by Jeff Jackson
He steps into a darkened foyer stacked with folding chairs and collapsed circular tables and tracks his muddy footprints across the linoleum floor. Distorted sounds beat around the room like a trapped bird. Looking up, he’s startled by the plastic banner strung along the ceiling. It’s probably been hanging here for decades, greeting successive waves of veterans. The boy’s lips twitch and his eyes shine as he repeatedly mouths the words printed across it.
As he enters the main space with its wood-paneled walls, the boy spots the source of the music: a trio of guys in bowling-league shirts, high-top sneakers, and matching flattop haircuts playing a frenetic brand of garage rock that harkens back to an earlier era. They throttle their instruments and crank up their vintage amps, straining to suggest a dramatic crescendo. They finish the song with the guitarist half-heartedly hopping into the air.
The boy takes a seat at the bar, which is adorned with oxidized award plaques and faded photos of uniformed men in front of fighter jets. Totems of a bygone age. He pulls out a suspiciously shiny driver’s license and orders a beer. The bartender sets a sudsy glass in front of him, then notices the trail of dirt in his wake.
—How the hell’d you get so muddy? the bartender asks. It hasn’t rained here in weeks.
The boy doesn’t appear to understand the question, then he looks down at his soil-encrusted sneakers. He seems genuinely confused. I don’t remember, he mumbles.
For some reason, the boy can’t bring himself to watch the band furiously riffing away on the small wooden stage. Instead his gaze is directed at the hunting trophy mounted on the wall above them. Something about the wood duck, hung upside down with its wings outstretched and beak open, entrances him. The glass eyes embedded in the slightly worn feathers preserve the bird’s final moments, a flux of alertness, confusion, fear. No matter how long he looks, the expression refuses to settle.
The boy scans the packed room. The audience seems mostly composed of musicians. A motley assemblage of jam bands in tie-dye shirts and denim jackets, unbathed punks with ratty coifs and ripped jeans, bearded indie rockers with headbands ironically coordinated to the color of their drainpipe pants. There are even a few long-haired kids immaculately adorned in corpse paint. Some strike poses to indicate polite engagement, while others watch with slitted lids and pursed lips. None of them really hear the music. They all await their turn to perform.
Onstage, the guitarist windmills his arm while the lead singer strangles the microphone stand in time to the beat. The drummer launches into a spastic solo, pounding each part of his modest kit in turn. The band finishes another purposefully sloppy tune and pauses to collect some listless applause. The boy runs his hand across his shaved head, as if trying to loosen his thoughts. On a napkin, he scribbles a string of vowels that adds up to little more than a wordless moan. His beer glass sits on the counter untouched, the beads of perspiration becoming imperceptibly engorged.
The boy takes a few steps toward the stage. His hand slowly reaches into the small of his back. The movement looks rehearsed, but it acquires a new meaning in the context of an audience. The singer does a series of awkward high kicks, but most likely the boy misses this. His eyes have been closed for several seconds. He produces a revolver from the waistband of his pants, points it in the direction of the band, and pulls the trigger. A single shot is all he can muster. His lids remain shut, his lashes as tightly entangled as a Venus flytrap. Slowly, his irises appear and absorb the scene.
It must have been a lucky shot because the guitarist stutter-steps across the stage in a crabwise stagger, clutching his shoulder. The wound soaks his shirtsleeve in a spiderweb pattern. There’s a quizzical look on his face. Nobody else in the room seems able to process what is happening, either. The sound of the blast is smothered by the spiraling feedback. The boy squeezes the trigger again. A series of small thunderclaps issue from between his hands.
The band is suspended midsong. The drummer tumbles backward, and there’s blood on the wall. A bullet brings the lead singer to his knees. His puckered lips seem to be forming a phrase, or maybe mechanically completing the final syllables of the song.
