| the unreasonable |
[Apr. 8th, 2007|11:11 pm] |
Sometime between getting a call as I left the boathouse and watching a band of five goons and weirdos play to an audience of some five thousand goons and weirdos, somewhere between finally finding the concert hall and leaving the car in the Staples parking lot -- that's when we saw the corpse.
Allow me to backtrack. The call -- which arrived in the late afternoon of Tuesday, March 27th -- was one placed by KJ, a young rocker with impossibly curly hair and an affinity for passionately smashing guitars at practices (completely alone, sometimes). He was in a bit of a predicament: he suddenly no longer had a ride to the evening's biggest rock concert, and, asking himself who has both a license and an appreciation for music in general, found himself dialing my number.
KJ is something of a hipster, but not your typical sort. He has a bit of a man-crush on Bob Dylan, he smokes black clove cigarettes, he's been known to get high while listening to Air, sure. But he's also the type of person who buys a copy of Fall Out Boy's new album because he wants to know exactly what it is that he's making fun of (now he asks people if they want to "hear his demo," then tosses them the CD and laughs a little). In fact, he bought two copies of that Fall Out Boy album, on separate occasions, no less; the reasons for that, I won't pretend to know.
The young KJ needed a ride, and while I knew between little and nothing of the band in question -- the Decemberists -- I decided to be the nice guy and take one for the team. Gas money and a ticket would be provided; I had nothing to lose but time and sleep, and it's long been my opinion that both of those resources are nearly limitless, at least for those patient enough to wait for them. I went home, doused some wheat noodles in tomato sauce and consumed them unceremoniously, showered and air-dried, then cued up my iPod for the half-hour drive ahead.
I arrived at KJ's house roughly 15 minutes before the show's scheduled start time (the opening band was inconsequential, I was told). He hopped into the car rambling about how he had just managed to score second row tickets (this show was a big deal, apparently) not moments earlier -- the catch was that we had to pick them up "somewhere downtown," and fast, apparently. He had printed directions at the ready, and against the clock we went.
"Somewhere downtown" turned out to be a desolate strip of stadiums near the airport, running parallel to the highway. We drove virtually unaccompanied, and the asphalt seemed especially lonely underneath the tired, honey-colored streetlights. "The lady on the phone said she didn't know exactly what 900 Packer Avenue is," KJ revealed, as we wandered down the lanes. "But she said they'd be there, wherever it is." None of the buildings had any discernable addresses posted. This is where things began to get unreasonable.
After a few crucial aimless moments, we resigned ourselves to the local Holiday Inn, figuring they could at least provide some frame of reference, some bright northstar to guide us on our way. We passed a clique of young waitresses idling by the steps, asking underneath smoky methyl halos if we needed a table; at the door, we noted that, rather unbelievably, this Holiday Inn was itself 900 Packer Avenue. The receptionist in the lobby silently greeted us with knowing eyes.
"Hello, my name is KJ," my friend said, flashing a middle school ID card that was so filthy and corroded it was almost comical. "Would you happen to have any tickets here?" The muted receptionist fumbled through some papers behind the counter before momentarily producing an envelope marked only by some indiscernable cursive script, etched in fresh ink. He wordlessly ceded its contents to us, which were, in fact, two front-row tickets to the Decemberists show that was beginning at approximately that very moment.
Things were about to get less reasonable yet. Back in the car, it became apparent that KJ's directions from Packer Avenue to the venue were, in fact, in reverse. And anyone who drives knows that you can't go in reverse down a highway; hence, his directions were more or less entirely useless. One thing we did know, however, was that this venue -- the Tower Theater, it's called -- is on 69th Street, somewhere, so we got ourselves onto Market Street and simply followed it down as the numbers on the streetsigns running perpendicular increased. Starting nearly fifty blocks from our proposed destination, it seemed like a formula that could work.
Our optimism soured like warm soymilk when we began to realize that Market Street was leading us further and deeper into the heart of Philadelphia's toughest ghettos. My lord, you could just see the livid youths with their fists of fury, biking up and down the block and into traffic occasionally, actively not giving a fuck. The rows and rows of ramshackle domiciles flanking us on either end, we made our cautious, gradual way toward the theater. We trailed a nearby policecar for protection (for we were very clearly not only white, but white), until an opposing vehicle nearly ran a red to broadside the cop, breaking within an inch of him. The siren responded in a timely manner, and the two cars went off on their own to settle business like respectable gentlemen; from there we'd have to fend for ourselves.
