Pop Kids

by Havok, Davey

  I’m starving, but I’m holding out for banana bread.

  “Oh, thanks my brother, but no. I’ve gotta watch my figure.” I pocket the whitener then cordially correct, “Oh, and Donavon, it’s Score.”

  “Okay my brother.” Slyly, he agrees, as if we’ve just shared a secret. “I’ll just get an extra one for myself then.” He squeezes my shoulder before going to order from his fellow nicotine fiend at the bar.

  I savor my Sencha and new nudes. Soon, Donavon returns with Stella’s drink. I hope he doesn’t plan on hanging out with me.

  “Here you go Score!” He tosses one of two brown compostable bags onto my table. “I got you a vegan one. Sarah says you’re trying to join the team.”

  I’m onto his game. Pastry surprises given, despite my expressed desire to diet, are obviously weapons of war. Prius wants me fat and unattractive to Starlets and is attacking me with carbs. I don’t like his cunning. And I can’t believe he’s vegan.

  “Hey, thanks a lot man!” Touched by the gift from the ethically handsome DJ, I exclaim, “I’ll definitely want this tonight at work! That’s really cool! Thanks so much.”

  “No worries. Can I get that US from you? It’s Sarah’s, yeah?”

  The subscriber sticker has Barbara Johnson’s name and address. I hand it over.

  “Do you wanna stay a while Donavon?”

  “Sorry my brother.” He raises the icy, milky to-go cup. “But I gotta get this back to our girl. We should totally hang out before I leave though, yeah?” Sliding on his aviators, he insists, “You still owe me some syrup.” And strolls to the door.

  Outside, at the top of the front steps, Prius lights a magical hair cigarette then gets into his car. The muffled thump of dance music begins. The windows roll down. The American Spirit barely hangs from his beguiling lips. He looks almost, totally cool. He nods to me, then whizzes off—toward Reisling. I still hate his hair.

  “Que pasa, party boy?” Cheerily yelling above a satanic cacophony, Volta leans out of the passenger window of the El Camino. Seeing me on the sidewalk in front of The Grounds, in the dry August heat, Cruz has pulled over the purple machine.

  Between the well-groomed workers, Mia is checking herself out in the rearview. She ignores Cruz as he leans over her.

  “The D-hole re-opened Miguelito! Come with.”

  Hogan’s Donut Hole used to be our main hang. But one night we showed up and it was shut down. Supposedly, the owner was caught selling pot brownies.

  “I’d love to but I’m watching my figure. And I’m on my way to work. You guys want me to sneak you into something?”

  “Nooooo…” Throwing her head back, scrunching her face in an ecstatic tantrum, Mia pounds her fists against the broad shoulders at her side. “Boston Creaaaaaam!”

  “Yeah Guapo,” Cruz smiles, “We gotta get our sugar on. But maybe we’ll come by later tonight. Get in, I’ll drop you off.”

  I flip my skate. It clangs down next to the steel-toed boots in the bed, and I squeeze into the car. Even with one ass being as big as Mia’s, the bench can seat four asses, which is perfect because I can’t sit in the back. The wind would wreck my hair.

  As we tear down Main, Mia squirms, my board rattles, and I strain to be heard.

  “Hey, is this Slayer?” I yell.

  The Boys laugh.

  “That’s cute Culito. This is Darkthrone.” Sympathizing with my suffering, Volta reaches for the iPod. “You want me to put on some Morrissey?”

  “Why don’t you put on some Slayer? You got ‘Raining Blood’?”

  They laugh again.

  “For real?” Cruz asks,

  Mia desperately begs “Gaga, Gaga, GA, GA,” as her blonde locks flutter in my face.

  “Yeah!” I insist, ducking back from the open window, “I kinda wanna check it out.”

  Informing me that the album is called Reign in Blood, Volta happily obliges.

  “Ugggh, fuck you Mike!” Mia complains over the wind and death metal. “You were supposed to save me from this noise!” She socks Volta in the shoulder. “Why were you gonna change it for him but not for me?”

  The Boys blissfully head bang. Cruz’s slick hair stays perfectly in place.

  “Come ON you guys!” She whines, “God, why can’t you just listen to Britney like the rest of the gays in the world?”

  “Puta…” Our driver happily fires back, “I taught Britney how to suck dick, just like I taught you, so just settle your big ass down and enjoy ‘Angel of Death’.”

