The Bad Decisions Playlist (31 page)

I'll think about that, and about her, and about everything that happened, for the rest of my life. Sometimes I'll be feeling good, and I'll wonder why, and I'll realize that it's because I'd forgotten about her for a bit. Then I remember and feel bad again.

I told you I was true,
she said. She did say it, and I said it too, and then . . . It's the lowest thing I've ever done. I blamed it on drinking. I blamed it on Shane. I blamed it on Josephine. But it was me. Whenever I think of what I did, and the pain in her eyes when she found out, it stops me dead in my tracks like I've run smack into a wall of shame.

Alison: dating a new guy, football player, someone even larger than Todd. She winks at me sometimes in the hall. No thank you.

My mom didn't punish me for the whole New York thing. It's like she knew​—​better than I did, really​—​that whatever Austin had run away, a different one had come back. All she said was, “I'm so glad you're safe.”

She and Rick got married in late September at the Lake Harriet Rose Garden. A tiny ceremony, a few of her friends, a few of his. I didn't bring a date. Devon lent me a guitar, and I played and sang “The Book of Love” for them and my mom bawled. I didn't do a much better job of keeping it together. It's hard to sing while there's snot streaming down your upper lip.

The mandolin: When I told Rick again that I would definitely pay him back, he shrugged and said, “I'm really not that concerned about it. But you will need a job.”

And so Rick's Downtown Grill gained a very dedicated new dishwasher. There are team meetings. I've never missed one.

I've stopped smoking weed. Well, not stopped. It's a special-occasion thing, now, once a month. Haven't really been drinking, either. Whenever Devon's around, he won't let me: “Austin, think about it. Between your mom and your dad, you pretty much hit the genetic lottery for addiction. Give whatever brain cells you have left a break.” I've been smoking a lot, though. Those burning-stick things are hard to put down.

And the music.

After a break, I started hearing it again. I still can't catch up to it. But sometimes I can get ahead of it. Because I've been writing songs, whole songs that have a beginning, middle, and end. Mostly about having your heart mushed, or having someone you love hate you. And be justified in hating you because it's your fault. Most of the songs
suuuuck
. But now sometimes at night when I hear the music, I recognize it, because I wrote it, and I say,
Aha! I got you, I got here first!

Maybe the weirdest thing is Todd. It's sort of like we're friends now, as much as you can be friends with someone who doesn't talk much. He bought himself a cheap drum set, which he set up in my basement. He comes over a lot and we play stuff together. Sometimes he drops by when I'm not here to pound on the drums by himself. I figure he's just getting away from whatever awfulness is going on at home. Also, I think he lost a lot of friends when he up and quit the hockey team.

“Why'd you quit?”

“Piss off my dad.”

We rarely discuss what happened in New York, or mention Shane. Once when his name came up I muttered something about what an asshole he turned out to be.

“Yeah, well, there's worse,” said Todd.

As for the thing with Alison and me, I didn't think Todd knew about it, seeing as how I still have all my teeth. But then one day out of nowhere he stopped in the middle of a song and said, “You know what I don't get?”

“What?”

“You had Josephine. Why would you ever bother with someone like Alison?”

Which was sort of worse than him punching me.

∗  ∗  ∗

If you watched the Grammys, you probably saw Amy perform. And if you search “Amy Adler boyfriend” you'll see pictures of her with a well-known singer who is not Shane Tyler. She sent me a nice email​—​
Let's not lose touch,
all that, said she'll always appreciate Shane.
But he's like the song, isn't he,
she wrote.
He's good fun from a safe distance.

∗  ∗  ∗

As for Shane, I've never heard anything from him.

Nothing.

No email, text, call, letter, nothing.

What did you expect? says my mom.

∗  ∗  ∗

Shane's new album came out in early December.

I saw references to it on Pitchfork and in
Rolling Stone,
Rolling Stone
giving it five out of five stars. The label released it online but also did an old-school version for the audio hipsters and elderly snobs, a vinyl version like they used to do decades ago, liner notes and all that. Other than glancing at the headlines​—​seeing them took me by surprise, gave me a stomachache​—​I made sure to ignore everything else about the album.

A few days after it comes out, I'm down in the basement, going to the edge of the abyss and creating mediocre music out of the experience. I hear a polite
ahem.

“Sorry to interrupt,” says Rick, standing in the doorway. “I thought . . . I thought perhaps you should see this.”

The vinyl version of Shane's record. The cover is a moody, high-contrast concert shot of Shane, blue lighting.

“Why'd you bring that?”

“I was at the record store, poking around”​—​Rick being one of the elderly snobs with a turntable​—​“and saw it, and​—​well, you should take a look.”

“I'd rather not.”

“Okay,” he says. He doesn't move.

I sigh. “Oh, all right.”

He brings it to me. “Don't tell your mother I got it.”

I take it from him, give it a quick once-over, and try to hand it back to him.

“No, read the other side,” he says.

I flip it over. It's got the normal stuff, the track listings, credits, fine print. I don't absorb any of it.

“Congratulations,” he says.

“What?”

He points to the track listings.

Among the song titles is “Rosalie.”

Cowritten with Austin Methune.

I'm quiet for a second.

“Oh,” I say.

“Yes,” he says. “Also, look here.” He points.

In small type at the lower right-hand corner of the album it says,
Dedicated to Austin Methune, my son, who helped me more than he can ever know.

