The room was as I had remembered, paintings and all. I sat in the shadows against the wall, gazing across the room at my picture. I still couldn’t believe it was here. There was so much I couldn’t believe.
Jeremy, where are you?
I shivered from the realization that I was sitting in a basement—even though Mr. Gordon claimed the school had no basement.
A slight movement in my periphery caught my attention. There was Mr. Gordon huddled against the wall adjacent to me. His eyes were fixated straight ahead.
“Mr. Gordon, is that you?”
He seemingly snapped out of a trance. “I didn’t think you could see me. I’m impressed.”
“Yeah, well...I didn’t come here to impress you. I just wanted to be alone.”
“I can appreciate that. Which is the beauty of this place. Coincidentally, I was doing the same thing. It’s peaceful down here.”
“I don’t really want a lecture today.”
“Understood.”
“I just wanted to find some quiet. Get away from all the noise of the real world. You know?”
“I do. That was my plan, as well. To meditate, get quiet, listen.”
“We’ll just sit here quietly?”
“You have my word,” Mr. Gordon said with a sly smile. “Not a word.”
“Okay then.”
“Good. I’ll go back to meditating. You know the way out when you’re ready to leave.” Mr. Gordon leaned his head back against the wall, relaxed his hands in his lap, and took a deep breath in.
It was starting to make sense, what TJ had told me about Mr. Gordon. There was more than he was telling me. He was keeping me in the dark for some reason. But whatever the reason was, it was preventing me from finding Jeremy. He was somewhere close, somewhere within reach.
I wanted to get back to the humanities building hallway before students began lining up outside the door, waiting for class to start. As I snuck out into the hallway and closed the door behind me, I found one student already waiting, with a curious pair of emerald eyes gazing up at me.
“I thought we were over the antisocial thing,” Desiree said, seated across the hallway. “You can probably understand our concern when a friend disappears.”
“I just needed some time to myself. That’s all.”
“Thanks for locking the door behind you.”
“I didn’t,” I said. Did I?
“Whatever. We’re leaving at seven on Friday, if you still want to come.”
“Yeah, I still wanna go.”
“Good. We have to take two cars. Eli’s got a bunch of equipment. Anna will follow us.”
“So, we’re leaving from your house at seven?”
“On the dot,” Desiree said, and was about to continue, but the toll of the bell distracted her.
Half of the class was now gathered patiently around the door. And Mr. Gordon appeared at the far end of the hallway with a student on either side of him. He gave Desiree and me a warm smile as he approached.
“Happy Monday, everyone,” Mr. Gordon said, opening the door to his classroom.
“I figured you were in here with him,” Desiree said as we took our seats.
“Obviously not,” I said, probably coming off ruder than I had intended.
17
Last Step
Anna remained several cars behind Eli most of the way up to Hollywood. She drove slower than the flow of traffic, which went from sixty to zero and back again every couple of seconds. Another car cut in front of us, putting us just that much further behind. Anna was nervous to drive in this kind of traffic—LA traffic—in the rain. We were getting our first real shower of the winter season, and in LA that meant there were flash flood warnings all over the news.
“You’re falling behind. Over,” Desiree said, her voice crackling from the walkie-talkie stationed in the center cup holder.
“We see you. Don’t worry,” I answered into the walkie-talkie.
The line was silent for a moment.
“You didn’t say over. How am I supposed to know when you’re done talking?” Desiree asked. “Over.”
“I’m hanging up on you. Over.”
“Don’t change the channel. She’ll get pissed,” Anna said.
The parade of brake lights glistened off the slick highway, making it look like we were floating down a river of molten lava. Anna’s windshield wipers squeaked as they sloshed across the screen, separating us from nature’s fury. Anna turned up the radio to drown out the noise.
“I can’t believe Christmas is just around the corner,” Anna said as the song ended.
The DJ came on to offer the latest giveaway. A minivan pulled in front of us with reindeer antlers sticking up from the front windows and a baby on board decal suction cupped to the rear window.
“We probably shouldn’t fall too much further behind,” I said.
The rain was letting up a little, but the traffic was doing just the opposite. We were now six pairs of brake lights behind.
“We’re exiting in three and a half miles. Sunset. Over,” Desiree said.
“That’s like an hour away at the rate we’re going,” I said to Anna. “We’re almost there,” I said into the walkie-talkie.
“Yeah we are!” Desiree yelled back.
“No more caffeine for her,” Anna laughed.
“When should Desiree ever really have caffeine?” I put a hand on her leg.
We finally reached the off-ramp and were now only two cars behind. The club we were looking for wasn’t far once we exited the highway. Just past Silver Lake Boulevard on the left was the Hollywood hole-in-the-wall club called The Toy Gun Factory.
Eli’s car pulled around back so he could unload his equipment. Desiree told us to find parking on the nearest side street, which we did, nearly a half-mile away.
Anna and I trekked back to the club hand-in-hand. The rain had nearly stopped, but Anna still insisted on pulling up the hood of her jacket. I didn’t mind a few sprinkles, and actually enjoyed the brisk December breeze. It reminded me of Lake Arrowhead, minus the snow. This was probably as close as it was going to get.
