Wink

by Rob Harrell

  “Annie did the Batpig. She painted it from that one you did on my folder.” Isaac’s older sister is a junior in high school, and a really good artist.

  “Thanks, everybody.” I’m kind of at a loss for words, so I just stare at the hat for a bit. “Thank you.”

  Ellen Treacher is smiling. “Do you like it? I think it’s kinda rad.”

  “I do.” I’m nodding and looking at each one of them.

  Another kid, Dave Dutton, comes running into the hall. “Did you give it to him yet?”

  Isaac turns around. “Yeah. He likes it.” He looks back at me. “All right, let me talk to Ross alone. Everybody out.” He shoos them away. “You too, Chris.”

  When everyone is gone, Isaac turns back to me. Looks me in the eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, Ross. I really am.” He looks down at his empty backpack. “I mean, I’m an idiot.”

  I watch him for a few seconds. “What happened?”

  “I freaked out, Ross! That’s what happened. And I’m really, really not happy with myself about it.”

  I sniff. “So, you . . . freaked out.”

  “I did, Ross. When you told me you were sick, I just . . .” He puts his hands by his ears and mimics explosions coming out of them. “I had zero idea what to do. What to say to you. Zero.”

  I realize I’m nodding. “So you just didn’t.”

  He looks up. Embarrassed. “Yeah. I guess. I’m not proud of it, but the whole sick thing sent me into a tailspin.” He turns and looks up the hall behind him. “My parents almost made me go to counseling!” When he turns back, there are tears in his eyes. “But man, I miss you guys.”

  “But . . . Abby isn’t sick. Why’d you avoid her?”

  He lets out a snot-filled laugh as a tear spills over his eyelid. “Heh. But you guys are like a matched set. Like salt and pepper. Or peanut butter and jelly.”

  We stand there awkwardly for a couple of seconds. “Thanks for the hat, Isaac.”

  He wipes his eyes. “Yeah! Yeah. I mean, look. I wasn’t expecting you to forgive me right away. I deserve more of a—”

  “Seriously, Isaac. Thanks. I’ve gotta go. The show. But let’s . . . You, me, and Abby.”

  He nods, and then starts digging into the front pocket of his jeans. “Yeah. Abby probably really hates me, so put in a good word.” He darts a hand forward for me to shake. “Break a leg, Ross. Or whatever you say to a musician. And again . . . sorry.”

  I put my hand out and he gives it a quick shake, and he’s four paces back down the hall before I realize what he slipped into my hand.

  An Oreo.

  I duck into the bathroom to try out the new hat, and Ellen is right. The new one looks pretty great.

  When I walk backstage, Abby gives me a funny look and points at the new hat.

  “From Isaac.”

  She looks at it for a few seconds. Nods. “Good for him.” She keeps nodding. “He’s still a jerk, but good for him.”

  When Denny’s done getting things set, he gives us all high fives and says he’ll be in the crowd. Tells us to break a leg, to rock the house, and to have a blast.

  Then he turns to Lisa. “My lady? Would you care to join me?”

  Lisa smiles and looks over at Abby, who nods at her. Lisa takes Abby by the shoulders. “You’re going to be great.”

  They hug, and then Denny holds out one giant tattooed arm for Lisa. She hooks her tiny arm through his and puts a hand to her cheek.

  “Well, be still my beating heart.”

  Interesting. Abby and I exchange a glance.

  Then it’s just the four of us.

  There are a bunch of kids milling around backstage. Some are going over things on note cards, or have their eyes closed going through their acts. Pete Belford—a kid from my class—is juggling bowling pins in the back corner, and it’s pretty impressive. I watch for a minute and only see him drop one.

  He grimaces to himself. “Well, farts.”

  Frank steps over and puts his arm around my shoulders. “You good, big guy?”

  My heart rate’s been speeding up for the last five minutes, but I’m able to take a deep breath and blow it out. I tip my hat back and look up at him.

  “Probably not.”

  He pats my chest and laughs. “There ya go. That’s the spirit.” Then he leans down just enough that he can whisper. “You’ve got this, Ross. Just let go. Go out there and just . . . let go.”

