Black Kelp

Holding her by the neck he fingers her for the first time – a shiny new bass to accompany his shiny new band. His interest in playing music only manifested itself within the past month but he figures that if he can operate a professional grade camera, he can manipulate this sonorous machine as well. Already the room is growing indundated with young people, girls dressed as boys and vice versa, recent graduates from an assortment of liberal colleges. In his mind he is amazed at how all these people can fit in such a tiny room, let alone in his honor. He tries to play it cool. Turning his back to the crowd, he maneuvers the set list with his toes and waits for his cue from Frontman. While he waits he notices a backdrop of obscure books labeled “Anarchist Library.” Where the Wild Things Are peaks out from between Tim Leary's biography and A Beginner's Guide to Holistic Health.

Frontman, who is already a few beers deep, sloshes out some sappy speech about the formation of this new band, careful to include the fact that he's the one who started it, “conceptualized” it, whatever. He doesn't care about all the fancy jargon, so long as everyone realizes who here is the mastermind. When introducing Bass for the first time, he pays no attention to the sweat beads swiftly springing from his bandmates forehead. Due to shoddy stage presence, Frontman is unable to catch Bass's eye so instead he yells “let 'er rip!” and the two men play a song that Bass had written that morning for a girl who hasn't shown up.

By the third song, Frontman happily heaves and gyrates to the sound of his own voice, belting out lyrics as if playing to an adoring stadium rather than a local bookshop. He leers the microphone into a wall of people who dissipate rather than welcome his sweaty body. Sensing their hostility, he straightens up and steals a swig of beer from some dude in plaid. He and Bass now face opposite directions but are beginning to look more and more alike. With every stroke, their fair cheeks become more cherried, similarly strawberry hair growing darker and darker with sweat. By song five they are two twins sprung from the same Irish-American womb. However, as Frontman becomes more comfortable, drunk off of his own melody, Bass only becomes more stiff, a part of him wondering why he'd even agreed to play at all. His mouth simpers at a girl who is dancing in the front row but his eyes frown at no one in particular.

After the show, Frontman offers Bass a cigarette which he gladly accepts. He nods here and there to indifferent fans but lets Frontman do most of the talking. Someone makes a snide comment about his “cancer stick” and he tells them to kindly fuck off. Bodies whir behind a quilt of smoke as he leans against the wooden door frame. Once again, he recoils into himself. Fear, a polluted wave of insecurity, tries mightily to swallow him. The crowd, the music, the girl who never showed up could never scare him as much as he scares himself. Diving into the depths of his mind he finds a protective mountain of black kelp twisted around a skeleton that longs only to fit in with the other dead people.