There was a bouncer checking IDs at the front door of the club. Anna and I wandered around the back and found Eli helping Derek carry in the pieces to his drum set. Desiree was off to the side, pacing in circles, talking on her cell phone. She waved when she saw us approaching.
Hanging up, she slid the phone into her back pocket. “One of Eli’s friends got lost.”
“It wasn’t that hard to find,” Anna said.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” I asked.
“No, I think they’re almost done,” Desiree said.
Todd walked out from the back door of the club. “They’ve got catering in there. It’s not five-star or anything, but it’s not bad. Oh—hey, Anna.”
“Hey yourself,” Anna said.
I squeezed her hand tighter and stared at Todd, who failed to even acknowledge I was there. That’s okay. I wouldn’t have acknowledged him, either.
“Come to see me shred?” Todd unfolded a foolish grin. “This gig is gonna be awesome.”
“Go break a leg,” Anna said.
“We’ve got shots inside if you want one.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“You’re much more fun when you’re drunk.”
“Whoa!” Desiree exclaimed.
“Okay, okay, I’m leaving,” Todd said and went back inside.
Eli passed Todd in the doorway. “Can I get my phone back, babe?” he said, looking at Desiree. After she had handed it over, he addressed the whole group. “Hold out your right hands.” Eli stamped the back of each one of our outstretched hands with fluorescent green ink. “This way no one will card you. It says you’re over eighteen, but not twenty-one. Ready to go in?”
The girls were excited. We followed Eli in through the back entrance of the club and down a dimly lit hallway. The walls shook from the pounding drums, and the rest of the music blended together to f
orm a deafening hum of distortion. We turned a corner and entered a small room with a few chairs and a folding table packed with catered pasta, bread, and an ample assortment of nonalcoholic drinks.
Derek and Mike were finishing up plates of pasta, and Todd was pouring the contents of his flask into his soda.
“No one cares if you have some, so help yourselves,” Eli said. He grabbed a dinner roll from the table and gathered up his band mates for some last-minute preparations. Eli and the guys left us to fend for ourselves.
Desiree and Anna did just that. They helped themselves to all the catering had to offer.
I grabbed a soda and paced around the room. The walls were very rock ‘n’ roll, decorated almost completely in band stickers and signatures. Thousands of bands had played here—many that never made it big, but some that did. Some pretty famous people had passed through these walls. Some pretty big bands had gotten a start here. And thousands of other unrecognizable names hoped to achieve that same kind of success.
And then I saw—written near the corner of the room—a phrase that jumped out at me like another message from the beyond. Elliott Smith was here. I was standing where he had once stood, waiting to play a show.
The angelic and expressive face of Desiree jumped into my head. Wisped back to the first day of school, I saw her flowing, russet-colored hair and those emerald eyes for the first time. She handed me her purple pen, and I flushed with embarrassment. It felt so long ago.
I remembered wondering how my life was going to change in a new school. The friends I would meet. The enemies I would make. The adventures I would have. And the special memories I would create. The year was almost half over, and already my life was taking drastic new turns, many of which I could have never foreseen—or would have even believed.
One phrase written on a dirty wall in the band lounge of a Hollywood club brought all of these memories and emotions flooding to the forefront of my consciousness. I looked over at Desiree, who was still eating and casually chatting away with Anna. Would Desiree react in the same way to Elliott Smith’s writing on the wall as I had? For some reason, I didn’t want to find out, and moved to a different part of the room.
As I passed by the door on my second lap around the room, I was startled by a ghostly figure. It floated past the door quickly so I didn’t get a good look at its features, but I knew that it was someone familiar. I hurried after the traveling specter, who turned into the wall halfway down the hallway and disappeared. I continued down the hallway and exited the back door of the club.
I frantically scanned the back lot—probably looking like a lunatic to the smoking, off-duty bouncer—and soon found my ghost. He traveled steadily through the parking lot, straight through the parked cars, and headed for an alley outlet to a main street.
I followed the figure through the alley, reaching Silver Lake. Held back by the erratically passing cars, my translucent friend crossed the street with ease. And I finally saw where he was heading.
The outline of a massive building shot up into the night sky on the far side of the street. I could still see the small shops and restaurants lining the other side of Silver Lake through the outline of the phantom skyscraper.
I had no idea what I was seeing, or looking at, or really looking for—but I watched the figure reach the shadow of the skyscraper. After a moment, he began rising into the air like he was in an unseen elevator, and turned to face my direction as he ascended. He was the figure of someone familiar. Jeremy. I could see him, but he wasn’t quite here. I wasn’t quite there. And then he vanished as he ascended into the heavens.
Standing at the edge of the sidewalk—possibly a little too close to the oncoming traffic—I gazed out at the phantom building that had swallowed up my brother. Then I heard the frantic sound of a runner’s footsteps in the alley behind me.
“What’re you doing?” Desiree asked, her words coming out in labored breaths, her shoes squeaking to a stop beside me.
“I thought I saw something,” I said.
“You trying to ditch us or something?” Anna appeared on my other side. “All we see is you rushing out of the room.”
