Another Blue Christmas

T.S. Eliot may have April down as the cruelest month, but given my track record, it’s got to be December.  Having lost Dad during the winter of 2004, Mom’s time to go came a few weeks back in early December.

She had been cheating the grim reaper for a long time.  Smoking since she was a teenager circa 1950.  Granted, not heavily, but for a smoker to breach into her 80’s, this was a minor miracle.  As it was, an aneurysm took her down with only a few-minute warning, luckily at home with my brother and sister right there to help her on the way out.  She didn’t know this was it, but surely must have pondered this as a dizzy spell came over her that morning.  My sister seemed to sense the finality of what was happening, whispered her goodbyes, to which Mom snapped, “I’m still here!”

But not for long.  Her final repost mirrored the sort of irritable jab I’ve been giving her for years, when she tried to be too motherly, generally right before I was going to get on a bus to go back to New York after visiting.  She’d try to pawn off free samples of cold medicine on me that she had picked up at The Dollar Store, or was still trying to tell me about food in the refrigerator that she thought I might need to know about.  And feeling like a snotty, 15-year-old prick, I’d snap at her, not harshly, but a tone of mild annoyance in my voice.  And she’d say, “No need to get upset, I’m just saying.”  Only adding to the guilty “what a dick I’m being” feeling already growing in my heart.

A few minutes later, we’d hug – a practice she began in earnest after Dad passed, making sure we touched one last time before I got on the bus and wouldn’t be back again for another month and a half.  Thank God she did this, as I can look back to my trip at Thanksgiving, which was a perfectly normal visit with Mom in seemingly good health and spirits, only the usual aches and pains she always complained about.  I’ll see you again in just about a month, I said, understanding that Thanksgiving was late this year and Christmas was right around the corner.  In that moment, all was forgotten and forgiven, I was her wayward son, leaving again, but always to return, something I’ll always be glad I did for both her and Dad (and myself), as I made a point to see them as much as possible in their old age.  I felt fine, knowing I’d see her again soon.

Too soon, only days later, and this time in a coffin at the funeral parlor, rushing home in the daze that surrounds the cloudy days before a wake, but then the wake.  As I learned with Dad’s passing, a wake for someone that age is a good time, or as good a time as you’re going to get in those few brutal days of adapting to a new way of life.  Mom’s was no different, relatives and family friends showing up, paying respects, laughing over old memories and stories they had of Mom’s generosity and way with stray dogs and random people she’d be her usual warm self with.

What really got me through was seeing my namesake, Uncle Bill, well into his 90s, blind in both eyes but otherwise getting by physically.  Due to his advanced years and need for assistance, I gather it hasn’t made much sense to go the “seeing eye dog and cane” route.  As it turns out, my Cousin John, who lives in the same town, has stepped up to serve as his eyes when he needs to get around in public.  If you’ve ever seen a boxer enter a ring at a large public match, this is how John and Bill get around: with John leading the way while Bill puts his hands on John’s shoulders and shuffles in place behind him, matching his steps.  John will quietly announce, “slight incline on your left” or “three small steps coming up followed by a hard right” … and they have it down enough at this point that they don’t skip a beat.

I can’t tell you how good it felt to sit and talk with him all these years on, with him still as sharp as ever beyond the blindness and old age.  How good it made me feel to know I was named after him, and this guy was still kicking around, not giving up despite taking an ass-kicking from life, as we all will if we hang around long enough.  And of course, John, being a good son, stepping up and making sure that his father could have some kind of life, honoring him on the other end for the years he raised him.  You see these kind of things, it reminds you how things should be done, and are, quietly in so many cases, so that your life is filled with these unassuming people doing selfless things as a matter of course with no reward, save the returning of a huge favor.

Afterwards, a lot of the relatives came back to the house, and we had such a good time, having a few beers in the kitchen, laughing, warming our hands around that glow I’ll feel the rest of my days when I remember her and what she meant to me and so many others.

I guess I should feel like dogshit these days, but I really don’t.  Knowing she didn’t suffer, like Dad did through months of radiation and chemo, really goes a long way towards easing that sort of horrible pain you get when you see one of your parents decimated by disease and harsh medical treatment.  I want to die like that one day, too, and I don’t say that facetiously, as I’ve witnessed the long, hard flipside of a momentary passing after a long life. 

