acceptable slogans in society, but “White Power” and “White Pride” is not.  If a politician mentions trimming entitlement programs like welfare and the like, he’s accused of being a heartless racist, eager to destroy the lives of the downtrodden.  You can’t convince me these aren’t things you haven’t wondered about. 

[4] Signifying what? A gang affiliation? An indifference to symmetrical fashion?

[5] I guess this stands for Niggas with Attitudes…I’m not touching it.

Are you f@#$ing kidding me!?!  How much more are we expected to endure before the masses take to the streets with pitchforks and torches?  I sense that before it’s over, lynching of public officials will be more commonplace than tragedy.  The backs of the American People are breaking, the patience of the American Spirit is dwindling, and the hope of the American Dream is gone.

Seriously, folks.  We need a real shift in dynamics here.  We need a wake-up call.  Unfortunately, that wake-up call/reality check will probably cost many, many American lives.  History never fails to repeat itself in the good ol’ U. S. of A.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090724/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_palestinians_us

You’ve given me more in death than I ever gave you in life. I live each day for you. My accomplishments and decisions are truly rooted in honoring you. You inspired me to go to school, to do something. You inspired me to take on the monumental tasks I have set. I want to make you proud. While your message appears to not have been heard, I need you to know I listened. I responded. I still respond.

Your baby sister, like you, is beautiful. You’d love her. I gave to her your name as a reminder, as an honor. She is a happy baby, and I refuse to ever let her be away from me. My sun rises and sets with her. I see alot of you in her, and in my mind, you live on through her.

Your brother? I fear for him. Your mom has poisoned and ruined him, and I am afraid there might be little chance of rescuing him from himself. He needs me, but the obstacles placed there by those who would prefer to hurt him to get at me are almost insurmountable. I have tried to keep my word to you, but I am running out of time, and running out of resources. What can I do?

I still have the dream. It’s the cruelest of punishments – waking to realize I couldn’t stop you, and you’re still gone. I thought it might get a little easier with time, with Shayne. Not true. I think in alot of ways, it’s gotten harder. I am ashamed of myself.  I’m ashamed of those who could have helped you and did not because they worried about what others would say. 

     It’s not in vain, I promise you.  You are not forgotten.  You are remembered and missed daily, hourly.  I miss you.  I would give anything to have you back.  Anything.

http://www.vuvox.com/collage/detail/01457f441a

I wanna know about North Korea, and Iran, and our socialist president. I wanna know if Sanford is going to have an Argentinian love-child. 

I get it, Jacko’s dead.  Can we move on please?