So, the corpse of Layne Staley, former lead singer of Alice in Chains, was discovered decomposing in his bathroom. I’m pissed off. Not because I harbor some sort of deep nostalgia towards the grunge scene, but because of my tortured love tetrahedron with Alice in Chains and the brothers McMillan. Now Alice in Chains has won and the boys will never be mine.
I met the McMillan brothers when I was 12, in the summer of ‘95. Alice in Chains, that eponymous album, was flooding the bedrooms of middle-class white boys everywhere. The home of Jerry and Erik McMillan was no exception. They were one and three years older than me, respectively, and I couldn’t decide which I worshiped more. They were both incredibly tall, had long glossy hair and wore Adidas sneakers without laces, oversized flannel shirts and the same jeans (and probably underwear) for weeks on end. (treehouselodge.com)
I have no idea what interest I held for either of them. Me: braces, stirrup leggings, pastel T-shirts with cuddly lil’ animals on them. Yet somehow, I found myself hanging out at the McMillan house throughout that summer and thereafter. I sat wide-eyed in the corner, viewing the many fascinating things their room held: a stop sign Erik had run over with his car, the stash of pornography in the closet and Jerry’s collection of contraband which included throwing stars, butterfly knives, Cuban cigars and a blowtorch.
But most of all, there was the music. Erik and Jerry pulled out their father’s guitars and played the songs that were saturating the airwaves. Their wavering baritones, pride of Westwood Junior High’s boys’ chorus, warbled “Rooster” or “Heaven Beside You” as they thrashed out power chords on heavy distortion. I see this as the obvious root of my fetish for boys with guitars. They could be strumming Christian folk tunes for all I care?boy hands on guitar strings mesmerize me like a snake-charmer’s flute. I was allowed to watch them practice as long as I was quiet and didn’t offer opinions that might contradict theirs?not difficult, considering my classmates thought the Macarena was some fun stuff. I soaked up their knowledge like a sponge?Soundgarden was pretty cool, Creed was a bunch of lame posers, and all you ever needed to know was power chords if you wanted to play guitar. I solemnly presented my music collection for their approval and feigned indifference as Billy Joel, Prince and Michael Jackson were tossed into the garbage can or used as coasters for the massive quantities of Mountain Dew they consumed.
I set out to earn their admiration. I bought baggy jeans and Vans shoes. I purchased the Unplugged Live Alice in Chains CD, since they were coming to town, and I desperately wanted an invitation to go to the concert. Erik’s girlfriend, appropriately named Alice, who chain-smoked and wore the tiniest khaki shorts I’ve ever seen, bought the tickets. I memorized the lyrics, but when I tried to sing along during the next practice, I was silenced by a curt wave of Jerry’s hand. They headed out with the clueless foreign exchange student from across the street, leaving me to call my mom for a ride home.
Curse you in your grave, Layne Staley! Even as Jerry got a little older, discovered girls (me) and offered up roses and chocolate, I never felt like he liked me, at least not the way I wanted to be liked. The two of them doted on me, called me “Little Laura Flower,” brought me little trinkets. No! I wanted a seat on the couch, a guitar of my own, important and interesting opinions about strategic use of a drop-D tuning! So, I’ve been planning my comeback for a while. I have a guitar of my own now, and someday I will return to their house in a blaze of glory, hair streaming behind me and I will humble them with my god-like guitar skills. But I’ll never get to go to the Alice in Chains show.
Laura Becker is a first-year student in the College and a contributing editor of the Voice. To all you French collaborators, she hears you make great waiters.
