I must admit, I was a little upset with my friend for not showing me this part of the city earlier, with all its cool shops and clubs. And it was so close by, too, yet still so exotic. We walked by the Majarit (ma-ha-REET), for example, one club whose name I recognized, with its name in that Indian-restaurant font, antique gold against old brick.
I felt that I fit right in, with my long maroon velvet coat, but... it turned out that my friend was right to have been concerned about how dangerous the area would be for me. I went back later by myself, still wearing that coat, and was promptly mugged, abducted, robbed of my coat and my memory.
*
I came to, blearily, I don't know how much later, in a cluttered loft where I must have been kept for quite some time. Gray daylight was streaming through the windows. I staggered around, trying to piece together who I was. A maroon T-shirt lay atop one of the mattresses on the floor. I recognized it as one of mine. It was untouched, a reject, probably because of the blue band logo on the front. I struggled into the stretchy shirt with some effort, then went poking around the loft, picking up old newspapers, some already yellowing, and trying to figure out the date from them. There was no way to tell, really.
Then I saw a guitar. Mine, I was pretty sure, although it had been restrung badly, just the four higher strings, using gut instead of steel and bronze. I touched the strings, which were terribly out of tune. The sound attracted the only other occupant of the loft, a guy I didn't really recognize, who must have been some sort of henchman or hanger-on. At any rate, he wasn't the leader who had taken my coat.
I picked up the guitar and started trying to tune it. The guy came over and turned on a huge, squat amplifier. He had dark, unkempt hair and a manic attitude.
"How is it now?"
"It has four strings," I replied.
He turned a peg, uninvited.
"How is it now?"
Turned another. It didn't help.
"How is it now?"
I started playing notes at random, mostly just to shut him up. The amp's noise was so loud it visibly distorted the air in front of the speaker. He was fascinated... he got down and put his open mouth right into the distortion I was playing. I realized that he was getting some kind of high from it, and that this effect was probably why (and maybe even how) I had been abducted in the first place.
I played some more complicated riffs, improvising a sort of country song. The distortion coming from the amp took on colors, and began containing images. It was reaching out toward him, flowing into him. I knew somehow that he was becoming mine, being subverted by my music, and also that, now that I was conscious again, I was much better at this than the one who had taken my coat could ever be.
That this was the beginning of my revenge.
*
January 4, 2021
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Last updated January 6, 2021
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ascott@pacifier.com