Summer in California can eat my ass. If you’ve never been, it’s nothing like they make it look like on TV. Except for the exclusive few who can afford the outrageous sums demanded to live by the beach.

On the other side of the shade-cloth I’ve stapled up around my back patio, the sun roasts the already-dry grass, grazed down months ago. We’re barely on our second Irish coffee and it’s already hit triple digits. There’s no beach for hundreds of miles and, not-coincidentally, no babes in bikinis tossing us light beers. The latter, I suppose, is my own fault.

“Okay, we’re just going to do a couple live takes of the whole band, then I’ll shoot a couple passes of each of you on your instrument.

“Bueller?”

Nobody is really listening to what I’m saying. They’re either fiddling with their phones, rolling a joint, smoking a joint or hunting for more alcohol. The whole ‘behind-the-scenes’ process doesn’t matter to them, when I hit record, they know to play along with the recording. Shooting music videos really doesn’t get any simpler than that. They’re mostly here for the free whiskey and weed. There are definitely worse ways to spend a Tuesday in August.

“Yo, Simon, I don’t know what we should do about your keyboards. It doesn’t work with the whole acoustic guitars in the forest theme.”

“Yeah, I agree. Too bad you don’t have a real piano around here.”

“Who’s going to drag it up the hill? Fuck that!”

We kick around a few more ideas. Simon and I dig through the shed and the scrap wood pile looking for something we could build as a facade for his Yamaha. Nothing really fits the Hee-Haw theme. I cringe as he crushes a black widow.

“Hey, I just remembered, there’s this old harp in the closet.” I head upstairs to grab it. None of us know how to play the damn thing, but who can tell in a music video. It’s not a full-sized harp, but one of those things that you hold in your lap with like fifteen strings. Not an autoharp, mind you. It looks like a real harp, just miniaturized.

As I head out the sliding door to the back patio, Carlin already has his eye on the harp. “Whoa, where’d you get that? Looks old. Lemme see.” He’s got a keen sense of smell when it comes to acoustic instruments. Not that he knows much about them. He’s got the same kind of obsession for wood that makes musical noise as I have for weird, digital-music devices.

“I don’t remember where it came from. One of those things. Shit disappears from the studio and shit gets left behind.”

Once everyone’s had their chance to play with the new toy, I call for places and we all sit around the overgrown buckeye tree, pretending to play and sing along with Crystal Blue. Mix this footage in with some stock nature and psychedelic footage and it should be good enough for the kind of girls we go out with, as some creepy dude my dad used to hang out with liked to say.

Carlin managed to find some old denim overalls at a thrift store. The tops of the thighs are stained with thousands of oily handprints and the tears at the knees and cuffs are from wear, unlike the pre-torn jeans they sell at departments stores. I ask him to unhook one strap. The flap hangs down, exposing dark, curly hair and the faded blue-gray of a twenty-year-old tattoo. The battle scars of our generation. This video might not suck after all. No promises.

That tingling is starting on the left side of my neck again. The brain hole is coming. I’ll just have to fight my way through it. Resist the urge to lay down. No way I can finish all this photography in anything less than two hours. I press my thumb and index finger into the corners of my eyes and squeeze the bone above my nose. My lacrimal caruncles click as they make their way back and forth under my fingers. The stink of the compost bin wafts into the house as I dump the coffee grounds. Another Irish coffee will stave the headaches off for a bit.

The proper way to make an Irish coffee is to put a spoonful of sugar (or a sugar cube) in the bottom of the mug and mix briskly as you pour in your whiskey. Add hot espresso and hot water, as preferred – I do all espresso. Then, use an immersion mixer to whip some heavy cream and spoon it on top. If you’re using Bailey’s or a spray can of whipped cream, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Trust me on this one.

The guys will keep drinking these things as long as I keep making them. Or until we run out of whiskey and have to switch to beer. Chris is already double-fisting both. And he has a cigarette pinned against the beer bottle in his right hand. I can dig it. That’s one way to get a music video started.

A couple of cell-phone cameras on tripods and some LED shop lights is all it takes to make movies nowadays. This isn’t some Brad Pitt Hollywood blockbuster. Just a group of assholes pretending to play [along] with themselves. Add some zooms and pans and it’ll come across as convincingly professional for a Youtube video.

There’s no way four dudes in threadbare dungarees pretending to strum shabby acoustic instruments are even going to look like they could be creating the sound of this forty-piece arrangement, but who cares. Music.

“Fuck, mate, are we ever going to take this band out on the road?”

I can’t tell if Chris is looking at Simon in astonishment or disgust. Maybe both. “Dude, how many times in the last six months have you heard of anyone booking gigs? Are you really going to keep asking?”

“I know. I know…but I’m bored and I want to make some money. I mean, what’s the point of the rehearsals and the music videos if we’re just going to sit here?” He has a point. I’ve been in his shoes more than once. Right now, it’s all about killing time while we’re quarantined. Half-quarantined. Whatever this is. He could probably be getting work with a more reliable paycheck, on or off the stage. He must see something in us or the music. A keyboard player of his caliber is hard to come by around here.

