Absolution

The kid managed to smoke four cigarettes out of the car window and complained so much about the Mötley Crüe playing, I let him find one of my brother’s shitty indie mixtapes with loads of fucking British music on. The kid turned Oasis’ Don’t Look Back in Anger up to levels that I reserved for the opening to When the Levee Breaks, the end of Stairway and the entirety of Bohemian Rhapsody; he belted out the lyrics as if his life depended on it and I smiled. The intro to Live Forever came on and he hit me on the shoulder, pointing at the tape deck with an excited face and exclaimed how this was what music was supposed to sound like.

I turned the volume down and asked him why, because I’d rather listen to Mötley Crüe over Oasis any day; he said that he felt Noel Gallagher’s (who he called the messiah and apparently would kiss his feet) lyrics had meaning behind them, they felt sincere and songs like Live Forever were deep, intricately sewn lyrics that were written to inspire a generation, whereas Mötley Crüe’s lyrics were so shallow, basic and mindless that they made him sick.

I frowned and said that yes, whilst they weren’t the descendents of Bob Dylan and his poetic words, it was supposed to be mindless rock, which is a good thing for a person who’s too blown over by their own deep thoughts to want the philosophical messages of a lyrical genius. I enjoyed listening to the tales of Vince Neil’s trips to strip clubs and Nikki Sixx’s frequent drug overdoses and visits to the other side and back. He shrugged, smiled and remarked that I’d referred to Noel Gallagher as a ‘lyrical genius’. I grabbed the cigarette out of his mouth and threw it out of the window. He gasped and held up two fingers.

I vividly remember having a conversation similar to that with my brother. He was fourteen and I’d just been given the car as a birthday gift, a sort of coming-of-age present if you will. I’d also inherited the tape collection as my father had progressed to CDs, despite complaining that they scratched too easily for his liking. It seemed like as soon as my brother hit puberty, he began to realise how much he couldn’t stand our father and protested (or loudly grumbled) about anything in the car that reminded him of him (except the car, I would not let him speak a bad word about the vehicle we grew up in).

I gave up arguing with him about what I played and what I didn’t play – I had gauged that he did not object to Led Zeppelin, the Doors, the Who and any of that late sixties/early seventies Woodstock era ‘classic’ rock, so for a while we listened to mainly that and occasionally, I convinced him that maybe, AC/DC were worth a listen. Ever since we had reached this agreement, he began to fill up the tape collection with current, modern music that was being talked about in those arty, intellectual magazines that he liked – my complete adoration of and pushover nature around my brother really came to show when I let him play Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory and Pulp’s This is Hardcore (which quite honestly, I bought for him because that album artwork truly is something) to their deaths.

I guess the fact that I knew the songs that the kid was singing along to as well, if not better, as him was the reason behind my reluctance to enjoy the music; there were too many memories behind the songs and why they were on the tapes, there was too much emotional baggage that all opened up when something triggered my longing for that bond I once had with my brother. I really fucking missed him and it fucking hurt me inside. I blamed my father.

The kid’s loud singing brought me out of my trance; he pointed me down a road and told me to park up in front of a block of apartments. I gave him a sceptical look and he lit up another cigarette, rolling up the window as I stopped the car.

He told me which number apartment it supposedly was and picked up his bag and guitar case from the backseat. I asked if he was coming up and he shook his head. He said that he had to go and see his ‘adoptive Los Angeles mother’, a tiny blonde woman with a kind face, big doe eyes, a weak English accent, a talent for cooking the kid’s favourite food from home and an adoration for his music. He told me I had to meet her as she was like the auntie you never knew you had or wanted; I whacked him on the back, waved him off and entered the building with a sigh.

I climbed two flights of stairs, eyes quickly passing over the open doors and noticing the pungent aroma of incense seeping out. I reached the house number the kid told me and knocked on the door three times, the rosary beads attached to the knocker banging against the image of Jesus holding his hand to his heart beneath. A voice within called out that the door was open and I turned the handle and pushed.

I walked into a terracotta coloured room, filled with candles, fabrics, cushions and Catholic imagery, and was met with a sticky, marijuana flavoured kiss. Her hair was in a messy up-do and she looked pleased. She exclaimed that my arrival was a surprise and she wasn’t expecting me, but she was awfully glad.

The singer grinned and introduced me to the tiny, dark-skinned girl with hip length, mermaid like hair sitting on the couch with a joint burning slowly between her bony fingers. She was an actress and maybe I’d seen her in an American Apparel advertisement? I told her it was unlikely, but I’d look out for her whenever I got the chance to watch the television; she grinned and it reminded me of the Cheshire cat, her teeth were impossibly white and her lipstick was an almost-black, aubergine colour that made her absolutely terrifying, which confused me considering I was at least a foot taller than her without the dominatrix-like leather, stud encrusted platform boots she had on her legs.

