Camp Gay is a hair salon now; I've been there twice since to get a haircut, and never once thought about that. Never once thought about Sam Axelrod insisting I play KARP before The Narrator went on stage one night. How I had to take the bus with all my records AND a mixer to the party, only to knock on the door of a man who was presumably a drug dealer (there's an art-gallery THERE now, natch.) How we--Spataro, Barron and myself--rode home in the breeze of a pick-up truck talking about Silkworm.
While the lady cut my hair, I didn't once think about that evening in August (or September.) How there was a dream-boat on the stairs that I eyed moments after moving to Chicago. How I said "we should go out on a date when you get back from your vacation." How she agreed, how I leaned in for a hug and burned her friend with my cigarette. Or how I turned around while walking away to say goodbye to said dreamboat, I tangled my ankle and hit the ground like a bag of cement. She giggled, I shucked it off like it was nothing, and limped home. Occasionally, there will be a misstep in my walk, and it will trigger the limp.
Since taking up a bartending gig, I've fucked my body up in numerous ways. I have deep bruise that runs down my entire right shin, from tripping forward over a couch in the dark; i've acquired dozens of cuts/scars and match-stick burns on my fingers. I've hit my head on the low ceilings in the basement cooler... at the studio, I've turfed out turning a corner while carrying a drum kit; in recreation I've spilled off the bike, stepped on box-cutters, and fallen off stages.
Nothing stays in Chicago, its counter-culture maps have all been burned in the name of big business or real-estate. The story is like so many stories, and all we have to save it is the personal (and sometimes physical) marks it leaves on us.
