Intentional Dissonance (5 page)

He’s afraid, but only a little, of the sound of knocking coming from his bedroom window. It could be a burglar or maybe some kind of assassin who knocks before they kill you; but Jon knows that his friends, the few that he has, only Emily and James really, they sometimes knock on it late at night if they want him to sneak out of the house.

Jon pulls back the curtain. Two girls are waving at him. One is Emily, who lives down the road from him. He has known her most of his life. They grew up on Blakefield Avenue together; this was their neighbourhood and once (and only once) he thought she had a crush on him. He knew he had a crush on her, also at least once. But that had passed. He doesn’t know the other girl, at all. She has white-blonde hair, almost silver. They giggle as he opens the window.

“Hey, Jon,” says Emily.

“Hey, Emily,” says Jon.

“We were wondering if you have any cigarettes?” asks Emily.

He does. He has an entire carton that he’s bought with his pocket money that month. He’d gotten an older boy to go into the supermarket to get them for him, in exchange for a box from the carton. Always worked.

“Who’s we?” says Jon, eyeing the second girl up and down.

“Shut up, Jon. Do you or don’t you, because we can walk to James’ house too, you know.”

“Sure, just give me a second,” says Jon.

Jon is excited but carefully, desperately nonchalant. He can hear the second girl asking Emily if he’s always like that but he ignores it; people always ask that. Of course members of the opposite sex knock on his bedroom window every night. Of course. Or so he tells himself, at least.

He scrambles back from the window to the pinewood cupboard in the corner of the room and opens the drawer at the bottom, taking out his treasure trove of things he does not want his parents to find, which includes some magazines with breasts in them, an unopened box of condoms, and the cigarettes.

“Here,” he says as he hands the box of cigarettes through the window.

“Thanks, Jon,” says Emily, “you’re the best.”

“I know.”

“Whatever.”

Now an awkward silence hangs between the three of them. The silver-haired one breaks it.

“Do you want to come and smoke with us?” she asks. Emily punches her in the arm.

“Ow!”

“What?”

“Don’t flirt with this dork, he’s my friend.”

“I wasn’t flirting, they’re his cigarettes, surely he’s allowed to come with us and smoke them.”

“Whatever.”

He holds the air in his lungs and then breathes out the words, “Ok, sure.”

He quickly gets dressed. It isn’t cold enough for shoes so he goes barefoot, in black jeans and a white t-shirt. It’s still summer for a while yet and the nights are hot and humid. He starts to sneak out of the house, a time-honoured practice, stepping slowly and softly on the carpet, opening his bedroom door little by little so it doesn’t squeak, the thin lance of light growing thicker until suddenly, he’s bathed in the glow pouring from the bathroom across the hall. He turns a corner and the light is lost. He makes his way down the passage in the dark, feeling the walls with his hand, the frames of the doors telling him how far along the passage he is until he gets to the lounge and fiddles with the glass door, unlocking it and sliding it back. If he hadn’t done it so many times, it might have made him sweat.

Finally, he’s outside and they are gone, with his cigarettes.

He knew this was going to happen.

Bitches: why the hell did Emily always have to be friends with them?

He sighs and prepares himself for the trip back into the house in the dark. Then he hears giggling coming from the bushes on the front lawn. He smiles as he walks past the trees and flowers over to the big mulberry bush his mother is so proud of and he finds them hiding behind it. They burst out laughing when they see him.

It sounds so loud.

“You guys are comedic geniuses but please stop, you’ll wake my parents up and they’re not famous for their sense of humour,” says Jon.

“Sowwy,” says Emily but she doesn’t seem to mean it, mainly because she crosses her eyes and says it in a stupid way.

“Grow up, Emily. Let’s go to the park, it’s just down the road. We can smoke there. We can’t be too long,” says Jon and he hopes he doesn’t sound like a pussy.

