Auburn: Outcasts and Underdogs

by Valerie Thomas

  Chapter 10

  The house search and move-in took so long that it was nearly August by the time we finally got settled. Our new house was only a few blocks away, one of the pastel townhomes that I’d walked by every day for the past year. Even the inside was coated in matte paint: beige for the living room and kitchen on the main floor, white for the guest bathroom, an awful mint green for Kent and Mom’s bedroom on the second floor, and unfinished gray concrete for my room in the basement.

  Now, hearing me talk about a two-story house with a basement might give the wrong idea; the house wasn’t big. In all, I could cross the length of it in about twenty steps, and the width in seven. It was squeezed into such a small area that vertical space was the only kind available. Still, there was something about having my own room, with a real bed, that I quite enjoyed.

  It became a lot easier to write song lyrics, too. Not because of the move, but because summer break gave me an abundance of free time and Loser McGee gave me ready access to the emotions that made for good songs. I quickly discovered that the best frame of mind for that kind of work wasn’t in the heat of the moment—tears running, mind racing, stomach curling up with emotion—but about a day after. When I could access that feeling and remember it, but still have a clear enough mind to think about what I was writing.

  Sweat was beaded on Charlie’s brow as we finished our daily practice; Joey looked tired too, and I knew I was worn out. We’d been giving our practices a lot more energy, and it seemed to make them more effective. Light streaming in from a half-foot gap below the garage door reflected off of his dad’s new red SUV. The SUV took up half the garage, forcing us to stay over to the right.

  “We’re a lot better than we were last year,” I said. It was more of a statement than a question.

  Joey nodded. “Yeah. I think we might be able to get some real shows now. Maybe even with that Cat’s Cradle guy.”

  “You wanna try it?” Charlie asked, setting his guitar against the wall.

  “Not yet. He said we could try out again in a year.” I didn’t know the man too well, but from our few interactions he seemed like someone who would simply kick us out if we attempted to try out again before he’d told us we could.

  The boys looked slightly dejected, as if my opinion had somehow settled the matter in a way they didn’t quite agree with. “Well, school starts next week,” Charlie said with a wry grin. “Wanna do another performance in the cafeteria?”

  “No, I don’t think so…” The last thing I needed was to draw Principal Wroth’s ire so early in the school year. With any luck, she’d forgotten all about my supposed suicidal lyrics, and I’d be able to start sophomore year as a normal girl—or as close to normal as I could ever get.

  Charlie broke me out of my thoughts. “Okay then, what do you propose? I think the one area where we still have almost zero practice is live performances.”

  I tapped my fingers against the mic in my hand. “Yeah, you’re right… Wait, what if we went down to the mall and played outside? It wouldn’t be quite the same as a real show, but we’d still be playing in front of people. And if we chose the right spot we’d have a captive audience, just like in the cafeteria!”

  “Mhm, but…” Joey held up his power cord. “There aren’t any outlets outside.”

  My excitement slowly deflated, like a bouncy castle with a giant hole in it. “Oh, you’re right. Maybe we could bring extension cords and connect to an outlet? Like one of the ones inside Safeway?” It wasn’t the best idea, and I wasn’t surprised to be met with shaking heads.

  Charlie rubbed the side of his jaw, even though there was only peach fuzz there. “No, I don’t think that would work either. They’d just kick us out before we got set up. My house has power outlets on the side, though. Maybe we could plug in there and just play for anyone on the sidewalk?”

  “That could work,” I said, although I didn’t relish the thought of performing in a neighborhood that was home to several students we went to school with. If Jessica found out and wrote about it as Loser McGee… I didn’t want to see the comments. Even though school was out, I still checked the page occasionally, but fortunately there hadn’t been any new posts.

  “We could get acoustic guitars and go downtown to play,” Joey said. “I’ve seen a few people do that before. If we opened one of the cases, we might even get some money out of it.”

  Charlie and I shared a slightly confused look. “Um, Joey, the problem with that is… We don’t have acoustic guitars,” he said. “And we don’t exactly have enough money to go out and buy some.”

  Judging by the grin on his face, Joey had been expecting one of us to point that out. “I have a three-quarter size acoustic guitar at home. You could play that, and I could just play my bass unplugged. It would be quiet, but I mean, it would be quiet anyway…”

  It wasn’t a perfect solution, but as far as I was concerned it was a lot better than the alternatives. At least if we were downtown we’d be away from anyone we went to school with, and the idea of making even a few dollars sounded fun. “Let’s do it,” I said.

