Someone Called Piano Fighter

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too. -Mitch Hedberg

I always want to know a secret, Rex.

The propane tank hisses as the shirtless freak in front of me caresses the flame across the bottom of the incandescent light bulb with surgical precision.

Poof - a plume of smoke materializes as the little shards melt.

Alchemy is alive and well and Rex is a sorcerer.

"The secret is salt."

I nod, nod, nod my head. Right, salt. Of course.

What the hell is he talking about?

Can he hear my teeth grinding?

"You gotta use salt to remove the frosting from the inside of the bulb, or it'll give you cancer."

I let that percolate as I lean in to take my hit. There was a time we called this sucking the glass dick, but we've grown as a society since then. That's crass. Now our drug use is inclusive.

The smoke dances around the rose tube and into my lungs. My brain. My blood.

Are these things even rose tubes anymore? You used to buy them at gas stations. A little glass cylinder with a fake plastic rose inside it. Give it to someone you love.

"The frosting will give you cancer."

Nod my head, nod, nod nod. I understand, Rex. Cancer would be bad.

I am a dragon and I breathe plastic-smelling smoke.

The music just sounds so good when that first hit makes it to my brain. It bounces around up there like a pinball machine. Here I am, ma, your pinball machine boy all lit up again - nodding, nodding, nodding.

A wild thought appears.

"Why not just buy a non-frosted bulb," I ask Rex.

Rex's face contorts as the remaining echoes of brain cells try to compute the question.

Dear Lord, he's never thought of this.

Suddenly we're both laughing. It's good, like a cup of hot chocolate on a snow day. School has been canceled and our only responsibility is to have so much fun that we go to bed easy tonight.

Relation. Maybe that's why we do this. The world is so desolate and so damn lonely. Let's get cancer and give each other roses so we won't be so cold, Rex.

I've been in a lot of plywood shacks with dirt floors and this one, by far, has the best acoustics. Sure, it's a fight against hypothermia out here, but you should hear when Rex plays "Simple Man" on a Saturday night. It's enough to make you cry.

But I'm not a kid and it's not snowing. I've got school tomorrow.

“I gotta go soon, Rex.”

We smoke and we laugh.

Have you ever done meth? Probably not. It’s the hollow divine.

Together, there, you find the freedom to talk about all of it: all of the grime and shine of life. That’s what Rex and I find together in that shack, the hollow divine. We talk about our childhoods and our fears and we talk about God and we cry and laugh.

But it’s fake. Soon the bag is empty. All of it fades just like the smoke in the air.

What am I doing hanging out with this freak?

“I really gotta go soon, Rex.”

I guess I haven’t noticed how bad Rex’s teeth are until he smiles. Or maybe he hasn’t smiled? Like close-up magic, he swiftly pulls out a baggie bulging with large chunks of meth.

There’s a shitty coffee table in the center of the room and it thuds when he drops the bag on it.

A million eyes of all the posters of naked women he’s plastered to the walls stare at me.

“Aww, Cooley - take off your coat and stay a while.”

Well, if you insist.

“Cooley, what the fuck?”

Oh, I know that sound. Sunlight radiates off and around Nick DeSalvo, my little sawn-off eye-tie manager, as he stands in the doorway to Rex’s shack.

Sunlight?

How long have I been here?

“NICK!”

“You have got to be shitting me, Cooley.”

“I would never, Nick, you’re my favorite turd.”

I give Nick my best "busted" face and Rex and I are off to the races with laughter again.

It feels good, man.

"NICK," I exclaim as I tuck the still-hot pipe behind my ear. Hide my degeneracy from father.

"Jesus Henry Christ on a fuckin' CROSS, Cooley! I've been looking all over the goddamn country for you."

It's time to get serious. I put my serious face on and nudge Rex to follow suit. We both draw deep breaths through our noses and sit up straight.

In hindsight, with all the meth smoke floating through the air that may have been a tactical error.

"Aww, you love me, don't you?"

