Acid Mother's Temple
by C.C. Parker

They went out alone. The first time in several months.

Leaving Marion with a babysitter was rough on both of them, but it was something they needed to do. Both of them. Trapped in the city, in their tiny, hot apartment; the sun blazing all around them.

It had been a hot summer. For Seattle. Sometimes in the nineties. But it was good at night with the windows open and the cool night pressing in.

- - - - - - -

Driving over the Aurora Bridge toward downtown.

They’d been to Crocodile a few times before.

“I hear this band’s pretty wild,” said Charlie.

“Just getting out is good enough,” Rumi explained. “I just hope Marion’s okay with it.”

“She’s fine. She was almost asleep anyway.”

They were listening to Mudhoney. Rumi turned it up. They were both old grungers, in their thirties. Charlie had even been in a band. Smear. They’d put out a couple albums.

“Have you heard them?”

“Who?” He was tapping his fingers to the beat; Mark Arm’s siren wail penetrating the perpetual wall of fuzz.

“The band.”

“Only a couple tracks. Greg burned them for me. I played them for you. You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“Well I did.”

She turned the music back down.

- - - - - - -

The band was Acid Mother’s Temple. From Japan. They were only playing four gigs in the entire U.S.; touring with local band, Kinski, who was opening the show.

They found decent parking; just around the corner from the club entrance.

Charlie took out their little glass pipe and loaded a bowl. The show would require it.

“There’s a cop,” said Charlie.

“Where?”

“Busting someone.”

“I don’t . . .”

He was on the corner with some black kid. There was a yellow comb sticking out of the kid’s hair. The cop has his hand against the wall beside him, his head slightly cocked. He was looking right at them, smirking.

“Fuck!”

Shoving the pipe deep in his pocket, Charlie was already very stoned. Too stoned? He looked over at Rumi who was stepping out of the car. Luckily, they didn’t have to walk past the cop in order to get in.

“He’s got bigger problems. Kid’s probably dealing.”

“What if he took down the license?”

Feeling some of her concern: “I really don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”

One side of club was all windows. People were seated; smoking, drinking, eating the overpriced fare. Also, a portal into Seattle hipness. Peter Buck (of R.E.M.) was partial owner with his wife. The place was one the progenitors in direct relation with what was now known as The Grunge Movement.

Security was strict at the door, which was customary.

Shining a flashlight at a driver’s license until they were satisfied.

“You want a beer?” Charlie asked his wife.

“I think I’m good,” she said.

“It’s pretty early yet . . . show won’t start for another hour.”

“What do you want to do?”

Charlie, inspecting the environment more closely. “We could always go for a walk.”

- - - - - - -

They smoked a bit more down at the waterfront. The sky was purple. The Pungent Sound reflected like dark glass.

There was bustle from a restaurant behind them; thirty something's in khaki’s sipping colorful drinks on a plank wood deck. Charlie always made these observations when he was stoned.

Charlie, handing the pipe back to Rumi. He looked in her green eyes, which were purple now because of the sky.

“I’m good,” she said.

“Me too.”

“Should we go back?”

“In a while.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just want it to be a good show.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“I hope so.”

“Well . . ?”

“Huh?”

“Do you think it’s starting?”

A security guard walked past, whistling. Charlie had already slipped the pipe back into his pocket, but his heart rate accelerated none-the-less. “It’s hard to tell,” he said.

They headed back anyway, the city looming above them.

Cars stretched past in the dusk reminding Charlie of the time’s he’d dropped acid. Headlights swaying gently against the collecting motes of darkness. It had been a long time. Years.

“How do you think Marion’s doing?”

“Like I said before . . .” Rumi, halfway in the street. A car had stopped for them, his headlights slicing there legs as they passed.

Charlie waved nervously.

“She was nearly asleep when we left. Connie’s probably eating chips and watching television.”

“Yeah . . . and getting paid for it.” He joked.

“Marion likes her.”

“Even when she’s sleeping?” Maybe I’m asleep, he thought, going up the long hill toward the club. Feeling old, out of shape. Lighting a cigarette along the way. He guessed it didn’t matter if he was asleep.

- - - - - - -

Back in the club. The first band had already started. A group collected around the squared pillar of wood in the center of the room; placed strategically, so people couldn’t mosh if they wanted to.

