Struts & Frets (20 page)

“What's wrong?” she asked. “Are you feeling okay? You look kind of pale.”

“Can I just do an instrumental?” I asked.

“No way,” she said. “You promised.”

I nodded. I had promised. And anyway, as soon as I'd said it, I remembered Gramps poking me in the chest and demanding to know if I was serious about being a musician. Even though he wasn't there, this was how I could prove that I was serious. At least to myself.

Then the open mic began. Francine was a pretty good emcee. She was funny and everyone knew who she was. She gave everyone two minutes, more or less. She wouldn't cut someone off or anything, but if you didn't give some kind of limit, people would just go on forever. Like this girl Melissa that I sort of knew. She had a shaved head except for one purple lock and always wore ripped fishnet thigh-highs that
were way too small for her. Anyway, she was one of the first people up there. She busted into some spoken-word thing that started, “I am not a used condom you can flush down the toilet of your life.”

And people wondered why I hated open mics. It was mostly stuff like that. Goofy, recycled, angsty bullshit. One after another, they got up and rattled off their “outsider” rant, or their “secretly suffering on the inside” rant, or the ever-popular “I just got my heart broken and I'm thinking about killing myself” rant.

There was one guy who got up there, though, who I'd never seen before. He looked a little drunk, but he was kind of funny: “I met this girl and she was rich and pretty and she had a WHITE JEEP!!! We started dating and we had a good time and I screwed her in the WHITE JEEP!!! But then one day she got robbed. She was spending the night at my place and someone stole her WHITE JEEP!!! We broke up soon after that because I realized that I didn't really like that rich pretty girl. I liked—I loved—the WHITE JEEP!!!”

I don't know why, but that cracked me up. And it was nice to be distracted from my impending doom.

We were listening to some pimply dude in a black trenchcoat mutter about becoming a vampire when I suddenly felt Jen5 tense up next to me.

“What's wrong?” I whispered.

“Mrs. Russell has arrived,” she hissed, and there was a lot of conflict in her voice. Anger but also a kind of longing. And underneath, fear.

Mrs. Russell stood in the doorway, her nose wrinkled as she looked around at the big room of troubled teenagers. Her blond hair was pulled back in a tight bun that made her sharp features look even more angular. She wore some dark blue lawyer power suit and still held on to her laptop bag. I don't think anyone in the world would have stuck out more. Even Mr. Russell, who stood a little bit behind her in his powder-blue polo shirt and neatly combed gray hair, looked less out of place.

Rick, who was still sitting by the door, leaned over and said something to Mrs. Russell, probably something smart-ass, by the look on his face. He and Mrs. Russell had never gotten along. She looked down at him, her nose still scrunched up, but didn't reply to whatever he said.

“Come on,” whispered Jen5. “Let's go over there before Rick pisses her off.”

We weaved our way through the crowds to the door.

“Hi, Mom,” said Jen5.

“Jennifer.” Mrs. Russell nodded curtly.

“Hey, Dad,” she said, and gave him a quick hug.

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Russell,” I said.

“Samuel,” said Mrs. Russell. Mr. Russell just nodded and gave me a tight smile. When Mrs. Russell was around, he hardly ever spoke.

“It's going great, Mom,” said Jen5. “I've already sold two pieces.”

“How much?” said Mrs. Russell.

“What?” said Jen5. “Uh, twenty-five each.”

“Why so little?”

“Well, they only cost me a couple of bucks in supplies.”

“But your
time
, Jennifer,” said Mrs. Russell. “Time is your most precious commodity.”

“Okay,” she said in a meek voice.

“Glad you could come, Mr. and Mrs. Russell,” I said, making a point to bring Mr. Russell into the conversation. It bothered me how Jen5 and her mom talked to each other like he wasn't even there. “This is only the first one Francine's had and we've got a huge crowd.”

“I hear you'll be performing this evening,” said Mrs. Russell. “Up there.” She pointed with her chin at the tiny platform stage where some hippie dude was going on about how we were slowly killing the earth with pesticides.

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “Jennifer talked me into it.”

Mrs. Russell's mouth curled up a little at the edges, which
I think was supposed to look like a smile. For reasons I could never understand, Mrs. Russell had always liked me. Not that she was nice to me or anything, but she always seemed to make an effort to smile at me.

“Are you going to stick around for a little while, Mrs. Russell?” asked Rick.

“No,” she said. “I have to get back to the office.”

Rick said, “At nine o'clock on a Saturday?”

Mrs. Russell looked down at him and said, “Imagine that.”

“Aren't you going to look around at my stuff?” asked Jen5.

“The smoke in this place is disgusting.” Her mouth curled down at the ends, which for most people was a frown, but for her was just normal. “Really, Jennifer. I hope this artist phase of yours is over soon. You're so much better than this.” She turned to Mr. Russell, who seemed to be totally absorbed in the hippie guy's poem. “Jeffrey?”

“What?” he said, blinking like he was snapping out of a trance.

“Time to go,” she said.

“Ah,” he said. Then he turned and nodded to us, an apologetic smile on his face. “Sorry we couldn't stay longer. It looks lovely, Jennifer, and we're both very proud of you. Samuel, I'm sure you'll sound wonderful. And Richard . . . well, I'm sure you have contributed greatly to the security of
this event.” Then he nodded curtly and looked to Mrs. Russell to lead the way.

Mrs. Russell turned to go.

