Barno's Marathon

Barno felt every moment of his fifty-plus years. He felt like he had lived a century just over the past month. He never worked as hard as he had this October. He put in at least sixteen hours every day, and sometimes twenty. Now, with only few hours left on this All Hallows Eve, he looked at the waiting area where the final band was supposed to be awaiting their three hour set,. He saw only straw and discarded cups and the occasional roach left by old timers who preferred smoking to eating, detritus burying his dream.

The Harry Hoods were running late, and threatened to defeat the goal of the marathon. The band’s plane had been forced to land in Sacramento, and now they were driving furiously through pounding rain. They had hoped to get to the pavilion by 9 so they would have time to take the stage at ten. Barno glanced at his phone. It was 9:30.

The band on stage, Rag Hoisters, were reeling. A stalwart, the group of five had been on for at least one set of two hours for each of the past 33 days, despite the average age of the band members—some of whom had played at the Fillmore for Graham—being well past retirement. The Raucous roar was reduced to Muzak mumble.

Age was the enemy of this concert. It was meant to be a celebratory marathon, marking the ending of the social distancing guidelines and the third passing of the COVID crisis. But younger musicians had no interest in marathons, or playing antique rock, or even just being silly. If the older generation, survivors of a dark era, had rejoiced and whooped it up, the younger players knew only the dark era, and mistrusted frivolity and happiness.

Marathons, a staple of the twenties over a hundred years before, made a comeback. Dances, senate speeches, even flagpole sitting. People wanted to get down and get goofy. The ones who remembered the good times welcomed their return. Dance away the darkness!

People responded. Crowds might shrink to a few hundred in the early morning hours, but often swelled to 25,000 by early evening. It was no Woodstock, but the spirit was there.

Barno had meticulously planned the event for months. It was to begin September 27th, at 4:20 pm, so the record would be broken at midnight on Halloween. Why September 27th? Well, it was Meat Loaf’s birthday. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be there. But the only other choice was a vapid sitcom sort-of musician, played pop. Forget that. Why Halloween? Again, no particular reason. Barno had looked at the calendar and guessed that October was the best time of year to have a prolonged outdoor concert in the Sacramento Valley. The worst heat of summer would be past, and the cold rains of November would not be a problem. He had contacted the mad nerds of Guinness Book of World Records and they had carefully delineated the rules needed for the 33+ day continuous concert to make the record book. Audience of at least 100 people for the entire time. No breaks in the music of more than fifteen minutes for any reason. No band to play more than three hours a day, fifteen hours in a week. Signed waivers and releases. Other rules for medical staff, sanitation, food booths, and so on. Air conditioned tents, shelter in the event of rain. Guinness, anxious to avoid daft fools killing themselves in order to get in the Book, had strict health and safety requirements.

Barno had carefully seen to it that all the requirements were met. Guiness sent a team of four humoids to monitor the first 30 days, and now there were six of the nerds taking turns, watching to ensure that Barno didn’t cheat by letting fifteen minutes and one second go by without music. Barno had come in one slow morning at 4 am to see one of them carefully counting the audience. Bastards.

He signed up twenty four acts, most of them relics from the sixties and seventies, and not surprisingly, the sets contained a lot of covers of the Dead, Phish, and Widespread Panic—all songs that could easily be stretched into ninety minutes of noodling while the band’s answer to the Raging Moon snoozed over his snares. Stevie Ray or Mick Jagger would have electrified the audiences, but acts like those weren’t going to grind out marathons. Jagger would be doing good if he could last 33 minutes on stage these days. Twenty four bands seemed enough. It wasn’t.

The universe laughed at his plans. The weather had been unbearably hot for the first three weeks, scorching highs well over 100 and stifling nights in the 90s. Then the rains hit and lingered, cold, soaking, with flashes of lightning and a steady chill wind. Power outages and electrical shorts had been a problem: one night at 3 am a generator blew. They got the replacement up and running with twelve seconds to spare.

But now, the growing and excited crowd waved little LED-lit plastic jack o’lanterns and reporters and bloggers showed up to publicize the event. A pair of Guinness referees watched with gimlet eyes, and muttered to themselves that if it went just five days more they could burn a few of these nuts at the stake in celebration. Barno, weary beyond words, eyes blurring, did one last canvas of the surviving acts, looking for someone, anyone eligible to play. Only five of the twelve original bands remained, and all had hit their play limit for the week except for the band currently on stage, Rag Hoisters. They were doing a Tom Waits cover, “Better Off Without a Wife”. It was a good, sleepy way to wrap up the marathon. Barno fought nodding off.