  We burn into the lot. Cruz screeches to a stop. I step onto the curb beneath the marquee. When I shut the door, as if her favorite fried food just took the stage at Wembley Arena, Mia throws up the horns. “Boston fucking cream!” She howls. The Boys join her in a “WOOOOOOOOH!” as they leave me standing in a fading harmonized guitar solo, waving away burnt rubber.

  Chapter 20

  My phone is buzzing like some tropical, bloodthirsty insect. I’d rather have malaria than be awake right now. Leaving a nest of brown fur on red sheets, Eddie flees from my bed as I grab the pestilent device. I recoil at its blinding screen. An illuminated picture of my choppy-haired partner gives me two thumbs up. It’s too early to even breath.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? It’s 8:00 am,” I slur. I’m already re-deposited in the clutch of cameras, silk-screened onto my pillow. “Alvin didn’t get eaten did he?”

  “What? No. He’s surfing. Sorry I didn’t write back yesterday. My phone was dead. Thanks for the Stella nudes. Do you miss me? I miss you.” There are squawks. I think he’s calling from a seagull’s nest. I rub my eyes. I might as well get up.

  “There’s all this shit happening.” Dragging myself to my full-length mirror, I flex. The pushups may be working. “When are you coming back?” I do eyebrow raises.

  “I’ll be back by Sunday. What are we gonna show?”

  “Pulp Fiction.” I smile, inspecting my teeth. They could be brighter.

  “Killer! That should help me out. I’m gonna tell Mia that it was my idea. Hold on…”

  A female voice woos him away from our conversation. I sit down at my pornography machine and open Becca’s Model Mayhem page. There’s a shot of her wearing a white bikini covered in black dorsal fins. She’s in a sandy alley, leaning against a white wall that’s been spray painted with ejaculating pink boobs. She’s smoking. Prop cigarette. Lynch comes back to the phone.

  “Hey, sorry.”

  ”Becca came to visit me at work.” I drag the photo into my Wish List folder, close my laptop, and begin wandering down the blurry hallway.

  “Seriously!? Fucking Booth Six! Dude, did you touch it?”

  “Hold on a sec…” I put him on speaker.

  Rummaging through my brother’s drawers, I recount my enthralling evening with the vegan wonder. When I finish, my partner is bewildered.

  “Wait … zero activities? Why? She’s, like, beyond touchable.”

  “No. I know.” I refold an old Britney Spears tour tee. “It was weird man. I just couldn’t read her.”

  “What the fuck Mike?”

  “It was still really cool though. …” I drop a string of silicon beads, and pick up a soft black Smiths tee. “…She’s really cool.” The shirt is almost sheer from a million washes. I’ve been looking for this! “Wait ‘til you see what I just found in Joey’s—”

  “Fuck you. I’m gonna pour Clorox on it if you don’t invite Becca to the party. You can’t worry about Sarah, man. If she sees that Becca is into you, it’s only gonna raise the demand for quality Booth Six time with Score and then—”

  “Lynch, Settle.” I pull the shirt over my head and admire myself in the mirror. Fabulous. I fit it perfectly. “I’m gonna invite her.”

  I didn’t think I could be more tired than I was this morning, but after a night of working behind the candy counter with a concessions creep who was ‘fryin balls’ I’m now both physically wrecked and emotionally drained. I feel like it is Sunday out. I need tea. I drag mys
elf up my driveway. I can’t wait for Lynch to get his car back.

  With my steaming ceramic black-cat-head mug I sit down at my desk. I sip my Sencha. I plug my headphones into the Mac and start photoshopping to the sounds of The Jesus and Mary Chain. After hours of reconstructing the original movie poster to contain the time and directions for maintaining the secrecy of the party, I flourish the invite with ‘Score and Lynch Present Pulp Fiction!’ I critically stare at the screen. Something isn’t right. Something is off. I juxtapose a picture of Lynch and myself under Uma’s smoking cigarette: on the comforter, I’m crouching, and he’s standing, giving two thumbs up. Contextually, we both resemble black-and white bed-elves, but I think our visages add the personality that the piece needed.

