by Garth Stein
“You okay?”
It’s Charlie. He’s followed.
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
Evan stops. He glares at Charlie.
“What is it, Chuck? You want me not to be fine?”
“No. I’m just concerned.”
“Really?”
“Are you okay?”
Evan shakes his head in disbelief.
“No, Chuck, I’m not okay. I have epilepsy.”
“Are you having a seizure?”
“No.”
“Are you having an aura?”
“No.”
“Then what’s wrong?” Charlie asks, as if this were the limit of his ability to comprehend wrongness. A seizure or an aura. Everything else is okay.
“I have epilepsy, ” Evan says.
“Are you having a seizure?” Charlie asks again.
“No.”
“I don’t understand, ” Charlie says, genuinely confused.
“I have epilepsy.”
“I know.”
“I know you know, ” Evan says. “I have it because of you.”
Charlie stops. Cocks his head.
“What do you mean?”
“I took your dare.”
“My dare?”
“Your dare, ” Evan says. “I ran out into the street.”
“That wasn’t my dare, ” Charlie says.“That was your dare.”
Evan. Stunned again. Whose dare? His own brother, a Stepford. They’re all Stepfords. They should just change their names and get it over with.
“No, Chuck, it was yours, ” Evan says.
Charlie scratches his head.
“No, ” he says.
“I remember it vividly, Chuck. I do.”
“You remember it wrong, ” Charlie says.
Evan wants to lash out. He wants to strike his brother, bash him. But he doesn’t act on his impulse. This is nothing to him. Evan knows the truth. He knows how it happened. Although, if Charlie remembers it some other way, at least that would explain why he never went to their parents to tell them what really happened.
And does it really matter, anyway? For his entire life, it’s mattered. All the hatred. All the resentment. But who really cares? Who cares why Evan has epilepsy? Who cares who took the dare for whom? That’s beside the point, isn’t it? The fact remains the same. Evan has epilepsy. It’s time to stop assessing blame. All this time he’s been waiting for something from Charlie, an apology or a thank-you or something, anything. But he will never get it. Does that mean what he did for his brother was any less significant? No. He did it out of love. He did it to protect his little brother. He made a sacrifice for Charlie, and that sacrifice was its own reward.
“Chuck, ” Evan says, grabbing Charlie behind his neck in some kind of Sicilian grasp of friendship and brotherhood.“Chuck, I am your brother, and I will protect you.”
Charlie looks confused.
“I am your brother, and I will protect you, ” Evan repeats.
That’s how it happened. One cold, wet November evening. Dusk settling on the road. The smell of fireplaces. The smell of stew. One more dare and it would be over. Charlie had the last dare. One more dare and we could go home.
“I am your brother, and I will protect you, ” Evan says again.
But Charlie cried. Charlie cried, so Evan stood up for him, that’s what he did. He didn’t want his little brother to get kicked in the shins by Penny and her tap shoes. He didn’t want Charlie to cry. So Evan stood up for him.
“I am your brother . . .”
Evan took the dare. It was raining. The road was wet. He hadn’t factored in the wet roads. He didn’t think about the extra distance needed to stop on a wet road.
“. . . and I will protect you.”
When the car hit him, he was so surprised. Like it was a strange, surprise gift. Thump. And the funny thing. None of it hurt. Not the car hitting him, not his landing on the road. None of it hurt. Even seizures don’t really hurt. It’s not the seizure that hurts. It’s after the seizure that hurts. When you wake up. That’s when you feel bruised and broken. That’s when you feel most alone. When you feel like no one is there for you. Not even your parents, who are standing at the foot of your bed watching you like you’re some kind of a freak. They aren’t really there. They can’t really help you.
“Evbee.”
Standing in the doorway is Mel.
“On stage, now!”
Evan leaves Charlie—who is thoroughly a wreck, as if Evan has cast some kind of magic spell on him—and follows Mel toward the stage. He hears music. It sounds like The Last.