The boy stands in the center of the room. It’s empty now. Maybe he’s been standing here for a while. The power has been cut and the music has ceased. He continues to face the stage, now populated by slumped corpses, half-drunk beer bottles, a notebook of handwritten lyrics. Droplets of blood are spattered across the grille cloth of the amp. Everything is silent except for the repetition of the boy’s index finger pressing the trigger, the steady rotation of the empty chambers, the rhythmic click of the hammer. Those three interlocking sounds, in continual sequence, again and again and again.
Something about the poster bothers you. It’s one of a series taped up along the mirrored panel of the back wall, part of the club’s makeshift calendar, announcing an upcoming concert. This full-color flyer features the preening portrait of some established musician. As you run your hands along your freshly shaved head, you keep coming back to the musician’s faraway gaze, his forged half smile, his brooding aura of manufactured mystery. You’re so repelled that you can’t look away. Without thinking, you swipe a pen from the bar and start to scrawl out his smug face. You scrub over the features with frenzied black lines, the tip of your pen pressing so hard that it breaks clean through the paper.
DAY NINE
OHIO • THE WOMAN STUMBLES DOWN THE FRONT steps of the theater. She lies sprawled in the street, her skirt ripped up the calf seam, panting under the soft glow of the marquee. Her face is a mask of glistening tears and smeared mascara. She pulls herself up and sprints down the vacant sidewalk, vanishing into the shadows. She reappears in the pooled light of each lamppost, materializing and evaporating, a frantic apparition.
Across from the theater, the boy with the scraggly beard watches to see if others flee the venue. He adjusts his baseball cap and wipes his hands on his denim overalls. He could’ve come from work at the gas station around the corner, if it hadn’t shut down months ago. The recently restored theater is the only active business in this desolate neighborhood.
The boy with the scraggly beard saunters up the red-carpeted steps to the gilt-trimmed ticket booth. The cashier takes his money without a word. His bored features betray nothing about any possible drama inside.
The theater’s lobby is eerily unoccupied. Nobody sits on the plush black ottomans. Nobody stands behind the glass counter stocked with T-shirts, screen-printed posters, limited-edition vinyl. The plaster walls hum with the muffled sound of preshow music. The only movement comes from the clink and sway of the chandelier, the tear-shaped crystals chiming in reaction to unseen activities overhead.
The boy climbs the staircase to the main floor. The room is ringed by a balcony reserved for VIPs whose dim faces peer over the balustrade. The band hasn’t taken the stage, and most of the audience mills around the bar. He orders several beers in quick succession and empties the glasses without seeming to taste the contents. Flecks of foam collect around his beard and shining wet lips.
The crowd gives the boy a wide berth, appraising his appearance with sidelong glances. He stands out among these impeccably groomed creatures costumed in vintage smoking jackets, silk skirts, and fishnet stockings, conversing over cocktail glasses and strategically arranged scarves.
The lights dim. There’s a fanfare of blaring trumpets, then the band strides onto the stage. The boy studies the musicians as they launch into their opening number. In addition to guitars and drums, they’re armed with violins and cellos, theremins and other antiquated electronic instruments. The men sport tuxedos, top hats, white face paint. The women wear patterned sequin dresses, a peacock plume speared in their hair.
The crowd surges forward, swept up in the flamboyant churn of the music. Band members bounce on the soles of their white leather shoes in time to the beat, pressing their painted lips against the microphones in perfect tandem. There’s an unabashed irony to the lyrics about partying as the world ends, but tha
t only makes the audience repeat back the words more passionately.
The boy’s gaze settles on the accordion player, whose instrument is hot in the mix. He seems to be the band’s maestro: his hand gestures cue the backup singers, pantomime the lyrics, call for another chorus. The rest of the band seems to fade so far into the background that they’re little more than excess glitter in the streamers hanging along the rear wall.
The boy with the scraggly beard moves closer. In the corner, a set of stairs leads up to the stage. He ducks under the velvet rope and ascends the first few steps. He observes the accordionist working the bellows, generating a barrage of melodic gusts. The boy’s fingers open the flap of the leather pouch attached to his tool belt.