Cigarettes are magical for Jon right now. He enjoys the taboo of smoking more than the actual act of smoking itself. The secret. The knowledge of doing something inherently wrong flowing through his blood, making it pump hot in his temples. The leaves crunch underfoot on the green suburban sidewalk, loudly so they step into the road. There is no one on Blakefield Avenue but them and the light from the stars; the black tar stretches away from them like an endless river. Jon does not know why but he wonders if every road is connected to every other road. Maybe if he touches it, someone, somewhere, in London, Paris, or New York will know he has touched it and they will touch it too.

They are by the park now and they hop over the low wall separating the park from the rest of the world and they walk over to the swings, simple things made from old tires, where the three of them, Jon, Emily, and her friend sit and swing slowly back and forth. Emily slowly unwraps the clear plastic, then the gold foil, and then takes three cigarettes out and gives them one each, keeping one for herself. She looks at Jon expectantly. He reaches into his pocket and grabs empty air. He has forgotten the lighter. Jon feels a cold bucket of fear and failure pour over him. Fucking typical Jon. Way to fuck it up.

“I think I’ve got one,” says Emily, seeing him patting his pockets furiously.

“Cool, I hoped someone else had otherwise we would’ve been fucked,” says Jon. Just being casual. Nonchalant. That’s all. He does this all the time. Sure. She takes out a cheap plastic lighter and passes it to him. Steam and smog from the industrial part of town where the coal fields and the tannery are throw a haze over the stars on the edge of the horizon and the cicadas just make noise. He lights his cigarette and inhales, the smoke filling his lungs. He does not cough. He’s ever-so-slightly proud of this. He goes out every night with girls to smoke—he does this
all
the time. He keeps telling himself that. He passes the lighter back to Emily and she and her silver-haired friend light up.

And then, silence.

“Call me rude but if I’m going to be giving you cigarettes, I’d like to at least know your name,” says Jon, forcing the words out. Saying things in front of the silver haired girl feels like jumping off a cliff.

“Do you usually go to the park with girls you don’t know to smoke cigarettes?”

Jon laughs and says, “All the time, you’re the third lot tonight.” She laughs back. Nice one, Jon.

“I’m Michelle,” Michelle says.

“Hello, Michelle, I’m Jon,” Jon says.

They shake hands, awkwardly. Jon isn’t sure why but shaking hands does seem like the right thing to do. You can’t hug someone you’ve just met to say hello to them. Do people do that? Jon doesn’t know.

“Michelle’s just moved here, she’s in my class,” says Emily.

“I see,” says Jon. Jon strokes an imaginary beard.

The girls giggle at this and then there’s another one of those moments of silence when the only sound is the swings creaking. Jon feels he is far too good at creating silence.

“What test are you writing tomorrow?” Emily asks.

“Maths,” says Jon.

“Don’t you mean, ‘math’? Thank God you aren’t writing English,” says Michelle.

“Whatever,” says Jon.

The girls giggle at him. He inhales smoke again and still, he does not cough. Lately, Jon is becoming conscious of the fact that he goes through phases of wanting everyone to notice him. He would try and be funny when he wanted that to happen and then he would very quickly find himself wanting everyone to forget him and he would be quiet when he wanted that to happen instead.

“Aren’t you guys also writing tests?” asks Jon.

“No, we finished today, that’s why we’re out,” says Emily.

“That’s lucky,” says Jon.

They are quiet again and they all start to swing slowly. The world slows for one precious, stretched out moment and they hang in the air, legs out, leaning into gravity somewhere under the moonlight. For that one brief moment, it feels like anything is possible, that Jon can find a girl he likes, become a famous guitar player or a graphic designer (his second choice), anything, anything at all.

The possibilities are endless.

And now Jon finds Michelle strange and new and attractive and as he thinks that, he falls in love with her. Perhaps it is her laugh or her smile or something in her eyes. Whatever it is, Jon falls.

Jon decides in that very moment that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. She has barely spoken more than a few words but there is something in the air, something about her, that makes Jon’s heart beat faster when he looks at her.

It’s a strange, weird love but it’s true.

“So you’re on holiday already?” Jon asks, his voice breaking a little. His heart makes the words fall like water from his mouth and they sound strange to him, like someone’s playing him a recording of his own voice.

