Lizzie Borden took an axe...but she was no Lydia Lunch.  There's only so much artistry to go around, eh?

, CA

September, 2001

 

It's a Dude Thing

By Mikey

 

In a dusty mid-Nevada town on Interstate 80 with heat you wore like extra clothing, Mack leaned over the car seat and held her hand until they made him let go. It was a little hand, fingers short with the daintiest of friendship rings on four of them. The hand trembled. There was a look in her eyes of utter surprise still. Shock, to a much greater degree, but surprise also.

She shuddered as the mini-tremors coursed through her.

She fainted and died, then. He knew it when it happened. The only other thing he knew was that her name was Jodie, and she wanted to be biker cool in the worst way. He'd promised her that going along with him on a heist could get them the loot to get a great hog and get out of this dustburg, maybe join up with a band in California or Reno.

Jodie's corpse didn't do any of those things you hear about corpses doing. Not one gross thing. She was a classy person. Even her corpse couldn't embarrass her in death. She wasn't the highest quartile of scholars, but she was classy to the end. Big we-gave-it-a-shot smile, lots of white teeth always gleaming, like there'd be no tomorrow.

Mack would need a new career. The steal and ride thing was obviously toast. "Oh fuck," he thought, "back to Round Table, again."

He would never see any Round Table. Instead, his prison term lasted just enough years to harden him into a career criminal, the kind who would die in a chase and shootout with the time-tested Bakersfield police. He'd never been to Bakersfield, but he was loser enough to end up dead there. Reading the papers, it would be easy to think it was suicide by cop, but Mack couldn't ever be suicidal. He wasn't that much for planning.

Sonny, Mack's younger brother, went through hell when his brother was sent up for "the great dustville escape thing". He was so co-dependent on Mack, that in their house, he let Mack use him as his personal Golden Retriever. Mom just wished they'd both move out of the trailer so that she and her boyfriend could fuck all through the place without kicking Mack and Sonny the hell out every time that her live-ins got horny. Or at least when she heard the boys whine about her prerogative life-choices. Of course she took the money they made somewhere when she needed the monthly two-fifty for the park rent.

The fetch-it brother wanted to do the Lovelock prison time with Mack, but he was informed that the State didn't pay to put up more losers like his brother. No matter how badly he was crazy-glued to him.

Their last words together as simultaneously free men was a green mile chuckle punctuated by a clumsy hug and Mack lamenting the axe he'd leave behind. "You touch it and I'll kill ya, kiddo."

That's when Sonny started the band with it.

Even though he was the only one in it at the moment and would be for next couple years, he named it Mack and the Mackmones. If he couldn't be with Mack; he'd be Mack in spirit. All he had to do was walk taller and fart louder with a bigger legkick.

Hey, big brother Mack rocked. He had left behind the Gretsch White Falcon guitar. Sonny needed something to do to fill the time he normally would be trailing Mack around, so the day after Mack went up Sonny copped the axe and played with it. It was an awwright thing he assured himself. Hollow-body ornate kind of old but still in good shape with a "pretty good" sweet rough sound. Yeah, the axe was not going to go to waste. It was pawn it or play it, Sonny figured, even though it was Mack's, and pretty old, it might get a couple bucks on pawn. Even better, if they had to get emergency beer money or if the band idea didn't go anywhere besides dustburg in the next month or two. Sonny knew they'd have to "scratch it out" for the first few weeks before the spoils of rock rolled in on them.

In the far past now, Sonny had watched spellbound as Mack wheeled long windmill Townshend strums that jangled Sonny to his nuts. It didn't matter that Mom threw things and yelled louder than Mack could sing. Mack jacked in and wailed like he was Mellencamp, still Cougar, or The Boss himself. It didn't matter that he didn't know chords or notation, Mack impressed Sonny and it was good enough just to make a rock noise. Besides, the Ramones didn't play shit right either. The Ramones were GODS and didn't need to play shit right by any fucking hippie rules. Rules were for assholes Mack assured Sonny.

Who'd have thought Mack and the Mackmones would be big?

They played their first gig in Shirk's max-summer-sweat crap cleaned out garage, where they could toke and jam. Garage was an overstatement, however, think TuffShed without the class.