We evaded several blocked roads via multiple detours, one of which led us past a pitch-black playground simply bustling with children, not an adult in sight within a two-block radius. Finally, living conditions and morale improved around the 60th-street mark, but after passing 63rd Street, we found ourselves faced by the yawning precipice of a vacant forest. I cursed accordingly.
"Chill out, man," KJ said, always one to keep his nerve. "We just gotta clear this shit out of the way." He was referring to the arrays of brush and shrubbery blocking our path, to speak nothing of the lane divider bleeding rust-flavored flakes between us and the green. He was three figures in the hole on these rapidly expiring tickets -- ones we figured couldn't possibly be real, considering the shady methods and business tactics by which we acquired them -- and still, he could laugh. A talent both admirable and contagious, is what it was.
We established a new blueprint for travel, crisscrossing down and across the street grids, gradually making it down the numbered blocks, one by one. It was a gradual and tiresome process, each block numeral downed a small (if not pyrrhic) victory. You could feel the swell of our shared pride and elation when we passed 68th Street with expectant eyes and wide nostrils, excited to pass that final threshold numbered 69, and you could feel that euphoria deflate exponentially, blow by blow, as we cruised past a consecutive ten unnumbered streetsigns. Well out of anything resembling city life and well into the plain fields and empty parking lots of the suburbs, we decided to turn around and make our way back, baffled and conquered.
Passing an A-Plus store at a busy intersection, I declared that we would enter that minimart, promptly and directly ask the cashier if he/she knew the whereabouts of the Tower Theater, and, failing that, call it quits and accept the night as the strange and beautiful failure that it was. We parked the car and prepared ourselves to face the facts.
Inside was a small number of people who unknowingly gave the fast and firm impression that they had no knowledge of nor interest in the whereabouts of the Tower Theater. We chanced it regardless, inquiring to the woman at the register, but predictably found ourselves staring down the barrel of her blank and clueless expression. We dragged ourselves back to the car and collapsed into our respective seats, exasperated and eye-aching.
Just then, like the shimmering beacon of a lighthouse on a distant shore, a bleach-blond young saviour decked out in a bright red surfer's t-shirt and a gel-spiked hairdo crossed before our windshield and entered the minimart. "He'll know!" KJ shouted. We sat unmoved in the car, our engine revving its atonal hum, waiting for his return. Moments later he resurfaced, and I rolled down my window to allow communication accordingly.
Without a moment's pause, he replied to our inquiry with a hasty "Sure, just a second," lifting his phone from his pocket to his ear as he said -- without even dialing a fucking number, or anything -- "Dad! I've got these two kids here who wanna get to the Tower Theater. Yeah, that place. I saw Trey Anastasio there." KJ flashed me a Christmas-light smile, and soon the blond guardian angel sent us on our way with perfect directions -- we were back in business.
After a few additional minutes of roadtime, we finally found ourselves within spitting distance of the fabled venue (now well into the Decemberists' 2-hour set). KJ began celebrating, but I assured him our journey was not yet complete: we still had to find parking, which I had the feeling would only complicate things further. Naturally, I was correct.
The problem was, we had no spare change between the two of us, and there was nothing but row after row of parking meters in sight. I turned left off the main strip and onto a small, shady lane that greeted us with a similar array of inconveniences, only this time vacant ones. At the end of the long block, underneath the moonlit penumbra of a large, sprawling oak tree, there stood an ominous and apparently abandoned car. Behind it was yet another set of those stingy bastard meters, all dolled up in a perfect row, but they were significantly behind it; a good ten to fifteen feet separated the car and the curb. It was mildly suspect, but not odd enough in and of itself to merit further meddling. I put the car into park by the side of the road, to briefly ponder with KJ the possibilities of local meterless parking.
