Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet

by Joanne Proulx

  When Ms. Banks, looking luscious and lean in a long flowered dress, appeared beside the metal box, the group of geeks gathered around Mr. Switzer all tumbled aside. He took a huge chance then and pushed one side of his ear gear up so he could chat up the librarian. A couple minutes later, he carefully set the decibel counter on the bottom bleacher, patted down his pockets, then followed Ms. Banks onto the dance floor, smiling broadly. With his ear protection firmly back in place, he started to boogie, throwing his wide brown hips out awkwardly to one side and then the other, while Ms. Banks swung smoothly in front of him. Watching that spectacle, I couldn’t help but laugh.

  After the Banks/Switzer dance duo left the floor, I studied this one group of kids that sort of stood out, where everyone looked particularly happy, especially hip. One guy had these rectangular black glasses—definitely not standard Stokum issue—dark, narrow pants, plaid jacket with the sleeves jacked up his arms. He looked sort of cool, sort of retro. Same went for the girl beside him, who was clad in some pink and white Ghost World kind of dress. She kept leaning over and yelling in the guy’s ear, and every time she did, he’d throw his head back and howl at the balloon sky. I was trying to come up with a theory on what those two found so frigging funny when Faith slipped into their circle.

  She was wearing this loose white blouse that pulled in tight under her tits and these faded yellow bell-bottoms that shimmered when she moved. I forgot all about the shitty music. Everyone in the circle threw her a wave or a smile, and she started swaying to the music, slow and easy. She closed her eyes and, just like that night in the motel room, she danced for me, sitting motionless at the top of the gym.

  I don’t know how long I sat there watching her, don’t remember when she looked into the bleachers, can’t say exactly how she ended up beside me, close and sweet and glistening like a page torn from some scented magazine.

  I watched as she stretched herself out across a couple rows of seats. Her pants looked soft as summer butter. Her hair was flipped up in a ponytail kind of thing, and when she rested her head on the bench behind us, her long neck curved to a perfect arch.

  “Hey,” she said, smiling at me, real loose and easy.

  “Hey,” I said, returning the smile, imagining what it might be like to run my tongue down her sugary neck, and then, if she was obliging, how sweet it would be to just keep moving down the goody trail from there.

  “I didn’t think you were going to come,” she said.

  “Me? I’m a dance fanatic. I never miss an opportunity to groooove.” I reached over and dared to run a knuckle up her corduroy thigh. “Your pants are sparkly.”

  She lifted her head and looked at me. “Are you drunk?”

  “No. Just bubbly.”

  “You’re bubbly?”

  “Yes. I’m bubbly.”

  She gave me a slow, slippery grin. “Me too.”

  “Really?” I feigned shock, but truthfully, since I’m so sick and opportunistic, I was happy to hear it. “Has Faith Taylor been drinking?”

  “You got it, Pontiac.”

  “That surprises me. A nice girl like you. Drunk.”

  “Listen, I’m not perfect or anything. What do you think? Besides, there’s nothing wrong with changing your perspective occasionally. It’s nice.” She stumbled over “perspective” and “occasionally,” and I was about to suggest she stick to words under three syllables when the rapid techno beat of Justin Timberlake’s latest affront to all things rock throbbed through the gym. We both groaned.

  “Is the music always this painful?” I asked.

  “It usually gets better toward the end.” She nestled back into the bleachers, trying to get comfortable. Up front, under a thin layer of white cotton, her breasts jutted out a bit more.

  I stretched my leg over and rubbed the toe of my shoe against her ankle. “So, I have to work at the One Drum festival on Sunday, selling the shirts that I, ahh, created.”

  “Really. Will they offend as many people as the last ones?”

  “Probably not. They’re kinder, gentler, more George Senior sort of deals.” I paused. “I’m looking for a beautiful assistant to help me out.”

  “Hmm, how about a hungover partner?”

  “You’ll be fine by Sunday,” I said, grinning. “Ms. Banks is picking me up. We could swing over and get you at, say, eightthirty?”

