How You Ruined My Life

by Jeff Strand

  If we can get a dentist drill cheap, we’ll have Audrey run around onstage with it, looking scary, but so far we haven’t been able to find one.

  Blake is still writing in his notebook. Since his mouth remains closed, we’re cool.

  We go through “Don’t Eat Meat Unless It’s in Cow Form,” “Checkmate, Checkmate, Checkmate,” “That Spider Just Hissed at Me,” “I Ain’t Doing My Homework Tonight (Because I Did It This Afternoon),” and everybody’s favorite, “Thud Thump Crash Crunch Splat Squish.”

  By the end, we’re drenched with perspiration and feeling great. All my problems have vanished. Audrey claps and grins at our performance. I don’t even care about Blake anymore.

  Blake stands up.

  He applauds. “Great job, you guys. I assumed you were talented performers, but this exceeded my expectations. In every major category that I could judge a musical act, you were top-notch.”

  “Thanks, dude,” says Mel. “I appreciate it.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” says Clarissa. She tosses him one of her pulverized drumsticks.

  “When’s your next jig?”

  “Gig?” Mel asks.

  Blake chuckles. “Yes, gig. Sorry. I got confused because your music made me want to dance a jig.”

  Everybody except me laughs.

  “We play every Monday night at the Lane,” I tell him.

  “Is it a nice place?”

  “No. It’s the opposite of that.”

  “I guess you wouldn’t want to play in an opera house.” This doesn’t get as big of a laugh as his gig/jig joke, but I’m sensing a distinct lack of negativity toward my cousin from my bandmates.

  I push the button to open the garage door. Everybody sighs happily as the cool air hits.

  “Anyway,” says Blake, “I was taking some notes during your practice session, and I thought—if I’m not being too forward—that you might be interested in some feedback.”

  I knew it! I knew he was going to do something like this! I let down my guard for a few songs, and this is what happens! He’s going to say that our band sucks. I’m going to have to stop Mel and Clarissa from beating him up, and it’s going to be a great big mess! Argh!

  “What kind of feedback?” asks Clarissa, her eyes narrowing.

  Blake glances down at his notes. “The first song. ‘Poison-Tipped Daffodil Man.’ During the bridge I feel like you could slow down the drums a hair.”

  “She’s not slowing anything down a hair,” I say.

  “It’s your call, obviously. I’m not your manager or anything. But as an audience member, I wasn’t quite done being amused by the last line of the verse before you went into this really fast drumming. I think slowing down the beat would make it easier to process what I’d heard.”

  “Punk rock isn’t about giving you time to process stuff,” I say. “We’re fast and proud.”

  “You’re right. You’re right. I’m not suggesting that you should pause the song for a mediation break. I’m only saying that if you let it breathe a smidgen, it allows the audience to better appreciate your brilliance.”

  “Maybe we should try it that way,” suggests Clarissa.

  “Now?” I ask.

  “Sure, why not?”

  “I’ve already opened the garage door.”

  “It recloses.”

  “Do you want to hear the rest of my comments first?” asks Blake.

  “Yeah, all right,” Mel says without enthusiasm.

  “Mel, the slush song. After the bridge, decrescendo the third verse and then crescendo into the final chorus. Again, I’m not trying to step on anybody’s toes. I know I’d bristle if you offered constructive criticism about my video game playing. But it’s something to consider.”

  “It’s actually not a bad idea,” Mel admits.

  This cannot be happening. Our rule with Fanged Grapefruit is that there are no egos. Everybody has equal say. We’re not going to be one of those bands that breaks up because somebody thinks they’re the superstar. But I think it’s important to point out that Blake is not a member of Fanged Grapefruit, and he’s an awful human being! I don’t want to listen to anything he has to say, even if it does sound reasonable.

  “Let’s try it,” says Clarissa.

  My options at this point are faking a horrific index finger injury that prevents me from pushing the button to close the garage door and then hurriedly making up an excuse for why I can’t use my remaining nine fingers to push the button while also coming up with a reason why nobody else can push the button either…or closing the door and incorporating Blake’s feedback. (I’m sure there are other options, but none occur to me right now.)

  I push the button. I wish Blake would give me a smug look so I could point to him and shout, “See that? He’s looking smug!” but he maintains a neutral facial expression as the garage door closes.

  We play “Poison-Tipped Daffodil Man,” incorporating Blake’s suggestion. I’m the first to admit when I’m wrong, so I’ll say that…

  You know what? I don’t want to admit that I’m wrong quite yet. Let me share some unrelated thoughts first.

  Ducks aren’t scary, but I wouldn’t want to walk outside at midnight and find two hundred of them in my yard, each one silently staring at me. I understand why some people hate licorice even if I don’t share their view. Never trust a lumberjack who giggles the entire time he’s chopping down a tree. Sixty people on a trampoline are too many.

  Okay. (Deep breath.) The song is indeed better after Blake’s feedback.

  “You were right,” Clarissa tells him. “Thanks.”