“Yes. Well, no, we still have to go to school tomorrow but it’s not like we’ll be doing anything, just filling up the time.” says Michelle. She sighs and he worries that she can read minds or knows exactly what he’s like inside and how nervous he suddenly is.

“I wish I had tomorrow off, instead of this test. I’d stay home and smoke cigarettes and read comic books all day,” says Jon.

“You read comic books?” Michelle asks, stifling a laugh. Emily punches her arm again, and Michelle turns around and tells Emily to shush.

“Yes, I read comic books,” says Jon. He likes her. Maybe she likes comic books.

“I read comic books,” says Michelle, smiling at Jon through the cigarette. And then she winks at him.

Chapter 5

Now

A pack of razor blades, unopened.

Jon has finished his magic show at the club, to raucous applause. He didn’t see her during the performance but Emily is in the crowd, in some fancy cream bodice-hugging Victorian dress she no doubt has pilfered from a museum. He finishes puking into the toilet in the back room and pauses in the bathroom. The walls are covered in graffiti and thin and he can hear people discussing how he pulled off his tricks.

“It’s a series of lasers and Kerako® Tangi-Surfaces, the whole place is rigged with them and all he does is trigger them off a standard midi-controller he has sewn into the inside of his clothing. There’s obviously also some kind of hallucinogen in the drinks or pumped through the vents. Simple really,” says the disembodied voice.

Jon allows himself a smile. They have no idea just how simple it is. He comes out the side entrance, wearing a black shirt and jacket, blue denim jeans; different clothes so that less people will recognise him from the stage. Emily knows this is where he escapes from and runs up to him and hugs him because no matter how many times she sees his illusions, she’s still impressed every time. And she knows that what he has to feel to make it all work kills him a little inside, even if he won’t let on. Some part of her wonders how much of him is left to kill but she doesn’t say it. She never says it.

“Hey, sexy lady.” One of the drunk patrons bumps into her, his lower face green with absinthe and his eyes wild from something else. She brushes him off with practiced ease.

“Don’t ignore me, bitch. You wouldn’t want to ignore me,” says the fat, filthy random. He comes back for more and now his hands are on her breasts while she’s trying to shove him away. He’s leering at her, ignoring Jon, who is at this very second standing right beside her.

Jon doesn’t mind what other people do to him. Other people are scum and he does his best to ignore them and let them happen to themselves. But now, someone is bothering Emily and Emily is one of the two people in the world who actually matter to him. For a moment, this dirty, drunk fool has broken something inside Jon and he doesn’t hold back. For someone who has trouble getting along with people or knowing how to interact with them, Jon knows a surprising amount about how their minds work and how to break them. He grabs the swaying drunk by the jacket and pulls him close, then grabs his wrist and twists it. Jon uses his other hand to grab the guy’s head and whips it back, whispering in his ear, “You should kill yourself.”

“Ge’off, go do some fucking card tricks and leave me and the lady alone!” yells the punter. Jon keeps whispering and the whispering gets faster and faster in the man’s ear.

“I will, but before I do, I need you to remember to kill yourself. Seriously. Kill yourself. Later on, when this is over, you’ll be wondering what I hoped to accomplish by telling you this. What I wanted to accomplish is this: I want you to really, seriously consider killing yourself. And every time you stop yourself and think that it’s silly, when you’re seriously asking yourself, ‘Why the hell would I want to kill myself?’ I want you to ask yourself. ‘Why not?’ I want the thought to slowly sneak its way back into your mind when you try to sleep tonight. Note that I said try. Because you won’t be able to. The idea of killing yourself will slowly become more and more real until it becomes not an idea but an inevitability. And if you don’t kill yourself tonight by some small miracle, then when you wake up, as you’re making breakfast and nursing your hangover, replaying the night’s events in your mind, the idea of taking a steak knife to your own throat will pop-up. You can pretend it won’t, but we both know it will, just because I’m saying it, just because you’re thinking of it right now. Right now. Tomorrow morning. Every night and every morning until you end your miserable, pathetic existence. A man becomes his thoughts and these are now yours. I give them to you. Now run away.”