When I Turn It to 11, Bad Things Happen

Three Signals and a Private Deal with the Universe

What time is it? Did I feed the dog? Holy crap, I need to finish those dishes. What was the name of that band again? Oh yes, I love that song.

Questions running rampant as various songs play on my mental Wurlitzer like some coked-out DJ who found god somewhere between Philip Glass and Lamb of God. The occasional random guitar riff or drum break flies in from out of nowhere, no relation to whatever song was in rotation. Snippets of movies, TV shows and cat videos on a tape loop. Previous and future conversations running in tandem until you’re not sure which is which — do we need to talk about this or have we already? The volume always at a near fever pitch, I work to keep things at something resembling my normal.

Then the mundane interjects — the boys sitting on the couch, their conversation edges one decibel too high, the dog barks, shattering the tightly held control, the kettle screams, the microwave dings, the doorbell rings and my brain snaps.

Bad things happen when it goes to 11.

Stevie Wonder famously said when you believe in things, especially those things you can’t comprehend, bad shit comes your way — I’m paraphrasing but you get the point. Many moons ago while traveling through the backroads of Arizona, K and I stopped along the side of the road at a Native American road stand and left with a handmade necklace, no, more like prayer beads. Fashioned from juniper seeds, they hang from the mirror of the car. Get through a yellow light? Touch the seeds. Pass the scene of an accident? Touch the seeds. Watch some maniac blow past us on the two-lane? Touch the seeds. While we both hold this shared superstition, mine is deeply private — I’ve rarely even given it voice.

There is nothing better in the world to me than hitting the road, windows down and the car stereo cranked. But cranked has a different meaning these days — I’ll turn it up to the point that I want it to be and then with every bit of intention I can muster turn it back two or three clicks. Over the years I’ve learned those two or three clicks is where the chaos lives, where the universe wakes up and decides that’s the moment it will have a little fun at my expense. I adore music, it is the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning and ushers me off to sleep at night. I especially love loud music flying down the highway, no particular destination, but it never goes to 11. This was a hard-earned lesson. I like to think I’m the type of person who is quick on the uptake, but alas, density seems to be a property inherent to both myself and the periodic table.

Freshly minted driver’s license in my pocket, I begged my parents to let me use their GMC Safari to take a carload of kids 15 miles up the road to the local swimming hole at the end of Grange Hall Road. To be fair, I hadn’t done a whole lot to earn their trust, but either my silver tongue or dogged persistence finally won out and in a state of exhaustion they handed me the keys with a strict set of guidelines. I half listened, nodded in the affirmative, loaded everyone up with a few pickups on the way and hit the water. It was a glorious day of beating the heat — yes, it does get hot in Alaska — and when it was finally time to go home we did the whole thing in reverse. Somewhere between the swimming hole and the house the local radio station, KWLF, was playing Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” This was peak hair metal days and Def Leppard were the reigning kings, having released Hysteria just a few years earlier — what can I say, things show up a bit later in the frozen north. The stereo was blasting, every window in my parents’ van was down and all of us kids from my baby sister to Patrick and I in the front were singing as loud as the stereo. Then it happened. The steering wheel lurched and all of a sudden, the car took on a life of its own. Pulling to one side, the power steering apparently on vacation, I struggled to keep the van on the road. I made a hasty dash across two lanes and ducked into a wide driveway with no clue as to what was going on. Jumping out, Patrick inspecting one side, me inspecting the other, I heard Patrick yell out that we had a flat tire. I came around to evaluate the damage — this wasn’t simply a flat tire, this thing was completely blown out, looking like some fat old man’s ass cheeks in a sauna.

I’ll give you a minute to wipe that image from your brain.

Through a series of trial and error that rivaled the best efforts of any Keystone Cop, we finally got the spare on and limped the fun bus home, decidedly less fun than when we started.

Signal Number One — the moment lived, the message not received.

Coming out the back gate of Camp Pendleton, my marriage that should have been a date was falling apart. Accuse me of a lot of things, one that will stick is hopeless romantic — I proposed to Gayle after dating her for a month; her in Alaska, me sitting underneath the solitary payphone servicing a barracks full of young Marines. We eventually made the Fairbanks to San Diego road trip, a whole other story for a different day.

It was her car, a late ‘80s Toyota Corolla hatchback. I didn’t want to go home — home being the apartment where the word satanist lived now, unspoken but taking up considerable square footage. She’d had a dream. In it she married one, and from that point forward her requests that I join her on Sundays became less invitation and more intervention. I’d gone once, out of love and something resembling good intentions, sat through it, and left knowing I couldn’t fake my way through a life that required it. That honesty did not land well. So instead of going back to that apartment and that conversation and that look, I was finding reasons to mindlessly drive around Carlsbad, down into Oceanside, over to Escondido with Green Day keeping me company at ear-shattering volume. Passing the drive-in movie theater, cresting a long upward climb, a bang and crash broke through “Basket Case.” Nothing from the engine, nothing from the clutch — just nothing. Coasting to a shoulder, the car rolling backwards because in my confusion I’d forgotten the brake. A hole in the hood. Thrown rod. Her car, dead. The relationship? Same.

