This Song Is (Not) for You (9 page)

Sam and I haven’t been alone in a while.

Except, we have been alone. We’re alone in his car on the way to and from school, but it’s not a long enough drive for a deep conversation. And at school we sit alone (together) when we eat, but during lunch you can’t get really deep because people are throwing fries at each other.

After school Sam and I are always with Tom. And I love being with Tom, but I miss being with just Sam.

On Monday I said to Sam at band practice, “We should go see that martial arts movie you were talking about,” even though I knew that I wasn’t going to like it. We were talking about theaters and times when from across the garage Tom shouted, “We should just go on Friday,” and I was so annoyed for two reasons.

Tom didn’t even know what movie we were talking about. Sam had only just told me about it that morning, and this was just supposed to be a me-and-him thing. Furthermore,

I’d been hoping that Tom and I could go on an actual date on Friday. We’re with Sam all the time, and I really love being with Sam, but I’d kinda like to make out with Tom.

Not that I don’t also want to make out with Sam, but that’s a totally different problem, and the thing is I
can
make out with Tom, except that I can’t because of Sam.

Anyway.

I was really annoyed about all this, so I said, “Fine.” And I stalked over to my drums and started playing the drums part of “My Generation” really loud. Sam and Tom looked at each other and I got angrier. Eventually they joined in with me, but then Tom started changing up the melody, and then we all started going crazy with it and it got fun, and I forgot about being mad. For a while.

On Friday we all went to the Delmar Loop and saw the kung fu movie I’d told Ramona about. It was amazing. People who make fun of martial arts movies just haven’t seen the right one yet.

This was the case with Tom.

“Dude. Dude,” he said as we exited the theater. “Dude, I had no idea. I’d always written off martial arts as, well, not art.” It was dark out. The streets were crowded with people walking to and from ethnic restaurants and boutique stores. Tom kept stride with me; Ramona was walking a bit behind us. I could tell she hadn’t liked the movie. She was quiet too, and not telling us why she didn’t like it.

“I’m not an aggressive guy, you know?” Tom continued. “Martial arts movies never interested me because I’m not interested in fighting. But for most of human history, fighting was a regular part of life. And somewhere along the way, some people made it art. They added these human values of technique and honor.”

Up ahead, a group of transient kids sat in a row, leaning against the vintage record store. One of them strummed a guitar with a case open in front of him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ramona reach into her jeans pocket. Her face was uncharacteristically unexpressive, un-Ramona.

“That movie was about respect and self-discipline,” Tom said. We stopped in front of the guitar case. Beside the guy with the guitar was a dreadlocked girl. One of her hands was in a mitten, and it rested on that guy’s knee. As we’d approached, I’d seen them share a smile. On the other side of her, another guy was resting his head on her shoulder. She was holding his hand too, and he was wearing the other mitten. They all looked a little older than twenty-one and had that gutter-punk smell of BO and pot. Tom and Ramona threw change into the guitar case. I didn’t think the guy was much good, so I didn’t feel obligated.

“I’m gonna have to rethink my personal definition of art now,” Tom said as we walked away. “I love doing that.” Behind me I heard Ramona laugh a strange, quiet laugh.

“We should get coffee Sunday morning,” I said. Tom never wakes up in the morning if he doesn’t have to. He never even considers the option.

“Yeah,” Ramona said. “That sounds great.”

“God, I wanna do that,” Tom said.

“What?” I said.

“I want to do what those guys are doing.” He motioned over his shoulder to the gutter punks. “I want to live out of a backpack for a few years, only own the necessities of living. And just live.”

And then he went off on one of his ideological rants, the sort that normally leaves me inspired. But all I could think about was Ramona. And how she was walking so quietly.

I feel as if all the years of my life I have been

slowly filling up with a force of nature.

I feel as if my muscles have slowly been tightening,

readying to pounce.

All the places I’ve never been.

All of the art I want to make.

All of the changes I hunger to see.

And all around me voices are telling me to wait, wait.

Wait.

But inside of me I hear, “Ready, set—”

I want to run.

I want to drive across America.

I want to write.

I want to make music like no one has ever heard.

I’m ready. Let me go.

