Cut Off

by Jamie Bastedo

  I flipped the covers down and squinted into blinding sunshine. A dusting of snow covered the crabapple tree in our backyard.

  How could it be winter?

  Loba jumped up and licked my face.

  “It’s a new day, Indio. You’re sixteen. You can’t go on living like this.”

  “Who says?”

  Mom crunched the tinfoil into a tight ball. “I say!”

  I pushed Loba away and covered my head again. “You sound like Dad.”

  “Indio, please. You haven’t been to school for weeks. Your principal called us. He said something about a suspension unless we get a doctor’s note saying you’re sick.”

  “So get one.”

  “You’re not sick!”

  “I’m sick of school.”

  “You hardly gave it a chance.”

  “Didn’t take long. I’m a fast learner.”

  “You’re falling way behind, Indio. This is Grade 11, you know.”

  “Okay. So let’s go back to home schooling. Get a tutor or something.”

  “For every subject? Do you know what that would cost?”

  “As if we can’t afford it.”

  “You know how expensive it is to live in Canada. And Dad’s mine is—”

  “In deep shit, yeah. So why not fly Luiz up here? He’d be a lot cheaper and he could moonlight as your live-in maid.”

  Mom half-laughed. “Somehow I can’t see Luiz in an apron.”

  “I’m not going back there.”

  “To Xela?”

  “To school.”

  Mom’s lips went tight. She looked almost as wrecked as me. “At least open your present. Your principal told me about a new homework app you could download. Might help you catch up while you recover from—”

  “From what? I’m not sick, remember?”

  “From your melancolía.”

  “Who’s depressed?”

  Mom nodded. “Oh. It’s normal to always be cranky?”

  “I’m not cranky!”

  She looked at me stone-faced, then started counting my crimes on her fingers. “To sleep all day? To have these crying fits? To lose interest in doing anything? Look where you were going with your guitar and you threw it all away!”

  “Dad alert. Dad alert.”

  “No, Indio. This is your mother talking. I was so proud of you. But you don’t practice anymore. You don’t perform. You don’t even blog about your music, let alone play it.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. My head was a brick, my body a rotten log. My heart thumped to the beat of Chopin’s “Funeral March.”

  Dum, dum, da-dum …

  I heard Mom dragging her feet toward the door, the sound of frustration and worry in every step. And something else.

  Fear.

  The shuffling stopped. I could feel her eyes on me. “Come on, Indio. You should at least get out of bed on your birthday … please.”

  Faster, lighter steps on the stairs. Then, right beside my ear, the shriek of air escaping from the stretched lips of a balloon. “Yeah, come on, Indio!” Sofi yelled. “I made a decadent chocolate cake for you. Get up, ya lump!”

  CRAWLING

  My climb back to life started with one short email. I found it by accident while poking around the homework app on my new iPhone. The first thing I did when I went online was obliterate every comment on my blog page. Good or bad, love letters or hate mail, read or unread, it didn’t matter. I took a deep breath and hit Delete all.

  The cloud of poison comments dissolved from the screen like tear gas vaporizing into the sky.

  I was about to do the same to thousands of stale emails when I spotted a two-word subject line that froze my thumbs.

  Miss you.

  It was from my Israeli girlfriend Shoshana.

  I clicked on it.

  Indio, where are you? I miss your magic music.

  Shoshana had been a loyal follower since my early blogging days in Xela. Like me, she was born with a thing for music. Like me, she had a father who breathed fire down her back to get her to practice. Unlike me, she played the oud. Think stretched-out lute with no frets. Shoshana called it the guitar’s great-great grandmother. It has a strange, prehistoric voice that, as she said, “can stir up desert gales and the cries of whales.”

  We used to trade tunes back and forth. I’d send her a Bach cantata for her to “oudify.” She’d send me her arrangement of Taylor Swift’s latest hit played on her four-hundred-year-old oud.

  We had a good thing going, like we were a culture of two, sharing a secret language.

  Her email included an MP3 called “Crawling Out of the Dark,” her own composition.

  This I could not delete.

  I hit play and my small dark world caved in around me.

  Shoshana’s music cracked me open and a bunch of buried memories came leaking out.

  The sharp click of a locked door.

  The sting of mining stakes against my shins.

  A lifeless eye dropping into an open palm.

  The sickening crunch of a dying guitar.

  A young mother falling to the ground in a fine red spray.

  The mournful voice of Shoshana’s oud left me sobbing. But not the random kind of sobbing that ambushed me at night. It was hot and healing, like it burned the poison out of me. Buena medicina Mom would call it. Good medicine.

  Shoshana’s music got me off my ass and crawling at least, out of the dark.

  I felt connected again. And wanted more.

  A month later, I was still at home in my basement room. A copy of my doctor’s note was pinned to my bulletin board. I looked at it now and then and smiled. Maybe it was the drugs smiling. There it was in ink, my official diagnosis: Clinical depression.

  I was on drugs, all right. Prozac in the morning, Ativan at night. But they couldn’t touch the highs I was getting from being back online.

  This feeling’s got to be illegal. Could even get me arrested.

