Mira Corpora (7 page)

I stand in front of the window, hypnotized. There I am staring back at myself staring at the arrangement of green Gretsch guitar, white drum kit, black enamel bass. The instruments look like they're floating on top of my body. One reality superimposed over the other. I'm flanked by Markus and Lena who seem to be experiencing the same thing. It's like a hallucination, or maybe a vision. The three of us must all be thinking something similar but I'm the one who says it, half-whispering the words under my breath because the idea is so potent that anything louder would shatter the glass: “We look like a band.”

There's no point entering the store to inquire about prices. The place is so new it hasn't officially opened for business, but more importantly we're flat broke. We peel ourselves away from the display window, hijacked by a snarl of conflicting emotions.
My words have clearly initiated something. As we walk back to the squat, we argue about who would play what instrument. Markus immediately claims guitar for himself. Lena shouts drums like she's calling shotgun. I finger the shell necklace around my throat. “I don't care,” I say. “As long as I get to sing.” They raise their eyebrows in concert, but I'm pretty sure I could do it.

When we reach the deteriorating tenement, we linger on the street until the homeless couple turns the corner, then scurry down the steps to the basement. The kids call this “the squat,” but it's an actual apartment Lena inherited from some relative or another. She removes the key pinned inside her eloquently distressed wool sweater and unlocks the door.

I've been crashing with them for several months, but this place hasn't lost its novelty. The sprawling, raw space is furnished with a few rickety chairs, soiled mattresses, and corked piss bottles. Food wrappers carpet the cracked concrete floor. Black tapestries annul the windows. It's modest but there's electricity and running water. And even better, a booming stereo system. We're about to announce the discovery of the music store when the sound blasting from the speakers stops us.

The muffled ferocity is immediately identifiable. It's the bootleg cassette of Kin Mersey's final show. This particular recording is almost never played. In the time I've been here, the kids have only dared to break it out once. Hank sits on the mattress he shares with Lena, wrapped in their stained sheets, hugging his knees. It almost looks like he's been crying. We've clearly arrived in the aftermath of something.

The walls rattle from the sound of the band ratcheting up for another headlong chorus. The tape is striking for its scrim of fuzz and static, but one element is instantly clear. That voice. The performance contains no obvious clues to Kin's sudden abdication though it's marked by an intensity that's eerie even by his extreme standards, a disturbing vodoun vibe where it's
impossible to tell whether he is channeling the songs, or vice versa. Hank starts to stir. He says: “There's something you guys need to see.”

As Hank stands up, I notice his fingertips are smudged black. In a few places, the ink from the interwoven patterns on his arms is beginning to run. He solemnly presents us with a blurred photocopy of what looks like an X-ray. There's some scratchy handwriting below the image and a sequence of typed numbers. It appears to be the cross-section of a human skull, its mouth wide open. There is a square chunk of bright matter behind the teeth. “A friend of mine works in the psych ward and was there when it happened,” Hank says. “He figured we'd want to know and snuck me this copy.”

“I don't get it,” Lena says. “What exactly are we looking at?”

“A severed tongue,” he says. “Apparently Kin chewed off his own tongue during like the tenth round of electroshock therapy.”

We silently pass the image from hand to hand. Holding the page, I'm visited by a feeling similar to the one I had staring at the store window. My collar bone thrums and my stomach flops.

Hank tacks the paper to the wall, where it hangs like some kind of fucked-up talisman. The copy is too smudged to tell anything for certain—even the name on the X-ray isn't conclusive, the scratchy doctor handwriting typically illegible. But this seems beside the point. Hank's tale sounds grotesque enough to be true. There have been persistent rumors that Kin suffers from schizophrenic episodes.

Everyone is devastated. Markus tries to buoy us with logic and lamely plays devil's advocate. “There have been all sorts of crazy stories about Kin,” he says. “Who says this one has to be true?” Hank says his friend isn't a liar and points out that none of the previous rumors have been backed up by hard evidence. I try to add my two cents, but no words come out. It falls to Lena to supply the verdict. “It's depressing,” she says. “Really
fucking depressing.” The tape winds past the final number and now only scattered shards of murmurs and applause emanate from the speakers, the sound of the audience making its way toward the exits.

When the stereo clicks off, the silence is jarring. I find my index finger hypnotically tracing the outline of the X-ray as if it formed a sort of map, as if it were a pattern to be brought into focus. Then I have it.

I say: “The new music store in the neighborhood.”

I say: “It's only a few blocks from here.”

I say: “We're going to steal the instruments.”

As soon as the words come out, I know they're exactly right. Markus nods in agreement. Hank seems unsure at first, but slowly a smile emerges. “It's beyond perfect,” Lena says. “We'll carry on Kin's music for him.”

Hank takes the lead in masterminding a plan. It should be straightforward, but he wants to know about more than the store's location and the instruments in the window. He obsesses over the likely floor plan, the possible security system, the layout of the primary street and surrounding avenues. Strategies are hatched about disabling alarm mechanisms, spray-painting the lenses of security cameras, establishing the quickest routes of entry and escape. “This is impossible without a van,” Hank says. I roll my eyes, but it turns out Lena knows someone who can lend us one. Markus alone has second thoughts. It's difficult to read the level of concern in his burned features, but he keeps hinting at misgivings about the morality of the proposition.

Lena defends the idea as my brainchild. “This is the way people on the street get things done,” she says.

“It's a basic right,” I clarify. “Like starving people who steal bread.”

Hank puts a slightly different spin on it. “Come on,” he says. “Anybody stupid enough to open a music store in such a shitty neighborhood deserves this.”