Because I’m afraid if I don’t leave soon,

the voices around me will grow hands

that push and pull.

And as I raise my foot to take my first step,

the ground before me will turn into a path.

A path with a maze of walls,

a destination I cannot escape,

a destiny I never desired.

Why can no one believe in my fear?

The safe and sane life terrifies me.

I need freedom.

I need chance, happenstance.

I need to live a life of learning,

a life that never reaches a final destination.

I want to work.

I want to make the world a better place.

But I don’t want to do it by living the way most people choose.

I want the choice to choose

My Living.

My Life.

Sam and I go to what I think of as “our coffee shop.” It’s in one of those rough neighborhoods where people are buying up old houses and making them trendy and cute, but sometimes if you’re lucky, you’ll still come across people having inappropriate arguments in the street.

The suburbs never have good people watching.

Anyway.

Our coffee shop always has art from some local artist on display. Usually it’s at least pretty okay, but today it’s awful. It’s the sort of photography where you suspect the guy was like, “Black and white makes it artsy!”

“Okay,” I say as we sit down at a tiny café table. I point to the photo next to us, depicting a girl our age posing by some train tracks. “That was totally taken as a senior portrait.”

“Probably. This is some pretty mediocre stuff,” Sam agrees.

I’ve missed you
, I think.

“We haven’t hung out in a while. Without—”

“Yeah,” he says.

The guy behind the counter says, “Peterson!” and Sam gets up to grab our coffees. I watch his backside, thinking that I could always recognize him from behind.

“So,” I say when he sits back down. “What’s been up with you?”

Sam shrugs his one-shoulder Sam shrug.

“Nothing you don’t already know about.”

“Right.” My heart sinks. I grab four packets of raw sugar, pour them into my cup, and stir until a whirlpool forms strong enough to pull the liquid down deeply toward the middle even after I lift my spoon.

We sip our coffees. My gaze wanders around the coffee shop. It’s never like this with us. Normally I can tell Sam anything.

“And you’re…good?” he asks. He’s looking down at the table, stirring the sugar I spilled around and around.

(His long, dark eyelashes.)

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m good.”

“And you and Tom are…”

“Good,” I say automatically. “Good. I mean—” I take too big a swallow and burn my tongue. I feel myself hold back a grimace. “Sometimes,” I say. I look up at Sam.

He looks concerned and interested and gorgeous.

(His eyelashes.)

I look back down at the table.

“Sometimes I wonder if he really wants to be with me,” I finally say.

Ramona, hyperactive and sweet. Jiggling her leg nervously under the table, worrying that someone wouldn’t want to be with her.

“Of course he wants to be with you,” I said. He’s crazy about her. He’s always laughing at the things she says. He talks all the time about what a great musician she is, how cool she is.

“It’s just, he—” She shrugged and swept the sugar off the table. “I can’t explain it. But he doesn’t seem that excited about. Being with me.”

Ramona, unable to explain something for the first time in her life.

Ramona, too wonderful to be able to comprehend how wonderful she is.

“Some guys are just shy about these things,” I told her. “Some guys don’t want to seem pushy.”

She nodded and shrugged at the same time. Ramona was always Ramona.

“You and Tom aren’t exactly alpha males,” she said. The corners of her mouth turned up. “That’s why I like you both so much.”

My heart was beating so hard. I knew this didn’t mean anything.

“Just be. You know. Yourself. And Tom will get there,” I said and nodded, as if I’ve given her real advice.

“Yeah,” she said. “You’re right. Thanks.”

• • •

I didn’t apply to Artibus. I didn’t apply.

I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to major in music. I don’t want to struggle to have a career in music. I don’t need an exciting life, and I’m not sure if I’d want one. I’d like to travel, but not because I’m on tour. I want to be able to buy a nice enough house and have more than two kids. Maybe as many as four kids.

I want to make music, but I want to make it because I want to, not because I have to. And sometimes, some days, it would be something I didn’t want to do. And that’s only if I was one of the lucky few who get to have a career.

Ramona breathes music. Being a professional musician will be like being paid to be Ramona.

And she’ll make it. She has the talent, and she has the drive.

I only have some talent, and I just don’t have the drive.