Second to be a Mackmone, Shirk was a computer geek down the "lane" about four trailers. He'd skated a couple of box upgrade jobs one day to find out where the guitar ampage was coming from. He'd joined up with Sonny when after several months of idle curiosity he finally overcame his inertia to locate Sonny's practice music sawing its way out of that sideways tin can. It was a unit with Crandall Family routered on a shingle tacked to the trailer, not far from the eviction and NIN stickers. The music sawed like there was a leather-faced horror protag on the prowl. Good and sweet rough. The axe used Sonny to send out the music in its, what should have been, dead strings. Shirk was drawn to it like it was an unattended, unlocked car with the keys in it.

Shirk was pretty well off at his folk's place which was a double-wide, rust spotted canopy out front, torn astroturf patio job. Shirk didn't appreciate the relative affluence of his life though. He skated it and the school subjects he knew cold, like electronics and shop. He was always pissing off teachers because he was so "attention-deficited" by anything with breasts, or pictures of breasts, or facsimiles. Two hills in the distance. Dunes. Clouds. Or as he was wont to stop in mid-walk looking at the sky, TITS, DUDE, TITS! Sorry hormonal sort that he was, the thought of approaching a real pair to cop a grope was limited to his intricately created handjob fantasies or internet one-handers. 

Mainly, Shirk played bass, too. Well, at least he owned one, a beaten up Hoffner.

Rock band. The very thought of drawing spread-legged groupies with tiny bushes and TITS, DUDE, TITS to himself danced like the proverbial sugarplum. Maybe there was a lifetime supply of blowjobs in it. Oh yes, mega-twattage. A month or two under multi-colored stage lighting would be star-stud time enough in the real world for Shirk.

Something about holding that axe made Sonny feel the artistry, however. He wanted to tell Mack about an idea that came out of his big brother's spirit and made him proud of their raging riffage. He might even take axe lessons at the local retail instrument center if the band really got going. He had two chords from a pamphlet, and he could switch between them pretty fucking nimble-quick, having practiced on the sly when Mack split a couple of rather "extended' times. He could even go high on the neck and pierce an eardrum or he could go low on the strings and diddle a raspy, driving, bass sound from the horned spirit in the axe.

And his guitar strap was long enough he could put the axe on the floor and play his two chords on the top of his sneakers.

Cool like.

Two guys without a tattoo between them yet, were ready to outgrow the TuffShed garage. It would never hold a third player. They were on a mission to make the kind of rule breaking punk noise the sneakered Ramones might play.

They scoured the place on bicycles for a real garage. That's how they found Marky Mackmone.

The larger priority was some practice space, though. Marky's family had the only other, larger, garage in the complex. So they buddied up to Marky, someone their own age and equally musically bent. He brought with him an orange, pearly drum kit from K-Mart, or at least from the shipping dock, not on the "bluelight" but more like the midnight discount. Marky'd actually paid for his sticks, because he didn't know yet that certain Guitar Center clerks would go along to get along for blow or X. Cymbals. Also paid for. But certainly not retail. The local pawn/fence in town sufficed for the need at a bargain.

All Mark knew about percussion was hit them hard and hit them all around as often as possible. Good drummers moved their attention around the kit as they played. In his mind, he wanted to really get a good tom beat going, but didn't like the guys dissing him like, "Hey, Tonto. Where's your smoke signals?"

A purely joyful noise came from the guys' frenetic two chord slamming, complete with cranked volume levels cracking the putty around the garage windows. It might have been better with more booze or more expensive ampage, but heaven can only be stretched so far, and they were lucky to scam what they had from Mark's pop's barely hidden stash behind his garden tools.

Stoop. (Should we say: and then there were four?)

A story in himself. A bit more stable than most of the neighborhood's challenged denizens, he was Sonny's dope-toking friend from two over and one down on the grid of lanes that were ironically named after gems. Diamond Lane. Emerald. Ruby Lane. Imagination not required. They were in alpha order, too. The more violence-prone residents had enough havoc-wreaking propensity, there was no need to push the envelope, so to speak, with the postal types. The major lane, Rosetta (don't ask) was a loop ending in a slow moving, eternity taking, auto-opening code-punch gate. One busted one at the back of the loop and one almost equally useless at the front. Some people kept the weeds down at their places but most just cleared their own area leaving the common area to riparian status.

