Heaven in Study Hall
A year ago, I had a study hall of sophomores and a similar situation — new foreign student enrolled in February — Joel, a quiet, small kid with jet-black, rock ‘n roll hair, from South America, my guess. His country I’d guessed wrong, not realizing I’d accepted it as truth, until recently. I had allowed Joel to practice with my guitar in study hall. His idol, Dave Mustaine. Our tastes overlapped at metal: Metallica, Priest, Megadeth. Joel loved thrash, all-thrash, all the time, but he played it haltingly, a mind-numbing repetition, barely musical. Joel was teaching himself how to make mistake-filled noise. He practiced faster than the song, faster than Mustaine, a guitar virtuouso in a genre known for its lightning-quick attack.
Joel would pause, and if I guessed the song right, he’d say, “I think I’m getting it.”
Joel surprised me one day asking “Do you know Warrant?” Far from thrash and its aggressive menace, its gritty, dirty jean image, Warrant barely cling to the label hard rock. Warrant is less angry and bitter, more happy and tart; less grime, more white leather pant and jacket to match. I keep Warrant under wraps from students and adults when asked for favorites. It’s critically cool to like AC-DC and Zeppelin, but Warrant and Winger, Slaughter and Ratt, not so much. I used to blare Warrant’s album, Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinkin’ Rich in my custom cassette player personally installed in my ’93 Ford Probe.
Just for the record, let’s get the story straight
Me and Uncle Tom were fishin’, it was gettin’ pretty late
Out on a cypress limb above the wishin’ well
Where they say it got no bottom, say it take you down to Hell
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Warrant, 1990
The bluesy acoustic intro to Uncle Tom’s Cabin is beyond me, but I can strum the chord progression to their song, Heaven.
Heaven isn’t too far away, closer to it everyday.
The melody recognizable, anthemic vocals easy to sing. Joel didn’t quite smile, but offered a nod as I played, impressed I think, not by my prowess, but that I knew the song. Joel never played Warrant. He never strummed chords. “I’m a lead guy,” he’d say.
Joel would practice for a minute, snippets of metal melody briefly emerging only to vanish, fragile notes desperate for an ear, like the urgent chirps from a nest built too close to the house compressor, right before the compressor clangs and rattles on, overwhelming the delicate chirps cast for grub.
He plucked single notes: fast, faster, fastest, left-hand flying up and down the neck, excruciating, every single minute, all study hall long. One day last year, I couldn’t take it anymore. In an act of self-care, I suppose, I took my phone and recorded myself, a video closeup of my face’s contortions as Joel played Megadeth’s “Death Sells But Whose Buying?”
The searing of the sinew
My body fights for air
The ripping of the tissue
My lungs begin to tear
Gravity’s got my bones
It pulls my flesh away
The steam finally dissipates
I make out my sweaty face
Angry again, angry again, angry again
Angry Again, Megadeth, 1993
Joel finally put down his pick — a glorious, drifting silence, an angel on wing reprieve — only to shake the blood back into his fingertips and say, “I think I’m getting it,” then returned to his instrument of torture to flay some more. Last spring, after months of my tentative affirmations, I interrupted.
“Joel. Stop.”
“Huh?”
“Has anyone ever told you, slow the hell down, when you practice?”
“Yeah,” he laughed, a rare look of thoughtfulness passed his face, “my dad.” He held out his phone, a video of three dudes backlit in an attic playroom covering a Guns ’N Roses song. It sounded amateurish, the kind of band I’d be a perfect fit.
“My dad playing bass.”
Joel foraged into his pocket and produced a quarter. He drug the quarter slow and hard across the strings, an excruciating arpeggio, cupronickel on steel, a louder, brassier, even more abrasive sound.