Free Slow Motion Riot by Peter Blauner Page B

up about
Maria, I'm grateful that the next appointment is somebody I don't know. A
skinny kid with hair down to his ass and studded leather wristbands. His name
is Gary DeStefano and he plays bass in a heavy metal band called Sodomy and Gomorrah .
He's on probation for breaking a beer bottle over another musician's head
outside a bar.
    "There's a lot of frustration
and anger in our music, you know," he explains, sinking so far down in his
chair that he's almost looking straight up at the ceiling. His legs are splayed
out before him like octopus tentacles.
    "Why're you so
frustrated?"
    " 'Cos we're not too
good," he says after giving it some thought. "People don't understand
how hard it is to play your instrument when you're wearing eighty to one
hundred pounds of fur and armor."
    "I'll bet." I start to
take notes.
    "And what's really like a
bitch is moving it around between gigs, you know."
    "Where do you play?"
    "Around. Wherever. L'Amour's
in Brooklyn and Queens . CBGB's.
You know that place?"
    "Sure." I smile.
    "The place is a dive,
dude," Gary says. "And we
once even opened for a crucifixion."
    "I beg your pardon?" I
put my pen down.
    "Oh yeah," says Gary ,
happy to have any kind of audience. "We were playing to a biker club in
Bay Ridge and after we were done they decided to have a sacrifice. I guess they
really liked us or something. So they got this kid, you know. And they got him
to put on a harness and a hood. And they put him up on a cross."
    "You're kidding," I say,
trying to keep my mouth from falling open.
    "I'm not. He wanted them to do
it too, you know. He was like this really weird dude. Anyhow, they whipped him
and put a votive candle up his butt. Which was okay with him, you know. He
liked it. And then, you know, they brought him across the street..."
    I can't decide whether I'm appalled
or fascinated. "While he was still on the cross?"
    "Oh yeah, absolutely. They
carried him on the cross across Fourth Avenue .
It was like midnight and there was
some traffic, but the cars waited for them to go by. So, anyway, they brought
him across the street to the clubhouse and they began the ritual, you know.
They started the music and a couple of guys dripped blood into a cup. And they
were really gonna do it. They were really gonna like crucify him... But at the
last minute they decided to spare his life."
    "And how did you feel about
all of this while it was going on?" I ask, leaning forward in my chair.
    "Wow," says Gary .
"Like I was really glad we didn't have to follow that act."
    As the day winds down, I find
myself tensing up. I scream over the phone at a car thief who got a job at a
parking garage and I take a call from a client's mother, who says her son is
shooting heroin again. What am I supposed to do?
    I'm not sure if it's the new field
assignment or the seven cups of coffee jangling my nerves. My stomach is
cramping itself into a ball. I hate these days on the emotional roller coaster,
going from angry to sorry to hopeful and then back again. Still the clients
keep coming. By 7:30 , I've speeded
myself into a numb blur and I can't remember what anyone said. My limbs feel
heavy and useless from sitting here all day.
    The old anxieties start to creep over
me: You're not helping anyone. You're wasting time. You're burning out. Life is
passing you by.
    Outside my cubicle, I hear the
sounds of briefcases shutting, footsteps in the hall, voices grumbling down by
the elevators. I don't want to stay here much longer, but I'm not quite ready
to go back to my cubbyhole on Avenue B. I sit at my desk, staring up at the
photograph of the beach landscape, as though I could will myself into the picture.
    Sometimes I don't think I
understand my clients at all. I only see them for a fleeting moment, less than
1 percent of their time. And once they're out of my sight, they're going on
with their lives while I'm still stuck in here, beating around the inside of my
skull. I wonder if the things we talk about in here mean