Before the official first day of fall way back in the year 1994, I was priming the seasonal pumps with my ‘Darkness’ project, in which I did a rather perfunctory examination of, well, ‘Darkness’ in an effort to strike some fun fear and silly scares in the hearts of my friends. Little did I know that real life would soon prove dark enough, and that all my writings and mix-tapes on such a theme would feel all the more silly afterward.
This song opened up the theme on the ‘Darkness’ mix I made for all of my friends. (Yes, a mix-tape, on a 90-minute cassette from the 80’s.) The grand finale to the month-long mailing extravaganza of my ‘projects’ at the time was usually the tape (which included chilling musical motifs from the likes of ‘The Silence of the Lambs’). This particular package came with a bloody knife wrapped in a bloody wash-cloth, to really get the point across. (The post office used to be a lot less stringent in what you get away with mailing.)
Love – nobody know just how it was born
Love – first came to me with the radio on
Jumped up in my body with an attitude
Kissed me on the mouth and said “Your leader take me to”
‘Twas like thunder all thru the night
And a promise to see jesus in the morning light
Love say “Take my hand, it’ll be alright
C’mon save your soul tonight”
The package, and the entire project itself, brought mixes reactions. One of my friends reported it, while Suzie and the Cornell Crew opened the package, shrugged, washed off the knife and added it to their questionable collection of kitchen utensils. Back then, I considered it a success based on those disparate reactions alone. Clearly, I was still finding my footing as far as creative expression went.
The stories that accompanied the ‘Darkness’ project were designed to disturb and scare, and thankfully I no longer have any of them because I’m sure they read as more ridiculous than terrifying. (The only one I partially recall is a fantasy on torturing my annoying roommate at the time – a broken light bulb was going to be inserted into his, well, you get the idea.) I wanted to illuminate all the ways that Darkness can make us do things we wouldn’t normally do, things of which we would never be proud, things that turn us into lesser-versions of ourselves. I accessed the darker corners of my psyche and let it all play out on the page, taking my friends along for the ride whether they liked it or not.
Love’s kiss was running all thru my veins
The bed started shakin’, I don’t know who to blame
Me or this flower right in front of my eyes
Is this my sweet savior or the devil in disguise
‘Twas like thunder (oh) all thru the night (all through)
Promise to see jesus in the morning light
Love say “Take my hand, it’ll be alright
C’mon save your soul tonight”
It was my attempt to keep myself in their minds while we were miles apart – my biggest fear back then may have been being forgotten. It worked almost too well, and I came up against the prickly lines that vacillated among notoriety, derision, and disgust. Alienating friends was the art form I was unintentionally perfecting, and the solitary stance in which I found myself may have fed into my behavior that fall. Sometimes I think darkness begets darkness, and once you start rolling down that hill it’s very difficult to stop, much less right yourself. The best you can do is slow down a bit, and hope that any impact at the end won’t kill you outright.
Like rain falling on a window pane
Tears came to my eyes when I asked her name
Made me holler when it finally came
Said “Only the children born of me will remain”
‘Twas like thunder all thru the night
And a promise to see Jesus in the morning light (mornin’ light)
Love say “Take my hand, it’ll be alright
C’mon save your soul tonight”
This song by Prince and the New Power Generation, from the brilliant ‘Diamonds and Pearls‘ album (which remains my favorite Prince album, as much as purists may scoff) brings me back to those thunderous days, when fall felt like the most fitting season for the tales of fright I was intentionally crafting and intentionally living. Fall was rife for drama in that way, and I courted it unabashedly, conjuring the tension and emotions required to make an impression and a memory. I would burn everything down before they could forget me.
Now that feels all so silly and futile, and the only ones who remember anything of my ‘Darkness’ project are myself and the small smattering of friends who got that bloody knife in the mail. Oddly, and wonderfully, those are the only ones who still matter.
