Giraffe People

by Jill Malone

  We play for less than an hour before books and bed. My throat aches: the assembly and practice and December and talking half the night with Meghan. This afternoon, while we waited backstage for the guest dude to finish his routine—juggling of disparate objects, AIDS sucks and here’s why, condoms condoms condoms—I told Stacy about our gig at Board.

  “I’ve heard of you guys,” she said.

  “You should come.”

  She shifted, pulling at the collar of her shirt. “Yeah, maybe.”

  Then we just stood there, with nothing to say, until we marched out to sing our corny songs.

  After school, I rode to practice with Joe and Ernie, and Ernie told us we should play some Creedence because no one would expect it and he’d never heard a girl sing Fogerty before.

  “Which Creedence?” Joe asked.

  “I was thinking, I Put a Spell on You,” Ernie said.

  “Doesn’t that seem kind of obvious?” Joe asked. “What about Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”

  “What do you think, Cole?” Ernie asked.

  “Who the fuck is Creedence?” I said.

  When they relayed this to Trevor, he was too stunned to tease me. “You don’t know CCR? Jesus. Don’t admit shit like that.” He ran out to his truck and brought back Chronicle, Volume 1. He played the cassette, and we sat around and debated which songs to try.

  “Maybe we should do Fortunate Son,” Ernie said. “Like crazy political, and with a girl singing, we’ll confuse the fuck out of people.”

  Every time we played the song, the solos got longer. Ernie ripped for nearly ten minutes, while Joe and Trevor staggered and backbeat, and I started to love the song, the righteous fury of it. Afterward we tore into The Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen, and they’re both anthemic, if you think about it; which is probably why I can’t get either song out of my head, why they’ve merged together now: God save the queen, I ain’t no fortunate one, no-woah.

  On the Thorns’ couch, MTV counting down, I reread the same sentence about Nixon opening China. Opened like a treasure chest, like a delicate conversation, like Jeremy’s jeans. We couldn’t, this morning in the car—he didn’t have condoms—or anyway, that’s what he said. And so it was grinding, and fingers, and hand jobs all round. I don’t know if I came, I couldn’t tell. Mostly I just had to pee really bad.

  Why is it always me that pushes? Isn’t it supposed to be the boy? I want to ask Jeremy if he’s worried about his soul, about losing it, or if he’s stressed about me; but if he answers yes to either question, then what? Yes, Cole, I’m concerned about going to hell. Yes, Cole, I think you’re a freaky nymphomaniac. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to.

  I fall asleep on the couch, and when Mrs. Thorn wakes me it’s after ten. She gives me an extra ten for my birthday, a pair of dangly purple earrings I’m totally wearing to the gig tomorrow, and a picture Annie colored of flowers or umbrellas or possibly bats. I jog the block and a half home and walk quietly upstairs, prepared to drop without changing or brushing my teeth. On my bed, I find a package wrapped in newspaper: a black Independent sweatshirt, and a card signed Nate.

  Sartorial. Of or relating to tailors or tailoring. Adjective. The example usage in the dictionary was sartorial splendor. For real? Dig me and my sartorial splendor.

  Advent Sundays are my favorite. Not just for the music—Scarlet Taylor singing O Holy Night changes you—but everyone dresses a little nicer, and the pine wreaths smell like forest, and there’s the ceremonial lighting of the candles, and Chaplain Davis’s sermons, and the mythic story of King Herod hunting babies, and the angel’s visitation, and the crazy pageantry. Attendance rises too, which makes finding a pew where Alicia and I can talk quite challenging.

  “I can’t believe she made us read our poems aloud,” Alicia says. “In front of everybody. She never said we’d have to read them in front of everybody.”

  “I’ve told you for months that she’s evil.”

  “There’s evil, and then there’s this.” Alicia’s dress has a huge red sash around the belly, and she’s wearing a bow in her hair. She looks like a really big five-year-old. “And she wrote ‘How Romantic’ in the margin of my poem. With two exclamation points. How Romantic. I hate her.”

