Sonny’s Story.
Trapped between two separate times and realities, Wilkins struggles to make sense of it all. He wants to share his thoughts with you, with everyone. His dreams, paranoias, desires, hopes, love and hatred. His lust for all things remarkable. Slowly, he comes to the realization of where he is at: twenty ‘o seven. And its from this point, that he issues his will upon the world.
Anyways…
Here’s how it all happened. We was playing our tunes at this gin mill downtown called “The Swizzle Stick”. Now, Tony somehow knew this would be our last gig together. So he cooked up something real nice for me, emptied the junk inside my left, and took the little that remained for himself. The big “O”. A welcome colleague in our quest towards enlightenment: the macrocosm of music. But, you see, if I was gonna explore the essence of a Diminished Eb3 Scale, I would need to get my ossification on too. You follow? So after my first helping of dope, I started.
At that time, booze was still banned, so we was drinking lots and lots of home-made garble: moonshine. Of course, all the regular bootlegged shit was there. Your whiskey’s, and to a lesser extent, your vodka’s. But nobody wanted to be seen drinking vodka back then. The mind can make an easy jump into thinking one’s a bohunk, if it indeed registers the fact that vodka is being consumed. I never knew what the big deal was about the Eastern Europeans. Sure: they smell bad, often times look scruffy or unkempt, and can’t speak English worth a lick. But insofar, I’ve only met one I’ve [wanted to] kill[ed]. And it was more because he was an asshole than a bohunk.
But Tony and me, like I said, our poison (literally) was the moonshine. The jug reeked of death, and somehow, later on in the evening, a cockroach would find its way into the brown vase that we were consuming out of. But we wouldn’t care, or even know it to be a cockroach.
There was Charlie, Tony, and me. Charlie was on the up and up. Which made it nearly impossible for him to play with Tony and I. He always used to talk about how his playing was superior without the O, or the booze, or the Cake, or skirts. Charlie wasn’t queer, but made really no bones to meet anyone new, honey’s or not. But part of that may have been because Charlie was ofay, and a fucking ghost at that. He was always on the losing end; he was too cool for that uptown, weak-ass excuse for The Jazz, but not cool enough to play the field in these clubs. Not like me and Tony.
The man with the plan was Tony. Always scoring something. I had known Tony for about three years at that point. And in that short period of time, he had become my best mate. Part of this was due to his very early-on beliefs that I could hold my own; only with a kit and a bass. When most everybody doubted me, Tony never did. So we would always play together; dope together, too. But this night would be my last with T and Charlie…
So this is how it was gonna be. The last time. My last expedition into hop-induced ecstasy. But, I gotta say: what a shit way to go.
During our first set it started. My eyes were closed for what felt like hours in the beginning, but had to have been about five minutes. At first opening glance, I only saw Charlie’s ride; directly in front of my face. Golden splashes to the tick of tss… tss, tss. Over and over again. Even with all of Charlie’s bitching, short-sightedness, and negativity, I still loved hearing him hit that trap. He was keen to arithmetic; this undoubtedly helped his approach to the instrument. His intellect was his strength; not passion, or creativity, but smarts.
When I gathered enough courage to look away from the spinning plate, everything looked a golden brass. The lights, beaming hotly into my face, ignited the room with this color. As if the gold of the evening sun had somehow been captured during the day, and shoved into the back of this joint that night.
The silhouettes of those in attendance that night were pulsing. With sparkling saffron eyeballs, they were all drinking yellow. For a moment I imagined all of them guzzling down piss: my piss. But I was far to cooked up to laugh, or even be amused by myself. A harsh bunch filled that room. Some drunk high hat about three tables back chucked a dead soldier at Tony, it rattled around his feet for a moment; like a little glass rat, until it was booted away.
Mostly spades, was this crowd. Owls, pikers, eggs, users, and rummies; they were all out. For a moment, it seemed like Charlie was the only non-indulger in the city.
During the third peak of our middle improv, I could feel something comin’ on. This was different than ever before. My hands started to pulse, any second they were to burst: exploding what would’ve been yellow blood all over the first two rows. I stopped and started a number of times, erratically. Soon I would stop all together. The rooms brassy tint started to hurt my eyes and my head. This strained endlessly: body and mind. Physical and mental.
I leaned over for a second, frantically searching the floor for something that wasn’t there. Nothing can help me now. My body then arched into ugly convulsions: spine twisting, muscles tearing, mind disintegrating. This is it. But it wasn’t it. I started to chew on my own tongue, the blood slipped down the middle of my chin. I leaned over once again, doing the same blind search with my hands. The vomit splattered onto my frantic fingers. My nose bled, my mouth foamed, and my dick pissed. More convulsions, everyone is panicking. There’s no way to stop this. The yellow crept into me, into my brain. I could feel it eating away at the nerves and cells. The clock spun backwards. I collapsed, into a shaky ball, laying in my own fluids. I forgot who Charlie was, and who Tony was. The only thing I knew was that I knew nothing. But even that knowledge soon left me. All that was left were my ears. I could hear it all, but couldn’t comprehend. Defeated, broken, rotting, I ceased to be.
So here I am now, in 2007. Ready to report on anything. Even if no one reads it. Live well, sleep well; I’ll be back shortly.
-Sonny
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