I hadn’t realised just how loudly Santana was playing in the background, I complimented the singer on her choice of music and she shook her head and pointed at the smaller girl who had adjusted herself to sit in a way so that her feet were pointed upwards to the ceiling and her head hanging off the edge of her seat, hair pooling atop of the fluffy carpet. She handed the singer the joint and she took a drag from it, approaching me and planting another sticky kiss on my lips, this time, coaxing my lips to part so she could transfer the smoke from her mouth to mine.

I inhaled the smoke and exhaled it in ribbons; both of them warned me that it was weak shit and that I wouldn’t feel anything unless I smoked a lot. I said I wouldn’t because I just got super depressed when I was high, which I guess defeated the purpose of the act. The singer kissed my shoulder and went to sit down on the rug, where they began to gossip about this guy they knew, asking if I’d met him – the one with the dreadlocks who smoked way too much meth, but made really nice bracelets; he would have been good looking if it wasn’t for his rotting teeth or horrid stench. I admitted that no, I had not met him and from the sounds of things, I didn’t really want to. They laughed and said that, yeah he was a real jerk, and then began to discuss things I didn’t really care for.

I wandered over to the record player and picked up the aged LP and turned it over to look at the track listing, I nodded in approval and set it down again. My eyes travelled up the dark shelving unit and focussed on the photographs sitting there, gathering dust. There were three on the shelf; a gold framed photograph of a toddler with her face in the fur of a fluffy cat, a glass framed photo of the singer standing in front of a mint green house, looking younger and happier, holding a baby in pink leggings and a cream dress and in another gold frame, the singer and a shorter man with a charming smile, dimples and the both of them in formalwear. I assumed the baby was a sibling or a niece or something. It took me a while, but I realised that the good looking man from the photograph was the skinny man with the track-marked arms; it was strange, he looked tanned, he looked healthy and he looked like one of those movie stars who Martin Scorsese would have begged to have been in his films.

It was easy to understand how they ended up married (I assumed the photograph of them both together was from their wedding day), it seemed like a classic “star-crossed lovers” deal where they went to neighbouring Catholic schools and met under suspicious circumstances and ended up falling in love against their parents wishes, marrying in a small ceremony in his church or something. I was a romantic at heart, despite what I said otherwise; but I couldn’t understand where their marriage went wrong and why she was fucking me? If it ever came to it, I made mental note that I would ask her, but only if she was really drunk or in the sharing mood.

I heard my name called and I turned; the tiny girl was now smoking a cigarette and asked me why I was here and if I was just going to stare blankly at the record player the whole time. I shrugged and sat down in the corner of the couch and said I had nothing to do and the kid had to go and see his aunt or something. The singer stood up and stated that she was going to confession, she asked me if I wanted to come and I stated that I would probably be struck by lightning as soon as I stepped foot on church land. She laughed, shook her head and asked me to give her a lift at least; I agreed and said goodbye as the other girl picked up her things and left with a wave of her talon-like nails.

The singer reapplied her lip gloss and sprayed her hair with some strong smelling hairspray; she turned off the record player, picked up her rosary beads from the key-hooks along with her keys and looked at me with a smile. I opened the door and began to walk to the car with her trailing behind me; I held doors open for me and she shot me a confused look when the Britpop blasted out of the speakers, saying she didn’t peg me as a wannabe English cool kid. I laughed and assured her this was all the kid’s doing and she nodded with a smirk; I asked her what she was doing tonight and she simply replied with, “Working.” I pushed and asked where and she said some bar somewhere – she didn’t want me there because some of the guys acted like douche bags and she didn’t want me to witness her horrible side. I laughed and said I was sure I’d already seen it – she hit me on my upper arm with a laugh and breathed in.

She appreciated the scent of my car and said it smelt like home. I said that it was home and at the moment, the road was my only friend. She licked her lips, twirled her hair around her finger and told me she knew how that felt; she said that although it was a depressing thought, it was good to know that you weren’t the only person who felt like that.

When you’re on the road, she said, you’ll never be lonely – the roads, the sights, the music and the shitty food are all your friends. Your thoughts may be out to get you, but isn’t that life? There’s always somebody bitching about you behind your back and if there isn’t, then you don’t feel safe, you feel even lonelier. She told me that people who lived this way were always the most interesting people, those who can’t stay in one place, those who don’t want to stay in one place; they may not be the nicest, most friendly people, but they’re the people you want as friends because there will always be a story to tell and they’ll always want to hear a story, your story, because that means that they have company and will always have company, through memories. You have to get the right balance of solitude and company to be happy and those who lived on the road always seemed to find that.

I said that I hadn’t and she just smiled and said I would, in time, because working out that balance takes time. She kissed my cheek, whispered, “You’ll work it out, baby,” and opened the car door, leaving in a cloud of rose scented perfume, cigarette smoke and that intoxicating homely, warm scent that stuck to her. I breathed in and out with closed eyes and rested my forehead on the steering wheel – I really needed my brother.