  “Or we could tell Ms. Banks that I’ll get you.” To highlight her “you,” she stabbed me in the arm with her pointer finger.

  “Even better,” I said, and the big grin spread right through me.

  We let the mirror ball dance over us for a while, not saying anything, reclining in the stands. Faith’s eyes were closed and her hands were clasped on her stomach, and the more I stared at her the more certain I was that she was falling asleep.

  I gave her another poke with my toe. “‘And there she was,’” I said, “‘like double cherry pie.’”

  She laughed, kept her eyes closed. The bass quivered through the bleachers.

  I leaned close so my lips were brushing her ear, and started singing. “‘And there she was, like disco superfly.’”

  “More, more,” she said in this mock-begging sort of way.

  “‘And there she was, in platform double suede, yeah, there she was, like disco lemonade.’”

  “You’re sooo nineties.”

  “Jesus,” I said, reluctantly pulling away. “Do you know everything?”

  “Marcy Playground,” she said, all slow and sleepy. “One of my first CDs. My sister wanted it, so she gave it to me for Christmas. Do you always resort to plagiarizing song lyrics to impress a girl?”

  She really should have skipped the word plagiarizing, but I didn’t mention her poor pronunciation. “First off, I’m not trying to impress you,” I said. “And secondly, it just so happens I wrote that song.”

  She laughed. “What? When you were, like, ten?”

  “Ten and a half. What can I say? I was advanced for my age.”

  “I thought you had the IQ of a sheep.”

  “Not when I was little. That was later. After I hit puberty.”

  “Yeah? Same thing happened to my cousin Dan,” she said, and it was my turn to laugh. A current of air slipped through the gym, fluttering the sleeve of her shirt and carrying her sweet peppermint scent my way.

  “You know, your hair always smells good.”

  She pulled a thick, dark curl to her nose and inhaled. “Aveda Rosemary Mint Shampoo. And cream rinse. I love it.” Then she sat up, leaned over and took a whiff of my mop. I kind of tightened up, thinking BO and heavy, repugnant grease, but she came away smiling. “Very nice. Very you,” she said, and man, right then I wanted to live in the lofty heights of those fragrant bleachers.

  Faith, however, was stirring. She was eyeing the dance floor, and I tensed up a bit because I thought she might be contemplating reentering her circle of friends below, and I think we both knew I wouldn’t fit in.

  I hoped a bit of witty, bullshit banter might keep her where she was. “So, do you want to hear how I wrote the Marcy Playground song, or what?”

  Faith looked over and rolled her eyes at me, but I could see she was interested in what I might come up with.

  “See, first I cut you out of our sixth grade class picture, you know, when you were still really ugly, and I blew the picture up on the photocopier we have at home. Then, for inspiration, I tacked that super-big, super-repulsive picture of you onto my bedroom wall, and I wrote it. I wrote the song.”

  She gave me an amused but skeptical sort of look. “I didn’t move to Stokum until eighth grade.”

  “Are you sure? It feels like I’ve been in love with you for way longer than that.” The last part just slipped out. I didn’t even mean it. Afterwards, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I kept my eyes locked firmly on the balloons. It felt like a long while before Faith reached over and threaded her fingers through mine.

  “Come on,” she said, giving my hand a squeeze. “Let’s dance.”


  We were halfway down the stands when the first ba-boomps of “In the Cold, Cold Night” sounded and Meg White’s schoolgirl charm turned the Jefferson gymnasium into a velvet underground.

  “See,” Faith said, “I told you the music got better.”

  The gym was pretty crowded, and as we pushed past the other couples I was aware of my body brushing against other bodies, was aware of my feet picking a careful path across the varnished wooden floor. But mostly I could feel the way my hand was wrapped around Faith’s and the gentle pull on my shoulder as she led me to the center of the dance floor. And when she stepped into my arms, so help me God, I nearly wept.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I bit the inside of my cheeks as I moved up the hallway, grinding tender slabs of flesh between my teeth. I stopped in the doorway of the office and silently watched my father watching TV. Bad news screamed around him, so he couldn’t hear me breathing, hot and hard, behind him. He couldn’t see my rage tumbling through the room, couldn’t taste the blood in my mouth, couldn’t feel how tightly my fists were clenched.