As the next song begins, the boy sprints across the proscenium, his hands a sharp silver glint. He lunges at the accordionist and stabs him in the neck. The music falters. Band members drop their instruments and start to scatter. They bump past one another, sprinting offstage in different directions, entwined in cords, trampling the abandoned cello, stumbling over the upturned theremin.
The accordionist remains standing upright, the static center of the action, until the boy yanks the hunting knife from his neck. There’s a spurt of blood as he collapses onto the stage.
The boy straddles him and continues to stab. A dark wet pattern spreads around the squeeze-box, soaking the musician’s shirt, as if the instrument itself were hemorrhaging. The accordionist parts his lips, perhaps attempting to pose a question, but he only manages to display his gritted yellow teeth. They’re not as bright as they appeared in the spotlight.
As the audience shouts and stampedes over one another, an invisible stagehand drops the curtain. It tumbles from the ceiling and the red cloth pools along the rim of the stage. The rippling fabric obscures the ongoing scene from view, but the convulsing wheeze of the accordion continues to blurt through the speakers. It resounds throughout the theater, echoing along the corridors, pursuing those who are clambering down the stairs, throwing open the fire exits, fleeing into the night.
The band’s set seems to last weeks. You’re one of a dozen people crammed into the swampy basement, perfumed by the acrid smell of laundry detergent and sweaty feet, listening to the group stumble through another meandering tune. You feel trapped and try to escape by sinking deeper into the faded floral pattern of the mildewed sofa. You know most of the musicians who are standing only a few feet away. Their preening expressions remind you of the poster in the club, and you wish you could scribble over and obliterate their smug faces. Everyone else here seems to wish the performance was over as well. They fidget and scratch, shut their eyes, shuffle their feet. As the band launches into another fumbling jam, a redheaded boy walks over to the wall. You watch how he calmly unplugs the various cords connected to the amps, his hands disconnecting them one by one, until the electrified noise evaporates from the room. Even the drummer stops playing, his sticks held aloft, midbeat. It’s a revelation—the ease with which the music is expunged. You want to applaud, but the silence feels too precious. Instead, you stare down at your hands.
DAY 27
OREGON • THE BOY IN THE SWEATSHIRT IGNORES the shouts. He focuses on the band instead. Four women in black dresses perform at the end of the outdoor patio. Their pummeling riffs ripple the night air. A video is projected on a sheet behind them, twilight shots of a pine forest, frantic sparrows flying in swooping arcs, skittish deer with red eyes, hunters dressed in orange flak jackets. The boy moves closer, like he’s trying to step inside this landscape. But the shouts continue. Somebody in the crowd keeps calling him.
—Hey! a kid with curly hair shouts. It’s Lawrence. I was waving at you. Guess you didn’t recognize me.
The boy lowers the hood of his sweatshirt. His unblinking eyes flicker in Lawrence’s direction. His lips shudder into a shape that might be construed as a greeting.
—Never thought you’d be at something like this, Lawrence says. I mean, it’s cool you’re into this stuff. My friend ditched the show for some chick, so I drove here myself. No chance I was going to miss this.
The boy in the sweatshirt remains silent and his head swivels back toward the band. Probably he’s being purposefully rude, but either it’s too dark for Lawrence to pick up the insult or he doesn’t care.
—I’m starting this band, Lawrence says. I’ve recorded some backing tracks and now I’m looking for members. The guys who run this place floated the idea of opening for an upcoming show.
The boy scrutinizes the musicians like he’s trying to decode a message contained in the stray pulses of light glinting off their instruments. They’re locked into a groove, cranking up the distortion with every repetition. The crowd rocks on its heels, bobbing in time to the bracingly loud music.
—You have any interest? Lawrence asks. In joining? You play an instrument, right? If not, no big deal. It’s easy enough to figure that out.
The video projection now shows a dirt road running through the woods. The camera glides along an empty trail lit only by a pair of headlights. The boy’s eyes are stretched wide as if he’s trying to absorb the entire forest. The musicians must seem like little more than extra pixels, obscuring bits of distortion.
—What do you say? Lawrence asks. We could be what this place needs.
