Saturday Night Jams

A half drunk, mostly abandoned bottle of beer sits forgotten on the bathroom counter. So while you pee you can wonder who first brought it in and how drunk they must have been to forget it too. The porch outside is stained with well trodden swedish fish generously tossed about with zealous good will by a jovial Mickey Rourke doppelganger. And still, the cigarettes continue to burn, the lighter gets passed from hand to hand to hand, and voices rise into the semi-clear night sky about bands and boys and sports and legends. Debates unfurl from a mention of best, now furiously countered with options A and B and C, which must mean that the first statement should be retracted, but won't. And offenses get welted and later aloed, first, by whiskey and later by the same method still. But all in all it is people connecting, finding the pieces of their soul that fit another's. And in the corner, I stand and watch, the designated driver for the evening. Not kept awake by the usual sugar alcohols and cocktail mixes, a yawn emits itself more than is comfortable for the people around me. "Don't Yawn!" a slurred voice reprimands, "Don't Worry, I'm Fine, I Just Don't Breathe Right Sometimes" comes my answer to their concerned queries. I am tired, yes, but that doesn't mean I don't want to be here. Meeting new faces and personalities and enjoying the company of loved friends and classmates. But what we all have gathered together for, is not just friends and faces and souls, but sound, and as we wait the anticipation sits inside us like breathing coals. And finally, stumbling and catching each other down the four now treacherous steps to the back house, the two heavy soundproofed doors are swung and into the lights and sounds we go. Only one chair sits in the corner in a square room filled with amps and guitars as numerous as the drugs, sweat, blood and tears, I'm sure can be found in the dingy carpets stapled to the ceiling and glued to the floor. So sitting on the concrete is fine with me. Refusing the same beer more times than my age. "I'm Driving" I say, to discourage the attempts "I'll Pay For Your Cab" he slurs with a lilty grin. " I Don't Like Beer." No avail. "I Can Get You A Whiskey" now with concern, "That's Okay, Thank You, But I'm Driving Tonight" and on and on intermittently this continued. But then the first string was strummed and the speakers came on with a spark and crackle, and soon the room was filled with sounds so loud you could feel your chest cavity vibrate just the same like the metal strings. And before you knew, the sounds were blasting and your entire body pulsing with the rhythm and vibrations of the musician's mind. And song after song, some new, some old, the music drove us to not sit still. And before you knew it, an hour had passed and I realized that I wasn't yawning anymore.