I know myself.

I didn’t apply to Artibus. And I can’t tell Ramona.

• • •

“I’m really glad we did this,” she said to me as we stood up and carried our empty coffee mugs back to the counter. “I can talk to you about anything.”

It’s Valentine’s Day, and some girls had flowers that they carried proudly from class to class. I carried in secret the expectation of Tom.

Emmalyn had balloons. Six big, red, rubbery-sounding ones and a giant Mylar one that loves anyone literate. Emmalyn’s boyfriend is captain of the debate team and class vice president. He’s the sort of boy who poses nobly during gym class. He does big, showy displays of affection for Emmalyn, but he never seems to pay any real attention to her. In the hallways, it seems like he kind of ignores her most of the time. It would make me feel bad for her if I cared.

Anyway.

Ten minutes before school got out, I went over to where Emmalyn was practicing and asked her if she wanted to use the metronome, because I was done using it. She nodded, so I set it down and walked away.

I only did it because I was tired of running scales and ignoring the aching in my fingers. My hands have been cramping lately from practicing so much. John has been pushing me again, telling me that if I want to go pro, I have to work even harder now.

“Your mother would be so proud of you,” Dad said to me last night. He doesn’t talk about her very often, so I knew that he meant it.

I remember playing piano with my mother. She started teaching me when I was four. I can barely remember those early lessons. Since she died when I was nine, I only saw two sides of her, her mother side and her pianist side. I never got to hear her talk about politics or current events. I know what music she loved, but I don’t know what grown-up movies or books she would have shown me. It’s hard for me to predict how she would have felt about things.

I’m not sure if she’d approve of what Tom and I are about to do, for one thing. I’m certain that my dad wouldn’t, so the odds aren’t good.

We’re bombing St. Louis with love today.

Tom and I walk down the sidewalk holding hands, just a young couple in love carrying a brown paper grocery bag. While at a nondescript street corner, Tom needs to stop and tie his shoe. He sets down the paper bag and fumbles with his laces. While he’s tying his left shoe and then retying his right, I bend down and reach into the bag for just a moment, then roll the top closed again. Tom finishes tying this shoes. He picks the bag back up, and we walk on.

• • •

“Here’s your valentine,” Tom said to me as he handed me the brown paper bag at my house. I looked at the bag and then back up at him. I knew there had to be something here, but I really didn’t get it yet. “Look at the bottom,” he added, and then I saw it. The bag was a stencil.

“Sorry I haven’t colored it in yet,” Tom said. “You’re going to have to do that yourself.” He opened the bag and put a can of pink spray paint inside.

• • •

We’re just a young couple in love walking down the street together. Behind us,

LOVE IS

ALL

YOU NEED

is drying on the sidewalk.

It’s the late February thaw. Today the sun was warm and the gutters were full of melting, dirty snow.

“Okay, okay, okaaaay,” Ramona said. “Maybe before we can come up with a definitive definition of ‘good music’ we need to come up with an ironclad declaration of what ‘bad music’ is.”

She and I were lying on the hood of Tom’s glittermobile, just after noon. We drove to the parking lot of an abandoned church building not too far from Ramona’s condo, and now we were soaking up vitamin D and talking about music. Tom was doing what he called “some gentle, grounded yoga stretches” on the roof of the car. I recognized lotus and downward dog from Mom’s yoga days.

“Bad music is…” Tom started. He breathed out slowly. “Bad music is insincere.”

“Bad music
is
insincere,” Ramona repeated.

“I’ve seen sincere musicians who are really terrible,” I said. I was thinking of my mother’s band, the Whatevers. Mom sang vocals for the Whatevers, but after two shows, she discovered reflexology and the band sort of petered out. At the show I attended, they sang an alt country song called “Catfight.” I don’t even want to describe it, but Mom was having fun, and the band really liked playing their terrible song.

“Insincere music is bad music,” Ramona said, “but not all bad music is insincere music.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Tom said. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. He lay down in corpse pose on the roof. The sun was baking the car nicely, and my body was remembering what summer feels like. I closed my eyes.

“Bad music doesn’t make you
feel
,” Ramona said.

