WON’T EVEN HAVE A GIRLFRIEND EVER PROBABLY WES: wes apparently
PERMANENT VIRGIN WES: maybe just start with hooking up with a girl first, except he can’t even manage that
BAD FRIEND WES: yup yup yup to all of that hey have you ever noticed how wes thinks he’s a great friend despite being the kind of best friend who feels and acts superior to you
TTCOPB WES: trying to concentrate here
BAD FRIEND WES: in his head he’s constantly dicking on his best friend for having no sense of social cues or whatever which is ironic because he also has zero ability with social cues and at least corey is always honest about who he is and not pretending to be a fake better version of himself
WON’T EVEN HAVE A GIRLFRIEND EVER PROBABLY WES: yeah girls can smell the creepy dishonesty coming off of wes from a mile away
POOR ORAL HYGIENE WES: or maybe they’re smelling the rancid dairy product smell that his breath sometimes has
TTCOPB WES: guys maybe we can cover all this later when i’m not trying to play bass
MUSICALLY UNCREATIVE WES: yeah about that
TTCOPB WES: oof
MUSICALLY UNCREATIVE WES: are you eventually gonna play something interesting or is it just gonna be more of the same
ALSO JUST NOT A GREAT BASSIST WES: at least try to not drag tempo-wise
ALSO JUST NOT A GREAT BASSIST WES: okay now you’re rushing
HIS ORIGINAL PARENTS DIDN’T EVEN WANT HIM WES: hey guys what are we talking about
ALSO JUST NOT A GREAT BASSIST WES: dragging again
MUSICALLY UNCREATIVE WES: we’re talking about wes being not that great
HIS ORIGINAL PARENTS DIDN’T EVEN WANT HIM WES: yeah no kidding did you guys know that his original parents didn’t even want him
PERMANENT VIRGIN WES: yup
BAD FRIEND WES: yup
POOR ORAL HYGIENE WES: yeah i knew that
HIS ORIGINAL PARENTS DIDN’T EVEN WANT HIM WES: okay just checking
HIS ADOPTIVE PARENTS FRANKLY AREN’T THAT INTO HIM EITHER WES: i feel like i should point out that his adoptive parents frankly aren’t that into him either
TTCOPB WES: guys i know we’re sort of having fun here joking about all of this but actually it’s not really that funny
HIS ORIGINAL PARENTS DIDN’T EVEN WANT HIM WES: you’re telling me it’s not funny
MUSICALLY UNCREATIVE WES: it’s brutal
PERMANENT VIRGIN WES: yeah i don’t know about you guys but i’m not joking at all
HIS ADOPTIVE PARENTS FRANKLY AREN’T THAT INTO HIM EITHER WES: one thing that is funny though is wes’s pathetic sense of wanting to be a dog to people who don’t care as much about him as he wants them to
BAD FRIEND WES: oh yeah that is pretty funny
TTCOPB WES: guys it’s getting a little hard to play bass right now
HIS ADOPTIVE PARENTS FRANKLY AREN’T THAT INTO HIM EITHER WES: i mean how hard does he have to work to ignore the fact that he’s got two parents who in their ideal world wouldn’t have him
HIS ORIGINAL PARENTS DIDN’T EVEN WANT HIM WES: yup
HIS ADOPTIVE PARENTS FRANKLY AREN’T THAT INTO HIM EITHER WES: yeah i mean he’s got parents who if they truly had what they wanted, they’d have some other kid right now, some kid whom they’d be biologically required to love way more than they love him, but that didn’t work out so they’re stuck with him instead, and they’re being pretty nice about it and they mostly always have been because they’re good people, but the only reason he’s theirs is that they can’t do any better, he’s the plan b that happened because their plan a fell through
HIS ORIGINAL PARENTS DIDN’T EVEN WANT HIM WES: yeah and i would just add that he’ll never be loved as much as he would if his birth mom and dad had kept him from day one and made him a part of their family and their lives, think about the life that he was supposed to have that he’s missing out on, he’d be living in caracas and speaking spanish and listening to who knows what kind of music and talking and fighting and laughing with his parents and maybe his brothers or sisters, who knows, and maybe he’d be poorer and maybe his whole situation would be super dysfunctional, but it would be real and you can’t replace that
