The Day the Music Died

Have you heard the rumor? 

The one going round town? 

About a no-hope kid, his luck just going down. 

Rumor has his number,

Rumor's splashing it around;

Rumor shouts: run, kid, your luck just hit the ground.

Gnawing the stub of pencil, I look back at the lyrics. Not quite Bob Dylan, but the words sing my story; the ballad of the howlin’ no-hoper: Mitch Malarkey. It’s a freezing Monday in March and the wind tugs at the paper like it wants to snatch it away. Yet another thief, trying to up and run with the last of my possessions: a few miserable words. 

I get up from the park’s only bench, exposed to every gust blasting across the open playing field, and slump down against the climbing wall and its plea: Shag me Stella!- burnt in with a lighter. The wood chips are damp and stink of dog piss, but I don’t give a shit; I’d rather be here than back in class with Kev, out to rub my face in the classroom dirt. At fifteen, he's all thick body hair and flexing muscle, determined to remind me every moment of my puny, thin frame and how he can take me out with just one punch. Like he did back on Thanksgiving. Like he did on New Year. Welcome 2023, you’ll be seeing it in with a shiner and a busted lip, Mitch, never-dare-snitch, Malarkey. 

And the teachers at Pathetic High? Are they out policing the corridors at recess, making sure Kev and his pack aren’t going to ram me with their lockers? Like hell. They’d rather nurse their coffees than give me so much as a bloody band-aid. I can just hear them in the cozy staffroom, discussing the morning memo.:

Attention staff. Michael Malarkey has been flagged as a student of concern. Confidential information: Enforcement Agents notified the school of activity at the Malarkey residence this weekend. Please notify us if Michael seems troubled. 

“Oooh poor lad.”

“This the business with his dad?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Such a shame. Time for another cuppa?”

Yep, it’s hard as hell to see trouble when you just stare into your bloody cup of coffee.

Have you heard the rumor? 

The one going round town? 

About that kid’s dad and the bailiffs sniffing round.

Rumor says they took the telly, the fridge and every phone;

Rumor says they’re eatin’ air n’ that house just ain't a home.

I drag the pencil through the wood chips, spell out the letters in the dirt: s, h, i, t: ‘cos that’s what my crappy lyric and my crappy life is. Days spent bunking off school, hanging out in this wreck of a recreation ground where even the teenage moms daren’t come. Yeah this is the place you stumble to if you need a dark escape: sniff glue, get laid, forget the bum hand life has dealt you, even if just for ten minutes. Except oblivion’s hard to come by when you’re all alone, the wind whistling through the fence, reminding you of what’s blowin’ in: the same old answer you’re trying to forget…

Dad cracking open another can. Draining it, gulp after desperate gulp. In the kitchen, the wall with its snaking black mold, growing in plain sight where the fridge used to be. On the table, half hidden amongst the empties and the scratch cards with all the wrong numbers, is the sheet of paper from the Social Security Office: call this number if you need advice on your disability benefits. When Dad was first laid off after the accident, I’d called that number. I can tell you who you reach, heart hammering, phone pressed to your hot ear: a robotic voice, programmed to tell you flatly, in so many words, that they don’t give a fucking damn. And then they send the bailiffs. Yeah, it really is a great service. 

The park’s only swing creaks forward and backwards, pushed by the invisible hands of the wind. It’s a gray blur through my streaming eyes. I hear the ghost child who was me: Faster, Pop -faster! Legs and feet straining to tread the sky; swooping down- belly rolling like the laughs. Dad singing loud and proud with each push:

Oh where have you been my blue-eyed son?

Oh where have you been my darling young one? 

For I used to be the blue-eyed boy, the darling young one, before the crash broke more than his body, broke his heart as well. When they wheeled Pop home from the hospital, the birds still sang in the trees, but from that day he never wrote another tune. Weeks on mute, until last Saturday night when the bailiffs turned up unannounced and we had to watch them take our stuff, the things that make a house a home, away. Slumped in his chair, he took pull after pull on his beer. It was only when they carried out his keyboard that he roared, throwing the can after them: drink arching, a brief rainbow in the sun’s light, before it fell. I couldn’t stop the song from playing in the jukebox of my busted brain:

And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard

And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

I snap to when the park’s gate creaks on its old hinges, releasing a strangled cry. I drag my sleeve across my eyes and stagger to my feet, ready to run in case it’s a teacher sent to pull me back to class. But it isn’t, the lanky shape shuffling towards me, scuffed sneakers topped off with greasy hair, is of another kid from my Grade. I recognise his slouched-shouldered prowl before I put a name to the scowling face: Evans, the student who joined our class last Fall and who has yet to make a friend. I glare at him. If he’s snuck out of class to try and make a mate out of me, he might as well turn tail right now; just ‘cos I’m down n’ out doesn’t mean I’ll take any loser for company. 