  We’re singing What Child Is This? Haste, haste, to bring Him laud. The drama is just operatic. At the pipe organ, Clarence has a furious hairdo, and a green sweater vest bright enough to guide ships.

  “You seem,” Alicia says, “kind of dazed. What time did you get home last night?”

  “One, I think.”

  “How was the show?”

  “Insane. We sold out of t-shirts. How crazy is that?”

  “The ones with the ugly dog? Pretty crazy.”

  “And you know, compared to the bar, Board is almost pristine.”

  “What’s it like at Ichabod’s?” she asks.

  “They had security guards in front of the stage to keep the thrashers from climbing onto the stage. And the cigarette smoke in the place was just nasty, worse maybe than the stupid drunkenness. We only played one set, but the manager wants us to have a weekly slot.”

  “First they’re letting you date, and now they’re letting you play in bars. What’s happened to your parents?”

  “Meghan.”

  “I need one of those.”

  “Your parents seriously won’t let you come to Board?”

  “Cocaine.” Alicia rolls her eyes. “That was their entire argument.”

  “Keep them away from my parents.”

  “I don’t think they have facts so much as raging paranoia.”

  Chaplain Davis stands and raises his arms in prayer. Dark skinned, with grey in his hair, and a voice of silky persuasion, his sermons appeal to character and goodness and compassion, and I’d listen with my eyes closed if Alicia could keep still. His daughter, Joselyn, is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen—a finishing school kind of girl—slender and elegant.

  Last night at Board, Bangs came with his sister, and after the show she gushed, and said she’d bring all her friends to the next show. “CCR by way of The Cure,” she said. “You guys are super fun. Cole, we should maybe do something wild with your hair before the show next week. Punk up your persona.”

  Meghan, my chauffer chaperone, nodded so vigorously at this suggestion that she practically gave herself whiplash. Jeez, how boring am I?

  “Actually, I have ideas about that too,” Joe said. “We’re gonna print some Doggy Life tank tops, and Cole, you should wear one next show.”

  “Dude,” Trevor said, “black t-shirts are key. They’ll sell faster than the white, I guaran-fucking-tee.” And then he cocked his head, and pulled the hood of my sweatshirt. “Will you feel all naked out there in just a tank top?”

  “Does that worry you?” I asked.

  “Yes. How about you wear the tank top and your little skirt, and Joe and Ernie and me will just wear pants. That’s fair, right?”

  “What?” Ernie said.

  “Don’t be a pussy, dude. She’s the one they’re looking at.” Trevor promised we’d have more gigs in the next few weeks—leave it to him. Monica Prader showed backstage, and they smoked pot and had a couple beers, and Trevor was just ridiculously giddy.

  The interior of the post chapel reminds me of Noah’s Ark: imagine the hull of a great ship inverted—the beams and pews solid, creaky wood; the length of the sanctuary suitable to pairs of every creature. If the ship were grounded, and rolled, and had stained glass windows depicting the Stations of the Cross and the Ascension, it would be this room exactly—cold, massive, and buzzing with the pipe organ, and the PA system, and the resounding choruses.

  Honorable Joseph, his faithfulness, his devotion to Mary, Chaplain Davis asks us to emulate Joseph’s trust in God. A visit from an angel would certainly make faith easier though, wouldn’t it; clear up those pesky questions about whether or not God exists, or has a plan, or gives a fuck.

  “Did Jeremy go last night?” Alicia asks.

/>   “No. He has some project for English that’s due Monday. His parents said he couldn’t go unless he finished.”

  “Not quite as decisive an argument as cocaine, but they have another week to think of something better. Oh, God, that reminds me, what has Nate told you about Doug?”

  “What about him?” I don’t mention that Nate and I are still speechless.

  “Doug and David Kirk and that new kid with the earrings broke into the general’s house and raided his bar. They got so wasted that they passed out in the general’s study. One of them even got sick on the carpet, or a potted plant, or something. They are so busted.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Friday night—I heard yesterday at swim practice. The general called the MPs and they put the boys in handcuffs and everything.”