HIS ADOPTIVE PARENTS FRANKLY AREN’T THAT INTO HIM EITHER WES: yeah everyone involved decided that the right life for him was the one where he doesn’t have the real thing, the authentic thing, every adult in his life decided that the thing he should get is just the good-enough thing, and
TTCOPB WES: please quit
BAD FRIEND WES: oh for fuck’s sake
BAD FRIEND WES: are you trying not to cry again
ALSO JUST NOT A GREAT BASSIST WES: jesus christ
PERMANENT VIRGIN WES: wes, we’re just trying to help
WON’T EVEN HAVE A GIRLFRIEND EVER PROBABLY WES: yeah we’re just trying to help you be honest with yourself for once
HIS ORIGINAL PARENTS DIDN’T EVEN WANT HIM WES: we just see you lying to yourself all the time and trying really hard and we’re all standing around going, kid, come on, give up already
HIS ADOPTIVE PARENTS FRANKLY AREN’T THAT INTO HIM EITHER WES: you just don’t seem to get that the harder you try, the less things work out for you
TTCOPB WES: please just let me play music and forget about all this shit just for a few minutes
TTCOPB WES: let me just focus on music just for a little while and try to make one good thing
MUSICALLY UNCREATIVE WES: but that’s exhibit a, you sad stupid kid, because listen to what you’re playing
ALSO JUST NOT A GREAT BASSIST WES: the harder you try to come up with interesting stuff, the less interesting you sound, the worse you play, so just give up
BAD FRIEND WES: exhibit b, think about corey, man, the harder you try to be a good friend, a good dog, the more obvious it is that that’s just not what you’re wired to do, because you’re a fake and a fraud, so can you please give up already
WON’T EVEN HAVE A GIRLFRIEND EVER PROBABLY WES: exhibit c, ash, who clearly does not want some clingy needy sad-sack little kid chasing her around, and the more time you try to chase her down and win her over, the more you are that kid
PERMANENT VIRGIN WES: so give up, let her go, just give up
ALL WESES: give up, man
ALL WESES: give up
TAMBOURINE GIRL: hey are you okay?
What?
I said are you okay. You look a little sick. Let’s get you some air.
Where would we get it from, though.
Outside.
Ohh.
Come with me. Take my hand.
Ohhhhhhhhhh.
How do you feel now?
Yes. Good. Yes. Ohhhh wow.
I’m shayin’.
You’re shaying.
Shayin’.
Shay—Saying.
Ess-aytch-ay-ee, ay-enn-enn-ee.
Sheh—, Shuh-nay-nuh.
Nope. Essaytchayeeayennennee.
Shuhh. Oh my God. I can’t spell.
Run your fingers through the grass.
Or, what’s the backward of spell? When you take letters and make words out of them? There’s a super basic word for that?
Take your fingers and run them through the grass, like this.
Oh my God. I’ve suffered permanent brain damage.
Just temporary brain damage.
Are you sure? How can I know for sure?
You know because you’ve damaged the part that would know that it’s temporary.
I’ve damaged the part, that would know, that uh. Fuck.
You’ll be fine. You’re fine right now. You’re perfect. You just need to breathe the air, and drink some of this.
Mmmmmmmp. Kay.
How’s that.
Hhhhhmmmmhh. It’s really good.
You need to be hydrated, because all life came from the sea.
Well, uh. I guess it did. In a sense.
In a sense, innocence.
Whoa. I never thought of that.
Repeat after me. Shae, Anne.
Shae
, Anne.
ShaeAnne.
ShaeAnne.
Hello.
Wes. Uh, that’s my name.
Hello, Wes-uh-that’s-my-name. Do you want to walk with me?
Sure.
Walk next to me. Like this.
So do you live here?
Sometimes. When my mom goes on tour.
She’s on tour now?
She’s in Japan for another two weeks, then a week in South Korea. She sings with a jazz and world music choir.
