The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To

by DC Pierson

  “What are we going to tell our parents?”

  “Well, my dad’s easy. Your parents actually give a shit. That might be more difficult.”

  “Right.”

  “The Man said he was from the college, right? When he met with your parents.”

  “Yes.”

  “Great,” I say. “He just gave us our out.”

  I tell Eric to see if he can borrow Randy’s phone. Eric wants to know why I don’t just ask to borrow Randy’s phone. I tell Eric he’s in better with these kids. Eric says okay.

  “Randy my good man,” says Eric, finding Randy in the kitchen, cooking: “Would you be so kind as to lend me your cellular telephone for a brief moment?”

  Randy laughs. “Sure,” he says. “Don’t, like, call Asia.”

  We take Randy’s phone and go out front since the house is kind of noisy because Randy and Christopher have a couple people over who are all in the living room playing Super Nintendo. My feet crunch on a carpet of leaves underneath the lemon tree. I dial Eric’s house phone. Eric looks at me, biting one of his knuckles without thinking about it.

  “Hello … Mrs. Lederer? Hello! This is Albert Praetoreous from State. I believe you spoke to my colleague the other day…. Yes! That’s him. Yes. Well, as I’m sure Eric told you, some honors students from his school were visiting us today on an orientation field trip—What? He didn’t?… Yes, I suppose he can be a space cadet sometimes, but he’s also one bright little guy, if you don’t mind me saying so. Yes, well interestingly enough, I confided to the students today that we had two foreign scholars who were meant to attend a longer orientation program we often do in the spring, which is this week, and they were unfortunately not admitted to the country. Visa troubles…. I know. I know. I completely agree, it has had a chilling effect on international travel. Well, I was saying this, and Eric piped up and suggested that he and a Mr. Darren Bennett take the place of these scholars in the program…. Right, I had that reaction myself initially, but I actually cleared it with our dean of admissions here, and I said to Eric, if it’s alright with your parents … Yes! Of course. He’s right here.”

  I hand Eric the phone. He gives me a panicked look. I wave at him like, “Just do it.” He puts the phone to his ear.

  “Mom? Yeah. Yeah … I’m actually way ahead on homework. Yeah … It seems really good…. Next Wednesday. Yes … I’m really far ahead on homework. No. No, yeah, it’s okay. I’ll come back and get stuff. Clothes and things. Tomorrow. Okay … Okay. Love you. Bye.” He hangs up.

  “Did they buy it?” I say.

  “I think they bought it,” he says. “That was a pretty good adult impression.”

  “Thanks,” I say. I would’ve killed it in Mr. Hendershaw’s “theater piece,” I think to myself. Then I think how, not that I ever wanted to, but how if that whole Theater Division thing were something I wanted to do someday, now I pretty much can’t, even though it’s only sophomore year. And if I wanted to do it in college, I probably wouldn’t, because I hadn’t done it in high school and I would be way behind everyone else in terms of experience. And then it’s weird to think that once I’m out of high school, that will have been high school. Like, the high school years, the ones everybody gets, those will have been mine, written in stone, unalterable forever. And I guess they haven’t been bad so far. I didn’t talk to anybody and then I made a best friend and then I fell in love and lost my virginity. Soon I’ll learn how to drive. Soon I will escape from the clutches of evil with a mutant best friend and we will return to those awkward halls triumphant.

  Eric looks alternately thrilled and scared at going out on a big rebellious limb like this. He also looks very tired. I take the phone back from him and pick out another number on the speed dial.

  “Hey, Dad?… Hey, I’m going to that college retreat thing…. The college retreat thing. The thing I told you about. In Tempe…. Like a week, I think…. Yep, I have my phone on me…. Okay, uhm, love you, too.”

  I hang up. Eric now looks dumbfounded.

  “That’s it?”

  “All parents respect ‘college.’”

  “I guess. How did you …?

  “What?”

  “How did you come from that?”

  “I don’t know. How did you come from your parents?”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” We emerge from the darkness of the lemon tree and the whole lawn crackles underneath us as we go back into the house.

  The weed-themed sandwiches turn out to be the only meat we see in the week or so we’re staying with Christopher and Randy and their friends. Most everybody else and all the bands that come through the house are vegans. At first I think this is annoying, and I hear my brother in the back of my head saying “I hate fucking hippies.” But everybody being vegan means everybody cooks, because I guess there’s not enough good vegan food around, so everybody, the girls and the guys, all cook for each other. Five twenty-year-old people use their tiny kitchen seven or eight more times in a week than me and my dad and my brother use our enormous one. Maybe this week is an anomaly and they don’t usually make this much food this often, but it doesn’t seem like it. They seem to have their routine down pretty well. Eric doesn’t complain or seem to notice one way or the other: he’s eating less and less.

  It gets pretty okay. The girls are cute and they all have projects they’re working on. Sometimes the bands are here to play an actual gig at an actual venue but sometimes they’re just playing at the house, which they don’t seem to think is any less real than an actual gig, and none of the kids who come to the show do either. And they all talk like Randy and Christopher and some of them are actually being sarcastic but a lot of them aren’t, and the girls are really nice, which I guess doesn’t necessarily mean they like you, but it’s nice when a cute girl in glasses who writes a sex column for the college paper is nice to you either way.