  I nod as he stands up. We fist bump, and then he does the same to Abby and Jimmy. “You guys are ready. Just go out there and do it, ’kay?”

  We all nod, and he turns and ducks out the stage door, leaving the three of us alone. Or as alone as you can be backstage with a bazillion people.

  Abby’s broken out her best rock-star look tonight. She’s wearing her favorite Vampire Weekend shirt, and she has her hair fluffed out extra big, with a swipe of dark red makeup going across her eyes.

  She looks awesome.

  She also looks nervous.

  Jimmy looks like Jimmy, in his DRUMMER shirt and the usual denim jacket, but he’s added a wool cap that gives him a vaguely rocker look.

  I’m just wearing a white MUSIC IS LIFE shirt and jeans.

  The crowd parts, and Sarah steps through with Denise, who’s holding an official-looking clipboard. I think she’s the stage manager or something.

  Sarah is looking anywhere but at me—clearly embarrassed. I heard she and Denise got detention for, like, forever. I also heard she and Angie Moosebottom got in a huge fight over the whole cafeteria thing. Score one for Moosebottom!

  I also heard the only reason Sarah and Denise are still running and hosting the show tonight is nobody else wanted to take over at the last minute.

  A series of memes flash through my mind. Cancer Cowboy. The IV one. Death with my name. The one with me as a blind guy.

  Principal Kingsley called my dad and told him about the whole meme situation. They agreed we should all get together to talk about it. And that—this part made my stomach drop—there might be a school-wide assembly on being compassionate.

  Afterward, my dad gave me a big hug and asked if I was okay. We went for a long walk and talked about it, and I showed him the memes. It felt good to unload a bunch, and he mostly just listened. There were a couple more hugs and one ruffling of my hair. I felt better. Then, for the rest of the day he kept doing that dad thing where he’d try to look me straight in the eyes. Like he was checking to see if I was reeeeally okay.

  “You’re on last.” Denise has an exaggeratedly extra-nice look on her face. It’s obnoxious and overdone—on purpose. “Okeydoke?”

  I give her a blank face. I’m not ready to brush this whole thing under the rug. “Sure, Denise.”

  “Great! Super.” The added sugar in her voice grates on my nerves.

  Jimmy is looking at her with real contempt. Like something he dragged in on his shoe. “Well, aren’t you just the sweetest thing ever.”

  Denise turns to him, and every trace of a smile drops away. “Whatever. Did you know we got in-school suspension because of you turds?”

  This makes Jimmy laugh out loud. A loud, obnoxious bark. “Because of us? You made the memes.”

  Sarah starts to walk away, but Denise grabs her arm to stop her. Waving her hand dramatically in front of the three of us, Denise goes on.

  “OOOH, we made a meeeeeme! Maybe you should all get over yourselves. It was a JOKE. Move on, freak squad.”

  I’m suddenly hot all over. Steaming. I look at Denise’s pointy little face, and all I see is red. Sarah is stepping in trying to shut her up. Finally, they turn to go, but Denise gets in a shot, right at me.

  “Do us a favor. Just sing your dumb song and then crawl back in your little hole, okay?”

  I try to respond, but she slips away into the crowd. The words weren’t coming to me anyway. I think I was just shocked that someone could be that much of a jerk in real life. Like, did she wake up one day and decide to be a bad guy?

  Sara
h gives me the weirdest smile I’ve ever seen. She reaches out and touches my arm. “I’m sorry, Ross. I did . . . I did those pictures, but I don’t feel the way she does. I’m really sorry.”

  I stare back. Denise’s words are echoing in my head, and I have too many emotions going to pick a facial expression.

  Sarah looks at her watch and gives me an exaggerated I-have-to-go face. “Have a good show.” Then she’s gone.

  I feel Abby’s hand. She rests it on my chest. Looks me in the eye.

  “Forget them. Shake it off.”

  I can’t answer. Sarah’s weak little apology did nothing. I know Denise is awful and I shouldn’t let her get to me, but I feel like I want to ram my head through a wall.

  I walk away to the loading dock door and step outside. It’s freezing out—spitting sleet, actually—but it feels really, really good. I go to the edge of the platform and stand there taking in long, deep pulls of the night air. Watching the Christmas lights on the football fence twinkle in the cold rain.