Which one?
Do you know a lot of jazz and world music choirs?
Well, not a ton.
Which ones do you know.
Well.
. . .
I guess basically none.
My mom’s is called the Cotopaxi Extraterrestrial Chorus.
Okay.
Sometimes they sing with Jon Anderson.
Okay.
He’s the lead singer of a band called Yes.
Oh wow!
Wow?
Yeah, I mean, that’s a big deal. The lead singer of Yes? That’s huge. What’s so funny.
Nothing.
What.
You’re sweet.
I was wondering what’s up with all the Gatorade everywhere.
Gatorade sponsors a lot of alternative religions. Not just ours.
Oh.
Has anyone told you about Jaroldism?
Um, not yet.
We need boys your age, so please just keep an open mind.
Will do, for sure.
. . .
Oh. That’s a joke.
I like joking with you.
I was like, I guess now I’m in a cult for the rest of my life.
No, Uncle Jarold went to school with all those guys who started Gatorade, and he invested with them as soon as he could, and it did real well. He had a few investments that did real real well.
Ohhh. So having a house like this, it’s not just from producing.
No. Uncle Jarold says, it’s not enough just to make money. You have to make your money make more money before the government dives in and taxes it to pieces.
Welllllll.
. . .
Well, no. Never mind.
What.
Well, my parents are public school teachers, so you know, taxes, to me, I don’t think of them as a bad thing necessarily, and
I don’t talk politics. Chase me.
What?
Chase me!
Okay, you caught me. Now what are you going to do with me.
Yeah, just, hang on, one sec, because, woooo.
I’m hanging on.
Yeah, I just need to, catch my breath.
You better catch it soon, though.
Yeah, my lungs are just kind of fu
Too late!
I caught up to her at the hot tub. It was a big wide hot tub on the deck. She just slipped right into it. Clothes and all. A bunch of people were already in there. Cookie was in there. Ash was too. Big Pritch was in there with his chest fur trapping hot tub water like dew. A couple others I thought I recognized and three I thought I didn’t. It was big enough not to be crowded.
Ash didn’t make eye contact with me. I didn’t make eye contact with her.
Well get in here, Fast and Furious, said Cookie.
I was still kind of shaky but trying not to show it. I stripped to my boxers. It seemed to take an hour. I got in between ShaeAnne and Big Pritch. The water was incredible. It was like stepping into a cloud of God’s breath.
ShaeAnne was ducking underwater and hanging out for what seemed like a suicidally long time. Then the surface of the water would give birth to her panting, gasping, laughing head.
Big Pritch rotated his big round beard-lifeboated head to me like the turret of a tank. He had squid eyes.
The best artist is the best thief, he said.
What?
You’re the boy who thinks the best artist is the best thief.
ShaeAnne gasped and ducked back under the water.
Yeah, I said.
Tell me what makes a good thief.
A good thief, uh, doesn’t get caught.
And what’s a way not to get caught.
Be super sneaky about it I guess.
You’ll never get caught if nobody knows you stole.
Ohhh.
He kept staring at me with his squid eyes.
The water clumsily burped up ShaeAnne’s sleek, wet, narrow head. Her hair was plastered to her face. You could see it was dull blond at the roots.
Now would you like to know the irreducible fact of the universe, Big Pritch asked me.
Pa, what you telling him, Cookie called over to us.
Sure, I said to Big Pritch.
The irreducible fact of the universe is: scale.
Scale.
Yes.
Can you tell me what that means.
No.
Oh.
Heh. Heh.
Ha ha.
ShaeAnne plunged back under.
Can’t nobody tell you what it means but here’s what it is. No matter who you are. What you are. Where when or how you are. There’s always something bigger than you and always something smaller than you. Always something faster than you. And always something slower than you. Always something older newer lighter heavier brighter darker. Anything.
You mean not just people but anything.
He leaned in close. His eyes were eight inches from mine and his breath was burnt leaves.
If it all gets too big for you, he told me, if it feels like it’s too much. Zoom out. And if it all feels too small. Too far away and meaningless.
