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“If You Live Worthily, You Will Live…”
Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? (Ezekiel 18:23)
The Cosmic Aeroplane, the coolest destination in Salt Lake City that I was aware of, was an amalgam of counterculture founded in 1967 by Stephen Jones, a New Yorker that had dropped out of the University of Utah. An early business card describes it as a “Bookstore & Headshop,” that sold (and bought) “used books & records” and hawked incense, jewelry, comics, and “paraphernalia.” Bruce Roberts and Ken Sanders joined as partners in the 1970s, bringing cash and experience to the store. Since Ken Sanders was a prominent used book dealer, books became the driving force of the store and by time I ventured in, used books were blended with new, primarily “alternative” books. But I went for the records—and the paraphernalia, that is if t-shirts can be called paraphernalia.
On my first trip to the Cosmic Aeroplane I was extremely apprehensive, and wandering through the books made me even more anxious. I might have been scared by the The Anarchist’s Cookbook prominently displayed by the front desk; I was definitely scared of The Satanic Bible and other occult books stocking the shelves. Paraphernalia were sold in the basement, accessed by stairs from the back room. Metal pipes and glass bongs filled glass display cases and wooden shelves.
Was it illegal even to be in this room, I wondered.
But this was where the t-shirts were, and hanging on the wall was an English Beat t-shirt with the dancing girl logo. From my position I could not tell that the t-shirt was made of a very cheap material. I probably would not have cared. I loved The English Beat, and having once spotted it, I had to have it. While I absolutely hated having a paper route, it did provide me free spending money, and I had enough money in my pocket to buy that shirt. Unfortunately, it might have been impossible to select a more intimidating clerk in for me to approach. Everything from her large breasts to her bleach-blond mohawk presented her as somebody—something—unapproachable by me. Yet I managed to steel my nerves, lay my money on the counter, and ask for the t-shirt.
I never bought another t-shirt—or any other paraphernalia—at the Cosmic Aeroplane, but I did buy a lot of records. While the books were displayed in rather dimly lit rooms in order and their esoteric nature made me uncomfortable, the records were stocked in a brightly lit room, and, with exceptions like the Butthole Surfers, almost universally appealed to me. In the era of vinyl LPs, albums were tangible, often artistic creations, covered with art or photographs that in our pre-information era helped to flesh-out the bands for my friends and me. Organized by genre, the punk albums occupied a small piece of wall space, and over time I bought a number of albums by X, Social Distortion, Generation X, the Surf Punks, and Jody Foster’s Army. But the breadth of the Aeroplane’s collection exposed me to a wider collection of music, including avant-garde bands such as Tangerine Dream and Tuxedo Moon.
When I jumped on my skateboard and headed south the streets were quiet. People with money were on their boats at Lake Powell or at their cabins in the mountains. Typically, my family would spend Memorial Day at the farm in Willard, pulling weeds or painting the porch, all while I got irritated by the many cousins I had never been friendly with. But this Memorial Day, inexplicably, I was in Salt Lake without homework or obligations and enough spare cash in my pocket to buy some music.
If I had been feeling adventurous, I would have taken my skateboard west to 9th East, catching a bus to downtown where, upon disembarking, I would ride my skateboard a half mile east on First South to the Cosmic Aeroplane.
A trip to the Cosmic Aeroplane by bus and skateboard was a nearly all-day affair, however, and I wasn’t even sure the bus was running on the holiday. So I was content to be on my skateboard, cruising for the three miles to Raspberry Records. Stopping occasionally to get the circulation back into my tingling feet and walking down the steep hill formed by the fault line near my high school, I made good time to the store. Since rain was scarce and the sun was not yet scorching hot, May was a perfect time for riding a skateboard in Salt Lake City.
When I arrived at Raspberry Records, I wasn’t sure the best way to carry my homemade skateboard. I neither wanted to bang the shelves with the board or scrape the wood veneer with the grip tape, nor draw attention to the board itself. I had always been self-conscious of the build quality of it, with it thick, self-made plywood with varying thickness and its peeling and bubbling grip tape. I was also suddenly embarrassed by the giant iron cross I had imperfectly painted on the bottom of the board.
Would the cross make me look like a poser? I wondered, “poser”—a pretend punk rocker—being the lowest life form I could imagine.
