Prog Rock

for Ellen

Sabbath was coming. August McQuarry and Gary White were ecstatic, their friend Donna Sawyer not so much. She was more of a Simon and Garfunkel girl. But all of them managed to find a way to get a $5 general admission ticket. This was big. This was "Iron Man" and "Sweet Leaf", "Paranoid" and "After Forever". This was Ozzy Osborne, Prince of the Pit, High Servant of Satan. Or so said the buzz. It seemed to Gary and August that Black Sabbath, which had been a Heavy Blues band called "Earth" before discovering the marketability of Heavy Metal Darkness, sure seemed to have a lot of songs about God, Love, and the undesirability of nuclear war. Plus Ozzy wore a cross. But it was Prog Rock. Ambiguity was not only expected, it was welcomed.

"It's Bill Ward I wanna see," said Gary. "He's more than a drummer. He's a *percussionist*."

They were in Gary's basement bedroom in the White's house at the upper dead end of Rodney Drive in West Nashville, listening to side two of Sabbath's third album. "Tony Iommi is a totally underrated guitarist," said August. "I mean, he's not Page or Clapton, but--"

"--it doesn't really matter, 'cause they're all doing different things. Iommi's just as good."

"In his own way, sure, no shit, dude."

August and Gary, both 15, seldom had anything genuine to argue about. They were both Freaks and hated Nixon. At Hillwood High School (aka "Pillwood"), there was no official hierarchy of subculture, no Socs or Greasers a la SE Hinton's Outsiders. But there were general types. The Jocks, the Grinds, the Cute-&-Sweets, the Stoners and the Freaks. Not all Freaks were Stoners, but all Stoners were Freaks. Everyone knew that. Gary was the fat kid who didn't smoke pot any more. August was the stout kid who would be a fat man by forty. He didn't have any weed at the moment. Maybe on Friday. Both had lengthy hair and precocious beards. It was 1972, and they were in a band. For now, they were its only members. Gary was the real musician, and could play a little of anything with strings or keys. August had a pleasant baritone voice, freighted with natural vibrato, still untested but unique. He could handle a handful of open guitar chords, but he'd never really be a picker. A picker was someone like his Daddy, Dale "Cottonmouth" McQuarry, who played steel guitar in P. John House's band, the Storysingers.

August was finding his feet as a singer and lyricist. But his major aspiration at this point--after he got Donna Sawyer to be his girlfriend again, and finished his ongoing novel about how hard it was to be a Teenage Steppenwolf in the 1970s--was to be a Front Man, a Lead Singer like Jagger or Morrison. More like Ian Anderson, really--August was too stocky to play sinuous androgyne microphone-slinger. But his feet itched for the stage. He longed to leap and caper and belt out power ballads. Gary had an eye for the details, and a vision of being the keyboardist/composer at the center of the musical web. If they could find a lead guitarist and a drummer, well. Anything was possible. This was their basic belief system. They were sincere, they were talented, and so they would Make It. In the meantime they had to deal with the fascist school system, Nixon, and the adults. Reality.

"Who's opening, do you know?" asked Gary. There was no Internet in their world, only newspapers and rumors. But August had gotten his ticket free through a friend of a friend of his Father's, along with some basic information. "R.E.O. Speedwagon. As usual. They open for everyone who plays at fucking Municipal Auditorium..."

"They're not bad, but--"

"Yeah, they're gettin' kinda old. And after them, before Sabbath, they've got this Sisyphus guy. You ever heard of him?"

"Is that the name of the band, or of the lead singer?" asked Gary. He liked to be exact. They both made unmerciful fun of people who enthused about that great guitar player Lynyrd Skynyrd, or how fabulous a flautist this Jethro Tull dude was.

"Both, I think. The name of the lead singer is the name of the band. I've never heard them on the radio. They're kind of cult-y..."

"What kind of music? Prog?"

"I read in Creem, Lester Bang's column...let's see. Sisyphus is a Greek myth, right? About the dude who gets sentenced to push a rock uphill for eternity?"

"Was that in the column?" Gary liked Lester Bangs.

"No, dude, I was just thinking that."

"Right."

"So Lester Bangs calls Sisyphus uh, a 'Byronic Figure'. And yeah, says he's, or they are, 'Miltonian'. Those are some really heavy old school poet dudes, man."

"So it's Prog."

And it was. But first came Tragedy.

