Alcohol and music; those are the two things that really get me by.
Combine the two and - God, what ecstasy. What freedom and escape from it all, if only for a moment.
How many nights have I spent, wide awake in those dim hours of the morning while all the world sleeps, my headphones on so as not to wake the neighbors, sailing high on fumes of song and silver tequila; how many mornings have I awoken to agony pounding in my head while all the sounds I've tried to drown come flooding back?
Like I said, I was only ten years old when I first heard the Turning Song.
It was beautiful - that was the problem, really.
Have you ever seen those faces of celebrities, digitally adjusted so that they are perfectly symmetrical?
On a technical level, we should love images like these. The human mind is predisposed to appreciate symmetry, to be drawn to such perfection. But in reality, our gut reaction to these digitally-perfected portraits is one of deep unease. It's uncanny; especially in cases of celebrities. We know what these people should look like, we recognize all those little imperfections and incongruencies that make them human. To see them like this is to see them in a funhouse mirror. We are unsettled; but it is the beauty itself which unsettles us; it is too clean, too flawless, too outside the realm of what we know to be tangible and true.
That was the feeling when I first heard the song.
It was beautiful; my God, was it ever beautiful. I stood transfixed in that subway station, my gaze cast upwards towards those concrete ceilings as though I were watching the heavens themselves open up.
It was the way I imagine the angels sound when they speak the language of the cosmos, the sound of fairies calling travelers deep into the forest in some dark fairytale, or sirens singing sailors to their doom. It was the music of a world far more beautiful than this one - and far more terrible.
As the wonder of those first few moments had faded away, I had pressed my hands against my ears and began to cry.
Make it stop, make it stop!
Of course, my parents didn't know what to do. There was nothing they could see that would have triggered this panicked reaction in their son; no reason that I was suddenly sobbing on the subway floor. They couldn't hear it; no one else could.
I never quite got used to it, but I learned to live with it.
I imagine those with tinnitus would be the only people who could have some understanding of what this is like -to have this humming noise ringing in their heads, this unrelenting, maddening music. It was enough to make anyone crazy.
Of course, my parents took me to doctors. Of course, those doctors found nothing wrong. There was no reason this should be in my head, this constant, flute-like humming from that unknown place. Countless tests, constant poking and prodding and psychiatric evaluations. I spent my adolescence sullen, in and out of the influences of mood-stabilizing drugs.
Eventually I had had enough. I just wanted it all to stop, the hospital visits and the therapists, my mother crying in her bedroom when she thought I was asleep at night.
So, I told them what they wanted to hear.
The music was gone, I said. I no longer heard it. And just like that, I was free. Free from the testing and the questions, free from the feeling that I was a rat in a sterile cage, desperately pawing at buttons for the next pellet of food or hit of cocaine. Maybe now, I could live. And all it took was lying.
Not that my lie was entirely without the shadow of truth. There were moments when the music went away, brief though they may have been. Within these spans of blessed silence were the only moments I felt peace. And I tried not to resent the rest of the time, when I heard that humming in my brain, because I knew it could be worse - oh, it could have been so much worse.
I haven't yet told you why I called it the Turning Song.
*****
I woke to a pounding in my head as my alarm blared a gratingly-upbeat techno beat through my bedroom. I smacked the alarm clock off, knocking it to the ground for good measure.
God, I felt sick.
These were the worst mornings, my punishment for the fleeting pleasure of drinking myself into a floaty stupor the night before. Last night I had stood on my narrow balcony, swaying dangerously close to the edge, watching the lights of the city sparkle all around me as I sipped on a bottle of American Honey. The warmth of the sweet liquor had enveloped me like a blanket as nineties rock blasted through my headphones. Anyone seeing me from the street must have thought I was high, or crazy, as I moved to the beat of music only I could hear, dancing in the darkness with a bottle in my hand. I didn't care. I wanted to enjoy these moments of happiness as much as I could.
Although now I was paying for it.
I tried to sit up, and my stomach lurched in protest. I vowed I'd never drink again, though I knew that sentiment was laughably untrue.
I dragged myself slowly out of bed and flipped on the radio. I managed to stagger into the kitchen, feeling my way through the dark - there was no way I was pulling back those curtains before the pounding in my head quieted - as I made my way to the fridge.
I pulled out the quart of Pedialyte that I always kept on hand and took a few tentative sips. Again, my stomach protested, and the wave of nausea compelled me to slide to the floor, where I sat clutching my Pedialyte bottle.
I couldn't keep going on like this. It had been easier in my twenties; there seemed to be no real consequences for my excessive habits, and I had little trouble going about my day the next morning. Not so these days.
I lay my head back, staring up at the crack in the wall that branched out from the upper left corner of the kitchen. I had noticed it when I first moved into this apartment - though then it had been nothing more than a hairline crack, barely noticeable. It had grown as the years had gone on, ever-widening until now you couldn't help but notice it. I thought of how little my life had changed since that day I moved in - how depressing to think that the crack in my wall had grown and changed more than I had in those years.
I forced myself to stand; I couldn't sit here and mope all day. I'd go for a walk; maybe the sunshine and fresh air would brighten my mood. I walked over to the window, wincing painfully as I peeled back the curtain to look down on the street below -
I froze.
There was someone there, on the streetcorner just below my apartment. They were dressed all in black, despite the warm day, dark pants and a black hooded sweatshirt pulled over their head. Dark sunglasses obscured their face, but I didn't need to see their eyes to know that they were looking directly at me.
The same shiver of dread I had felt leaving work the other night crept down my spine. I shut the curtains, my heart pounding wildly.
I didn't know who this person was - all I knew was that I didn't want them to find me.
*****
Ground Level - The Mountain Goats
Cornflake Girl - Tori Amos
Black Flowers - Chris Isaak
*****