  We play “The Night I Drank Way Too Many Blue Raspberry Slushes.” You’re not going to make me say it, are you? You are? Fine. Yes, our slush song is better after making the decrescendo/crescendo changes that Blake suggested. Are you happy?

  When practice is over and everybody is pleased that we’re now .009 percent better, I open the garage door again. Mel leans over to me.

  “I hate to say it,” he whispers, “but your cousin is pretty cool.”

  11.

  Blake asks if he can come along when I drive everybody home. My personal preference would be for Blake to not accompany us, for reasons I don’t think I need to spell out eleven chapters into this tale of woe. But since Clarissa is leaving her drums in my garage until the gig tomorrow and Audrey is riding her bicycle home, I can’t really use “lack of room” as an excuse.

  I try not to let this bug me. It’s good that Blake has endeared himself to the other band members. Everybody should get along. There’s nothing to be gained from three months of telling Blake that he can’t ride with us and that we’re going to check the drums for fingerprints when we get back, so the jerk should keep his filthy hands off them.

  Still, I find myself weirdly disappointed when Blake doesn’t make any condescending remarks about my automobile in front of Mel and Clarissa. I kind of want to egg him on (“So, Blake, what’s your opinion on the suspension in this vehicle?”) to find out if he’s truly two-faced or if he really was tired and grumpy before. But everybody would see my true motives, and I’d be the bad guy.

  I pull into Clarissa’s driveway. “See you tomorrow,” she tells Mel and me as she gets out of the car. “Nice to meet you, Blake.”

  Nice to meet you, Blake.

  She might as well have said, “Will you be my boyfriend, you great, big, ol’ hunk of man?” How can it possibly have been nice to meet Blake? Meeting Blake is the opposite of nice!

  “Nice to meet you too,” says Blake. That part I can get behind. I’m sure meeting Clarissa was very nice for him.

  “Hopefully, I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” says Clarissa.

  I’m sure she’s being polite. It’s not like they’re gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes or anything like that. She didn’t ask if he wanted to hang out. She said
she’d see him at school. Nothing wrong with that. My bandmates are not required to treat Blake with disdain.

  “Yes, I’m looking forward to it,” says Blake with a smile.

  How dare he smile? He has no right to smile!

  I remember a time when I could smile. Friday was a good day.

  Clarissa closes the car door, and I pull out of her driveway. She doesn’t turn back to blow Blake a kiss, and Blake isn’t watching her with love in his eyes, so I don’t need to freak out. They aren’t going to get married and have a bunch of half-cool, half-devil kids.

  I probably should root for them to get together because if they got into a fight, Clarissa could snap Blake in half over her knee like a twig. It would be fun to see Blake get snapped, but the mental scars of knowing that he was dating my drummer would never fade. I’d be ninety years old and having occasional screaming fits from thinking about them holding hands.

  Anyway, as I have been about 372,218 times since Blake showed up in Florida, I’m being ridiculous. Clarissa is not going to go out with Blake. If he asked her, he’d get a drumstick through the nose.

  A few minutes later, I pull into Mel’s driveway. “Thanks for the ride,” he tells me.

  “No problem.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he says to Blake. Clearly, he didn’t notice my revulsion when Clarissa said those same words, or he wouldn’t have spoken them.

  “Nice to meet you too,” says Blake.

  They fist-bump.

  Fist-bump!

  Did you see that? No, no, of course you didn’t. I’m the one describing everything. But did you see the part where I said that they fist-bumped? I want to make sure you didn’t skip over it. They fist-bumped! You can politely shake hands with somebody that you can’t stand, but a fist bump implies that you tolerate a person, maybe even are friends with that person.

  Oh, I left this out of the description because it was too painful, but you deserve to know. Mel initiated the fist bump.

  It’s as if their fists connect in slow motion, creating a friendship explosion. I haven’t felt this betrayed since Clarissa told Blake it was nice to meet him. And for the record, Blake is terrible at fist-bumping. There’s no technique. No style. He sort of makes a fist and moves his hand forward. I think he’s worried that it might hurt.

  Then Mel holds up his fist to me, and I’m so frazzled that for a split second that I think he’s going to punch me. But then I accept the fist bump, even though I hate the idea of bumping a fist that bumped Blake’s fist.

  “Seeya,” says Mel, getting out of the car.

  Blake also gets out of the car and then gets into the front seat. Wow. He opened both doors himself. Is he showing off for Mel?

  Blake puts on his seat belt. “Thanks for letting me come along.”

  “Sure.”

  “I like your bandmates.”

  I back out of Mel’s driveway. “Good job fooling them.”

  Blake looks confused. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “How did I fool them?”

  “You know.”

  “Clearly, I don’t, or I wouldn’t be asking.”

  “I disagree. I think you would be asking if you knew, and I think that’s what you’re doing. You know, and you’re asking. It’s the kind of thing you do.”

  “Are you okay? Should you be driving?”

  I pull away from Mel’s house. “Admit it. You pretended to be decent.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Do you mean you didn’t pretend to be decent or that you weren’t decent? Because you were decent. I’m saying it was an act instead of your natural self.”