Ignoring him, I go and sit on the swing, stuffing the paper with the song lyric into the bag propped on my lap. I hope the message is clear: fuck off. He doesn’t get it though, leaning against the rusty frame, face pinched white by the cold.

“So this is where you hang out.”

Obviously. Moron. 

“Life’s hard round here, for the likes of me and you.”

Piss off. There’s nothing similar about you and me. 

“But it doesn’t have to be: Life of hard knocks and all that shit. If life hits hard, it’s best to hit hard back. Not run and hide.”

I can’t help but catch his eyes then; gray as the late winter sky and just as fathomless. 

“I’m not hiding. I just don’t want another locker rammed in my face.”

“Understandable. But you’re not going to let those jerks walk all over you, surely.”

“And what do you suggest, Evans, a few right hooks in recess?”

“Course not, “ he croons softly, “there’s dumb-ass ways to get revenge on a no-brain like Kev and then there are clever ways, where no one will ever be any the wiser that it’s you, laying him low.” 

He holds my eye like a challenge: am I game? 

“And you’d like to lay him low, wouldn’t you Mitch? Admit it. Just once, he should be the one tasting blood.”

How does he know?

“And I can help- give you the means to the right end.” He smiles then, a gappy grin where at least three teeth must have been punched right out. 

“I could tell you a story about each of those missing teeth,” he begins, “but we’ll save it for another day. Let me just say for now: listen to an old hand. If you’re gonna roll, don’t roll with the punches; roll like a stone- heavy and hard. Yeah, like a fucking great boulder that just squashes everything in its way.”

A crazy laugh and suddenly he swoops towards me like the cawing crows that pick at the take-out left here by the glue-sniffers and shaggers. Before I know it, he’s twisting the swing’s chains round, round, round again, whipping me with them. Like a corkscrew, he spirals me up before letting me go with a manic shriek; and I feel like I’m spiraling out of control, down into a vortex of heady blood-lust. 

The swing jerks to a stop and my breath comes in jagged bursts. He pulls me from the seat, my bag tipping into the mud and thrusts something into my clammy hands. For a second or two, I don’t know what it is, only that it isn’t a knife or a gun. How will this help me dish out Kev’s just deserts? Turning the small plastic device in my hands, I finally recognize what it is: a Walkman. I dimly remember owning one as a kid, just like this: shiny red plastic, with the brand Sony stamped on one side. Yeah, it might even have been Dad’s and he passed it on to me, in the days before music flowed in digital streams from iPhones and AirPods, whirring out of a clunky old cassette instead.

I stare at Evans, trying to guess his gist. Is this some sort of piss-take? Mitch Malarkey and his one time music-boss Dad, so down on their luck they’ll take even the crummiest old hand-outs? All your stuff was loaded onto the back of a truck, so here, have this piece of old crap. Nice one. But I’m wrong. 

“It mightn’t look much,” he says, holding my gaze, “but right there, in your hand, is the only weapon you’ll ever need. Do as I say, and Kev is gonna be sorry he ever drew breath.”

I look at the Walkman, lying flat and innocent in my hand. Turning it over, I inspect it for secret compartments, places where a little blade would just slide in and out, but there are none. It looks completely harmless. 

“It’s time for you to write the soundtrack of your life, Mitch. No more bum notes, crap tunes; this, right here, it’s gonna make your life rock n’ roll once more. And before you ask why I’m giving it to you, well it’s done enough for me already.” 

For a moment I look at him, the new loner and loser of the class, and I almost hand it back with a laugh, but he continues. 

“So here’s the deal. This is no ordinary Walkman, you press the button and it’s gonna play the lyrics of your life- the ones you want it to play. No more playing the Blues Mitch; you get to write the track this time round: protest song, rallying cry of revenge. I bet you can think of some pretty neat verses to end that song there.” He nods slightly at my bag, hanging open with the sheet of paper I’d been scribbling on, half peeking out. How does he know? He rattles on. 

“Stipulations; there’s gotta be a couple of rules, even for revenge. Only you’re to press play; they’re your lyrics after all. So if you give it to someone else or someone plays around with it...” His sneakers shuffle in the wood chips and he seems to trail off. “Well, let’s just say it’s best if that doesn’t happen, all right.”

It sounds simple: an ideal solution. 

“So how does it work?”

“Easy. The cassette’s already in. All you need to do is press play and the Walkman will manage everything for you.” 

