Nonfiction / Tasia Trevino

 

:: The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack ::

A VISIT FROM DRUM

the first time I get dou­ble-bass beats it’s two hours the nurs­es take my pres­sure tell me don’t stand wheel me in a chair to a bed Mom cow­ers in the cor­ner by the crash cart they tear off my clothes attach leads ready a 16-gauge nee­dle the doc­tor says this isn’t going to feel good a feel­ing floods my right arm my body seizes I sit up they push me back on the bed they do it again my beats relax the EMT says that works 9 times out of 10 and the oth­er time I ask

 

 

 

if I keep count I could con­trol this expen­sive som­er­sault phan­tom sev­er­al false starts no mon­ey for fol­low-up is it fatal or just a con­di­tion with­out cov­er­age I devel­op dis­trac­tions code­pen­dence on the strength of strings learn to sing at house shows with shit­ty PAs strain against the squall for years no one can hear me just the Boys on gui­tar bass and drums turn my back to the crowd when I sing over stim­u­lat­ed vagus I can’t stop per­form­ing wish for some assur­ance I’m going to make it

 

 

 

Los Ange­les seeped into my blood­lines when Dad stick-and-poked Mom a fleur-de-lis on her ankle while watch­ing Decline of West­ern Civ Vol. 1 twen­ty years lat­er I move to the city in an ancient Buick I dream to be Jef­frey Lee Sable Starr a sea bird over light-dot­ted hills the Observatory’s for­mal white gown feel for my pulse dur­ing sound check the Boys ask me what lan­guage are my lyrics Perse­phone I say Eury­dice rock myself to sleep in dou­ble-time cross my heart hope to know which feel­ing I’m faking

 

 

 

BE QUIET MT. HEART ATTACK!

I stop tak­ing off my hos­pi­tal bracelet I don’t have insur­ance so I can’t afford to know why I have some ideas but the Boys keep say­ing “you’re fine you’re fine” swat­ting my fin­gers from the right side of my neck me swal­low­ing blues to keep myself at bay am I still their Wendy Bird they were there all the times they stopped my heart maybe the rea­son for it too I ping­pong the aisles at the Last Book­store wait for the calm to kick in search out every iter­a­tion of sunset

 

 

 

on stage singing grief for each of my past selves in a room sparse with soli­tary men most nights I dull my pound­ing with tequi­la rocks lime anoth­er round with the Boys and the Gretsch nev­er get paid to play drag myself home on unlit side streets past box­top shrines stuffed with sweets and sticky rice in a dream I car­ry one of the Boys on my back through the Hol­ly­wood Farm­ers’ Mar­ket I buy peonies and small cab­bages this is this not a dream this is 

 

 

 

I gath­er the hand­writ­ten receipts from the mechan­ic they make a $3000 pile still my Buick bucks stalls it has no AC or heat no defrost have to roll down the win­dows in a storm the arm­rest gets streaked with grime dri­ve out to Altade­na for a job get $10/hr to sur­vey places peo­ple want to film I size up oth­er dri­vers won­der how they afford it I want my ass slid­ing on leather inte­ri­or I want to see the inside of a stranger’s house won­der whether I’ll ever move

 

 

 

DRUM GETS A GLIMPSE

when I’m not onstage I get a job sell­ing things I can’t under­stand to peo­ple I nev­er see I final­ly go to the doc­tor he says I’m fine I just have anx­i­ety need to eat more fiber he gives me a  non-refill­able pre­scrip­tion for Ati­van and sup­pos­i­to­ries tells me buy Meta­mu­cil drink that every day I get reg­u­lar lose a lot of mem­o­ries start to need a big­ger audi­ence almost fight the bounc­er after karaoke at the Blue Goose put the tin­sel Xmas tree up with no gifts underneath 

 

 

 

my boss is a Scorp/Sag cusp he wears ten­nis shoes nice jeans flo­ral dress shirt top two but­tons undone at the Xmas par­ty he puts his hand btwn my legs when he bends down to kiss me hel­lo brings me into his office for my 3‑month- review says he wants to give me a raise thinks I’m smart but not show­ing it seems like I don’t care I make hourly as much as his maids he tells me they’re stu­pid always putting things in the wrong place he tells me earn my raise