Kinski played loud and heavy; an assault-tirade of riffs washing over a substratum of swelling feedback.

It was the first time Charlie realized he was getting the fear. The Fear. The same kind Hunter S. Thompson talked about. A swelling in the head of unusual reasonings, therefore a brief detour out of reality and into lesser known territory.

His heart was beating awkwardly to the music; trying to get through it. The band was really good. He could feel it in his nerves and bones; a mild electric overhaul sending him to the brink of a vaguely understood nervous breakdown.

And then gone.

“They only played for ten minutes?” Said Connie.

“The dude at the front said they’d just started.”

“You okay.”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

They went to the back of the club and sat in overstuffed chairs. Around them people smoked and chatted. They said very little to each other.

“Do you really think that cop got our plate number?” Charlie asked Rumi.

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe we should move the car while we’re waiting for the next band.”

Rumi could see the sweat breaking out on Charlie’s face .

It was hot in there.

“Okay,” she said, finalizing both their paranoia.

Perhaps The Fear was spreading; a consummation of world chaos . . . sickness in overdrive.

- - - - - - -

Acid Mother’s Temple was unlike anything either of them had heard; a cacophony of dyslogia and tinny drum noise. Manic guitar drones sweeping over the tight, jagged teeth of a constantly ephemeral bass run.

Charlie could feel that The Fear had returned. Now it was cold in his stomach and growing. He looked over at Rumi, who he could tell was trying her best to get into the music. The first time he’d taken acid had been with Rumi. Both in their early twenties. Listening to Tool and looking through art books; Van Gogh, Dali and Picasso. Now he was the manager of a video store and she was a teacher.

Rumi yelled through the noise: “This really sucks!”

He could barely hear her. “What do you want to do?!” He yelled back.

“We can stay if you like it.”

“It’s interesting,” he said, trying to sound somewhat more sophisticated than he really was.

“The drummer can barely play.”

Charlie just thought it was too much. Like acid.

- - - - - - -

Charlie calmed behind the wheel of the car. He felt horrible that their first night out in months had been so tense. His head hurt and his eyes stung. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“For such a shitty night.”

“It was good just getting out.”

They went the back way, toward Ballard; behind Queen Anne Hill.

The further away from downtown the better Charlie felt. “I’m starving,” he said.

“So stop somewhere?”

“You?”

“What?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Kind of.”

“Taco Bell is twenty-four hours.”

They’d eaten a ton of it when they first got together. Comfort food.

“Okay.”

- - - - - - -

The cop descended on them, spinning his lights. Taco Bell cooled in a bag between them. They were less than a mile from home.

“Oh my God,” said Rumi. There were tears, visible in her eyes. She was shaking.

“It’s okay,” said Charlie. “It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s him, isn’t it?”

“No,” he said, thinking the same thing.

The lights spun in front of them, reflecting off the side of an apartment building.

Charlie could see a dark shape in the rearview, gaining on them. He tried to remember what the cop with the kid near the club looked like, but all he could remember was the yellow comb sticking out of the kid’s hair.

And the fear came so strong this time that Charlie thought for sure he’d be sick.

He rolled down the window. The shape sidled up beside them. “Evening folks.” Either Chinese or Japanese, like the guys in the Acid Mother’s Temple, but with a strong American accent like Sulu on Star Trek.

“Good evening,” Charlie replied.

“I . . .” The cop paused a moment; looked around.

The cop with the kid hadn’t been Asian had he?

“What’s the problem officer?”

Charlie could feel Rumi, turning to water beside him.

Behind them, a voice coming through a scratchy mike. Charlie tried to make out what the voice was saying.

“One of your tail lights.”

“What?”

“Your tail lights. One of them is out. Have a good night.”

- - - - - - -

They sat by the side of the road eating cold Taco Bell.

“We need to get out more,” said Rumi.

“I guess so.”

“Jesus fucking Christ . . . I about had a heart attack.”

“Yeah.”

“All I could think of was losing Marion.”

“No one’s going to take Marion away.”

“They can.”

“They won’t,” he said, the fear hibernating inside of him; down in the roiling darkness.

“That band really did suck, though.”

“Yeah,” said Charlie, cramming the ass end of a seven layer burrito into his mouth.

“You know who I really want to see,” she said.

“Who?”

“Nirvana.”

“Funny.”