  I save the file, and send out the invitation. I study WWTDD.com, Perezhilton.com, and TMZ.com. Then, knowing exactly where I should eat if I want the paps to catch me cheating on my celebrity girlfriends, I click down the porn hole to look for a nightcap. Forty-two seconds into a random fisting film featuring a green-eyed girl in a platinum wig, I release some joy. I clean my monitor, plug in my phone, and join Eddie in bed.

  Chapter 21

  Twelve hours of sleep can really do a boy right. It’s Friday, DJ Prius is gone, and I’m in a great mood. Popping up my board, I compliment Shane on his Pains of Being Pure at Heart shirt then thank him for his scarecrow commentary before leaving him to tear the tickets for a pack of swooning twelve-year-old girls. He and I do make quite the handsome pair.

  Upstairs, I struggle through nine pushups and set the movie rolling. Kicking back in the seats with my phone, I review the thrilled RSVPs. Everyone has replied except Stella. It’s fine. She’s probably planning to confirm in person, when she’s here on top of me. She’s probably on her way now. I start clearing the build-up table, happily humming something about watermelon ChapStick.

  Miserably, I’ve almost finished closing up the booth when the picture of Stella, with her hand down her pink panties, pops up on my phone. Finally. Smoothly, I answer. “Why, hello…”

  “Haaaaaaay Babe!” bursts through the still of the room.

  Though she always sounds like a party, the sound of this particular soiree is giving me goose bumps. It’s hard to say whether it’s pure excitement or a survival instinct that’s charging my skin, but my body’s reaction to her is visceral.

  “Are you downstairs?” In the background, a deep voice shouts, “Michael Massi.” “Is that Shane? Tell him to let you in.” I thought I was the only one left in the theatre. I lay a padded projector cover over the table.

  “That was Donny. We’re at his apartment. He’s DJing this private party tomorrow in The Mission, so I decided to come with. Steve Aoki’s spinning! And there’s going to be an open bar! Amazing right?”

  The booth grows darker as a pigtailed shadow eclipses my rising star.

  “Yeah, that’s pretty fabulous.” I can’t believe she left. Aimlessly, I pace the concrete. I put my phone on speaker and toss it to the chairs.

  “Yeah, it’s gonna be amazing!” Her voice beams into the especially deep solitude of my little booth, in this little theatre, in this little town. I can hear Donny’s insistence in the background.

  “Oh, okay, okay,” she says, surrendering the phone. “Babe, someone wants to talk to you.”

  “Hello, my brother!”

  “Hello, Donovan.” I can hear his smile. Bending, I press my forehead to the window.

  “Did you like that whitener?”

  Yelling (probably from his bed), Stella demands burritos. Gum. Mochas. Weed.

  “Yeah, thanks. It’s great.” Slowly, I bounce my head against the glass.

  “It’s very compact. Very whitening.” The resounding thuds remind me of when I shoved Stella against the window. I stop. And sit down.

  “Amazing, yeah? My friend at Sephora hooks me up. I’ll get some more for you. But remember, you still owe me some syrup! Here’s your girl.” He passes the phone.

  “Isn’t he the sweetest?”

  “So, you haven’t responded to the invitation.” I flick open my lighter and snap the flame to life. “Are you not going to be back for the Pulp Fiction party on Sunday?” I set fire to a red thread fraying from the chair next to me.

  “Oh, I’ll for sure be back! I can’t wait, Babe.” I smack out the flame. My phone bounces and I start clicking. “But I should go right now. I’ll see you at the bank!”

  Prius yells, “Bye my brother!” Just before she hangs up.

  Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click…

  I scroll through my phone, intent on deleting all of Stella’s nudes. A few minutes later, after I’ve spread a not-insignificant amount of my joy into a recycling bin, they’re still in my photo album. And I’m still on edge. I pull up my jeans, snap my flint, and light the inseminated renewable paper. I’ve got to calm down. The fire ignites the bin. The smell of melting plastic further turns my stomach. It’s fine. I put out the flames with mineral water. Coughing, I un-button my fly and re-open my photo album. Everything’s fine.

  Downstairs in the theatre’s girls’ room, I turn on the hot water and brutally scrub the hands that have just nurtured me through three consecutively dwindling releases of joy. My fingers are now as raw as my abused Producer. And I don’t feel any better. I stare into the partially steamed mirror—there’s nothing to see. I find Becca’s Vespa pic in my phone. I wonder if she was in London when she shot this. I want to call her. I can’t. It would just be bizarre. Inappropriate. Unhealthy. Especially at 1:58 am. The hour is all wrong.