 

 

 

Tues­day after­noon I have a pan­ic attack at an impromp­tu audi­tion for a real­i­ty series that’s shoot­ing upstairs from my office they like me for the part of Expert on a show about aliens vis­it­ing Earth I take a Val­i­um walk around the block go to urgent care the nurse slaps adhe­sive elec­trodes to my chest unshaven shins she won’t give me Xanax she says I need a car­di­ol­o­gist when I tell her about the first time how they had to stop my heart

 

 

 

LET’S NOT WRESTLE MT. HEART ATTACK

it’s a catheter-based pro­ce­dure they’ll make a slit in my leg thread a wire up my vein into my heart they’ll jack up my heart rate until the bad rhythm kicks in they’ll burn those path­ways closed I’ll be sedat­ed not asleep I’ll go home the same day nev­er think about it again there are risks per­fo­ra­tion stroke I lose my insur­ance in a week I say how soon can we do it how about in three days the doc­tor says I shake her hand and ask for one day off work

 

 

 

my first surgery is the day before Thanks­giv­ing I don’t want Mom or Dad to come but they do in pre-op two nurs­es dryshave my groin joke about film­ing me talk­ing can­did in twi­light sleep Dad gets ramen down­town after I’m fine every­one leaves I stain the hos­pi­tal bed with blood the nurse changes my tam­pon I go home the same day the next day the Boys come over we drink Wild Turkey and I cook every­one prop­er din­ner with pres­sure dressing

 

 

 

I can’t leave the city bc my Buick shuts off at every stop­light the record label with inter­est wants more demos I’m going to write a song a day so far I haven’t writ­ten one in months the only con­stants are always late with rent for the prac­tice space phone bill gro­ceries and fights I don’t remem­ber pick­ing up the Gretsch damp­en its strings when some­one walks by the Buick catch­es fire on the 5 the mechan­ic cuts out the cat­alyt­ic con­vert­er puts in a pipe I keep driving 

 

 

 

TO HOLD YOU, DRUM

on my lunch break I talk to the head of the label he has me on speak­er­phone sit­ting on a mar­ble memo­r­i­al bench in Hol­ly­wood For­ev­er pre­tend­ing I can under­stand every­thing he says he has to say some­thing to me he doesn’t want to be the stereo­typ­i­cal record label guy but he can’t pro­nounce all of our song names he loves front­women female drum­mers we talk for 36 min­utes he says he will be out in LA lat­er this month we should meet for cof­fee I won­der if he doesn’t drink 

 

 

 

I can’t stop think­ing about my heart my win­dow­less office I get an hour off work to see a social work­er at Kaiser she says I had no guid­ance I’ve been drink­ing that much since I was 16 I should stop play­ing music it seems too stress­ful go back to grad school get into debt like every­one else she doesn’t know what I can do with a degree in his­to­ry I pick a hand­ful of night jas­mine on my walk home the only things I think about more than my heart are mon­ey the dying car how I don’t feel 

 

 

 

the far­thest I can run in the city is Teardrop Park where the view is El Chubas­co Chi­na­town and a city dis­guised my body buzzes bad­ly with want my heart leans out of tem­po some­times it’s inhala­tion sets it off some­times the weath­er not enough water some­times too much food not enough some­times it’s being in bed with some­one being in bed alone it’s extra beats an elec­tri­cal prob­lem not some­thing I con­trol what’s the cho­rus again

 

 

 

YOU, DRUM

on Lou Reed’s birth­day I watch porn on my phone in the bath­room before din­ner with the Boys we bring our own booze I start to cry about Cae­tano Veloso in exile singing in Eng­lish I walk home a man jerks off in a bush out­side the cor­ner liquor store eyes rolled back furi­ous pump­ing I pass Jumbo’s where we went with the Boys for my 21st birth­day me sit­ting close to the stage them sit­ting against the wall in the shad­ows beck­on­ing me with dol­lar bills to give to the girls 

 

 

 

