Nat’s Big
“We put that song on the radio without a fuckin’ clue. We couldn’t have known
what it would change… couldn’t fathom the scale of the thing.”
It was a hard roll. Creamsicle-colored mayonnaise seeped from both ends,
soaking the nori sheet and covering the manila cutting board. Trembling hands vainly
pushed the rice and seaweed together, but the stick was lost.
“Throw it away! Start again!” Joe barked.
Wordlessly, Nat reached for another nori sheet, mayo-covered gloves soiling the
thing before they’d started.
“Throw it away! Change gloves first!”
Nat nodded. Nat didn’t like being yelled at.
“This is coming out of your pay.”
Nat nodded. Latex gloves slipped off and on, flashing bandaged fingers.
“Roll it again.”
Nat nodded.
Nat got it, smearing rice against a sliver of un-mayo’d nori, finally sealing the roll.
“Took too long! I should dock your pay!”
Nat barely heard. Their mind had retreated into blissful visions of a dark
basement. Air heavy with potential sound and deadened noise.
Nat woke from the self-induced coma in a beaten-up lime-green beetle. After 16
years of restaurant jobs, Nat had learned to learn quick and zone out quicker.
Self-induced zen was something Nat was proud of, but subtly feared every hour faded
in a restaurant was eating their life away.
Air hissed from sputtering vents while a crackly cassette played Purple Haze first
like it always did. Nat bobbed and weaved to the song, fingers twitching on the wheel
frantically, as if tapping some sacred code only Nat and a select few were privy to; Nat
was proud to be in the loop.
Down in that basement, a jack mimicked the sound of an electrocuted pug as it
clicked into place. Nat’s guitar was lime-green, like the beetle and their second favorite
color. Nat closed their eyes, sucking in the padded room’s silence. The resting din of
customers yapping and dishes clattering was heavy in its absence. Nat remedied that
with a six on E and fell into song.
Time spent jamming was time spent well. Nat would spend all day jamming if
living was free and sleep wasn’t necessary. As long as it wasn’t and it was, Nat
managed to scrape a good few hours playing each day. To Nat, that was the point of it
all.
“You’re evicted.”
Nat’s eyes flashed tears. Nat didn’t get this. This didn’t make sense to Nat.
“Rents rising. You can’t pay enough Nat.”
Nat thought that they still had another two months. They thought that this wasn’t
fair. Nat scribbled on their palm with Sharpie that this wasn’t fair.
“You have the afternoon.”
Nat was wet. A toppled pile of black acoustic foam, a duffel, and a purple guitar
case were sheltered under an umbrella. The night’s downpour would have to relent
before Nat got to the car.
Nat was shivering. The sun steamed the car’s inside but Nat was cold and hot
and hungry. Nat texted they couldn’t come into work today. Nat read that they were
fired.
Nat was at the bar. Nat was told they couldn’t stay but kept sitting. Nat wanted to
throw up but their stomach growled. A thump sounded next to them. “You play?”
A thick finger pointed at Nat’s guitar case, hugged to their side like a lifeline. Nat
desperately nodded.
“You like burgers?”
Nat desperately nodded.
Freddy was 50 and smelled like whiskey and had a silver bass. It stuttered like a
fax as he jacked in. “What do you know?”
Nat thought of a thousand things but first about their cassette and played a six on
E and fell into Purple Haze.
Nat was told they could sleep in the breakroom if they kept playing like that. They
got two burgers a day and played all night. They didn’t get paid but they didn’t need to
pay and they were happy.
Nat’s eyes were closed as they closed the song, sustaining the last note with a
warble. The crowd was in a trance, long past clapping. One man clapped in the front.
The night was done and the man came up. “You play like fuckin’ Hendrix man!
Listen, I’ve got this rock band but our guitarist is kinda a fuckin’ git. How’d you like to
jam sometime?”
Nat made a talk motion with their hands and shook their head.
“I see! Let the guitar speak for you, I respect it. Listen, here’s my card, just text if
you’d like to try something,” he gestured to the sparsely filled bar, “more than this”.
The bassist was good, maybe even better than Freddy. The drums were tight and
the singer, the man from the bar, sang cool and raspy.
Nat’s guitar fell into line then pushed it. Nat stretched the band but they kept up
and they fuckin broke normal. That wasn’t a normal jam.
The old guitarist was sacked and Nat was shacked in the drummer’s garage. Nat
was happy jamming but the rest wanted to record. No way could they keep this to
themselves.
The song struck fire and spread too fast. No way did it spread that fast but it did.
Shit struck like gunpowder and the world blew. No one was in it for the singer, the
drums, or the bass. The guitar was screaming. The guitar said everything like a lung,
swelling and taking you in like a tornado. Nat’s voice didn’t let you go. Iron chords stole
your spine and clouded your vision. No way could a guitar do that but Nat was proof and
it was fucking petrifying. Terrifying and too thrilling. No way could this last.
The world said get a better band but it didn’t do shit. The three members let Nat
go for a few mil and Nat was placed in front of some real pros.
Most televised moment in history, easily. The whole world watched Nat’s song
and it still gripped and wrenched and broke you down. Slammed your kneecaps and left
you weeping. That guitar sang and cried and you couldn’t run. No way could you press
pause on that song.
Interviews in sign language and tours and meetings ate up Nat’s time and their
fingers itched. They’d rather be working in sushi, they weren’t playing enough guitar.
Nat signed to their manager that they weren’t playing enough guitar.
“That doesn’t work out Nat! It makes more sense to slow down until December at
least. We wouldn’t want the public to get used to your sound just yet. We’re scheduled
for seven interviews today so you should start heading to the car. Are you ready?”
Nat signed you’re fired.
Nat had a Twitter account with no posts and 27 million followers. Nat’s first post
was I’m done making music.
Imagine you got the whole world addicted to opium, then all the opium just
disappeared. Who do you get angry at? Who goes to the stocks? To the guillotine? To
the pike? The company that produced Nat’s second song went bankrupt within seconds.
The CEO was shot in his car. Protests flooded the world and no one got angry about the
protests because everyone was protesting but no one knew exactly about what. Could
Nat do that? How could Nat do that? It was probably the producer’s fault. The bassist
from the original band was strangled to death.
Nat wasn’t stupid so they only involved three people. One to help Nat move
money, and another to buy Nat a small house in the middle of nowhere. The house was
purple, with an acoustically treated basement and a wall of guitars. There was enough
food for forever and a guest bedroom. Freddy could come and go but obviously he
stayed and jammed because Nat was unreal.
They found it. They had to eventually. Nat didn’t get a damn week of reclusion
before one guy and then a thousand then everyone showed up in the middle of
bum-fuck Arizona. They broke the window, found the basement, and found Nat playing
Purple Haze.
They stormed Nat, hugging them, filling the room like lime-green tic-tacs. They all
wore Nat’s second favorite color as they piled on one another in a swell. Nat retreated
into their mind as they were crushed in the vicious throngs and throes of bodies and
flesh and it wasn’t too much longer until someone yelled, “They’re dead!”
Nat’s body oozed cherry red on the hardwood floor, seeping under their snapped
guitar and pooling in their mouth. Crushed chest and hiccuping, shuddering gulps
couldn’t escape the acoustically treated room. Nat retreated into their mind, drifting off.
Fingers twitching in some sacred rhythm. Nat dreamed of Purple Haze.
Cave Writes 