Slaughterhouse Zero, or: Smashing Pumpkins go Vonnegut

A note from the year 2000: This story needs an explanation. So many people have asked just what is with this story...and I'm sure more have thought it. So I'll explain. This story is not really funny. 
Basically, this story is the story of the Smashing Pumpkins told in the style of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse Five. Hence the constant repetition of the phrase "so it goes." I had to read Slaughterhouse Five for school, and the main character's name is Billy Pilgrim. From that moment on I kept replacing "Pilgrim" with "Corgan," even once in an essay...my teacher was confused. And so this story was born... SLAUGHTERHOUSE ZERO or TIME IS NEVER TIME AT ALL THIS IS A STORY SOMEWHAT IN THE TELEGRAPHIC SCHIZOPHRENIC MANNER OF SONGS  BY THE SMASHING PUMPKINS  WHERE THE MUSIC COMES FROM.  LOVE.  welcome to nowhere fast  nothing here ever lasts  nothing but memories  of what never was  All this happened, more or less. The music parts, anyway, are pretty much true. Their keyboardist did die in 1996, and their drummer was scapegoated, are swore to kill Billy. And so on. 
When he decided to write this story Billy went back to Chicago, and met up with his old guitarist. They decided to catch up, relive the good old days. James invited him over. James still wasn’t married. He lived with Bugg after all these years. Bugg was pretty much his life, and when Billy came Bugg decided Billy was the one that had taken James away from him for ten years, and told him so. James knew that he and Bugg had been torn apart by fame during the nineties, but knew Bugg would understand. After all, Bugg was a very perceptive dog. 
Billy, however, felt terrible. He promised Bugg he wouldn’t let this book glamourize his days as a rock star. And he kept his promise. It’s all here; hair loss, drug overdoses, criticism and all. And Bugg forgives Billy. 
So this story is a failure. Billy looked back, at the glory days. He wanted D’Arcy and James beside him, but it would never be. It had to be a failure. Believe in me.  It begins like this: 

Listen:  Billy Corgan has come unstuck in time. 
It ends like this: 
“Danke.”  * Listen: 
Billy Corgan has come unstuck in time. 
Billy has gone to sleep in 1979 and awakened in 1995. He has walked offstage in 2000 and climbed in a window in 1987. 
Billy was born in the sixties and raised in Chicago. His mother and father loved him, but he inherited his father’s pattern baldness. So it goes. 
When Billy was twenty-five he formed a rock group. He called them The Marked, because of a birthmark he had on his wrist. They didn’t make a lasting impression, however. His singing was bad, their playing was worse, and the idea died before it really got off the ground. So it goes. He kept trying, though. Billy met James Iha in a club one night and they decided to form a band. They had no drummer, so the two of them and a drum machine recorded doomy little goth pop songs in Billy’s father’s basement. Billy had moved back in with his father after both Billy’s band and his mother had died. So it goes. 
One night on the street Billy started fighting with a girl named D’Arcy, and never stopped. She became their bassist, though, and they called themselves the Smashing Pumpkins. They found a drummer later, but he didn’t end up lasting very long. So it goes. Billy and his band made it big. They toured all over, played Lollapalooza, went on Japanese TV. And German TV. And British TV. Even MTV. But later they split up and went their separate ways. So it goes. And now Billy is spastic in time, and has to live it all over again. 
Billy sometimes says he feels like an actor, having to play one time with The Marked and suck, then jumping to performing Soma and rocking. Each time he also has to check what his hair looks like. Sometimes it’s shaggy and ruby-coloured, or short and brown, or not there at all. 