“Good music always makes you feel,” Tom said, “but bad music can make a person feel something too. Haven’t you ever seen a carful of people singing along to a generic pop song? And everybody has their secret song.”

“Secret song?” Ramona and I said together. I opened my eyes and we glanced at each other as we chuckled.

“Yes!” Tom said. Suddenly his head was peering down above us. He’d flipped onto his stomach. “That song you are too embarrassed to admit that you love! It goes against everything you stand for as a musician, but you can’t stand to not dance to it!”

“Ooooh,” Ramona said. She reached up and poked his nose with her index finger. He pretended to bite it and she laughed. I closed my eyes again.

“You mean the songs you don’t want to come up on random when your friends are with you,” Ramona said. “I don’t know if dancing is required for that. And I don’t believe that you only have one secret song, Tom. I have at least three. Four? It might be four in the summertime. Yeah, four in the summer. And you’ve convinced me that ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ should be a secret song. Gosh, that’s five.”

“I am only ashamed of one song,” Tom said. “But my shame is so deep that I am never going to admit it.”

As soon as he said that, I knew Ramona would never be able to go on with her life until she knew Tom’s secret song. I knew that I would be listening to them laugh and argue for the rest of the afternoon. So I kept my eyes closed. I listened to them, and I was able to laugh too.

“Just tell me one thing about your secret song,” Ramona moaned.

“You already know that it’s a pop song from 1978 that makes me feel inspired,” Tom said. “And I know nothing about your ten songs.”

“It’s only four! I mean five!”

When Ramona asked me, I told her that my secret songs were Meat Loaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love” and “Just Like Heaven” by the Cure.

“The Cure is amazing, man! That is not a secret song!” Tom cried as Ramona laughed and laughed, and gasped, “Meat Loaf!” over and over.

When Ramona laughed, it shook the hood under us. All afternoon, my brain recorded (cherished) each of her subtle movements next to me. With my eyes closed, I didn’t have to see her look at Tom, but I could talk with them both and love the sound of her breathing. I heard them kiss once, though Ramona stayed next to me on the hood. He must have bent down, and as Ramona shifted, her thigh pressed against mine for a long moment. My body took in this contact like it was starving for her. With my eyes still closed, I imagined that it was me who had stopped her breathing.

I felt the sun move behind the trees. I knew that if I opened my eyes, there would be glare off the glitter. Ramona admitted to singing along to “I Got You Babe” in the summertime, and Tom revealed that the backup vocals in his secret song were provided by members of Chicago. Their voices got quieter as the sun got dimmer, and the affection in her voice got easier to hear.

And I recognized her tone.

That’s Ramona’s tone when she’s explaining stuff about the kids at school to me, like why everybody thought it was so, so sad that Craig’s dad bought him a sedan after he wrecked his convertible.

That’s how Ramona talks to me when I’m dropping her off just before her curfew, and I have the engine running, but for some reason she just keeps laughing at all the things I say and smiling so beautifully, and I can’t believe that she even wants to just hang out with me. Make music with me.

Her voice was tender, heavy with love.

“‘My Life,’” Tom said quietly. There was a pause.

“Frank Sinatra?” Ramona asked.

“No,” Tom said, “Billy Joel.”

I opened my eyes. The sun was starting to set.

“You have
got
to be kidding me!” Ramona screamed.

Tom slid off the roof of the car and rolled his eyes. “It’s not that weird,” he cried as we climbed into the car.

“Yes, yes it is,” Ramona said.

Tom turned the car toward my place. Mom was making beef Wellington for dinner and wanted Tom’s and Ramona’s help eating it, if it turned out right and we don’t end up ordering Korean.

Ramona turned around in the front passenger seat to make sure I was listening in the back.

“He uses sound effects. Do you two understand what I’m telling you? Sound effects. Like car engines and work whistles. Wait—is that why you like Billy Joel, Tom? Is it the sound effects?”

“I don’t care what you say anymore, this is
my life
!” Tom sang, apparently over his shame. “Go ahead with your own life and leave me—”

All I’m thinking about is Ramona’s voice.

I always knew that she loved me,

because you know, friends love

each other. But her voice.

For the first time in years, I wonder

about the impossible.