For You, The Stars
Chapter Six: The Memphis Blues Again
Installment 2
We met Bo and Seth at the appointed place, a particular but random gate number that we used in every venue. Bo didn’t know Cecilia that well and as we stood around waiting to see if anyone would wander by, they compared musical taste, quizzing each other. Most Deadheads claimed to like “every type of music except for—” and it was the exceptions that made the difference.
For example, my friends would probably say they liked every type of music except for heavy metal, or if they thought about it a little harder, except for rap.
But Cecilia loved heavy metal, or just metal, a cooler name for the same thing. Her “except for” was definitely country music, which totally sounded hokey to her. She of course loved rap because she loved dancing at clubs. No one bothered arguing with each other though, because there was no point.
Nobody was going to convince anyone to like a kind of music they had ruled out, even if you found the outliers or the undeniable greats, the Hank Williamses, the LL Cool J’s, the Led Zeppelins. People would just concede the exception and continue to condemn the rest of the genre. Once Cecilia started praising Def Leppard and the ineffable charms of “Pour Some Sugar On Me” Bo had already stopped seriously listening.
Cecilia said she was going to wander around for a bit, so Bo and Seth told her where our seats were and she disappeared down the hallway, weaving among the spinners and the stoned-out kiddies. Bo and Seth had saved seats for us, nearly as high as the ones we’d climbed to in the back of the auditorium, but about halfway closer to the stage. I settled into my seat and wondered where Cecilia had gotten herself to.
About one song into the second set, she appeared with some guy, a little taller than me, with short dark hair. He wasn’t quite a guido, not quite a “yo” but something about him was off-putting.
“Who’s your friend?” I yelled in her ear. “His name’s Mike,” she said. “He said he can give us a ride home after the show.”
“To San Francisco?”
“No, to Marin. He wants to fool around. I’m going to hang out with him for the rest of the show. I’ll meet you back here for the encore.”
While we were talking, he was standing back a little ways.
“Well, don’t kiss him in front of my friends,” I said. “That would be too weird.”
The second set went by in a blur, with the drugs peaking after the pair of medleys that led into the extended drums-and-weirdness experimental section of the set.
My friends and I danced ourselves into a slick set for the rockabilly bop of “Goin’ Down the Road, Feelin’ Bad” out of space, boogied to the faux-Berry raveup “I Need a Miracle” and reached a kind of staring-into-each-other’s eyes epiphany during the soaring cover of Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” particularly the second guitar solo, which cut through the murk of the rollicking multi-instruments not-all-totally-in-synch sound with a piercing electric howl that raised the rafters of the Kaiser.
That song wound down into a non-sequitur Hey Jude coda (just the “na na na nana na na” part from the end), and then the set was over.
Around the time the encore was ending, Cecilia reappeared with Mike. I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to go home with my friend on BART, but I also wasn’t that keen on this guy taking her back to her place and fooling around. I knew what our deal was, but I was feeling competitive.
“Did you say he’d give us both a ride?” I asked.
She said yes, but she also went over to Mike to make sure. Then she came back to me and said, “He says yes.” He was eyeing me like he didn’t know what my deal was. Maybe Cecilia didn’t even tell him we were going out?