Three stripped down, half-naked teenage guys, all conformist blondage, in a shed, sweated and made music and devil finger-horns at each other. They egged each other to higher volumes and faster finger moves. It did not occur to them to use picks to save themselves from the blisters and blood speckling their guitars in their artistic frenzy. They'd learn eventually that not all rock is pain induced but for now the music was a sensory detour around the pain. The Gretsch never sounded so fine. A few band-aids, a popped blister, then back at it applying the appropriate frenzy.

Calling it music was a stretch, but, hey, a step at a time, please. Rome wasn't built in a day, and Prince couldn't rename himself until he ran out of names. Imagine how long that took the sublime ass wagging rockjock.

That afternoon they came up with thirty-five new songs. None had lyrics longer than the titles on the penciled list. None were timed longer than the magic two minutes forty-seven seconds. All this was accomplished before their neighbor unplugged the camouflaged extension cord secretly run from Mark's garage to the neighbor's all-weather, outside, spring-loaded, covered barbecue patio, free juice, AC outlet. Marky looked up from his cold turkey braked playing to see the oversized, leather vested creep. But the angry man turned and went without saying a word when he saw the blood spattered boys laughing their asses off in that shed.  He thought, "crazy sonsofbitches."

It wasn't that everything in the shed got spattered but the Gretsch escaped unharmed. In fact, it's golden parts gleamed in the dusted up world of the trailer park kindred, baying dog or human.

Stoop knew a guy who knew a bartender who was asking around, recruiting bands for live music. All he required was a demo and ID--proof of age. Stoop wouldn't have been Stoop if he knew what a demo entailed, but the group copied a Lydia Lunch tape to a blank cassette and handed it to the liquor gun cowboy along with four faked IDs that weren't faked by any Leonardo Da Vinci. The ponytail hired them with a what the fuck shrug.

He told the band they would work for drink tickets for free beer and the door, which for most bands at this place consisted of the ability to let their friends in for free. Everyone else paid three dollars if they couldn't lie their way past security by: a) "Just using the bathroom." b) "I'm just looking for a friend." c) "Man, just let me check out a song." d) "I'm with the fucking band." The easiest way was never tried: "Dude, got some blow or X? A hit for a stamp." As always, it wasn't that the price was high, it was just uncool to pay it unless cornered.

The bartender said he liked Sonny's friendship rings. Reminded him of a waitress working the late shift for a few days who was the one who suggested he put in live music. She'd even talked him into building the stage area, putting in lighting, and overhead PA speakers and a mix board. So far, the bands were bringing in more underage than over, but the bar take was getting better. The waitress had said something about sharing the bar with the bands, too. He'd told her she'd pushed it far enough.

The bartender said that if the band had a picture maybe the local weekly paper would run it in the free gig notices.

That meant spending money on a band photographer unless…Shirk to the rescue. His sister Georgie had a well-earned camera she got from a guy for a virginity-preserving sexual favor. In no time, they had thirty shots and loved each one of them so much they had five-by-sevens made in duplicate. Shirk's sister posed with them for a couple and they invited her to sit in for the gig. They liked her big ass and TITS, DUDE, TITS rocking up front for them. Georgie wasn't exactly prow of any whaling ship statuesque, but take away the dust and add a bucket of pink you had Barbie's brick shithouse walking.

Man, their first gig only days away, and then they'd see their names up in chalk. And maybe in the paper, too, hope against hope with a picture.

Shirk was two days straight in email lining up a crowd for their opening gig at the Alley Lounge. Soon to be the Alley Lounge Mackmones shrine like the CBGB. (Jesus mamaluke Christ, where else, of course, fucking New York CBGB!)

All that remained was to get up in front of live people. So they thought, until someone asked if they weren't putting their "logo" on the basedrum. It wasn't long before two "doin' it doggie-style" South Park stick figures were there, Terrance and what's his name, Phil or something.

Shirk did the Mack and the Mackmones stencil lettering actually fairly calligraphic. In fact, the group called him artfag for doing so well, and Shirk beamed proudly about that.

