Epilogue

Pitter-patters of rain fell all around Brian, stirring inside of him the arthritis he had suffered from for close to a decade now. Yes, the days had slipped by with the steady but unstoppable stagnance of time. 57 years now had passed, and his brother still lay in his grave. Brian could still see his smiling face; could still see his limp and exhausted body burying itself into a leather couch backstage after their first Woodstock festival. He could even more clearly remember Sheena, young, in love with the naïve man who ended up dying for her.

Pitter-patters of raindrops chinked Brian’s soul.

Munky’s grave had been long since neglected, the funding for the cemetery refused only five years after his death. At first, Brian had dutifully visited the grave once a week, cleaned it, snipped the grass, planted flowers…until the mere sight of "James Shaffer" on the tombstone got to him and he could no longer bring himself to visit there anymore. Now weeds raped the lot around his tomb, and moss colonated on the side of the grave.

Munky’s absence bothered Brian even more as he aged. He removed his cap, then, and scratched the divot of bald skin at the back of his inch-long gray locks. His long face saddened, the wrinkles becoming profound around his mouth and his beady eyes, as he remembered how he used to love to play the guitar. He played through his adolescence for at least five hours a day, churning out rhythms and shredding notes that died like twinklings of shooting stars in his amplifier. His hand had moved so freely and effortlessly over the fret board, the pic in a practiced notch between two fingers.

How naïve he had been to think that Munky and him would be together forever, playing onstage through all time in front of a sold-out crowd, every fan hoping against hope for a mindless glance…

The long hands that had once been so toned and hard with calluses again fingered the divot before he replaced his stained stretchy hat.

Carefully he ignored the aching in his back. Bending before the grave that so haunted him, he reached out with gnarled fingertips. Tears welled in his eyes, but he bit them back as he traced "Jimmy" through the moss. The weeds weren’t easy to pull out. They were tough and strong, the decomposing energy of Jimmy strengthening the soil beneath his feet. When Brian had finished he stood up again, and shivered. It was cold. It had stopped raining, but now his clothes were soaked and the sun was wishing farewell to the day.

He considered heading to the shelter to sleep, but he doubted he would be that lucky. These days the shelters were too full, what with all the homeless people there.

These days everyone had issues.

Jesus, so did Brian.

Time was calling him, he could tell within his bones; he knew it in him, in a place no lover or friend had ever found. It was a place inside of him he had reserved for Munky. But now that this wonderful man was gone—ripped from this earth—that place had become a deep hole. A deep crevice, as deep as the grave below him. Sometimes, late at night, he would swear he heard Munky’s voice. He remembered Munky telling him—back in the good days—that he wanted to love.

Head had had love. Not anymore, however. His daughter—a lesbian stripper who died having rough sex with a sweet L.A. Radio DJ—had abandoned him years before her death. His wife was gone with another man. Head’s life had taken a turn. Heroine tracks couldn’t hide through his Goodwill T-Shirt. Most of his teeth were gone from poor hygiene, and several nights of selling himself for money in the years past gave him an STD he refused to get tested for.

He knew what it was. The same thing that killed Jimmy: AIDS.

The same thing that took Munky was now taking him, just as cruelly. Except now there was no one to help him, no where to sleep. All the people on the corner of Fourth Street refused to share their cardboard boxes with him because his night sweats were utterly repulsive, and they were shocked at his murmurings…

"Jimmy, please, I love you. Come back, man. Please…."

HeadHeadHeadHEADHEAD

Munky, absent to everyone as the flames burn…

Oh, Head feels the strings beneath his fingers, he feels the weight on his shoulder as it crooks his back so that in later years he has the pain he feels now, the ache that comes burning back with his night sweats or when it rains…

But what pain? There was no pain. And was there Brian?

No. Head was back.

The young energy filled him, the blood rushing through his veins. He was lusted after and idolized. The Brian with two front teeth and a stained stretchy hat was gone. The creative guitarist who had innocently revolutionized music was back. He was back, and here to stay.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins. It was the same, orgasmic high he had experienced as he had lain his bed with his wife and Sheena for the first time as Jon watched on with a huge camera eye, the naïve annoyance as Munky—alive and well—looked at him with that fucking knowing gaze.

The streets melted behind Head as he ran with his ragged clothing, his voice slurred through his exposed gums. People stopped and stared at him briefly before they continued window-shopping. A couple of fat girls lifted their eyebrows and giggled to each other as he lumbered past, singing intelligibly.

Never would they have guessed that this was the man that had intrigued their grandfathers, the man their grandmothers had lusted for in the old days—

They never realized this man had ten seconds to live.

Head cut a corner, and continued his ragged sprint. Until something popped. His hand flew wildly to his chest. The stretching of his heart stopped as it gave out on him.

He reached for Munky’s tan hand—grasping for him from the sky—before it snatched back and he fell from grace.