Terence regards him in amusement. “Fine, we’ll lay low. But how’s she supposed to overlook that two-hundred-sixty-pound clodhopper when Brown Day hits the spotlight?”
“We could go backstage and warn him!” Gecko persists. “Maybe he’ll call off the show!”
Terence snorts. He’s not as freaked as the others about being exposed. When it all falls apart, he intends to run away. It’s not rocket science. “Lighten up, Gecko. This is the guy’s dream—to play bad music in a toilet. Whatever happens, happens.”
If Gecko wants to argue, he’s too late. First the lights are cut, plunging the club into darkness. Next a guitar chord sounds so loud, so raw, that Terence can feel his cuticles shrinking back into his fingers. Then the lights blaze on, and the onslaught of This Page Cannot Be Displayed is unleashed on the patrons of Pus Groove.
Terence isn’t a fan of this kind of music, but he can tell from the reaction of the audience around him that This Page is making a big impression. From the very first note, the crowd has come alive, bouncing like pogo-stickers minus the hardware.
Rat Boy, the singer, is darting around the stage like a bat with faulty sonar. Voodoo is just a blur at the drums. The no-name bassist is kicking like a chorus girl while delivering background chords like depth charges.
But all eyes are on Arjay Moran. He’s just standing there, really, not strutting like the others, barely moving. But the sheer size of him, and his intense concentration—it’s obvious that his presence and sound are something new and special. It’s impressive, and Terence doesn’t impress easily.
Over the assault of pure punk, he can hear the words “new guitarist” shouted from mouth to mouth.
“Who is that?”
“Wasn’t he with E Coli before this?”
“Naw, that guy was half the size of him!”
“Maybe he’s from the West Coast!”
“Forget the West Coast!” Terence bellows into the fray of speculation. “I’ll tell you who that is—that’s my dog!”
As the show goes on, Arjay’s performance becomes more daring, more creative, and more spectacular. By the time Rat Boy introduces the band, the guitarist he calls Arjay receives an ovation that literally brings the house down. Plaster drifts from the ceiling as roaring fans stamp the floor and pound the walls.
The set goes on longer than expected because there are four encores. There’d be more, but This Page has run out of material. The stage is doused with airborne drinks as the band departs—the ultimate tribute.
One amplifier short-circuits in a shower of beer and sparks. There’s a delay before the next band can come on. The deejay fills the silence with more ghastly noise.
Gecko is glowing with excitement as he wheels on Terence. “He’s really good!”
Terence nods grudgingly. “If he played decent music, he could be a star. Let’s go backstage and say hey.”
A few seconds later, struggling to make progress through the sea of fans, they find themselves face-to-face with Casey.
“Omigod, you guys! Why didn’t you tell me?”
Terence tries to play it down. “It’s no biggie, girl. Everybody’s got a hobby.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m down here every weekend—all these people are! We have a good time, but you know what really keeps us coming back? The thought that one day maybe we’re going to hear something different! Something revolutionary! An artist! I can’t believe he’s on parole!”
Gecko bristles. “He’s not on parole!” Technically, the three of them are still in custody. Parole is something they can only dream about.
“I mean whatever you guys are on. They must ride you pretty hard. And instead of just surviving, Arjay finds a way to develop a great talent. How does he do it?”
“He’s got it going on,” Terence acknowledges with a yawn.
“No, I mean how does he actually do it?” Casey persists. “I want to talk to him, find out about his creative process.”
“We’ll let him know you’re looking for him,” Terence drawls, accidentally on purpose allowing the flow of bodies to separate them.
The tiny backstage area doubles as an office and storage locker. It’s bedlam, with This Page fresh from their set, and the headliners, who are waiting for the sizzling amp to be replaced so they can go on.
A slick-haired thirtysomething in a black turtle-neck is schmoozing Arjay and his bandmates.
“It’s never too early to think about hooking up with a good manager. If we can get you seen by the right people, a recording contract is a slam dunk—”
“Dog!” calls Terence from the doorway.