  BLACKBIRD

  The Internet became another instrument. Mom’s laptop and my new iPhone were the strings. The hottest apps and websites were the songs. I learned, I practiced, I played. My new improved blog became the stage.

  I lost hundreds of musical followers after the Xela shooting. But I gradually rebuilt my fan base by feeding them the rare gems I’d discovered, digging deep into the online guitar world. Interviews with master guitar players, videos of amazing performances, the best teaching sites, coolest recording apps, and tons more.

  What was missing, of course, was me playing guitar. That’s what got me connected in the first place. It didn’t take long for my followers to speak up:

  great stuff Indio. i especially like the “guitar candy” app. never woulda found it on my own. u r making me a star! but where’s your amazing chops? gotta have your inspiration!

  Glad you’re back online. Looking forward to your next coolisimo concierto ;)

  OMG I thought you had died. Time to strut your stuff again, Wonder Boy!

  Soon after you disappeared I had a dream you played Led Zeppelin’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” on your classical guitar. Please make my dream come true! And please, please don’t ever leave me again! BBB

  My fans were screaming for me. But there was just one problem. My guitar and I were not getting along.

  Over those months since we’d moved to Canada, the closest I’d come to playing my guitar was in my dreams. A melody would pop into my head, invade my arms, and wake up my fingers. My guitar was back on my lap, my hands in ready position. The melody called me, teased me, seduced me. I chased it with my fingers, like those magic moments playing with Magno, note by note, in perfect unison.

  I’d wake up with this weird ache in my chest and wonder, could I start again? Could I be that guitarist with “talent to burn,” as Magno used to say? Could I buckle down and practice, but this time on my terms, not my father’s?

  Once, after such a dream, I actually took out my guitar, just to feel it in my hands. It felt awful. The
strings were dead, the wood cold and stiff. I couldn’t even tune it. I played a few chords. I tried the first notes of my dream melody. I looked at my hands in disgust. I could still hear the melody in my head. I could see myself on stage performing it. I could hear the applause explode after the last ringing note.

  But my guitar chops were gone. And just over my shoulder was my father, pouring hot coals down my back. Even though he was a million miles away, busy with his Guatemalan lawsuit or down in Colombia drumming up another mine, he was watching me. I could feel the heat.

  Still, my fans were screaming for me.

  I wouldn’t let Dad wreck this chance.

  Okay, Indio, I said to myself. Start over. Go back to basics. Back to the first tune Magno ever taught me. “Blackbird” by the Beatles.

  At first, even this simple ditty was a stretch. But eventually it came back. And with it, some ideas on how to use the cool apps I’d found while staying home, alone in my room, supposedly recovering from my melancolía.

  A warm Chinook wind had punched the seasons back to summer overnight. That’s Calgary for you. I decided to film the whole thing outside. I propped my iPhone on the lid of Dad’s barbecue and hit Record. Loba and I walked into the frame and sat down on the grass under the big crabapple tree. She gently swatted the guitar strings a few times with her paw, as if begging me to play—a little trick I taught her. I nodded to her, then played “Blackbird” exactly like Paul McCartney.

  I got lucky with the black bird part when a raven showed up the next day. I caught him on camera, hopping back and forth across our fence.

  With all the raw footage now in the can, I was back on the laptop, playing.

  The Chinook had blasted all the snow off the crabapple tree but, with the right app, it was easy enough to put it back on. I draped some digital icicles and Christmas lights on the tree. Next came the job of getting the raven to hop all over me and my guitar while I played. This was no sweat with a special app I’d found for video splicing. Using another app called “Cheshire,” like the disappearing cat in Alice in Wonderland, I made my body fade away, leaving only the guitar, my fingers, and the hopping raven. I couldn’t help fooling around with the music itself, adding concert hall acoustics, a funky bass track, and a whispering wind. I ended it with some hilarious raven calls recorded at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Just as the music ended, my body returned. Loba licked my face. I blew a kiss at the camera. All the icicles melted and the Christmas lights exploded into spring flowers.

  It took me two days to polish my first high-tech music video to the level I was happy with. It felt a lot like getting a guitar piece ready for the stage. I watched it one last time, had a good belly laugh, then hit Publish.

  “What were you laughing at?” Sofi asked when I went upstairs to snarf down half a hot dog.

  “Come and see,” I said crashing back downstairs.

  Sofi watched the video open-mouthed. “That’s pretty cool, Indio. How the heck did you—?”

  I held up both hands. “Sorry, that’s classified information.”

  Minutes after publishing, the comments came pouring in from all over the world. I clapped my hands and gave Sofi a bear hug that lifted her off the floor. “I’m back!”

  We plan to show your music video at my little sister’s funeral. She had cancer. She loved ravens. The flowers at the end made us all cry but also gave us hope. Thank you!

  Truly amazing, Indio! The raven is my Animal Spirit Guide. They follow me everywhere all the time—like your beautiful dog follows you!

  Sweet! Why the hell does this video have less than 1,000,000 views??? Please, everybody, share this widely!!!

  Mends my soul. So grateful for this. Tear ducts still working ok.

