Hounds
This is how our nights typically begin.
While the guys—Andy, Max, Steve—are practicing, writing, rehearsing in the basement, I make a run to Dawson’s Liquors, pick up a couple of pints, a handle of Canadian Brown No. 7, a bottle of white zinfandel, and a small assortment of malt vases. I lug the crunchy brown paper bags out of my car and carry them to the door like I’m arriving with fresh groceries for the family. It all depends on successful transportation. I must be careful not to break anything.
From the basement I can hear the tribal thunder of Max’s drums cannonading and sending axis-altering tremors beneath the soles of my tattered Nikes.
Everyone is waiting, anticipating. My true family. My brothers. Steve’s voice calls out to me as I put my hand on the cold brass doorknob, floating and drifting from the depths of the manor like the ghost of some child in a grim nursery rhyme. I stalk inside like a burglar, sidle to the basement door. I rumble down the staircase and hear Andy tear into a breakneck solo of chunky powerchords, the fuzz thicker than the beard of a Greek God, the entire foundation of the house rattling and clenching, on the verge of an electrogasmic eruption.
Andy and Max start taking shots of whiskey straight from the pourer. Speech becomes harder to muster with each swig/chug/shot/swill. Max drinks straight like a champion, rarely ever relinquishing his Kung Fu grasp on the bottleneck.
We walk around the neighborhood, pacing along the snaking roads past waterfront mansions and down by the Severn River there’s a cool sigh of air acting as a natural fan to soothe our drunken sweats. A conversation sparks involving each of us ranking our favorite Bob Dylan albums.
Max hops on his skateboard and disappears, swallowed in the darkness at the end of his street. He crashes, flies off the board, gropes his mouth, twitching, trying to locate the pieces of his two front teeth that have broken off and scattered like pebbles across the road. He walks up to each of us, presents his biggest smile, showing off his new vampire style, his new set of accidental fangs. We walk to 7-11 and scream at passing cars.
On the way home, Andy and Max decide to wrestle and tackle each other like linebackers on the grassy knoll in front of the local library. Andy vomits at the intersection of Riggs and McKinsey, right in front of the bus station, coughs up a river of whiskey in the street that steams off the grass like hot gravy in late November.
We are the only people on the street at this time. It’s past two in the morning. Stray cars fly by every now and then. The town is dead. The town’s always been dead. There is more out there—a bigger and better world. This is all that we’ve ever known. And so we must go on, forever to wander and roam.
Not much is said once we return to Max’s house. We corral into the basement, moving slowly and stiffly, laughing and slouching. Max flips off the lights. Blankets are spread across the sofa and the floor. I plop down on the small sofa against the wall, cover my back with a quilt, and kick off my sneaks.
The clock on the DVD player reads 3:58 A.M. Nothing left to do but sleep, sleep, sleep. I drift off and can hear Steve on the other side of the room, strumming unplugged chords on Andy’s Tele, humming new lyrics; it’s never too late for a song. I close my eyes and let Steve serenade me as I merge into blackout territory.
This is how our nights usually end.
Genre: surf-gaze tribe-wave
Members
Andy Cush
Steve Everitt
Max Heimberger
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