Giggle, giggle. I'm sorry, Nick. You're a good man and I really do want to be serious for you.

"Oh fuck you, Cooley,"

Suddenly we're prepubescent boys at a sleepover, long past the second or third time mom told us to shut up and go to bed. We know dad is coming to break heads any minute if we keep up the funny business. There’s nothing to laugh at anymore.

We’ve crossed the threshold, though - nothing is plenty.

This is why I do drugs.

“Niiiiiiick,” I call out as he folds his arms and taps his foot, “I know. I need to prepare, right? Well, great news, boss - I am preparing.”

Rex nods. I nod. Nodding, nodding, nodding.

"Are you fucking kidding me, Cooley? You're wearing a dress in some," Nick points to Rex, "-no offense - some crackhead's shack in the fucking woods of Alabama smoking crack."

"Meth," I correct him.

"What?"

"Some methhead's shack smoking meth. We're not crackheads, Nick."

Rex shakes his head at Nick before ducking under the doorway to his side room.

“Aw, Rex come on. No, no - don’t go. Jesus Nick, do you see what you’ve done?”

He is in no mood for this.

"Cooley, what the fuck? You've got to get on a fucking flight and get to Australia, dickhead."

"What are you going on about here, Nick?"

"PRIME, you dipshit! You signed a goddamn contract for PRIME."

Oh, yeah. That.

Like Odysseus and the sirens, The Ballad of Rob Williams drew me blindly into imminent danger. All swept up in cancer fever, I threw my hat in the ring. Well, this is a situation, isn't it?

I bite my lip and look at my swanky crocodile boots, twisting a crater into the dirt floors. Am I doing that? It doesn't feel like it. I don't feel like it.

"Yeah, I don't feel like doing that anymore."

The seams of his ill-fitting suit do the impossible in keeping together as he crosses his thick Italian arms. His olive face can turn such a pretty shade of red when he’s mad - which is most of the time.

This is our dance.

Sunbeams break through the cloud barrier out the window of the Boeing 737 Air Max. Are these things still crashing? I hope so.

You shouldn't be allowed to fly in this condition.

Bringing the tequila to my lips is a spec ops operation - breathe in for four, hold it for four, breathe out for four. It takes both hands and the liquid dances rhythmically with my shaking hands. The song of malnutrition and dehydration.

My lips steady the cup. Gone in a gulp.

"When was the last time you fucking slept?"

My tongue sides across my cracked lips and it feels like sandpaper. Sleep? Sleep is the cousin of death.

"I'll sleep when I'm dead."

"Won't be long if you keep this shit up, Cooley. What the fuck, man? You've always been a mess, but what the fuck is this, a cry for help?"

We're in the exit row. Thump, thump, thump - I can feel my heart rate rising and my chest tightening. The red handle on the emergency door calls out to me. How hard would it be to open it?

Would it be like the movies? Sucked out into eternal free fall. No school tomorrow.

I should've paid attention during the flight attendant's demo.

"What do you mean, Nick?"

The golden circle around the brown iris of Nick's eyes disappears as he rolls his eyes back. He has always been the counterweight. It took Nixon to go to China and Nick DiSalvo to get me out of that meth shack.

He's sure put up with a lot throughout the years.

"Look, I don't get the whole wrestling business, you know that. Bunch of roided-out egomaniacs in underwear rubbing up on one another just isn't my idea of sport. But when you were in that last shithole, you were full of piss and vinegar. You had a fire in your belly. Carnage. That's what you droned on about, remember? You just wanted to cause carnage. Arrive, raise hell, leave."

Out the window, the sunbeams are fading. From the distant edges of the field of view, darkness creeps in.

"You seemed like you were getting it together when you were hanging out with that fucking lunger. Ever since your trip to Mexico with him, though, you're a goddamn shell. What's going on, man?"

His eyes plead to let him in.

When I was a kid, I never understood why my mom would clean before company came over. They're family, we should let them see us warts and all, right? She'd vacuum and clean the baseboards.

