minor keys - Day Trippin'

Written By: Michael Elwood

…then, I purchased a shovel and dug for China.

I jammed ‘er in and started upending sidewalk. This was in Brooklyn, over on Taaffe Place. You won’t believe what I discovered:

First few feet yielded soil, rock and innocuous oddities (rodent bones, bits of scrap metal, etc.)—nothing particularly exciting. Getting below all the concrete proved a terrific challenge. Wasn’t til about eight feet down that things softened up real nice.

Lower, lower. I kept at it, sweat on the brow.

An hour later, both of my peanut butter sandwiches stupidly devoured, I struck heavy masonry behind a station platform on the G line. The people on the other side of the wall—a married couple, surely—argued dinner plans. I paused to sip root beer and listen in on their conversation. When a train stormed in to scoop them up, the ground trembled.

Lower, lower. I encountered the Mole People. If I still had sandwiches I probably would have offered them up.

Lower, lower. Everything—muscles, morale, visibility—just lousy. Super lousy. I finished off the root beer.

Lower, lower. Music! It seemed to be coming from underfoot. I pressed ear to ground, wondering what in the. China seemed very far away, suddenly. I began to hyperventilate, I began to cry. Then—

(insert disaster noises)! I broke through a dirt ceiling of sorts and tumbled into a small room, landing in belly-flop fashion on a floor of, well, more dirt. First thing I remember after dazedly shaking my head was a man in Teddy Ruxpin tee and black-rimmed glasses thumbing orange plugs into my ears. He handed me a canned PBR. “Where am I?” I coughed, exhaling question and dust all at once. “Dude,” he shouted, “you’ve found the Brooklyn Underground.”

I snapped. “You fucker, I’ve been looking for this place for a year! How do you—how the hell did you guys even GET down here? And why are you wearing a Teddy Ruxpin t-shirt?”

“Well,” he screamed over all the racket, “there were no invites. If you weren’t at the Sour Cream Highway show last week at c.a.v.e., you’d have trouble findi—”

“Uh, ya think?”

“—let’s head for the stage. You gotta see this guy on the turntable. He roughs up old Dizzy Gillespie records with steel wool and acrylic paint, and then he feeds ‘em thru his phaser pedal, but backwards. Cool, right?”

I surveyed the crowd. There were probably thirty, thirty-five people watching the Dizzy guy. Most of them were my age.

“We got sick of above,” Teddy continued, pointing at the hole I made. “That’s why we rented out this place. We’ve even started our own label—SUBindie records. Indie’s stale, man, it’s a bullshit term. We’re shedding pretensions…fact is, all we’re after is provocative, visceral art. No guitars, no lyrics, no melody even. Just a hammer to the temple. Hope you don’t mi—”

* * *

She shakes me by the shoulder. I blink up at her, perplexed.

“You’re talking again,” she says. “What were you dreaming? Tell me about it. Was I in it?”

“Babe,” I say, “I’ve got an idea for a record label.”