Stoop and Shirk had no problems in front of a live audience. They figured it was like clowning in school. Sonny, the budding artist, was nervous a little. Well, more than a little. In fact, both major orifices seemed to pucker and cartoon pressurize at once. He wanted to hide, but Mark, however, had a great idea. He wanted to show the crowd his nuts peeking out of his shorts "just one time, dude."  It was a publicity thing he said. "We gotta have a gimmick, guys," he said. Everybody thought setting something on fire was a cool idea, too. But the nads thing was "totally bitchin'", and there were several I-will-if-you-wills that sealed the mini-Monty stunt into the act.

With their gear racked into the '92 primered riceburner pickup with plenty of room to spare, they were on their way to the gig at the Alley. Three little K-Mart box amps. Axes. Drumkit, without fancy black boxes. Cymbals, not in any fancy padded-canvas sleeves. Patchcords spaghettied in a bowling ball bag. Later, they imagined, their gear would need its own bus and security force as well.

On the way, Shirk said they needed to call Mack. Oh fuck, he was so right, Sonny thought. They needed that inspire thing happening. Then Shirk suggested after the call they head for a palm reading, too. Mark said fuck the reading, he knew a mojo-man just around the corner, down the alley. It'd be quick and the Mackmones could get a mojo-bone or something to take to the gig.

There were "dudes" of agreement all around with some sincere knuckle banging.

They'd stop by the mojo-man for a good luck stick that hopefully wasn't too alley gross or smelly. They'd push for a dry bone. They'd be boned for luck.

How right they were. If it weren't for bad luck there wouldn't be any luck in this world.

The bartender helpfully showed them where and how to set up. He set up the microphones pointed against the speakers of the mini-amps they'd brought. He told them that most groups bring their own mics and that the house mics weren't shit but would do for a quick punk set. Then he said they had a forty minute minimum and don't blab too much in between songs. The security wasn't worth much in a fight, but if anyone charged the stage and if they didn't feel like it's safe, then just bust the person and he'd see to it the bozo was tossed on his ass personally.

Bands that played his club never worried. Drunkenness was more an on-stage thing than off at the Alley. "Just watch out for flying bottles," ponytail said. "Moshing is something that security will flashlight. Don't encourage it from the stage, boys. I don't want someone to go down without a security jock there to get them up. But I just don't have enough security to go around. You get that? Oh, and by the way, watch that Gretsch facrissake. It gives me the willies just being here."

They got it, but promptly forgot it. Once on stage, they started a slow beat that thumped along, and then slammed all guitars and drums into a high gear frenzy and stayed that way.  It seemed like the Gretsch was carrying the action, which for its age, and Sonny's ability was very cool indeed.

They played their hands bloody. They rocked. They bugged. They rawked.

Of course, the crowd didn't pay to get in for the most part, but it rocked too like it was an arena show with a band that played actual music. Hell, you couldn't get shit like this on the fucking radio. Nobody stopped anyone from banging and slamming until people started hitting the floor.

There was an incident, however, that happened so fast it was only a flash in the retinal memories of the crowd.  Not enough there for a real memory in the participants who witnessed it.

A fan, a sober but "into it" fan, who was leaning in on the cramped little stage near Sonny's guitar suddenly fell to the floor, cold-cocked as he related it later, by a fucking hip check off the Gretsch.  With the blood flow finally stanched later on by a first aid kit from the bar, the kid said it was like Sonny just lost it with a strange look in his eye that the kid would never want to see ever again.  It was murderous.  Saliva dripping, alien fucking murderous.  Really cool-like, and like when would this rad band be back again?  

Their rest of the kid's friends were so grateful to Sonny for getting them into a bar on a guestlist that all they could do was scream and pogo and mosh in appreciation. It was punk at its p-finest.  They told the bleeder he "just got too close, too excited.  It was an accident, forget it."  But there were several that night among the moshers.  Several more than usual at the Alley, more than  in its history that ponytail could recall.  Later, when he approached Sonny about it, Sonny said he didn't recall any such thing except the kid falling down.  And Sonny was telling the truth.  He showed the man the guitar.  Not a spot of any blood.  Whereas, the floor was another story...