At 10:00, however, they would hit their 15 hour limit. Barno glanced at the Guinness bean counters, who glanced back, eyebrows lifted. Barno nodded, lifted an index finger. Don’t give up. We will survive. It wasn’t the finger he wanted to use.

For the fifth time in the past 15 minutes, he rechecked his log. The Harry Hoods were were still splashing along I-5, hoping the road wasn’t flooded out. Barno pulled out his phone to call them. The phone buzzed as he was about to dial. It was Scott Carlson, head of the Hoods. He spoke with a nasal Fargo accent. “We’re fucking stuck, boss. Road’s covered at Willows, we gotta wait or go around. Either way, we won’t be there before midnight. Sorry, guy. Got someone to cover?”

Barno flipped the phone off. No, he didn’t have someone to fucking cover. He cussed himself out. He couldn’t blame the Hoods; they had told him of a big gig they had in Isla Vista October 29th before they signed on. He shouldn’t have slotted them for closing gig. That was his fault. The Hoods were good, the best of the bands. They were a natural choice for the big ending. And he knew it was kinda pointless to blame the weather. He’d bitched about the weather so much over the past month that he qualified for Canadian citizenship. The weather still sucked.

The schedule sat on the desk before him, mocking him. He went to sweep it off the desk into the dusty straw, and suddenly realized he had misread it.

There was a name on the list that showed an act that hadn’t played yet. A cover band with scant regard for copyright laws, but a band was a band. The schedule said they had signed up three hours earlier. How was it he didn’t know about it?

The name they chose was eyepopping enough that he was sure he would have noticed them before. Barno’s crazy memory dredged up an old Bloom County comic strip where the Rolling Stones showed up to play at an elementary school dance. Big bands loved their little jokes. Could this be such a crazy thing?

He got up and talked to the Guinness nerds first. Even if the musicians were there and ready to play, it wouldn’t matter unless the Guiness ails could verify that this group was on their lists, as well.

Heckle and Jeckle, that was Barno’s names for the nerds. Black eyes glittering, they pulled up their play list. Heckle, or maybe it was Jeckle, nodded at Barno. “They’re right there. Scheduled to start in...” he glanced at the time… “four minutes.” He exchanged a glance with his doppelganger. “You guys have a chance. Best of luck.” The British reserve suddenly crumbled. “I really want to see this band!”

Frantically, Barno leafed to his set schedule. He stared, disbelieving. Set start 10:00. Play until “as long as it takes.” Well, OK then. How could he have not noticed this? Age may have taken a toll, along with the hard work. He had been driving himself to distraction most of the long, exhausting day. Over a crisis that seemed quite imaginary. Sleep. Barno needed sleep.

Even reeling with fatigue, Barno managed a quick trot to backstage. He wanted to see this group himself. He reached the rest area just in time to have the lead singer of the Rag Hoisters step in front of him. “Did you see that band?” she demanded.

Confused, Barno replied, “I didn’t even know about them until now. How did they get away with naming themselves…?”

The singer shook her head, greyish braids coiling to strike. “I don’t know, but wait until you see them.” Her expression was a dazed smirk.

The opening, familiar chords from the stage sounded. Barno couldn’t dart out on stage during the performance, so he ran around to the front. Between his fatigue and a suddenly milling crowd, it only took twice as long.

He stumbled, gasping for air and struggling for balance, to the front row of the audience. The audience was stunned to silence, gasping in awe at the show on the stage. Never had Barno seen an audience so utterly still and yet completely enrapt.

He turned to look at the group, who were doing a beautiful cover. He couldn’t quite make out the four players behind the lead, but he could see the lead singer perfectly.

Trim, about 30, with a gigantic black beard, and a vast mushroom cloud of frizzy black hair. Despite the midnight dim, a pair of sunglasses. A hand brushed the guitar, seemingly playing it as an afterthought.

Even though he could see the singer perfectly, he seemed a bit … translucent.

Jerry grinned and threw Barno a wink. “Don’t you let this deal go down.” he whispered, and somehow Barno could hear it.

Jerry’s hand moved, more familiar chords. “...and the music never stopped.”