The strangest thing, and I wouldn’t even call it the hardest, has been seeing Mom’s chair empty when I’m back there.  All these insistent little reminders of this newly empty space.  The first thing I did when I got home the evening after Mom died was get in her car so I could get some groceries for the next few days.  I checked the trunk.  Before I left after Thanksgiving, she had asked me to put a clear garbage bag of aluminum cans in there for her to donate to her friend from the animal shelter, who could sell the aluminum for scrap.  Something she had done for years, the same way she held on to plastic bags from shopping excursions to give to the local Goodwill store.

Nothing in the trunk.  Meaning she had gone out over the weekend and dropped them off … her life had been normal right up to the very last moment.  I sat down in the front seat and found the ghost of her touch again: the rear-view and side mirrors turned down.  She did this so she wouldn’t have to see cars behind her.  Don’t get me wrong: Mom wasn’t doing 20 mph on the road; she was doing the speed limit.  From what I gather driving back there, doing the speed limit, even in a rural area like that, will generally find you with one or two angry drivers riding your ass, wondering why you’re not doing 60 mph in a 45 mph zone.  A few years ago I’d noticed the mirrors would always be turned down in her car when I got in for a drive.

So, I turned them back up for the last time.  I now own this car, and it’s staying right where it’s at.  Insurance agent got me an entirely reasonable rate to drive locally, and I have no need for a car in New York.  Once upon a time, I dreamed about having a car here, but now that I know the loathsome reality of owning and driving one here, and the liberating realization that I can live without it, I feel fine with this.

The hardest thing is time, because I know a parent’s death is like a slow-motion neutron bomb going off.  Everything around me will seem unaffected, besides that initial shock, but over the course of time, it becomes clear and obvious what’s gone missing.  Maybe it’s a mental issue, that acknowledging something like this full-on would be too much of a shock to the system, so to protect myself I let it sink in over time, in increments, memories and moments.  And it surely does, like wind or rain.  But I learned with Dad’s passing, I just can’t grasp what has happened in a day, or a week, or a month, or a year.  I’m still grasping that one, as I’ll be grasping Mom’s passing for the rest of my days.

“Grasping” might be the wrong word.  “Absorbing” could be better.  I’m also absorbing how they raised me, the goal of which, bluntly stated, was to survive without them.  At first that implied simply going off on my own in my early 20s and figuring out how to support myself financially and work my way into adulthood.  That’s one kind of departure and compared to this, pretty easy stuff, although it didn’t seem that way at the time.  I was leaving them, and this new reality, this much harder one, is them leaving me.  Not by choice.  I gather with both of them, the hardest part about dying was knowing that they could no longer watch out for their children.

But they should have known, they didn’t raise a bunch of pussies.  All those hard lessons they imparted from World War II and The Depression, they weren’t lost on us, much as we chafed at hearing that shit at the time.  Being raised in a house with our grandmother dying … all these things let us know that life would be hard at times.  I would have thought that feeling of being “alone” in the world would overwhelm me when Mom passed on.  While I surely do feel it, I’m not overwhelmed by it.  If anything, Dad passing on woke me up to this concept, that one day I’d be orphaned, and there would be no safety net, no one person who would give his or her life for me, who doted on me and would do anything to ensure that I got through life.

It’s not such a terrible feeling.  It’s different, without a doubt, and represents one of those seismic shifts where the earth moves a few millimeters and everything changes.  But they prepared me for this all along, knowingly or not, and it’s my legacy to honor them by moving forward, to take whatever good they taught me and use it.  This is the sort of head I find myself now, as opposed to weeping and wailing.  I don’t weep and wail … just not my style.  Used to think there was something wrong with this, but I’m just taking after Dad.  I feel it, for sure, but I will go feeling it the rest of my days, the same way we all go on after injuries and feel them sometimes on cold, rainy days.

The hard part is sensing that vacated space of someone who would have given her life for mine.  Maybe you have a whole slew of people like that in your life.  But it’s been my experience that when you get down to it, there are only two people in the world who will completely fulfill that obligation … and some people aren’t lucky enough to have even their parents feel that way towards them.  This is the sort of thing I want to underline for anyone reading this who hasn’t lost a parent.  It’s something that takes time to grasp, and in that time you’ll also grasp some good things about yourself, learned traits, the knowledge that they made you strong for a good reason, and that this is the way the world works in its very hard order.