  “Okay, let’s do it.” Charlie checked the time on his phone. “Do you wanna try it today? We could swing by your house to pick up the acoustic guitar, ask my dad to drive us downtown, and then give it a shot.”

  “Might as well.” I figured it would be best to figure out whether the idea was any good sooner rather than later. Without another word, Charlie yanked the door leading into his house open and disappeared from view. I picked up the metal microphone stand, set my mic on it, and moved it to one of the corners of the garage.

  “He’s so weird,” Joey said.

  I turned to look at him, slightly confused. “Well, I guess we’re all weird,” I finally said, when he didn’t elaborate. “That’s why we’re friends. We’re all outcasts.”

  “Yeah, I know. I didn’t mean it like… I mean, it’s weird that he’s not weird but he still acts like he is. Does that make any sense?”

  I shook my head, laughing at whatever it was Joey was trying to say. “No. Sorry, I guess I just don’t get it.”

  His eyes fell down to the ground, and for a few seconds he didn’t say anything. “Okay, you seem weird to me. The eyeliner thing, the way you look, the way you act… It’s all weird.”

  “Gee, thanks.” It took more self-control than I would admit to stop myself from walking up to Joey and slapping him. I had to remind myself that he had a tendency to be a little more open and honest than normal people—than most people.

  “And with me…” Joey continued, hardly aware of the insult he’d given, “I can’t ever figure out what’s wrong with me, but I know something is. I shouldn’t always say what’s on my mind, but I do. I guess I just don’t have much of a filter.” He glanced up at me, a pained look furrowing his brow. “But Charlie could be normal if he wanted. I’m not crazy, right?”

  When he put it that way, I understood what he was getting at. It was the same thought I’d had before, just phrased a little differently. I blinked once, twice, cleared my throat. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I do think Charlie has his own demons, though. Maybe Jessica was actually right about…” About him being gay. I didn’t finish the thought, because it made sense. The way he was always hugging me, the fact that his voice was still as high as it had been in eighth grade, how he was so understanding—none of it necessarily meant he was gay, but when I put it all together I couldn’t deny that there was a case to be made.

  Before the situation could become even more awkward, Charlie returned to the garage with his dad in tow. “Here, Joey, you should ride up front so that you can tell my dad how to get to your house. I can put your bass in the back if you want.”

  Charlie’s dad bore little resemblance to him. They shared the same straw-blonde hair, but he sported a full beard, and his toned physique and stretched frame—at least a few inches over six feet—gave the impression of an Abercrombie model, not a typical father. When we’d first met, if Charlie had tol
d me his dad was in fact his older brother or a young uncle, I would have believed him in a second. The only aspect that hinted at age was a slight crease trailing from the corner of each eye. “Hey guys,” he greeted, nodding at Joey and me.

  “Hey,” Joey said, ducking out from under his guitar strap and gingerly handing it to Charlie. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  I watched Charlie for a few seconds, as if I could figure out the truth about whether he was gay by looking at him. He did seem to walk with a bit of flair, but I figured that could just be my imagination, struggling to find evidence to support the theory.

  In the end, it didn’t matter. Charlie was definitely an outcast like us, whether through choice or unfortunate circumstance. He pulled the back door open and scooted over, and I came in after.

  “This is exciting!” Charlie whispered, leaning over to talk to me.

  “Yeah, for sure,” I agreed. “It’ll be really cool if we actually make money at it.” The thought of being able to call Auburn a professional band—professional in this case being loosely defined to mean someone at some time had paid us to play—made me grin. “Do you think we should debut our new song?”

  Charlie’s dad started the car and pressed a button to open the garage door. The garage filled with the chunk-chunk-chunk of working gears as the metal door rose. “Maybe,” Charlie said. “We could play a lot of different songs. Maybe even a whole set. Ooh, we could treat it like a concert!”

  “That would be fun.” For a moment, I worried about whether I could control my nerves, but I also knew I didn’t really have a choice. If I couldn’t, the whole plan—and a year’s worth of practicing—would all be for nothing. Charlie and Joey could play through their nervousness, but I knew from experience that my vocal cords would betray me if I wasn’t one hundred percent calm.

  In front of us, Joey began directing Charlie’s dad. Our conversation in the backseat dropped off, and I ended up just looking out the window.

