by Bethny Ebert
Bracing himself, Parker knocked a few times, then opened the door to Nick’s bedroom.
Nick’s room looked the same as it always had, ever since they’d known each other. Spotless floor. Bed made, hospital corners. Bookshelf arranged according to size and color. There were no store-bought posters, only framed black-and-white photographs of Kurt Cobain and Davey Havok and the guys from NOFX and the Vandals and Sex Pistols. At his therapist’s suggestion, the walls were painted a dull light blue-grey, like the sky on a stormy day or a stone you’d find by the beach. Blue calmed the nerves.
“Hi,” Parker announced.
Nick waved at him from the floor. He was overheated, lying around on the cool tile floor and listening to music to mellow himself out. The transition from winter to spring warped his internal temperature, and his lung condition often left him fatigued and out-of-breath.
Sometimes Parker felt like a doctor, having to monitor his boyfriend’s health, always taking mental notes in case something happened.
Parker sat on the floor, cross-legged. Taking a deep breath, he looked out the window. It was a struggle to find the right words. Outside, the aimless spring wind blew pink and white flower petals everywhere, gently tossing them like confetti.
Nick looked up at him with a tired smile, dark circles under his hazel eyes. “What’s up?”
Breathe. “You want to go to prom?”
Nick closed his eyes for a moment. “No.”
Parker opened his mouth, then closed it, not knowing what to say. He felt like a fish, opening and closing his mouth like that, dumb, stunned into quiet. Giigoonish giigoonish, he thought. Fish fish.
Courtney Love sang a few choice words in typical fuck-you format, echoing Parker’s hurt heart in a backwards sort of depression. He didn’t know what to say right then, his fishy rejected self. Nobody goes to prom with a fish, anyway. Fish don’t dance.
“Why would you want to go to prom?” Nick said. He exhaled, blowing a few wisps of cinnamon-colored hair out of his face. Heartbreak king, destroyer of romance. “Prom sucks.”
“You suck,” Parker said.
“Well, that’s mature,” Nick said. He smiled a little, to show he didn’t mean it.
“I don’t know,” Parker said, answering his previous question. “I just want to. We don’t do shit like normal couples do. I feel like we just sit around and listen to music all the time.”
“Dude, we went out for Valentine’s Day.”
“Yeah, to Taco Loco.”
“So what, then, you want to stuff me in a tuxedo and slow-dance to trashy John Mayer songs? Why do you care what they think?” Nick said. He grabbed a Marlboro from his shirt pocket and stuck it in his mouth, fumbling for his lighter. “Dude. No thanks. Most of those people hardly talk to us. Even if I wanted to go and make some, like… statement, I don’t have the money for a tux.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth. Damn Brooke had stolen his lighter again. He sighed. “You can go if you want, but you’ll have to find someone else.”
“But I don’t want to find someone else,” Parker said. His throat felt funny all of a sudden.
Nick sat up and looked at him, exasperated. He reached out to put a hand on Parker’s. “Jesus, dude, I didn’t mean like breaking up. I just meant for the night. If you want to go to prom with someone else it’s totally fine.” He raked his hair back with his other hand. “Just don’t fall in love with them or anything.”
“Don’t worry,” Parker assured him. “Love’s for faggy straight people.”
Nick cracked up. “Right.”
Chapter five
November 2008
Corey and I sat on the couch. She looked deep into my eyes, then tucked her sandy blonde hair behind her ear. Her expression was impish, like she had a secret. “I have a surprise for you.”
“Okay?” I said. She wore a button-down dress shirt, baggy cargo pants, and a silk tie. I failed to see what could be more surprising than my girlfriend in men’s clothing.
She undid her tie and slid it over my eyes. My heart beat fast. Was this kinky sex? If this was kinky sex, I was totally down. Or up. Or sideways. Whatever.
Austin, my good man, I told myself, you are going to get laid in a kinky sex way, so you better appreciate this, as it will probably never happen again. Or maybe, I thought, maybe we’re going through a new stage in our relationship. Maybe the honeymoon phase is over and we’re comfortable enough not to be sweet and cute anymore. Maybe now kinky sex is going to happen often, like all the time.
