Dakin T W - Corona Retardent for Capacitors

For D. Boon

Known toolate.

Lost tooquick.

Corona

By P.J.Lyon

Wheres Eric? Lance said from behind the cover of astruck bass string.

Garrett held his drumsticks in the air like a shrug.

Lance glanced nervously to the waiting audience.

Moshers in the pit unable to mosh. Stage divers withoutthe cover of loud music and dimmed lights to excuse theiracrobatics. Pogoers without a pogo between them. Andthere, at the rear of the restless and muttering crowd, the MusicMan. The man who held their futures in his hand and the nodof a head. The suited man who checked time all toofrequently.

Carl smiled ineffectually at the visitor, and he was as surelythat as he was anything else. A tourist in amongst the tribe,watching, searching for culture to take back to the civilisedworld.

A world where there were no day-jobs and no alarms to wake up toand

Did he call you? Lance said, masking the question with a reachfor a bottle of water.

The drummer blew out his cheeks in a gerbil manner, which was ayes and a no all at the same time.

Not just any time, Garret. I meantoday. Sometime today, like, earlier today, before now?

Just you know.

No, I dont. What?

To say hed be late. He called to say hed be late.

Late?

Yah.

How late?

The drumsticks shrugged.

Jesus, Garret, when were you going to tell me this?

When you asked?

Could have told me before we got on stage, right? Couldhave

A fizzing, half full bottle of beer sailed through the air andskidded across the stage before Lances feet.

For a moment it twisted, turned, like a bottle in the game wheresecret loves could be chosen with the right kind of spin. Itturned, twisted, passed Lance and then Garret, and chose, finally,the empty space where Eric should have been standing, guitar inhand and ready to shred.

Someone in the crowd hooted.

Another someone, anonymous and shielded at the centre of themuttering, found his courage in that shelter and shouted: Get onwith the show!

Words, which spread and shortened as they were passed from oneto the next until they became a chant.

Show! Show! Show!

The Music Man checked his watch again and wagged his head asthough hed answered no to some question that had gone unasked, butnot unheard.

Lance knew what that question was. It was the samequestion all bands wanted asked and answered with a yes. Itwas the dotted line about to be signed. It was the time in astudio and the possibility of sleeping horizontal instead ofupright in some dirty, ramshackle van.

Lance felt his heart sink into the place that was reservedusually for the deep bass rumble of a loud amp.

Show! Show! Show!

How could Eric have done this and when they were so close tomaking it? How could he, when he knew that their whole futureturned on this night and this stage and the man in the audience whoheld that future in his hands. How could

And there the thought stopped.

From the rear of the crowd she came.

Tandy, Erics girlfriend.

Her eyes swam in a river that all would know at one time oranother. A river that carried everyone on its currents,whether they wanted to swim or not.

Lance felt the bass rumble of something far worse thandisappointment, much louder than any amp could produce.

It was the future, lost.

It was the empty space chosen by the spin of a bottle.

The unplugged amp, the guitar left unshredded.

Lance held a hand up to the crowd, and through that Mosescommand of the musician, he beckoned them to stop.

The tides of moshers who hadnt moshed, divers who hadnt dived,parted to let the familiar, yet strikingly unfamiliar woman throughto the stage.

Then silence.

Hush.

Even the Music Man stopped checking his watch.

A bottle might have spun in that time when all were holdingbreaths to hear the news. First they heard the tears. And tears were always bad news.

Lance leant into the woman as she collapsed at his ear.

And at his ear she spoke a single, broken word.

Gone.

***

He sat on the hill watching the sunset, the empty bottle in hishand.

The world was purple going into blue and would soon be apunctuated black.

Lance noticed none of the colours changing. He watchedonly the reflection of the world in the bottle.

It was a twisted world, frosted, bent out of shape. Thekind of world where an oldest friend might be smiling at you oneday, where you might be passing dreams and hopes back and forthover a beer and the next the smile and the dreams were crushedunder the wheels of some monster.

He did not want to imagine the monster, but it was hard notto.

From the hill he could see down and onto the road where themonster had snatched his friend. He could see the blackstain, the permanent shadow on the grey concrete where oil andblood had mixed. And every time he blinked away a new tearthere was a moment in darkness, a moment where he saw the monsterout on the road ready to spill that oil and blood and snatch thefuture from them all.

Lance turned away from his own imaginings and turned the bottlewith him.

Now he trapped the trees in reflection.

They were bent out of shape like the rest of the world. The charred and bony hands reaching out from darkening skies tograb and hold the dreams of those who dared dream and crush themclose to some dark and unbeating heart. They were the handsof time and the hands of a friend whose last words were stolen byfire.

Lance closed his eyes.

He cursed the world, twisted and untwisted as it might be.

He opened his eyes away from the glass to the town and the worldthat waited for him now.

What now? What of the band? What of the future?

They were never a duo, always a trio. But nobody couldreplace Eric. There wasnt anyone who could sing thesongs. Nobody with that strange mixture of innocence andanger.

Nobody with the same passion.

Eric hadnt wanted the favours of the Music Man. Erichadnt wanted to make it big or even make it small. Hisdreams were small and already fulfilled. It was enough toplay the clubs and bars of the town and then on to the clubs andbars of the places not so far away. Stadiums were for sportsnot for music.

A chord was struck in Lance, and it echoed in the hollowchambers of his body.

Guilt in F Sharp.

It was a bad chord. The beginning of a melody that Lancedidnt want to hear.

Wasnt your fault, was it? You didnt down ten beersbefore climbing behind the wheel of a monster and aiming it atEric, did you? You werent the one who did this to him.

But if hed known about the Music Man, if Eric had known aboutwhat I had planned if hed

And what exactly did you have planned?

Nothing, he realised. Nothing at all. The Music Manmight have made an offer, but it was an offer they would all haverejected, no matter how broke, no matter how twisted the world wasunder the glass of the bottle or beyond the glass. The MusicMan might as well never have been there.

And he wouldnt have been if Eric had turned up. If thatmonster hadnt taken him. It would have been a very differentnight altogether.

Lance smiled.

The first smile hed had on his lips in a long time.