"FOLKS!!!" bellowed the emcee on stage at Nashville Municipal Auditorium. "I'VE GOT BAD NEWS AND GOOD NEWS. THE BAD NEWS IS THAT OZZY HAS A THROAT INFECTION--"

"Oh, bullshit!" shouted August. "I read in Creem that fuckin' Ozzy has passed out drunk before the goddamn gig about 27 times this tour..."

"Au-gust--" Donna wrinkled her freckled nose at the profanity. She was 15, a redhead, all tits and ass and big blue rolling eyes. She couldn't help any of it.

"Sorry, Donna, but this is LAME!"

Gary silently shook his head in world-weary disgust, as if used to centuries of essential disappointment.

"BUT WAIT!!! WE'LL GIVE YOUR TICKET MONEY BACK IF YOU WANT TO LEAVE--"

There was uncertain stirring in the smoky auditorium.

"BUT IF YOU STAY, SISYPHUS SAYS THEY WILL PLAY A DOUBLE SET!!!! THEY SAY--"

Suddenly out onto the stage skipped a slender but wiry young dude with understated facepaint, high forehead and long white wild wavy hair. He wore a sleeveless white jumpsuit, knee-high white boots, and a blue feather boa around his neck. This apparition held--a fiddle? a violin? in one hand, and a bow in the other. There was a jack into the instrument that lead to a long thin cord which disappeared behind the curtain. It was--

"An electric violin!" Gary was stoked. "This is gonna be cool!"

Donna raised an eyebrow and looked thoughtfully at the handsome dude in the jumpsuit.

The emcee had paused. He held up a hand, offering the microphone on its stand to the dude with the fiddle.

The man didn't move. He put a hugely exaggerated look of sorrow on his face, and began to play a ludicrously mournful, but technically quite good, solo on his violin. There were scattered shouts of approval and clapping, some laughter. The song got sadder, the player began to glide around in exaggerated arabesques. He could dance. Getting down on his knees, the fiddler stopped and threw his head back, finishing the piece in a crescendo of over-the-top screeling and wailing. Then he leaped to his feet, bowed, and stepped to the mic. The scattered cheers had turned into sustained, if uncertain, enthusiasm.

"YES, IT'S ALL VERY SAD, ISN'T IT? YOU EXPECTED BETTER, DIDN'T YOU?"

August glanced over at Donna. She had a look of fascinated doubt. That was the general tone of the audience, smoking their cigarettes and joints in the dark of the arena, in a strange time that was already vanishing.

"WELL, THAT WAS ME PLAYING 'MY HEART PUMPS PURPLE PISS FOR YOU'!"

There was no outright disbelief, but this was edgy. The marks went nuts for the casual and homey profanity.

"TELL YOU WHAT!! I'M SISYPHUS, AND THESE ARE MY MATES COMING OUT NOW! WE'LL PLAY A DOUBLE SET TO MAKE UP FOR SABBATH BAILING!! WE'LL DO EVERY SONG ON ALL THREE OF OUR ALBUMS! PLUS THE NEW ONE! IF YOU WANT YOUR MONEY BACK, THEN GO WITH MY GOOD WISHES, BUT IF YOU STAY, I PROMISE..." Here Sisyphus raised his bow and pointed to the rafters. He held for a beat, and the crowd subsided into murmuring.

"I PROMISE THAT WE'LL DO THE WORK TO WIN YOU OVER!! WHATTAYA SAY, NASHVILLE??"

Later, August told Gary that he didn't remember seeing anyone leave. Gary said that there was no way to be scientifically sure. But it was a grand beginning to August's personal Sisyphus Myth, his enduring story of the absolute fucking greatness of the show that night. A story that, for weeks, August and Donna would tell to anyone in their peer group who couldn't escape hearing. Sisyphus had almost "literally, man" flown around the stage. He had vanished in red smoke on stage left, and appeared in blue smoke "not even a second" later on stage right. Sisyphus played violin like Lucifer and sang like a slightly soiled angel. He talked to you between songs, he wasn't all snobby, he was funny. He gave each of his bandmates a chance to solo and be cool. There was more smoke and fog and laser lights, with a 19 minute violin solo. Every song had a deep hook and memorable lyrics, and oh yes, definitely yes--

It was Prog Rock.

Primal, emotional, cerebral, romantic. Like a hand out of the darkness for the young and uncertain. The show lasted nearly four hours. The Bic lighters came out for encores. Gary and August held up theirs. Donna was a non-smoker, but she waved her arms and shouted.