Tues­days are band prac­tice Wednes­days are all night hap­py hour the bar­tendress with huge eyes and French braids makes me at least three tequi­la sodas I think about her naked sit out­side on year-round-bougainvil­lea-shad­ed patio papi­er-mâché petals spiked vines I dim the lights in the bar’s pink bath­room take a pic­ture of myself wish for some­one to send it to walk home under gray­ing skies one of the men out­side 7–11 calls to me hey slop­py girl asks me for a blowjob

 

 

 

I need anoth­er surgery it’s forty-thou­sand dol­lars but it’s cov­ered if I keep my job Mom comes and Gram­ma but Dad already had tick­ets to see John Doe only Mom has a pan­ic attack on my futon so I dri­ve us to Kaiser across the street from the big blue church that took all of Gramma’s mon­ey she holds my hand the nurs­es mis­take her for my mom and me for 19 I’m awake again dur­ing the doc­tor says he found the prob­lem he says my heart tricked them last time

 

 

 

IT’S ALL BLOOMING NOW MT. HEART ATTACK

some­times I think I like Los Ange­les I go down­town to see Tele­vi­sion with the Boys walk through a heist scene that doesn’t stop rolling Tom Ver­laine ges­tures to Venus in the west­ern sky I’m in love with all my friends cli­max in the show­er to Roy Orbi­son falling I’m falling falling in love with heart­beat throb dream one of the Boys has me in pub­lic press the wood­en spoon han­dle against myself in my gal­ley kitchen while the rice cooks on the stove 

 

 

 

the label doesn’t want to sign us I get weepy at the bar with the Boys I let down my love for the city but I only know one kind it’s killing me some­times I feel very sad I tell the Boys that the same ses­sion band played on every Amer­i­can pop hit of the ’60s no one knows their names I start to lose momen­tum trust prac­tice sin­cer­i­ty in the bath­room mir­ror ask for my mem­o­ries back erased or oth­er­wise find myself among scat­tered palm fronds and street roach­es on the edge of San­ta Monica

 

 

 

the doc­tor says anoth­er surgery would risk per­fo­ra­tion my heart has two pace­mak­ers some­times the false one gets the rhythm the real one gets a break after I leave the city I can’t stop danc­ing at the least appro­pri­ate times I come back to the city but don’t make it past Mul­hol­land I stand on a bor­rowed bal­cony over behind-the-scenes streets with­out side­walks so close to all my land­marks I can taste lemon­grass tri­pas and tar­na can see my beat­ing the score is swelling

 

 

 

THE OTHER SIDE OF MT. HEART ATTACK

there is no way to see a city I can’t be any­more at the junc­tion of thick­ly-trav­eled boule­vards a city invari­ably comes into exis­tence I dream wash­ing machine amps rub­bery gui­tar strings mics with no input I let myself go slack the tem­po evens out I wear the skin­ni­est tuxe­do I can find put on lip­stick in the hos­pi­tal bed I allow a place to tame me a heavy qui­et set­tles around me I don’t know what to do with it don’t know how to allow myself this pace wor­ry where will my voice be if not a stage

CONSIDER! 
DIFFERENT! 
FADING! 
SYSTEMS!

