To The Drummer's Beat

— To A., for all the good as well as the bad that you remember better.

Mother had a way of gifting me things she'd like to own. 

As a child, I'd never expressed much interest in music. In a family of singers, karaoke was a challenge for a kid who was only mapping out what sound was. She'd pause the music to correct my technique, reminding everyone she used to be a soloist in the school choir. Shame is a habit forced upon us. Sitting atop a bag of sugar in a dark pantry corner, I'd try to sing without correcting myself midway. And when I heard her footsteps approaching, I'd grow cautious about lowering my voice or stopping altogether. As the years went by, my singing became so quiet it only stayed in my head.

I was in third grade when my mom presented me with a tape recorder and a bunch of cassettes of russian pop stars. She was right, of course. I'd enjoy her gift to some extent. Back in the day, technology was the kind of thing that would consume you completely. This player was my first introduction to pause, rewind, and forward. Ever since, it has become my favorite metaphor, frequently overused by amateur writers such as myself.

Falling in love is much like a tape recorder. You're unaware of it at first, but when you meet someone special, you automatically insert a cassette into the player. Sometimes, it's brand new. Other times, it's an old one, signed with a sharpie, 'A Playlist for My Boo.' You've been overwriting it since middle school, attaching new meanings and tracks.

You both hit the forward button, rushing into something you'll wish you approached at a slower pace, savoring every moment, putting time stamps on your favorite moments.

The tape is bound to run out of its course at some point. The player makes a noise, and a curious compartment opens with a satisfying click. I tell myself that saying goodbye means hitting 'pause.' But most times, the pause hits you.

I wait patiently until the weekend comes and I get off work. I seem normal to everyone who stays late in the office, postponing whatever remains for them at home. But when I close the door behind my room, decomposition starts. Three days of making my bed my entire house, unaware of the toilet, kitchen, or — god forbid — shower. I mourn the pause, smoking, masturbating, and scrolling to make the time go by.

Monday comes, and I force myself to hit play on the work cassette. But every commuting session and every lunch break, I change the tape to the same old, carefully hitting rewind.

I was going back in time, starting from the end of it all, replaying our last conversation, negotiating what could have been said instead and how the song would have sounded. Comforting myself that adding bass was necessary, even if the drummer disagreed. I could sing along no more, not even in my head, to no distant probability of songs ever becoming an album.

Then other times, I jump back and forth between the middle parts. In a supermarket, a familiar tune comes on, 'She did not love me, didn't come to me. Meanwhile, the night changed everything. She did not love me; she drove me crazy. She did not love, did not love'. I'm reminded of conversations we had on the quay, sharing headphones. The things we were giving away for free, with no twinge, to someone we barely knew: every sorrowful memory, every child mischievousness, every broken bone and disappointment of growing up.

A poster on the wall with the face of his favorite artist, whom I had no regard for before we met, so he rightfully took custody of him forever. In some tracks, the drummer wins over and plays to his beat. He asked me once and many other times, 'Why do you shave every time we meet?' And I knew it was an attempt to satisfy his ego, a desperate try to crack my defense under the pressure of interrogation. A way to make me admit that even if intimacy was not promised to me by the state of things, I still expected it. Making up plausible explanations was a satisfaction of my ego, in turn. 'That's the way I'm comfortable with my body. Take it or leave it'. 

I let myself play to the rhythm the drummer defined because he would not be able to handle the truth. I know how this one goes; I tell him how scared I am of what men do, he calls me out on my misandry. We fight, and the melody turns into a screamer.

The truth is, today, I would have played by my rules. I'd try to put into a tangible lyric how important it is to me to control the narrative. I quit trying to penetrate the drummer's mind, to know what he thinks at any given time because it would be far too maddening. And if I didn't know what he'd do to me, I could take control over what he will tell his friends.

I've never felt this way specifically towards him, he never gave me a reason, and I did not want to give him a reason to stay further away than he already was, albeit atop my chest. It's a general reflex around all men whose faces all look the same to me. You shave before every date and ask yourself, 'Is there a practical reason I'm doing this?' And the answer is more regularly a no. A no with an asterisk attached, 'But what if he moves his hand closer?' Do I want that? No. But what if it happens? I can control this. You can't. There has got to be something I can control. There has — the narrative.

The tape stops just like it did before. Only now you've reached the intimacy of a silent, awkward beginning. This is it: no more memories, no more songs to dissect. You've gone all the way back. Just the stupid thumping of a heart labeled as 'Track No. 0.' And your present, beating in unison, no matter how much you've tried to desync it.

Some cassettes are not meant to be overwritten but put away in an outwardly unremarkable box to relisten at a different time. The smell of burning tape brings back as much laughter and sorrow as the playlist itself. But at the end of the day, when I get sick of the songs, I put on the radio to tune in with everything that I've missed.