“Oh,” I say.

“Yes.”

∗  ∗  ∗

The album did pretty well, and “Rosalie” was the single. It's not the version we recorded with him that day​—​someone else is singing the harmony, and there's more production on it. You've probably heard it a few times if you listen to any podcasts or radio that's actually worth listening to. You might also have seen him on NPR, doing one of their Tiny Desk Concerts. Or maybe you heard the interview where he talks about his confessional new album and about kicking heroin and being clean for the first time since he was fourteen and all the people he hurt who will probably never speak to him again. I think I know some of them.

In January I received a check in the mail with a printed note from the record label, explaining that the figure represented a mixture of royalties from radio and online play, as well as live performances. Not a huge amount, but an amount. Certainly far more than the zero I had earned from music before.

I got checks in February, March, April. So when Rick's birthday came around, I pooled the money with some from my mom, and we bought him a 1919 Gibson A2 mandolin, a real thing of beauty.

When he opened it, he nodded gravely and thanked me, and then said, “I'm going to give you custodial responsibility for this. That means taking care of it and playing it a lot. Do you accept?”

I accepted.

I had an ocean of words to say to you /

but they've drained away / and now I'm through

I'm neither lazy nor a coward.

Okay, fine, that's not entirely true. I'm still a bit of both, although now I'd say they have much smaller roles in the clown orchestra that is Austin Methune. The third bassoon and, I don't know, the triangle, for example.

I will, however, still do pretty much anything if a girl is watching.

But that's not why I'm doing what I'm doing now, riding my motorcycle with a mandolin strapped to my back, a mandolin that technically belongs to Rick the Lawyer. There are no girls watching. Although I
am
on my way to another encounter with Todd Malloy.

I graduated today. Another squeaker, but I did it, stood up there and got my hand shaken by the principal, and I waved at the crowd, my mom going nuts and embarrassing me. Also, I got into a real college, the University of Minnesota, with a music scholarship, a recommendation written for me by well-respected music producer Ed Verna.

After the graduation ceremony, when everyone was milling about, I saw Josephine with her family, including first-term state senator Gerald Lindahl. Josephine got into Yale, and I heard she was leaving in a few days for a summer program in Paris, and I'd never see her again.

When we spotted each other, she came running over and gave me a big hug.

“I knew you could do it,” she said.

And I said, “I still love you and I'll always love you and this makes me so sad.”

And she said, “Oh,” in the way you say that about something that is adorable but painful, and she gave me another hug. Then she squeezed my arm and smiled at me, the heartbreak smile, the smile you give someone when you're okay and they're not, and said, “Will you promise to keep in touch?”

I murmured something​—​yes, sure, of course​—​and she said, “Great,” and gave me a third hug, and then she was gone, her receding figure getting blurrier as my eyes welled up.

I saw Mrs. Jensen. She gave me a literal pat on the head and said, “Good job, SmartTard.”

There was Alex, with his parents​—​“We're so proud of you, Austin!”​—​and Devon with his​—​“We're so proud of you, Austin!”​—​who were chatting with my mom and Rick​—​“We're so proud of you, Austin!”​—​and yes, okay, I
get
it, no one expected this particular special-needs student to graduate please stop already.

And there was Todd, with . . . no one.

I don't know exactly what had been going on at Todd's place, but I do know that he was coming over more and more frequently to beat the hell out of the drums. And after a school year full of increasingly horrible crap, his dad finally left, or got kicked out.
Yesterday.
The
day before graduation.
And who knows why, but his mom didn't come to the ceremony either. So there he was, everyone hugging and celebrating, and he was glum and alone, and before I could ask him if he was coming to the big party at Devon's tonight, he had disappeared.

I called and texted him a few times and got nothing. So after dinner, when I should have been heading over to Devon's, I instead found myself grabbing the mandolin and heading over to Todd's, and here I am.

No one answers the door until the third ring. It opens, and I see Todd's mom for the first time. She looks haunted. Like she's been crying, maybe for years.

“Hi there. I'm Austin Methune. Todd's friend. Is Todd home?”

She stares at me a moment. “He's in his room.” She steps back and I enter, and as she walks away she listlessly points down the hallway.

I take a gamble that his door is the one with the giant Wayne Gretzky poster on it. I knock.

“Todd? It's Austin.”

Nothing.

“Todd?”

“What do you want?”

“You all right?”

“Yep.”

“Want to talk or something?”

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Yep.”

Mr. Gretzky and I regard each other. I take the mandolin out of the case.

“Come on, Todd, come on out, don't sit in your room and pout,”
I sing.

Neither Wayne nor Todd responds.

“The evening's warm, the sky is clear, come on out of your room already and let's you and me go drink a nonalcoholic beeeeeeer. . . .”

“Methune, get the hell out of here.”

“Don't be mad, don't be sad, come hang out and you'll be glad.”

Stomping footsteps. Todd violently jerks the door open and glares at me.

“Methune, if you don't get out of here with your frigging mandolin, I'll . . .”

“What?”

Todd hesitates. Then the legendary bully and one-time scourge of the Edina public school system sighs, shoulders sagging. He shakes his head. “Screw it. Nothing.” He looks like he's been doing some crying of his own.

“Come on. Let's go to the party.”

“I don't want to.”

“You can't just sit in your room.”

“Why not?”

“Because we graduated, and there's a party, and there's girls and all that.”