Wonderkid

by Wesley Stace

  “Hold on,” I ask the house. “What’s that?”

  “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!” someone shouts back. And just as he speaks, the first sandwich, lobbed by one of these agent provocateur Boops, flies towards me on the stage. I duck.

  “Hey!” I say. I look over at Blake.

  “Chuck it back!” he mimes, laughing. Of course. I should have known. But it’s going to take more than an orchestrated food fight to sell the band without him on stage. I pick it up and throw it at him, missing by inches. Curtis counts us in, and we are suddenly Rocking Around the Bed:

  “I got my pajamas on and I look like a pirate.”

  By the time we get to the first chorus, the food has really started to fly. No one wants to eat a PB&J sandwich at the end of a meal, but everyone wants to throw one, if only out of respect to the Wonderkids: behave like kids. It’s slow to get going, but quick to escalate. These are little sandwiches, cut into many different geometrical shapes, crusts removed (I happen to note) as I peel half of one, jam side down, from Blake’s guitar.

  The guitar’s owner is still in consultation with Greg. Catching my eye, he licks his index finger and chalks one up to himself in the air. I’m actually doing what comes fairly naturally onstage. I mean, I’m no Blake. I’m not going to pogo or anything, but I can put the song over okay, particularly if there are a few distractions. KISS had stage effects for a reason, right? They weren’t that good. Same with me. If Blake provides the fireworks, I’ll stand here and recite the lines, but it’s just so silly that he isn’t doing it.

  It is now that whoever’s in charge of the feathers pulls the switch. And down comes the down. Hundreds of thousands of feathers, every feather in the world, wafts down on us slowly. That first feather I saw while we were waiting at the side of the stage? I hadn’t given it a second thought. As they gracefully descend, Greg, stage right, turns on one of those Neil Young industrial strength standing fans, a matching one starts up stage left, and the feathers billow out into the audience. They fired the first volley; here is our riposte. The front tables in particular are bombarded. It is an onslaught of plumage, designed to penetrate every orifice, get caught on any spot of moisture, in drinks, on lips. Meanwhile, the shit actually does hit the fan; the gooey shrapnel of a first macerated sandwich spews all around us, dispersed far and wide by the vicious rotation of the blades. It’s like someone in a dunk tank. You just can’t resist.

  The song is reaching the bridge, the audience is in uproar, and I couldn’t have seen Blake even if I was looking for him, let alone Joni. This is partly, I now realize, because huge inflatable pillows, silver like the ones I once saw in the Warhol Museum, are floating down from the ceiling, bouncing up and down in stately, ponderously elegant fashion, like chrome blimps, picking up feathers here, delivering them over there, in calm slow-motion amidst the disorientating anarchy. It’s how they’d have done the video way back when if they’d thought of it.

  As we reach the last chorus—and this I can see quite clearly—the Cigarette Girls, the Boops (there are about thirty of them) in those black bodices and pencil skirts, come up the stairs in single file and flank me. The band continues full steam ahead as the girls, in one gesture, like a well-drilled chorus line, which is precisely what they are, rip off their tops with the surgical precision of seasoned burlesque artistes to reveal borderline pornographic bras, upon which the tops of their boobs rest. There is no actual nipple on display, primarily through judicious use of flesh-colored Micropore.

  I look down at Niall, tarred and feathered, at the front table, half-expecting to see regret, even anger, in his eyes, but he is pissing himself with laughter, clapping along, receiving plaudits from the rest of his party. He fucking knew about this. Everyone knew about it. Did the band know? By the expression on Jack’s face, yes, and he can’t believe his luck.

  And as we hit the last chorus, the Boops, at Greg’s signal, squeeze some contraption . . . well, to be honest, I don’t precisely know what the hell they do, but huge arcs of white liquid (let’s presume milk, mother’s milk) spray over the audience. Have you ever seen that bloke who can throw cards miles into a theater? The milk goes further than that. And it keeps flying, cascading down on the audience in giant ribbons. The nearest Boop turns and lets me have it right in the face. What could I do but open my mouth?

  The audience is pounding the floor. I mean, we are it, and it is now, and we are all in one room, and it isn’t time to stop. So we just keep playing the chorus over and over until the feathers have finally fallen and the food has stopped flying. Blake dances across the stage, one movement from left to right, and the audience, those who weren’t already on their feet, stand to applaud, and as he passes me, he winks again—Trust your old Dad, mate—but this time the wink hits me a different way, and he registers my reaction: I couldn’t even manage a smile. He waltzes off stage right.

  I’ve seen the Wonderkids whip a crowd up, but this is beyond beyond; it’s the adult energy, the fact that the audience is full of performers willing to muck in, unleashed at the end of a long evening, sheer relief, nonsense. It’s ordained mayhem—Niall was clearly in on it with Greg and Blake—but its effect is unconfined. Above all, it is Blake, stage-managing, instigating the whole thing.

  When we finally finish, after a climactic chord that goes on for about a minute as we applaud one another with our strumming, surrounded by Boops, covered in food and feathers, slipping in milk, Curtis shouts: “One more?”