For now, I’m left with that empty space.  Vestiges of how she lived.  The weird tube socks that she’d cut the feet out of and use the elastic as wrist and elbow supports when her aches and pains acted up.  I’d tell her, Mom, you can buy Ace supports in the drug store that are made specifically for this reason and will last the rest of your days.  But I already knew her Depression-era answer: why spend money when I can make the same thing for free at home?

Just like the cheap windbreaker with my name emblazoned on the left breast that I gave her back in the 90s, from that shitty outdoor advertising company I worked at for a few years.  The elastic-band polyester pants that she’d wear until the elastic was frayed. The cheap sun visor she must have bought some time in the 80s and really took a liking to.  The cool keychain for her car with her name on it that one of us bought as a gift for her back in the 70s … that I still touch every time I grab the keys for the car.

Old lady things.  The kind of things that haunt and comfort me as time crawls on here.  Those rare moments when I feel completely lost and unable to handle this, sooner or later, I think about how they’d do it: just pick the god-damned thing up and get on with it.  People keep telling me how much I look like Dad now that I’ve dropped all this weight.  They have no idea how much more I resemble my parents in far deeper ways that only reveal themselves in the lack of their presence.

Wisdom of Weight

Well, after dropping all that weight over six months, I seem to have stabilized around the 190-pound mark.  Still want to try to whittle down to 185 and stay there.  Game plan was to go for 180 as I still have some extra meat on my bones, but 188 lbs. turns out to be my temporary Waterloo, where I lost the thread.  The past few weeks have shown me I can ease off the clutch diet wise (still eating wisely, of course, which I’ll do for the rest of my days) and maintain around this level, which is good to know.

But now that I’m finishing this relentless march, I’m reflecting on what it meant to weigh around 250 lbs. for years on end, probably close to 18 years.  This, after being a chubby kid, rail-thin teenager, sleek specimen through my 20s, before hitting my early 30s and slowly but surely packing on the pounds, to become that kind-faced, bouncer type guy I was for a large portion of my adulthood.

I learned what it was like to feel invisible, which does have its merits.  When you’re a good 60/70 lbs. overweight, people take one look at you an think “fat guy” if they’re pricks, but more often than not, nothing registers in their eyes.  You don’t register with them.  They don’t notice if you have kind eyes, or a nice head of hair, or natural grace.  It’s understood that when you’re heavy, you sort of blend in with the scenery.  While you don’t readily offend people, your presence does nothing to grab their eye.

Some people might be put off by that lack of attention, but I saw it more as reality, and a comfortable one when I realized this is how the world works.  We place so much value on physical looks, especially under 40, surely to a very depraved, wrong extent in our culture.  I can see this now with someone like Miley Cyrus, who essentially offers herself up as a piece of ass to be fawned over.  A beautiful girl, can probably sing her off ass, given the right material … but it just seems more important to her to be a piece of ass.  Like so many before her.  Like so many who will come after her.  And I’m sure her attitude is: “I won’t be this way forever, better get it while I’m hot.”

And it’s a good feeling to be “cold” in a world like this!  Because when you’re cold, when no one gives a shit about you, when no one thinks twice to look at you when you walk in a room, that’s when you see the world clearly.  It’s the difference between being the center of attention and being someone who pays attention.  When you’re the center of attention, the natural reaction is to become self-absorbed and think the world is somehow spinning on the axis of you.  It isn’t, save we’ve constructed this sickly celebrity culture to make a select few think just that about themselves, and more than a few idiots to place value in this junk and empower these jackasses.

I’ve been far from alone in this realization.  A few years ago while visiting a drivers’ license renewal center back in Pennsylvania, I saw something that spooked me.  It was a busy time in the place, which was simply a large room in a nondescript shopping center just outside of Shamokin.  Rural America, a place I know in my bones.  When a friend and I walked in, we couldn’t help but notice something about the few dozen people sitting there, waiting their turn to have their pictures taken: I was one of the smaller people in the room.  At six feet tall and 250 lbs.!  No, the place wasn’t filled with football players and farmers.  At least half the crowd was 16-year-old girls getting their first license.  They were larger than I was.  Heavily tattooed and nose-ringed, too, in many cases.

I’m not sure what’s going on in rural America these days.  Are they feeding people radioactive food that makes them grown exponentially?  I was shocked to see these girls were already huge.  Their parents were huge.  Understand, when I was 16 and going for my first license, I probably was the same height I am now and weighed around 165 lbs., going on to gain nearly 100 lbs. in my adult life.  What does that portend for teenage girls who are already pushing or well over the 200 lb. mark?