  It took a while for him to finally swing his head over his shoulder. “Hey, how was the dance?” His happy question thinned to a whisper as he looked at me, standing in the doorway, menacing and mean, a pitchfork pointed straight at him. “What’s wrong?” He sounded scared. “What happened?”

  With a narrow glare, I threw everything inside me at my weak, fat, balding father. “Nothing fucking happened.”

  His jaw dropped. “What did you say?”

  “Are you fucking deaf? I said nothing fucking happened.”

  I left him frozen on the sofa, head twisted round, eyes bulging. I pounded up the steps. I slammed the door to my room. I shook the house.

  I waited for him to come, listened for his heavy footsteps on the stairs. When he stepped into my room, his arms were stiff at his sides. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  “Get the fuck out of here.” I spat the words at him.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Fuck off.”

  I watched the anger rip through him, spark from his eyes. He stepped forward and slapped me, hard, across the face. My head snapped sideways. My cheek burned. The room reeled. It was just what I wanted. I grabbed his shoulders, bit into his flesh with my nails, threw him away from me. He stumbled backwards, bounced against the wall. His shoulders hit first, then his head. He was halfway down. I moved in to tower over him.

  My father pressed both hands against the wall and splayed his fingers. He pushed himself up, regained his height. He took a minute to steady himself before he raised his head. When he did, his gaze was hard and unbreakable, his voice a dagger. “I won’t do this, Luke. I don’t know what happened to you tonight, but I won’t do this. So back off.”

  My heart, my blood, pounded, pounded.

  He stepped away from the wall. He pushed his face close to mine. His breath was hot on my face. His eyes gleamed. “I said, back off.”

  My chest heaved. Everything closed in on me. My father trembled in front of me. I trembled in front of him, split down the middle by fury and shame, hate and love, understanding and darkness, a frantic tide pulled by a wild moon. And then my fists loosened. My hands flew to my face, everything crashed inside. My father’s hands found my shoulders. A moan shattered the room, knocked us to the floor, where my father put his arms around me and held me while I bawled.

  Afterwards, he wouldn’t leave until I told him what was wrong. I stood in the center of my room, trying to figure out what to say. I knew the choice I made could tear my world further apart or pull it back together. For once, I wanted to be honest. I wanted to tell him how Faith had stepped into my arms. Pressed her mouth to my ear. Shattered me with one word. But that story was too fresh and too raw, it just wouldn’t come. So I offered up the last seven months of my life instead. My sentences tangled and twisted together, every word I said had my father looking more startled and more confused, until finally I just pulled the list from my drawer and shoved it into his hands.

  His face went white as he read the page. I knew right then I wouldn’t be saying anything about the people living behind those names. Besides, even if he’d been strong enough to hear it, I had no way to really describe Stan or Mr. Bernoffski or Howie Holman to my father. How to explain that music? How to explain those songs?

  My father stopped halfway down the page. “You’re on here.” His voice was so tight, the words barely made it out. He kept his eyes on the quivering sheet of paper.

  I thought back to the day I’d renovated my room with duct tape and plastic, how nothing I’d felt when I’d scratched myself onto that page. But now I could see how careless I’d been, how stupid, because one look at my dad told me what a son’s name on a list of dead men could do to a father.

  “I was wrong. It’s not going to happen.”

  He stared at the paper for a long time before he spoke. “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah,” I said, wrapping my arms tightly across my chest. “I mean, I know it’ll happen one day, whenever. Like it does for everybody. But right now, right here, I know putting my name down was a mistake.”

  My father nodded. “What about her?” He pointed to the name below mine. His finger shook under Astelle Jordan. My eyes trailed the list. At the top, a dead friend. Next, a dead neighbor. Below him, a dead girl, a dead man, a dead bird. And Astelle. Astelle Jordan, who’d been shaking her own brand of music into me for the last hundred nights.