"I'm fine, Nick. Feel like a hundred bucks. I need to get some sleep."

The headphones mute all but the constant hum of the plane engine.

I want to let Nick in, but it's a mess in here.

Ma, I get it.

Nick and I part ways at the airport. He's got something he needs to go stress about and I need to go find a woman with low self-esteem.

"You going to make it to ReVival," the taxi driver is obviously aggravated at Nick as he stands with the door wide open questioning me.

"Yeah, man. I'm not a lost

The next week is a blur of two finger pours of tequila, Sydney rock oysters, and loose women.

I spend a lot of time in a piano bar. There's something about the sound of a talented pianist tickling the ivories.

Music is wild when you think about it. Communication as a whole, but that's for another time. Some guy sits at this wooden box and presses down on these little blocks connected to a piece of wire pulled to a specific tautness and you get either Beethoven or Ray Charles.

I become friendly with a particularly grizzled piano fighter with a penchant for

"I don't know, man. It's like... I got everything I thought I wanted. I should want to go fight this guy, but I just don't care to."

His laughter was medicinal to my soul.

"Goddamn, boy, you sure are a daft cunt aren't ya?"

"Well, yes. But could you elaborate?"

The old timer's chest heaves up and down with laughter. It could be with me, could be at me - I don't care. You know how you sometimes just know you're about to get that gold nugget? Like you've been showing up to the river every day sifting through the muck, but you just know today's the day?

"Sure, mate. Who gives a shit? You think you're so fucking spectacular you deserve to be inspired all the time, huh? Mate the guy driving the bus drops me off 'ere each day probably ain't fucking inspired. We do the work we were made to do. That's it."

It clicked for the first time that all of this existentialism started after spending this time with Rob. Watching my friend die in real time shook me, as much as I didn't want to admit it.

"None of it matters, though. I've been watching a friend of mine die of cancer. This whole world is just... ugly."

"Sorry about your mate, but c'mon. That's all the more reason to ply your trade. If it's ugly, make something beautiful. You're not inspired? Go find some meaning. Now, you daft cunt, I've seen the way you follow along. You play, don't you?"

I stare at the tequila swirling around in my glass like the old man's words in my head.

"I've been known to caress the keys."

"Well stop sitting at the bar and go create something, mate."

Who am I to argue with barroom royalty? The old timer waves over the barman, who side eyes me as he leans in to listen. The next thing I know I'm sitting in front of a Beale & Co Baby Grand Piano. The patrons shuffle and cough and talk amongst themselves as I take a seat in front of this veteran instrument.

The keys feel supernaturally charged under my calloused fingers as I slide them from one to the next. It's like the piano is telling me what it wants me to play, a melody bespoke to me that it was saving for just this moment.

My finger finds C minor.

"Mama and Papa bought a Chickering. Everyday I'd sit and play that thing. I practiced hard, it was more than a whim. I played with grim determination Jim."

The words pour from me. Perfect harmony. I am ethereal - in a plane between the spiritual and physical.

My energy feeds the room. The chatter dies off, phones are put away. We're together, experiencing this.

"I worked in sessions and I played in bands. A thousand casuals and one-night stands. Here on Thursday, gone on Friday. Headin' down the Dixie Highway"

All of it fades away now. It's just me and the piano and my soul and I'm bearing it to this piano.

"Someone called Piano Fighter, I'm a thin ice walker, I'm a freelance writer. Hold me tight, honey, hold me tighter."

The piano sounds like a ReVival and the microphone smells like tequila.

"Hold me tight, honey, hold me tighter. Then let me go, Piano Fighter. Let me go, Piano Fighter"

And Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

I fall into the thousands and thousands of Egyptian cotton threads on the bedsheets of the California King at the Capella Sydney like a babe into his mother's breast. They're cold. The room is cold. It's a welcome reprieve from the wet inferno of Sydney.

My heavy eyes finally shut, well tired from their time in service.

