I had high expectations for the night of Year of the Cobra. I knew it would be metal as hell; a night of blood, drugs, and slosh-eyed gazes. Oh, God. I had no idea…
My co-poet, Haley, and I got to the Lookout Lounge with enough time to get cozy before the first act.
The three opening bands were local. Flaccid Cactus doomed up the room first with their spacey drum and bass sludge metal. They played two songs in 20 minutes… or maybe it was one song with a longish rest in the middle…
Band two! Azimuth was down a dude for this performance, but the guitar and drum duet kicked an insane amount of black metal ass.
Dope Corpse lit the stage green (literally and ethereally) as their sticky, bass-y, doom tunes wrapped around us like a snake. I felt squeezed by the impressive volume and devoured whole by the crunchy grind of their songs. These guys are gigging hard these days, so whether you're feeling hazy, crazy, or lazy, get out and see them! Sorry if I just turned Dope Corpse into a used autos commercial.
Dope Corpse tore down and Year of the Cobra set up, while Haley and I were talking back at the bar. She started giving me these twitchy eyebrows. I say a lot of dumb shit, so I'm thinking she's just reacting to that. Year of the Cobra took the stage. Haley said, "Hold on." There's a pain in her side, but maybe it'll pass. We wait out the first song and I duck in to take a couple of shots and a vid.
Year of the Cobra is god-damned amazing. They make an otherworldly surplus of noise for a bass and drum duo. Everything just soars, drifts, and drills through you…
Now Haley's side really fucking hurts. I'm her ride. I try not to be an asshole some of the time, so I offer to take her, "To a hospital?" "No, no," she answers. "Home? I'll hang out and make sure no parasites pop out of you?" I ask. "Okay," she says.
On the way to her house, her pain gets worse, so we decide it's time to stop fucking around. I reroute to the ER, and Haley's a damned warrior throughout. The pain had her consciousness waning and her verbal abilities sidelined, but she cooperated gracefully with the bureaucratic drudgery of our healthcare system at its most urgent.
Enter Nurse Julie. Nurse Julie is a badass. Haley started to fade hard. Nurse Julie was trying to get an IV in her, but Haley wouldn’t make a fist to flex the vein, so Nurse Julie yelled at her, "MAKE A FIST OR THIS WILL GET WORSE!" Haley's eyes focused for a dire second to constrict her fingers so Nurse Jackie could pop the IV in and get some blood samples. She needed a urine sample next, so we walked Haley to the bathroom. (I chill outside. Obvz). We left her in there with a trouble button, one of those 'push this if shit gets weird' buttons. Shit got weird so Nurse Julie went back in.
A minute later, Haley and Nurse Julie exited the bathroom. Haley looked shook as hell. I give her my arm and whisper, "What?" walking back to the hospital bed. She whispered something back breathless, all of her focus on walking, blocking out the horrific pain. I asked,
“What?” again.
"Blood."
Jesus.
Intravenous drugs came about an hour after we walked in the door, accompanied by a brief nap before CT time. I hung out in the room with Haley's stuff trying to think of what hospital shit I could steal.
Haley returned from the CT tube- medicated and in better spirits.
I don't remember how it came up, but Nurse Julie told us about her trip to Puerto Rico post hurricane. The whole island smelled like death. The morgues were full, so people had to bury their dead… just whenever. Fucking brutal.
It was a kidney infection. They can just happen. After some antibiotics and a shower, Haley was back raising hell the next morning.
Haley, the pain warrior poet. Nurse Julie, the haunted healer, and Amy Tung-Barrysmith, Year of the Cobra singer/bassist/Valkyrie of glorious doom, thanks for just about the most metal night I've ever had.