The Bad Decisions Playlist

by Michael Rubens

“I can get another bass player in an hour!” Shane is shouting.

  “Yeah? And, what, your third drummer? Your fifth guitarist? It’s been weeks of this crap!”

  Amy is facing me directly across the hallway at handshake distance. As she tries to keep the confrontation from escalating past words to fists, her eyes fall on me like I’d just materialized that moment. I look back at her helplessly, apologetically. The shift in her attention makes the other two glance at me, and that breaks the momentum of the argument.

  “Ah, screw this,” says Rob, and he turns away, and marches down the hall, picks up his bass, and disappears around the corner.

  “Yeah, that’s right, just quit!” shouts Shane after him. “You suck, Rob! You suck!”

  Then he looks at me again, and I can see the process as he recognizes me.

  “Oh, great,” he says, and stomps off through the door and slams it shut behind him.

  “Shane!” says Amy, but she doesn’t follow him. “Oh, crap.” She closes her eyes and leans against the wall, sighing. Then she opens them and looks at me, seemingly surprised that I’m still there.

  “Hi,” she says. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Um,” I say, and point toward the closed door, “I think that’s my dad.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  About fifteen minutes pass before she reemerges from the door, fifteen minutes that I spend rocking back and forth on my feet, then pacing, then leaning against the wall and lightly drumming on it with my knuckles and palms, then finally just sitting on the floor. When she comes out, I clamber to my feet, but I can immediately tell from her expression​—​pained, embarrassed​—​that she’s not the bearer of glad tidings.

  “I should probably take off,” I say before she speaks, saving her the trouble.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s just . . . It’s not a great time.”

  “Sure. Sure, yeah, no worries.”

  “I’m Amy, by the way,” she says, and holds out her hand.

  “Yeah, I gathered that during all the excitement,” I say. “I’m Austin.” We shake hands.

  “Sorry about all this,” she says.

  “No worries.”

  “Still, sorry.”

  She pauses.

  “Are you really, you know . . . ?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. Or my mom thinks so. I’m kind of new to the whole thing.”

  She nods. “Wow.”

  “Yeah. So . . . you working on the new album?” I know I should leave, but I’m stretching it out, hoping Shane will change his mind.

  “Yeah, moral support, that sort of thing.”

  She’s very attractive, and I can’t help wondering exactly what sort of moral support she’s providing.

  “How’s the recording going?”

  She gives me a What do you think? look.

  “Right,” I say. I do a bit more foot shuffling. “Maybe if I came back some other time,” I say.

  She hesitates, looks embarrassed and pained again.

  “Uh . . .”

  “Or maybe not,” I add quickly. “Okay. Well. Nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” she says, and we shake hands again and I turn to go. After a few steps, I stop.

  “Hey, Amy?”

  She pauses, her hand on the half-open door.

  “Can you give him a message from me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Could you tell him to go screw himself?”

  She smiles sadly. “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  Then I leave.

  It’s pretty clear / this beauty here / is gonna turn to ugly /

  I’m pretty sure / this pretty girl / will pretty damn near ruin me

  “You know something? It’s actually kind of comfortable lying here,” I say.

  “Austin,” says Alex, “seriously, there’s one coming. Get up.”

  He’s about five yards to my right, straightening up after resting his ear on the track. He doesn’t need to tell me a train is coming​—​I can feel the vibrations growing stronger through the back of my skull, which is resting on the polished steel surface of the rail, my body parallel with the oil-soaked ties, the opposite rail cool and hard under my calves.

  “No, I think this is a perfectly reasonable course of action,” says Devon, who’s sitting on the opposite rail. “He failed his math test, Alex. His math test. What else can he do?”

  It’s Monday. Let’s summarize the past few days.

  Thursday: The narrowly avoided gelding via hedge shears.

  Friday: Both Josephine and Shane rejected me.

  Saturday: Lawn mowing. During which time someone let the air out of both of the tires on my motorcycle. I had to wheel it about a mile to a gas station to fill them up.

