Torn-Out Pages

We had a place on Erie Avenue, two rooms full of records, mixtapes, books. Dominique’s baby grand she’d found at a house sale, the Martin flattop I played on No True Names. I kept it under my bed in a hardcase.  You don’t take a guitar like that on the road.  We were out that summer with Concrete Blonde, we'd just played South by Southwest when my cousin called, said Dee’s piano was down on the sidewalk. Our stuff piled around it, people taking what they wanted. No eviction notice, nothing.  Or maybe there was and it just got by us. A lotta shit got by us, those years.  He called friends, found a truck, but by the time they got there anything we cared about was gone. You've just played the biggest show of your life, you come offstage, and somebody says uh, listen. I hate to tell you this, but… 

Dee said for her the worst part was her notebooks. She always kept one with her, she was always writing‒ She told Rolling Stone writing through shit was how she dealt with life.  She had 'em back to junior high, all her journals, poems, songs, sketches‒ I remember one notebook, it was all just titles.  Somebody’s got ‘em‒ You can still go on eBay, find torn-out pages: Her sketches for the No True Names cover, her See-Through Smile lyrics.  You know she wrote that when she was fifteen?  You believe that? 

I got an email from a girl who said she saw us nine times that summer, we stayed at her house once.  She's a lawyer now.  She wants to go after 'em, whoever's sellin' off Dee's notebooks.  I said nah.  Dee's gone, she doesn't care.  She asked if I remembered her.  The lawyer, I mean.  I said sure.