  AWESOME video. You are my guitar avatar! ;-P

  BEIN’ IAN

  The Blackbird video lifted me high enough to go back to school, even though I was still on low-dose meds. They helped me ride the bumps, like walking into class super-late after blogging all night, or enduring another math class that made my home-school days with Luiz look thrilling.

  Then there was Morris, who liked to trip me up in gym class or corner me in the hallway. Like one Monday morning I’ll never forget.

  “Hey, Pedro!” Morris said, stepping in front of me as I tried to swerve around him. “Where ya been?”

  I stood up as tall as I could, still a head shorter than Morris. “It’s Ian, okay?”

  Morris was so close I could smell the gel in his hair and the weed on his breath. “I heard you got AIDS,” he said loudly.

  “Who told you that?”

  Morris waved a hand at a line of chic chicks standing by their lockers. “Like, everybody.”

  “It wasn’t AIDS.”

  He scrunched up his face. “But it must’ve been something awful. You hooked off for so long.” He looked around, nodding at the girls. “Something awful,” he repeated.

  The girls nodded to each other.

  I fingered the meds in my pocket, craving another hit. “It was nothing special.”

  “Not special for you,” Morris said, backing away. “So it’s true, then.”

  “What’s true?”

  “That it’s easier for your kind to catch those sorts of diseases?”

  “What do you mean, my kind?”

  Morris shrugged. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  The buzzer went off above my head. A mob of students pushed past us, knocking me into Morris’s barrel chest. “Uh … sorry, Morris,” I mumbled.

  He stepped aside, almost politely. “What, for existing?”

  I dove into the mob and ducked into class, sweating.

  As I closed the door behind me, I realized I was standing in front of the wrong class.

  That was not a good day.

  It got better when I opened this text.

  morris is a jealous muscle-headed twerp! ignore him.

  It was from Monica, the fashion plate running for president.

  How did she get my number? Why would she write me?

  After the initial high, I figured she was just after my vote.

  Things got much better when Morris started missing school, even more than me. Some said he’d dropped out. But then I’d see him talking to stoners in the stairwell. Or I’d spot his orange Mustang cruising by the school, belching hip-hop music loud enough to shake the pavement. He’d pull up by a group of smokers behind the arena; down would go his power window, and in went a wad of cash—and he wasn’t selling pencils.

  But that was none of my business. As long as Morris was out of my face, school was tolerable.

  I showed up for most classes, kept my ears open and nose to the ground. I tried to fit in when I could. When I couldn’t, I became invisible.

  My real life was online.

  Since no one at school knew me as Indio—I reserved that name for my global guitar audience—I decided to experiment with a second blog, a random, quirky teen forum, featuring the coolest apps I could find, the funniest jokes, goofiest pictures, freshest gossip, and hottest links. The sky was the limit.

  The catch was I included only Canadian content. I figured this would be a good way to learn how to be a Canadian, while convincing my local followers, and myself, too, I guess, that I actually was one.

  I named my new blog BEIN’canadIAN.blogspot.ca.

  What do Canadian Schools really teach us?

  Absolute truth comes from the weather.

  Intelligence is the ability to remember and repeat donut names.

  Accurate memory & repetition are required to find your way home in a blizzard.

  Non-compliance is punished, especially when running a dog team.

  Conforming is rewarded, especially when ending sentences, eh?

  Click here for more tools on organizing student-led revolts, Canadian style.

  ILYG, Bein’ Ian

  In spite of such lame beginnings, the BEIN’canadIAN blog took off. I built a second base of followers, totally separate from the t
housands following some Guatemalan guy named Indio, the caged guitarist.

  At school, people who used to ignore me, even some of Morris’s followers, would stop me in the hallway to talk about my blog, trade apps, and suggest new stuff to put on it. My list of contacts in Calgary alone grew to over a thousand. They kept me busy flipping texts back and forth, easily two hundred or more on a normal school day.

  But thanks to our principal, Mr. Grimsby, the next Friday would definitely not be a normal school day.

  THE CONCERT

  “I’m sorry, Ian, but today is Friday.”

  Mr. Grimsby was on the school stage with me, flipping his palm open.

  I thwacked my iPhone to my chest. “So?”

  “You know the routine. The last Friday of every month all devices stay home … or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “I confiscate them.”

  I started to sweat under the stage lights. I looked out at a sea of expectant faces. Not classmates, not anyone I’d see walking down my street.

  Indio’s guitar fans. I recognized them from their profile pictures. I saw Paula from Argentina, Rashid from Pakistan. And there, my Israeli girlfriend, Shoshana, the oud player!

  They’d come from all over the world to hear me play.

  My throat tightened.

  Mr. Grimbsy hovered over me. “Hand it over, Ian.”

  I crammed my phone under my butt. “It’s off, don’t worry!”

  I reached for the guitar and rested it over my left thigh. It felt weird. I looked down. I was hugging Dad’s darling Ramirez.

  I always got nervous before performing. Now it felt like God was listening.

  I poised my fingers over the strings … and spotted Dad in front of the stage. He was dressed like an usher, complete with pillbox hat and gold-striped pants. Ridiculous. He didn’t freak over me touching his guitar. He was too busy pacing the floor, staring at his watch.