Stratissimo

It was a grand sendoff, the last Wrong Turn show, the night Randy left to join Megadeth. Word was out he’d got the call and Myhalyk’s was packed, they’d stopped letting people in. Halfway through Little Wing a bouncer cleared a path for a darkhaired girl in a long leather coat unbuttoned and trailing a belt. Somehow nobody stepped on it. She was unapologetic and intent and her Nikon was worth more than my car. Down front the bouncer put her on his shoulders and she started shooting Randy. Her flash fired the houselights, made the lightshow arrhythmic. I wondered who she was.

Google Randy, Myhalyk’s, you’ll find a cellphone video. Milling darkness, a boy’s voice: Fuck I dropped it. Train yells annnd now, lights come up, it’s all Randy. His night, his solo, and he puts on a clinic: Blinding sweep-picking, sweet fluid phrasing, squealing harmonics, screaming bends. Unstrapping, laying his guitar on the stage for the tapped piece he called Stratissimo: Randy on all fours, attacking his scarred Strat like a Steinway baby grand. Down front, a girl on someone’s shoulders, hunched over a camera. Lights flash. Flash. Flash.