Grinning like a moron, I wondered how long she’d keep me blind-folded for.
I sat really still.
I waited.
And waited.
I couldn’t feel her next to me. The basement was cold, and I shivered.
“Corey?”
“Just a minute,” she sang. Her voice sounded far away. I could hear water running. Then I heard a door open. The thick soles of her puffy Metal Militia skate shoes shuffled toward me, and she put something small and plastic and spoon-shaped in my hands. It was wet, with an acrid stench, salty, like urine. She undid the tie from my eyes, and I looked at her lit-up face, bright smile like a string of pearls.
I stared at the plastic thing in my hands. My breath caught in my throat. She leaned over my shoulder, expectant. Her soft hair brushed against my face, and we waited for the results.
The entire room stopped. Except for the falling snow, nothing in the world visible from the basement moved or made a noise. I felt very conscious of the cold floor under my feet.
The universe held its breath.
Two minutes passed.
I turned the spoon over. Two blue lines, parallel, thin slivers of graffiti, an equals sign, even, evening, like the ocean, the sky, a pH strip, a few blue pixels on the Mac screen of God’s computer, the tiny unplanned planet around which the rest of my life would revolve.
“Dude,” I said, in a hushed whisper.
“Yeah.”
Chapter six
March 2005
Brooke got back to the apartment before her grandma did, just in time to put cat chow in Stella’s bowl. Stella yowled, impatient, wrapping her fuzzy grey body around Brooke’s ankles. Brooke scratched Stella behind her paper-thin bat-like ears, then sighed.
Her birthday. It was 11:00 PM. She had to finish her homework for Oil Painting class, and the damned canvas took forever to dry.
Finally it dried enough for her to put it on the art rack without worrying about little drips of paint sliding down to fuck the whole thing up.
After that, Ev showed up, so they had to talk.
Well, they did talk at some point.
She scratched at the purple-grey bruises and red bite-marks on her neck, wondering about scarves. She probably had one somewhere.
Twenty-one.
Somehow twenty-one years had accumulated, like an old man’s stamp collection, or postcards, coins. A tangible number that you could put away somewhere and keep. She felt like a fraud. Another year. She’d cheated death.
Strange.
The ride home from West Philly was rough, as usual. A fat man sat next to her, chewing loudly and smacking his lips. He smelled like a chili dog. In front of her, a skinny young man wearing a do-rag listened to his headphones at a volume loud enough for her to discern the misogynistic, obscenity-laden lyrics.
She looked out the window, watching the neighborhoods change. A quiet longing she couldn’t place nagged at her, and she missed her Tegan and Sara CD.
The SEPTA driver was reckless. He drove so fast the bus nearly hit a conglomeration of garbage cans someone left outside. It was always like this.
For all its insanity, Brooke loved the big city. She felt proud, that the dense woodlands of Wisconsin led her here to the land of bright neon lights and loud car alarms. Every obnoxious detail, however shocking, became something she loved. Like garage punk, her heart and soul. Yelling, sports games, tourists, street vendors. Hot pretzels slathered in spicy mustard. Cheesesteaks. Thick p
izzas dripping with grease. She took up art design at community college and worked as a receptionist at a beauty supply store. From there, she was finally able to save the money for the double nose piercings (right nostril, silver hoops) that featured in her dreams since the ninth grade, plus a few ear piercings and a sleeve tattoo, another tattoo on her foot. She felt like a princess.
Life was just about perfect.
She took Ev’s lemon-pepper chicken and pho curry salad from the secret compartment in the fridge and tapped the buttons on the microwave. Her grandmother still hadn’t figured it out, about the fridge compartment. Or about Ev. She was putting it off.