“They’ve started?”
“Yes, Evbee. And, for the record, you’re every bit as good as Billy and Mica say you are, but Eddie Van Halen you ain’t. If you pull a stunt like this again, I’m dropping the band. Now get your ass on stage and play.”
Evan bounds up the stage, plugs in his guitar. The song is halfway done. How long was he in the bathroom with Charlie? Tony makes a gesture of relief toward him. Evan waits . . . waits . . . waits . . . and when his cue comes, he rips into his guitar with so much force that all the people in the club are blown backwards at least a foot, their eyes forced wide, their mouths agape, they are compelled to listen because there is no way to avoid it. They are convinced by Evan and his guitar to believe—with more faith than they thought they had in their souls—that The Last has arrived, and that The Last will never open for another band again.
IT IS WHEN he plays guitar that he feels absolute clarity. He can’t explain it; he doesn’t know why. But there is a point at which he is the instrument and someone or something is playing him. Something larger. Something outside of all of us. Call it the Universal Mind, if you like. But when he feels it, he knows that the people listening feel it as well. They are all tapping into the same thing. They all understand.
Absolute clarity. He sees a young boy on his father’s shoulders near the foot of the stage, and it is clear. It is late. It is smoky. But there is an astrological event in the room, and it is the music. The boy is dancing, as is the father underneath him. They are dancing separately, but they are one dancer. Because a father and a son may be separated, but they are never separate. They cannot deny each other. They may have never seen each other in their lives, yet they still influence each other.
And it is clear to Evan, now: the difference between what is and what has been done; the present and the past. He sees that what he does and who he is isn’t based on the past unless he wants it to be. It is clear: he doesn’t have to hide his decisions behind false issues: the need to protect Dean from Frank; guilt over Tracy’s life and death; his assumption of his own incompetence; the fear of his epilepsy that he projects onto Dean. No. That is the past, which has been seen differently through many different eyes and has become hazy and unclear, like a pond when stirred with a stick. Only the present moment is clear and free from prejudice.
And so, playing this particular guitar on this particular stage on this particular evening, freed from his own history, Evan asks himself: What does he want?
He answers:To be with Dean.
He asks:Why?
He answers: Because he is Evan and nothing else. Because he is Evan and that is enough.
ABSOLUTE CLARITY.
There is Tracy: he’s always maintained that she wanted the abortion and he didn’t, but that isn’t true. She didn’t really want the abortion (as Brad said); she was waiting for Evan to fight to keep the child. But he didn’t fight. He agreed so easily. He thought he was agreeing to cause her less pain, but he caused more: if he had insisted on keeping the baby, she would have been relieved and thankful; instead, he went to the bank and cashed a check, and she was sorry.
He gave her the money so he could feel morally justified that he’d made the right decision—deferring to Tracy’s wishes—while assuring that the issue was dealt with quickly and easily. Yes. He’d spent all of these years telling himself that he really wante
d to raise a child with Tracy, but he was kidding himself, and Tracy was smart enough to see through him.
She left in order to spare him the uncomfortable visits with her family, whom he used to call “white-trash Mormons” to her face. She would laugh, but the words were hurtful and offensive. By calling her parents those names, Evan was signaling to her that he didn’t want to marry her. He was vetoing any concept of permanence in their relationship. Sure, he was.
Oh, he created it all. When you dissect it, it becomes obvious. Like Brad said, Evan acts like he doesn’t know what’s going on, but he knows everything. To date, his plan has worked to perfection. It was the perfect design, executed masterfully, and the result has been Evan’s perfect, masterful, mediocre life of nothing.
And things would have gone on that way, too, Evan knows. Forever and ever. Except for two chance meetings that crumbled his worldview. The chance meeting of Tracy’s car and another’s on the freeway. And the chance meeting of Evan and a girl, who suggested to him that he sit in with a band called Lucky Strike.