  A few minutes later, I hear Sarah’s voice, amplified but muffled through the cracked door.

  “Hello! Hello, everyone, and welcome to the big holiday talent show!”

  Most of the show is a blur for me. I’m almost shaking I’m so . . . psychotic? Psychotic feels like the right word for what I’m feeling. I mean, I’m not going to start tearing the place apart like King Kong, but I’m WAY beyond angry. I spend a good bit of mental energy just getting myself to slow my breathing. To quiet all the things raging through my head.

  Somebody juggles. Somebody dances. Charlotte Keenan does a violin solo while riding a unicycle. Pete gets through both the bowling pins and some plate juggling without a glitch. But it’s all like watching TV through a window. I barely register it. My mind just . . . spins.

  And then it’s time.

  39

  CURTAINS

  While some of the acts have performed in front of the curtain, we’re set up behind the curtain because of the drum kit. So we’re ready, in position and staring at the back of the curtain when we hear Sarah walk across the stage and take the microphone. I can feel my heartbeat against the guitar strap. I’m gripping Frank’s trusty old blue electric guitar like my life depends on it.

  “Thank you, Tiffany!” Sarah’s voice is muffled a bit by the curtain. “What a great poem, am I right, folks? So great.”

  I look over at Abby. She smiles and reaches over for a fist bump. “We got this.”

  I pull out one of my little vials and quickly put in eye drops, then flick the container into the Christmas tree over by the side of the stage.

  Sarah goes on. “Okay! Now we have our final act of the evening. Um . . . please welcome Ross Maloy, Abby Peterson, and Jimmy Jenkins!”

  There’s applause and some shouting as the curtains part, and we see the audience. Actually, we can’t see most of them, because the lights on us are so bright, but I’m pretty sure I hear Frank and my dad yelling the loudest.

  I feel sweat break out over my entire body as I walk forward to the microphone. I try to adjust the height, but my fine motor skills aren’t working all that well, so I decide it’s good enough.

  “Thank you.”

  I look out into that dark crowd, squinting into the lights.

  The crowd is quiet, but my mind is anything but. I glance over at Sarah and Denise at the side of the stage. Denise the Unpleasant is giving me the most exaggeratedly bored look she can muster, and I feel my back teeth clench.

  I turn to the mic and try to clear my head. I take a deep breath.

  I hear someone clear their throat. I look over at Abby. She raises her eyebrows. Come on . . .

  And right then, someone yells out from the dark. It’s a deep, gravelly voice I haven’t heard in a number of weeks.

  “Go, Dime Slot!”

  Jerry.

  Jerry’s in the audience? He made it?

  Just hearing him out there sends a rush of warmth through me, and—I swear—it’s like something shifts in my brain. Like that satisfying snap of a Lego popping into place.

  It’s a hard thing to explain, but a lot happens in a single instant. Maybe this was finally my epiphany. Just not the epiphany I’d been expecting.

  Suddenly, everything but us playing this song seems beyond stupid.

  It’s like the part of me that worries about that stuff just fell out of my brain. Or like somebody found me the right glasses and I’m seeing things clearly for the first time in a long time.

  I don’t care what Sarah thinks. Or Denise. I don’t care if we win the talent show. I don’t care what people think of our performance. Or that my stupid squinty eye hurts. Or that the world out of my right eye is warping and changing by the day. Or about my big stupid hat.

  That may sound like a bad thing, but it’s not. It’s really not. It feels amazing. Like a nine-hundred-pound weight—or maybe a boulder?—has been lifted off of my shoulders.

  I don’t care.

  And it’s every bit as magical as that “every day is a precious gift” stuff other people talk about.

  Blood flows back into my shoulders, and a smile slides across my face. I look over at Abby and smile. Then back at Jimmy. He nods.

  I count us off, just like I did in practice a million times.

  We start up “Take It Easy” by the Eagles, and part of me is picturing Denny out there squirming in his seat. But we sound good. Even better than I’d expected, because the auditorium has a pretty good sound system.

