He pushes against the door again, but I push harder on my side. I can’t talk to him. Not about this. “I gotta go.”
I put the rest of my weight against the door. We come to a stalemate, and then he pulls his hand away. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I shake my head. I’m afraid I’m going to lose it if I say something, so I close the door the rest of the way. I stand there for a moment, getting myself together, holding my board.
The guitars are like an ocean now, waves.
“Who was that?” Mom calls from the dining room.
“Julio,” I manage.
“Why didn’t you invite the boy in?”
“Just wait for what’s in the time capsule, scared boy.”
I walk back to the table without answering, because I can’t think of anything to say.
Six
The guitars kept me up all night, screeching, wailing. Sometimes it sounded like just one and other times it was like an orchestra.
I wasn’t going to sleep anyway. The Voice was talking, too, calling me scared boy, telling me that bad things were coming, and that it all connects. Kept telling me she was in the Silly Juice.
I wanted to shut it all out, but I couldn’t play guitar because my parents were asleep, so I spent the night watching videos. Gaming, fails, dashcams, fights. I even went back and watched old ones from when I was little, but eventually I started watching stuff about Incursions. The one in Peru that my auntie was talking about, it turns out that there’s this grainy video that shows something. It’s the first time anything’s been caught on camera, but it doesn’t look like much—just a big black smudge that pops up and then disappears. The comments all say it’s a hoax, but I don’t know about that.
It could be real.
Tony Baez dropped another video in the middle of me reading the comments, so I got to watch it as viewer number seventeen.
It was a sketch about a kid whose parents won’t buy him a real Live-Tech so he gets a “Lif-Rekt” at the swap meet for three dollars. When he puts it on, his girlfriend leaves him, his mom dies, he’s expelled from school, and then he gets taken by an alien during an Incursion.
It was funny, but it didn’t help my mood.
I fell asleep at some point, though, because when I woke up this morning, my head was quieter, guitars like a breeze through palm trees, and the Voice was gone. I sat in my room playing my own guitar and waited for her to come back. I waited for it like you wait for bad news, but it never came.
Even without her, my mind is full of Incursions and Silly Juice and Bad Things.
On the way to school I skate the path around Echo Park Lake. The wild parrots are eating the fruit from a floss tree, so I stop and watch. They’re loud as hell and their noise somehow makes me brave enough to try and coax the Voice out, like picking a scab, but it doesn’t show.
I stop when I realize I’m muttering to myself like a crazy person, and I go fast down the path to get away from my embarrassment.
Mousie’s waiting for me outside her building. We’ve only been talking for a few weeks, and she’s cool but she’s barely turning fifteen and she already wants me to escort her at her quinceañera, but that’s not for another six months. I said yes, but I don’t know if we’ll still be a thing then. Looking at her and thinking about it makes me anxious, but I smile and lean back as I walk up to her.
She looks at me shyly from behind her hair and then steps into my arms, presses herself against me. I lean in for a kiss.
Even touching her doesn’t wake up the Voice, and I start to feel a little bit of hope.
We walk slowly the rest of the way to school, our feet matching the rhythm of the guitars that have come back into my mind. She talks about how much she hates having to take care of her niece, and I carry my board and her books. I watch her while she talks. We don’t have that much to say to each other—it’s mostly me listening to her, and then her asking me questions about my life that I don’t have answers to. I did tell her that I write music, which I’ve never told any other girl, but I think it was a mistake because then she wanted to hear some and read my lyrics. I told her I’d show her someday, but it would feel so embarrassing to see her reading it that I don’t think I’ll ever do it.
She finishes talking about her niece and stuff, and we’re quiet as we walk for a minute. I can tell she’s waiting for me to say something, but the only things on my mind are guitars and voices. I want to tell her about them, but I don’t know how without sounding crazy.
Eventually, as we’re walking up the last little hill to school, I ask: “Do you ever think about things you can’t see?” There are kids all around us and I’m not sure I want to talk about what I’m hearing, but it’s right there inside me and I can’t help it.
Mousie looks at me. She’s confused.
I shift her books a little while I think about what I’m trying to say. “That maybe there’s things beyond life and what we see and stuff? Things that sometimes people . . .”
Mousie looks up at me, slows her pace a little. “Like aliens?” She looks at me wide-eyed. “Like the Incursions?”
I shrug. Maybe. I don’t know. “Like things . . .” I shrug. Like voices that talk to you and invisible guitars and stuff. I shake my head. I don’t even know why I’m asking. “Yeah.”
We walk the rest of the way quiet.
* * *
• • •
Mousie blows up my pod all morning, but I don’t even know what to say, so I don’t reply. If she’s mad, I’ll tell her I got my screen taken by a teacher.
I’m thinking about that when Dean Wagner calls me out of second period. I’m not worried, because he’s always been out for me. I review possible infractions while I walk the hall. I’m not holding anything today, so that’s not a concern, and I’ve slapped up the empty rooms on the third floor a few times, but it’s not my regular tag so I don’t know how he’d pin it on me. Truth is, I don’t do much that’s bad, so I’m not sure what he thinks he’s found.
