Cut Off

by Jamie Bastedo

Hoots, shouts, cheering. The foyer was instantly carpeted with wall-to-wall students. All except for Morris and his buddies, who ducked out of sight.

  I felt a hefty tap on my shoulder. I looked up at Mr. Priddle, holding my lunch bag between two fingers.

  Damn! Busted!

  “You forget something?” he said, handing it over.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, breathing easier. “Thanks.”

  The sit-down strike dragged on and on. By lunchtime, Grimsby agreed to turn off the jammer, but still dug in his heels on our cell phone freedoms. With one hand discreetly tucked in my lunch bag, I was back online. I fired off a bunch of blind texts to local media, inviting them to witness cyber-democracy in action.

  Grimsby was visibly shaken when the TV crews and reporters showed up. His position softened dramatically. After several more rounds of negotiation, we ended up with some pretty decent cell phone guidelines, co-signed by Monica and our much-humbled principal.

  Monica and I took turns reading them out loud into a microphone, to bursts of cheering and applause. Back home I fired a brief blog to the world, declaring our student-led revolt a smashing success. The comments started pouring in seconds later.

  Thanks for saving our cyberbutts!

  i still say that guy should go to jail for even thinking of jamming us. give him 10 years hard labor.

  As a teacher, I have to walk that fuzzy line between limiting students’ phone use while not infringing on their personal freedom. Your success raises the bar for other schools to follow. Congratulations from Australia!

  The score: Ian McCracken 1, Oliver Grimsby 0. Well played!

  my phone has my whole life in it. i would simply die without it. you’re my hero!!!

  CYBER ATTACK

  The next Monday, Grimsby greeted me on the front steps with an icy smile.

  “Good morning, sir,” I said cheerfully.

  More ice. Enough to get a small glacier moving.

  His expression was so priceless, I whipped out my iPhone and took his picture before he could say a word. After a friendly nod, I entered the foyer, already posting his picture on my blog site. The caption:

  Grumpy Grimsby saved from jail sentence!

  In Grimsby’s eyes, I had become public enemy number one. But what could he do to me? Canadian law had been upheld. The student body had spoken. Democracy had prevailed. I was untouchable. And thanks to our new “PUMP” guidelines—Positive Use of Mobile Phones—I and eleven hundred other students could stay connected pretty much whenever and however we pleased.

  Now I could walk our school hallways with my head high and hands clean. In the cafeteria, students I’d never seen before pulled chairs up to my table to celebrate the previous day’s battle and talk about where we should go from here.

  Something had clicked between Monica and me. She made me feel ten feet tall. Her bubbly laugh gave me goose bumps. I wanted to stage another revolution with her, or maybe just ask her out to a movie or something.

  But my status as a local hero got killed soon after.

  The first shot was one stupid comment on my BEIN’canadIAN blog.

  Lay off laying on Monica, or else.

  It was fired by a faceless source with the name Knockout123.

  Those seven words soured my entire next day at school.

  Monica kept stopping me in the hall, asking for help in her election campaign—building her platform, designing her logo, writing her theme song.

  This was exactly what I’d hoped for.

  But every time Monica and I talked, I felt eyes burning my back. Somebody named Knockout123 was watching me, threatening me.

  Or else what?

  My poison pen pal.

  Day after day, he fired comments into my blog, faster than I could delete them.

  She deserves SO much better than you!

  Hey faggot, what’s it like having no friends?

  You want to help Monica be president? Then get the hell away from her NOW!

  I’m giving you one last chance to leave her alone before the truth comes out.

  All these comments wore me down. I shrank inside. I couldn’t sleep.

  What truth?

  That old melancolía crept back inside me. The high I’d felt after conquering Grimsby was long gone. Even Monica seemed to be pulling away, probably because now when we talked, I was barely there. My eyes would always dart around, looking for my torturer.

  Then came the photo, hacked into my BEIN’canadIAN blog.

