He was loaded

Jeremy was a punk rock drummer who moved into his mother's basement when he was 16. He was the coolest kid in high school and when I was a sophomore I would visit his house almost every day after school. My parents didn't have the kind of money that Jeremy's parents had to spend on him. They bought him Marshal amps and Gibson guitars and an Ibanez bass. He led me play some chords while he banged on his drums.

I was a little scared to see the way he smashed down on the Zildjian cymbals. Jeremy's older brother was sent over seas by the marines and his parents felt like Jeremey might be the only son they see alive so they let him do whatever he wanted and gave him whatever he wanted. As a result his basement became the hangout of groups of teenagers after school.

I was one of those teenagers who hung out at Jeremy's basement. He said he liked to keep me close around because he felt an inner peace. He said that even when I was playing power chords it just sounded psychedelic to him. This was the little piece of the band that was missing. They had reverb petals and echoes and stuff that I never even heard of but what they wanted was a little bit of peace.

"Chronic Hurt" was experimental

Most of the band recitals consisted of slamming really hard on the drums continuously and shouting some kind of trance along with the bass. The bass player was one in a million. They called themselves "Chronic Hurt" which was very suitable for a 90's punk band. One of their songs went something like this:

When you're walking down the street
And you feel the heat!!!

Diarrhea!! Diarrhea!!

Charlie was a pigmy goat

I can't remember much more of their songs. I do remember he kept dime bags in the ceiling under the water pipes. This was to keep them from his exotic pets. Jeremey kept a wide range of animals from an Australian parrot to a pigmy goat. This goat of his would always go after two things. First he loved to eat up any grass that Jeremy had lying around the house and second he loved the taste of worn out underwear.

Charlie was a bizarre little creature who would sniff around the band members looking for underpants to eat. This freaked some girls out who had come to hang around and listen to the "music". One girl named Carletta was suddenly surprised when Charlie the pigmy goat started sniffing at her. She screamed louder than Jeremy's drums. Jeremy had a talk with Susan the hippie girl about how to keep Charlie from sniffing all the girl's private areas. Susan didn't understand why anyone would stop Charlie. She said,

"He's only doing what is natural."

She was one of the few girls who could enjoy having a pigmy goat wandering around to the house. But she understood the situation that Jeremy wanted Carletta back in the house for rehearsals. He liked Carletta's soprano scream and said it sounded great with the recording. Susan had a plan to talk to her brother. He had a collection of edible underwear. She asked her brother to donate part of his collection to Jeremy's basement.

A collection of edible underwear

Jeremy loved this idea and hung the underwear all over the basement like they were Christmas decorations. You might think it would have been better to close the door and keep Charlie outside but Charlie was one of those punk rock pigmy goats that really gets into the music. If he had to wait outside he would start getting nervous and bang at the doors and windows. It was always better to keep him around during band rehearsals even if he did bother some groupies like Carletta.

Charlie took to the newly decorated room with great luster nibbling at one pair of undies and another. Never had this goat been so happy and free. He no longer had to sniff after groupies underwear. He now had a selection of flavored underwear to choose from. Charlie was too busy nibbling on the underwear handing around the house that he no longer bothered any of the groupies.

Carletta was invited back to practice and the band started to make some noise together. Some of the neighbors did call the police when they were too loud but Jeremy had his parents make the whole basement sound proof. Every time Charlie ate through a set of edible underwear they would just buy more. It seemed like everyone was happy until that one night.

Something behind the green underpants

Jeremy found a pair of half eaten green underpants. He looked behind the underpants and lodged into the wall was a small metal box. He moved some of the dust and stones away and found the box was covered with strange symbols engraved into the metal box. Jeremy put his finger deep into the strange x like things and the box started to glow. Jeremy wondered if the goat has been nibbling on this too or if it was just his head spinning from that last drum riff.

He looked at the symbols carefully and found that it was some kind of code like a key pad. If he just put them in the right order then he could open the box. There were symbols like an x and another symbol like and O. It was like a real life tic tac toe game and he was the winner. He opened the box to find a glowing green pair of drum sticks. Jeremy took them immediately to his drum to try them out. He wondered why he had not found them earlier. Probably his older brother had left them behind before he joined the marines. Why hadn't his brother told him about these drum sticks?

He brought them to his drum and he started to play. His drumming was faster and clearer than ever before. It was like the drum sticks actually kept beat for him. He played the whole night. He went to school the next day wired from getting no sleep but so excited to meet with the band. When they got together in the afternoon it was like a miracle. Chronic Hurt had made the greatest noise ever.

You could actually call it "music".

More and more kids showed up at Jeremy's house and word got out that his band rocked. It was no longer an experimental band. It was real music. The neighbors stopped calling the police and they actually listened. Jeremy and Chronic hurt were invited to their first gig. It wasn't spectacular. It was the basement of an old church. This church rented out the basement for concerts during the week. Chronic Hurt shared the stage with three other bands. All these bands also had friends and groupies so it was a very crowded church basement. The music got louder and the mosh pit heated up. Jeremy was going wild on playing double bass drums in the zone. It would have been Chronic Hurts greatest concert except one thing.

Suddenly in the middle of their second set all the lights were turned on and two men from the church came up to the stage. Everyone starred and the music stopped. Everything was quiet. They wondered if this was going to be some kind of Blues Brother thing. The taller man took the mic and tried to say something but the reverb was too strong on that mic. Jeremy switched off the petal. Then the man cleared his throat.

Does anyone know anything about a loose goat in the church? He ate half the choir robes hanging on the walls in the chapel.

A lot of blank faces but then Jeremy remembered he had forgotten to shut the gate when he left this afternoon. Charlie must have heard the music and found his way to the old church. All the money they made from that gig they had to spend on buying new choir robes for the church.

That silly goat.

Thirty years have past and I wonder if Jeremy is still in his mom's basement. I wonder if he ever got a job or if he is still on the drums. I looked him up in Markbook and he is out of his mom's basement. He became a professional saxophone player. He is married and has one son.

Well Jeremy it's about time you joined the Hive. Maybe you can open an account called @pigmy-goat.

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This story is in response to @tygertyger's prompts from the electric dream writing contest post.

#1 your protagonist/s finds a small metal box covered in engraved symbols/ is there something inside? / what does it do ?

#2 a pigmy goat

#3 the story must include the sentence - “ He had a collection of edible underwear ”.

I hope you had some laughs traveling back with me to high school. If you want to write a story along these prompts then join @tygertyger's contest here. It might be fun to see what you come up with^^