“Where did you hear about this band?” Dad asked, handing the album to my mother.
“Oh, Rachel, it looks like very upsetting music,” Mom said. “Look at these song titles. ‘Cut Gut’? ‘I Ignore Your Screams’?”
“You just don’t understand it,” I said crossly.
“Honey, it’s not that. It’s that I don’t think we want to understand it,” Dad said. “You’re a bright girl. You don’t want to listen to music like this.”
“Well, maybe I do want to listen to it.” My voice was rising. “You don’t know the sort of things that I like. You don’t get who I am.”
My parents exchanged another seemingly telepathic look, which infuriated me.
“Just be careful,” Mom said. “Make sure you listen to all types of music until you find something you really like that speaks to you. You shouldn’t surround yourself with just one kind of influence. There are many perspectives in the world —”
“Oh, it’s just a stupid CD!” I interrupted. “It doesn’t mean anything. And I like it. So I am going to listen to it.”
I grabbed the CD from my mother’s hands and stormed out of the kitchen towards my bedroom. Melissa stuck her head out of her bedroom, a look of bewilderment on her face. Our family did not tend to argue.
I shut my door firmly, not allowing myself to slam it. I sat down on my bed and unwrapped the CD. I opened the jacket and was presented with the members of DED: five tall men in black, with long hair. To their waists. They were gloomily lit and silhouetted against a purple-skied wasteland. Their faces were in shadow.
There was a knock on my door. I knew it wasn’t my parents. I could hear them talking in low voices in the kitchen. When I muttered a reply to the knock, Melissa came in quietly and closed the door behind her.
“What happened?”
I sighed. “I bought a CD and Mom and Dad don’t like it.”
“Let me see!”
I showed her the album. Melissa opened the booklet. “They look like Dracula. But with long hair, like girls. Why do they have long hair like that?”
“Because it looks awesome.” I didn’t want to get frustrated with a nine-year-old.
“I don’t know any boys with hair like that,” Melissa said, studying the picture.
“That’s because you’re a kid.”
“I wish mine was that long,” she said, absently tugging on her short brown hair. “Can we hear the music?”
“Yes we can.” I put the disc in my stereo and pressed play. The first track was “Cut Gut.”
Immediately the guitars began to grind, fast and menacing. The drums sped. I couldn’t imagine a drummer playing that fast. The bass line was menacing and creepy. And then the voice came in. It was indecipherable. I could not understand a word he said, and there was no melody to it, but it dripped with an absolutely poisonous, cruel sound. I was transfixed.
Melissa pulled me out of my concentration. “I don’t like it,” she said, covering her ears. “He sounds like a monster. It sounds bad, Rachel. I don’t like it!” She shook her head. “Please turn it off.”
As the music stopped, my mother came in. She hadn’t even knocked.
“Melissa, go to your room for a little while, please,” she said. “I would like to talk to Rachel.”
My sister left immediately, and Mom closed the door behind her. “I want you to listen to me very carefully. I understand you’re upset.”
“Okay,” I replied.
“I understand that you’re going through something and you’re exploring different things, and your father and I are going to support you as long as we feel it’s healthy for you and that you’re expanding yourself. But I really must insist that you not . . . expose your sister to this kind of music. She’s too little to understand.” She sat down on the edge of my bed. “She gets nightmares. Please try to respect that what you find appealing might not be appropriate for someone who’s still little.”