  And kids do come to these house shows. And Randy and Christopher and James just let them in, and I’m sure if Albert were here he wouldn’t mind either; in fact, he’s probably in somebody’s house in Tulsa or Washington State right now and kids are showing up to pay the band two dollars so they can buy gas. The most kids come for this guy Randall Coats’ show, he just stands in the middle of the room, everybody sitting or standing around, and just him and his guitar, and his songs are a little sincere and a little saccharine for me but Eric leans over and says, “This would be good for the soundtrack,” and I guess it would. I actually listen and it actually would.

  All the kids know all the words to his songs and Randall Coats seems really happy, and you’d think it would be weird after the “show” is over, we’re all still just here in the house, but it isn’t, he just bows and takes his guitar off and hands it to a kid who wants to know about his tuning and he starts talking to kids.

  Later I’m smoking weed in the backyard with some kids I’ve just met and granted sometimes this place seems like the scene of the crime but for a minute after passing the joint to the left everything loses its crime-scene aspect and these kids make absolute and total sense to me, and Eric and I, if we can help it, will return here one day and stay forever where Chelsea 2 makes journals she sells online and Larissa is getting her picture taken in a yellow raincoat underneath a streetlight and everybody can cook. Of course the show is in the living room and of course the bikes are in the garage and I will meet these girls and their friends and chase them through the bookstore. Eric and I will sit together in the back row of a class on poverty and if I miss a class to fool around in the top bunk of some girl’s bed in a dorm Eric will have the notes and we will spend the afternoon picking apart burritos. We’ll inherit this house and run a campus magazine out of it. Illustrated by Darren Bennett Written by Eric Lederer.

  One day in the living room I get woken up by the drummer from Andre The Client talking on his cell phone to someone who I guess from his tone of voice is his girlfriend back home. The sliding glass patio door is a big square of light. I don’t see Eric anyw
here. I get up and bum around the house looking for him. While stepping over sleeping band members I think that it has been the same day for Eric since he was born, the same day since we met, the same day since he and Christine got together, the same day since I called the guy who works for The Man or who The Man works for on him, and it will be the same day when this whole thing comes to an end, reaches whatever conclusion it’s going to. My phone vibrates in my pocket. I have a text from Eric reading DON’T WORRY. BAD DAY. GOING TO THE DESERT.

  When he gets back I want to ask him if he can maybe see down the barrel of his one long day and tell me how this all works out. Not like I think he’s psychic, but for him it’s all one unbroken day, and while I couldn’t tell you what’s going to happen to me twenty years from now in a span of time all broken up by sleep, I could probably tell you, based on how my day is going, how my night’s going to be. And since for him it’s all one unbroken day I want to hear from him how he thinks it might end.

  When I wake up from a nap that afternoon he’s there in the living room and everybody from the band is gone. I remember there was something I wanted to ask him this morning but I don’t remember what. On the coffee table, Eric has smoothed out the wrinkled picture of the Thragnacian Containment Pylon from my front yard. He’s staring at the picture until he notices I’m awake. He smiles and says, I guess about the drawing, “We did a really good job.”

  I agree with him and before I can say anything else he’s gone to take a shower to wash the desert off.

  Aside from all the living-room shows, there are real shows too. The actual shows at actual venues are not much different than the living-room shows, it’s the same kids and some of their friends, except now there’s a raised platform and sometimes amplified sound. And when there’s amplifiers there’s usually more dancing. These kids really like dancing, in this sort-of-ironic-but-not way which is the same way they talk, the same way they do everything, sincere like sincerity is new, as surprised as I am to find out that they really mean it.

  I don’t dance. Eric I’ve never even seen in the same room as dancing, with the exception of the time we went to an arcade and tried Dance Dance Revolution and waited for each other to admit that we hated it and were exhausted so we could go play the zombie-killing games.

  Even the real venues aren’t what you would consider big concert spaces. Mostly we end up at this art gallery place downtown that also has shows in the back. It’s called Circumference. And at Circumference on this particular night we’re watching The Achievables, who are from Olympia, Washington, but before that the opening act is up. They’re called Ten Who Dared, even though there are only eight of them. Eric has a good point when he says he could understand calling your band that if there were like, four or five of you, but eight is so close to ten all the irony is lost. This seems like a pretty good observation, and I’m repeating it to Chelsea 2, not necessarily giving Eric full credit, when she says, “Have you seen them?”

  “No,” I say, “not yet,” because maybe that will make it seem like I’ve been meaning to see them, trying really hard to see them, it’s just circumstances that have stood in my way.

  “They’re local,” she says, which, I have come to learn, is a good thing.

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Yeah, they’re really good,” she says. “You HAVE to dance.”

  I am skeptical and sure that when they are done tuning up their instruments the six guys and two girls onstage will not be able to do what numerous DJs haven’t been able to make me do, which is dance. Well, okay, not numerous. That one DJ Mike at that one drama party that one time.

