Strange Days

by Constantine J. Singer

  I shrug again. I should have kept my mouth shut.

  My mom steps away from my door. “Go inside. I gotta talk to your aunt.”

  I leave them there at the curb, trying not to listen. They’ve never gotten along, but my auntie’s my dad’s only sister and they’re like the only family each other’s got.

  Inside the house, things aren’t quiet like they’re supposed to be. There’s a speaker on somewhere, playing music—a guitar solo that goes on and on, a louder, more detailed version of what I was hearing earlier today. I can hear it, except when I try to listen to it, it slips through my ears and disappears—so I can’t name the notes, can’t write them down.

  I look through the house to find where it is, but it’s everywhere. I check the TVs and the speaker comms, but they’re not making any noise.

  And the solo never grows louder, never quieter, no matter where I am.

  It’s like it’s in me, so I’m the only one who hears it. I pull my pod and plug my fingers into my ears to see if it helps, but it doesn’t do anything.

  I sit down at the dining room table and put my head on my arms and hope it goes away.

  “What’s wrong with you?” my mom asks when she comes back inside.

  I look up at her. I don’t know what to say and I don’t want to get into it about hearing things, so I just say: “My ears.”

  She nods. “Your auntie, she’ll talk them off.” She sets herself down in the chair on the other side of the table, bumping it into me. “She worries too much, thinks she knows better than everybody.”

  I hate it when she gets mad about Juana. I never know what to say. “She’s just scared about the Incursions.”

  “She’s spoiling you.”

  I shrug.

  “She knows you’re failing classes and skipping school and she still buys you stuff, picks you up, drives you places.” She shakes her head. “She’s not your mom.” She points at herself. “I am.”

  There’s nothing to say, and now I’m about to hear about what she went through to have me. I just nod, focus in on the sounds in my head. They’re getting slightly louder.

  “It took us years of work to have you, Alex—you didn’t come easy like your brother did.”

  Her voice trails off when she mentions my brother, and I speak up to try and head her off. “It wasn’t that much—a lot of kids come from IVF and gene therapy these days . . .”

  But she’s not having it. “It was a lot, Alejandro, a lot for us.” She shakes her head. “And your aunt, she doesn’t seem to understand that she’s going to end up making you soft.” She taps the table twice with her fingers. “The fact that she’s not getting you that Live-Tech shit only because she listens to paranoid shows about aliens should tell you everything you need to know about your aunt.”

  “She’s not so bad, Mom. And Incursions are real. They’re happening, and what if Sabazios is telling the truth—he’s superrich—it’s not like he’s nobody.”

  My mom sits down across from me. “You really scared about that stuff?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know.” But I can’t look at her when I say it.

  She sighs, looks at me closely in a way that makes me feel weird. “You’re so close to being a man I forget that you’re still a little boy on the inside.” She sits back, doesn’t seem to notice me blushing. “I’m tempted to get you your precious Live-Tech just to piss her off.” She taps the pod in her ear. “How much do Live-Tech pods cost?”

  The phone tells her that they’re $129 and asks if she’d like to order one, for delivery on Thursday.

  I look up at her, hopeful. She hesitates. “I’ll pay you back.”

  She rolls her eyes. “With what? You don’t have a job.”

  “I’ll find something . . . Do stuff around the house or help dad on his worksites on Saturdays.”

  “You’d work Saturdays with your dad for how long?”

  “Two months.”

  She looks at me, her eyes narrowing. “Three.”

  Right now a bunch of Saturdays doesn’t feel real, but the fact that I’m suddenly about to get a Live-Tech pod shoves out any sense that I’m giving up too much. “Deal.”

  She taps her pod. “Order it. Send it to the house.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” I look at the clock above the stove in the kitchen. It’s nearly four. I stand up.

  “Where you going?”

  “I gotta meet someone.” I gesture with my chin. “Down at the lake.”

  She shakes her head. “You’re not going anywhere.” She points at me and then at my room. “Go do something useful until dinner.”

  When I text Mousie to tell her that I still can’t meet, she doesn’t want to let it go, keeps telling me that I should just come anyways. I tell her that it’s not a good idea to cross my mom, but she doesn’t understand. Eventually she moves on to other stuff, but I can’t shake the feeling that she thinks I’m being dumb for staying home. I tell her that I have to go, that I’ve got stuff to do and that I’ll get her later.

  She texts back, but I don’t even look at it. Instead I pull my song notebook from under my mattress.

  I’ve been playing guitar since I was nine, because my brother Pete played and I wanted to be like him, and after he was gone I kept playing because it feels like I’m with him when I do. I’ve never played in a band or anything, though, but sometimes me and Beems play together because he’s got drums.

  I taught myself to read and write music when I was in middle school, when I had thoughts about becoming some sort of rock star, but that was just a kid’s dream. I still write lyrics and put them to music on my guitar, but I don’t show anybody—not even Beems. It’s more about keeping my mind still, connecting with things. Connecting with music itself.

  So I mostly play alone in my room.

  I open my lyrics book, start to write, thinking about the lie I told to Zeon this morning.