“But do I need to be near him? Kev I mean. Has it got a range or something?”

He laughs his weird high-pitched laugh, flashing his crooked gappy teeth.

“You can be well outta range. This baby will handle it all like a dream. See ya Mitch. And don’t forget: keep it secret to keep it safe.”

He leaves the park, heading away from school towards town, the wind picking up the words of his carelessly sung tune: “How does it feel? To be on your own. No direction home? Like a rolling stone…”

I turn the Walkman over and over. It feels solid in my hands, and maybe it’s the buzz of anticipation I’m feeling, but I could swear I feel the hum of a motor already; cogs and gears beginning to turn; the wheels of reprisal already spinning. 

I look at the school across the playing fields. I picture Kev’s gloating face the last time he socked me, and I press play. The Walkman whirrs to life and I hear my voice spilling from the little machine:

Have you heard the rumor? 

The one going round town? 

About that no- hope kid and how he turned his luck around. 

For rumor has Kev’s number;

Now sirens are the sound.

Cops shout: Hands Up! And kick Kev to the ground. 

And it’s the soundtrack to my revenge drama, for as soon as the words have faded in the deserted playground, they’re replaced by sirens screaming in a flash of police lights, cops racing up the road behind me, towards school. 

I don’t need to be there to know. The throb in my veins, that pulsing thrill, tells me it’s happening; I’ve played it into life. Everything’s gonna go my way from here. No more playing the Blues; Evans was right: sweet revenge and a rock n’ roll life are there for the taking.

I consider checking out the action at school but then decide to head for home. I don’t need to do a Kev and gloat as they handcuff and lead him away. The picture in my mind is priceless as I push open the garden gate, half hanging off its hinges, ignoring its strangled cry. Dad has passed out on the sofa in a sea of beer cans. I leave him to rest, clearing the empties off of his chest, the floor, his wheelchair. I move to the kitchen and chuck the lot in the trash along with the useless scratch cards. We don’t need this shit anymore. Beer, betting, not under this roof. And there’s no need for the waste of space Social Security Office either; I rip up their pathetic and pointless letter.

Here on in, I’m the one rolling the dice; luck’s in my hands now. I’m going to turn things around for both of us; and it will be easy, with this secret weapon- my Walkman. Hell, I’m invincible: an unstoppable force; revenge at the ready with just a press of the button. 

Compared to my normal crappy days, avoiding Kev and bunking off from school in the freezing park, it’s been quite an eventful afternoon; and perhaps it’s knackered me, as when I return to the lounge, slouching into the armchair next to Dad, my eyes shut almost immediately. I feel something slip off my lap, but I’m too shattered to do anything but fall into the black hole of sleep. 

______________________________________________________

If someone had let a gun off next to my head, I couldn’t have snapped to with more of a start. 

Have you heard the rumor? 

The one going round town? 

Shit! The Walkman! Where is it? And why is it playing? Frantically I pull at every pocket, fumble under the chair, and then I freeze. Dad has the Walkman in his hands and is smiling for the first time in weeks as it whirrs out the song:

About a no-hope kid, his luck just going down. 

“Hey! I used to have one of these! Jeez, this could even be my old Walkman. Where’d you get it Mitch?”

My fear has me by the throat, choking the words. And the memories kick me, one after the other: the park, Evans, Keep it secret to keep it safe. 

Rumor has his number,

Rumor's splashing it around;

Rumor shouts: run, kid, your luck just hit the ground.

He’s still grinning, head nodding in time to the beat.

“Did you write this? It’s really good!”

There’s no time. I grab the Walkman from his hand and race the stairs in threes to the top; slam my bedroom door and lean against it, breath coming in desperate gasps. Evans will never know. How could he? I press down hard on the stop button, but it refuses to hold; every time it just releases itself and the cassette keeps spooling; the terrible refrain on endless, stuttering repeat: Have you heard the rumor? 

I press hard on the eject button and it’s like I’m driving the device in two different directions as with a sickening mechanical grind the cassette keeps on playing and a new tune starts. Thin tendrils of gray smoke, like winter skies, like cold eyes, spool from the Walkman and the new track starts with a different voice, one that paralyzes me with fear. For it’s Evans singing: Once upon a time you dressed so fine…

Drenched in sweat, I cross to the window, thinking only that I’ve got to get rid of it- now. 

The strangled cry of the garden gate cuts above the song. A familiar voice accompanies the steps on the gravel path; it echoes the voice rising, questioning me, from the Walkman in my hand:

How does it feel

To be without a home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone?

And how does it feel as the gate clangs shut and the Walkman smokes in my hand, three knocks on the front door ringing out loud and clear? 

Like the day the music died.