On October 24, 1993, while walking home from school, I found an old audio cassette by the roadside. It was a TDK 90 minute tape. The label on side 2 had been peeled off. About eight inches of tape were tangled and hanging out of the cassette. I managed to wind the tape back up with my finger and when I got home I played it.
The first side was filled with songs and commercials apparently taped from the radio. The sound quality was ragged, and parts of songs and commercials were cut off. It had obviously been taped over several times. There were lots of clicking sounds as STOP and RECORD buttons were pushed. The songs on the tape indicate it was probably recorded sometime in the 80’s.
SIDE ONE: Born in the USA – Bruce Springsteen, Lay It Down – Ratt, Everytime You Go Away – Paul Young, commercials for window replacement (cut off), Snapple fruit juice, Luigi’s Pizza (cut off) Raspberry Beret – Prince, Summer of 69 – Bryan Adams (cut off after twelve seconds), commercials for Agar Potato Chips, local used car dealer (cut off) Into the Groove – Madonna (last thirty seconds cut off).
The following is my transcript of side two:
SIDE TWO: Blank tape silence for the first ten minutes, then several clicks and a man’s voice in mid-sentence:
…understand the point of all this. You know?
Sounds of passing traffic in the background and either a TV or radio. The sound quality is poor.
2nd man: Uh-huh.
1st man: So, yeah. It mattered. Wouldn’t it matter to you?
2nd man: Oh yeah, definitely. Of course. No, I was just saying…
1st man: I know what you were saying.
A few moments of silence. One of the men coughs, clears his throat.
2nd man: So, what is it you were saying about snow and blood before?
1st man: Yeah, yeah. No, I was just saying the first time I saw snow, I saw blood.
2nd man: What happened?
1st man: Well, I’m around six years old and my family moves up here from Florida. And one morning I wake up and it’d snowed all night and there’s a bunch of kids out front playing in the snow.
Several tiny clicking sounds, probably a lighter.
2nd man: And you went out there too?
1st man: Yeah. I didn’t want to. My old man made me. He wanted me to start… (The sound is mangled and unintelligible for several seconds. This is the length of tape that was exposed on the street)...and this one kid, a little shit named Norman had, like, a plastic baseball bat. Um, what do you call?
2nd man: Wiffle bat?
1st man: Yeah, yeah. A wiffle bat. Anyway, he’s swinging this bat around, batting the snow. And there was this little kid, must have been around four years old. He was kneeling in the snow, making a little pile with his hands and this Norman kid with the bat just comes up and bashes this little kid right in the face. Like really fucking hard! (laughter) Yeah, and the kid starts making these weird sounds, like, wh-whuh, wh-whuh, wh-uh… (more laughter) And blood just started shooting out of his nose, all over the snow. I tell you man, that dark red blood all over that white, white snow. I still think about it sometimes…
2nd man: Uh-huh.
Heavy click. When the recorder is turned on again, the sound quality is much worse, as if both men have moved away from the recorder. Traffic noise is no longer audible. TV/radio is off.
2nd man: Ever had any (unintelligible)?
1st man: Oh yeah, sure. Of course. I had one give me a footjob once.
2nd man: A footjob?
1st man: Yeah, yeah. Y’know, like a handjob only with feet.
2nd man: (laughs) Oh yeah? How was it?
1st man: Shitty. Her feet were cold and scaly.
2nd man: Oh shit man! (laughs for a long time) Really?
1st man: Yeah. She was kind of ugly too. I got off purely on the novelty of it.
2nd man: Question hopelessly garbled. The only clearly discernable word is Amputate.
1st man: Yeah. Oh, shit yes.
2nd man: What was she like?
1st man: I admired her. She was really strong. Stronger than me, I’ll tell you that much! (laughs) I couldn’t have done it.
2nd man: Uh-huh.
1st man: She didn’t even cry out when I cut it off. Didn’t make a sound.
2nd man: Wow.
A long moment of silence. It sounds like one of the men is tapping something, like a pencil hitting a table.
2nd man: And, um, you were gonna try to talk about (last word is garbled but it sounds to me like, Cincinnati).
1st man: Yeah. (long pause) I’m not sure I want to anymore.
2nd man: Aw, come on. It was your idea.
1st man: I know, I know. Okay. Well, I was living with Katie and we started to get weird, like I told you…
2nd man: Yes. Go on.
1st man: And we’d already done her right leg and left hand and we were ready to tackle her left leg. This is something she wanted to do, by the way. I mean, I didn’t talk her into it or anything. Okay? Anyway, she knew this guy who used to be a surgeon. Dr. Blasswell. Uh… Oh shit! I fucked up. No names, okay?
2nd man: Okay. No problem.
1st man: Yeah. So, anyway, he was doing it in her apartment and the whole group came over to watch. Somebody brought a movie camera and, uh, it was going all right, you know. The guy knew what he was doing and then all of a sudden there were sirens all around and banging on the door and I guess some people panicked…
2nd man: How so?
1st man: They uh…
END OF TAPE
Crumbling Asphalt 