Black Hole Read Online Free Page A

entrance. Fresh-cut grass and horseshit. Big Mike tells me to wait with the truck and wanders off somewhere.
    I can hear the cars from the highway far in the distance. One of the places I lived when I was a kid was right next to a freeway. The sound of traffic always calms me. It’s like the ocean for most people, I guess.
    Someone tests the loudspeaker. It turns on with an electric pop, followed by a feedback wail and the words TESTING, TESTING, ONE, TWO, THREE .
    I turn on KALX. I’m hardly ever out in the East Bay, but I still love picking up this station. They’re playing Op Ivy. Fuck. Op Ivy. “Junkie’s Runnin’ Dry.” Figures.
    May 1989: I hopped in a van and came up here with Don and Tim. For no real reason, you know, just for the fuck of it. Among other things, we were set on going to Gilman. Op Ivy was playing that night. Of course, I got way too wasted and passed out in the van. Missed the show of my life.
    But that’s how I got here. When they went back, I just stayed. Fuck, it seems like yesterday. What the fuck happened? I’m over twice the age now that I was then. Old. Fucking old guy.
    Back then, life was as long as you needed it to be. Days were just full of all the hours you’d ever want or need; they just went on and on, and there was time enough to do anything you wanted. Most days, I woke up with no idea of what I was going to do. No plans or responsibilities. And suddenly, the days click off much faster than you want them to, and you have to think about what year it is because it all moves through you without you noticing. You’re busy as fuck even when your life is a zero.
    And shit mattered. It just doesn’t now. I used to think a good show would fix whatever was wrong, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t feel that way. Now there’s nothing to get excited about or to look forward to. Shows happen, and if I do hear about them, they’re already over, but what the fuck would an old man like me be doing at a punk show, anyway?
    I crank it up, but it doesn’t sound as loud as it used to.
    Big Mike bangs on the door. Startles me.
    Open the back, bro.
    I get out, come around the truck, and don’t know how to process what I see: a dead horse on a forklift.
    No, no, no. I can’t have a fucking dead horse in here.
    What? Bro, don’t sweat it. I needed your truck because it has the rear climate control. We have to keep this cold until we get where we’re going.
    Where are we taking it?
    A butcher. I know a guy.

PARTY
    I’M IN THE glow of a red light, I think I’m in someone’s house, but I’m not sure. There’s so many people around me that we’re all touching a little bit. There’s a girl looking up at me with big eyes, and she won’t stop smiling. I’m screaming something at her that she likes over the music that’s coming from somewhere . . . I think there’s a DJ, but I don’t see one . . . it’s a mashup of the theme from Footloose and the James Gang’s “Funk 49” with a thumping bassline . . . people are doing what is intended as dancing, but there’s not enough room in here to do much else other than move up and down a little.
    Right now, there’s a party going on that you’re not invited to. You don’t know about it. You’re doing whatever it is you do with your day. You’re making a sandwich or looking for the remote or breaking up with your girlfriend or applying for another job while you’re the job that you hate. But somewhere in the world, there’s a party going on, and people are getting fucked up. Somewhere in the world, someone is having a great time, and you’re sucking on a big ball of shit.
    Hopefully, I’m at that party. I’m at some of these parties—as many as I can find. Parties are where I found out about drugs and sex and the best music I’ve ever heard. Parties were the place where I wanted