Signal Number Two — the moment lived, the message still missing the mark.

Then there was the one that took, the one that made me sit up, pay attention, separate the signal from the noise on a long, dark stretch through no-man’s-land Nevada.

I’m convinced that between Las Vegas and Wendover, Nevada is an interdimensional vortex. Time doesn’t exist there, hell, barely anything exists there. Wretched souls who lost everything in the slots come out here to find God, make a deal with the Devil or, more likely, a bit of column A and a bit of column B. Waves of heat radiate off the asphalt during the day while any sane creature still bound by nature’s law finds shelter. The night is when things come alive, sustain themselves and feast upon the unwitting. Patrick, Sheree — Patrick’s then-fiancée — and myself were cutting across the flatlands with the purpose of Kansas and spending the holidays with our family. Between the later than expected start that morning and the sun getting tired earlier this time of year, it was near pitch black by the time we saw Vegas in our rearview. Sheree had crashed out in the back of the Jimmy and Patrick and I were jamming to The Crow soundtrack — what an exceptional album that remains. Right around the time My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult came on with “After the Flesh,” Patrick and I just absolutely jamming, everything in the car stopped. When I say stopped, I mean like someone had discharged an EMP and everything went dead. Power steering gone, I wrestled the Jimmy to the side of the road.

Turn the key in the ignition — nothing. Wait a minute, turn the key in the ignition — nothing. If you’re unfamiliar with the desert you may not realize how cold it can be at night, extremely cold, especially in the middle of December. But I was from Alaska, how bad could it be? I told Patrick and Sheree to sit tight — I was going to walk up to the next town with no idea how far away the next town was. I think I made it a mile before I realized that the only thing in front of me was darkness, turned around and began wondering what lich or coyote was going to come out of that darkness to consume me — us.

I made it back and we started making an assessment of our situation. Fucked. Proper fucked — when the flashing red and blue lights of a police officer, probably highway patrol, saddled up behind us. The young officer walked to the car and I tried to explain I couldn’t roll the window down, well, because, and sort of frantically gestured at the dead engine. So I opened the door and we conversed.

“You mind stepping out of the car,” the officer said.

Feeling like my savior had potentially turned sour, I agreed and we made our way around the back of the car.

“So where you going?” he asked.

I told him our plans for Kansas and family Christmas.

“Know why I pulled you out of the car?” His voice grew stern.

Truly clueless, I grasped at straws. Was my registration expired? Was there a taillight out? Did I have a booger hanging out of my nose?

“No, I don’t,” I replied, fear slowly making its way up my spine. I’ve had plenty of run-ins with cops in my life and I can’t think of one I walked away from feeling good about.

“I smell pot,” he said accusatorially.

“What?!” I asked, genuinely shocked.

Cigarettes, maybe, some body odor from being crammed in there, probably — but weed? Look, I’ve got absolutely nothing against weed, I’ve smoked it a few times in my life but beyond putting me in a coma it’s never really done anything for me.

“Mind if I search your vehicle?” he asked.

Now I was just pissed. Three young adults, clearly in some distress, and this fuckwit wants to play the “I smell weed” game.

“Be my fucking guest,” I replied, the contempt just barely under the surface.

He looked at me, looked through the window of my very packed truck, looked back at me.

“Which one of you was a Marine?” he asked, having clearly spotted the 1st Marine Division sticker on the back of my truck.

“Me,” I said. “Division — Horno, Margarita and then Main Side for my last few years. Just got out a couple years ago.”

“All right, you can get back in your vehicle,” his disappointment somewhat palpable.

“Can you call us a tow truck or something? It’s damn cold out and we’re not exactly dressed for the weather — can we wait in your squad car?”

“Sorry, can’t have people in my vehicle.” And he got in his car and left.

About two hours later a tow truck arrived — at least he did something — and we spent the next few nights in Wendover at the Peppermill Casino. And people wonder why cops leave a bad taste in my mouth. As I stood out on the patio of our hotel room smoking a cigarette wondering how I was going to pay for everything, I went back to Thrill Kill Kult. It was too loud. Bad things happen when it’s too loud.

Knock on wood, pinch of salt over the shoulder, music too loud — most of the time our superstitions are carried forward from our family. Dad with his lucky fishin’ socks, Mom with her never-missed Gesundheit, and both of them letting us know they were crossing their fingers whenever one of us kids had something important coming up. They don’t make a whole lot of sense when you’re young, but they grow with you, they become you. Maybe you find your own pair of socks or a lucky hat, or maybe there was something to Dad’s notion about an itchy palm and incoming cash — why is my hand itching all of a sudden? Either way, these little rituals become a part of our daily life, so ingrained we rarely give them any thought, either to their efficacy or their roots, but there they are as you pass along a tissue.

And then there are the ones you earn the hard way, not bound by tradition, watching the pattern repeat itself until you finally notice a familiar thread and it becomes obvious. My superstition didn’t come from old wives’ tales or inherited folk knowledge — mine was earned one broken car at a time.

I get in the car, check my rearview mirror to make sure I can see behind me, slide the key into the ignition, turn the crank and before anything has a chance to happen, I reach over and turn down the volume.

Not today, Satan.