“I had no idea you knew who Johnnie McKenna was,” I told her. “I thought you were too—”
“Too angry?” she suggested, teasing, but good-natured.
“Too cool,” I replied at last. By then, the band had gone off, and they’d started playing DJ music on the speakers. I had to yell in her ear.
“There’s a lot you can’t tell about a person when you only see them between second and third periods,” said Carrie, grabbing my shoulder so she could yell into my ear too. The way she grabbed my body felt, not flirtatious, but like a privilege. Like we were suddenly and certifiably cool with each other.
She introduced me to her friends. As soon as she said their names, they passed into and straight out of my memory. It didn’t seem to matter. They didn’t want to know anything about me; just took me in as Carrie’s friend. In the break between bands, the crowd closed in. We stood against each other, shoulder to shoulder, and staved off the intruders.
“They’re brutal,” complained a tall, loud kid with shiny skin whose name might have been Roger or Ryan or Brian or Broderick. I suspected he might be gay, but I felt weird asking.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “They don’t wait around for the openers, but they still think they deserve the front row.”
“Deserving has nothing to do with it,” said Roger/Ryan/ Brian/Broderick. “It’s simply that these people don’t know how to dance, or they refuse to. If you’re going to be in Miss Johnnie’s sight range, you might as well show her you’re here to enjoy it.” He said it nicely, though.
I winced as someone’s elbow dug into my lung.
“That’s actually sort of brilliant,” I told him.
“Well, aren’t you sweet.”
“Shut up!” Carrie squeezed between us and draped one arm across the back of each of our necks. “I think I see her drummer!”
A moment later, Isaac Humbert Humbert, Johnnie’s longtime percussionist and touring partner, walked onstage and seated himself nonchalantly behind the drum kit. He was followed by a stocky, diminutive woman, her green and blue hair glowing in the stage lights. Her lip-ring sparkled like a star about to go nova. I’d seen a million pictures of Johnnie McKenna, but now that she was twenty feet in front of me, this small shape didn’t look as though she could sound anything like the singer I knew.
In one fluid motion, she shouldered on her guitar strap and sauntered up to the microphone stand. She touched her lips to it and gave a nervous giggle.
“You guys, stop staring at me!” she said. “I’m just up here, and you’re just watching. Isn’t that weird? I mean, y’all already know the songs. You don’t need to listen to li’l ol’ me. Now let’s just have some fun.” She plucked one string and twisted its peg, bending the note until it warped into another note entirely. The stage lighting changed from blue to red to a show’s-over amber. Not even the lighting guy knew what to make of her. “You ready?” she said.
The audience cheered. We cheered. She giggled again.
“Oh, I was asking Humbert,” said Johnnie. “But you know what? Never mind.”
And she brought her fist down into her guitar strings, and she launched right into the first song. Humbert was right on top of her. Both his drum sticks crashed into the snare drum, producing the appropriate earthquake.
And then the whole concert hall was dancing.
*
I could just tell you the titles of all the songs she played, if that’s what you want to know. There’s no possible way to describe how good that concert was. When I woke up the next morning, I would still remember every song she sang. I could hear the concert in my head, the intro music and whatever she said before each song, clearer even than the album that I’d listened to thousands of times.
But that night, Johnnie McKenna almost didn’t need to be on stage. The music was bouncing off the walls and the audience was absorbing it and we were at the very center of the wild rumpus: Carrie Moss swinging her skirts, thrashing her hair, letting the music possess her body so completely that watching her dance was like watching the song itself dance. Roger/Ryan/Brian/Broderick, who could twirl around and wave his long fingers in the air like he was performing magic tricks. This blond girl, thin and lithe, who in another world would be a cheerleader, and the head of the pack; here she was just a bouncing, getting-down kid, the same as the rest of us. And the girl they kept calling Little Jen, who wasn’t that little but was short, with a solid, hefty-but-not-fat body, balloons of hips and the biggest breasts I had ever seen. It was hard not to watch them, as if each one were a distinct member of our crew. She wore a strapless tube top, and they were creeping up out of it like twin sunsets in reverse. When she danced, they moved independently, always a second ahead of the rest of her or behind her. When they jiggled, it was like they were trying to catch up. She seemed amused by the whole thing. Her head faced downward as she danced, shaking her hair, and there was a kind of synchronicity between them and her, as if she were dancing with them, or like she just wanted to appreciate the sight of her own mammaries. I’d always thought that girls were ashamed of their boobs, or that they wanted to hide them.
She glanced up at me during a song and caught me looking. After that, she shifted away. I felt embarrassed, stunned, as if I’d been doing something wrong all along and it took her looking at me to remind me of that.
After the show was done, we all crossed into the street to Lorenzo’s Pizza. Almost everyone else got slices. I just wanted a drink. I got a Mountain Dew, packed with caffeine, because I didn’t want this night to end. Roger/Ryan/Brian/Broderick wolfed his down and then vanished around the corner with this big goth guy with an arrowhead piercing through his nose. They were holding hands. I guess I was right.