  It’s fine. Everything’s fine.

  With “Deep Hit of Morning Sun” blowing out my ear buds, I step into the back of the broom closet at the end of the stalls. I kneel down, push away jugs of industrial bleach, and pry up the corner floor tiles. Reaching my stinging hands into the dusty hollow, I grab my cleaning supplies. I stuff them in my Jansport. This isn’t enough. I grab more fluid from the cache. I’m sure it’s filthy out there tonight.

  After setting the alarm, I lock up and step into the back parking lot. I’m met by the long awaited preface to fall: a cool night breeze kisses my neck. Welcoming it, I zip my black Obesity and Speed sweatshirt, gently pull my hood up over my hair, and disappear down the back alley.

  On the south side of town, I start off small, eliminating a very unsightly church funded ‘I am not a choice’ bus-stop bench-ad that features a photo of an ugly baby. Then I move north, onto greater blights. Working my way toward the unholy mess on Rousette St., I illuminate the morning like a fashionable superhero in Ksubis. And as each little intermediate moment of warmth erupts from my touch, betrayal burns away with the filth. I feel better, lighter, like I’m floating, just inches above the ground. I tear through the valley, cutting like a cleansing angel, dancing like a tidying Timberlake, slipping through the littered alleyways, softly singing,

  Shine on everyone.

  Chapter 22

  Through the bay window, I can see both elder Massis milling about the breakfast table. Frank’s wearing overalls, eating sausage and peppers. Gina is reading her paper. The sun had crept up to catch me, and it sent me up my hill to a wakeful household. It’s fine.

  Stealthily, I slink up the driveway. Keeping low and close to the house, I creep underneath the kitchen window. I slip quietly around the garage and through the varnished wooden gate. The iron hinge creeks. I pause, then tiptoe through Frank’s garden. The herbs are wet. Thank Moz the sprinklers aren’t still on. Overcoming an urge to uproot a pot plant, I gently push open my window and crawl through to the safety of my room. Gross. The whole house smells like scrambled embryos. Plopping down in front of my mirror, I pull my head from the smoky tangle of my hoodie. I freeze in fear. But luckily, the smudge on my favorite black boat-necked sweater turns out to be a harmle
ss patch of soot. I pat off my sleeve, finish undressing, and fall onto my bed. I badly want to shower but I’m down. I just can’t get back up. I can’t even get under the covers.

  “Again? Are you fucking serious?” After what feels like two minutes of being asleep, I quietly inquire, “What time is it?”

  “Hey man, sorry.” Lynch laughs through the phone. “This was the only time I could get away from everyone.”

  Trying to focus, without lifting my head, I reach over to grab my hand mirror from the nightstand. “Why are you trying to get away from everyone? Where are you? Are you back?” I squint at my blurry reflection.

  “No man, I’m still on the coast, but Leo and his sister are driving us back soon. They’re gonna crash at my place so I was thinking that I’d bring them to the party tomorrow. I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t gonna freak. … They’re cool, man.”

  “Oh wow. … I don’t know … ” I pick a speck of ash from my hair.

  “Dude,” Lynch sighs. “The Palace was theirs first. We wouldn’t even know about it if it wasn’t for them so it’s not like they’re gonna tell anyone. They get it.” I inspect my teeth. They seem dull. “Oh, and Star has a present for you, I guess.”

  “She does?” I drop the mirror and roll over. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. I showed her your profile and she said she had something that you’d be into. Some fancy shit or something.”

  “She’s fabulous. She can come.” I yawn, half asleep, with half of my face pressed into my pillow. “It’s fine. Bring them both. It’s a party.”

  I turn off my phone, plop it on the pillow in front of my face, and dream of McQueen.

  Chapter 23

  Skipping every nap opportunity and spending all day detailing our underground theatre has left me feeling drugged. Tonight, as I walk into work, I feel like I’m treading across the hazy, red-sanded floor of a popcorn-scented ocean. I bob up into the lobby for air. Shane meets me with a worried look and, upsetting me with their gestures of camaraderie, the Concession Creeps greet me with approving smiles. Moz, don’t let me resemble those steam punk stoners right now. I reach for my shades as I pass my manager. Tying back his silver ponytail, he comments on the non-designer bags that I’m carrying under my eyes.