A Crash Continued…

My Roommate Bree called me at work a couple weeks ago with the joyous news that Linkin Park tickets were $10 for the Grass. Now, I love Linkin Park, and I’ve seen them only once before on the other side of the nation. (You can find that story on this site too) The chance to see them again on the opposite coast appealed to me.

Clickity, clickit. I’ve got a ticket.

Though for some reason the tickets were $20 after the fee for using the web site.

Bree and I speak in hushed tones over the phone concealing our excitement and the fact that we’ll be leaving work early to go get drunk and act like animals. Not that this is a big deal for her since she masturbates to Lifetime TV telecommutes and never goes in to the office anyways. Neither is it an issue for me, since I bill hourly and won’t get paid for the time I take off work. But it feels surreptitious and we relish any opportunity to misbehave.

Flash Forward. Friday. 3:30.

I’m in a parking lot roughly half the size of New Jersey; dirt, understandably, as it would probably take most of the remaining Mexican pyramids to gravel this much acreage. The parking lot is filled with cars and people in orange vests alternately drinking from questionable containers and sleeping. I assume they are to be directing traffic, but have lost their way in the heat.

It’s hot today. Moist, muggy, hot that makes you sweat just thinking about it. As an added bonus, most of North Carolina has an obsession with tailgating and, not to be dissuaded by the complete lack of any organized sports or in many cases a complete lack of a tailgate, hordes of unwashed, sweating, dust-covered locals are boozing it up in the Sandbox parking lot. Ah, the aroma aroma of beer and a stagnating gene pool.

Not to be outdone, I pull out the Nuclear Crystal Light I made before we left the house and slug about half the contents before handing it to Bree to do the rest. As we are unloading the car, one of our tickets blows under the wheel. I crouch down to pick up the errant paper as some new arrivals pull up next to us and parks.

It’s a strange sensation seeing stars in the middle of the day. Alternating black and silvery white; an optical illusion test, but in full anamorphic technicolor 3D. Normally, one might stop and be quite concerned about the sudden aberrant vision that had hijacked my sight. At this point, I am sidetracked by the splitting pain in my left temple and wondering whether or not my skull is still intact after being sucker punched by whatever chain-wielding Pro wrestler just smacked me in the head.

I can feel the stones in the parking lot biting into my palms where my hands caught me before I could fall into the dirt. I can taste that same dirt in my open mouth, probably stirred up by the recently arrived car. I can feel a drop of moisture, sweat or blood, I’m not sure, teasing the eyelashes at the far corner of my rapidly swelling left eye. I can hear a thick Spanish accent rolling English at me like undulating waves of the Caribbean; fluid but earnest. I feel small manicured hands, nails grazing my scalp, taking off my hat and cradling my head as I sit back on my haunches in the dirt.

Still looking down, I can now see the pedicured toes peeking out of sandals and an anklet adorning one leg; leather with beads like Skittles. My gaze follows the brown shapely calves up to the knees as my assailant crouches down in front of me; short skirt giving me answers to any questions I might have had about the cut and color of her underwear as my vision starts to clear up.

6′ 2″ doesn’t count for much when you are on your knees. My little aggressor didn’t notice me crouch down and thought I had moved out of the way, so she opened her door into my waiting skull. I’m guessing the angry looking Latino at the back of the car is her boyfriend, and in spite of of my recently acquired head injury, he is none too thrilled that his lady is paying more attention to me than to him.

Assuring her that I’m fine, I tell them to go have fun and I start cleaning the blood from the side of my head with one of the beach towels Bree was smart enough to pack in preparation for our day on the lawn. I hope that drink kicks in soon. Bree is laughing at the swelling lump that is the space between my eye socket and temple. What are friends for.

The line-up for the day is pretty promising. I know numerous people who should be in attendance and several of the bands appeal to me. So do some of the Vendors. Giant, Frosty Margaritas; the perfect thing for headaches on hot days.