*
Billy opened his eyes. He was sleeping in the trailer, and Jimmy and James were performing antics for a camera. It looked like everyone was going to see Billy sleeping in their video, Vieuphoria. I really don’t want to look stupid when I’m sleeping, thought Billy. A ray of sunshine slanted through the blinds of the trailer and glanced off Billy’s head. I never really liked sunny days. He looked around for D’Arcy. She was avoiding the camera, sitting in the back of the trailer, carefully and slowly applying ruby lipstick to her mouth. The trailer swayed back and forth as it moved, driving steadily to their next destination. Billy didn’t wonder he had fallen asleep, the swaying was rhythmical and gentle, like being rocked lovingly in the arms of sleep. 
*
Billy’s mother smiled at him and lifted him out of his crib. He smiled back and laughed a baby laugh as she rubbed his little jelly belly before putting him into his bath. He giggled and splashed in the water. 
*
“So, what keeps a band together?” asked the veejay. The band laughed uproariously, James ending with a girly giggle. They were in the studio, recording a new album. Billy couldn’t decide what to name it…Siamese Dream or The Search for the Yeti. With the benefit of hindsight due to his travels through time, Billy thought that maybe, just maybe, his life would have been more interesting if he had gone with the latter. No way to know now. He had named it Siamese Dream, because that was the way the album was structured. The name had been ripe. 
The veejay wouldn’t go away. Finally Butch and a recording assistant put on huge heads to pig costumes and started to dance. The veejay looked scared and said he had to go. The band didn’t stop him. 
Siamese Dream was going beautifully, mostly due to Butch’s insightful input as producer. Billy played his guitar and sang, and played and sang, and every once in a while Butch would call down from the sound booth, “Okay, let’s do a quick start.” Billy was feeling contentious. “I don’t know if that throws it off though.” 
“Come up here, I’ll show you.” 
Billy took off his guitar and trudged up to the sound booth. “What are you doing up here anyway?”  Butch pulled out his notes. It was an incredibly full page, covered in scribbled addendums. “Okay, look, we take this and put it over here, take this and put it over here, turn it upside down and run the whole thing backwards.”   Billy backed off. “Okay, Butch, whatever you say.” He went back down to his guitar and picked it up, then took his lucky pick in hand. It was machinegun blue. 
*
The porcelain dome above Billy shone with a kind of bluish gleam, like the barrel of a gun. The Melladorians were watching him, he knew, through the dome. Billy, you see, was a captive on the planet Melladora, of the vast oceans. He was the only member of the human race on Melladora, and they kept him in a sort of terrarium. Breathing underwater, living under glass. He gave human insight to them every once in a while, and they laughed at him. If you could call it laughter. 
*
“Er, um, la la dee, la la da…..” sang Billy. He had just arrived in his spastic time jumping in park, holding a guitar, playing what he now recognized as Mayonnaise. But he had no idea where he was. This was the kind of thing Billy hated about being unstuck in time. The band erupted in peals of laughter as Billy tried to fake his way through the last two bars. Laughter. That was something he hadn’t heard in a long time. The laughter died as Billy regained his place. So it goes. 
The song was over and the small crowd began to scatter. The sky was clouding over, silver rain on a grey afternoon. The band got back into their trailer just as it began to pour. The rain made Billy sad, made him think. But then again, he had never really liked sunny days. 
*
Billy guided the car over the silvery wet asphalt. He was going fast, but Sheila would guide him. It was an aching autobahn, headlights pointing at the dawn. And you could see, there was no one around. 
*
Melladore was a lonely place….at least until Lily came. 
She had been guided in by Mellotron, one of the Melladorians. Mellotron was the closest thing Billy had to a friend on Melladore, until Lily came. When Mellotron spoke it sounded like screaming, like a magpie, Billy thought, then laughed to himself. Melladora Magpie. 
Mellotron brought Lily as a companion to Billy. She could not have been more welcome, or more beautiful. When Billy first saw her he was a little frightened. After all, she was intimidatingly beautiful. If they hadn’t been the only two humans on the planet he might have resorted to stalking her. But since they were the only two humans on the planet he thought he might have some chance. Her hair was black beauty, her face was white as snow and her lips were red as cherry. 