  Sunday: More lawns. Someone decorated the seat and handle-bars of my motorcycle with smears of dog crap.

  Sunday evening: I tried to study for my math test. I lasted for approximately ten minutes and one polynomial. I could have asked Rick for help, but, vomit. Then I went to sleep, the music in my head, and dreamed Josephine was telling me I was late for class and I was going to fail my test.

  Monday, today: I woke from that dream and realized I had slept through my alarm, was late to summer school, and failed my test.

  I have to hand it to Terry the Shaman: she really nailed it regarding this month.

  So when I staggered out of my summer school session, with no lawn crew duties today, I called Devon and said, let’s go to Mr. Whitmore’s house.

  Which is where we are now, except there is no house​—​nor is there a Mr. Whitmore. It’s what we call this wooded area where the train tracks pass over a creek, because when you like to smoke pot with your friends, you invent clever and hilarious code names for your little meet-up areas. Want to go to Whitmore’s after school today? Sure. Tee hee! I’m not sure why we settled on that name. But when we want to do some serious weed ingesting​—​which, after the events of the past few days, I really wanted to do​—​we go to Whitmore’s, where we like to sit leaning against trees near the creek and smoke and watch the trains go by a few yards away, trying to count the cars as they blur past.

  Several hazy minutes ago, I decided that it would be interesting to see what it’s like to lie down on train tracks, like in Rhett Miller’s song “Fireflies,” or like a damsel in distress.

  “You’re a friggin’ idiot in distress,” said Devon.

  Once I was lying down, I started pondering my problems, which seem to be mounting up at an alarming rate, and then started thinking that maybe I could let a train solve those problems.

  “Why don’t you guys go?” I say. “I’m good here.”

  Beneath my skull, the vibrations are getting stronger, and I think I can hear the sound of the train in the distance.

  “Dude, get up,” says Alex.

  “No. I’m happy here,” I say, my eyes closed.

  “You’re gonna be dead there.”

  “That will make me happier.”

  “STFU,” says Devon. “I swear I’m going to placekick your nuts.”

  My teeth are starting to rattle from the train. I hear Alex say something to Devon.

  I’ve been friends with Alex since, what, seventh grade? He’s easygoing. We both like weed and music and talking about girls. We hang. It’s not a very complicated relationship.

  “No!” says Devon. “He just wants attention! Let him get run over!”

  Devon and I have a complicated relationship.

  We’re sort of like brothers. I stayed with him and his family several times when my mother had to sort things out in rehab, and also when I had to sort things out on my own. We touched winkies when we were six. We’ve had three fistfights. We lovehate each other. He knows me better than anyone, and vice versa. Periodically he’ll inform me that he’s sick of my crap, and we don’t talk for weeks.

  Alex is speaking now. Something something “he’s pretty stoned.”

  “Do it yourself. I’
m tired of his drama,” says Devon.

  There’s a pause, and then I feel someone grabbing my ankles and lifting them off the ground. I open my eyes. It’s Alex. Thud. My head drops off the rail as he starts dragging me off the tracks.

  “Ow.”

  The stones and gravel grind underneath me. I reach up and grab at the rail, holding on.

  “Austin, stop being an idiot,” says Alex. “I can see the train.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Idiot.”

  More pulling. I hold fast.

  “Dude, you’re pissing me off,” says Alex. “The train’s coming!”

  I can feel it through my hands, but you don’t have to be touching the rail​—​you can hear it for real, and I turn my head to the right, and yes, there it is, maybe twenty seconds off, the whistle blowing. At that moment I seriously think, I could. I could just lie here. Because who cares?

  “Austin!” yells Alex, the roar of the train growing louder. “Get up! Devon, a little help here?”

  I hear Devon swearing and the sound of what I’m guessing is a half-full beer can hurled in anger at a tree trunk. Then the whistle blotting it out, blowing even louder, the noise deafening.

  “Pick him up! Pull him!”

  I hold fast.

