(By the time we started wearing earplugs, in our late twenties, it was too late to turn back the significant hearing loss we’d incurred, Thomas’s much worse than mine due to the daily sonic pummeling of the bands that he led during the years I was in college and law school. When Republic of Suffering, his most successful touring concern, came to D.C. during my clerkship year, we stayed up deep into the night in my apartment, catching up. Though by then he’d modified his policy of strict abstinence, Tom probably drank one beer for every three of mine, and I was, and still am, impressed and puzzled by the fact that he hadn’t taken to booze or drugs as a default response to life’s typical setbacks. At 4:00 a.m. I heard a faint pounding from my front door. It was the guy from the next apartment over, a muscled young political aide with perpetually wet hair. We were, he said, shouting at the top of our lungs. Didn’t we know it was four in the morning? He had to be up in an hour. We were sorry. When I spoke to Thomas in a quieter voice, I saw in his eyes the effort required to follow along. His responses grew terse and general, like those of someone responding tentatively to questions in a foreign language, and we soon gave up and went to bed.)

“Do you mind if I get back in there?” Thomas said with a longing glance toward the pit.

“Yeah, no,” I said. “I mean, of course. Get me a tooth.”

He vanished and my head started to throb, which, at that moment, I found preferable to the alien light-headedness I’d been experiencing. I hadn’t quite realized until then that every one of Execution of Babyface’s songs was exactly the same. With that revelation came an unlikely surge in desire to join their thick-skulled brotherhood.

“Oof, dude,” said a familiar female voice next to me.

“You caused this,” I said.

“Aw, let Mama kiss it,” Karen said.

I waved her away, though I didn’t think she was serious.

“I can’t see shit,” I said.

“Bald guys playing instruments. Bald guys punching each other. You’re not missing much.”

“At least the music’s good.”

“They’re a little math-y, don’t you think? Not a lot of human stuff.”

“The lyrics are actually…”

“Yeah, right, I know. But it’s kind of a waste, don’t you think?”

We let the music hit us.

“It’s funny that you can’t see,” Karen said, very close to my ear. I was worried that she really might kiss me. Then, wetly, nearly inside my head: “You’re just some fucking tourist, aren’t you?”

I tried to focus on her.

“Maybe,” I said. “So?”