AFTERWARD, THEY GO out to celebrate. Evan tags along for as long as he can stand it, but he knows when it’s time to go. There’s no reason for him to continue dragging from club to club in Belltown. Sure he wants to be one of the guys, sure he wants to hang out with their new producer, but he also has to get the hell out of town first thing in the morning. He has to go. He’s standing at the back of the Crocodile Lounge, but in his head he’s already packing his bag, setting his alarm, trying to catch some sleep. He’s already halfway to Walla Walla.
He tells Lars he feels sick. An easy excuse. And he slips out of the Crocodile and onto the cool street. There’s a group of kids waiting to get in. He’s made space for them and they’re thankful.
“Check you later, Evan, ” the bouncer says. Evan’s never seen him before, never met him. How did he know Evan’s name?
He rounds the corner, out of the glare of the big green sign.
“Yo, Evbee.”
Evbee? Only one person calls him Evbee.
“Hey, Billy.”
“I heard your set tonight, ” Billy says.“You sounded good.”
“You were there?” Evan asks.“Why didn’t you find me?”
“I was with people.”
Billy breaks off from his friends and approaches Evan, but his greeting isn’t as enthusiastic as usual. There’s no hip-hop handshake, for instance.
“I gotta jump, ”Evan says. He points over his shoulder with his thumb.
“We need to talk.”
“I’ve got to get up really early in the morning, Billy. Can we talk tomorrow?”
Billy moves to within striking distance. He doesn’t blink.
“Let’s take a walk, ” he says.
He takes Evan’s elbow and guides him away from the Crocodile and down Blanchard Street. As soon as they’re away from Second Avenue, the street plunges into darkness.
They walk several blocks—longer than Evan is comfortable with—without speaking. He’s concerned that Billy may kill him, stuff him in a Dumpster somewhere.
“We need to talk about Mica, ” Billy finally says.
No, he’s already screwed up his relationship with Mica. He screwed up his relationship with Dean, too, but for some reason he feels he can salvage it. Maybe it’s blood. But with Mica, he went too far.
“I love Mica, Evan, ” Billy says. “She’s like my little sister, and I love my little sister. Understand?”
“I fucked up, ” Evan says.
“That’s what she said, ” Billy says.“Let me give you some advice about Mica.”
“It’s too late, Billy—”Their eyes meet, but they don’t speak for a moment.“She makes me so afraid, ” he says, finally.
Billy is silent.
“She looks at you and she sees all of your lies, ” Evan says.“You can’t lie to her.”
“That makes you afraid of her?” Billy asks.
“That scares the shit out of me.”
“Why?
Evan tries to assemble his thoughts.
“My life is a fraud, Billy. You know when you tell a lie and then you have to tell another one to make the first one stick, and then you tell a third and it goes on like that?”
“Yeah.”
“My life is like that. My entire life. I’ve been telling lies since I was twelve years old. You know? And I’m good at it, Billy. I’m fucking good. And Mica walks in with her goddamn laser vision, and blows it all apart. That wouldn’t scare you?”
Billy thinks about it.“It might make me happy, ” he says.
“Only after the fact, Billy. I mean, if you’re clinging to a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean and you don’t know that a mermaid is waiting to rescue you and take you down to her mermaid castle, you’re scared shitless of letting go of that wood, right? After you let go and she saves you, you can be happy. But before? You’re scared. Right?”
“I see your point, ” Billy says.
“I wasn’t ready to be exposed, ” Evan says. “That’s why I acted like that. I can’t live up to her expectations. I can’t tell her everything about me. She doesn’t understand.”
“Did you give her a chance?”
Evan doesn’t answer. They walk another half-block, Billy nodding to himself. They wait for a walk light at a corner. When it turns in their favor, they don’t cross. Billy looks at Evan.
“We go way back together, don’t we, Evbee?”
“We do, ” Evan says.
“Way back.”
“Hey, Billy, thanks for the help with Mel.”