  “You think we’re topping that?” yells Jack. “Leave ’em wanting more. We’re done. They’ll have to come to the Festival.” Then he points at me and gives me the thumbs up. It’s just assumed that I’m going to do this. The Boops walk off without any acknowledgement at all. Their night’s work is done. Niall bounces up on to the stage before the audience drifts away.

  “Wow! The Wonderkids! Nothing’s going to top that,” he announces to an audience who know they’ve seen all they can see. “I promised I’d get you the Wonderkids and I got you the Wonderkids! They’ll be playing the Prospect Park KidCon Festival on Saturday! See you at next year’s Jim-Jammies!”

  The house band is back in position and starts to play, instruments untarnished by fluff, preserve, or cream. They’d known to remove their instruments. Of course they’d known. Blake knew; Greg knew; Niall knew; everyone knew except the audience and me. Becca’s arm slips around me and she hugs me, but I suddenly feel very self-conscious about Joni: where is she? There seems now to be no distinction between the audience and the stage. Where the fuck is health and safety? How was this even allowed? Security!

  “Greg,” I shout. He is in conference with Niall.

  “Good job, mate,” he yells, heading towards me.

  “Prospect Park’s going to be great,” shouts Niall.

  “I’m not doing it!” I shout back. They both nod, letting me know that I am. I meet them halfway. “Why can’t Blake do it? He’s the lead singer. It can be the last ever gig.”

  “Dunno,” says Greg, “you ask him.”

  “Where is he?” I ask vaguely, surveying the wreckage. “You knew all about this, right?”

  “Yeah, man. We were at this soundstage on 27th running the timings all afternoon.”

  “That’s where Blake was?”

  “Oh yeah. Of course.”

  “So you’ve known all day . . .”

  “I’ve known for fucking weeks. And I’ve never worked so hard in my life.” Greg is quite unperturbed. He is, in fact, acting like a manager. I can tell because it is so extremely unlike how he normally acts. “These things don’t happen by magic.”

  “They certainly don’t,” confirms Niall, with a raised eyebrow implying that there has also been insane expense.

  “. . . And, Greg,” I continue, “you sat there all evening pretending to be worried whether Blake would show up or not.”

  “Yeah. Blake told me to.” He picks feathers from my shoulder, as though one or two will make a difference.

  “
You’re such a liar.”

  “I know, mate.” He laughs and shrugs. “I’m the best liar in the world, always have been, because people like it when I do.”

  “Well, I fucking don’t!” It just comes out of me that way, angry, brutal. I turn away, shouting over my shoulder: “I fucking don’t like it at all.”

  “What’s wrong?” He can’t believe I’m upset. He thinks perhaps I’m joking. It’s the only explanation. “Hey! What’s wrong?”

  This evening is done and there will be no repeat performance. Of course, Blake is nowhere to be seen. Greg is trying to calm me down.

  “Where the fuck is Blake?” I shout at no one.

  I text Joni to meet me at the soundboard. I haven’t spent a moment with her the whole evening, hardly said “hello”: bad boyfriend. The great thing is, she understands. I was working, entirely focused on my charges, on my lead singer’s absence. She looks beautiful in her electric blue dress; she isn’t even fiddling with her phone, just waiting for me with a smile.

  “Hey,” she says. “You almost pulled that off.”

  “Never again.” I hug her.

  “Dark horse. You never told me you were going to . . .”

  “I’m not a dark horse. I only found out at the last minute. Same as usual.”

  “Poor baby.” Her sympathy is genuine. She’s heard the stories. “I’ll never make you do that for me. I promise.”

  “I know. Thanks.” Suddenly, I feel like crying. “Will you be here? I have to talk to Blake, tell him I won’t sing at this stupid Festival. But I have no idea where he is.”

  “Oh, I know precisely . . .” She points behind her through the plate-glass windows to the fountain where Blake is wading underneath the central spray, still in the white suit that so perfectly matches mine. I turn to leave without so much as a word. She grabs my arm just as she did the very first time we met: “What about me?” We kiss; she tastes of . . . peanuts. “You really weren’t bad, but stick to what you’re good at.”

  She isn’t even teasing. I like it. “Road managing?”

  “And romancing,” she whispers.

  By the time I get to the fountain, Blake is sitting on the edge, soaked, paddling; he’s taken his shoes off, as though that was plain common sense. His clothes remain defiantly on. He beckons me with a cheery wave, splashes me.

  “Quack! Get in!” he says. “Water’s lovely.” He’s made a little origami boat from a page of the program; it’s bobbing across the water.

  “Hey, what an ending!” he shouts. “What an ending! Amazing ending, right?”

  “Yes.” I can’t help but smile. He looks so harmless with his hair plastered flat over his forehead. He spits water from his mouth and wipes his sleeve across his brow. “A great ending, Blake.”

  He wrinkles his nose and sniffs, skimming an imaginary stone across the surface: “But it’s the wrong ending, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “You did sing for me when I asked you, though. Thank you.”

  “Yes. And now you’re going to sing for me.”

  “Right,” he says. “I’ll be singing at the Festival, then.”

  “It’s what you’re good at,” I say. “What else you gonna do? Do what you’re made to do, and I’ll do what I do. And I’ll help you do what you do. And that’s how we’ll work.”