I don’t want to think about it, nor do they.  If there’s one thing I could tell them, or anyone overweight, it’s that sooner or later, your weight is going to damage your health.  Very few people seriously overweight cruise through life with few health issues.  More than likely, in their 30s or 40s, issues are going to develop.  Diabetes.  Joint problems.  Digestive problems.  Shortness of breath.  And that’s the easy stuff to predict.  There will probably be any number of health problems an overweight person has that can’t be directly attributed to their weight, but at the very least being in that sort of physical condition isn’t doing them any favors.

Another thing I could tell them is that genetics kick in after awhile, again, getting near 40 years old, and even if you keep yourself in perfect condition, bad health issues might develop with no warning.  Various forms of cancer, blood diseases, heart issues, kidneys … any internal organs that your family might have genetic history with.  You don’t see this shit when you’re 25, or even 35.  Well, you do and you don’t.  You’re aware of it, but you tell yourself, that’s not me, I’m in perfect physical condition, I’ll beat the family odds.  Maybe you will, maybe you won’t.

My point being, even if you make yourself as strong as possible to face the world, the world might choose to kick your ass anyway.  Just for kicks.  No reason.  The greatest challenges most of us will face in life won’t be obvious things, filled with drama and happy or sad endings.  It will be quiet things that slip into our lives unannounced and end up wreaking havoc.  Much as I woke up one day last March and felt that little lump over my belly button.  No reason.  Just happened.  I later learned from my Mom that her father had grievous issues with hernias, although I’m not sure what type or how many.  My brother had one too, although that may have been caused by a previous surgery.  I’m left with the knowledge that it could happen again, no matter what I do.  Which is the over-riding reason why I bolted off dozens of pounds, simply to do everything within my power to lower the likelihood of that.  If you haven’t had the displeasure of having your body cut open, take my word for it, much like shit eating or being mugged, it’s one experience you don’t want or need.

It’s a world away from the care-free, skinny teenager I was.  Just as that was a world away from the chubby kid I was before then.  In my mind, I will probably always be that chubby kid, which isn’t a bad thing to be in your head.  As noted above, you see things more clearly when you’re not the center of attention.  What I remember most about being a chubby kid was Little League baseball, being a very good first baseman, a good player in general … but somehow dropped to a lower level because I was chubby.  I didn’t make the first cut from Farm System to Little League despite doing fine in the tryouts … I can only think because I was a little overweight.  I see the pictures of me now from that time period: chubby, not bloated.

A few weeks into being held back in the farm system that season, I told my mom I wanted to quit the whole thing, mainly because all my same-age friends had made the cut and moved up to Little League.  I felt like an asshole, knowing that my skills were just as good as theirs.  Luckily, my Mom didn’t just talk me out of it, but made a few phone calls and got me placed on my brother’s old team … where I immediately started at first base and was a set part of the team with no problems.

Well, one problem.  They didn’t have a uniform that fit me.  Again, I wasn’t a blob – at that point I was probably no more than 15-20 lbs. over what I should have weighed.  Mom had to get a pair of pants, split the seam on the side and sew a patch of elastic into it.

Believe me, I remember this shit like it was yesterday!  Just another one of those crazy, mildly abusive childhood things that follows you into adulthood.  I don’t mind memories where I clearly fucked up and caused damage to myself or someone around me – at least then I can take the blame for them and recognize those negative things served some sort of purpose.  But stuff like this, being treated like a chump because of my weight, and then humiliated because the league was so money-strapped that they only had pants to fit average-sized kids … it sucked.

So much of how I am now as an adult traces back to being a chubby kid.  On one hand, my ability to make people laugh on occasion.  I gather there are a lot of heavy guys who have that quality in spades, because they recognize making people laugh puts them at ease and gets them to not focus on the weight thing.  Which is a beautiful defense mechanism well worth developing for anyone.  On the other, I’m content to blend in with the background more often than not.  It’s just more comfortable to not be the center attention.  I’m sure this has wreaked havoc on my ability to “make it” as a writer – a lot of the writers I’ve known have a burning ambition to be famous and respected.  Whereas I think it might just be woven into my character not to give a shit about what other people think about me, for better and worse.  When you’re a chubby kid, you had better learn how to accept yourself, because you’re convinced no one else will.

