Home Six Part III

Barry Lyndon - A film by Stanley Kubrick

Low's Stories Big and Tall, continues its serialized account of our hero's return home on the hottest day of the summer with Part III of Home Six, below. Part I can be found here, while Part II can be found here. Happy Reading.

He had just finished performing a set of twelve songs to a disparate crowd huddled into a studio space for musicians and artists on the hottest day of the year. The walls were painted black, and thick carpets were hung from the sills to keep out the light, and keep in the sound. There was hardly any room and everyone had to stand so closely to Low and the rest of the band that any kind of movement was exaggerated to the point of overly dramatic. While he was singing though, he kept stealing glances at one guy through a small entranceway into the room adjacent to the band, his head was bobbing back and forth, and he was wearing the kind of cheap round Lennon type sunglasses that you can buy at a shop that sells Iron Maiden shirts, skull rings, and bongs. Obviously Low's fan just happened to be walking by when he came upon the small sign on the street below advertising that there would be free music to celebrate a small store opening within the studio, and in the quick flash of contemplation that presented itself between verse and chorus, Low realized that this was a real experience for his admirer, one unmediated by pretension, fashion, networking, or music sales, he was there for one reason only, and that was experience. Low realized what it must have looked like, to walk up a set of stairs only to be presented with a small group of people huddled into a dark room on a sunny day to see him screaming background vocals into the bell of a trumpet while it was pointed at a microphone, wearing his women's jeans. When it was all over Low couldn't tell if he had just made a complete ass out of himself or if he had actually pulled it off. Regardless of how his performance was perceived however, he would never forget it. Even though in a few days, or possibly even a few short hours, he would very much want to forget that it ever happened.

And so it all went down, Low leaves the party, suitcase in hand, finally hails a cab after much thought and contemplation at the side of street, and listens to Hindu pop in the back seat of his mini-van cab all the way to the airport. He boards the plane just before they start to announce his name as a missing passenger, and eventually finds himself with row 10 entirely to himself, free to sip cans of Canadian at 41,000 feet and to comfortably watch the sun finally settle amongst the clouds, leaving the tail of the plane covered in an intense glare of hot orange and streaking yellow while the nose of the vessel was shrouded in starlit darkness, allowing the night to begin for our hero.

Low was travelling at 500mph, and moving at such great speed seemed to cause the transition between night and day to take unusually long, but eventually the captain informed everyone in his authoritative voice that the Boeing was on its approach to the runway, encouraging Low to fasten his seatbelt for the descent into his past. He could see out the window of the aircraft perfectly, It was clear outside, it was never cloudy there, leaving everything in a constant state of exposure, and as the plane hovered over the city, the lights of the neighborhoods that he frequented all those years could be looked at as a whole, allowing Low to sit and scrutinize that place from his little window as if an apparition was sitting beside him taking him through various scenes in his life as his eyes glanced from each and every recognizable location.

"This is where you lived Low," it would say in a withering wise old man's voice, Low imagined.. "You loved here, had sex in parking lots, stole from houses and cars, shops and parties. Lit forest fires, and vandalized schools. You watched your parents age, and witnessed the extinction of the generation known as your grandparents. You watched the houses your family lived in become the possessions of strangers, like sealed tombs they could only be experienced in imagination and memory now. There are the fields where you lay with your father in the grass of the prairies with a shotgun between you, ready to jump up at the first sound of approaching geese, and there is the first street you lived on where you rested your head in your mothers lap while she cleaned your ear with a Q-Tip and recited stories about her dad, and there is the backyard to the green house, where, like fools, you and your brother wasted an entire 6-pack of Coca-Cola, spitting it all over your face and hands, in an attempt to imitate blood so that the two of you could recreate the portrait of Gene Simmons on the cover of the classic Kiss album, Alive II."

"I never hesitated," Low spoke out loud, drunkenly entertaining this scene as if it were really happening, while the plane shook towards the ground, making everyone's head rock slowly back and forth hypnotically against the seat rests. "When situations presented themselves, I took the opportunity to experience them no matter the cost. I always thought that attitude would pay out in endless rewards, but I lost so much."

"And do you know why you failed?" the voice responded in Low's head.

He stared out the window at his hometown with the lights of the streets crisscrossing beneath him as he floated closer and closer towards the ground, "No," he mumbled, "I have no fucking idea."

One of the advantages that living in a small city has over living in a big one is how quickly one can perform the menial tasks involved with the day to day activities of public life, and this became apparent to Low as he only had to walk down one short hallway to reach the arms of Cody, which were waiting for him at the bottom of an escalator. In bigger airports you had to walk for upwards of 15 minutes just to reach the baggage carousel, but this was not necessary for a little airport like the one Low and Cody were standing in, greeting each other for the first time in ages while Low's green Fleetwing went around and round to the amusement of a small group people standing and waiting for their luggage. Cody seemed to be getting dirtier every year. His demeanor always got him into trouble, his nasally laugh always sounded condescending, and his hair constantly hung in his eyes, even amidst total chaos, at which point he would deliver his trademark, "don't worry about it, " with his measured drawl that sounded like a cross between Dennis the Menace, and John Wayne. He had features that could never fail the tribal nature of what attracts humans to each other, a good nose, chin, and broad shoulders. He was incredibly thin, but you would never know it because his clothes were always so baggy, and he looked much younger than he really was, even though he was unshaven, and wearing the same ratty shoes that Low had seen him in three years ago.

"I wasn't sure if I was gonna get a hug or not so I figured I'd wait to see what you were gonna do," Cody said, as he got back into his silver jeep after securing Low's luggage in the back.

"I've been drinking since noon, so I am feeling quite amorous, although I think I've sweated it all out," said Low as he thought about the small stage he was on, which was now on the other side of the continent.

Cody grabbed a cd case from the glove box and quickly laid out two enormous lines of cocaine with great precision and speed. "You watch," he said leaning down into the arm rest with a 20$ bill up his nose, and then, passing the bill to Low, continued on, "I figured we'd party tonight and then take it easy the rest of the week, I'm on holidays. Ok, where should we go tonight?"

Low rose from the center console of the silver jeep, "wherever, let's just get a beer, and see what happens. Do you have a cigarette?" And the two schoolmates went off into the night somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

To be continued....