Album covers by Maaike Verwijs
thanksomekindofgodplease by cucum
Track 10: The First Person
Koi’s show was celebrated at Phone In Sick. His friends found a comfortably deteriorated booth for them to sit, yell and drink too much beer in. Koi sat with Haskell on one side of the booth and Ryan sat with Trevor Noirchild on the other. Every so often Haskell’s arm brushed against Koi’s, causing the coarse hairs of his baboon-fur jacket to stand on end, but Haskell didn’t notice. Raucous laughter mixed with the overloud electropop playing over the PA, and its maximisation held a soothing effect, as though it were waves of static washing over a beach of white noise.
Koi gazed down at his reflection, trapped in amber at the bottom of his glass. Haskell grabbed his shoulder and he jumped in his seat.
‘Are you in there?’
Haskell’s nose had gone red, her cheeks had attracted a light red hue and Koi noted how she had become even prettier this way. She touched her temple to his and looked into his glass with him.
‘Did you find a fly?’
‘No. I was just thinking.’
‘You, thinking? I guess it really is Intelligent Dance Music.’
Ryan and Trevor Noirchild both burst out laughing, but it was about something else, some side remark that Ryan had made.
‘Haha, shut up!’ said Trevor Noirchild, uncharacteristically animated.
‘Hey, Koi, remember that time there was a riot at our high school?’ Ryan was grinning but not particularly drunk, at least not yet.
‘Uh, maybe.’ Koi found himself smiling at the memory. ‘I was sitting in the, uh, cafeteria when it happened. I guess it happened because of something, uh, trivial, like, uh, extracurricular activities or something, like basketball and—’
‘Some excuse.’
‘Yeah, it didn’t matter what it was, it was an impetus, uh, it didn’t—’
‘People were jumping on cars in the parking lot and stuff, going crazy with baseball bats or whatever they had. They were shouting in the streets because they didn’t have their afterschool sports.’
‘Er, yeah, it didn’t matter what it was. It was an excuse to riot. I remember, uh, sitting in the cafeteria while it was happening, and this guy – there was this guy, this punk guy, who wore an army vest with patches on it. You know, like the anarchy symbol, anti-Nazism, uh, stuff. This guy came over to me, and he, uh, very seriously said to me, he said: “Everything’s fucked”.’
Ryan, Trevor Noirchild, Haskell and Koi all burst out laughing.
‘“Everything’s fucked”,’ Ryan repeated, savouring the phrase. ‘As if losing basketball means that everything is fucked.’
‘Well, uh, remember, remember it wasn’t the sports, it was just, uh, it was just a scapegoat. It could’ve been anything. But this guy, this punk guy says “Everything’s fucked, so you might as well go out there and fuck around”.’
‘As if it’s the End Times,’ Ryan laughed. ‘“Everything’s fucked”. I can’t believe how funny that is.’
‘What,’ Haskell asked, ‘“Everything’s fucked”?’
‘“Everything’s fucked”,’ Trevor Noirchild repeated, as if in answer.
‘“Everything’s fucked”,’ laughed Koi.
Another glass of beer appeared in front of him. There was something strange about this one – something green. He wondered if it was the glass that was green or the beer itself, but it was the beer, he didn’t know why, and a drop of it had landed on his hand. He brought his hand to his face and licked off the green droplet.
A fuzzy, disconnected sensation went up his side when he realised that Haskell was talking to him.
‘—a cd. You could pass them out after your shows. You could even sell them – I’m sure people would hand over ten bucks just for a cd-r. They’d—’
Koi wondered if being aware of his drunkenness meant he wasn’t actually drunk. He hadn’t been fully drunk since the latter days of his teenage years, when he and Ben and Morris Lee got drunk in Lee’s basement, and Koi would act out scenes from ninja b-films on the floor. Now he would only do something like that when he was sober – as long as he was amongst his closest friends, anyway. Drinking his green beer would make him go buzz buzz buzz but that was about it.