These are some of the things that go through my head when I look in the mirror now and see a face and body that are a lot more in line with how I want to be.  I wouldn’t say it’s wise not to forget how it feels to be overweight.  It’s fucking impossible to forget!  But I can see through all these physical permutations that I’ve gone through in life, with old age still to come, that there are certain things you just can’t change about yourself, although everything else changes.  Mom has warned me, when you get old, over 70, and your looks go, it’s not a good feeling, probably akin to the invisibility of being overweight.  I can only think as I write this now that I’m well prepared to handle whatever the mirror throws my way.

Lou Reed's Inferno

(Author’s Note: Two of the characters who appear in this piece, George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin, previously appeared in this piece which fully explains the context in which each appears here.  Another character appears from that same piece but needs no introduction.)

Scene: A tasteful suburban home in Long Island, New York.  A bedroom facing a garden on a sunny afternoon.  In that bedroom is an elderly man, clearly on his death bed, and his wife: Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson.  The end is very near, and both of them know it.  Overhead, the sound of a plane approaching JFK airport echoes in the clear blue sky.

Lou: Here come the planes.  They’re American planes.  Made in America.

Lou has been fading in and out of consciousness, quoting lyrics from both their songs.  Laurie plays along, grasping his hand.

Laurie: Smoking or non-smoking?

Suddenly Lou feels himself transported to an airplane at night, flying over the ocean.  At first, he feels comfortable and relaxed.  But then the airplane snaps in two, breaking apart just where he is sitting.  The plane plunges towards the black water.  Lou screams and loses consciousness seconds before the plane slams into the ocean.  He wakes up to find himself in a “green room” – a place he knows well from his many television appearances, the waiting area for guests about to appear on camera.  He catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror and realizes he is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, white pants, sandals and a ship captain’s hat.  The door to the green room opens, and a young man in a head set calls out to him.

TV Intern: On in five.

Lou: Wait … what … what the fuck … where’s Laurie?

The door opens again, and Satan walks in.  It has to be Satan, Lou thinks, as this being is a deep shade of red, otherwise appears to be human, save he has two small horns on his forehead, hooves instead of feet and appears to have a tail following him.  Otherwise, he is dressed as a typical TV show producer:  Armani suit, white open-collared shirt, headset and a pair of mirrored shades.  He wears a puka shell necklace and has a perm.

Satan: Lou, glad you could join us.  We’ve been waiting for you.

Lou: What is this?  Am I dreaming?  Who are you?  Where’s my wife?

Satan: Your wife is back on earth, crying right now from what I can see.  This is hell.  You’re not dreaming.  I’m Satan.

Satan extends his hand for Lou to shake.  Lou catches a vague scent of cabbage.  Satan's fingernails are long and pointed.  Lou doesn’t shake his hand.

Lou: I lived in New York in the 70s.  I did my time in hell.

Satan (laughing): Admittedly, I had fun back then, with the garbage strikes, spiraling crime rates, rats and pestilence.  But that wasn’t hell, Lou, not by a longshot.  If anything, that sort of degradation and decay gave you a nice backdrop to build a recording career on.  You should have been sending me residual checks!

Lou: Look, I’ve read Dante’s Inferno.  I know this is bullshit.  Where’s the lake of ice with lost souls buried in it up to their necks?

Satan: Well, we could do that, but it’s been done, actually for Dante himself when he got down here.  No, Lou, here in hell, we try to give you an experience that somehow suits your worst fears, which are never really about physical pain or obvious degradation like you’d read in Dante’s Inferno, or see in a classic painting with winged demons spearing the damned on tridents.  We try to be a little more creative and current than that.

Lou: This can’t be hell.  Well, the way you have me dressed is pretty fucking bad, but I’ve looked worse.

Satan: That you have.  The way you’re dressed is only the beginning.

A beautiful woman in a blue gown strides into the room.  Lou recognizes her immediately: Toni Tennille, of Captain and Tennille fame.

Toni: Daryl, honey, we’re on in three minutes.  Let’s do a great show tonight. 

She kisses Lou on the cheek.

Toni: Are you feeling all right, honey?  Oh, it’s that stage fright again.  Remember what John Denver's guru said?  Just breathe, Daryl, breathe.  We’ll be fine.  See you on the set.

Toni strides confidently from the room, leaving Lou with his mouth still agape.

Lou: She’s down here?

Satan: Not really.  We had to mimic her to create your perfect hell.  But I think you’ll find she’s exactly as Toni Tennille would be circa September 1976.

Lou: And I’m the Captain.