As he raised his tiny flame in the smoky half-dark of Municipal Auditorium, August thought:

I hate for this to end. This is just perfect. Me and Gary and Donna. My best bud and maybe my girlfriend, sort of, and no hassles or bullshit, and this is like the coolest fucking band I ever heard. What would I give to have this go on forever?

It didn't, of course. There was home and school and afternoons spent watching "Leave It To Beaver" and "The Andy Griffith Show", band practices, and get-togethers at Donna's crowded Irish Catholic house on top of the hill at the upper end of Shawnee Drive. In the heat of their obsession with Sisyphus, they'd pooled their funds and bought all four of his albums. Now they gathered on Donna's living room rug to examine liner notes and interpret lyrics. Album cover art was marveled over and searched for hidden clues. August, Gary, Donna, their other friends, and various of Donna's brothers and sisters, would gather around the stereo as if were an altar, eyes closed, meditating (as best they could) to songs like "Social Graces", "A Battle of Power", "Pushing The Rock", and "Valley of the Dead". It seemed very plain to all of them that Sisyphus had a Secret to reveal. After all, his songs kept saying so.

"This is about Heaven," said Donna.

"I'm pretty sure it's about a wandering bard," said Gary.

"It's about reincarnation, I mean come on dudes, it's obvious!"

In August's head and heart, he and Donna had had a very special Autumn night together, a "Simon and Garfunkel Night", as Donna's sister Ellen had called it at the time, soon after August had moved to Nashville. He'd sat next to Donna on the stone steps of her front porch, looking down on the various lights jewelling the woodsy darkness and rolling roads of the neighborhood. There was a bittersweet smell of burning leaves on the air. Street lights had not yet been put in, and the night was pierced with stars. A cool wind shook the trees. Their flanks touching, hormones heavy in the air, August and Donna talked about Relevant Issues and Deep Stuff while Sounds of Silence spun on the stereo and they shared sips of a clandestine rum and coke. There had been some tentative kissing. For a while Aug and Donna had almost been--well, who knew? Not August. He was never sure where he stood with Donna, whose real name, Theresa-Madonna, was never used by anyone, even her Mom. In this thicket of sorrow, August felt himself alone of all adolescents who had ever lived and grieved. He was DEEP, and he wanted a DEEP CHICK. She was the only one.

"I'm just not sure Donna is right for you," said Gary. They were sitting on a thick log across a narrow path through the little stand of woods that separated their homes. Both called the log "The Smoking Log", with capital letters and reverence for personal tradition. August thought of the paltry scatter of trees as "The Mescaline Woods". It had opened up large for him one night on 2 caps of Chocolate Mescaline.

"Dude! I thought you understood!" August sulked for a moment. In those days, this was as close to a genuine argument as he and Gary ever came.

"Come on, man, she wouldn't stay at the Comics Symposium at Vanderbilt with you. Not even to see Gary Trudeau. Hell, she doesn't even LIKE Doonesbury. And she's for Nixon."

"I know." August took a glum puff of his Kool. He no longer had to hide in the woods to smoke. Cotton had told him if he was gonna do it, to do it in the damn house and not be a bullshitter. August had grown up in a constant smog of cigarette haze, sent on frequents trips to the store to get smokes for his parents. His ensuing early addiction was apparently acceptable to them. That was one less thing to worry about. And he felt romantic, like Paul Simon or something, smoking and writing at his tiny particle-board desk.

"Doonesbury is over Donna's head, that's for sure. But--"

"I know you really like her, dude, but what about Ellen?"

Donna's younger sister was a slender and pretty blonde with a boyish figure. "I actually, well, she's like, you know, more my type physically, and she's super smart, Ellen, but she doesn't seem to care about dating and all that shit, and Donna and I had this night--"

"I read the story. Twice."

It had been okay, the story. August had thought so, anyway. A young dude walks down his street, turns right, walks up another street, then climbs the long driveway to the house of the red-headed girl on the bus who asked him over to listen to albums. They have a magical evening, talking about Dreams and God and Ideas. The young dude starts home, but pauses at the corner to think:

Something has changed in me.

The story, A Simon and Garfunkel Night, had been good enough to win first prize in the citywide Belmont College-sponsored High School Creative Writing Contest the year before. Donna wasn't as impressed as August had hoped, but Ellen had liked it.

Gary continued. "Speaking of stories, what ya gonna write this year?"

"Oh yeah, Belmont's coming up. I wanna win first prize my second year in a row."

"You've got a good chance, Aug. I mean, you have another year of writing experience and all. When's the deadline?"