  There was something relaxing about the familiar sights; trees, parks, and libraries stood out along familiar routes that I’d grown up with. Even though I couldn’t recall what the name of the street we were driving on was, I knew that we were about to pass the tall hotel with flowers in the windows and a burgundy carpet covering the sidewalk. It fled by, and I closed my eyes for a few seconds. It occurred to me that we were headed in the direction of nicer homes, but I didn’t much mind. I’d never asked Joey where he lived, and he didn’t make a big deal about it either.

  I fell into a half-sleep, unable to completely drift off because of the sound of tires and sudden stops at each red light.

  “Ash, you awake?” Charlie’s voice made me stir.

  I shook my head to clear out any cobwebs. “Yeah.” To the left, I could see Joey jogging down the front walk of one of the smaller houses—of course, given the neighborhood we were in, ‘smaller’ was still at least twice the size of my house. The outside of it was all stonework, broken by the occasional window and of course a double-wide garage door.

  “Oh, cool. Joey’s got the guitar right now. We should be downtown in twenty minutes or so.” Charlie was still smiling, but it seemed as if time had worn away some of his excitement.

  As I thought about it, I realized it had done the same to me. “Charlie, what if we aren’t any good?” I whispered. “What if we’re still bad after all that time we spent practicing?”

  “Then we’ll practice some more. But trust me, we are good. I know it.”

  The front door on my side opened, and Joey climbed back in with what looked like a toy guitar; it had a bright blue front and plastic sheen that gave the impression of something intended for a child.

  Charlie seemed to have the same idea. He took the guitar with a half-smirk, rolling his eyes so only I could see. “Cool. So now we just have to go downtown.”

  His dad turned around to look at us. “Where do you kids want to go again? Somewhere where there will be a lot of people?”

  “Yeah,” Charlie answered, “Wherever you think there’ll be a big crowd.”

  “Hmm… Well, it’s a little early for it, but there’s a rock and roll bar on the corner of Flower and 11th. As long as you guys promise not to try to get in—and you promise not to tell your mother, Charlie—I could drop you off there.” Charlie’s dad looked up into the rearview mirror, waiting for us to promise.

  “I promise,” I said. Charlie and Joey echoed me, and his dad pulled away from the curb.

  As he drove, the buildings seemed to get larger and move closer together. Lawns disappeared, giving way to parking structures and small coffee shops. Even though it was still light out, we passed flickering neon signs. I’d been downtown a few times before; it always seemed exciting, with so many different restaurants and stores smashed together in a tight space.

  “Okay, we’re almost there,” Charlie’s dad said, swerving between two fast-moving cars in the right lane. “I’m going to pull to the side of the road, and then you kids hop out. When you’re done, just give me a call.” He pulled over a few seconds later, and I obediently pushed the door open and slid out.

  The building before us didn’t fit my mental picture of a rock bar, with a simple red brick exterior and sign featuring martini glasses crossed to form an X. The door was propped open, letting the sounds of a Led Zeppelin song filter out into the street.

  I heard a grunt behind me and turned to watch Charlie struggle with two guitars. By the time I stepped forward and offered my hand to help, he was already out. It wasn’t a graceful exit, but Auburn had officially arrived. With a final “Call me in a couple hours,” Charlie’s dad drove off.

  “So…” I started, feeling my hands shake with anticipation. That wasn’t good. “I guess we should go down the block a little, so that we aren’t fighting with the music from the bar.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Joey took his bass guitar back from Charlie, pulling it from the case and hugging it close.

  There was a nice spot nearby, with a short tree to provide shade and something to lean on. Joey led the way over and set his open guitar case a few inches off the sidewalk. There wasn’t a lot of foot traffic, but enough that I knew—or hoped—that we’d find someone willing to donate to the cause. I felt like even one dollar would be enough to make me believe that it was all worth it. We were only one dollar away from being professionals.

  “Um, what song?” I asked.

  “Jaded?” Charlie frowned at the child-sized guitar in his hands. “Actually, can I have a second to make sure I know how to play this?”

  “Sure.” If I was a real professional, wouldn’t I have some vocal warm-up exercises to do? I wondered. Charlie plucked at his guitar, producing an awful sound.

  He wrinkled his nose. “Joey, when was the last time you tuned this?”

  “I dunno. A long time ago.” Joey chuckled. “I didn’t think I was ever gonna use it again.”