Satan: That’s right, Lou.  You’re the Captain.  And it’s not just that you’re the Captain.  Your hell is a nonstop episode of The Captain and Tennille Variety Hour.  Over and over.  Same tired slapstick and lame vaudeville routines.  Same hit songs.  Same dance numbers.  You play straight banana in bad skits featuring B-level actors who normally appear on Match Game ’76 and The Love Boat.  That’s all you got to do here in hell, Lou.  Be the Captain.  For eternity.

Lou: You do realize my fuckin’ head would explode right now if it could.

Satan: Oh, I could make it happen for you, too!  But that’s too obvious.  Too dramatic.  Hell is not drama, Lou, horror movies got it wrong.  Hell is quiet desperation and the dark realization that things will never get better.  Like the way you’re feeling right now.

Lou: I’ve known some real motherfuckers in my time.  I’ve been one.  I’ve spent years on hard drugs, damaging and destroying every relationship I had.  But you have got to be the biggest prick I’ve ever met.

Satan: Oh, Lou, flattery will get you nowhere.  But thank you, anyway.  I try to be good at what I do.

Lou: I guess there’s no point in telling you I got straight for decades after I nearly threw my life away.  I did good things.  Cared about the people in my life.  Was a good friend.  Gave money to charity.  Played benefits.

Satan: And that was nice of you.  But not enough.  As the songs says, “He worked hard at being good. But his basic soul was stained, not pure.  And when he took his bow, no audience was clapping.”

Lou: Legendary Hearts.  I wrote my own epitaph without even knowing it.

Satan: That’s right.  Great song.  I’m a big fan of yours, even the post-Velvet stuff.  You really understand me and what I’m about, Lou.  It’s like you had a window to my soul sometimes.  I’m sure you heard that all the time from other fans.  We should talk more when you have time because I think we’ll see eye-to-eye on lots of things, and I can use a mind like yours down here.

The young intern comes through the Green Room door, grabbing Lou by the arm.

TV Intern: On in two, Mr. Dragon.  We need you on the set now for blocking.  Let’s go, it’s time.

Lou: Satan, you rotten motherfucker, I’ll get you for this.

Satan lets out a hearty laugh.

Satan: A wonderful sentiment, Lou.  Revenge is a motivator.  Use it, Lou, use it when you hit that stage and launch into “Love Will Keep Us Together” behind your bank of synthesizers.

After his performance, Lou comes off stage and runs straight into the rock critic, Lester Bangs, wearing a white untucked t-shirt exposing a beer belly hanging over a pair of jeans.

Lou: Son of a bitch, even in hell you’re following me around.

Lester looks perplexed.  While Lou sees himself the same way, and Satan does, too, everyone else in hell perceives him as Daryl Dragon of Captain and Tennille fame.

Lester: Daryl, you’re a fucking genius.  Like Benny, Bjorn and Stig.  You’re the American ABBA.  Fuck Donny and Marie.  You and Toni are the shit!

Lou (groaning): It’s bad enough I have to play this shit, but then to have you get it wrong, like you always do …

Lester: No, this is right.  And I was wrong to think you were a hack.  I’m the hack.  You’re opening a door to the universe that had been locked before.  I can see it now.

Lou: I think the real reason I hate Satan is because he’s smarter than I am.  Hell for Lester Bangs is believing Captain and Tennille are better than The Beatles.

Lester:  But you are!  You are!

Lou: Shit.

And so it went for Lou Reed in hell.  He was shocked to find it wasn’t bad being the Captain.  Lou’s keyboard skills had been reserved to rudimentary piano, and he found that Daryl Dragon actually was talented, if not his preferred mode of talent.  What made it hell for him, really hell, was playing a supporting role to Toni Tennille.  He wanted to kill her, despite the fact that she was his wife in hell.  He did, in fact, kill her a few times: bludgeoning her with a bass guitar, and strangling her onstage while the audience applauded wildly because that’s what the flashing audience message board told them to do.  Still, this was hell, the episode would end, and it would start all over again.

The only time he looked forward to was in the commissary before showing up in the Green Room, where he had chance to eat and mingle with some of the other celebrities in hell.  He would dine on fish sticks and Fanta with Genghis Kahn, or be pleasantly surprised to find how much Richard Nixon knew about professional football.  One day, he noticed Lawrence Welk at a neighboring table.  He mentioned to Satan how surprised he was to see Lawrence Welk in hell, and Satan assured him that Mr. Welk was one of his right-hand men, someone who really understood hell and made it work for him.  Lou quietly noted this, but one day, he got an idea.  The next time he saw Lawrence Welk, they got into a conversation about Glenn Miller, who wasn’t in hell, but Welk found himself intrigued by Lou and some of his ideas.  So intrigued that he agreed to play a few songs with Lou in the next Captain and Tennille show.