  “What are you friggin’ laughing at, Austin!” screams Devon. He gives a mighty yank, and the rail above my head is torn from my grip and they drag me violently across the rail bed and over the other rail, scratch grind clunk thud, down the embankment and into the grass as the train thunders by, Devon leaning over into my face to scream more angry insults at me that are inaudible. Then he disappears from my view. Then reappears to give me the finger with both hands. I can’t hear him, but it’s hard to misread someone’s lips when they’re screaming, “I’m sick of your crap!” See?

  Then he exits the frame again. I observe the featureless blue sky, listening to the noise of the train dying away in the distance.

  I prop myself up on my elbows. Devon is nowhere to be seen. Alex is lifting his bicycle up, preparing to leave.

  “Thanks,” I say to him. “You guys are the best.”

  Alex glances at me, shakes his head, and starts wheeling his bike down the long dirt path that will eventually take him to the street.

  “Thanks!” I say again. Then, “You guys are really great!” and “Thank you!” and “Thanks, Alex!” None of which he responds to as he recedes into the shade of the woods.

  Add one more item to the list of my accomplishments for these past few days: Wore out the very last of my friends’ patience.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  I lie there some more. Time passes. The sky maintains its blueness. I listen to grasshoppers. My brain starts to meander its way back from Fuzzy-Wuzzy World toward a more normal state, whatever that is for me.

  I get up and look around. Neither Devon nor Alex has returned to tell me that it’s all good and we’re still friends. I go to pee against a tree, evidence suggesting that it’s the same tree Devon targeted with his Beer Can of Anger. I’m midstream, drawing decorations, when I get a text. Alison.

  Meet me at the lake. I’m alone.

  Well, as long as I’m on a streak of really bad decisions . . .

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Austin! Austin, over here!”

  Alison, calling to me as I approach from the parking lot, waving both hands above her head as she hops up and down like a game show contestant who has just won a washer-dryer. She’s at the outer periphery of the crowd gathered at the Lake Harriet band shell, standing with Kate and Patty and Marcy, all in cutoff jeans and bikini tops. A few of the dudes near them turn to see who the ridiculously hot girl is shouting and waving to. That guy? Really? I have the urge to tell them I agree.

  “I’m so glad you came!” she says when I get close, and then I get the big hug again. More hugs from the other cheerleaders; inquiries about my general health and well-being. Onstage, the band is sound-checking and tuning up, amps squawking and sending feedback into the summer afternoon.

  “Let me see your head!” says Alison, and so I lean forward to show her and the other girls the wound, and I earn the requisite awwws and OhMyGods and feel a bit sleazy for exploiting the opportunity to check out all the boobage I’m being presented with. Then I forgive myself and decide I should just do my best to enjoy the situation.

  “Here, I’ll kiss it,” says Alison, and she plants a kiss on the Band-Aid while the other girls trade mischievous smiles, like we’re doing something daring and naughty. “Better?” she asks.

  “Not sure. Maybe I need one right here,” I say, and point to my lips. Giggles from the other girls.

  “Okay,” says Alison, and she does it, she kisses me on the lips​—​a real kiss too, one that lingers softly for a moment longer than I expect. She steps back and looks at me, smiling, triumphant. Enjoying being bad. Enjoying playing with her toy. Her toy is sort of enjoying it too. Gleeful shock from the other girls.

  “Better?” she says.

  “Better. I have some other ideas . . .”

  “I bet you do,” she says, and then the band starts into a passable cover of a Bob Marley song.

  The girls dance and sing along, Alison sometimes linking her arm with mine or giving me hip checks. I cast furtive, nervous glances around for bulky hockey players. We pass several songs like this, chatting briefly between songs, Alison poking me in the ribs with her finger if I’m not paying enough attention to her, and once biting me on the ear. It’s boner inducing.

  “Why are you doing this?” I shout over the music.

  “I like you!”

  “You have a large boyfriend!”

  “We broke up again!”