“What about that idea you were telling me the other day?” Chris asks as he leans across the wrought-iron table to pass me a freshly rolled fatty.

I’ve never been able to figure out the perfect way to spark these things. Twist the tip, don’t twist the tip. Inhale while lighting, don’t inhale while lighting. Seems no matter what I do, it’s going to run on me. Other people are watching, so I play it safe and don’t inhale while I’m lighting it.

“It wasn’t anything special,” I say to nobody in particular, “I was just thinking about booking a guerrilla tour, where we show up in spots with big parking lots – drive-in theaters, abandoned stores, that sort of thing – and just set up and play. It wouldn’t take much for the four-piece. The geni on the RV could run a mid-size PA and we could sub everything through an FM transmitter, so people could listen in their cars.”

I give Simon my seat and the joint.

“Fuckin’-a, mate! I’m down for that!” His voice goes up an octave and he slaps me on the back as we’re trading places. It makes me wince. Not because it hurts. I don’t like being touched like that. Someone standing with their arm around my shoulder is one of the most claustrophobia-inducing things in the world. And I like small spaces. He doesn’t mean any harm, of course I know this. Still, I don’t enjoy it. I’m not sure how or why other people do.

I can still feel where he touched me, like it’s a foreign part of my own body, as I resume folding up tripods and packing away the rest of the gear.

I figured he would be excited to get out on the road. And I already know that Chris is down, too.

“I just didn’t want to put too much pressure on B. He’s got the kids home from school and all that right now.”

“Yeah, I guess I could be down for a short one,” we hear Carlin mumble-shout from the front porch between drags on his cigarette.

I can’t leave for long. Too many dogs, chickens and horses. There are five baby chicks that need daily attention, but they should be fine in a couple of months.

“Alrighty, fellas, Halloween 2020, the great American Southwest.” And with that, we half-heartedly raise our cans of Bud Light into the air, as if to propose a toast, but we just drink.

Dear The Walls Instead,

I just heard your song, Booze, on YouTube. It must have been hard for you to write. A few years ago, I thought I’d met the man of my dreams…but those dreams turned into a nightmare. He’s a raging alcoholic that beats me. He beats my dog. He shot my puppy. He said it was for cheating on him, but I didn’t. I have nowhere else to go and the only way I can deal with being beaten and raped every day is to drink myself into a stupor – like your song.

So, you see, I know what you mean when you say you’re reaching out for help, but the only friend you have is alcohol.

Sincerely,

Josephine Carr

Aurora, CO

I can’t stop thinking about D.O.G. as I read Josephine’s letter. He had the tight, greasy curls that would create envy in any 70’s disco. He was a good dude. But all dogs are, right? Where is this coming from? He died like thirty years ago. The poor shivering mutt, lying outside the front door in the snow while all of the humans were inside, huddled around the wood stove. I’d ‘accidentally’ let him when going out to get more firewood from the pile next to the propane tank. Between that and the table-scraps, it’s amazing he lived to senility.

The words on my screen are becoming a blur. I can barely keep my left eye open, it’s so bright. That dog would do anything just to have the attention of his people.

Child offers bone to dog. Dog accidentally bites child while trying to get bone. Dog gets severe beating. Child blames himself for the beating. Child neglects schoolwork. Parent beats child. Child blames himself.

Logic.

Out of all of the holidays, Thanksgiving or Easter have to be the worst. My personal hell would be endless cycles of “Everyone go around the table and say three things you’re thankful for.”

I don’t think I’ll go to Thanksgiving ever again. Not worth it for something else to die. Besides the turkey and ham – there’s no preventing that, apparently. The neighbor’s dog was the last straw. Instead of three grown-ass men using their combined strength and presumed intelligence to break up a dog fight, they stab one to death. The one they don’t know.

Logic.

The bridge of my nose aches under the pressure of my fingers. I let loose my face to the sound of a knock on the door.

Nobody there.

It’s the sheriff’s department, hiding around the corner with their murder-sticks. I hate how they do that. At least identify yourselves when you knock.

“Hey, guy. We’re looking for Lindsay,” the deputy says, stepping up onto the covered patio. “Her friend hasn’t heard from her in a couple weeks.” He’s been here before, this cop. He knows about her extensive history with the law.

“Finally moved out.” I was trying to get this guy to help me evict her a couple months ago. He wouldn’t. Nice enough dude, but his partner is the real cream of the crap.

“So you haven’t heard from her at all?” The asshole partner is walking around behind my house, where I have the carpet remnants stacked. I can only fit so much in that black plastic wheelie-can at a time.

Shaking my head without looking up, I tell the deputy, sorry. I tell him she didn’t leave a forwarding address. If I had to take a guess, she moved in with the friend that called them out here, I tell him. Or the old guy that was always creeping around her. I wish I could be of more help, I say.