  Someday Runaway

  In the morning, before the sun,

  My mind’s awake, born to run.

  Haven’t slept, and I cannot shake

  All this crazy that keeps me lying here

  Wide

  Awake.

  Everybody tells me they got

  Ideas for my life, tons, a lot

  Ways I should be, things I should do

  But they don’t know me, no idea, haven’t

  Got a

  Clue.

  DUMB!

  The word blasts into my brain, blowing the song apart and I have to stop. I put the pen down, take a breath, then start reworking the first verses so they’re less singsongy, then turn to the chorus:

  I’m here, in front of you but you don’t see

  Me, staring at my face, seeing who you want me

  To be.

  I hide my eyes, show you lies, pretend I’m the prize

  But I’m dying inside, and my mind, it cries:

  Start again without

  Start again without

  Start again without

  Start again without the lies.

  Start again without the lies.

  I pick up my guitar and start again, but the song’s dumb, so eventually I close the book and play other people’s music instead.

  It drowns out the music I’ve been hearing in my brain.

  Beems hits me up but I ignore my pod, watch his photo come up on my screen. I don’t stop playing. It’s cool like that with Beems and me. We don’t always have to stay on things with each other—we’ve come up together since preschool.

  Eventually, I put down the guitar and tap my pod to check his message: U down for doing something

  I message him back, tell him I can’t—maybe tomorrow.

  Tomorrow. Stairs after school.

  Four

  It’s just beems and me hanging out on the old st
airs by my house. The city’s been through since the last time, painted everything over again. They’ve left us fresh surfaces.

  Beems jerks his head at the wall next to us. He’s smiling. He can’t hear the strumming that’s been in my head all day. When I try and listen it gets worse.

  “You hear guitars?”

  He shakes his head.

  I try to shut it out, think of other things, but today it’s louder than my thoughts. Hasn’t stopped.

  I drop my board and it clatters on the concrete, rolls into the wall next to me. The noise temporarily obscures the guitars.

  I pull a paint pen from my bag and shake it: thack thack thack thack.

  I go to write my name, PLUGZER, on the wall, but the noise makes my name come out wrong, a terrible song in my head. Beems watches me, tapping a marker against his leg.

  He sees me screw up, so he laughs. I can barely hear him, but I know.

  I want to shake, spin, jump, do something, pound my head, break my ears, but instead I try and stay still to watch as Beems pinches the pen cap between his lips. It sticks out like a lizard tongue as he tosses up a perfect BEEMS.

  “Balance,” he says around the cap, his words barely penetrating. “You gotta keep it balanced.”

  I want to trash his tag, but it’s a masterpiece just like everything he does. Beems’s real name is Julio and he’s been Genius Boy since we were both in preschool. He doesn’t go to Belmont like the rest of us. He goes to County Arts.

  I shake my pen again. Thack thack thack thack. The noise becomes a drumbeat.

  I toss up a PLUGZER on another section of the stairs. I look up at Julio when it’s done and he nods. It’s better.

  “Where’s Mousie?” he asks.

  “Watching her niece.”

  I unfold my screen to check the time. It’s nearly six and if I don’t get home my mom is going to blow it up.

  I stand up, the guitars fade, then rise with me.

  “Watch out, scared boy.”

  I turn to see who’s talking and accidentally kick my board. It crashes all the way down the stairs, skidding onto the street below.

  Julio looks up at me. “You okay?”

  “Who said that?” I start to ask, but I don’t finish. I swallow the end of the sentence and try to play it off. The voice didn’t actually sound like a person’s voice at all and anyways it’s just Beems and me here.

  “Huh?”

  I don’t answer him.

  “It’s about time.” The voice is hollow, like a ghost or a dream and even though it’s loud—louder than the guitars—I don’t feel it in my ears. She’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time. “Be ready to run, scared boy. Strange days are here and you’re gonna run away.”

  “Shut up,” I whisper before I can help it. I don’t even look at Beems after I say it. “I need to get home.” I hate the fear in my voice.

  “Been waiting for you, scared boy, gonna get you ready to run!” The voice is right there, talking in both ears, moving from one side to the other, drowning out even the guitars.

  I shake my head hard to try and get her out.

  “Shut up shut up!”

  Beems stands. He’s staring.

  The voice pushes at me. “Beems won’t help you, Plugz. It’s all been seen and done. He’s going to try and get you. Trap you, but he can’t stop what’s already been seen, boy. You’re gonna run away, runaway!”

  I back up the stairs and turn toward home.

  “What about your board, man?” Julio reaches out to steady me, but I can’t shake what the voice said. I push his hand away and run.

  “Run away!” the voice yells, but her words aren’t coming in through my ears.

  “Shut up!” I yell it in every direction while I run so she’ll know I’m yelling at her. “Shut up shut up shut up!”

  Silence. I wait for her to say something, but everything is quiet. Even the guitars are scared of her. When I reach the gate to my house, I stand and wait some more.

  Nothing.

  Eventually I go inside.

  I’m scared, sure, but I don’t wonder what’s happening anymore. Hearing the voice makes it pretty clear.