‘Buzz buzz buzz?’ a little bee asked in his ear.
‘Uh.’
Did he say that out loud? Did Haskell say that out loud? Did—
‘After HOLA fest, before Poe went to Halifax, he took Koi out drinking, and Koi, he—’
Ryan was talking now, but then he had always been talking; Koi simply chose this particular moment to catch this particular snippet of conversation this time, of this anecdote, because he was being referred to, and he had caught this not from the mention of his name, which came later in the sentence, nor from the mention of Poe, a friend he was normally associated with, or HOLA fest, which he had attended, but the word ‘After’. Somehow his ears had stood erect, stood to attention at this word, knowing he was being spoken about. And his fuzz fuzz fuzz went buzz buzz buzz because Haskell was still in his ear and her wing tickled his skin, and he could feel her in his ear but he could hear Ryan, and Ryan—
‘—said he had to take a leak, so Poe told him to go against the side of Tobie’s. This was at, what, 2am? Koi? 2am? At 2am, after HOLA fest, on a Thursday night, which is a busy night, Koi had to take a leak, so he went against the side of Tobie’s. And he said – he was self-conscious about it, of course. I mean, that’s the point of it, that he was self-conscious about urinating in public, on a public street, against a pizza place. So—’
‘Taylor has a bunch of cds on different labels. You wouldn’t find them in stores, but the distribution online is decent.’
The light above Koi’s head slowly changed from purple to red, red to blue and blue to purple. Koi wondered why it hadn’t kicked in before. His friends looked like videogame characters caught in bloom lighting. Haskell could’ve been an android from—. Still she was so pretty, her face in shades of coloured light, still, so pretty, so pretty so—
‘—he went, he actually went, and as he was doing it, he began looking around. He looked down either side of him, at the walls of the buildings on either side of him; he looked across the street; he even managed to turn his head, to crane his neck around to look at the church behind him; and all around him people were urinating on walls. Everyone was urinating freely in the street. So—’
He felt at peace. He felt strange but he did feel at peace, and buzzing and peaceful.
‘—he felt at peace. Because everyone was doing the same thing. He couldn’t feel self-conscious because there was nothing to be self-conscious about. It—’
‘I have a friend who designs concert posters and album covers. He mostly deals in metal but I think that would actually work for you. I can picture it.’
Koi looked at his hand where the green beer had splashed and his hand was purple but it became red and—
‘—was a zen moment. Self.’
Trevor Noirchild chuckled lightly. It wasn’t that funny a story but Ryan liked telling it.
Trevor Noirchild said ‘I have some stories about urban exploration.’
The combination of this phrase, a transitional moment in the lighting and the warmth of Haskell’s cheek as it moved the air beside Koi caused Koi to remember his cousin, a girl with an adventurous spirit, his cousin who wore shirts and pants, his cousin she was a friend, he remembered her from when he was younger than twelve. He thought about his cousin as Trevor Noirchild spoke and as Trevor Noirchild spoke he was transported with Trevor Noirchild’s words to the Tower of Baba Jaga. His memory of his cousin followed him. He turned to face the grey translucency of her spirit. She had a smile, her smile, and her smile was in her eyes, and she had brown hair, wolf-bobbed, jagged, but grey in her grey transparency. Just as he remembered her because that was how he remembered her and her memory said
‘I have some stories about urban exploration.’
Haskell had said this but Haskell was not—. But this girl was that girl because a girl was a girl. Koi said
‘I, uh, have some stories about urban exploration.’
‘—an abandoned hospital by that costume warehouse on Namida. You have to follow the tracks up for about ten minutes. Everybody notices it but nobody really notices it. I’ve been there twice, once—’
When Trevor Noirchild spoke, Ryan listened attentively. Ryan was energetic and laughed a lot when he told his stories but listened attentively when Trevor Noirchild spoke. Ryan was an attentive drunk even though he wasn’t drunk because they never got drunk anymore. Not like they used to.