  It was a picture of me playing guitar in our Xela home. Las Posadas candle lanterns burned all around me. Two little boys, my Aunt Dora’s kids, sat on each knee, looking up at me. Slapped across the photo, in flashing neon orange, were the words:

  PEDRO THE PEDOPHILE

  No one on earth called me Pedro. No one, that is, but Morris Kritch.

  Mr. Knockout123.

  After the first bomb went off in my head, I thought, Wait a minute! Where did he get that photo?

  I’d been ultra-careful about keeping my two blogs separate. They protected different worlds, different identities. Totally incompatible. My Ian followers knew nothing of Indio, the Guatemalan guitar star. My Indio followers knew nothing of Ian, the true blue Canadian kid who pushed the latest teen gossip and gadgets.

  My fingers froze over the keyboard. Had Morris hacked both blogs?

  I hit enter and my heart stopped.

  Morris had posted the exact photo, pedophile text and all, on my guitar blog.

  I collapsed over the keyboard, my guts spilling out from a deadly double hit.

  LISTENING

  It took two weeks and a lot of meds to get me out of bed and back at the keyboard. My doctor called it a relapse. Mom told me my melancolía always hid just below the surface, ready to burrow into any grietas en el alma—cracks in my soul.

  Morris’s dirty little post shook up my soul, all right. Cracked it open and poured me into the gutter.

  “Nobody home in here,” said a hollow voice in my darkest moments. “Nothing to live for.”

  The correct term for this place is “Pit of Despair.”

  It was Loba who saved me. She never left my bedside, always had a face lick for me when I rolled over, thumped her tail with the slightest wiggle of my toes. Things turned the corner when I found myself humming to her. That really got her tail going.

  At the bottom of that awful pit, I tasted a trickle of something sweet.

  A wisp of a melody.

  It wasn’t much of a tune, not anything I’d played before, but it had a simple charm, like Bach’s “Air on the G String” or Pachelbel’s “Canon,” only fresher, not wrecked by too much elevator airtime. I hummed and hummed this new melody, clinging to it like a drowning sailor grabbing a lifeline.

  Let it come, Indio. Find the music …

  At first I couldn’t recognize the voice in my head.

  Find the music. Follow it to the source …

  The source. The source …

  Below all the bullshit and pain.

  Now I knew.

  It was Magno calling.

  Lying there in my dungeon bedroom, with the tin foil back on the windows, I let the melody come. It opened up and took me in. Got my fingers twitching.

  I sprang out of bed, gave Loba a massive hug, and ran for my guitar case. Even in the dim light, I could see a layer of dust on it.

  I pulled out my long-abandoned friend, grabbed a textbook for a footstool, and started playing like mad, trying to capture the melody before it evaporated.

  My first composition on Canadian soil.

  I discovered a quiet, soothing melody in waltz time, perfectly suited to classical guitar. The name of the piece hit me between the eyes when Loba came over for a nuzzle.

  Loba’s Lullaby.

  I heard heavy stomping on the stairs. Cowboy boots.

  I didn’t stop. I didn’t look up.

  “What are you doing?” Dad asked.

  I ignored him.

  “I mean … it’s
great that you’re up.”

  Dad’s voice had softened, like he was almost happy to see me alive. “It’s … uh … great that you’re playing again.”

  I hadn’t seen my father for weeks. But I didn’t lift my head. I didn’t stop.

  I wouldn’t play his games anymore. I refused to let him wreck this moment.

  “Nice piece,” he said, taking a couple more steps toward me. “What’s it called?”

  “Shitstorm,” I said. “Now would you just let me play, Dad?”

  “Sure, son … sure.”

  My father actually shut up. He sat down in my big leather chair. I glanced up for a second and watched him watching me. His head rested on the back of the chair. His hands were loosely folded on his lap.

  I played on.

  He just sat there, listening to my music.

  Like he used to when I was a little kid. Those were our best times.

  Before things soured between us.

  I played on.

  Sofi came pounding down the stairs. “See?” she said to Dad. “I told you he was faking. How come he gets to miss so much school?”