  And then I’m singing. It’s almost like someone else is doing it and I’m watching from deep inside my head, which is a weird feeling. I’m singing, and I don’t even care how it sounds. This is for me. For us.

  I sing a few lines before I look over at Abby, who’s looking back, grinning from ear to ear.

  And that’s when I stop. I stop singing and strumming and turn around to Jimmy and Abby.

  “Stop! Stop! This isn’t . . .” They fumble to a stop, just like we practiced. They look confused, the way we did in rehearsal.

  I turn back to the microphone, and you could hear a pin drop as the echoes of our music bounce around.

  “That just . . . That just didn’t feel right. Sorry about that.”

  That’s when Jimmy starts in with a way faster, way harder beat on the drums, and Abby and I join in. I stomp on an effects pedal on the floor that Frank let me borrow. It makes the guitar instantly louder and . . . raunchier? Grungier? It sounds awesome.

  Then I’m yell-singing. The song is “Judy Is a Punk,” by the Ramones, and it’s one of the fun ones. It’s loud and fast, and it says what I want to say way better than any rolling country-rock song could. Not the lyrics—I’m not really sure what they mean. It’s about the tone.

  It’s a song that makes you want to run and jump and punch trees. It has that kind of energy, and it feels amazing to start screaming the lyrics. Abby’s yelling along with me. Jimmy, too, though he isn’t mic’d, but I can hear him back there.

  It’s sloppy. We know that, and we don’t care. We aren’t the Ramones. We’re three dumb seventh graders, making the loudest noise we can, and it feels incredible. It’s a song and a performance that will never win, and I couldn’t be happier. I start screaming louder, my voice cracking.

  When we get to the second verse, I reach up . . .

  I pull off my hat, revealing my brand-new Mohawk. One strip of hair, right down the center of my head. There may be a reaction in the crowd, but once again . . . don’t care.

  So, I’d finally let Abby shave my head—my way, that is—during our “mental preparation time” at my house. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her that excited.

  I hadn’t been going for a “moment,” but Abby actually got teary-eyed as my hair fell away onto the bathroom tile.

  I look over, and Abby is still smiling big, but she has to concentrate—the bass part on the song is simple but it’s super fast. I look back over at Denise, whose nose is scrunched up in a disgusted look—and it cracks me
up so bad, I flub the next few words.

  It isn’t a long song, and as it’s winding down, I try jumping around on the stage a bit. It goes okay until my leg knocks my guitar sideways and I lose my finger positions. But it doesn’t matter. The song is just a loud, crazy mess at this point—just like I wanted. Like we wanted.

  I start banging my hand on the strings, making weird out-of-tune sounds, and head to the amplifier. Just like Frank showed me, it starts squealing earsplitting feedback. I move back and forth, so the sound warps and wails like a stadium show.

  The song ends at this point, but I keep playing with the feedback. Abby keeps making random sounds on the bass, Jimmy on the drums, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  “YEAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

  I fall down on my back and start scooting myself across the stage, banging the strings, facing the ceiling of the auditorium—until I bump into Abby, stumbling around the stage, strangling weird sounds out of the bass. This isn’t music anymore, it’s noise. Big noise.

  That’s when I jump up and take the guitar strap off of my neck and walk off the far side of the stage, between the curtains—but only for a second. I come back to the middle of the stage.

  I look over at Jimmy, still bashing away randomly at his drums, and he gives me a smile.

  And I smash the guitar.

  I mean, I SMASH it.

  I bring it down onto the stage in a big, long arc—as hard as I can. I put everything into it. All of it.

  Anger. Frustration. Embarrassment. Stupidity. Confusion. Hat hate.

  The noise it makes is nuts. Musical and destructive and eardrum-bursting. It’s like an explosion of all the crap and bile that’s been building up in me for months, and something lets loose inside me.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Denise drop her clipboard.

  Abby smacks a few more sounds out of her bass just as Jimmy stands up and kicks over his cymbals. They hit the ground with an insane crash, and he comes around to the front of the stage with us. Abby slips off her bass and lays it on the stage. Then all three of us walk to the mic and look out into the crowd, the squealing feedback dying off behind us. The crowd, from what we can see, is stone still. I lean into the mic and yell.