  “It’s that simple, isn’t it? Sorry for failing to notice that you’re not me. C’mon! Get in, Sweet! Get your feet wet.”

  “Blake, why on earth would I want to get in? I should be telling you to get out. I don’t want to get wet.”

  “Well, at least you have a change of clothes backstage. I got nothing. Look, I’ll sing at the Festival. Get in. Actually, I’ll only sing at the Festival if you get in.”

  “You’re so annoying.”

  I sit down beside him, and he puts his big arm around me, as the fountain continues its rainbow routine. The door from the auditorium opens and music spills out on to the plaza. Joni.

  “Towel?” she shouts, then noticing the development. “Oh! Towels?”

  “TWO!” I yell back.

  I take Blake by the hand and pull him up so we’re both standing. Drenched, in our matching white suits, we stand in the arc of the fountain, shivering, waiting for the towels to arrive.

  Seven Songs

  Rock Around the Bed

  I’ve got my pajamas on, I look like a pirate

  I got some knock-knock jokes in my back pocket

  I’ve got a rocket and I know how to fire it

  I’m full of desire

  I got a tennis racket that looks like a guitar

  And an actual facsimile of Noah’s Ark

  A safari park, full of zebras and swans

  My trains are all gone

  I’m gonna rock around the bed

  Gonna rock around the bed

  I got a song stuck in my head

  I’m gonna rock around the bed

  And you can keep your peanut butter and your sliced white bread

  I got a song stuck in my head

  I’m gonna rock around the bed

  I’ve got my blazer on and I look like a moron

  I got a satchel I dropped in a big old puddle

  And it’s all a muddle but I know the scores

  The chart positions and the dates of wars

  Since I heard the first chord of “Hard Day’s Night”

  My love of sport abated

  Used to make me feel alright but now it seems so overrated

  Just for lightweights

  I’m gonna rock around the bed

  Gonna rock around the bed

  I got a song stuck in my head

  I’m gonna rock around the bed

  And you can keep your ham and cheese in your mini-baguette

  I got a song stuck in my head

  I’m gonna rock around the bed

  I met a girl who was a little bit older

  She smelled of Body Shop and instant coffee

  I offered her a toffee and she told me where to go

  Like I’d offered her a cold

  Then I met a girl I couldn’t label

  With her long dark fringe, she looked like a painting

  She pushed me back on the kitchen table and I nearly fainted

  As we got acquainted

  Dear diary

  I will no longer keep you

  I am inspired to write poetry

  My notebooks will be spiral bound

  And they will quite astound

  I’m gonna rock around the bed

  Gonna rock around the bed

  I got a song stuck in my head

  I’m gonna rock around the bed

  And you can keep your panini and zucchini bread

  I got a song stuck in my head

  Gonna rock around the bed

  Lucky Duck

  Kiss a duck to change your luck

  Lucky duck

  Place a penny on a dump truck

  Lucky duck

  In your garden, plant a ball

  If it ever grows at all

  One day, you will find a buck

  Lucky Duck

  Lucky Duck

  Kiss a duck to change your luck

  Lucky Duck

  See a flower grow from muck

  Lucky Duck

  Close your eyes and count to ten

  Do not open them again

  Until the midnight clock has struck

  Lucky Duck

  Lucky Duck

  Kiss a duck to change your luck

  Lucky Duck

  Throw an oyster you have shucked

  Lucky Duck

  If you see a dragonfly

  Whirring in the evening sky

  One day you will run amuck

  Lucky Duck

  Kiss a duck to change your luck

  Lucky Duck

  Kiss a girl and be heart-struck

  Lucky Duck

  Kiss her ankles, kiss her eyes

  Kiss hel
lo and kiss goodbye

  Kiss a duck to change your luck

  Lucky Duck

  The Story of Dan, Beth, Chris, and Blank

  There once was a girl named Dan

  Who loved to fix and loved to fan:

  She blowed and blowed

  And sewed and sewed

  And needled and needled

  And wheedled and seedled.

  She loved to fix and loved to fan

  And that’s the story of Dan.

  There once was a fella named Beth

  Who loved to break and hold his breath.

  Inhaled, inhaled

  And sailed and sailed

  Navigated, navigated.

  Stavikated, avadrated.

  She loved to break and hold his breath

  And that’s the story of Beth.

  There once was a cat named Chris

  Who loved to kill and loved to kiss

  He washed and wished

  And fussed and fished

  And lettered and littered

  And glittered and twittered

  She loved to kill and loved to kiss

  And that’s the story of Chris.

  There once was a what named Blank

  Who loved to drink as it sat and thank

  So sipped and sipped

  and supped and supped

  The opposite. So neither did—quite ill-fitted,

  to say what’s the wrong of the . . .

  (Zank!)

  It loved to drink as it sat and thank

  And that’s the Story of Blank.

  Why I Cry

  The shiny-coats are coming!

  The hummingbirds aren’t humming.

  They’re flittering, anxious, and asking why:

  Why I cry—

  Why I cry

  The cardinals are meeting!

  The little lambs aren’t bleating.