The Eddie Munson Tape Dates

Black Sabbath, 'Black Sabbath'

In the dimly lit room, soft purple and deep blue drapery floats around you. With your heavily stickered Gibson SG replica at your waist, you approach the microphone and adjust your already drenched aerobic headband.

'Right here we go,' you think to yourself for maybe the hundredth time today, and wipe the beads of sweat from your forehead with the back of your wrist sweatband. You imagine your look is that of a female Bruce Springsteen.

You look out at your audience and nod at them. The neatly arranged line of plush owls gives you no indication of whether they are enjoying the show or not, but you give them one anyway. You glance over in your full-length mirror, its black metal filagree style frame adorned with photo booth strips of you and Eddie. You laugh at your reflection. Yep, sure, a total Springsteen if he went out on stage and wore my little pony pyjama shorts and an old cut-up white t-shirt.

You grab your smoke from the pearlescent abalone ashtray and put it in the corner of your mouth, turning the music back to the first page of tabs.
The handwriting on the pages was mainly your scribbled notes that you hurriedly jotted down when observing Eddie play his guitar and teaching you little tips and tricks on playing faster but not messily.

You flick back to the start of the book for a moment to read the inscription in red pen, "My Lady in shining armour, may this book start your (only permitted) love affair with music. Take a breath for your mistakes. You got this. See you on the other side for a jam session. Yours forever, Eddie."

A humongous, almost aching grin erupts on your face, and the joint nearly drops from your lips. You just manage to catch it before it plummets to the night sky rug on the floor.

'Forever', you wondered, really could it be? Could he mean that? It wasn't like him to be misleading with words, but he was prone to theatrics. What did that mean anyway? Did it mean it could be like this always? That would be bliss, but there were things to come you weren't sure about. College, touring, work, marriage, a family. You didn't know how much of that you wanted, let alone how much of that Eddie wanted.
'Just enjoy where you are.' your brain advises and draws your eyes to the heavy scar on your inner forearm, 'Any day could be your last', it adds.

You put the smoke out and hoped that furiously practising until pain seared through your forearm tendons or the weed finally hit that sweet spot, you would eventually stop being so nervous about this date.

As you, yet again, launch into a more up-tempo version of 'Burning Love by Elvis, shutting your eyes, singing as loudly as you can at the ever-surprised eyes of the owls, you recall how this all came about.

"You know what? It's gotta be Sabbath again. There are just so many tapes of theirs in here compared to the others," you said, picking up Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath out of the ever-depleting box of tapes placed in the centre of your bed.

"I know, right? It's almost like I'm a fan or something" Eddie's voice dripped with sarcasm as he looked over at you from the other side of the box.

He removed the box and leaned back against the headboard as you frantically scanned the song titles on the cassette sleeve. The sleeve hanging on by its final thread of life, some of the corners dog-eared, partially stained, torn and crumbled. This album had clearly experienced everything life could offer a cassette. You decided to leave it in the case to save you being its final demise.

"Erm, ok, so not the sleep-related ones, I guess...Evil Woman, well, that's me, so it can't be that one, "that comment earned you a tut and smirk from Eddie, "Warning? Maybe some kind of explosives-type thing? Or a demolition derby."

You looked up at Eddie to see if you were even close with your guesses. His wide-open eyes had blinked at you repeatedly, "Seriously, what have I done to you??" a smile appeared across his face, and he grabbed you in a playful headlock, ruffling up your hair.