For this installment of Your Favorite Band, Chris Gusta from Scum Eating uses his mind to take Steve Albini to the carnival.It’d been years since I’d been to a place like this one, but when Todd suggests it, I know we'll do the works, wristbands and all. It was too long a drive for us not to. Steve doesn’t say anything the whole drive, and I can’t tell if he’s just tired, or if he’s sensing my anxiety and just doesn’t want to talk about it. Neither of them want to hear me talk about it, I guess, not again.Steve’s face unclenches at the gate. I’ve always wondered what made him feel at home here when everywhere else he’s snarling at the world. Was it the distant coloring of the Tilt-a-Whirl? The impact of the bumper cars? The strange combination of popcorn and motor oil in the air?Me, I keep waiting. I know the drill. We ride the Super Swings, Todd screaming “Wheeeeeeee” like he always does when it starts to lift us up of the ground level. I made sure to tie my shoe tight when we got on here because once it flew off into a neighboring field and it took me an hour to find it. On the ferris wheel, Steve takes his own car. Todd’s mouth hangs open in a sort of smile, and he howls when our car is stopped at the apex. We ride the Spider, too, without incident, though we’re the three largest people to be sharing a car, and as it throws us to the corners, I keep swearing the whole freakin’ thing is going to tip over.Maybe I shouldn’t eat ‘til later, but I knew we would have chili dogs, from the cart, just like every other time. It’s like all of our actions are programmed like that robotic arm toy I had when I was a kid. I’m driven forward by more than the fact that I’d be called a pussy if I went out to wait in the car. Because we finally get to the grand finale, The Gravitron.And so, filled with fried dough and indefinable meats, an hour and a half after passing through the fateful gate, I’m in line. There’s an evil light in Steve’s eyes, like the one in the Salt and Pepper operator’s when he would flip the switch for the fastest setting. Maybe that was it! Was Steve one of them? He is short and dark with bad eyesight and a love for mechanics. Was that look in his eye for me?The inside of the Gravitron is dark and warm. Steve and Todd take the slots to my right; in this ritual, they have figured out which way the wheel will turn. They tell you that you can’t live in fear forever, but I would rather never know. With the straps over my arms, I can feel myself starting to shake. There is already saliva in my mouth. The circle of teenagers, looking so expectant all around me makes me nervous; I close my eyes and listen to the voices around me.Sometimes I feel too old for this whole thing- the road, the endless spent waiting in these nowehere town, but then I think that age might be making me more resilient somehow. In the mind’s eye there is an image of a steel rail, an erect phallus. The spinning was all around me. I looked into the mind’s eye.Then I opened my eyes, and it was over. My mouth is dry. My stomach is calm. I look at Steve and he wears an incredulous frown.“You…you made it!” Todd says, removing his straps almost in time to avoid the fifteen-year-old boy next to him from vomiting on his shoes. “Oh shit, man.” The door to the metal ring opens and he rushes outside, leaving footprints. I follow him and, outside, turn to talk to Steve, but I just catch the back of his jumpsuit as he loses himself in a crowd of summer clothes.“Hey!…Hey, wait up!” But I already can’t see him. I know he’s headed to the funhouse in some back-of-my-mind sort of way so I rush to the fence. There’s a line, but somehow Steve is already walking in through the entrance.The lines crawls along and I feel like he’ll be out before I even get to the front, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening. People who go in after Steve come out before, and I can’t figure out what the hell is happening here. All of the attendants look like Steve to me now, but the sadistic smile has left their lips.The guy finally takes my tickets and I tear through that place as quick as my build will let me. They don’t really design these places for adults. I almost break my neck falling into the ball pit. I start to wonder if Steve has gotten out without me catching him, but then, I turn the corner and there he is.Completely still, he looks into the mirror, where he is taller, ogre-like in fact. He puts his hand up and tugs on his enlarged ear.Previously: Your Favorite Band: Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood.
Advertisement
Advertisement