  I’m doing some internal forecasting of how that breakup might affect Todd’s mood, and hence my continued well-being, when the band finishes up. The general female consensus is that more music is desired, and they’re a hard crew to say no to, so we all end up sitting on the grassy hill that overlooks the band shell and the lake, and I play some songs on the ukulele, singing whatever the girls request.

  After a bit, Alison grabs my arm and says, “Let’s go get ice cream,” and the two of us walk down the hill and stand in the concession line.

  As we shuffle along toward the order window we talk. Or not really talk. Banter. She says something flirty or suggestive, and I say something that I hope is clever, and so on back and forth, her hand sometimes resting on my shoulder like she needs to support herself because she’s laughing JUST SO HARD at my brilliance. And let’s face it, it’s intoxicating and really erotic, because damn. Look at her. My head is spinning.

  It’s also . . . boring.

  I’m deadly bored. I’m simultaneously fighting two urges: an almost overwhelming one to hump her leg, and another to just keel over, fast asleep. She might as well be speaking R2-D2 language to me right now. That would be about as meaningful.

  What is wrong with me? She’s any straight boy’s fantasy, and instead​—​goddammit​—​I’m thinking about Josephine. Her intelligence, her quiet confidence, the way she seems to know exactly who she is. Thinking about those eyes.

  I’m wishing I could just swap out Alison for Josephine right now, even though that conversation would be a big tangled bundle of spikes and thorns.

  We get to the window and we order and Alison flirts with the guy and he gives her a cone for free. That’s what life is like for girls like Alison: one free ice cream after another.

  We stand just apart from the concession stand, Alison chattering.

  “Austin, are you even paying attention?” she says, giving me a little backhand whack in the stomach.

  “What? Yes!” I say.

  “What was I talking about?”

  “You were holding forth about David Foster Wallace,” I say. “It was mesmerizing!”

  “You are such a jerk!” says Alison, but it’s all in the same flirty-silly voice, and she laughs and hangs on to my arm.

  “No, what were you saying? Abou
t the party?”

  “I said, are you going to that party at . . .” and her voice once again fades to R2-D2 blerps and blorps in my mind and then to total silence.

  “Austin?” she says. “Austin, you really aren’t listening at all, are you? What are you looking at?”

  “I’m really sorry,” I say. “I gotta go.”

  I hear her calling after me, and I turn once to wave and mouth Sorry, and I keep going, walking toward the parking lot, toward where Shane Tyler is leaning against the rear bumper of his blue vintage Range Rover, hands in his pockets, waiting for me.

  I wonder if you hear me / if you’re still near me /

  or were you ever really there /

  or just a trick of the light in the air

  It takes me what feels like an hour to walk across the parking lot. I’m not sure where to put my gaze as I go, so I look at the ever-changing patch of black asphalt just ahead of my feet as I stride, glancing up at Shane now and then to make sure I’m on course, pausing to let cars pass in front of me.

  I stop a few yards away from him, the distance you use when you don’t know someone so well and you’re not quite sure how either of you feels about the interaction you’re about to have. He’s examining me, that same cautious, slightly apprehensive expression on his face as when he was standing on my front porch, mixed with a hint of something else. Amusement, maybe. The look of someone laughing at himself. Sad-amused. Bitter-amused.

  Neither of us says anything for a moment. Then he leans a bit to the side, looks past me, straightens up again. “She looks like a big scoop of fun, and three big scoops of trouble,” he says.

  “Yeah, I think you’re probably right about the trouble,” I say.

  He nods, smiles. Again the melancholy amusement.

  Then, “I followed you,” he says. “Saw you leaving your house and I followed you.” I had gone home briefly after my visit to Whitmore’s to fetch the ukulele and change my clothes, which had railroad tar on them.

  “I felt real bad about what happened at the studio,” he says. I can hear the southern in his voice, stronger than my mom’s accent. “Stuff is just . . .” He waves a hand, annoyed. “Anyway, I was up all night thinking about it. I didn’t know how to find you other than going to your house, and I saw you riding off on your bike, and I followed you.”