Road Rash (6 page)

After I got home, Kimber texted me.
Kyle told me. Are you OK?

Hmm. What exactly did he tell her?
I’m good
, I replied. Then
I thought about my hand, which still hurt.
At least, better than he is. LOL!

I’m glad about that. GTG. Talk later
.

Later, lil sis
.

Speaking of little sisters, just then Alicia barged into my room. “Jody says you got in a fight today!”

Jody was one of her middle school friends. “And how would she know?”

“Well, did you?”

I got up and closed the door. “Answer my question, and I’ll answer yours.”

“Her older brother was at the store and saw it. He says you broke some guy’s nose! Did you?”

“I don’t know about that. But yeah, I hit him.”

“Wow! How come?”

For once, I decided to treat her like an equal instead of a little kid. “Can you keep this just between us? Not tell anyone, even Mom and Dad?”

She seemed surprised. “Oh sure—I promise!”

“Okay … Basically, this guy was saying some really bad things—lies—about a friend of mine. I asked him to stop a couple of times, but instead he got worse. So I hit him.”

“And then?”

I smiled. “He stopped.”

“That’s all?” She seemed disappointed.

“Pretty much, yeah. Since he was on the sidewalk bleeding …”

That cheered her up. “So who was he saying bad things about?”

“Doesn’t really matter.”

She looked at me for a minute, then raised an eyebrow. “It was a girl, wasn’t it?”

I raised an eyebrow back at her.

She stared off into space for a second, then her eyes opened wide. “Kimber! It was Kimberly, wasn’t it?”

Wow.

She must have read my face. “I was right!” she said. “Hey, if someone had said that about me, would you have hit them?”

“Naw, I don’t think so.”

She looked bummed. “Really?”

“Yeah.” I paused for a minute, to let her stew. Then I wriggled my eyebrows in what I hoped was a sinister fashion. “They’d have to call the coroner.”

“Wow … awesome!”

Sometimes she cracks me up, with the things she’s impressed by.

Then she said, “Wait till I tell Jody …!” and turned to go. I was ready to unload on her about her promise when she turned back and pointed at me.

“Gotcha!”

I decided to go to the movies. There was only one more week of school, and homework was pretty much just studying for finals. Besides, ever since I’d been kicked from the band, my dad had been on me about getting a “real” job this summer, and I didn’t want to hear about it tonight.

So I didn’t even look up what was playing, and I didn’t bother borrowing my dad’s truck. I just hopped on my bike and headed down to the Creekside Complex. I figured with ten screens they had to be showing
something
passable sometime soon, and I didn’t really care about the details.

Usually I’ll go for an action film, but for some reason there was a romantic comedy that caught my attention. And since it was starting in fifteen minutes, I figured what the heck.

It actually wasn’t too bad, except for one tiny detail … the plot. It was all about some guy who gets his first “real” job with some big corporation, but he secretly spends his evenings playing guitar in a band, and he really wants
that
to be his career.
And of course it all ends happy-happy—he dumps the nine-to-five, gets the dream rock-star gig, and gets the girl. The End.

Okay, so I was rooting for the guy to kick the stupid suit-and-tie job and start playing guitar again. But gimme a break. It was so far from reality—at least from
my
reality. And the few parts that were fairly realistic—mostly the scenes at the early gigs—only bummed me out.

I didn’t feel like going home after that, so I went next door to Starbucks for a while. I got myself a coffee and managed to snag a tiny little table in the corner. I was lucky to get that—the place was totally crowded, probably with people like me who didn’t really care that it was a weeknight because school was almost over.

So I sat there and watched the crowd from back in the corner, kinda like watching the audience from behind the drums at a gig. After a while I borrowed a pen and a piece of paper from a girl behind the counter and started working on a song idea I’d had for a while. It was only half formed, but basically it was about loyalty and loneliness and feeling like you didn’t fit in. It wouldn’t take a PhD in psychology to see where this came from, but I worked on it anyway because sometimes good lyrics come from bad places.

Anyway, I’d been there for half an hour, writing and then scratching out clichéd lines, when someone sat down in the other chair at my little table. I looked up. It was a girl from school that I barely knew. She’d been in one of my classes last year, but I couldn’t quite remember her name.

“Hi,” she said. “You’re Zach, right? You play the drums?”

I put down my pen and nodded. “Uh-huh. What’s up?” I was wondering if maybe she couldn’t find a seat and was asking if she could share my table. If that was the case, I was going to say,
Take it, I was just leaving
, because even though it’s sometimes cool to write in a public place, it’s a totally different story with someone sitting two feet in front of you sharing a table the size of a floor tom.

But that wasn’t it. “My name’s Maria?” she said. I swear, that’s how it sounded, like a question. “We were in the same social studies class last year? Remember?”

“Sure, I remember. How’s it going?”

“Fine. I’m here with my friend Shannon? Sitting over there?”

She pointed toward a girl at a table across the room.

“Uh, okay …”

“Well, we’ve been here for a while, watching you write or whatever you’re doing and, well, Shannon said she thinks you’re cute? So I told her I sort of knew you? Which was, like, a big mistake because she’s been, like, bugging me to come talk to you ever since?”

I glanced over at Shannon. The funny thing was, she looked like the absolute stereotype of a rocker’s girlfriend—jet-black hair, dark eyeliner, red lipstick, black nail polish, the works. She smiled at me. I smiled back and turned to Maria. “Tell her I think she’s hot,” I said, “but I have a girlfriend. Thanks.”

She got up from her chair. “Well, she can’t say I didn’t try. See ya around.”