After a moments thought I settled on holding the board vertically, placing its tail on my left foot so it walked with me and turning the hand-painted cross towards my leg thus minimizing its exposure to the few other customers in the store.
I didn’t have to spend much time in the store. I first picked up “War” by U2. Songs from the album, particularly “New Year’s Day” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” had caught my eyes—how cool did Bono look?—and my ears while watching MTV in Chris’ basement. Although the historical and social context of U2’s songs were lost on me, I liked the driving simplicity of the music, especially the beginning of “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.” Yet perhaps even more compelling to me than the music was the album cover. Was that boy silently staring at me angry or about to cry? His face seemed on the verge of both, and the cut on his lip fueled either interpretation. I had enough money for one more record, so I quickly moved backwards through the alphabet, stopping almost immediately at the S’s. Squeeze, Sex Pistols, Santanya, The Specials.
The Specials would be a great choice, I thought.
I was familiar with a couple of their songs, “Concrete Jungle” and “Nite Klub,” and knew them to be one of the leading British ska revival bands. Like “War,” I found the album compelling, recognizing their logo that I’d seen pinned on a few backpacks and denim jackets: black and white checkers along side a suited man wearing a skinny tie, shades and a tipped Fedora. They were obviously cool and known to be danceable, a great complement to the political, soul-searching sound of U2.
I shoved the change from the clerk into my pocket and then grabbed the records, now in an opaque plastic bag adorned with the store logo, and headed out the store. I tossed my skateboard down, stepped on with my right foot, pushed off with my left, and started heading south, retracing my route, first through the strip mall parking lot and then onto the sidewalk running along the west side of Highland Drive, jumping on and off curbs, carving along the gutters, counting the double thumps as my skateboard crossed the boundary between each segment of cement. Except for getting a little hungry, I was carefree, glancing nonchalantly for cars as my path intersected crossing streets.
At Spring lane I turned west and lost the sidewalk. The rough asphalt slowed me down and sent excessive vibrations through my skateboard, numbing my feet. As I passed Jacqueline Payne’s house I wondered if I should stop by, unannounced, to give my feet a rest. I decided not to, continuing on for a third of a mile down Spring Lane before cutting south through a church parking lot and into the Meadowmoore Elementary School parking lot. The wide, vacant lots, made of a smoother asphalt than the road, invited me to start carving wide arcs with my skateboard. I imagined myself snow boarding down a wide alpine cirque, the fresh powder glistening under the brilliant blue sky, a sky just like today, although a darker blue at that high altitude I imagined, as I rhythmically bent my knees and leaned my body first backwards and then forward, my daydream blending well with the reality of my skateboard.
Aaargh! I screamed uncontrollably, my skateboard flying out from under my feet as I tumbled to the ground. If I bruised or scrapped myself up by my fall I didn’t know; I wasn’t aware of anything beyond an intense stabbing pain in my stomach. I could not believe the pain: every movement seemed to shred my internal organs.
Uuuughhhh! Mmmmmmmm! Aaaahh
Loud, uncontrollable moans escaped from me.
I tried lying on my back, my side, sitting up, kneeling down, desperately seeking a position that would alleviate—or at least diminish—this racking torture that had come out of nowhere.
Nothing helped.
Just twenty feet away a wooden fence marked the boundary of my friend, Michele’s, back yard.
Should I ask…Michele for…help? How…to…get…there? Crawl?
I can’t…I…can’t…be seen…! She’ll…repulsed.
I need…I can’t…Ohhhh. Whimpers started to get interspersed with my moans, groans.
I did nothing.1
After about twenty minutes, the pain started to subside. In another ten minutes, I was able to stand up, get on my skateboard, and start home.
I still had two miles.
I stopped at a grocery store at 56th South and Van Winkle and bought a refrigerated can of soda. Outside the store, still somewhat nauseated from my painful abdominal attack, I cautiously sipped the soda. I felt even more sick, and regretted my misspent fifty cents.
When I finally made it home, my family was eating lunch. I was too sick to join them, instead heading straight to my downstairs bedroom without even stopping to offer a hello or an explanation as to where I had been. I put The Specials album on my turntable, turned on the stereo, and lay down, just wasting away the day. I didn’t get up to do my paper route. I didn’t get up for dinner. I didn’t leave my room for the rest of the day.
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1 As it turned out, Michele was in her backyard with her sisters listening to me, wondering who the that sick kid was.↩