Arjay looks up and grins at them. “I saw you guys out there. You should have told me you were coming. I could have got you in free.”
Terence shrugs. “Maybe you can score us a refund.”
Rat Boy regards Arjay sharply. “Are we boring you, man? We’re talking about our future here!”
“We played one set,” Arjay reminds him. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
To Gecko and Terence, his reluctance is easy to understand. Convicts can’t sign recording contracts, and they certainly can’t go on tour.
Voodoo tries to smooth things over. “Guitarists. Very high-strung.”
The business conversation continues with the original band members, and Arjay goes over to join his roommates.
“You were awesome,” Gecko enthuses.
“Thanks. It means a lot that you guys showed up. I really wasn’t expecting it. And don’t worry about all this manager talk. I won’t let it get out of hand.”
“We might have another problem,” Terence informs him. “You know that chick Casey from group?”
Arjay nods. “I saw her in the audience. I’ve met her here before. She’s into this whole scene.”
“Well, now she’s your number one fan,” Terence continues. “And she’s got a mouth on her.”
“Gotcha.” Arjay looks grim. “She knows we’re not supposed to be here, but then again, neither is she. She didn’t rat me out last time, but just to be safe, we’d better remind her not to mention anything around Avery.”
“Remind isn’t the word I was thinking of,” Terence says darkly.
“What else can we do?” asks Gecko. “We have no control over what she says or doesn’t say.”
“We can make sure she’s so scared of us that she’ll be good and careful not to spill the beans about your secret rock star life.”
Gecko is wide-eyed. “You mean just threaten her, right? We wouldn’t actually do anything.”
Terence is growing impatient. “When you threaten, you have to be ready to do something. That’s where your whole cred comes from! It’s being willing to do something that means you won’t have to do it.”
“But what if you do have to do it?”
“Calm down,” Arjay soothes. “We won’t see her until next Thursday. Tonight will be ancient history by then.”
“In your dreams,” Terence sneers. “You’re an artist. She wants to frame your used underwear and hang it on her wall.”
Sure enough, as they leave Pus Groove via the stage door in the alley, there’s Casey, holding up a streetlamp, waiting for them.
She rushes up to Arjay. “Wow! Where do I even start? There’s so much I want to ask you!”
Terence steps forward. “Listen, Casey, can I talk to you for a second—”
Arjay puts an iron grip on his shoulder and moves him bodily out of the way.
Terence glares at him. “What are you doing, man? We’ve got to make sure she understands how it is!”
“I’ve got it covered,” Arjay assures him. He steers Casey away from his roommates and deeper into the alley, where they can have some privacy.
Casey is gushing. “When I saw you here before, I figured it was just a one-time thing! What kind of group home lets you come and go as you please? Join a band? Go to rehearsals and midnight shows?”
In that moment, Arjay realizes that Terence is right. She must be
silenced. But he can’t see himself following the Florian method. Without even making a conscious decision, he leans forward and presses his lips against hers.
For a second, Casey is shocked. Soon, though, she is kissing him back with real enthusiasm.
From the end of the alley, Terence and Gecko watch in bemused amazement. Terence puts an arm around the smaller boy’s shoulders.
“That’s another way to plug up a big mouth.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Gecko is signing the Declaration of Independence. Not as himself—for the purposes of this reenact-ment, he’s William Floyd. He’s already been called up as Matthew Thornton. There aren’t enough students in fourth-period history to cover all fifty-six signers, so most of them have to double up.
Classmates look over his shoulder as he labors to add eighteenth-century flourishes to the signature, using the unfamiliar fountain pen. Snapple and Chex Mix are being served on the teacher’s desk. The girl portraying Ben Franklin is trying to peer through her tiny glasses without going cross-eyed. It isn’t exactly a party, but the mood is light, celebratory.
Suddenly, there’s dead silence.
Mrs. Garfinkle is in the doorway. Normally, the office summons students by PA or sends a messenger. What’s so important that the guidance counselor has to come personally?