The planning continues for what feels like hours. Maybe it's a necessary part of screwing up our courage. That evening we're finally ready to make a dry run and fine-tune the details of our heist. We borrow a beat-up white van that looks well acquainted with this line of work. Hank rolls up the schematic drawings he's concocted and announces he'll drive. Markus, Lena, and I huddle on the metal floor in the back. It feels like we're apostles on our first mission. Markus hums the riff to a favorite Kin Mersey song, Lena taps out the beat on her stomach, and I imagine my voice soaring over top of it all.

We park the van a block away and casually saunter toward the music store. It's one of the few occupied storefronts in this so-called commercial zone of the neighborhood. Even in the hazy light of the sporadic streetlamps, I can tell something is wrong. The display window looks unreal, as if it's mystically shed one of its dimensions. Then I notice a shimmer of glass on the sidewalk and realize we're too late. It's been smashed. As we creep closer, I spot a metal trash can lying inside the store. Some bastard tossed it through the glass and cleaned out the instruments. We hear police sirens approaching and tear back to the van. We haven't done anything wrong but Hank peels maniacally around random corners until the sound dies away. Eventually we shudder to a stop outside a bar, somewhere on the far edge of our neighborhood.

The bar is open, so we're forced to get drunk. We slump into a table and order several rounds simultaneously. “This is just a setback,” Hank says. “We're still going to do this. There's no doubt about it.” But I can feel the momentum draining away. Our platitudes about carrying on sound listless, like speeches at an infant's wake. We try to distract ourselves by focusing on the band that's getting ready to play on the wooden stage in the corner.

Lena has an idea. She smoothes her multi-color tresses, fixes her lipstick, pastes on her cutest smile, and strolls over to request
a number by Kin Mersey. A balm for our disappointments. She returns to the table wearing a potent scowl. “They've never heard of him,” she says, spitting on the floor. It figures. The band of athletic longhair dudes start to bang out some thirdhand hard rock. The longer we listen, the clearer it becomes these so-called musicians are committing crimes against art. The sight of them playing these instruments makes as much sense as Neanderthals operating sonar.

We outwait the band as a matter of principle. After their interminable set, I notice them dragging their equipment through a service entrance into the street. I pretend to use the bathroom so I can get a better view. I watch them carefully arrange the drum kit and bass amps in the back of a van. I rush back inside, grip the side of the table so hard the beer bottles rattle, and let it blurt.

I say: “There's a van outside full of instruments.”

I say: “Stealing them from these assholes will be a favor to society.”

I say: “We've got to hurry.”

We sketch a quick plan and arrive on the scene just in time. The band is loitering on the sidewalk. Their van is loaded with the instruments. Hank waves his arms and calls out to them, launching into his crazed fan routine. “You guys rock!” he says. He somehow keeps a straight face while asking if they have albums for sale and when they've got their next gig. Of course the band has neither, but they talk a good game about future plans. Even the driver climbs out of the front seat to explain that they've been thinking about changing their name and rattles off some idiotic options they've been considering. Hank asks for their autographs and when nobody has paper, he hoists his shirt and insists they sign his stomach.

Oh, it's pathetically easy. Markus, Lena, and I casually sneak around the other side of the van. Markus is prepared to attempt a fast hotwire, but the driver has left the keys on the seat. We
pile inside, lock the side doors, and Markus guns the ignition. The engine turns over with a wheezing gasp. The van rattles and we take off with a shuddering jolt. As we lurch down the street, I see the lead singer running down the sidewalk after us, blond hair cascading behind him, arms and legs pumping furiously. But it hardly matters. There's nothing but clear road ahead.

Then the engine stalls. Markus jockeys the key and the van frantically restarts. We look up to find the lead singer has thrown his body against the hood, his fleshy fingers clutching the windshield wipers. His lanky hair conceals his eyes but his contorted lips and crooked teeth form a terrifying grimace. “You're gonna have to run me over,” he shouts.

“Do it,” Lena screams. Markus hits the gas and the guy spins off the windshield like a giant pinwheel. It's sort of alarming. The instruments buckle and the rear doors fly open. The bass and several amps tumble into the street with a series of rumbling thumps. In the rearview, Hank is getting pummeled by several band members who look like they're blending his face into the pavement.

The engine finally catches the correct gear and the speedometer leaps upward. But two blocks later, we hit a red light. Three sedans and an SUV are stopped ahead of us. Markus leans on the horn, but nobody budges. “This fucking traffic,” he groans. I look behind to see the lead singer shambling down the center of the street. His face is bloody. He's picked up the bass from the asphalt and wields it like a baseball bat. He flails the air and unleashes a series of inarticulate shrieks.

“For God's sake,” I shout. “Run it!”

“In case you haven't noticed,” Markus begins, but then looks over his shoulder. As we peel out, the singer swings the bass at the flapping back doors and almost knocks one off its hinges. We sweep around the stopped cars and Markus briefly shuts his eyes as we careen down the wrong side of the street. He runs the next several lights for insurance, then initiates a sequence
of random turns, mimicking Hank's getaway technique. A few more amps topple out of the rear of the van. None of us has any idea where we're heading.

After all the moving violations and falling equipment, it's no surprise to see the police's flashing red lights in the rearview mirror. “Keep going,” I shout. Markus floors the accelerator and makes several swerving turns, shunting over sidewalks and mowing down trash cans. All of a sudden he hits the brakes so hard that we bounce off the windshield. We've reached the end of a cul-de-sac, one of the many streets that terminates at the canal. We stumble out of the van, dazed and winded, clutching our heads while executing a few looping steps. I hear a siren in the distance but the police aren't in sight yet.