Little Jen was singularly occupied with her pizza. Carrie and I were next to each other at the bar, her huge slices spread in front of her, me sitting on a barstool, Carrie standing (I offered her my seat, but she said pizza tasted better when you stood). She was eating, too. I was babbling.
“I never go out to concerts,” I said. “But now I feel like I really should. I mean—it was so good. We were all so good at it.”
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” Carrie remarked. “You know how musicians say that they only really feel alive when they’re playing a show? I think it’s the same for some people in the audience. Like, there should be professional concert watchers.”
It was amazing how human Carrie was tonight. All these bits of her that never came out in school. Her clothes, sure, but also the way she said things. The more we talked, the more parts of her came out. And the more we talked, the more Little Jen warmed to me, too. Not that she spoke directly to me, but I could see, as soon as my eyes stopped being magnetically attuned to her, she stopped being afraid to look at me. I didn’t know anything about these people, or the kind of lives they led, but I could see myself becoming a part of it.
Eventually, R/R/B/B returned (“The guy was so strange,” he confided to us. “He was such a gentle kisser, but his ringtone kept going off, and it was Metallica”) and we all decided we should head off. They were going back to the Yards, too, though not nearly as far into the Yards as I lived. But Carrie had a car and gave me a ride part way, knocking a good dozen subway stops off my route. That way, she said, I could bypass the slow part of the ride, and we could all talk longer.
“I hope this helps,” she said as she pulled up in front of the hospital-blue subway logo.
“The ride or tonight?” I said. Before she could reply, I answered myself—“It does,” I said, “more than you know”—and I hopped out, flashing her a three-quarters smile just before I slammed the door and ran for the arriving train. The doors slid shut and only then did it occur to me just how happy I was, how right it felt to be with them, how I felt like I could say anything and they’d understand me, or even if they didn’t they’d still think I was cool—and how long it had been since I’d felt anywhere near that happy except for when I’d first met Larissa.
Larissa. I realized with a shock, I hadn’t thought of her all night.
t.k.o.
In the morning, my body lodged a protest against the previous night. Muscles aching, bones raw. The only thing that made it better was the cold—the weather had finally stopped messing around with this half-assed fall and finally started being winter for real.
I roused myself, forcing my joints to move. It slowly dawned on me that (a) I’d slept in my clothes, and (b) I hadn’t even made it under the sheets. A thin trail of loogie marked the spot atop the blankets where my head had been. It didn’t matter. I felt great. Electric. Hope rolled through me, hope for the future. I couldn’t wait until school Monday. I hadn’t felt this good since Larissa and I had stopped talking.
Larissa. Oh no.
I had Hebrew School today.
*
I wanted to shower but there wasn’t time. I grabbed a handful of Cheerios (dry) and ran out to the car with my mom. She tried to ask how my night had been but I shrugged off her questions. She didn’t even have on the good radio station. Some people never learn.
I got there moments before class started, rare for me. People sped past me in the hallway like a Black Friday sale. The shelves packed full, the quantities depleting. We could run each other over, trample ourselves to death. Where are you going? Why are you rushing to class? It’s only class. All you’re gonna do is sit there.
But there was something to it, this rushing, and I was feeling it too. An impatience in the air. Firm and juicy, about to explode. Big things were happening.
A hand closed on my arm, yanking me out of my path. “Arty.” The name breathed into my ear. It reminded me of last night.
But then I gulped, cause I was face to face with Larissa.
She had never looked so sharp. Her face a tight mask, hair pulled even tighter, and so shiny. Sleek, clingy, down-to-business clothes. A skirt and tights. Boots too. Was she dressing like this for somebody specific, or for herself? It had only been a few weeks since we stopped talking. It wasn’t that long. It’s been forever. She was still a mystery.
“I needed to talk to you,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “G-d, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to go without you. But I also didn’t want to call, and then it was already Saturday, and Johnnie McKenna kind of changed my life. Not her but it. Seeing her. I should’ve let you know, I should’ve warned you—”
“Johnnie McKenna?” Larissa shot me a puzzled look. “Where did you see her? On TV?”
“No, in person.”
“Like on the street?” She sounded impatient. She was not getting it.
“At the T.L.A.”
“Your parents let you go into the city alone?!” She was incredulous.
“No one. I was there by myself. But I met all these people, once I was there...”
“Wait! Hold on, Arthur,” she said, her face darkening. “I really need to tell you something, something important.”
I was lost too. Was this about us? Were we speaking again? Did she miss me? Had she dumped Damon? Did she need to confide in me about him?
“It’s Mitch,” she said. “I saw him, this morning. He’s here, Arty. In school. He dropped out of Hebrew School but he’s come back.”
The life drained out of me. I honestly thought I’d never see him again.
“Don’t worry, okay?” She squeezed my forearm. “I’m fine. I’m just not going to say anything. I’m going to pretend he doesn’t exist. I just wanted to tell you so you don’t get worried for me.”
That warmth in my ear. I wanted it to stay there. I wanted us to be together, and us to be us, and for this whole Mitch thing to never enter our lives again.