Little did anyone in the band that night realize that being in the right place at the right time was more important than actually being able to play or draw a consistent crowd. The old "not how you play but when" rule.  It happened that a coked-up indie label dude was extremely obnoxious at the bar the night the Mackmones debuted both their chords.

Unmistakably bereft of talent, but unmistakably intense to such a degree that people in the audience put each other in the hospital, the Mackmones ruled the Alley that night.

And it didn’t go unnoticed. The drunken record label exec had waved a paper in front of them after their two hours of material only used up thirty-eight minutes. (It seemed they couldn't remember about half of what they had rehearsed before the amps' power died in Mark's pop's shed when the neighbor pulled the juice.) The label dude, in Old Navy skater clothes, cropped hair mullet-less cool, graying goatee, appropriate tattoos and earrings, signed the incredulous Mackmones on the spot.  Nobody was sure what they signed but it seemed like "the real deal."

Labelman didn’t quite remember it the next day, waking and wincing from the drink, but the dry bone on his nightstand jogged a feeling that he'd spent funds better banked for later. He rolled from the bed and picked up the rumpled contract. Ah well, it was only for printing and distributing and pizza and emergency motels for a couple of instate tours.   That, he winced some more, could be palmed off on small clubs with the group doing their own driving and van sleeping. Unless they had money to pay a bus and driver.  It was all an advance, anyway. Deductible from proceeds. Ah, back to sweet sleep. This job was tough enough than to worry about punks. Mackmones? How did he…what was he…He wondered if they could rap and dance at the same time, salvage something with showbiz.  Now, through the brain-fog, he remembered the little waitress with the rings had said they could do anything, including make shitloads of money.  He'd brought out the contract to impress her, but once the band was autographed she'd disappeared, off her shift even.

Anyway, it wouldn't be long before there were a pile of band bones where the mojo lay.

But yeah, dude, the Mackmones caught the brass ring. With the tip-off from the bartender, Sonny got three grand from a hardsell session on the Gretsch. Sonny watched other bands and there weren't any hollow bodies to be seen. And it had too much of a country fucking look with those f-holes and raised pickguard.  After the sale, in which he was cheated blind yet walked away snickering about the dumbass that gave him all that money, his band spent twenty months crisscrossing the state doing small punk outlets using the label's name to get in doors that wouldn't open for just anyone. They actually became an overnight "name" while racking up bills on their contract advance. It didn't much matter that they were more or less homeless and on their own, they were majorly rocking as a signed band. They'd copped a few studio hours with a no-name studio with calendar holes and even got a CD demo, with their own music on it for once. Unpredictably, it became a HOT bulleted CD. The label-dude even came around then, and got them a run of copies to merch at shows.

A couple high school reviewers let into shows and the old breadtruck tour van wrote some nice things about the band in some major self-published ink. Some San Fran internet punk writers dug those articles thinking there was an actual band attached and inked the Mackmones up even more. And along the way, the band sucked up to some radio interviewers for local licks and even some of their friends could hear them on the radio. That was major dude echoes all around.

So blatantly true. They were rockers with no end in sight. Their sight, that is. In the way that life has of evening out the bumps.

They lasted until the middle of recording the second CD. Shirk was too wasted to play anymore and Mark was a road fever vegetable. The chick hadn't stuck around since the first leg of the second round of out of town clubs. The guys thought she was fuck fodder and she thought those geeks had shit for brains and she didn't need that shit. Besides, a mechanic in a punk crowd one night had promised her a life of Mustangs that actually "scooted." Love.

Back to Artistic Differences between the Mackmones. None of them could agree on the music and the leadership and the mission anymore. The mission was chicks and drugs. They needed to make the music more "core". Sonny wanted to go lyrical and with each passing gig was starting to sound more and more like fucking Bob Dylan. There were fistfights on stage, and the bar bills were getting high as the band tension. The audiences liked the band fights. Especially the tattooed blonde mini-chicks in micro leather. They figured it was a music thing and it was cool. Sonny and Mark often wound up laid where they could crash with the local twattage.