  Dad chuckled and patted the fat arm of the chair for her to sit on.

  Instead, Sofi leaned against the doorframe and folded her arms, listening to my music.

  I played on.

  LOBA’S LULLABY

  A week later, I was reviewing my latest and greatest music video one last time. It had to be perfect. I wanted to honor every ounce of creative power I knew it had.

  The power that probably saved my life.

  The success of my “Blackbird” video showed me how important it was to mix good music with good effects. I also needed a good storyline. Even though “Loba’s Lullaby” had a round feel to it, I wanted it to go places, to take the viewer on a journey.

  A journey with Loba.

  First stop, believe it or not, was my bathroom. It had the best acoustics in the house.

  Loba’s Lullaby began like a billion other amateur videos out there, looking rough and wobbly, totally unplanned. Just me and Loba chilling on the braided rug that Sofi made me out of old T-shirts. I sat cross-legged with my guitar on my lap. Loba sat beside me, wagging her tail. Prompted by my wink, she did her begging routine, gently swatting the strings with one paw to get me to play.

  I plucked the opening chord, a spacey C7b9, and we took off.

  Literally.

  We were on a magic carpet ride across Canada.

  The bathtub and toilet behind me dissolved into blue sky, with Loba and me sailing through it on Sofi’s rainbow rug. In the blink of an eye, we were tailing a snowboarder down British Columbia’s Whistler Mountain, landing on the spinning top of the Calgary Tower, then riding a tundra buggy beside a polar bear near Churchill, Manitoba. Next, we leap-frogged through the clouds to Toronto’s Wonderland and zipped down the country’s biggest roller coaster. Then we spilled over Niagara Falls, blasted down Quebec City’s giant toboggan run, and hovered above the wild horses of Nova Scotia’s Sable Island. Last stop was the deck of an icebreaker busting its way to the North Pole. By the time we made it back to my bathroom, Loba’s head was in my lap with her eyes closed. I strummed the last spiraling notes and we faded to black.

  Since Morris had hacked both of my blogs, Ian’s and Indio’s, I decided to post the video on each. My hope was that it would blow Morris’s pedophile bullshit out of the water while rebuilding my fan base. I could deal with the fallout over my real name later.

  My last tweaks to the video included a dedication to my dog.

  For Loba, my guardian angel.

  I took a deep breath, loaded the finished video onto my blogs, and hit Publish.

  Little did I know how that would backfire.

  DROWNING

  Sure, I felt good about Loba’s Lullaby. But this, this, I never saw coming. Within two days, my music video had raked in over seven hundred thousand views. In three days, it broke a million, in a week, twelve million. My global fan base exploded.

  I never did get through all the comments.

  I screamed out loud when you went over the falls! So funny!

  I can’t wait to learn your piece and play it to my girlfriend. Now I just need to get the girlfriend!

  omg! im gonna die of a cuteness attack! Please love your dog and hug her all the time!

  I’m a cat person, but this video is fuckin’ awesome!

  The comments went on and on and on. The questions, too.

  Can you send me the sheet music?

  What apps did you use?

  Did you really go to all those places?

  Plus the inevitable comments from people who had nothing better to do but shit on me.

  When you learn to play REAL music like heavy metal you MIGHT get my attention.

  your dog is obviously on drugs. shame on you!!

  fake fake fake. even your music is fake. don’t waste my time you fake.

  Reading, answering, defending all this took forever. It was like another roller coaster ride—only this one was real. I’d never felt such highs. Then another hate bomb and down I’d go. Up, down, up, down. I didn’t go to school. I didn’t sleep for four days. I think I ate one Mars bar the whole time. I don’t remember drinking anything.

  All I remember is my glowing screen and the sea of comments washing over me. I kept pushing and pushing, trying to deal with the endless flood of online attention.

  Of course, Mom was pulling her hair out.

  She actually tried to yank me into bed once, but I bounced right back to the keyboard. She begged me to see a doctor but I refused. “I’ll be fine,” I yelled, “once I get through all these comments.”