“And,” she breathed, “so you don’t do anything stupid, okay, Arty?”
I nodded. In spite of myself, I nodded—dumbly, obediently. But before I could ask if she was talking to me again, or if she wanted me to do anything like stick by her side or have a talking to with him, she had gone. She was darting into her room, the good-Hebrew-speakers room. And my ear was getting cold.
The rumor mill in first-period remedial Hebrew confirmed it. Mitch was in school today. Someone said he was dating a new girl—a freshman or a senior, one of those—and he’d come to hang out with her. Somebody else said, his parents were letting him quit school and only study the things he wanted to. Then someone asked, if that was true, why would he come to Hebrew School, and nobody had an answer to that.
No one seemed to know why he’d dropped out in the first place. “Was he just sick of Hebrew School?” I whispered to Vicky, this girl from Bridleton who seemed to know what she was talking about.
“Nah,” she whispered back. “Some bad breakup. This girl was giving him too much drama. He told his parents, and, like, that was it. They took him out. They didn’t question him about it or anything.” She spoke in an awed, he’s-so-lucky way, as though she couldn’t wait until her own parents let her ditch Hebrew School, too. I resisted the argument. Clearly, she was a non-nerd. Not one of us.
First period was torture. I mean, it was always torture, but especially now. Each question the teacher asked grated on my nerves a little more.
“What is the word in Hebrew for restaurant?”
“I achalti. You achalta. He or she does, what? Anyone?”
“In what thing do you make the food warm? Who knows? Anyone? Who know this?”
There was something fundamentally messed up about having someone who couldn’t speak fluent English trying to instruct us to speak another language. All year I wanted to protest to a higher authority, or, instead of my homework, hand her a copy of The Elements of Style, but this wasn’t a democracy. This wasn’t even real high school.
For the last ten minutes of class, we had to speak only in Hebrew. We went around in a circle and we were each supposed to tell the class what we were looking forward to in the coming week. And I know that I’d just had the best night ever and I had the greatest of expectations for the week ahead—but just then, I couldn’t remember that at all. Any of it. My mind was like a bleak, blank canvas.
“My boyfriend takes me to his box at the Eagles game,” said one girl in Hebrew. “I do not like the game. But I like him, and it is fun to wear nice clothes.”
“I will go to the house of my father. We haven’t seen him in a month. We will eat pizza every night,” said another.
“The new episode of House Full of Models,” said a third. (She said the title of the show in English.) “My favorite two women are having a starve-off.” (She said “starve-off” in English, too.)
“Shoom davar,” I said.
Nothing.
The teacher broke into English.
“You do not have to say what you are in truth going to do this week, if the words you do not know. You may make up a fanciful story—”
“Lo. Ain shum davar ba olam hazeh sheh ani rotzeh laasot.”
No. There is nothing in this world that I want to do.
The teacher licked her lips. She was lost, confused. She raised her coffee mug and took a deep hit from it. I guess she hadn’t expected this much nihilism in first period.
The other kids were staring at me in horror. My words weren’t that hard to understand. I think they were just shocked that someone was taking the assignment seriously.
Her lips shook, wavered, then bravely tried to reassemble themselves into a normal shape. “This is so sad, Asher,” she said, using my Hebrew name, the one most of my teachers didn’t even bother with anymore. “I hope for you to find many beautiful surprises.”
I half-closed my eyes and nodded, feeling bad that there was probably nothing she could do to make me feel better.
The bell rang, and I bolted from my seat as fast as I could. In sixth grade, when we switched from elementary to middle school, I hated almost everything, but the one thing that made me feel better was switching classes every period. It was like a chance to reinvent yourself every time you left the room.
As so
on as I left the room, I ran straight into Mitch Martin.
I wasn’t prepared for this. In my head, this exact moment happened constantly, on repeat. In nightmares, or in revenge fantasies, but never like this. It had been so long that I’d forgotten what he looked like for real, only the way that my mind had redrawn and reconfigured him as being. His nefarious-looking stubble was still mostly white fluff. The rolls of fat under his chin were just babyfat.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Arty! My good man, how pleasant to see you.” Mitch’s arm wrapped around my shoulders, gripped my neck hard. “I’m just passing through town to visit a girl.”
“Too bad for the girl.”
I tried to pull away. His grip was too tight.
“You aren’t mad about Larissa and me, are you? It’s okay if you are. I mean, we got pretty intense. Not that you’d know anything about that, of course, because you’re her cuddly little man-friend who’d never dream of touching her, but that every other guy in the world just can’t wait to—”
“Rape her?” I suggested.
Mitch turned white. I had never seen anyone turn that pale. The color all left his face like he was a slaughtered animal being drained of blood. I might be her platonic snuggle-bunny (a role which, in the previous incarnation of our friendship, I would have been honored to call myself), but Mitch was just wrong. His cheeks jowled and the corners of his mouth dropped and his tongue puffed up, like he wanted to say something but his body was in too much shock to let it out.