"McCrae says next Friday." Jenna McCrae was August's Creative Writing teacher. 26 or so, she resembled a sawed-off Irish Lois Lane. Aug was sure most of the dudes at Pillwood jerked off to Jenna's fine legs in their short skirts, but August couldn't bring himself to do so. McCrae had won his genuine respect as a teacher, and it seemed somehow tawdry.

"You got any ideas?" Gary ground out his smoke in the dirt and dug a tiny grave for the butt.

"Yeah! I do! I almost forgot. Look, I was thinking, what if, let's say, there's some loser dude at school who can't make any friends or get any chicks, and to be popular he decides to buy some pot and go to a Sisyphus concert?"

"He thinks that'll make him cool?"

"He's kind of, well, his family is fucked up and he has emotional problems. He doesn't know any better."

"Good so far. Is this dude gonna get busted or something?"

"That's not it, the main thing is that this dude, Billy King, gets the pot fronted to him by this really asshole dealer. The bastard says he'll see him at the concert, and if he doesn't have the 20 bucks for the lid, well, it's his ass. I won't say ass, of course. I'll have to say it boringly."

"This dude is gonna beat him up right there, with the cops watching?"

"The guy wouldn't really be that stupid, but he figures Billy's such a loser, he'll believe it."

"And then what?"

"Is Donna really going out with Max Hill?"

Hill was a good but erratic lead guitarist who wasn't quite in the band. He was short, skinny, twitchy, and tortured. Max brought out Donna's maternal instincts. He was extremely high maintenance, requiring her constant emotional care. August fumed. He had tried to treat Donna right. He knew Max Hill couldn't possibly respect or connect with her as deeply as he could. If only she would give him a chance. He sighed and lit another Kool off the butt of the last one.

"You know it won't last for long, Aug." It never did. Donna had a long line of eager suitors from her front door all the way down the hill. She went through them like Kleenex, while her less curvaceous and bombastic sister Ellen stayed in her room by herself, listening to music on the headphones. August thought Ellen was self-composed and a little chilly. He had no idea that she was clinically depressed. It was just one of the things he didn't know about the Sawyer family. He did know that he was scared to ask Ellen out.

"What, now?" he imagined her saying. "You dated my sister, she broke up with you, now I'm leftovers?" Or something equally dismaying. Chicks couldn't know how bad it hurt to be laughed at and rejected. August didn't want to take the chance. He had made a fool of himself over women too many times already. Never again. He couldn't take the pain.

"I guess not," August said at last, grinding out his Kool on the dead log. "I just wish--"

"You'll get another chance, I bet, but right now, why not think about the story, dude?"

"You're right, Gary. I'm sorry I was an asshole."

"You're not an asshole, Aug. You're just bummed out a little, that's all."

"Sometimes I think I might be depressed." In this, August was correct. Like Ellen, he had undiagnosed and untreated clinical depression. On top of the regular tortured teenage artist angst, it was fairly challenging. Of course, he'd thought about suicide. Sure. Didn't everyone?

"If you start writing, you'll stop being depressed. So what happens with Billy?"

August brightened at the prospect of fucking up someone else's world. "Okay, Billy is freaked out big time, because he tries some weed and isn't used to it. Of course I'll have to write it like he made an unwise choice or whatever..."

"Goes without saying..."

"Yeah, so now he's freaking out because he really wants to see Sisyphus, but he's afraid this dealer's gonna kill him. His dad has a pistol, Billy rips it off, hides it under his jacket, hitches to the gig. He thinks he can scare the fucker with it if he has to..."

"Holy shit..."

"So Billy's at the concert, right, and the dealer doesn't even come around and bother him, and he's made friends sort of, with this really deep hot chick named Nikki or something, and Sisyphus is playing the 4th or 5th encore, and dude starts thinking it will never be this good again for him, and he doesn't want them to stop playing, so Billy King goes nuts, and decides he wants them to play forever..."

Gary was super intelligent. "You mean--"

"Yeah, he takes out the gun, and he puts it to his head, and screams for Sisyphus to keep playing or he'll kill himself. It's all confused at first, but people are gonna scatter when they see a fuckin' gun. And when Sisyphus hears him, of course the dude's gonna tell his guys to keep playing until the pigs can figure something out. Only the pigs are stupid, it's taking a really long time, he's kind of got this Nikki chick hostage too, and Sisyphus just played a double set and now they're playing another one, they're really fucking dying up there, it's like the band is getting crucified, especially Sisyphus..."