  And I said it. I finally said it. “She’s dead.”

  My father did two things then. First, he told me I had to talk to Mrs. Jordan, because if it were me, he’d want to know, he’d need to know. Then it was his turn to break apart.

  WE BOTH AGREED not to tell my mother. Not before the trip, at least. Or there would be no trip. And the tickets to Paris were nonrefundable. My father was pretty frantic, but he’d always been a bit of a tightwad, and I told him again and again I was fine. Really. I’d been living like this for months now, right? This was only news to him, right? I was used to the whole crazy thing, okay? And I’d do something about Astelle. I’d talk to her mother. Seriously, I would.

  The next morning, my father ran right out and bought an answering machine so I wouldn’t miss any of his calls. And after lunch, when he climbed into the car beside my mom—rooting through her purse, double-checking flight times and passports and airport terminals—his face was as white as it had been in my room the night before. The car roared to life. My mom paused to give me an excited, worried grin and to wave goodbye. My father couldn’t even manage a hint of a smile. He backed the car down the driveway, looking scared and shaken and small.

  IT WAS THE FIRST TIME that year I’d taken my board out, and I just hung out in front of my house for a while, far from the phone, tightening up the shaky trucks and replacing the grip tape on the deck. I concentrated on the spring tune-up. Nothing else. The feel of the skate tools in my hand, the rough scratch of the tape, the spin of the freshly Speed Creamed bearings. When the board was running smooth, I did a couple warm-up ollies before waxing the curb and practicing some grinds. It was close to four before I rolled off my street. The hum of the deck as the wheels moved along the pitted pavement felt good under my feet. I took long, hard pulls to pick up speed. The wind tugged at my baseball cap and ballooned inside my hoodie as I raced down the streets of Stokum trying to outrun my life. But it followed along, ten feet behind my board, and when I finally stopped across town, it plowed right into me, practically knocked me down.

  I was breathing hard as I pulled the pink paper from my wallet to check out the address on the back. 232 Highland Avenue. I groped around a bit, found Highland a couple blocks down. One beat and I was there.

  I picked up my board and walked slowly down the street: 274 … 268 … 252. The neighborhood was quiet. Nothing but chirping birds and the bang of a distant door. I was surprised to see the New Life in Christ Church halfway down the block. I stopped in front of the crappy littl
e whitewashed building. Images of a flower-choked coffin, a silent congregation and Faith crying softly behind me flickered. I turned my back on the church and snuffed out that scene. Number 232 was across the road and two houses down. A desperate-looking lady with limp, stringy hair, her coat flapping in a cold wind, and a white-faced father holding a paper announcing his child’s death whispered to me then, and I had to snuff them out too.

  Mrs. Jordan’s cruel life was housed in a small redbrick bungalow. In the center of the yard, a doomed ash tree was green with new leaves. Behind the branches I could see the curtains on the bay window were closed. Low, muffled music leaked across the lawn. My heart thudded in time. My board swung like a metronome in my hand. I forced myself up the concrete path, climbed the porch steps slowly, pushed a glowing white button. The ding-dong was barely there against the pulse of music and the rush of blood in my ears. I pressed my hand to the door. A vibration moved up my arm, into my chest, down my legs, making them tremble. Jesus Christ. I thought I was going to faint. I closed my eyes. I dropped my head.

  The door disappeared from behind my hand and the music crashed into me and I lifted my head and it’s then that I think I sort of collapsed. I remember falling forward, and a warm hand on my arm, dragging me inside and pushing me onto a couch, and pounding, pounding dance music and a glass being thrust into my hand. I remember a voice telling me to drink and a trickle of water running down my throat and my stomach hardening and a burning sourness filling my throat, and gagging, gagging and stag- gering off the couch, small hands resting on my hips, steering me toward the bathroom at the end of a hall, my mouth full of puke.