She went back to deliver the news while I sat there, surprised at myself. Again. Things like that did
not
happen every
day. Not to me. And she
was
hot, in a skanky sort of way. And I’d just told her thanks but no thanks. WTF was up with that?

I looked at my watch: 10:15. Whoa. I tried to remember if I’d told my parents where I was going, but then I figured if they were worried, they would have just—
Oops
. I looked down and sure enough, my phone was silent. I’d silenced it when I went into the movies and forgot to turn it back up. There were four missed calls and two messages. Uh-oh.

I punched up the first message.

Hey, Zach, it’s Glenn. Glenn Taylor. Listen, we’re in kind of a bind and I was hoping maybe you could help us out. We have a gig tonight and Nate is … well, let’s just say he’s in no condition to play. Let’s see … it’s about seven o’clock now and we go on at nine. His drums are already at the gig, so you wouldn’t have to bring yours. So if you wouldn’t mind, please give me a call back at this number when you get my message. I’d really like to work with you, but I’ve got to get a drummer for tonight one way or another, so I’m going to keep looking. Take care, man.…

Beeeeep …

Hey, Zach. It’s Glenn again. It’s eight-fifteen and I’ve found someone who’s available to do the gig, so I’m going with him. Thanks anyway. Take care
.

Holy crap.… When I was at the movies watching the fictional life of some fictional guy in some fictional band, living in a
totally
fictional world, I could have been getting ready to do a real gig with one of the best real bands in the area.

For a drummer I sure had lousy timing.

So I left Glenn a message saying I was sorry I missed him
and I hoped we could get together to play sometime, and then I went home to sulk. At least, that was the plan. My dad had other ideas.…

“Where were you?” he asked as soon as I walked in the door.

“The movies.”

“You need to let me know where you’re going if you go out at night. You know that. Anyway, someone called and I wasn’t sure where you were, so I gave him your cell number.”

“Thanks. It was a guy named Glenn. They needed a drummer tonight.”

“That’s what he said. So what happened?”

I sure wasn’t about to tell him that their regular drummer was too drunk or drugged to make the gig. That groove would definitely
not
be smooth.… “Not sure, but it doesn’t really matter. I had my phone off in the movie, so I missed his call.”

“I know your phone was off, because I tried to call you, too. More than once.” He took in a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “Look, Zach. I know it’s been hard since your friends found another drummer. And to tell the truth, I think that stinks. But school’s almost out and you have to do something.”

“I know.”

“Good, because you start at Johnson’s Yard Supply on Saturday. At seven a.m.”

Boom …
Sometimes the biggest bombs don’t make any noise falling. “But Dad, I never even talked to him. I haven’t filled out an application or anything.”

“I know. But Jerry called me over the weekend and asked if you were still interested. One of his guys quit and he needs someone right away.”

No doubt he could tell from my expression that I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of working at a yard-supply place all summer.

“Hey, you should be glad—I told him you had finals and couldn’t start until Saturday.”

I just hung my head.
“Great …”

“Look, I know this isn’t exactly how you planned to spend your summer, but opportunities like this don’t just fall into your lap every day. Think of the money you’ll make. You could save for a car, or maybe college, or—”

“Dad,” I interrupted. “I appreciate you trying to get me a job. Really.” And that wasn’t complete fiction. I did. In a theoretical way. Sort of. “And yeah, I could use the money. But I would rather make it by playing music than hauling sacks of fertilizer out to old ladies’ cars.” By like a thousand times.

“Well, like it or not, I don’t think the first option’s available to you right now. And you’re
not
doing nothing all summer. So be ready to start at Johnson’s first thing Saturday morning.”

Maybe it was a good thing I didn’t hook up with Shannon after all, because there was no getting around it—I was quickly going from Zach Ryan, Rock Drummer to Zach Ryan, Manure Boy.

Bzzzzzzzzzzz!
God, already? I rolled over and looked at my alarm clock: 6:00. As in a.m. On a Saturday. On the first day of summer vacation. That’s just
wrong.…

The last few days of school had gone by fast. Nothing but study-test-study-rinse-repeat. And with the way things were, it wasn’t like I even cared about summer. I hummed a bastardized version of that K’s Choice song, “Something’s Wrong.”
If you can’t look forward to summer … something’s wrong. If your whole world is a bummer … something’s wrong
.

“Zach …
Zaaaaach …
Are you up? Breakfast is ready!” It was my mom. How could someone be so cheerful at six in the morning? Well, if you weren’t going off to become Manure Boy, I guess I could see it.

I pulled on my jeans and a faded black Ramones T-shirt, laced up my kicks, and headed downstairs to the kitchen. There was my mom, scrambling eggs and burning toast.

“Wow. You don’t have to do all this. I could have grabbed a bowl of cereal.”

“I know. But it’s your first day of work, and I wanted you to get a good start.”

“Thanks. Is Dad up yet?”

On cue he walked into the kitchen. “Hey, big guy—how’s it going?”

“Fine.”
I guess
. I tried to act reasonably happy, because I knew he thought he’d done me a huge favor by getting me this stupid job. But what I really wanted was to go back to bed for three or four hours, then maybe get up and play my drums or go shoot some baskets or cruise downtown on my bike.

“You going like that?” he asked.

No, I’m changing into my suit and tie as soon as I’m finished eating
. “Uh, yeah. Is there a problem?”

“Well, it just doesn’t seem like the best thing to wear on the first day of a new job. Don’t you have something else you can put on?”

“Dad, this is an entry-level, manual-labor-type gig. It’s okay. Really.”

“You never know where it can lead.…” God, like my dream is to be
head
manure boy or something. “And by the way, I need the truck this morning.”

Well, I was going to get my bicycle ride in after all. Oh, joy.…