Ruffino - Adios, motherfucker: a gentlemans progress through rock and roll

The fetal piglet, eyes shut tight, tongue lolling, was spread-eagled across a bed of wax in the baking tin in front of Pepillo, sliced open from epiglottis to urogenital sinus by a smooth midsagittal cut, and surrounded by a thicket of its own internal organs skewered on steel pins. Pepillo had followed the same instructions, step by step, as everyone else in the class, yet no one elses piglet ended up giving the impression it had run afoul of a Byzantine warlord. When it came to evisceration Pepillo had real flair.

I grappled with a formaldehyde headache and labeled organs on a mimeographed diagramfundus... spermatic artery... pyloric sphincterwhile Pepillo, in latex gloves, lab apron, and safety goggles, launched into his new song, accompanying himself on air guitar, imitating. It goes: Kill your mother, or we will... Kill your mother, or we will... Kill your mother, or me and Ed will...

Mr. Lee, wearily pacing the aisles between the lab desks, stopped at our pan and looked closer, evaluating. He arched an inquiring eyebrow at Pepillo, who smiled infernally. Mr. Lee moved on.

You should join our band, Pepillo said.

Whos in it?

Me and Ed.

Pepillo was convincing. As his Andalusian mother told me later, uneasilyPepillo could sell hielo to Esquimals.

Ed lived in a blue ranch house down the end of the street I lived on, in a leafy neighborhood off the highway. He dressed in denim everything over a black concert teehis regimentalsand had a massive, headbanger nimbus of wiry black hair that inspired envy and awe everywhere but church and the teachers lounge. Ed had been air-drumming since the womb, and air-drumming with drumsticks for better than a year; it was usual for Ed to be twirling a drumstick through his fingers walking the halls between classes at school, eating his lunch, sitting undeterred in detention, and while air-drumming along to Pepillos riffing on a physical electric guitar, during band practice, such as it was. Now that Ed had a physical drum set he and Pepillo (who wore his hair neat, feathered, and above the necklineapart from being teenaged and Mediterranean, his appearance didnt suggest metalhead) were in business. They called themselves Fallen Angel. As in Lucifer, said Pepillo. The sickest band name ever. Cant fuckin believe its not taken.

We were getting acquainted musically, down in Eds basement. Lurching drum crashes, jagged riffing through Peavey Crapmaster amps, feedback squeals, starting and re-starting our way through the list of songs Pepillo and Ed wanted to get together. Metallica, Quiet Riot, Mtley Cre, Van Halen, requisite Ozzy, Sabbath, the ubiquitous Cinderella ballad. I was on board with most of it, though I was no metalhead. Normally dedication to metal is the principal qualification for metal band membership, more important than pro gear, own car, and other minimum standards I didnt meet, but Pepillo and Ed were open-minded. And bass players didnt exactly grow on trees.

Pepillo asked me if I knew Autumn Leaves. Id never heard of it, unless he meant the old standard, by Nat King Cole, or someone, whichsince Pepillo was a metalheadI assumed he did not. (He did.) Thats okay, well teach it to you, Pepillo said. He and Ed tried to walk me through the song, all inverted chords and noodly bits and unnatural stretches involving the pinky... I didnt get it. Ed did a counting thing on the hi-hat and said, See? I saw nothing. We moved on.

On a break we watched a KISS concert video, an older one, from the late seventies. Gene Simmonss bass solo involved his bass only in that he pounded it with his fist and drooled fake blood onto it, wagging what people said was a cows tongue sewed to his own. I lumped KISS with professional wrestlingfake blood, fake dangerand mostly flipped past them in magazines. Ed liked KISS. Pepillo liked KISS, but was proceeding with caution now that the makeup was off. KISS coming out [of the makeup, he meant] is like New Coke, Pepillo said.