I Made A Deal With An Old Man In A Food Court Bathroom

Part 7

As I said before, I drove around for a while, and then decided to just go home.

Both Mom's and Dad's cars were not in the driveway, so I figured they went to work

Mom is a teachers aide, and Dad is a foreman for a local construction company.

Anyway, I put on a pot of coffee, watched a little MTV, drank the coffee, then decided to go Rock-Out in my room.

I went upstairs, and put Metallica's "Master Of Puppets" cassette in the boom box.

I don't know how that cassette, ended up in my collection.

That was the tape I was going to buy when I met that old man in the bathroom.

But, it was there now.

I pressed play, and the intro to "Battery" began.

Once the music hit, I started head banging and trashing around as it engulfed me

It came to the part where Kirk Hammett's amazing guitar solo began.

I began playing air guitar.

I stopped suddenly, "Oh, shit", I said anxiously, realizing that I hadn't learned the songs I needed to learn for band practice.

I stopped the tape and reached in my top desk drawer and pulled out the list.

The first one was, "You Got Another Thing Comin'" by Judas Priest

I plugged in the amp, plugged in the guitar, hooked on the strap, and stood in the center of the room, in my best rockstar stance.

I was about to tell my hands to play that song, when it hit me, it wasn't ME playing the guitar, it was my hands.

I, myself, could not play the guitar.

"How am I going to be in a band, even if they're all dead, if I can't play the guitar", I said to myself.

I then said aloud, "I want to KNOW how to play the guitar. I want to KNOW how to read sheet music. I want to BE a rockstar."

Just then, an incredible gust of wind came out of nowhere, through my room, and blew me backwards into the closet. The door handle slamming into the crook of my back.

"Fuck!!!", I screamed out, as I fell to my knees.

My right hand pressing hard against the crook of my back.

I slowly stood up, still holding the guitar, my back throbbing in pain.

"What the fuck was that", I said.

I stretched a little bit, and as the pain subsided, I reached into my desk drawer, and pulled out the Metallica tablature book again.

I opened the book to "Fight Fire With Fire" once again, and tuned the guitar accordingly.

I never even knew how to tune a guitar before.

I took a deep breath, and while following along with the book, I played the entire song, perfectly, note for note.

I couldn't even put two notes together before, and now I'm playing with the technical skills of Kirk Hammett.

"Oh my God", I said when I finished, "I did it", "I...did it...not my hands...ME!!!, I...did it."

I quickly turned a couple pages until I found, "Trapped Under Ice"

I played that one perfectly too.

"Escape"... perfectly

"Creeping Death"...almost perfectly.

I didn't actually finish that one.

Halfway through, the fingers on my left hand started to hurt, and I felt a burning sensation on my fingertips.