"A drug-addicted musician must escape from a lunatic in Alaska."

I’ve got a pocketful of Lemonheads, just in case. A carton of cigarettes, a case of triple-distilled vodka, three bottles of Nyquil, and enough Oxy to sedate something prehistoric.

My heels are on the floor and against the foot of the bed both. If you were hiding under the bed, if there was room for you there, you’d see a pair of filthy socks behind the torn black canvas of my shoes where the rubber heel supports have shredded and worn. These shoes, when I first got in to town, they weren’t the only thing to set me apart, but sitting on a sawdusty stage at Micke’s Saloon and Tackle, tapping my feet to the rhythm of my Ovation 12-string, they’re the first things that get noticed.

People here, the locals, they wear Laredo boots with twisting rows of stitching through tough, tanned leather. They’ll tell you how you can tell the quality of a boot by the rows of stitches holding the inlays in place. They wear wool-lined rubber boots still stinking of saltwater and shellfish. They wear hip-waders and steel-toed Carhartt’s. They don’t wear tattered Chuck Taylors with mismatched laces.

In a mom-and-pop motel in a town with a name you don’t pronounce, I’m not alone. He’s there in the corner, his fingers tangled in a cat’s cradle. He’s grinning through skin like leather boots, gray whiskers stitched in twisting rows across his cheeks and chin. His fingers, playing the loop of string like a marionette, they’re all knuckles and yellowed nails. In case you’re wondering, his feet, they’re not wearing shoes or boots or waders of any kind. His bare feet are curled beneath him. And he’s grinning.

Light another cigarette. Pour another drink.

Even the music doesn’t make sense anymore. All the songs were about her anyway. In some way or another, they’re all about her. With her gone, what’s to make sense of? When the chorus goes, “doo do doo do doo do do,” it’s just what it sounds like.

She’s the kind of girl who makes all the others before her just another bit of useless trivia. Another answer to a game show question. Karen Whatsherface for $200, Alex. Bridget Somethingorother for $400. Who is the past? Who is nobody?

She’s the girl who turns everything upside down. She’s the one who makes today better than yesterday and tomorrow too terrifying to dwell on for long.

Like a good song, a great song, at first she’s a lot of unsteady beats and a melody you can’t quite remember when it’s over. After that, every time you need to hear a little bit more. Just a little more to remember how it goes. What was that rhythm? Did I hear that right? Every time she’s more and more a part of you. You can feel her inside where all those notes, all the harmonies and scales, they’re more than music. You can feel her where it all makes sense.

Pop another pill. Pour another drink.

His eyes are focused on nothing. His pupils never moving, not seeing anything. Not watching his fingers move. The string, it’s an insinuation. It’s a symbol of foreboding. It’s curled around, under, through, and past. It’s telling me what I don’t want to hear.

The smile, it’s an hourglass. It’s each little fine grain of sand pouring through the gap between his rotten teeth. It’s the ticking of a clock. It’s a decrescendo. It’s telling me what I already know.

And the chorus goes, “doo do doo do doo do do.”

When you first see her, she’s too skinny, too tall, too pale. There’s not enough or too much of everything. But every time after, she’s more of everything right. She’s the perfect height, the perfect weight. She’s the new paradigm. She’s beyond the symbols and the metaphors. Her eyes are the color of eyes. Her hips are the definition of hips. Her legs and fingers and mouth, without them as a model, there are no legs. There are no fingers. No mouths.

I was never much for dancing. I could never make my body move with music. I could tap the beat with a foot. I could strum in perfect time, but for dancing, that’s another language. To see her dance was something else. To watch the way she moved. The way her body toyed with the air around her in an endless motion. A perfect circle, she moved with no beginning or end.

Sip a little Nyquil. Pour another drink.

In Italy, there’s this dance called the tarantella. Centuries ago, if someone was bitten by a tarantula, they’d start to convulse and shake and go in to fits. The way they cured this, they played music to the rhythm of the convulsions. And this person, the victim, they’d dance for sometimes days. Filled up with poison, dancing in fits to the music playing to their dance. Music as a cure.

Now, if you’re bitten by a spider, all filled up with poison, they just shoot you up with more poison. Now poison is the cure.

I’ve got a little orange bottle of Percocet with one refill left. I’ve got Morphine in an old bottle of eye-drops. I’ve got some acid in another eye-dropper bottle and I can’t remember which is which anymore. I’ve still got that Ovation 12-string under the bed where there’s no room to hide. I’ve got poison and music. I’ve got the disease and the cure.

And all the while he’s still there, crouched in the corner, telling me what I don’t want to hear. What I already know. He’s all a bunch of symbols. He’s a dripping faucet. He’s a dial tone. And he’s still grinning.

And the chorus goes, “doo do doo do doo do do.”

Like a great song, she challenges you. She dares you to listen closer, look deeper. She’s always changing. Always another layer under layer. She never slows down. Never stopping. Always dancing. Always moving.

You want nothing more than to just sit with her. Just listen. You want to be the only one who understands, or at least the one who understands most. You want to be tied to her the way a great song needs an audience.

The way she moves, she dances. You just want to play along. You pray you can keep up. Spinning, always spinning. She makes you dizzy. She makes you feel good and bad in all the right places. She’s the poison and the cure.

Choke down another pill. Another eye-dropper. Another drink. Another cigarette. Another pill. Another capful. Another drink. Another pill. Another pill.

And that’s when he stops grinning. That’s when the string and the teeth and the yellowed nails, that’s when the grains of sand, the dripping faucet, the decrescendo, that’s when you know it’s all over.

And that’s when I pull out the guitar and start playing a cure.

And the chorus goes, “doo do doo do doo do do.”

And the chorus goes, “doo do doo do doo do do.”