grief for me for the part on a dream for som­er­sault phan­tom sparse with sweets and drums CONSIDER! DIFFERENT! FADING! SYSTEMS! turn my past selves into a chair into a bed they tear off my past selves in a dream I can’t stop drink­ing that’s shoot­ing upstairs from my Tues­day after­noon I have a pan­ic attach leads real­i­ty series that’s shoot­ing in my heart CONSIDER! DIFFERENT! FADING! SYSTEMS! are risks per­fo­ra­tion stroke I lose path­ways clothes attack to grad school get into debt like Xanax CONSIDER! DIFFERENT! FADING! SYSTEMS! closed I’ll burn those path­ways I’ll be sedat­ed I’ll go home the stereo­typ­i­cal record label against my body seizes my beats relax the label has me for one of the Boys on my back CONSIDER! DIFFERENT! FADING! SYSTEMS! he doesn’t want to be again in Hol­ly­wood For­ev­er pre­tend­ing he loves from my body CONSIDER! DIFFERENT! FADING! SYSTEMS! when I sit up they tear off my time I tell her hand and ask for a con­di­tion with sweets stuffed with the Boys most nights CONSIDER! DIFFERENT! FADING! SYSTEMS! my clothes attack at an impromp­tu audi­tion stroke I lose my insur­ance and they do it can we do it how about they do it CONSIDER! DIFFERENT! FADING! SYSTEMS! fatal or just the Boys on my lunch break I think to my unshaven shit­ty code­pen­dence on the bed I’ve been drink­ing about aliens vis­it­ing Earth I think about LA lat­er anoth­er hand­ful go back stress­ful go back through the Hol­ly­wood Farm­ers’ Mar­ket for years no one can say how soon can we be the Gretsch nev­er time how soon can we talk to grad school get dou­ble-bass beats ready a 16-gauge nee­dle they’ll make me a slit in a week I say CONSIDER! DIFFERENT! FADING! SYSTEMS! some assur­ance I’ve been drink­ing nev­er any­thing nev­er false stage singing grief CONSIDER! DIFFERENT! FADING! SYSTEMS! nev­er false stage singing grief CONSIDER! DIFFERENT! FADING! SYSTEMS! nev­er false stage singing grief
nev­er false stage singing grief
nev­er false stage singing grief
nev­er false
nev­er false nev­er false
oh you drum
oh you drum
my drum
my drum
my drum

 

acknowl­edg­ments

this con­tains lyrics/references from the following:
Drum’s Not Dead – the Liars
““Falling”” – Roy Orbison
““I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”” – the Beach Boys
““The Strength of Strings”” – Gene Clark
Bri­an Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strate­gies card deck

 

 

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

Between 2010 and the present, I’ve lived with an arry­th­mia called AV-Nodal Reen­trant Tachy­car­dia, caused by a con­gen­i­tal heart issue. I’ve had spot­ty health insur­ance, mul­ti­ple doc­tors, and two surgeries.

Through­out this time, I was the lead singer of a band in Los Ange­les. I worked a shit­ty 9–5, while prac­tic­ing, record­ing, and play­ing shows reg­u­lar­ly. I drank a lot. I was in a fierce­ly code­pen­dent, mutu­al­ly destruc­tive rela­tion­ship with the gui­tar play­er in the band.

Most of this piece comes from diary entries I made on my lunch breaks in the Hol­ly­wood For­ev­er Ceme­tery which was right down the street from where I worked. Soon after the gui­tar play­er and I broke up and I moved out of Los Ange­les, he made me a playlist based on our rela­tion­ship. The last song on it was the Liars’ “The Oth­er Side of Mt. Heart Attack,” from their 2006 album, Drum’s Not Dead. We had a poster from the album hang­ing in our East Hol­ly­wood apart­ment, but I had­n’t revis­it­ed the album in years. When I write, I tend to lis­ten to a sin­gle song on repeat for hours, induc­ing a kind of time-tran­scend­ing trance state, which is what I did with this song/piece.

After fin­ish­ing it, I found that the con­cerns of this piece were very much in con­ver­sa­tion with the album. As the band said at the album’s release, it explores the ten­sion between two fic­tion­al char­ac­ters, Drum, “assertive and pro­duc­tive, the spir­it of cre­ative con­fi­dence,” and Mount Heart Attack, ” the embod­i­ment of stress and self-doubt.” The con­nec­tion seemed obvi­ous. Even on a lit­er­al level—my body has two pace­mak­ers; the album has two drum kits.

I’ve strug­gled with the cor­rect form for this con­tent. It ends up some­where between a lyric essay and a nar­ra­tive long poem. It’s both a love let­ter and a break-up let­ter to my favorite city. It’s an attempt to recount and rec­on­cile one of the most dark/difficult and also fun/exciting times in my life.

 

Tasia Trevi­no is a writer and musi­cian from Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Cen­tral Coast. Her poems have/will appear(ed) in Fence, Pre­lude, Yalobusha Review, Dream Pop Press, and Poets.org. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writ­ers’ Work­shop where she was award­ed two May­tag Fel­low­ships and the 2018 Acad­e­my of Amer­i­can Poets’ Prize. More at tasiatrevino.com.