  We weren’t prepared, that much was obvious. And I was getting worried, which made my throat feel dry, which worried me more… I had more than enough time to contemplate the vicious cycle while Charlie stopped to tune the guitar. Without meaning to, I shifted my mentality; all I wanted to do was finish performing so that I could go home. In a strange place, with strange people walking by, I suddenly wondered what in the world I was doing.

  “Okay, I got it.” Charlie played a few notes, as if to reassure himself that he wasn’t lying. “We’ll start with Jaded, then? We know that one best.”

  I nodded absently. “Mhm.”

  As if he could sense my nervousness, Charlie touched my shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, Ash. It’s just like practice, but in public. No reason to be afraid. The worst thing that’ll happen is someone doesn’t like the song.”

  “Yeah, that is the worst thing that could happen.” But I couldn’t justify delaying anymore. I looked at Charlie and gestured for him to start.

  The moment he did, a short man walking in front of us jumped, as if we’d been invisible and sudde
nly appeared. He took a step back, raising an eyebrow as he appraised the three of us.

  There was time for a single breath before I launched into the song. “Feeling lost, twisted and confused.” My voice trembled, but I told myself it was hardly noticeable.

  The man left after the first verse, nodding to himself as if he’d liked the song. He didn’t drop any money in our guitar case, but I figured that didn’t necessarily mean anything. We played on for a few minutes without anyone listening, but by the time we reached the final few bars a middle-aged couple came into view.

  The nearly inaudible twang of the final note from Joey’s bass guitar had barely ended when Charlie named the next song: “Plastic Hearts.”

  It was one of our newer ones; I hadn’t gotten the exact notes memorized, but I thought the lyrics were pretty good. It had a faster tempo, cut into clear four-four time laid out on the bass. Joey started us off with a thrumming string of low notes. “There are people who they say, never have to feel this way. There are people not like us, who’ve never felt our bare disgust. With plastic hearts and hollow love, they send on judgment from above. They don’t see us, or hear our pleas. They only send us to our knees. Their plastic hearts cause only pain. Their plastic hearts go out in vain.”

  As I finished the final sentence, a familiar form came into view. I had time for one gasp of astonishment before the chorus, and I made good use of it. The short, square-faced woman didn’t recognize us at first, but Principal Wroth broke into a smile when she did.

  Luckily, she didn’t interrupt me. “Plastic hearts, warped and twisted. Plastic hearts by the side of the road. Plastic hearts grew cold and sick as—they never learned to, no they never wanted, to let us show them how to love.

  “They are broken, cracked and bruised. They always knew, just how to use, our own feelings for their own gain. Plastic is never flesh again.” There was a brief pause before the second half of the verse, just enough time for me to notice that my voice was becoming steadier. “But my love is real, plastic can’t touch me. Give me something I can feel. Now, give me something I can see. Whoa-oh, I can show you how to live, if you just come with me. Your plastic heart can break, let me show you how to bleed.”

  Wroth was standing by our open guitar case, tapping her foot along to the staccato rhythm. I could hardly believe it. “Plastic hearts, warped and twisted. Plastic hearts by the side of the road. Plastic hearts grew cold and sick as—they never learned to, no they never wanted, to let us show them how to love.”

  She touched a finger to her closed lips, as if she was actually appreciating some of the meaning behind the song. “Your hearts, warped and twisted, I will leave by the side of the road. When your heart grows cold and sick just, remember that I offered to show, you how to live and how to love. You could’ve bled with me. But now your heart, it beats in time. And you’ll never learn to bleed. No, you’ll never bleed.”

  As amazed as I was by the principal’s appearance, I was more surprised by the fact that, somehow, I’d maintained my composure. Principal Wroth applauded politely as we finished. “That was good, Ashley. You have a real talent. You all do. I, ahem…” She looked down at the case. “I take it this is for tips?”

  “Y-yeah,” I said, “I mean, if anyone wants to. It isn’t a requirement or anything.”

  “Oh, I know.” She twisted and unzipped one of the pouches of a red leather purse, and before I could figure out whether what was happening was real, she’d fished out a crumpled bill and dropped it into the guitar case. “Do you have any songs that are slightly more appropriate for a school setting?”

  Appropriate for a school setting? I mentally searched our short catalogue. “We could write one,” I offered. To my right, Charlie looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was, but it almost seemed as if Principal Wroth was going to offer us a real gig. I wasn’t about to let that chance slip through our fingers.

  “Please do. I would love to have you play at the school pep assembly.”