An Accounting student with a missing toe and a penchant for wearing business suits, Ev had been courting her for months. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about him. He was good-looking with his thick curly hair, and his chapped lips were interesting enough. But he was kind of a jerk. He tried way too hard to be funny. After yet another of his ill-timed comments, Brooke stormed off, vowing to ignore him forever. She disappeared into her work, painting with a bottle of strawberry wine, album of the Cocteau Twins on repeat. In apology, he made her the salad. He was a good cook despite being a total tool.
Of course, Grandma Roche had no idea about any of it. The woman was knowledgeable about everything concerning art, music, global politics, and the opera – but she was going blind. A dignified woman, bifocals were not her idea of high fashion, and she refused to wear any until Brooke bought her a pair for Christmas. Grandma Roche treated her failing eyesight as a mere inconvenience, not nearly as important as the theatre.
Grandma claimed New Jersey had the best view, and the most connections to her family. “You know, we’re French nobility a few generations back,” she told Brooke once. She leaned in close, whispering. “And I don’t know if anyone mentioned, but your father’s great-great-grandmother was an Irish queen. She married a German revolutionary, though, so she had to abdicate the throne.”
Right.
Well, she’d never approve of Ev, Brooke knew that. Grandma Roche hated all men, except for Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart. Despite that, Brooke felt lucky to have guaranteed housing. She could come and go as she pleased, provided she fork over her share in rent and stay in school until she got her Associate’s degree.
She still spoke with Elizabeth, but not as often as before. Maybe it was for the best. The days of Deathskull Bombshell were over now. They had nothing to talk about.
Elizabeth was a simple woman, good-hearted, glad to live in the past, with everything comfortable and safe. And why shouldn’t she? The Ericksen family was well-off. Not exactly rich, but she’d never want for anything. Considering Elizabeth’s learning disability, it made sense that she’d stay with her family well into adulthood, working minimum-wage jobs, but it was so sad.
Brooke wished Elizabeth would get off her ass and go to college. Dyslexia was a far cry from mental retardation. Every time Brooke brought it up with her, though, the only response was “I’ll think about it”.
Brooke never thought of Elizabeth as the fatalistic type, but it was hard to read between the lines. They had her on so many medications, which probably didn’t help.
Neither of them mentioned Trevor directly. Brooke despised him, even as she was dying to know every detail. But on cold nights when there was nothing better to capture her mind, she’d remember Trevor and his shitty concept lyrics, his awkward toothy grin, awkward because he hardly ever smiled, his body moving with the guitar. She missed writing songs with him and chain-smoking, huddled together in a cold panic at Mopeapalooza while the opening band started up.
Parker was on the phone, drunken gossip in Brooke’s ear. He couldn’t sleep. Some troubled Canadian boy off his medications and sick from everyone else’s snuck into Battle of the Bands. He had a gun hidden in his cargo pants. The boy planned to off himself after the show. Instead, the gun went off in the moshpit. The resulting bullet, only one, hit a girl in the leg. An anemic with an irregular heartbeat, she died in the hospital later that week.
It could have been any of them.
“We always went to Battle of the Bands,” Parker said. “You know, if Elizabeth would have got shot, or Mikey, or anyone… I don’t know. I just realized how big the world is, you know? Maybe it’s good you moved away.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks.”
He probably had no idea it was her birthday, and she wasn’t going to tell him. Birthdays were pointless. The years had a way of accumulating. Like the weather, they were only important when they were bad.
Parker, reading her quiet with a cold accuracy, paused before speaking again. “Nick misses you,” he said.
“Well, tell him to visit me, then,” she countered, looking out the window. A taxi pulled into the alleyway, and Grandma Roche climbed out, cussing at the driver. Shaking her fist, she spat on the ground, then hobbled toward the door of the apartment complex.
Shit.
Brooke grabbed her lavender orchid perfume and sprayed it around the room to hide the scent of marijuana that always stuck to her clothes after visits with Ev.
“We’re too broke to be taking any vacations,” Parker said. “Even utilities are a hassle.”
“That sucks,” Brooke said.
“Yeah. I mean, he works his ass off. But he misses you.”
“Yeah, I know.” She paused. “Tell him hi for me.”