"How does it end?"

"Huh. I think the pigs finally get tired of dicking around and blow Billy away. It's what they'd do, right? But Sisyphus, hell, he wouldn't quit playing while one of his fans was in danger, right? Those dudes can play all night, we saw, they could do it for a while..."

"You better make it extra, you know, moral, dude. Belmont is a Christian college, right?"

"Oh, sure. Like not knowing your kid is mentally fucked up is bad, leaving guns lying around is bad, anything to do with drugs is bad. It'll be moral as shit."

"If you win, you should send a copy to Sisyphus."

"I might do it anyway. Shit, Gary, I got to go, my Dad's getting off the road tonight, and we're all having dinner together." August's Father was home one week out of the month. The rest of the time, he was touring. Seeing him again for the first time after several weeks was always special. Before the old man could begin to irritate August by acting like his fucking Dad or something, Cotton was back on the road with P. John House. It worked out well. Sometimes August wondered if his Mom was lonely, but being 15, he didn't spend a lot of time thinking about the emotional needs of adults.

"Your Dad is cool. Making a living at songwriting and side work."

"Your Dad is cool, too. Radio Free Europe and all."

They sighed. Grups. Adults. Grown-ups. You had to put up with them.

"Seeya, Aug."

"Later, dude."

August started his story the next afternoon while watching "Leave It To Beaver". It was the one where Beaver puts a voodoo curse on Eddie Haskell. Aug scribbled in his notebook for a while, then went to his bedroom and hit the cheap but sturdy Grants typewriter his folks had bought him when he was 12 and sure he wanted to be a writer. August wrote in a white heat, trying to avoid clichés, but not really worrying about them, either. Long before deadline, he finished "A Cry From The Crowd".

"I took the title from a song by the Prog Rock group Sisyphus, that's not bad or anything is it, Ms. McCrae?"

"Well...you can't copyright a title. I must ask, though--is it imitation, or is it a pastiche?"

"Is that like a moulage?"

"An homage, a nod to some particular writer."

"Oh yeah! Definitely! This dude Sisyphus is a really great artist. You should hear his albums. Seriously. I can bring them. He's like Byron or Milton."

"My husband and I prefer jazz", said McCrae kindly.

August felt honored to be given a glimpse of his favorite teacher's private life. Everyone had secret identities outside school. He sometimes marveled over it, especially when tripping.

"I left the story at home, Ms. McCrae, but I'll have it to you long before Friday".

He didn't. Not the same version of the story, anyway. August had to rewrite "A Cry From The Crowd" after he loaned the original copy to Donna to read and it had mysteriously but totally vanished overnight from the top of her dresser. Donna said sometimes her Mom just came through and tossed stuff out. Donna had absolutely no reason to fuck him over or lie, and her house was like that, but shit! His story! His fucking STORY! He'd almost yelled at Donna, but that wasn't good for his cause. He had to swallow the loss and recreate the story. This time there was no white heat, only cold plodding. It seemed to August that some really great things that had been in the first draft were gone. He couldn't summon them back. He'd had a chance to show the re-written story to Cotton before turning it in to McCrae for the Wordfest Contest. His Father had been honest.

"Son, I'm sorry, but you end up by having this record artist crying and punching his dressing room mirror because this squirrel of a fan got his ass killed by being stupid and crazy, and that just plain wouldn't have happened. Anyone who wants to be an artist, a star, can't give a shit about anyone but himself. I've seen it all my life."

"I think Sisyphus gives a shit. At least he's trying."

"He might be, son. I can't know. I'm not saying it's bad if he cares, I'm just saying that it isn't very realistic that he acts that way. Plus, some squirrel pulls a gun in the front row? I'm OFF that stage, fuck that guy. No speeches back and forth, and you can bet that P. John fucking House ain't doing no crisis counseling for him neither. He's right behind me."

"Well, damn."

"I'm no real judge, son. You're writing this for your audience. I just ain't in it."

August had resigned himself to second or third place. He knew the revised story wasn't as strong as the original. The magic had leaked out. And even toned down so it sounded like a morality tale, "A Cry From The Crowd" still had weed, guns, and mental illness. Belmont College was not only Christian, it was Baptist. Aug would settle for third place and be happy.

Not even runner-up.

"The fix was in, Aug." Jenna McCrae consoled August with a small cool hand on his shoulder. He felt an odd Luciferian pride in having lost this particular contest.

The fuckers just couldn't handle Prog Rock.