In high school, I had this friend. His name was Reuben. Reuben played drums. I wanted to start a band with Reuben but he didn't want to move his drums out of the back of his mom's garage. Then, in our twenties, he found out I had a studio space on the third floor of my first place and he came over and, with absolutely no regard for the owner of that drum set (can't remember their name), he completely rearranged the cymbal positioning and head tunings. I'm talking like this motherfucker moved the ride over the snare. Not a huge deal, you could always move cymbals back but this cat was retuning the fucking drums, readjusting heights, that kind of shit.
Now I stood by and just watched because I was higher than a nine eleven jumper, I wasn't saying shit. Just let Ruby play his Aphex-Twin-via-jazz beats in the manner that had become his signature style: "I haven't practiced since junior high."
He hadn't. Like the dude just kept his drums in the back of his mom's garage refusing to ever move them because his dad once told him they were vintage, which they were, but that left young Ruby under the impression that they were super valuable. And they actually would've been, too, if the hardware wasn't rusted, the cymbals weren't tarnished, the heads and snares replaced once in a fucking while, and just generally taken care of instead of sitting in an uninsulated garage year-round, collecting dust and serving as a parking bumper for his mom's hatchback; every once in a while he would find a new stuffed animal or Barbie to hang by the neck from the hardware, that was how much attention he paid to his drums.
This doesn't stop Scumbag Chris from seeing Ruby for the rube he is when he's over one night fucking up other people's drums because he's an expert; Scumbag Chris sells Ruby his old double-kick pedal, a rusted piece of shit that had been sitting in somebody's basement since before the earth cooled. Ruby bought the damned thing and, while Scumbag Chris ran off to spend the money on weed and/or Jägermeister, resolved to fix it that night by going down into my apartment and using my entire can of WD-40 and trying to bang the rusted parts loose on my tile floor until I got up and said, "Reuben, knock it off."
He says, "It's not fixed yet!"
I tell him, "I don't give a shit if it's fixed, dude," pointing at the huge crater in my tile, "you're fucking up my fucking floor!"
He whines, "I didn't do that!"*
I tell him, "Yes, you did! You're the only person who's been banging a piece of metal against my fucking linoleum in the last five minutes!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Bullshit, dude." I motioned for him to stand. "Come on, man, it reeks of WD-40 in here and I want to go to the bar."
"I'm not done yet!"
"You are now. You're going to have work on that at home or something, man. I'm leaving."
I lead him outside and I never saw him again.
That story about my friend, Reuben, was more interesting than the D. Brian's Reuben.
* Once, I was briefly involved with this polyamorous furry enthusiast who was into anal play and she gave me an infected prostate and, after I took care of that, I told her we couldn't do butt stuff anymore and she said, "You can't blame that on me!"
I told her, "I'm not 'blaming' anybody but you are the only person who's been up there in the last few months."
She left that night and I never saw her again.
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