‘Hey, I know this song.’
Haskell was nicer now, nice and pretty. Koi looked at her and lowered his glass and had lost count and lowered—
‘Is this Flannel?’
Haskell. Ryan chuckled loudly.
‘What?’
‘I mean the artist.’
The four of them listened, though Koi was listening to something else, listening to the sound of them listening. Trevor Noirchild bobbed his head, nodding recognition, closing his eyes and getting into it.
‘Yeah, it’s Flannel. You can tell by the ping-pong melody.’
Koi had known it before anybody, knew all the songs they played the songs he knew he knew them from the first word he knew them right from the first note the first beat. Was he drunk he was drunk drunk
‘It’s, uh, the—’
Everyone looked at him, they looked at him like he was normal they didn’t know he was drunk that he was a different person, they looked at him and they saw Koi they
‘—second track off Plopes, their third album. The, uh, track is called . . . er . . . Prelude To A Mind-Numbing Affair.’
A gear whirred behind Trevor Noirchild’s eyes.
‘He’s right,’ he said.
Trevor Noirchild raised his glass and Koi raised his awkwardly in response. The glasses tapped messily.
‘Cheers.’
Koi woke up beside Haskell. The sheet draped over her body was ridged with a thousand folds, but the effortless sense and sex of her body still showed through. Her lips were slightly parted. Her eyelashes—
Koi could not remember how he had got from point A to point B. He had blacked out and then there had been a set of three evenly-spaced asterisks. Point A had been Trevor Noichild and point B was Haskell, Haskell in his bed. Three asterisks and then—
There was a slight pain in his penis as though it had been used recently. He was in a bed with Haskell and he barely knew who he was or where he was. There was a magic blue cast over the room and it could’ve been any room at any time. It could’ve been Haskell’s room or Trevor Noirchild’s room or his parents’ room. It could’ve been the early morning or super late at night. He glanced towards a corner and there was the baby xenomorph from Resurrection.
All of his original thoughts of sex and girls came inside of his head, all those hopes and dreams and expectations. He looked at Haskell and then danced inside of his mind. He then thought about how he couldn’t even remember if he had done anything this night, with Haskell beside him and Haskell breathing, Haskell lying there in peace. He looked at her and blushed even thought he couldn’t even remember if he had done anything this night. He couldn’t even remember if he had done anything. Had he really betrayed his younger, expectant selves? He stopped dancing.
Koi thought about firsts. He thought about the first person. He thought about Adam, the first person, being born as an adult. He thought about Adam, the first person, being a fish. If the first person was a fish first then— What if Adam was born from a fish or had evolved from a fish? If the first person was a fish then Koi was the first person.
Koi thought about how he had been born as an adult. He had started as an adult and he had started as a fish but he was not named Adam. He was not named Adam because Adam was a human name and Koi was a fish, but Koi was also a person because he was the first person because he was a fish. He was the first person because the first person is I and Koi said ‘I’ when he referred to himself.
A fuzzy sickness sucked his throat and the backs of his hands were sweaty. He could feel Haskell’s breath lightly on his face. Haskell beside him.
He opened his mouth as if to say ‘uh’ but then closed his mouth again. He was sober and drunk and hung-over. He didn’t know if this was his first, but he was barely awake, he had blacked out, and he was the first person. He was barely awake and couldn’t make sense of his thoughts or his situation.
He thought about the first time he had pushed off on a bicycle, the sun’s golden warmth against his back, the sky orange, and crashing before the front wheel managed a full rotation, crashing onto the cement of the sidewalk and the prickling green of the grass. He thought about this amusing vision of himself from a perspective outside of himself: when he thought of his past he thought of himself and when he thought of himself he saw himself in the view of the third person. He saw himself crashing. He saw—
Haskell made a sound and it was a girl sound and it made Koi’s heart flutter. His heart fluttered delicate like a fish and a fish was the first person and the first person is I. Haskell was there and she was so sweet she was so real she breathed and her eyelashes and she was sweet and she was there and she was Haskell she was and Koi was there and he knew all this but didn’t quite believe it even though he was there and he was lying beside her and it had been his first time if it had happened and it had been, it had been, and he was the first person and these were his thoughts because he had been dreaming he had been sleeping and he had woke up and he was the first person, he was the first person, and the first person is I.