“How about a little heads up,” Desiree said.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you guys.”
“Eli’s band is gonna start soon,” Anna said.
“We should get back,” Desiree said.
The more the girls talked to me, the more faded the skyscraper became—until it was gone—until I was back in Hollywood the way it was meant to be seen.
Jeremy, where are you?
I headed back in with the girls, but my mind was still on the street, the building, Jeremy. Desiree and Anna danced around in the audience as Eli’s band powered through their set, but I never really heard them play. Once again, my head had swallowed up my awareness to what was going on around me.
The drive home was quiet, and as Anna pulled into my driveway she asked, “Is everything all right? You’ve seemed totally distracted ever since we got to the club. Or freaked out. Like you saw a ghost or something.”
“You have no idea.”
“You’re right, I don’t. You won’t tell me anything. You won’t talk to me. I don’t understand what’s going on with you. I know your family life is tough—”
“I’m just going through a lot right now.”
“I know and I want to help. Please let me. Talk to me. Something.”
“I can’t right now, I’m sorry,” I said, unfastening my seatbelt and sliding a hand into her hair, down to the back of her neck. “You mean so much to me. You help me in ways you don’t even know.” I kissed her cheek, her nose, and then her lips.
Anna turned her body as much as the center console allowed her to, never releasing her lips from mine. It felt like one of us was leaving for an undetermined amount of time, or moving, or going to war, and this was the last chance we had to hold each other for God knows how long. And it felt passionate and wonderful, and sad and desperate. Because either way, one of us was losing the other.
When I snuck in the side door, the house was dark. Mom was already asleep, and Frolics was lying on the mat at the foot of the kitchen sink. I gave him a moment of my time and coaxed him out of following me back to my room.
I wasn’t tired; I was anxious. I skillfully shut the door without it making the slightest sound. Keeping the light off, I leapt up on my bed and collapsed cross legged. I sat up straight and pressed my back against the wall.
Again, I stared across my room with the focus of a surgeon and a faith in knowing that there was something beyond my wall, something beyond everything I saw in my day-to-day life. The two times I had now seen Jeremy got me imagining that there was an entire world beyond the door to the Room of Enlightenment and the paintings Mr. Gordon had trained me to see.
“I saw him again. At least I know he’s out there. Thank you,” I whispered.
I stared at my wall and the fade began again. But this time I didn’t see through the wall into the courtyard. What appeared were the phantom trees and bushes that I had seen last time without seeing the courtyard at all. The familiar trees and bushes I saw from my window every day were gone. The brick wall separating the courtyard from the front yard was gone. My front yard, the street, and the row of houses along the opposite side were gone.
What I saw instead was new and clear. It was dark, just as it should have been outside. The phantom tree I had seen Jeremy leaning against was directly in front of me: in focus, in color, brilliant, and only a few yards away.
Beyond the tree was open land. Moonlight glistened off the black water of a river, just past the open land. And on the far side of the river was a bustling cluster of buildings. There was a larger central building surrounded by smaller ones. The site looked like a campus, a hospital, or maybe even a prison. The buildings almost had a glow to themselves, like they were made entirely out of blue lights. They looked magnificent, probably even more so in the darkness.
The night was calm and quiet. I cou
ld hear occasional passing cars, but it was hard to tell if they were located in the serene place I was focused on or driving down Wheeler.
“I don’t think I’m just seeing through the wall anymore,” I whispered.
“What do you see,” the voice of TJ whispered back.
I couldn’t tell where he was. I didn’t want to look for him. I didn’t want to take my eyes off the scene before me in fear that with a single blink it would all be gone.
“It’s magnificent. There’s a field or a park. A river. Beautiful glowing buildings. The moon. I can’t even describe it. It’s so…”
“And Jeremy?”
“I don’t see him now. But I did earlier. Is this where he is?”
“Yes.”
“So how do I get to him?”
“All you have to do is walk through,” TJ said.
I looked out at the surreal new world in absolute wonderment. But what was it, really? Why wasn’t Jeremy able to come home? “You want me to walk through my wall?”
“You’ve been doing that for months now in your teacher’s classroom. How is this any different?”
TJ was right. Mr. Gordon had been preparing me for this the entire time; he just hadn’t helped me connect the final dots. And as I was thinking, the scene faded away. The far side of my room reappeared. I tried like mad to focus and get it back, but then realized how exhausted I was. The mental drain and fatigue was overwhelming.
“It’ll come. When you get there, you’ll know and feel confident in walking through,” TJ said.
I finally took my eyes off the wall and found TJ sitting at the foot of my bed.
“Why am I suddenly so tired?” I asked.
“It’s no easy feat, what you just did. Like anything else, practice will make it easier.”
I could barely keep my eyes open any longer. I slid under the covers and glanced over at TJ, who was still sitting with me, watching over me as I peacefully fell asleep.
“I’ll see you guys after school,” Mr. Gordon said as Desiree and I were leaving for art class.
I stopped before reaching the door and turned back, catching Desiree off guard. “Actually, I don’t think I can make it today. I—my mom’s been sick. I really need to get home as soon as I can.”
Provex City Page 21