This is what happened.  Again.  And again.  And again.  And again … until …

TV Intern (speaking into his headset): Yeah, Satan, we have a problem.

Satan (over the headset): What is it?

TV Intern: I think you need to come down here.  Things have gotten out of hand, even for hell.

Satan: What do you mean?

TV Intern: It’s the Captain.  He’s lost his mind.  He’s coopted Lawrence Welk into playing a Velvet Underground song with his big band, on repeat, for every show.  Some audience members are bleeding from the ears and eyes.  Others are spontaneously human combusting.  Others are cannibalizing each other.  It’s like a George Romero movie down here.

 

Satan: Oh, dear.  While this does sound appealing, it’s not what hell is supposed to be.  I’m a little busy now, turning Duck Dynasty into the #1 show in America, but give me a few minutes.

When Satan appeared on the show set, he couldn’t believe the studio audience.  They were all naked, smeared in blood, feces and vomit, attacking each other.  Toni Tennille was trying to hide herself in a bass drum, her gown streaked with blood.  “Sister Ray” kept hammering over the studio monitors.  Lawrence Welk had somehow grown fangs as Lou egged him on to make the band play louder.  The song kept building and building.  Fifteen minutes?  They had somehow broken through the time/space continuum and been playing it for 15 days straight.

Satan: Lou, hold on now.

His voice cut through the din and made it stop completely, the musicians still playing, but no sound coming from their instruments.

Lou: Hey, Satan, glad you could make it, we’re playing your song.

Satan: No, you’re not.  You’re defying the order of things down here.  And nobody does that.

Lou: I’m just having a little fun with my friend, Lawrence.  You were right.  He’s got a lot more going on than I ever gave him credit for.

Lawrence Welk: Danke schӧn, Mr. Reed.  You’re not bad, for a Jew.

Satan: Lou, I can’t have you playing this song in the show.  The context is all wrong.  The audience members are sinners who attended opera and classical concerts in life.  “Muskrat Love” is their hell.  Not “Sister Ray.”  I don’t know what happened here, they should be able to comprehend “Sister Ray” … but not in this context.  With Lawrence Welk’s band playing that same riff, over and over.

Lou: Do I detect a note of jealousy there, Satan?

Satan: Do you really think you’re going to get over on me?

Lou: No.  But fair is fair.  I’ve done my time in hell.  Why not solve this problem and kick me upstairs?

Satan: This is hell, Lou, not purgatory.  Not a waiting room.

Lou: And I’m not waiting for anything.  But I swear to you, the minute you go back to whatever the hell you’re doing when you’re not around, I’m tracking down Lawrence, and we’re going to do “Sister Ray” until this room is nothing but blood and bones.  Have you ever sat down and listened to all four sides of Metal Machine Music?

Satan: No.  Nobody has.  That’s hell on earth, much less here.

Lou: Well, I got news for you.  “Sister Ray” is like “Love Will Keep Us Together” compared to Metal Machine Music, and I’m already getting Lawrence and his band into the concept of a three-year long version …

Satan: I’ll say this.  You drive a hard bargain.

Lou: Satan, messing with me is like stepping in dogshit.  It’s just dogshit.  I’m not stronger than you.  I’m not more evil than you.  I'm not smarter than you.  I’m just a piece of dogshit.  But don’t you hate having me on the bottom of your shoe?

Satan: Let me dwell on this.

Toni Tennille: Don’t dwell too long, Mr. Satan.  Daryl’s lost his mind!  Please help us!

The scene fades in on a white cloud.  Lou Reed feels himself moving through it.  The first thing he notices is his Hawaiian shirt and white pants are gone.  He’s now wearing a leather jacket, black t-shirt, jeans and boots.  Through the cloud, he can see a big office desk, and behind it sits Billy Martin, former manager of the New York Yankees.  He’s eating a hot dog and has a six-pack of Budweiser on the desk.  He doesn’t appear to be wearing any pants, only a deeply-stained white tank-top, a Yankees hat, stirrup socks and cleats.

Lou: Billy Martin?

