When I finally made it inside and up the stairs, Jared was waiting with his math book open and his headphones on. He was studying by himself, sitting cross-legged, muttering words too loudly. He couldn’t hear himself over the music pounding in his ears. I listened to him read: “Octagon. Nonagon. Decagon.”
He didn’t notice as I entered the room.
“A triangle is the only polygon that is coplanar . . . coplanar. What the hell is coplanar?”
“It means lying in the same plane,” I said.
Jared looked up, startled. He plucked a white headphone out of his ear.
“Man,” he said, “you scared me. I thought God was finally answering a question of mine. All this time and he finally decides to give me a geometry answer.”
“It’s just me,” I said.
He squinted behind his glasses.
“Your nose is red,” he said. “It looks like the end of a dick.”
“I went for a walk.”
“That’s great. Some people have to pass math placement tests so they don’t end up in Special Ed. But, you know, walking is great exercise.”
I lay back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. There were only a precious few nights left before my view would be the Arctic Circle, with trees and stars above it. I had just been getting used to the white paint of Jared’s ceiling.
“Have you asked your mom if we can play in the talent contest yet?”
“I’m waiting for the right time,” he said.
He closed the book and took the other headphone from his ear.
“I was wondering today,” he said.
“Everyone seems to be wondering,” I said.
“Don’t interrupt me.”
He closed his eyes a moment.
“I was wondering why you aren’t going back to school along with me.”
“Impossible,” I said.
“Why! You’re not being homeschooled anymore, so you should go to school when I do. What are you going to be, some kind of creepy-ass vagrant who wanders around and bothers people?”
“No, but . . .”
“Listen,” he interrupted. “At least then we’d each have a goddamn ally. That’s all you need really to survive in high school, I think, is one other person. Someone you can talk to while you walk down the hall. Without an ally, you’re a target.”
“Jared, I’m not sure that can work.”
“Why the hell not?”
I froze. We still had to practice for the show. That was the only thing left that I cared about. If I said something now, the whole night would be shot.
“I think only a guardian can register me for school,” I said hesitantly.
He adjusted his glasses. “Well, I’ll go get Janice to take care of it, then. I’ll do it right now if it’s such a big damn deal.”
He got up from the bed and started toward the door.
“Wait,” I said.
He turned around.
“Talk to her about the talent show first. You don’t want to overwhelm her. Don’t request everything at once.”
He looked out and down the hallway.
“Maybe you’re right. I don’t want her brain to explode.”
“Let’s just practice tonight,” I said. “Talk to her tomorrow.”
“What about geometry?” asked Jared. “We’ve got one more chapter.”
I followed his eyes to the bright blue book, sitting in the middle of the bed. I knew I didn’t have another lesson in me. It was all too cold and meaningless. I needed more than ever to play some loud music and not think of anything else. If I had possessed the power to do it, I would have wiped geometry off the planet. Poof! No more angles. No more vertices. No universal patterns for all mankind. Instead, I just shrugged and said, “Fuck geometry.”
Jared looked at me, his brow raised. He eventually smiled.
“Too bad we don’t need another song,” he said. “That would be a killer title.”
“Jared,” I said.
“What?”
“I’d like to go to school with you. Don’t think I wouldn’t. That’s not . . . what I meant to convey.”
“I know,” he said. “I get it. Nothing ever goes the way I want it to. I know how life works by now.”
He set about plugging in his guitar, letting the hair hang over his glasses as he twiddled knobs on the amplifier. I watched his fingers move deftly over the controls, putting everything back in a perfect balance.
28.
On the Verge of Something
BY MIDAFTERNOON THE NEXT DAY, NOTHING HAD been determined. The issue of the performance had not been raised. Our songs still needed improvement. And Jared’s condition was tenuous. We had a little over twenty-four hours until our hypothetical performance, and we were mired in confusion and doubt. But that didn’t stop us from piloting the Voyager into downtown North Branch that Wednesday to replace our old posters with the new ones that Meredith had created. Despite the uncertainty of everything else, at least our branding strategy could stay on track. Hype, said Jared, was everything.