  I’m going to be just like my uncle Chuy.

  Five

  My mom and me still set a place at dinner for my brother Pete even though he’s been dead for six years. The army death guys came in the middle of my eleventh birthday party. I thought my parents had them come because I wanted to join the army like Pete, but they hadn’t. We just weren’t expecting them because Pete wasn’t at war anymore. He was stationed in Texas.

  A car crash on a freeway near El Paso.

  Mom and I wash his plate every night. When people eat dinner with us, we all sit closer together instead of giving them Pete’s spot.

  I’d do anything to go back in time and talk to him again, but having his setting at the table helps a little. It makes it feel like he’s late, not gone.

  I know my dad doesn’t like the reminder every day. The men in our family don’t talk about death if we can help it. Not that there’s many of us left to talk about it—it’s really just me and him who are still alive. My dad says Mata men are cursed. So far none of us has lived past the age of forty-eight.

  My grandfather died of a heart attack at forty-five. His brother, my uncle Arturo, was hit by a car at thirty-eight. My cousin Alex—Tía Juana’s son, who I’m named after—drowned at twenty-six. Pete died at nineteen. My uncle Chuy died on the streets at thirty-two. My dad won’t talk about it unless he’s been drinking, but when he does he says it’s been like that for generations.

  My dad is forty-seven.

  I’m always sure I’m gonna die. Sometimes I think it doesn’t matter what I do, so I do whatever. Other times, I get too scared to do anything. It’s part of why I don’t think much about school.

  Lately, I’ve been convinced I’ll be killed in an Incursion, but now I have a new idea.

  My uncle Chuy died before I was born. Pete told me about him, said he was schizophrenic. He heard voices that he talked to. They told him to do things.

  Just like me.

  He’d been living on one of the little islands where the river flows through Frogtown, and when the water rose, it was so fast that he couldn’t get out. People had told him not to stay down there in the rainy season, but he wouldn’t listen to real people . . . only the voices in his head.

  I go down to the river sometimes to listen to the water and watch the birds. When I do I think of him living in the trees and reeds that rise up like a jungle from the high spots on the bed where the water only runs when it rains. There are still people out there now, homeless people, sick people like Chuy. I feel bad watching them out there, knowing what could happen to them, but it’s not my place to say anything.

  At dinner, the guitars are loud again, but the voice is quiet, so I work up the nerve to ask about him. “When did Uncle Chuy start hearing things?” I put it out there like the weather while scraping rice onto my fork with my tortilla.

  My dad looks at me like I asked about his bowel movements.

  “Are you going to be a part of the groundbreaking for the new gym?” My mom. Irrelevant questions are her favorite tool when things get uncomfortable.

  I shake my head. Then I shrug when she looks disappointed. I turn and watch my dad instead as I chew. He’s looking away from me.

  He does that when he’s mad.

  “Did he tell anybody when it started?” I don’t usually press an issue when my dad does the looking-away thing, but this is important.

  “When I saw the notice in the school blast, I thought maybe I could go, because we had some good times in that gym back in the day . . .” Mom tries again.

  The guitars seem to know I’m asking about them. They’re grinding now, metal heavy, sounding like Slayer.

 
“Dad?” My voice cracks with fear and I hate myself.

  He drops the fork onto his plate and the noise makes me jump even though I watched it fall.

  “Jumpy!” The voice is loud and almost not there at the same time. Like she’s talking in clouds. Like skywriting.

  “We are not going to talk about my brother.” My dad’s voice is even, calm, and scary.

  “Don’t let scary dad scare you, boy. Bad things are coming. Worse than the curse. Bad things scarier than him.” And then she laughs. I cringe.

  My dad thinks I’m cringing because of him.

  “Dad . . .”

  He shakes his head.

  Mom steps in: “They said they were going to pull up the time capsule from when the gym was built. Have they opened it yet?”

  I look at her. She widens her eyes at me. “I can ask questions or I can tell you what I think about you being so disrespectful.” She looks at me hard and shakes her head slowly. “You want me to tell you what I think?”

  I don’t. When she says what she thinks, it takes forever and I have to look her in the eye the whole time or she starts over. With Dad, it’s easier. It’s just silence.

  I sigh. “I don’t know about any time capsule.”

  “The one that was buried in the old gym. Your grandmother, she put things in it when she was in high school.”

  I shrug and go back to eating. “I didn’t know about it.”

  Somebody knocks at the door. I look up. My dad gestures at me with his chin: Answer it.

  It’s Beems, holding my board. “You alright, man?”

  The Skywriting Voice starts in. “Bad things coming, Alex. Julio’s gonna try and stop you, and you’re gonna have to run.”

  I nod and begin to close the door. He pushes against it a little. “You know you can talk to me, right?” He raises his eyebrows. “We tell each other things.”

  I nod. A year ago, he told me he was gay. I’m the only person from the neighborhood who knows about it. He still talks about girls when we hang out with the rest of the crew. He isn’t that open about it at his school, either, even though he’s far from the only gay kid there. “Yeah. I know.”