Gecko looks up from the Declaration to find all eyes on him. It never takes much for the students of Alma K. Walker to remember who the Social Services kid is.
“Mr. Fosse.” The counselor beckons.
He walks down the hall behind her, nervous, but also vaguely miffed at missing the rest of the signing. He’s ushered through the outer office into a small conference room. There, seated at the table, is, of all people, Deputy Chief Delancey of the NYPD, munching loudly on a juicy pear.
“Mmm—Gecko. Thanks for coming down. Close the door and have a seat.”
Gecko does as he’s told, totally at sea. What would the second-in-command of the largest police force in the country want with him?
“How did you find me?” he asks.
The man slurps at his pear. “We know your school, and there’s only one Graham who goes by Gecko. Wasn’t hard. I’m a cop. That’s what we do.” He takes another bite and chews noisily. “Funny thing. Roxie thinks you’re Gecko Smith. But we know better than that, don’t we, Fosse?”
Gecko’s insides are ice. He can only nod dumbly. He’s spent so much time anticipating the moment when everything falls apart, yet he’s never had a sense of what that moment might look like. Is this it—a bald, fruit-slurping cop slapping the cuffs on in a room built for parent-teacher conferences? Are Healy’s three teens headed back to juvie today?
Amazingly, he feels very little pity for himself. He’s the one who brought the deputy chief’s fateful attention down on them. This is one hundred percent Gecko’s fault.
“Fact is, Gecko, I like you. When I saw you looking around that upper-crust aircraft carrier on Sunday, I recognized myself forty years ago—a regular chump getting his first taste of how the other half lives. But Augie Fitzner—he doesn’t like you. Or maybe he does, but not for his daughter.” He pats a file folder on the table in front of him. “And I haven’t even told him the good stuff yet—criminal record, halfway house. Quite a rap sheet for a kid your age.”
Gecko is completely cowed. He stares at the deputy chief as if he’s watching his own executioner sharpening his ax.
“I see you’re a man of few words. I like that about you too.” He holds out a paper bag. “Pear?”
Gecko shakes his head, silently pleading: Get on with it—arrest me! Anything’s better than being played like a fish on a hook!
“So,” Delancey continues, “be a good Joe and keep away from Roxie, will you?”
Gecko is astonished. That’s what this is about? Dating a rich guy’s daughter? Not the fact that he’s one of three juvenile fugitives at large in New York?
“Or I could call this fellow Healy, and you’ll be back in Atchison before your next bowel movement, excuse my French. Sure you don’t want a pear? They’re fresh.”
He doesn’t know!
The relief that they are not caught floods over Gecko. The big scandal is that August Fitzner’s daughter is going out with a halfway-house kid. Nobody looks closely enough to notice that the halfway house itself is kaput, its leader gone, its occupants unsupervised and on the loose.
The relief gives way to a feeling of loss. In the months since Gecko awoke after his accident in the Infiniti, two good things have happened to him—Douglas Healy and Roxanne Fitzner. He’s all but destroyed the first. And now he’s being forced to give up the second.
He doesn’t delude himself. Roxanne may not be his one true love for all time. He’s only known her for a few weeks. But his life is not so filled with high points that she doesn’t already feature in most of them.
And now that’s gone.
“How am I going to tell her?” he manages.
“Smart kid like you, you’ll think of something. Just so the father’s name never comes up. Or mine. End it nicely, but end it.”
He stands and offers his hand, and Gecko shakes it. It’s sticky with pear juice.
Gecko isn’t sure how long he stays in the conference room after Delancey departs. By the time he gets back to history, the signing is over, and the teacher is unrolling a fresh Declaration of Independence for the next class.
She spies him in the doorway. He must look like the world has just ended. It has.
“Gecko, is everything okay?”
He flees. Okay? You have to go back a lot of years before that word is an accurate description of Gecko Fosse. The idea that he actually looked forward to the signing in history fills him with burning shame. How could he be so stupid as to believe that anything normal applies to him? Like a dumb class mini-party. Or having a girlfriend.