‘I, uh, put this time-stretched saxophone here,’ Koi said, hovering his mouse cursor over the golden section of his latest work-in-progress. ‘I figure you don’t really hear sax in IDM. I don’t know.’
‘Play it.’
A sudden wealth of nervousness welled up inside him. While living in his father’s house – a place where he had already been singled out as the weirdo – he hadn’t played any of his tracks over his external speakers, instead sticking to the privacy of his headphones. Neither his father nor step-mother knew that he made tracks, and probably didn’t even know what tracks were. Koi did not have any problems with keeping it that way.
‘Uh.’
‘What’s wrong? I want to hear this sax.’
His parents also did not know that Haskell was there, in their house and in Koi’s room, the first girl to ever venture into that musty realm of sleep and hand-painted models. Koi did not know what the unspoken rules were about him having a girl over, now that he was in his twenties and now that he had a girl. He wondered if she would be thrown out dramatically, if there would be a big scene, with him stuttering and fumbling in the middle. He wondered if he would be grounded. He could picture it happening.
Haskell reached over and pressed down on Koi’s finger, causing the track to play. His heart glitched.
‘Why isn’t it playing?’ Haskell asked, brow furrowed, moving Koi’s hand out of the way and clicking nakedly with her own finger.
It was playing, but very lightly, softly, as though it were coming from another room.
Koi realised that his headphones were still plugged in. He hoped Haskell didn’t realise it as well.
‘Can you turn it up?’ Haskell asked, fidgeting with the knobs on his stereo.
‘Uh.’
Koi tried to think of a way to lie without actually lying. He decided that putting off the truth would be the best way of doing so.
As Koi stood there faking stupidity, Haskell played with the cords hanging out of his stereo, inevitably leading to the unplugging of his headphones.
Bz—
The skronkiest possible saxophone blew up the house, its dry wail throwing the roof into the sky. Koi scrambled for the volume, any volume, looking for a way of shutting it off before his parents kicked him out of the house forever. He finally managed to turn it down, but only after fending off Haskell’s legitimate attempts at stopping him.
The sax played much more quietly but still retained its power, and also allowed Koi’s treatment of it to become noticeably more detailed: it was a solo manipulated into a choir of angels exploding inside of the sun, and when Koi looked to Haskell for her reaction, she was grinning from ear to ear, her eyes lit up bright and alive.
‘Uh . . .’
An army of brutalising beats trampled what was left of the rubble. Koi sighed and then closed the tracker.
‘It’s good.’
Haskell was smiling bright and true. Koi yearned to caress her cheek, white from the strain of her smile.
A knock at the door caused Koi’s spine to drop out of his back and land on the floor.
‘What happened in there?’
The words poured from the cavernous throat of Koi’s step-mother. Koi looked to Haskell, who gave Koi a look that asked him if he was twelve.
‘Uh, I don’t know,’ responded Koi.
Haskell grabbed his arm and squeezed. She stuck her tongue out at him.
His step-mother stomped away.
Koi's Story Continues In Track 11: Please Be True
Track 0: Uh
Track 1: The Nerd Wave
Track 2: Playing Koi
Track 3: She had said the only words that could have affected him totally and truly
Track 4: A Sudden Loud Knocking
Track 5: A Two-Man Play to Be Performed on a City Bus
Track 6: Now It's Summer
Track 7: Study of a Drawing by Bobby Myers
Track 8: Loose Change
Track 9: Foam
Track 10: The First Person
Track 11: Please Be True
Track 12: Title Track