It’s impossible to guess what emotion animates the boy’s puckering face. His hands squirm inside the pouch of his sweatshirt. His voice is hoarse and strained.
—What this place needs, the boy says, is a good fire.
—That’s sick. Lawrence laughs and slaps him on the back.
Something clatters to the floor and Lawrence scoops it up. His hands cradle an object of bewildering weight as if it’s a shard of space debris. The flashing video briefly illuminates the polished barrel of a handgun.
The boy snatches it back and spins around to see if anyone noticed.
—What the fuck is that for? Lawrence says.
—Self-defense, the boy says. Then he points the gun at the stage and pumps the trigger.
He braces for the recoil, but nothing happens. Lawrence screams at him, unintelligible sounds, voice shrill like a siren. He flaps his hands madly, trying to wrestle the gun away without actually touching it. The boy makes evasive maneuvers, and their flailing hands perform an awkward dance around the weapon. All the while, the boy clutches the polished metal. Then his fingers find the safety.
The boy fires the gun without taking aim. It discharges directly into Lawrence’s face. A spattering combustion of flesh and bone. A sickening sucking thump. Somebody seizes the boy from behind and the weapon goes off again. The boy in the sweatshirt squeals, twisting away from his captor and hopping madly across the darkened space. He’s shot himself in the foot.
Most of the crowd tries to flee the patio, bodies churning for the rear exit. A few people point at the maniacally bouncing figure. A woman grabs a fire extinguisher and clocks the boy in the back of the head. He staggers, hands instinctively clutching his vibrating scalp. At some point, he must have dropped the gun.
Throughout, the band keeps playing. The image behind them remains the same. The video must be on a slow fade because its edges grow steadily darker, but the boy can still make it out: the twilight woods, the bobbing headlights, the vacant dirt road, the endless path whose destination remains forever a few paces ahead.
Your mother sits in her wheelchair and hums to herself. It’s an irritating children’s tune whose name you can never remember. You kneel in front of her and spread streaks of shaving cream on her calves. You try not to let it bother you that she’s so withdrawn she barely notices your presence. There’s no acknowledgment as you gently shave her legs with a razor. When you accidentally draw blood, you watch the red bead bloom on the surface of her skin. Then you wad a piece of tissue and place it over the cut. Your mother can’t feel anything, but you always look up to make sure she’s not in any pain. She absently strokes your shaved scalp. Why’d you cut off all your hair? she murmurs. You
don’t reply. She’s talking to herself anyway. Her eyes remain fixed on the television screen, absorbed in some stupid show about running. A coach is seated on a bench in the locker room next to a skinny boy in a track uniform. The coach scolds the boy for missing practice. You never show up, he says. Why don’t you quit? The boy doesn’t reply and stares obstinately at his shoes. You recognize his expression. Why don’t you quit? the coach repeats. You know how the boy should answer, so you say it for him: Because I’m not a quitter.
DAY 45
NEW YORK • THE BOY IN THE BAGGY WINDBREAKER is late. He stands in the stalled line, shuffling his feet, advancing every available inch. In his frustration, he plucks out an eyelash. It’s an involuntary reflex he keeps repeating, seemingly unaware of the collection of fine black squiggles amassing on his sticky fingertips. Finally he enters the glass lobby, claims his ticket, and hops on the escalator that descends below street level. Standing on the languidly moving metal staircase, he yanks his baggy windbreaker tight, hugging it to his chest as if it’s a security blanket. He plucks another eyelash.
When he reaches the main floor, the boy brushes past the fans with the macabre tattoos and metal piercings gathered at the bar. He hastens down the terraced steps, past the merchandise table where two men with long black hair autograph embossed posters of winged demons. He’s almost running toward the entrance of the concert hall. The music is a seismic rumble beneath his feet, a slithering symphony of electric current. The doors are within sight.
A uniformed security guard halts the boy and instructs him to place his arms behind his head. Routine inspection, the guard says, as he ferrets through the windbreaker. In one pocket, he discovers a lighter. From the other, he produces a glass bottle filled with translucent yellowish liquid whose top is stoppered with an old rag.