Briefly, he weighs the idea of dating Roxanne secretly behind her father’s back. But the risk—not only for him, but for Arjay and Terence as well. There’s too much at stake.
Fifth period is Gecko’s lunch. His original plan was to visit the hospital. Now he doesn’t want to go. If he doesn’t see her, he won’t have to break up with her. Then again, not seeing her is the same as being broken up anyway, right?
Since going out with Roxanne, he’s been skipping lunch and grabbing snacks between classes—bananas, candy bars, whatever the cafeteria can’t screw up. Today, for the first time in weeks, he selects a full lunch. It’s his official acknowledgment that the relationship is really over—a paper plate of mac and cheese that looks like grubs smothered in motor oil. Not very appetizing, but still more appealing than the task Deputy Chief Delancey has set for him.
As he scans the big room for a seat, his eyes fall on a curious sight. One minute Diego is carrying his tray to a vacant table. The next he’s vanished—now you see him, now you don’t. Upon closer inspection, Gecko spots his lab partner on the floor amid the wreckage of his lunch, at the feet of the Goliath who tripped him.
It’s been going on all semester, but to Gecko, who has just been pushed around by the second-ranking cop in town, the injustice is suddenly unbearable. Eyes shooting sparks, he storms over, hefts his plate of mac and cheese and pushes it in Goliath’s face.
“Hey!”
The big kid shakes off the mess, staring in rage and disbelief. By the time Gecko hauls Diego to his feet, a whole pride of Goliaths has materialized behind the original, ready to do battle.
Gecko doesn’t care. Ever since fate rescued him from the Atchison laundry room, he’s been ahead of the game by one beating, so this will be nothing more than a leveling of his account. No way can these lunkheads dish out anything approaching what the welcoming committee in juvie is capable of.
He stands there, waiting for the punches to start flying, when he notices someone at his side. Terence wears his signature bored expression, but his body language says battle-ready, his posture ramrod straight and defiant.
“G
ot a problem?” he asks Goliath in a bland tone.
“I got no problem!” is the outraged reply. “Your dead friend is the one who’s going to have a problem!” He swings at Gecko with a clenched fist, but his posse pulls him back, and the blow whizzes harmlessly in front of its target.
Goliath tears himself free. “What are you doing?”
“Let it go, man,” one of the cronies advises.
“Let it go? Did you see what he did?”
Goliath’s buddies are reluctant to explain themselves in front of Gecko and Terence, but amid the whispered conversation are words like “juvie,” “gangbangers,” and “You want to get shot walking home?”
Gecko never could have imagined that the stigma of Social Services and Ms. Vaughn might actually come in handy one day.
Terence plucks a crumpled napkin off the table and offers it to Goliath. “You got noodles in your hair.”
Goliath’s anger evaporates. He just wants to get out of there. He melts in with his friends, and the group beats a hasty retreat out of the cafeteria.
Diego lets out a tremulous breath. “Thanks.”
Gecko can only manage a weak nod, none too steady himself after their near miss. “Terence and me, we’re not—you know—we’re not what those guys think.”
“I know,” Diego agrees. “You’re a real friend.”
“Cut me out of the lovefest,” Terence says irritably. “Hey, if I let a bunch of jocks tune up my dog, how’s that make me look? Got to protect my cred.”
Gecko bites back an annoyed I’m not your dog. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to ruin your rep by getting killed,” he mumbles. “But thanks anyway.”
Besides, the true meaning of this incident has nothing to do with Terence or even Diego. Gecko’s lunch—his one excuse for staying away from Yorkville Medical Center—is currently dripping out of a football player’s helmet-hair.
Fate is sending him a message: find Roxanne and do what has to be done.
The familiar walk to the hospital seems endless and arduously uphill. Normally, he’s so anxious to get there that his feet barely touch the pavement. Today there’s little to look forward to.
The Juvie Three Page 11