“Alex Mata,” I tell the old lady who runs the dean’s office when I reach the counter. She looks like everybody’s nasty abuela—the one who doesn’t love you. “Wagner called for me.”
She scowls and I stare back. Just when I’m winning, the Skywriting Voice returns:
“Plugzie’s busted and there’s nothing he can do. Seen time’s fixed and done, boy. Get ready, Plugzer, cuz you’re gonna want to take a picture of that picture.”
I flinch and the old lady thinks she won.
What picture? I shake my head.
“Sit down,” the old lady says. “Dean Wagner will come get you when he’s ready.”
The guitars ramp up again—they seem to increase with the beat of my heart. I breathe deep to try and calm down, but my breath hitches before I can get it all the way in and I start feeling panicked.
The guitars rage, amplification, infiltration in my brain.
Insane.
I’m starting to sweat, sticky, wet. The guitars. I make myself breathe.
Close my eyes.
The volume drops.
My mind shoots forward to a life on the street, shouting at lampposts, sleeping on cardboard with my foot laced through the wheels of my grocery cart.
I’m going to die like Uncle Chuy.
I barely hear Wagner when he calls my name.
“Mr. Mata?” he repeats. “Come in here, will ya?”
Wagner has me sit across from his desk. He makes a production of sitting down slowly and organizing himself before he says anything to me. He does this with all of us. He thinks it makes us nervous but it doesn’t. The familiar part of it relaxes me.
Finally: “How’d you do it?”
I don’t know what he’s talking about. I shrug.
“Listen, son, I’m not even that mad—I’ve got respect for good plays and this
was a good one, but Dr. Anderson? He’s not happy.” Dr. Anderson is the ghost principal—his name’s on everything, but nobody’s ever even seen him.
I still don’t know what he’s talking about, so I shrug again.
He imitates my shrug. “That’s all you got? You had to know it would come right back on you.”
I shake my head. Run my hand through my hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me that, Mata.” His voice is hard.
I look up. He’s fat. There are folds of skin coming out of his collar that make his head look like a turtle’s. Like he could pull the whole thing down into his shirt if he wanted. His eyes are green. The muscles under his cheeks twitch, sending little waves down to his chin. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” I don’t look away even though the effort makes me sweat.
He sighs. “Don’t be stupid.” He reaches into a file folder on his desk and pulls out a photograph. Photographs are bad news—they’re proof. I try and see what it’s of, but I can’t because he’s holding it too close. I start to feel a little sick.
The Skywriting Voice said there’d be a photograph.
“What’s that?” My voice cracks like a little boy’s.
“You think you’re nervous now, wait ’til you see the picture, Plugzie.”
I work to not react. I think with all my mind: SHUTUP!
She doesn’t reply, but the guitars do. A hundred of them in my brain, all playing different songs. They make it hard to hear.
Wagner looks at the picture, then at me. He shrugs and slides it over to me upside down. I reach for it but he lays a meaty hand over it and starts to talk. “How’d you get it into the time capsule, Alex?” he asks me softly. “You ruined a public event for a lot of people. A lot of people made time to be here this morning—including a city councilman and a school-board member, by the way—so they could watch as a time capsule that was supposed to have been untouched for fifty goddamned years got opened up and what did they find, instead?” He looks at me like I’m supposed to know what he’s talking about. “You got nothing to say?”
My heart sinks. I suddenly have to go to the bathroom. He’s never sworn at me before. Whatever he thinks I did, it’s bad. I rack my brain to come up with what he could be talking about, but I’m totally lost.
“Well?”
I can’t think of other responses, so I shake my head.
“They find that some little punk has dug in and opened it all up ahead of time and put a picture in it so everybody can know how cool he thinks he is.”
“What are you talking about?”
He flips the picture over. It’s of two people, a guy and a girl, standing on a beach that’s piled with thick white sand and rocks. There’s water behind them and mountains up the far side of the water.
His hair’s cut different, and I don’t own the clothes that the guy is dressed in, but he looks exactly like me. I look at the girl he’s standing with for a clue. She’s blond, a little pretty. She’s dressed like Madonna from the eighties. I’ve never seen her before.
“That’s not me.” I shake my head. “I don’t own those clothes and my hair’s never been like that.” Once I start talking, I just keep going. “And I’ve never been to that beach and I’ve never seen that girl before.”
But Wagner’s shaking his head before I’m even halfway done. He flips it over. There’s something written in the upper right-hand corner.
PLUGZER
I don’t know how, but I can’t deny it—tags are like signatures and this one’s mine. I start shaking my head like it’s on a spring or something, because even though it’s mine, I never did it. “I didn’t—” I start, but then I look back at the picture and I see it.
My throat closes and I feel like I’m on fire.
The guy in the picture has a mole on his jaw and a crooked canine tooth that comes out way too high in the mouth.
Just like me.
