It Ain't Gonna Save Me

Blood splattered in Pollock-esque brilliance when he split his temple with the business end blade of that black Flying-V guitar.
"Ahhhhh fuck all...here we go..."

Mania, like a tornado, starts picking up alarming velocity in shoulder to shoulder proximity. Beer cans start sailing like Spitfires at the heads of the bandmates as they scurry off stage. It was all out war. Mortar rounds lobbed from the crowd, drumsticks like bayonets, a mic-stand makes an effective mallet, bass guitar like a battering ram, punches thrown...haymakers, sweat, blood, misty breath in the freezing cold, bouncers rush in with veins bulging out of their neanderthal foreheads. Spontaneous fucking chaos. I'd seen it once before in some sanctimonious Nirvana documentary when Cobain splintered the skull of some poor hooligan like he was a Chinaman driving a railroad spike. You drink too much, you embrace anarchy, you get your eyes crossed by a 3-inch-thick plank of glossy wood and nickel-wound strings; swung maliciously by the long-haired shrieking demon you just paid 20 bucks to pound your ass into raw meat, all the while accompanied by a fitting soundtrack. When cornered, wild animals go to great lengths to vacate the situation. Human civility notwithstanding, punk rock musicians are no exception.

She bought the tickets. She asked me to accompany. She was wide-eyed, hairs on the back of her neck stood up straight. Electric air, charged and fused with hysteria. A bit hypnotized she was, you might say. Pure wonderment and primal fear. I quick-scanned the room, found the easiest exit to usher her out, clinched my fist in my coat pocket, turned my beer bottle upside down (a fitting armament to sink into some wayward animal's jugular, should it come to it), grabbed her arm and ushered her to higher ground as a defensive maneuver.

We are on the Austin360 A-List the next day. We look like we belong there. The first time I saw her, she was dancing in the middle of a brightly colored hoola-hoop, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a wonderful bar, in the middle of warm lights reflecting off the middle of her small brown-haired head.

We walk past two delinquents with their faces smashed and pressed up against the window of the cruiser, being read their rights. Dried blood down the face serves as an unfortunate reminder that you do. not. fuck. with. punk. bands. in. Austin. Texas. She trembles a bit at the two poor rioters and the shape they're in. She puts her arm under mine and rests her head on my shoulder as we walk past the ignorant youthful anarchists. Inconvenienced policeman in 28 degree weather means handcuffs and arrests. Arrested. Arrested and thrown in the clink.

She looks up at me from her scarf and pea coat and tells me she has fun with me. Arrested.

I seem to be arrested.

All is lost. There is no hope for me.