Chapter seven
February 2001
“Dude, you have to hear this album,” Parker said. They were sitting in Parker’s room, listening to punk rock while Parker’s mom made dinner. She was getting experimental with macaroni and cheese dishes. It kept her busy. “It’s the coolest thing.”
“You said that about the last album,” Nick said, frowning. He crossed his arms.
“Yeah, but this time it’s actually true. Look.” Parker brandished a copy of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.
They stared at the ugly pink and yellow cover, sort of pastel and sort of neon.
“It’s good,” Parker said. “Like, really good. And political. One of the great early punk albums.”
Nick was big on politics. He was fifteen and therefore more cultured than Parker, who was still in middle school and had to fight to keep up with him. Mentioning politics was pretty much the only way to get his attention.
“What’s so revolutionary about the Sex Pistols?” Nick tossed his hair back. He was trying to grow dreadlocks, but his hair wasn’t thick enough. It clumped together in a fat autumn-colored mess of beeswax and backcombing. It was an intriguing texture. Parker resisted the urge to touch Nick’s hair, given the future complication of dinner.
“Well,” Parker said. He lingered over his words, choosing them with care. A wrong step down a slippery slope at this very precarious point in the game of things could lead a man to fall off a conversational cliff, never to return, a loss of face, freezer burn of the heart. “They criticize the government by dissing the queen, but they do it so it sounds like a compliment. Like… they say they want to save her, but actually they think she’s a jerk.”
He had no idea if any of that was true, but it sounded good.
“Isn’t that like a sarcastic comment?” Nick asked, looking at him with skepticism.
“Kind of, yeah.” Parker scratched at an itch on the back of his head.
Nick squinted at the ceiling. “So they don’t want to save her?”
Parker sighed. He hated being on the losing end of these arguments. Really he didn’t know anything about the Sex Pistols. But neither did Nick. Nick just pretended like he knew things. This was all macho crap, trying on words like leather jackets, seeing what fit. He wasn’t sure if he was punk. He wasn’t sure if he was anything.
“Isn’t that anti-feminist?” Nick continued.
Parker looked at him. He could feel the opening chords of “Shut Up Already” by NOFX playing in the soundtrack of his mind. “How do you figure?”
“Well, the queen’s a woman, is
n’t she?”
“Yeah, but she’s the queen, and they’re a bunch of working-class guys, so really it’s like… getting back at people in power by using their power against them.”
Nick started to smile, but he covered it up by frowning in an exaggerated way. Parker knew he just liked arguing to be a prick. It kind of made him want to punch Nick in the face, but they were best friends, so he restrained himself.
“Are they really working-class,” Nick asked, shoving Parker’s shoulder gently, “or are they just acting like they’re working-class to sell records, and like, appeal to the vanity of people who want to look punk by listening to their music?”
“I don’t know,” Parker said. He shoved Nick back, then grabbed his hand.
It seemed too gay to grab Nick’s hand.
Maybe he shouldn’t have done it.
They both sat there, unmoving, looking at each other. Moments passed, an audible heartbeat buzzing in every second.
Nick pulled his hand away. He scratched his leg. His cheeks were flushed.
Parker cleared his throat, then pushed his glasses up on his nose. “It’s a good album. I don’t know if it’s punk or not. But it sounds good. Listen to it.”
“Is vanity power?” Nick asked. “It seems like sort of a weakness.”
“I don’t know, you goob,” Parker said. “Ask your haircut.”
Chapter eight
September 2001
“I hate summer,” Elizabeth whined into the olive-green shag carpet. Trevor, being Trevor, put it on the basement floor in a sloppy attempt to disguise the beer and ink and spray paint stains that accumulated from a rock and roll lifestyle. But really it just looked out of place. Brooke told him that, too, but he swore it was better that way.
Trevor was kind of a nimrod.
“You hate everything,” Brooke said, taking a drag off the swirled glass pipe she used for smoking weed. One of her slacker friends in study hall sold her a dime bag, discount price, but the edge wore off pretty quick. Hopefully the next one would be better.