He pulled back away from me.
Zoom in, I said.
He turreted his head away from me and got his cigarette back.
I looked around the pool. Ash’s eyes met mine finally. I looked away from her. I looked up at the house. I tried zooming in. I zoomed in on each window. It was hard to see inside. I went floor by floor. I heard ShaeAnne bubble up again somewhere behind my head. One attic window had the screen pushed up. It opened out onto the roof.
I looked at it for a long time.
28.
THEN I HOISTED MYSELF OUT OF THE HOT TUB AND WALKED INTO THE HOUSE DRIPPING WET IN MY UNDERWEAR AND NO ONE EVEN BATTED AN EYE
By the time I got up to the attic, I had mostly dried off.
I had collected little melodies in my head from passing through all the zones of music in the rest of the house. They were all overlaid in my head echo space like kids talking in the halls between class. The loudest was a recorder melody that was two or three notes away from being the theme song to Barney & Friends.
I don’t know how I knew it was him who had opened the window, because you couldn’t see him from the deck, but I stuck my head out of the screenless attic window and sure enough, there was Corey, sitting over at one end of the roof with his legs dangling over the side. He was scooping his hand into a jar and then messily eating whatever was in there off of his hand like an animal.
“What are you eating,” I called.
He wordlessly held up a jar of peanut butter.
“Oh shit,” I said.
He put another pawful in his mouth.
“Shit shit shit,” I said, and I climbed out of the window and hustled over to him as quickly as I could. The roof was a very smooth expensive-seeming tile. I was sort of crouch-running. He didn’t look back at me.
I mean, obviously I was panicking and thinking the whole time, this is my fault. This is because I said that shit to him in the studio. I was so shitty to him that he is trying to kill himself. Because that’s what this had to be. He didn’t have his EpiPen, and he had put himself where no one could find him if he started having an allergic attack. And where he would probably fall off the roof. And the terrible Weses were starting back up in my head, but I was doing my best to drown them out.
When I reached him he wasn’t swelling up or seizing up or breaking out in hives. But he wouldn’t look
at me, either. He was just staring down into the garden at the side of the house.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said.
But he didn’t respond.
“Corey, I’m sorry I said that shit in the studio,” I said. “Fuck.”
But he didn’t even seem to hear me.
“Are you not having a reaction,” I asked.
“I’m not allergic,” he said finally, and his voice was strained and high and thick.
“What?” I said.
“I always thought I wasn’t allergic, so I tested it.”
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t know what to say. “Well, thank God.”
“Thanks, God,” he said.
And still not looking at me, he took another pawful of peanut butter and ate it, kind of trembling.
“I’ve been out here for a while,” he kind of mumbled.
I was trying to figure out what else to say. Because now, actually, I was realizing I was furious at him.
I was completely goddamned ripshit. Because what the fuck was he doing. I wanted to headbutt him in the face because what the fuck was he trying to do.
“You fucking idiot,” I almost said, but then he turned and I saw that his eyes were all screwed up. They were wobbly and bloodshot and big-pupilled and scared.
So instead I just said, “Did you get super high or something.”
He nodded.
The way he was looking at me kind of changed everything.
“Well, let’s get you inside,” I said.
He jumped to his feet. But he did it way too fast, in a way that was clearly not about going back inside. It was instead about being an insane and possibly suicidal maniac. He had to throw his hands out to catch his balance.
“Jesus, Corey,” I yelled. I wasn’t sure if I should grab him.
“Is it fucked up that I’m out here,” he said, breathing hard.
“Yeah,” I yelled. “Yeah. It’s a little fucked up. Let’s get you inside, man.”
“I’m doing a fucked-up thing right now,” he asked, or announced, and flung the jar of peanut butter down into the garden.
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to panic. “But it’s all good, man. Let’s get you inside.”
“No,” he said, now kind of bending over and really staring at the garden, like he was trying to read something written in the plants, “no, no no no, because, I mean, I mean does that mean, I mean, because, does that mean, I mean does that mean that I’m fucked up?”
“No, man,” I said. “No. You’re not fucked up.”