“Mom,” said Jen5. There was a weird shaking in her voice. Like she wanted to yell or cry or maybe tell her dad to get a backbone or maybe her mother to go to hell. But instead, she said, “Thanks for coming.”

Mrs. Russell shrugged. “For what it's worth.” Then she turned and left.

Jen5 stood and stared at the empty doorway. A muscle in her jaw twitched.

“Come here,” I said, pulling her to me.

She stiffened and resisted. “I'm fine.”

“I know,” I said, and kept pulling her closer.

“I don't need comforting,” she said.

“Of course,” I said, wrapped my arms around her.

“It's just my mom,” she said, but she started leaning into me.

“You're right,” I said. “I just wanted a hug.”

“Okay,” she sighed. She sank into my arms until her shoulder was against my chest and her head rested on my shoulder.

I don't know how long we stood like that in the back of Idiot Child. Long enough for me to lose track. I usually wasn't
into public displays of affection, but right then it was almost as if I forgot we were even in public. It was just the smell of her hair and the feel of her ribs expanding and contracting with breath beneath my hands. I thought about our conversation a few nights ago, about teaching each other strength and vulnerability. A couple of weeks ago, she would never have rested her head on
anybody's
shoulder, especially not in public. Maybe that meant it was working—teaching each other things, making each other better people.

But then a voice cut into my thoughts. A harsh female voice that said, “And last but not least, to close out Idiot Child's first ever open mic, is a good friend and great musician, Sammy Bojar.”

Now it was my turn to stiffen up.

“Go on,” whispered Jen5. “Sing me a song.” Then she pushed me toward the stage.

That walk through the crowd was how I imagined a walk down death row would feel. I sure felt like I was about to die, anyway. My knees locked up and I couldn't walk naturally, like I had forgotten how. I just barely remembered to grab my guitar from where I had been sitting, then shuffled the rest of the way up onto the platform. I sat down on a little stool and adjusted the mic.

“Umm,” I said, then looked out at the audience. It
wasn't that they looked hostile or anything. But they weren't exactly smiling, either, and there were about fifty of them. Fifty people who either knew me or knew someone who knew me and were probably thinking the exact same thing that I thought every time someone got up at an open mic, which was
Oh, God, here's another wannabe singer-songwriter
. I got dizzy and I suddenly felt cold and my vision was blurry. I thought I was going to pass out right there. There was no way I could do this. No way I could even talk, much less sing. My eyes bounced around at all the people sitting there staring up at me. They wouldn't like it. How could they possibly like it?

But then I saw Jen5 all the way in the back by the door. Her arms were wrapped around her torso and she was kind of leaning to one side so that one of her blond dreadlocks fell across her face. Seeing her there in that kilt-and-boots thing, she just looked so hot and sad all at once that I wanted to say forget it, grab her, and take off. But I couldn't do that, because she'd asked me to sing her a song.

Couldn't it be just as simple as that? Screw the rest of these people. I hardly knew them. They didn't even matter. I was just going to sing a song to her. She was learning to be more vulnerable. I guess it was time to show that I was learning to be a kick-ass combat ninja.

“Uh,” I said into the mic. “I was going to play some other song, but I'm not going to play that one now. This one's for my girl, who's standing in the back. It's called ‘No Pain.'”

It started off quiet, but really fast and tense, lots of muted chords.

Every time I think that I have lost myself,
It's always just a case of being someone else.
And every time I think that there is someone dead,
I know that it's all just the games in my head
.

No pain?
No pain
.

Make believe myself in a thirty-second drop.
I don't believe in fortune or my luck to stop.
Fantasized fictional tragedy to feel.
When all is said and done, they seem like no big deal
.

No pain?
No pain
.

Here at the bridge was where I opened it up to some big, loud, fat chords and really sang out.

Sometimes I get a little confused.
And sometimes I feel a little abused.
It's okay to want a little pain.
And it's okay to want to be insane.
But on a night like this, I could be in the stars.
On a night like this, I could be in your arms.
This is our chance for a little romance,
This is our time to feel a little fine,
Soon the pain is gonna come back, see?
But until then, it's just you and me
.

It went back to the original chords, but they were looser, messier now, with lots of little fills and riffs. Like it couldn't all be contained anymore.

Check my axle limping from a broken wheel.
Stick my fingers in my brain to cop a feel.
Radio heaven to nurse my darkest thoughts.
I cannot see beyond what I haven't got.
No pain?
No pain?
No pain?
No
. . .

The last chord rang out in the room. I realized that I'd just done it. I sung in front of about fifty of my most judgmental peers.

Not only that, I'd also enjoyed it.

Afterward, Jen5 and I just kind of sprawled out together on an old stuffed couch. We'd both been so tense and worried, and now it was all over and we could finally relax. Raef came over with a mug of coffee.

“Killer song, bro,” he said. “Here's my specialty. An Irish coffee.” Then he winked at me, handed me the mug, and went back to the counter.

“Do you know what's in that?” asked Jen5 as I took a sip.

I coughed and nearly spit it back out into the cup.

“Irish whiskey, I'm guessing?” I said.

So we shared the mug of Irish coffee and basked in the compliments of friends and acquaintances.

Kick-ass combat ninja, rock-star style.

applied. Mom wasn't putting on makeup or doing her hair, and she wasn't leaving the house. The problem was, she had a strong craving for a caramel macchiato. So of course I had to get it for her.