  At one point, I had to pee real bad and, for some reason, ran outside and relieved myself under the crabapple tree. I stood there a long time, my dick hanging out, staring bleary-eyed at the Calgary skyline.

  How many people down there saw my video?

  I just stood there, burnt out, brain dead, until I heard my neighbor’s window slam and saw a woman inside pointing at me, talking excitedly on her phone.

  Minutes later, I heard a car door slam, Mom’s worried voice, heavy footsteps coming downstairs. I zipped up and dove into bed. I buried myself under the blankets. I groaned like I was dying—which maybe I was. Mom slowly opened my door. I poked my head out enough to see the red hatband of a Calgary cop.

  More groans.

  “Well, at least he’s in bed now,” Mom said. “He won’t cause any harm, officer.”

  NOSE HILL WALK

  In the end, it took Mom slamming my laptop shut and scooping it off my desk to get me out of my chair.

  “Hey! What are you doing?”

  She tucked the computer behind her back. “Time for a break, Indio. You haven’t walked Loba for days. You’ve been totally ignoring her.”

  I looked at Loba on her sheepskin rug. Her tail thumped, her eyes brightened, she waited for my command. My stomach sank when I realized she’d probably been lying there the whole time, the star of my viral video, my guardian angel. I hadn’t patted her once since I’d posted it.

  Mom thrust Loba’s pink leash into my hands. “Please, Indio. It’ll be good medicine for both of you.”

  “Buena medicina, eh?” I said.

  “Sí, Indio. Cuídate,” she said. “Take care out there. You’re not yourself.”

  “Myself? What’s that?”

  Loba got up, grabbed the leash in her teeth, and started pulling me toward the door.

  “Okay, but just for few minutes. I really gotta—”

  “Walk the dog. Right. Now, get out of this jail cell.”

  I slurped down a few mouthfuls of stale ginger ale and threw on my jean jacket.

  “Take an umbrella, Indio. It looks threatening out there.”

  Umbrellas were big in Guatemala. Even teenagers piled under them in a good rain. “Naw,” I said. “This is Canada, remember?” I automatically grabbed my iPhone on the way out.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” M
om said, reaching for it. “You’re a wreck. You need a total break offline.”

  “Yeah, but … just in case I need to call you or something.”

  “Where are you planning to take her?”

  “Dunno. Nose Hill, maybe.”

  Mom pointed a finger at me. “You promise me you’ll cross at the lights?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  I fell more than walked down the grassy hill that led to Shaganappi Trail. My head felt like concrete, my legs like lead. Somehow we made it to the bottom, safely crossed the six-lane intersection, and picked up the gravel path that winds to the top of Nose Hill.

  I took off Loba’s leash and she sprinted up the trail.

  There was a little pond partway up where Loba always liked to sniff around. It was surrounded by a scruffy forest full of interesting smells, in a park that was mostly grass and wind. Loba zeroed in on something furry at the edge of the pond. Something dead. She clamped down on it and dropped it at my feet with great pride.

  A jackrabbit skewered clean through by some kid’s arrow. “Gross, Loba!” I said. She backed away with lowered ears. I stared at the rabbit like it had fallen from outer space. Its cotton-bob tail and ridiculously long ears made me laugh out loud.

  The next minute, I was sobbing into my hands.

  Maybe Mom’s right. I am a wreck.

  I whipped out my iPhone and took a photo of the dead rabbit for my blog. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe I thought that once I posted it, this strange creature from another world would become more real for me. Or maybe I could seek vengeance on the bastard kid who killed it.

  I went online and was about to post the photo, when I noticed that my video had scored another five hundred comments in less than an hour.

  “NO MORE COMMENTS!” I screamed, flinging my iPhone high into the air. It spun in a steep arc, slapped the surface of the pond, and sank out of sight. “NO!” I screamed again, and ran up the hill as fast as my half-dead legs could carry me.