Billy Martin: Who the fuck are you?

Lou: I’m Lou Reed.  Satan sent me.

Billy looks at a clipboard on his desk.

Billy: I don’t see your name here.

Lou: We had a verbal agreement.

Billy: No one tells me shit around here.  If you just stand there for awhile, I’m sure George will be around in a minute to do his thing.

Lou: George … as in Steinbrenner?

Billy: Yeah.  He runs heaven.

Lou: Man.  This is just like being back in New York in 1978.

Billy: Sure, kid.  Only my dick doesn’t get hard, and it never rains.

Just then, George Steinbrenner comes strolling through another cloud.  He’s wearing a white silk suit and smiling.

George: Lou Reed!  I just got the email from Satan.  He said you’d be arriving today.  Welcome to heaven, Mr. Reed!

Lou: Yeah, thanks.  This is cool.  I was having a hard time in hell.

George: Satan said you weren’t playing well with others.  You know, neither did I when I was down there.

Lou: You were in hell?

George: Sure.  Billy, too.  But I kicked Satan’s ass in a weeks-long poker game, so he allowed me to talk to God.  Who was in dire need of a management upgrade, so one thing lead to another, and here I am.

Billy: How in the hell does a guy like you get to heaven?  You look like one of those leather queens I used to see down on 14^th Street when I was chasing whores down there.

Lou: I’m a musician.  I threatened to play one of my songs for weeks on end until it drove everyone in hell insane.

Billy: Must have been one hell of a song.

Lou: You might say that.

Billy: Can you hum a few notes?

Lou: Not really.  But if you have a busted refrigerator connected to a 50,000 watt amplifier up here, I could demonstrate how it might sound.

George: Oh, dear.  I’m afraid my tastes run more towards Perry Como.

Billy: And I’m more Hank Williams.  Wish he was here.

Lou: Senior, Junior or III?

Billy: Well, Senior, if you must know.  But all three could knock your dick in the dirt by the looks of you.

Lou: You don’t like me very much, do you?

George: Billy doesn’t like anybody, Mr. Reed.  But I think you’ll find he’s like a family dog who only growls at strangers once you’ve known him for awhile.

Lou: It’s OK, George, I’m the same way.  Think I’m going to like it here.

A nearby cloud rustles.  A man with a large, beefy, mustachioed head pokes through a hole in the cloud.

Lester Bangs: Lou, is that you?  I can’t believe it!

Lou: No.  No fucking way.  I thought I left you in hell.

Lester Bangs: Much like you in the 70s, I’m a switch-hitter.

Billy (coughing): In more ways than one, I’d bet.

George: Yes, Lou, some people go to heaven and hell.  From what I understand, you almost did this yourself, but the scale was slightly tipped in hell’s favor.  Lester was good-hearted enough to find his final reward in heaven, yet bad enough to have part of his soul consigned to hell.

Lou: In hell, you thought the Captain and Tennille were the best thing since sliced bread.

Lester Bangs (laughing): That Satan!  He’s a fucking genius!

Lou: I despise him for the very same reason.

George: Well, I’ll let you two get caught up.  The pearly gates are over that way.  Please walk through.

Lou ambled over to the gates, and when he passed through, he came out on the other side, in his 20s, bone thin, gaunt, fingernails painted black, his hair dyed an unnatural shade of peroxide yellow, German Iron Crosses shaved into the sides of his skull.  He was wearing a dog collar, no shirt and leather pants.

Lou: Come on, now, you know I was out of my mind in the 70s.

George: Oh, right, we sometimes forget the most successful times in people’s lives were also their most troubling.

Billy: Tell me about it!

Lou: How about the 80s, right when I kicked the bottle?  And before I started wearing a mullet.

George Steinbrenner waves his right arm, and Lou is transformed to his early 30s, in a much more sedate and presentable version, the only leather in his jacket and boots, along with jeans, a flannel shirt and a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm.

George: Lou, there’s a Suzuki 650 parked just around that other cloud.  If you get on and start riding, you’ll find yourself heading west on Route 80, approaching the Delaware Water Gap in early October on a sunny day.  Traffic light.  You’ll swing off the interstate in Jersey just before hitting the Pennsylvania state line and have one of the best rides you’ll ever remember.  You'll find a roadside bar just outside Bloomsburg that has nothing but Doc Pomus songs on the jukebox.  Take the ride any time you want.

Lou: Thank you.  This is all I ever wanted.