Momentarily, a second car swerved into our field of view from stage right, headlights beaming with an erratic intensity as it made its way behind the abandoned car, then doubling around it, again and again, in anxious, highstrung circles. This kind of behavior struck me as inexplicable; I leaned forward in my seat to further inspect the parked, motionless vehicle, and realized that behind the open passenger seat window, there was what appeared to be a person sleeping.
It took another moment to realize, however, that the unresponsive body behind the wheel had what appeared to be markedly sunken, sallow skin across the entirety of his face. It was miscolored, an off-shade of yellow, and it was...well, it looked more than just a little bit rotten. A frightened lightbulb flickered itself into constancy inside my head, and I threw the car into gear to bear a fast right onto the perpendicular street; it turned out to be a dead-end, and I made haste to seesaw the car back around, KJ shouting expressions of his befuddlement as my eyes grew drunk with adrenaline. We gunned it past the aggravated motorist who had just parked to the side of the street and was now opening his door to get out and, I don't know, confront us, perhaps. I made a sharp left and got us back into the realm of society and safety; I explained to KJ what it was that I had seen, and what the situation with the other driver implied (we had seen something he hadn't wanted us to see, evidently), and with typical detachment from reality and all things anxious, KJ replied with a halfsmile and a shake of the head. "Unbelievable," he said.
And that was that.
We wound up finding parking in the closed Staples' lot, trekked down two slanted blocks to the mouth of the theater, marveled as the scanner at the doorway proved our tickets to be authentic, then proceeded to enjoy a meager three-and-one-quarter songs by the Decemberists. They were a peculiar band (nerd-trying-damn-hard-to-be-even-nerdier frontman, buck-toothed shortstop keys girl, senior citizen on the drums, fat man in a little black suit on the guitar, so-plain-he's-out-of-place bassist) with a peculiar audience: you could really tell who was into it, just by the awkward, inarticulate way they jittered to the beat, often times in unreasonable clothing and undefinable haircuts. The band closed with a song about a whale and breaking someone's fingers, big goofy old-man drummer on the floor beating a bongo with the displaced passion of an early-twenieth century father spanking his son; the audience screamed like a shipwrecked, whale-begotten crew might when the bizarre guitarist made a gesture like a tree-hugger approaching the object of his inhuman affection left sideways, and that was that. The band accepted the audience's cry for an encore as they no doubt anticipated one, then made a brief attempt at looking unrehearsed and modest by "discussing" what to play next in a cute little football huddle in the center of the expansive stage. Mega-nerd frontman came back out with a lonely guitar as the rest of the band members dispersed with the compass winds, not to play yet another hyper-literate chamber pop tune but rather a charmingly reticent rendition of an old Cheap Trick song. Of what little I saw, I'd say it was probably the best part of the set.
After speaking briefly with a couple friends I had found in the audience (whilst rolling up two hours late to second row seats, no doubt looking totally badass), we departed again, KJ commenting about how he has an MP3 of Soul Coughing and Weezer collaborating to cover that very same Cheap Trick song, recorded in 1997. As something of a pretty well-learned pre-Green Weezer scholar, I quietly doubted his claim's legitimacy, though if nothing else, the night had proven that stranger things have happened.
As the audience spilled back into the cold streets, KJ lit another cigarette and smoked it furiously. He soon tore off the filter, ranting something about how it blocked the direct path of the cylindrical vessel's THC supply to his lips, then quickly spat it back out, throwing it to the ground with an angry conviction.
"Man, that tasted like shit."
We were soon back in the car, leaving the Staples parking lot and hungry as fuck; KJ had once again printed backwards directions to his house, and we did indeed get lost again, which pushed me within inches of an on-road mental breakdown (I was to be at the river in less than seven hours, by that point, and "directionless" was not something I particularly wanted to be, then and there), yet in the greater context of the evening, all of that was mostly irrelevant. More importantly, I had set out to see a friend and to see a band that I mostly had no interest in seeing, and wound up seeing Philly's worst neighborhood, someone start shit with a cop, some kind of illicit ticket-stub business in an isolated Holiday Inn, a dead body, and someone apparently related to that man's cause of death. It was a strange, off-centering night, one surely impossible to counterfeit, and one that, in some perverse, twisted way, made me believe that the unreasonable was reasonable again, maybe. |
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