The idea was to wallpaper the town. No post unpostered. We were using full color this time, maximizing all our efforts. Meredith was right about Jared’s undisclosed stash of money. He explained it all to me from the back of my bike. Every time he was in the hospital, his relatives on his dad’s side sent cards laden with cash. They knew about his father’s behavior, and they felt guilty. They assuaged this guilt by parting with crisp twenty-dollar bills. Jared had been saving the money for an escort service. But if our performance was a success, he decided, he might be able to grope some girls who didn’t charge. It was an investment of sorts.
His hands were steady on my back as I pedaled through a rare mild winter afternoon. The weather seemed to be tempering itself in response to Jared’s health. It must have been in the midforties, but Jared still wore a sweatshirt hood pulled snug over his head. The fabric covered half the lenses of his glasses, but there was a perfect space for his cigarette, which dangled on his lip, the breeze inflaming its embers. He had been trying to cut back on his smoking since the hospital visit, and this was his first cigarette in days. I could tell he was savoring it because every few puffs he actually moaned with pleasure.
“Ohhh,” he said, after expelling one cloud that made it all the way to my handlebars before whipping past my face. “Tar.”
We chose to poster parked cars first. Perfecting a quick set of three movements, we lifted the wiper blade with a gloved hand, inserted the overlarge poster, and slapped the blade back with a loud
whap
! The design faced down so that once you entered your car you’d be greeted with our artwork. Next we set our sights on the small stretches of quaint white fencing that the city had erected around the small public park. On one particular section, we made a continuous row of posters, twenty-five sheets long. Looking over the fencing from across the street, our name seemed to form a chant.
THE RASH THE RASH THE RASH THE RASH THE RASH.
After an hour or so, we had less than twenty left, and they needed to be placed in the most strategic of locales. We thought: fast-food restaurants, bar windows, grocery stores. Anything that people utilized daily and in large numbers. We were scouting and discussing when I spotted The Record Collector across the street. Specifically, I spotted the row of posters that lined the tall glass display window.
“We need one right there,” I said.
I pointed and Jared nudged the hood up over his glasses.
“Hell no,” he said. “The guy who runs that place is a complete ass-hat. He wouldn’t let me buy a Black Flag album once unless I came back with my mom.”
I looked in and saw the same overweight man with the stocking cap.
“We need our poster up with those other famous bands, side by side,” I said. “It’s the ideal last spot. You know it’s true.”
“We don’t want to be next to those bands,” said Jared. “They’re all corporate shills who write songs about missionary sex with their ladies.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The guy’s a total ass-hat,” Jared said, turning away from me.
“Well, I’m going in to ask,” I said.
I began my trek across the street, pushing my bike next to me.
“Dammit, Sebastian,” Jared said.
I didn’t turn around but I could already hear his sneakers scuffing behind me. I walked directly to the shop without breaking stride, leaving my bike by the window. Inside, the air was choked with the same flavor of incense as last time. The music was ear-splitting dissonant guitar sounds. The guy who had sold me my first CD was pressing price labels on discs by hand, and each neon orange sticker was crooked and misshapen. When I sidled up to the counter, he was trying to peel one off of his middle finger.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m on break right now.”
He looked down at me and then back to his thick finger.
“Well, I’m just inquiring about possibly hanging up our band’s poster in the window. We have a performance coming up, and we’re trying to draw a bit of a crowd.”
The man finally got the sticker off his finger and onto the plastic. He adjusted his stocking cap. “Listen up,” he said, “because I’ll say this one time: the display window is for labels that pay for advertising. Not for any poseur with a garage band. Okay? So sorry about that and everything.”
I was about to speak again, when Jared cut me off.
“It’s not for
our
band,” he said. “We just told the band we’d try to get their posters up around town. They’re a hard-core act from D.C. Maybe you heard of them. The Rash.”
“No,” he said, “I haven’t.”
He chuckled to himself.
“Oh, you haven’t?” Jared said. It was the most condescending voice I’d ever heard him use. “Wow, what is this? A music store for retirees? Is there anyone actually following the scene in here? Or are you into contemporary Christian mainly?”