*
Billy picked up the phone. It was D’Arcy, sounding worried. 
“D’Arcy, what’s wrong?” asked Billy. 
“It’s Jonathan, Billy,” said D’Arcy. “He’s dead.” 
Billy dropped the phone and rushed to Jonathan’s apartment. Their keyboardist was lying on the floor, a trail of ruby seeping from the corner of his mouth as the paramedics zipped him into the bag. So it goes. D’Arcy sat in a chair in the corner, her mascara running. Jimmy was being led away by the police, mumbling softly. 
“What’s happening here?” asked Billy, horrified. 
“Your friend overdosed on heroin. I’m sorry,” said the paramedic. 
“And Jimmy?” 
“He was doing the stuff too. The lady got here first after we called her. She looks pretty upset.”  Billy left the paramedic and went over to D’Arcy, embraced her and began to cry, silver tears gleaming in the light. 
*
Dots of pale yellow scattered like stars across the crowd. Billy played the solo to Soma, putting his heart into the notes, pulling the melody out of the silver strings. Then the song was over and Billy ran off the stage, his band not far behind him. As soon as they were off their manager approached them, looking worried. Oh no, thought Billy. What’s happened? 
“Bad news, guys,” said their manager. 
“What’s going on?” said D’Arcy. 
“There was a fatality at tonight’s show.”   “A---" said Billy. “---a what?” 
It turned out a seventeen year-old girl had been crowdsurfing and had been killed in the mosh pit. So it goes. The band would never forget it, and Billy would remember it for the rest of his life. 
In the trailer later that night Billy heard D’Arcy crying in the bathroom. He didn’t try to talk to her; after all, they were still fighting. But something died that night. It could have been the happiness that came with bringing music to people. Or it could have been something else. Either way, so it goes. 
Their next album was Adore. It was a sad album, and started out with a beautiful song about Sheila. Billy loved to drive, it gave him a feeling of control. 
*
Billy sat in the milk truck, ready to roll. James was standing behind it, wearing a dress. Billy was trying hard not to look in the rear-view mirror, because he knew he would see James and laugh. Instead he looked to the director. 
“Are you ready yet?” asked Billy. 
“Almost,” said the director. “Okay, action.” 
The cameras began to roll and Billy, singing, offered James a lift. They drove off, only to stop a few seconds later. 
“I’m not sure about this,” said Billy. 
“What do you mean?” said the director. 
“I don’t know how people will take this,” said Billy. “It’s not quite….right.” 
“Yeah,” said James through ruby lipstick. 
“Don’t worry about it guys,” said the director. “No one’s going to watch it anyway.” 
“Who hired this guy?” James said to Billy, under his breath. 
Billy shrugged and got ready to do the second take. 
*
Lily of the cherry lips, sitting on Billy’s cot. The Melladorians were watching, Billy knew it. He edged closer to Lily. 
“Lily,” he said softly. “My one and only.” 
She turned to him slowly. She was not a stupid girl. Billy smiled and realized that things were looking up.  *
Billy looked up. And got hit squarely in the eye with a styrofoam cup of water. He dashed over to the mike and cradled his guitar, speaking to the crowd. “Um, you can stop throwing the cups now. The joke is over.” 
He got hit with a cup. A wave of anger came over him and he picked up the cup and threw it back, water sloshing all over the stage. He grabbed another cup and hurled his rage at the crowd. It was no use. Those stupid germans weren’t going to stop with the cups. He went back to the mike. 
“Stoppen throwen zie…cuppens.” 
The hail of styrofoam cups began to thin. Billy took up his guitar and got ready to plunge into “Geek”, as the Germans called it. I guess the “U.S.A.” is implied, thought Billy. He looked over to James, ready to give the signal to begin, but James was still distracted by the flying cups, which had all but disappeared. James looked out into the crowd, pointed a finger at the sky. 
“Danke.”