“That’s me.”
“Obviously. How’d you get it in the time capsule?”
I look up at him. “I didn’t do it!” I’m whining, shouting, but I don’t care. “This is messed up, Mr. Wagner, because that’s me, but I’ve never looked like that or been anywhere like that—and that tag on the back”—I flip it over again—“that’s mine, too, but I haven’t ever done that one before.”
Wagner tells me to shut up.
I ask him if I can keep the picture. He tells me I’ve got brass balls, but when he gets up to go get my suspension order off the printer, I’m together enough to unfold my screen and take a picture of the picture.
Just like the Voice told me to.
“You’re out for three days, Mata.” He slides the suspension order to me. “And you’re going to do community service to show how sorry you are for messing up the time capsule.”
I nod like a dumbass.
“Your mom’s been called. She says you can walk home.” He picks up the picture and tucks it back into the folder. “Sign.”
I sign the order without looking. Wagner watches and then nods. “Get outta here, Mata. Take a few days and we’ll meet with you and your folks on Monday. You can come back then if you allocute.”
I nod again. I’ve just agreed to tell the whole story when I come back. I’m lost on how I’m going to do that, though. I don’t have a single clue how my picture got into the time capsule.
Seven
My head is full of guitars when I leave school. When they fade enough for me to think, I message Mousie. She’s a little mad about me not texting back earlier, but she calms down when I tell her I got suspended. She offers to skip the next couple days to hang with me. I think about it and it sounds good, but I don’t know what my parents are going to do so I tell her no.
We keep texting, talking about stupid stuff, but my mind isn’t in it. The Voice is quiet again and this time I’ve got questions for her: She knew about the time capsule and the picture.
I’m listening for her while I walk, the way I used to listen for monsters at night. I’d hear them everywhere even when they weren’t there at all.
All I get is guitars.
I think about what would happen if I told Mousie about everything. She would think I was crazy.
I am crazy.
“I’m going schizo.” The words catch in my mouth. I’m walking under the freeway and it’s so loud around me I can’t hear them anyway.
I’m about to try again when there’s a noise behind me. Loud and sharp like a gunshot. Without thinking I hit the deck in case there’s more, but as I’m going down someone grabs me from behind and pulls me to the side.
I get slammed into the dirt above the sidewalk.
I hit hard. There’s dust in my eyes and dirt in my mouth, and I’m just reaching for whoever the hell’s on top of me when there’s a massive crash that makes the ground shake. Glass breaks, metal crunches.
The weight lifts and I roll onto my back. A driverless car is jammed up against the support pillar I was next to. There’s a lady in an old-style driven car scraped up beside it, too. She’s still behind the wheel, looking scared.
No doubt the driverless would have killed me if I hadn’t been knocked out of the way.
I sit up and shake my head clear, spit the grit from my mouth. I look around for the person who saved me. When I see her, she’s already all the way up the embankment. My vision isn’t completely clear, but I know who it is.
It’s the girl from the picture.
She turns back to look at me and when she sees me watching she blows a kiss before disappearing up beyond the side of the freeway.
I want to go after her, but I stop before I even start because she can’t be real.
Crazy people see things. A substitute showed us A Beautiful Mind in class one time, and that guy made people up. I haven’t
wanted to cry in forever, probably since Pete was killed, but I want to cry now. I can feel it in my throat. I swallow hard.
I turn to check on the driver of the car, but she seems alright.
I swipe at my denim jacket, trying to knock some of the dirt off—there’s big swipes of brown across one whole side. The Sepultura patch on my sleeve is torn, which sucks because they’re my favorite old-school metal band.
I look around for my board. It’s in the middle of the road. It’s been hit and it’s in pieces all over the street.
I guess I’m walking home.
Eight
My mom drives for Metro. When I was little and I was home sick from school, she would have Pete wait with me at a bus stop for her. I’d get on her bus and ride with her all day and she’d talk to me about the things she passed and the people she met each day. She could have gotten in trouble for that, but she did it anyway.
When she left for work this morning, I wanted more than anything to sit in the seat right behind her and reach my hand through the gap in the screen so I could hold her elbow while I slept like I used to. I felt safe on her bus.
I didn’t even ask if I could go with her. She’s really mad about the time capsule. She says I ruined something beautiful. I tried to tell her I didn’t do it but she called me a liar.
My dad hasn’t looked at me since he got home yesterday. All he said was, “You disappoint me.” Then he went to my room and collected the TV remote, computer, controllers, and even the old pod I only use for music, and locked them all in the toolbox in the bed of his truck.
He took my pod and screen, too. I panicked when I thought he was going to lock them, because I wanted the picture. He didn’t, though. Instead, he set them on restricted. I’ll only be able to make and get calls to and from him, Mom, and my aunt.
He didn’t take my guitar, which is good, and he doesn’t even know about my lyric book. I don’t know if I could live without those. Playing guitar keeps my fingers attached to my brain, which keeps me from exploding.
Strange Days Page 3