Mark puked, a lot. He'd picked up a drug habit from not getting served at the bars. He was starting to not make it through whole gigs without running for the crapper. He liked being able to stay up so late though. But the good buzz down in his nuts kept him at it too long. Shirk just wanted Georgie back because he thought he had a shot there. Fuck the band, he'd even gotten to talk to her a few times and experienced a couple of hugs that squished their sweaty tits together after they'd frothed a couple big moshmad crowds.

It's very true that whatever reason the God of Gretsches has for one-hit one-town wonders, he surely doesn't care how it happens. All you can say is it's a dude thing. Ask the Mackmones who never had time to doubt their destiny. Not that they were such great planners anyway. Hey, they made it all the way to Oroville CA before the flameout. Sonny took it hard to the limit and still wouldn't believe that life would let him down so badly. So high to fall so far off the muff-wagon of rockdom. Even though he was head and shoulders above where he'd been, the fall from cool depressed him enough to wear black and hang at the back of clubs waiting for people to remember him.

They'd almost made it to Reno. Actually, they had a thing in Reno on the way back through after the gig in Oroville. Unfortunately, Mark and his drums got left on the side of the road and Sonny and Shirk beat their instruments into unplayable junk trying to demolition derby each other. Stoop just stood by, freaking about his axe. Oh no, not his Hoffner.

Too late. Matchsticks.

They didn't call or talk to each other for months. They avoided each other in the clubs that they could get into now since they were part of the scene. They were "hey, didn't you used to be's" within the music circles. Circles and cliques that they each centered. What could be more successful than that?

But oh man, remembering the acid like flashbacks of mega-twattage and TITS, DUDE, TITS!

Mack, having got out on "early parole" on his transfer from Lovelock to Ely, was trashing about the trailer wondering just what the fuck happened to his fucking Gretsch. He knew it was worth at least two or three weeks of road money. Sonny had promised to take care of it and somebody'd better pony up that axe or some big cash. Enraged, he beat the living dogshit out of Sonny when he found out how much Sonny'd got and that the money was totally blown. More, he figured it was a fucking lie that it really was gone.

But when Sonny showed him the band pictures, Mack smiled. Not for long though, he had a meet up with some dudes about a hella score in Bakersfield. But first he tore the trailer apart figuring that with all that cash Sonny had a stash. Unfound, Mack would have to go out to his buddy's with empty hands. Not unbloody likely.

"Where is it, you shit twerp," was the last thing Sonny heard from Mack before Mack ran back outside to the waiting ride. His Bakersfield capture wasn't just another below the fold item in the papers, this was a full-fledged demon-hunt, not just another Bakersfield shootout. This bastard guy from Nevada with the corpses behind in the trailer park was bad to the bone. There were pictures taken with this corpse.

As usual, dust begot dust and blew away in the wind. Nothing you could whistle along with, just hum a bit and toss your hair to, like a life thing. But say you're a classy corpse name of Jodie, and you see to it before you mount the golden stairs that a little brother way outshines a big brother with a magical axe. Something of a value that neither of them should ever have seen let alone played. Something that practically played itself with a diabolical full moon devil scream from every wheelhouse slam.

That it would end badly for mother and second son, was foregone in this reality.

Mack's old ho Georgie would regret wearing those friendship rings, too. But then, Georgie regretted everything about the Crandall boys she had ever known anyway. She even regretted being left behind in a pool of crimson blood bubbling from the hole in her abdomen. Unfortunately for her, she could only confirm what Sonny had said about the money from the axe.

The rings Mack had given her were working themselves from her fingers, and as she lay there her Jodie souvenirs were already very deep in the heart dust layers of ages of bad fucking luck.

Many years later, the collector opened the guitar case and removed the Gretsch. Piece of crap old thing probably would never stay in tune. It had cost him plenty from the guy who'd said Mack and the Mackmones themselves had touched it, played it, sold it for tour bread. 

But the Hardrock would get it after all. Glass case, by itself.  Turned out the serial number identified it as a piece stolen from the collection of Brian Wilson himself, who'd gotten it as a gift from a fan of Chet Atkins in some hippie clan.  B.F.D. The tiny rings in the bottom of the case were still a mystery, although probably not to a lady named Sharon who once had a nice house in a canyon by Los Angeles many years ago.

For Joey

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