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with his band, Three-Arm Sally. It was around nine o’clock when I strode out onto the stage with a guitar slung over my shoulder, greeted by a smattering of unenthusiastic applause from the hundred or so guests. The “stage” was just a grid of wooden pallets laid together on the grass, orange drop cords snaking underfoot from the amps to a nearby shed.
    I glanced around, saw a set list taped to one of their crackly old Peavey amplifiers. It read:
Camel Holocaust
Gay Superman
Stairway to Heaven
Love My Sasquatch
Thirty Reasons Why I Dislike Chad Wellsburg
Love Me Tender
    We took our places.
    It was me, Head (the drummer), Wally Brown (bass), Kelly Smallwood (bass) and Munch Lombard (bass). John was lead guitar and vocals, but he wasn’t on stage, not yet. I should let you know that I had no idea how to play the guitar or any other musical instrument, and that the sound of my singing voice could probably draw blood from a man’s ears, and perhaps kill a dog outright.
    I stepped up to the mic.
    “I want to thank you all for coming. This is my band, Three-Arm Sally, and we’re here to rock you like the proverbial hurricane.”
    The crowd muttered its indifference. Head hammered the drums for the intro to “Camel Holocaust.” I slung the guitar around and got ready to rock.
    Suddenly, my whole body wrenched in a display of unbearable pain, knees buckling. My hands shot to my head and I collapsed to the stage, screaming like a wounded animal. I scraped the guitar strings to throw out some painful, spastic feedback on my way down. The crowd gasped, watching as I flew into a series of exaggerated convulsions, then finally lay still.
    Munch rushed over, studied me like a paramedic. I lay there like a dead man. He touched my neck, then stood and turned to the mic.
    “He’s dead, ladies and gentlemen.”
    A rustling, drunken panic in the crowd.
    “Wait. Please, please. Everyone. Pay attention. Just calm down.”
    He waited for quiet.
    “Now,” he said. “We have a whole show to do. Is there anyone here who knows how to sing and play guitar?”
    A tall man stepped out of the crowd, a head of curly long hair like a deflated afro. This was John. He wore an orange T-shirt with a black stenciled stamp bearing the logo of VISTA PINES FACILITY FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE . The last two words had been crossed out with a black Magic Marker and the words NOT INSAN were scrawled crazily over it. The whole shirt, logo and all, was John’s handiwork.
    “Well,” John said, in a fake Southern accent, “I reckon I can play a little.”
    Kelly, according to script, invited him onto the stage. John pried the guitar out of my dead hands while Head and Wally dragged me carelessly off into the grass. John picked up the instrument and tore into the “Camel Holocaust” intro. Three-Arm Sally began every single show this way.
“ I knew a man
No, I made that part up
Hair! Hair! Haaairrr!
Camel Holocaust! Camel Holocaust!”
    That whole bit was something John had come up with, the man having a terrible habit of carrying out his drunken 3:00 A.M. ideas even after daylight and sobriety came. It was always 3:00 A.M. for John.
    I turned onto my back and stared into the night sky. That’s what I remember, from that last moment of real peace in my life. The rain had ended hours ago, the stars freshly cleaned and polished against their black velvet background. The music thrummed through the ground and the cool moisture of the grass soaked up through my sweatshirt as I gazed into the twinkling jewels of infinity, all spit-shined by God’s shirtsleeve. And then the dog barked and everything turned to goat shit.
    It was rusty red, maybe an Irish setter or a red Labrador or a . . . Scottish rust-dog. I don’t know my dogs. Ten feet of thin chain trailed off its collar. Bounding around the partygoers, a bundle of manic canine energy, drunk on the first freedom of its life.
    It squatted and peed on the grass, ran over to another spot and peed