Billy acknowledges Evan’s gratitude with a nod. “You gonna sign with him?”
“I think so.”
“Do you know why I helped you out, Evbee?” Billy asks.
“No, ” Evan admits.
“I did it because you gave me my start, man.”
“What do you mean?” Evan asks, surprised.
“You inspired me to open The Sound Factory, Evbee. When we were in Free Radicals, all you guys were better musicians than I was. I could see that. And you could play that fucking guitar like crazy, man, and I woke up one day at rehearsal and I realized that I was just an overachiever, Evbee. My whole life, I just worked hard at things like playing the drums, or whatever. I never had any talent for it. And that’s okay, you know, in a sense. A lot of people go through life like that. But I realized that if I was gonna have to work hard for whatever I got, I’d rather work hard in a profession where I could make some money, you know? Musicians don’t make any money. So that’s why I quit playing and opened my place. And you know what? I found out I had a real talent for something, and now look at me. So I quit playing because of your talent, and I found my place because of you. So I knew if I could pay you back someday, I wanted to do it, you know?”
“I appreciate it, Billy. I really do.”
“Come here for a second.”
Billy leads Evan across the street and toward an old, brick apartment building on the opposite corner. He mounts the three short steps up to the vestibule door. He presses a buzzer on the intercom.
“Hello?” a girl’s voice crackles.
“Yo, doll, it’s Billy. Lemme up.”
The door unlocks with a buzz and Billy pushes it open a crack. He looks over at Evan.
“It’s your move, Evbee.”
Evan considers it. He knows he has to deal with it, but he was kind of hoping to put it off until later. Maybe until never.
But with Billy leading him there by the hand, how can he say no?
He takes the door from Billy and steps into the entryway.
“Be straight, Evbee, ” Billy warns as Evan passes. “If you break her heart, I don’t want to see you around anymore. Seriously. She’s my little sister, and I don’t want her heart broken. Cool?”
“Cool, ” Evan agrees.
“Good looking-out, Evbee, ” Billy says, followed by the special handshake; he turns and walks away.
HE CLIMBS THE dimly lit
stairs to the third floor. As he walks down the hallway, he hears the muffled sounds of people’s lives behind their doors: a dog whimpering, a TV blaring, music playing; he smells Chinese food. He finds her apartment and pushes the doorbell.
After a moment he hears soft footsteps, then the pivoting of a little round metal disk on its hinge. Light briefly flashes through the peephole, disappears, then returns. The door opens.
She doesn’t welcome him in. She doesn’t step aside and usher him to her bed. She simply stands in the doorway, the door still mostly closed, only one-third of her body in view.
“Where’s Billy?” she asks.
“He left.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because Billy wouldn’t let me run away.”
She watches him carefully, trying to detect signs of deception. There are none. She lets him in.
Her apartment is small and dark. It’s a one-room studio. The floor and trim are darkly stained oak. The walls are French vanilla. It’s messy and cluttered; clothes lie in piles on the floor surrounding a futon; books and magazines cover a square kitchen table that acts as a buffer between the room and a kitchenette, which is filled with every imaginable cooking item.
Mica pads across the room and picks up a water glass from the floor. She stands next to the window and drinks. She’s in her pajamas.
“Were you sleeping?” Evan asks.
She turns toward him, and she seems so vulnerable. So small and delicate. He’s always seen her as larger-than-life, as powerful and poised;now she seems almost childlike. He feels awkward next to her.
“My grandfather committed suicide, ” Evan says. “He died ten years ago, and I just found out tonight that he committed suicide.”
She watches him but she doesn’t speak.
“It’s so obvious, looking back on it. It should have been obvious to me then. But it wasn’t because I didn’t want to see it that way. I saw it the way I wanted to see it; I only looked at the parts I wanted to see. I didn’t see that he had cancer. I didn’t see that when he asked me what belongings of his I wanted that he was telling me he was going to kill himself.”
