How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie Debartolo

to think. “It was different when I started. We’re talking 1966. What we were doing then was relatively novel. You had Dylan doing the folk-rock thing, you had the Beatles taking over the world, and I came from the blues camp—I was a white guy trying to make gospel music with a raspy voice and a guitar. But if I were twenty-four today and released the same record I put out then, how many copies do you think it would sel ?”
    “Blasphemy,” I said. I couldn’t imagine my world without the sound of Doug Blackman in it. “Your music changed my life.” How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08 4:59 PM Page 47
    I told Doug about my first concert experience: His 1990
    The Life You Save Could Be Your Own tour at the Cleveland Coliseum. I was sixteen, and it was just a few weeks after my episode in the bathroom with the kitchen knife, so needless to say I was a little down on myself. Michael, Vera, and I sat in the fourth row—seats nine, ten, and eleven. And when Doug ambled onto the stage, red Gibson in hand, and belt-ed out “The Day I Became a Ghost” with what looked like tears in his eyes, it was as if he were speaking directly to me.
    “That song gave me courage,” I said. “It reminded me of something I’d learned so many years before. That I could feel things. Even if it was pain.”
    “ That’s the magic,” Doug said. “ That’s why you have to save the dying man. Because you want him around to keep saving you.”
    “Save the savior,” I said.
    “You dig, Eliza Caelum?”
    “I dig, Mr. Blackman.”
    During the 66 show, Doug’s words were al I could think about. 66 was one of the worst bands I had ever seen or heard. It was as if, instead of amps, the guitars were plugged into helium tanks. And al the girls in the audience were dressed exactly like Amanda Strunk, a peroxide blond with a trampy, been-around-the-block attractiveness, whose only real talent was the ability to say fuck and lift up her skirt at the same time.
    The crowd screamed and applauded like they were watching the Beatles.
    Fol owing the show, I walked to Tompkins Square Park, where I sat on a bench, stared at the word HOPE carved into stone above the water-fountain gazebo, and jotted down notes about the concert as Doug’s words echoed in my ears: Tell me what you listen to and I’ll tell you who you are.
    4Musical heathens? Soul ess pop pagans?
    I recal ed Paul saying he’d gone out with Amanda Strunk.
    I wrote bitch in parenthesis next to Amanda’s name, questioned why I’d done it, and quickly scribbled it out until it became nothing but a rectangular window to the next page.
    Most of the bars and cafes in the East Vil age were stil bustling. There were cool people with cool hair and cool clothes everywhere. I saw a guy in a cobalt-colored shirt whose posture, from the back, reminded me of the way Adam used to stand, sort of off balance and tilted to the side.
    Adam was a blue, human Leaning Tower of Pisa.
    I wondered how different New York would have felt if Adam had been there. Not that I wanted him there. I didn’t miss him anymore. But I missed the idea of him. I missed having a hand to hold. I missed the il usion of safety.
    Heading down Avenue A, I wondered how it was possible to be surrounded by so many people and stil feel utterly alone. At Houston Street I came upon Rings of Saturn. The marquee said:

BANANAFISH UPSTRS EVRY THUR
    I cal ed Vera to see if she wanted to meet me at Rings of Saturn but she was already in bed. Then I tried Michael. He was stil at practice, and I asked him if I could head down to the rehearsal space and hear the band.
    “Not a good night for that,” he said. “Some other time, though.”
    Inside Rings of Saturn, the main room was smal , the ceiling was low enough that I could almost touch it, and everything—the wal s, chairs, floor, tables, even the bar—was black. There was a staircase in the right-hand corner—also black—leading up to what I presumed was the stage.
    The place was