  “I wonder why Nate wasn’t with them,” I say, as we rise for the final hymn. In all probability, Kelly saved my brother from collective boy stupidity; and for the first time, I’m grateful that she’s dating him.

  After the service, Alicia and I have more cookies, and punch, and she tells me that her soldier asked her to send him some skin mags.

  “He did not,” I say.

  “He did. Skin mags. For real. He wrote it in caps, and underlined it three times.”

  “Gross. What will you do?”

  “Oh, I sent him a National Geographic. It’s got some saggy indigenous people in it. That’s as close as I’m going.”

  “I’m sending my atheist a Doggy Life t-shirt and a bunch of candy and playing cards and a photo that Bangs took of me in the fall. He wanted to know what I look like.”

  “I’ll bet he did.”

  “Hey, they’re not all perverts.”

  “You mean they’re not all as open about their perversions.”

  No, I think, I’m surrounded by irritatingly honorable men.

  Sunday night, dejected, Creedence blaring from my tape player in a futile attempt at inspiration, I review Geometry for the exam, and the inevitable B that will result. A protractor is emblematic: the discomfort unending.

  Three taps at the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Me,” says Jeremy.

  I check my watch as he slips inside. “It’s so late.” “I had to see you.” Maybe I look worried, because he adds, “Everyone’s asleep.”

  “Then I should turn this down.” I lower the volume, and try to relax. Did he bring nervousness with him?

  “Cole,” he says, “come sit down.” I clear away the math from the bed, and sit beside him. “You’re unhappy with me.” He’s had a haircut since I saw him Friday. No jacket, dressed in pajamas and his slippers, he came impetuously. “And I think I know why.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes,” he says. “You think I’m stalling.”

  “Is that what I think?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stalling? Are you sure?” Anger is the blood pushing through me—the cells and tissue and synapses. I am anger. “Not afraid or uninterested or like sickened, right? I think you’re stalling.”

  “Sickened? Uninterested?” He shifts on the bed so that he’s facing me, and puts his hands on my elbows. “Why would you say that?”

  “Why? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you let me beg—I was begging you—and you just wouldn’t. Have I been unclear? Is that the problem? Do you not get that I want you to fuck me?”

  “Jesus, Cole. I sat in your living room and promised our parents I wouldn’t. I gave my word. If they had any idea the stuff we’ve done—any of it—they’d never let me see you again.”

  “Like how you get off every time no matter what? You figure they’d disapprove of that too, huh?” But now I want to cry. There’s rejection, and then there’s a dialogue about rejection, and the dialogue is way more painful. I stand, and cross the room. “Forget it. I don’t even know why you’re here.”

  “You don’t know why I’m here? Really? You don’t know?”

  “Oh my god, Jeremy, enough. I’ve got Geometry brain, and I just don’t care. You don’t want to have sex, that’s fine already. Whatever. I don’t care.”

  “No, obviously not.”

  And then he’s gone and there’s only the heavy, empty click of the door.

  Pergola. This sounds like math, but it’s an arbor of trelliswork on columns used to train vines, which actually is weirder than math. Noun.

  Since I’m all about the bright side, I’ll tell you that catching the 7:15 bus on Monday morning means that I don’t have to see Jeremy at all. I couldn’t deal with asking Nate for a ride, so I got up at 6, and ran out to wait with everybody else. Stacy Masteller has her black jean jacket on, and must be freezing her ass off. She nods at me, and then we all stand silently, looking for the bus.

  The bus picks up the officers’ kids first, and then the enlisted kids, and then makes three stops to pick up eight civilian kids. Stacy and I sit across from one another three-quarters of the way back. Once the enlisted kids climb on, the decibel level rises, and some bastard in the back starts flicking Skittles around.

  And another example of bright-side thinking: by the time I get to school, I have an extra forty-five minutes to study Geometry. I’m going to get a higher B on this test than I got on the last test. For real.

