Read Smiths' Meat is Murder for Free Online

dentist, Dr. Aranow—in his mid thirties—had recently killed himself. He locked the doors and windows after the last patient left. He gassed himself silly with nitrous oxide, set the waiting room on fire and blew his head off with a shotgun while seated in the dental chair.
    For several months after his suicide, the house and yard were left untouched. Overgrown tufts of yellowing crabgrass dominated the yard and cracks in the walkway. Internal fire and water damage caused the scorched outer clapboards to bow and lift from their joists, leaving the house looking like a poorly constructed, failing boat.
    Ray thought the back yard might be a cool place to hang out at night and drink. It was going to be summer in a matter of weeks. Drinking season. Our alcohol intake would increase in direct proportion to the temperature, peak by the middle of August, and taper off by Labor Day. Finding a reliable buyer and a safe outdoor drinking spot (and by that I mean safe from the police) were top priorities. Virtually every kid on the South Shore who has ever been drunk has been so in a field or in the woods or near the beach.
    When I was eighteen, still three years shy of the legal age in Massachusetts, Ray’s first cousin Carolinehelped me score my first (and only) fake ID in glorious fashion. For an underage music/booze lover in suburban Boston, having a foolproof fake ID—especially one with your own picture on it—was better than having a winning Wonka Bar (probably still is).
    Anyway, Caroline had a deluxe scam going, but she was smart not to overdo it and kill the golden goose. I was one of the lucky few who were brought into the inner sanctum. Caroline worked at the Registry of Motor Vehicles in Quincy, taking photos of people and fixing them to their freshly minted licenses. With a gig like that she might as well have been the First Lady of America.
Just Say No,
my ass!
Just Stay Shitfaced
was a better idea. Back then I was a staunch conservative when it came to trickle down alcoholics.
    So I was instructed to show up on a Wednesday around four-thirty, get in line with a blank application and look twenty-one. My skin had cleared up and I was shaving pretty regularly, so illegally passing for the legal age wasn’t that much of a stretch. Until my twenty-first birthday I went by the name Steven Morrissey when I drank. People in-the-know called me Steve-o.
    * * *
    I was late for school so many times that spring they almost didn’t advance me to the next grade. If I missedmy connection with Ray in the mornings, that meant I was really late and would have to run the remaining half a mile or so. This involved taking the life-threatening shortcut across the Route Three Overpass. Eight years earlier, a kid in my older brother’s class got hit by a motorcycle there, so they tried to crack down on pedestrians. You’d get suspended for two days if school caught you. I probably ran that section of road no fewer than fifty times, and never once got caught nor killed.
    One morning as I was jogging my way past the bronze plaque commemorating the deaths of one student and one motorcyclist, my necktie flapping like a windsock, Ray floored the brake pedal of his Dodge as he closed in on me. Fifty mile an hour traffic came to a screeching, nearly murderous halt behind him.
    He leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window in one fluid motion. He dispensed with formalities while I marveled at the audacity of his driving and, tossing something at me, he winked and said, “Here. I’m going to kill myself.” He pegged the gas, leaving a surprisingly good patch of rubber for such a shitty car. In the gutter, sugared with sand put down during the winter’s last snow, I saw written in red felt ink on masking tape stuck to a smoky-clear cassette: “Smiths: Meat.”
    I got a lot of my music back then from Ray. I never had much money to spend on records, or anything else for that matter. I didn’t even own a record player. Ihad my