  “You need to take a deep breath,” says Blake.

  He’s right. I do.

  He continues, “Breathe in, hold it for five seconds, and breathe out. Very slowly. Breathe in and breathe out. Close your eyes and…no, wait. Don’t close your eyes. Eyes open at all times while driving. But breathe in…”

  “I don’t need you to talk me through it,” I say, following his instructions. I breathe in, hold it for five seconds, and breathe out.

  “Again,” says Blake.

  “I’ll decide when I’m done breathing.”

  “Rod, I think you need to do something to manage your stress level, or you’re going to have a heart attack at seventeen.”

  “What’s your plan here?” I ask.

  “You mean my nefarious scheme where I’m nice to your friends so they’ll be my friends too?”

  “Yes! That one!”

  “They’re going to be at our house all the time, right? Why shouldn’t I hang out with them? It’s not like I’m going to turn them against you or anything.”

  “You got your own lemonade. You opened the car door by yourself. You didn’t make any subtle insults.”

  “And that’s what you consider scheming?”

  “From you, yes.”

  “Listen to yourself. If I were recording this conversation, which I’m not, and I played it back, I think you’d be surprised by how crazed you sound. Your mom would be worried about you. Who knows where that could lead?”

  “Are you threatening to play this conversation for my mom?”

  “No.”

  “See, that’s the kind of thing you do! You create scenarios where you might have been recording me and float the possibility that I might get carted away to an asylum to make me paranoid! I’m sick of it.”

  “Stop sign,” says Blake.

  “What?”

  “Stop sign.”

  “Is that the phrase you use to try to make people quit talking?”

  “No, I was saying that there was a stop sign. You just drove through the intersection.”

  “Oh.” That wasn’t good. I don’t want to get into a car crash, especially since the other vehicle might hit my side instead of Blake’s. I take some more deep breaths.

  “Whatever it is you think I’m doing, believe me, it’s all in your mind. I don’t want to live with you any more than you want me there, but there’s nothing either of us can do about it, so we might as well try to get along. I’m not going to steal your girlfriend or your friends. I’ll be gone in three months, and your life will be back to normal.”

  “I never thought you were going to steal Audrey,” I tell him.

  “Good. Because I’m not.”

  “It was never a possibility.”

  “I agree.”

  “She’s not attracted to you.”

  “Nor I to her.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Not my type,” says Blake.

  “What is your type?”

  “Taller.”

  “Like Clarissa?”

  “Maybe.”

  “She’ll never go out with you.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Seriously. It’ll never happen.”

  “You’d know better than I would.”

  “So don’t even think about it.”

  “There’s no reason I shouldn’t think about it,” says Blake. “I think about lots of girls that would never talk to me. I also think about being Batman. You think about being Batman too, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes,” I admit.

  “So I’ll think about dating Clarissa the same way I’d think about being Batman. Does that work for you?”

  “Yeah, sure, I guess. Just know that you’re not fooling anybody.”

  “Well, technically, if I was trying to fool somebody, I could argue that I’m fooling Audrey, Clarissa, Mel, and your mother. Good thing I’m not actually trying to fool anybody, huh?”

  I take a long, deep breath and count to five.

  • • •

  I pay attention to all the traffic signs and lights for the rest of the way home
despite an odd desire to floor the gas pedal and speed toward a moving train.

  Mom isn’t home yet when we get back, but she’ll be home soon, so I start dinner. Under normal circumstances I’d step up my culinary efforts if there was a guest, but since I’m trying to expose Blake as a fraud who’s only pretending that he doesn’t totally suck, I’m going with macaroni and cheese.

  Not the good stuff. Not the kind where you get a fancy packet of cheese sauce to squeeze onto the macaroni, and there will be no effort to elevate the flavor profile with bacon or truffles. This is the powder kind of mac and cheese. Not Kraft, but the generic stuff. I’m surprised that “Macaroni & Cheese” is spelled correctly on the box. This is a meal reserved for nights when Mom and I are both exhausted and don’t care what we have.

  I start to boil the water. I go through the cupboards and purposely select the plate that has the most chips for Blake. I bet he’s the kind of guy who’d worry about bacteria lurking in a chipped plate.

  Mom gets home while the macaroni is cooking. “Thank you for starting dinner,” she says, giving me a hug. “How was practice?”

  “Pretty good. Blake offered plenty of useful feedback. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

  An alarm goes off to let me know that the macaroni is done. What I mean is that a timer goes off to let me know that I’ve cooked the macaroni for several minutes longer than the instructions say. Nice and mushy. Yum.

  You’re supposed to add milk and butter when you mix in the cheesy powder, but water works as well as milk, right? And I’m sure Blake will appreciate the health benefits of not adding butter.

  I happily stir the grossest macaroni and cheese I could possibly make without giving away that I made it gross on purpose. I’d love to add a few tufts of cat fur (we don’t own a cat, but our neighbor does) and some of my own saliva, but that would be going too far. It has to look like I made a legitimate effort to provide a tasty meal.