  During our mock debate, Holly Mercer and Josh Tarbet open their pro-death penalty arguments by saying that life is valuable, and therefore, anyone who takes a life should forfeit his own. Although I am not a reputed genius, I see a great black hole in their logic. Monica Prader and I decimate them. Midway through, they break form to holler at us, they are so frazzled.

  Monica Prader argues surprisingly eloquently. I’m glad to be on her side; her rigorous logic terrifies me a little, each argument a thrusting knife. She high-fives me once we’re back in our seats—a preposterous gesture from poser metal girl, but points for effort.

  See, I’ll catch the bus, and B my way through Geometry, and mock debate, and stare at slides through microscopes, and no one will know. No one will guess what it costs me. No one will know that I wanted to hide under the bench in the locker room, that I came to those tumbling mats like aristocrats went to the guillotine.

  The boys are silly this afternoon. While we’re tuning our instruments in Joe’s garage, I tell them about our birthday dinner. “Our birthdays were last week, so no presents or anything. It’s this joint dinner for Nigel and me and we’ll have flank steak and crab and salad and bread and shit, and everybody wants you guys to come.”

  “Your dad loves us,” Trevor says. He’s unaccountably pleased with this thought, and beams at me.

  “Well, he’s only met you the once.”

  “Tomorrow?” Joe asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, “around 5.”

  They nod.

  “So.” I adjust the microphone, and avoid looking at any of them. “I want to play you guys something.” When no one objects, I tear into it, the song driven by furious guitar:

  I finally get it now

  You were leaving anyhow

  There’s nothing I can say or do

  Another bout of scream and shout

  You’re packed and moving out

  Well, hooray, hooray for you

  You lecture from the door

  I’ve heard it all before

  And you’ll never convince me

  There’s no convincing me

  I’m brave enough

  Brave enough for this

  Kind of love

  This kind of love

  First you prance and then you preen

  But light changes everything

  It leans through the room at you

  Outside rain pelts down

  Inside I’m gonna drown

  Unless I cling to you

  Let me tell you this one last thing

  Let me tell you tell you tell you this one last thing

  You’ll never convince me

  There’s no convincing me

  I’m brave enough
>
  Brave enough for this

  Kind of love

  This kind of love

  “Again,” Ernie says, when I’ve finished.

  By the third measure, I hear him join me, and then the tentative clap of the drum, and Joe bobs, watching my fingers.

  The next time through, Ernie leads in with a plaintive lick, and then a hiccup from the drum, and the song enlarges, rounds itself. Ernie plays a melody, and Joe has a ragged blues rhythm, and Trevor stutters and kicks and fires in a volley during the chorus.

  “Again!” Trevor calls.

  “Double the chorus,” Joe shouts.

  We play extra measures for a guitar solo, and a longer intro, and triple choruses, and finally, we’re staggering lyric in the last minutes of the song, and ending with repeated cries of “I finally get it now.”

  Not mine anymore, the song belongs to us. They play it with as much concentration and awareness as they’d play anything real. The song isn’t angry; it’s too big and vibrant for anything so rudimentary as anger. Now it’s ironic.

  The drums stop abruptly. We all play another few measures, and then stall as well.

  “Cole,” Trevor says, “I want you to let go.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to let go. We’ll play it once through—no lyrics—and then I want you to come in and just feel it. OK?”

  “Feel it?”

  He smacks the high hat. “Yes.” Trevor points his drumstick at Ernie, and nods his head.

  Ernie’s guitar licks a melody. The lyric in the notes—he could sing my voice with those strings. Joe double-strikes the notes: a heartbeat. He and Trevor counter me, run ahead and double back.

  When I come in with the lyric, it teases from me. The furious rush of the guitar underlines the line breaks, but it doesn’t jostle them any longer. I’m not hilarious or ironic, angry or clever. I’m all those things and none of them. I feel it. I finally get it now.