  But when they start playing it’s not weird or obtuse or arty or difficult to get, it’s fun and simple and pretty catchy. And kids start dancing, and I guess it’s not really good dancing in the technical sense but they commit really hard to it and it doesn’t look intimidating. Chelsea 2 has her hair up in pigtails and as she moves around the ends of the pigtails bounce off her cheeks, and her cheeks have freckles, and when she grabs my hand and pulls me towards the center of the room where kids are bouncing up and down and side to side and girls are flipping their skirts around their ankles and laughing, I go with her and I feel like a retard and a spaz and all those other things but I sort of don’t give a shit, and I think of that one time with that one DJ when I didn’t dance, all those theater kids and Christine, and how different this is and how long ago that was except I guess it’s not that different because when the song is over and the singer says “Thank you, we’re Ten Who Dared and we’re from Cave Creek” and everybody cheers, someone taps me on the shoulder and I turn around and it’s Christine.

  “I wanted to come say hi to you before it seemed, like brutally obvious that I wasn’t coming to say hi to you,” she says. “Besides, I miss you. Can we go talk somewhere?”

  It’s kind of cold outside but I’m all sweaty from dancing or whatever you want to call it so it actually feels nice.

  “So how’ve you been?” I say, the words sort of catching in my throat.

  “Okay I guess,” she says. “I just really want to apologize for everything that happened with me and Eric. Everything just got fucked up so fast, and when he started acting really weird towards you … I mean, I couldn’t understand it. I can’t believe you’re still friends with him.”

  “He has his reasons,” I say.

  “Yeah, well. It’s good to see you guys. Even if you can’t, like, talk to me. Where is he, anyway? I saw him when I came in, but…”

  “I think he’s smoking with Aaron and Paul by the fire exit.”

  “Aw, neat. Those guys love him. Everybody loves him.”

  “Yeah, it’s cool. Your friends are really nice.” I’ve run out of things to say, or anyway, say-able things, so I ask: “What about your theater friends?”

  “Ugh, don’t get me started. Some friends. Mr. Hendershaw came up for review this year for what the administration refers to as some of his ‘questionable choices,’ and they had this town hall meeting, and NOBODY stood by him. Nobody he didn’t cast in absolutely every role they ever thought they deserved, which is nobody, of course, so everybody just, I don’t know, copped out, and so it doesn’t look like he’ll be coming back next year….”

  She continues, and I don’t particularly care about the theater kids, but now I’m really glad I asked, because something slides into place for me, and I really want to go back inside. Not to get away from Christine, she’s fine, she can go or stay, it really doesn’t matter, but inside are the bands, and inside is Chelsea 2. It’s not like I like her, but I COULD like her, and I like what she represents. If I told her I liked her because she represents possibility, she’d probably hit me. But she does represent it, the same way Eric represents the fact that anything is possible.

  ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. It always sounded like a dumb cliché that escaped from a Disney movie, and it was the thing that I dismissed first when I started collecting what I figured were the opinions mature people have, that most everything is bullshit and you can’t trust anybody and there is no magic to be had. But these kids are older than I am, they go to college, and they don’t seem to think that everything is stupid, not everything. And Eric, whom I sold out over the girl standing next to me, proves that not only is everything not stupid but everything is possible, the world is movie-quality like we always hoped it was.

  I am thinking of a good way to get back inside and enjoy the rest of the concert when red and blue lights start flashing down the street. This venue gets a lot of noise complaints. Some of the cops might even be the same ones that busted Christopher’s house earlier this week for a noise complaint, and that will be a pain in the ass. I’m thinking about going around the side of the building to tell Eric that if he’s smoking weed he should probably ditch it when out of the second cop car that pulls up steps a guy in a suit. The Man. When I see him I get the power of flight and use it to get around the side of the building before Christine even knows I’m gone.

  Eric seems
to know why I’m tear-assing toward him and his semicircle of weed smokers and without thinking about it he starts booking in the same direction three steps ahead of me. The smokers follow suit, thinking they know why we’re running and figuring they ought to too. I guess they’re right, there are cops here and for them the consequences of being caught in public with a joint and whatever else they have in their pockets might include spending the night at the police station, an embarrassing call to their parents if they’re in high school, a misdemeanor charge if they’re not. But their lives will continue and they’ll get to keep going to shows. Eric and I, who knows, but if we keep running and don’t stop and don’t get tripped up at least we get another day of running.

  And we do keep running, really pretty good at it now, and the smokers break off after what they figure is a reasonably safe distance from the cops, and we must look incredibly paranoid to keep sprinting with nobody in blue chasing us. But we keep looking behind us and seeing The Man, always coming around the corner no matter how fast we run. Downtown is pretty barren tonight since there are no sporting events, and our feet are loud as shit among the skyscrapers. Eric’s breathing is loud too, raggedy, I guess maybe from smoking, but on top of that something sounds broken. He keeps running, though. I think like that Dance Dance Revolution game, we’re both waiting for the other to stop.

  By the time we seem to have lost The Man we’re in what I guess you would call the barrio. I throw my hood up and sit in a bus shelter with a broken light.