“Hey,” he said. “Listen, you little gnome, I saw Fugazi play for a crowd of twenty people before your parents even did it. So give it a rest, and take a hike.”
“Okay, fine,” said Jared. “You were cool in 1991. But maybe you should try listening to new music once in a while. Music didn’t die when you turned thirty. This show is the coolest thing that ever happened to North Branch and you’re not going to put up a poster? Maybe you should work at a Wal-Mart.”
He was giving Jared his full attention now.
“I never even heard of their album,” he said. “It’s not in any of our catalogs.”
“Limited release seven-inch,” said Jared.
I knew enough to stay out of the way now. I had no idea what he was talking about. The guy pulled another neon sticker off his sheet and placed it on a CD. The sticker folded over itself, into a useless blob. Suddenly, he threw the sheet of stickers across the store. It fluttered to the ground somewhere in the Folk section.
“I keep telling the owner that we need to carry vinyl,” he said. “But the idiot won’t listen! Maybe if he had any taste we could actually do something cool with this place . . . It pisses me off to no end! I’m tired of it.”
“A real shame,” said Jared.
The guy looked down at us again. I turned my head so he wouldn’t recognize me.
“Gimme that stupid poster!” he said.
Jared handed him one. He held it up, reading it slowly from top to bottom.
“They’re playing a Methodist church?” he asked.
“Pure irony,” said Jared.
The guy nodded.
“Save some cred,” said Jared. “Support real music for once.”
The song on the stereo ended, leaving the small shop in silence. The large man stared at his window, full of professional banners and 3-D cardboard displays. There was a wistful look in his eyes. I wondered for a moment if he was going to cry.
“Dammit,” he said finally. “Fine. Put it up. What do I care? I got to get out of here anyway. I need to move to Des Moines or something.”
“Great decision,” said Jared. “You’re right back in the fold, man.”
We walked to the window and took down a poster of a half-naked woman on a beach. We put ours up in its place. Then we left our man grumbling to himself at the counter. Outside, we stood by my bike, just looking at our poster in the window. Our breath fogged the glass. Jared lit another cigarette. In spite of his initial protest I could tell he was pleased. Validated in some way. The poster looked not dissimilar to the others hanging up. As far as anyone else knew, we had an album for sale inside. Jared nodded his head to the record store clerk. The guy nodded back and mouthed something that looked like “right on.”
“Total ass-hat,” said Jared.
WE MADE SURE MY BIKE WAS SAFELY STOWED BACK in the garage a good hour before Janice came home from work that afternoon. We required at least a half hour for the next item on the agenda: a full dress rehearsal of our act. It would be complete with hairstyles, attire, and a run-through of the songs just as we would perform them at the talent show. But first, Jared sent me downstairs with a bottle of hair gel and a pair of scissors I was supposed to use to cut up my band shirt. I had pressed for a full explanation, but Jared only said, “Not now, Sebastian,” and then belched.
In the bathroom, I sat down on the toilet and jabbed the dull blade of the scissors into the fabric of my T-shirt until it tore and frayed. I cut a hole over my heart and one under my armpit to be used as an air vent. Then I poked one more at random that turned out to be directly over my right nipple. Next I squirted a handful of pink coagulated ooze into the cup of my palm and shaped my hair into a ridiculous tower that leaned to the left no matter how much I tried to straighten it. It wasn’t exactly the Mohawk that Jared had asked for; I didn’t know how to classify it, exactly. But I exited the bathroom and tried not to move my head as I took the stairs one at a time.
Back in Jared’s bedroom, I found my front man asleep in the fetal position at the end of his bed. He was drooling, and his ears were still red from the cold. His glasses had dropped off the side of the bed and onto the dark carpet below. I picked them up. Then I flipped on the humidifier on the other side of the room. I sat down on the bed and felt my hair shift to the side. I put a hand on Jared’s shoe. He looked so peaceful in repose. Not at all like the dour insult-spitting kid from a half hour ago.