This should be it. I should get some peace from this moment. Instead I'm a ball of energy and nerves. Little twitches in my calves, my toes twisting around inside my socks.

"Damnit."

All I can think about is this gorilla I'm set to dance with next week.

Steve Harrison.

You look like a really mean guy, Steve.

I don't want to fight you.

You look like you could really hurt someone bad. A fine specimen despite the male pattern baldness. Hey, nobody is perfect, right? You seem like a good enough guy. Friends with that hog slanging preacher.

I don't want to fight you, Steve.

Why should I?

Not for the money. Honestly, I don't know how you guys live off these scraps. I've got more money than I know how to spend.

You hear people complaining about money all the time now, right? It's become a real social commentary. "If I just made more money, I'd be happier," they say. "I'm not paid a living wage," people chant.

I used to be like that. Used to think that if I just had some more money, it would be ok. I'd be happy. Not even happy, but I would FEEL SAFE. Security is really what it all boils down to, I guess.

I've got all the money in the world, Steve. And it has done absolutely nothing for me.

Steve, I have to fight you.

Why?

Beethoven said to play a wrong note is insignificant, but to play without passion is inexcusable. Nick is right. This is not me. I waste my days drinking fine wine that's completely wasted on my hillbilly roots just looking to feel something. Anything.

Where has my fire gone, Steve?

Make me feel something, Steve. Pain, anger, happiness - anything. It doesn't matter what it is. I just can't go on being this hollow, man.

I hope you are as mean as you look.

So come hurt me, Steve. Let's create something together. Something beautiful and violent that means something.

I realize how bad my jaw hurts from all the grinding as the yawn forces me into cranial kinesis. My eyes are

We're cleared for landing.

"Look who it is."

The only good thing about eighty degree weather in January is that the hotel has a killer pool. Nick looks like he's wearing his dad's bathrobe.

"Did they not have a robe your size," I chuckle and take a seat on the lounger next to him. Instantly a beautiful Australian girl is standing beside me to take my order. "Blood Mary."

"Shut the fuck up, Cooley."

We share a laugh. First one in a while. It's not quite hot chocolate in a blizzard and we both have school tomorrow, but it isn't half bad either.

The silence lasts just a bit too long, but I'll be damned if I'm going to be the one to break it.

"Cooley, what's going on with you," Nick flinches.

Have I tidied this place up enough?

"I don't know, man. I think I just lost myself for a while there. Then seeing everything with Rob it, just, it really ate my lunch. I'm good, though."

The cute blonde clumsily clanks the fancy highball glass on the little table beside my lounger. We both wait in silence for her to leave, our lips drawn tight in that flat white guy smile.

"You know, no one ever taught me how to do that face," I remark when she leaves.

"Me neither," Nick laughs.

"I think it's standard issue with us white guys."

"I'm Italian, you coglione."

We laugh again. Getting closer to hot chocolate.

"And I'm Jesse James."

"You remember what happened last time you tried this wrestling shit, right? You went fucking haywire man. Shit isn't going to get weird this time, is it?"

The bloody mary is a bit heavy on the tomato juice, but calories in, calories out. It will do its job regardless of whether it's inspired. Just like me.

"Oh, it's going to get weird."

From: Jackson Cooley To: Rob Williams Subject: Au Revoir

My dear friend,

Thank you.

The life of a freebooter is lonely.

Out here on the road, you can forget who you truly are. People like you are an anchor. I need to go back to who I am.

Thank you for allowing me to bear witness to your pain. Your transformation. The Final Act of Rob Williams. To know that I had some part in the swan song means more to me than all the gold in Fort Knox. It has been truly reformative. You see, Rob, I've been at sea a long time without a rudder. This has been no way to live - completely surrendered to the blowing wind. I didn't even know how far gone I was, man.

I'll see you again soon, my friend. Take care of yourself until then. You're a god-awful animal, but you deserve to be happy.

From Sydney With Love, Cooley