Bree and I spend the afternoon listening to some bands that alternately suck and entertain. We get our picture taken at some strange booth and I’m gifted with an armband that says “What Now?” on it. I’m tempted to wear it, but I imagine there are about 5,000 people doing just that. Eschewing that particular brand of conformity, I opt for a black tank top at the Hustler booth that says, ‘”I’m not a Gynecologist, but I’ll take a look.” This has me smiling for at least the next hour.

Tommy, true to form, arrives with 4 girls in tow. Two on each arm, that is the style from L.A. Brenna is among them, but since Tommy’s seats are on the front lines, I don’t get to talk to any of them for very long, which is fine by me. Last time I saw Linkin Park I bought great seats and then wound up walking around the grass area most of the day anyway. Bree and I are occupying ourselves with people watching, which in this crowd is comparable to watching surgeries on the Discovery Channel, while traversing the crowds to go and get more margaritas from the vendor booths. We exhausted our supply of water rather quickly, so I tell Bree that we should just rely on the ice in the margaritas to keep us hydrated. Seems logical; also makes us very and solidly drunk.

The day wanes; Bands come and go. Finally, Chris Cornell takes the stage. Daylight has covered most of the music in motes thus far. Somehow in the open air and devoted rays of light, these waves of sound, though well intentioned, have seemed wilted and near soulless. Now, these permeating beams become vagrant and wandering, direction-less and unintentional in the face of the sound check coming from the stage. Cornell takes the stage with his band and for 1/2 a second every mouth in the arena is silent holding in precious, precious breath.

And that mad Angel on the stage begins to scream.

The hair on my neck grows an inch and stands on end as those prior silent mouths open wide, howling and screaming in vicious cacophony with the guitars and song flying off the stage.

For the next 90 minutes, the ground is alive. Vibration after vibration rake the eath, seeming to raise people out of their seats and catapult them backwards onto the lawn. People are everywhere, no one is sitting down but all milling about like copulating ants driven mad by the ceaseless disruption of their home. A scrawny raver stumbles through my field of vision, neon yellow hair cut short, with two blue racing stripes through it; all the while slobbering on a pale girl in black-on-black. My Spanish assailant washes up, stopping long enough to kiss my cheek and apologize once more, “Lo Siento” before the swirling human cloud rips her and her staring beau away again. Light has failed us. Tribal law and poison alcohol rule the arena with iron fist and when it seems that the world can take no more… as if the very weight of this sound is poised to crush us on this grass-covered body-strewn sacrificial altar, Brenna reappears, huge brown eyes looking black in the absence of day.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

She tells me this with her black eyes. I don’t know if her mouth moved.

In the time it takes me to extract myself from those twin black pits, Cornell is gone. Linkin Park is playing ‘Runaway.’ Good Idea.

Bree leaves for beer, or hand grenades; I don’t remember. The rhythm washes through the crowd, entering their eyes all turned to face the stage. She starts to move.

You know… to Dance.

Just. Like. That.

She moves like a satin viper. The familiar music takes over and now I can move too. She moves around me. Whispering over the bass.

“I like the way you ride. I had fun last night.”

She tells me this while she touches my stomach. She doesn’t have fake nails. I don’t have to look. She’s wearing my hat and telling me stories. The bass beats its way into my head and we’re repeating the lyrics to each other. Chanting. Mantra.

She touches my arm like there is fire there.

Like it burns.

She turns her back to me and I hope she’s leaving. Go. Get out of here.

Not yet.

She backs that tiny silhouette up against my chest, arched like that, and snakes an arm around to the back of my neck with a fingernail of ice; Martini cold.

My arms wrap ALL the way around her.

I’m not sure if the music is moving her or if she’s moving the music, undulating the way they both are. Her head rolls back onto my shoulder and rolls to the side until that hot hot breath is burning down the ice trail her finger is cutting into my neck.

“This is going to be the last song of the night…” there are more words from the stage, but those are the ones that matter. The ones that broke the spell.

That poison apple.

“I should go find my friends.”

She burns this into that same spot on my neck through the exodus of those nails.

“Get out of here,” I say. “Go.”