Beige (14 page)

“I am a musical illiterate,” I say.

But when Grand-maman sits down at Noël to play the standard Christmas carols, I always open my mouth and sing with her. My voice is just a high, shy, scratchy, whispery thing next to hers. I sing softly, as though I don’t know the words, but I do.

“No, you’re not,” Garth says.

“I am, I swear.” I indicate the wall with a wave of my hands. “I have never even heard of Elliott Smith.”

“I bet you have.”

“OK,
maybe.
But I don’t know punk.” There, I said it, and he didn’t cringe.

“Sure you do.”

“Name a band. I bet I haven’t heard of them.”

“Bad Religion.”

“Nope.”

“Dead Kennedys.”

I shake my head no.

“Rancid.”

“Is that the name of a band? Gross.”

“Suck?”

“Um . . . maybe?”

Garth laughs, like belly laughs. Then he puts his arm around my shoulder, like he needs me to keep him standing up because he’s going to fall down from laughing so hard.

“Oh, Beige, you are the funniest girl ever. Canada isn’t that much in the Dark Ages. There are like fifty million amazing bands from there. Beige, admit it: you live under a rock, don’t you?” he says.

My face feels hot. I shrug.

“I bet you have heard those bands and you don’t even know it. I’m going to make you a mix CD, like a punk primer. I’ll start with the basics. But I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”

“Why would I take it the wrong way?”

“Well, because you know, it’s a
mix CD.
”

“So?”

“Well, I’m a boy and if I give you a mix CD, you know . . .”

I don’t know. Why won’t he just tell me?

“It’s just a mix CD,” I say.

“Yeah, exactly. But it would strictly be as friends, OK? Just to get you up to speed.”

I don’t really think I want a mix CD, but I don’t want to hurt Garth’s feelings. He’s so into it. He starts naming bands and songs he thinks I’ll like. And I just nod and go along with it. He can make me the mix CD. I don’t have to listen to it. I can just say thank you.

“You know, a lot of cool bands were really influenced by Suck. I even have some covers of Suck songs that I’ll throw on there.”

He claps his hands and smiles at me.

I smile back. I smile to hide my loss for words. My complete lack of awareness about all things music.

“I knew you’d understand,” Garth says.

What it is it about music that captures the imagination of everyone I know? Why does everyone want to be a musician?

Music is dangerous. You could end up like Elliott Smith, stabbed right in the heart.

When I get home from hanging out with Garth, I find The Rat in the living room, shaking.

“I’ve had a really bad day, Katy,” he says.

“OK,” I say.

“Do you know what I want more than anything else in the world?”

I don’t say anything because I know this is not the kind of question you answer. It’s rhetorical.

“I want to get fucked up.”

I am standing there like a statue. He turns and faces me. His face is wet with tears, from frustration or rage, or both. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know how to help.

He clenches his fists. He punches the sides of his legs. It makes an irregular beat, which makes my heart break.

“Am I hungry? No. I ate. Am I angry?” The Rat looks over at me and shakes his head no. “Am I lonely? Tired?”

That’s when he starts to shake more.

“Wait. I
am
angry. I am fucking pissed off. Stupid same shit. Stupid Sam. OK. You’re angry at Sam, Beau. That’s OK. You’ve been angry at Sam before, and you’ll be angry at him again.”

He rubs his hand on his head. He goes to the closet and disappears inside, to the safety of the drum kit, and bangs away, maniacally. I am still standing in the living room. I am sweating, and I want to take my sweater off, but I don’t. I’m frozen in my position. I’m standing still as a statue in the living room, watching the closet door, and listening to him and the faint familiar thuds as he crashes his sticks on the cymbals.

I have never seen Mom do anything like this. Or has it been offscreen? Has Mom just gone into the bathroom and closed the door and drawn herself a bath? Has she just maybe made sure that I only ever saw her strong? I don’t want to move because I want to ask someone a question, but I’m at a loss for words and there is no one to ask. All I can do is listen to The Rat drum the pain away.

He stops his drumming. He comes out of the closet. His sticks look sharp in his hands. He holds them like daggers. He looks at me. I am still standing in the same place.

“Every single day I wake up and I want to get fucked up. Every day. Every day I have to remind myself of the reasons why I don’t want to. Every day I have to say, ‘Today I’m not going to use (1) Because it’s killing you. (2) Because your hands are steady when you drum now. (3) Because you got banned from Canada for it. (4) Because it took you away from your little girl.’”

His hands unclench from the sticks he was holding on to like weapons, and he lays them down on the coffee table. He takes a breath. He looks at me, with clear eyes. The wildness in them has receded. He smiles.

“It’s OK. You know what they say, Katy? They say this: HALT. You most want to do drugs when you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.”

He rubs his head. It looks like it needs a shave.

“I’m OK. It’s going to be OK. Did I scare you?”

I nod.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

I finally take off my sweater and breathe. I sit down on the couch.

“Do you know how cool you are, Katy?”

“I’m not cool,” I say. I tug on the holes in the knit blanket. It’s like touching my mom. It makes me feel safe.

“You’re cooler than I was at your age,” The Rat says, joining me. “Your mother did a great job.”

He leans over and squeezes my shoulder, or maybe he’s trying to hug me.

“When I was fourteen, I was smoking dope and getting drunk,” The Rat says. “I think your mom had run away twice by then. I gave myself my first tattoo when I was thirteen. See?”

The Rat flicks his wrist open to me and points to an ugly little skull and crossbones on his wrist. It is pathetically ugly compared to the other tattoos he has covering his arms.

“Why didn’t you cover it up? It looks ugly next to the rest of them,” I say.

“This one was my first. If your body is a map of your life, then I don’t want to cover up where I came from. I’ve covered up other stupid ones I got. But that one, that one is special.”

After falling into a lull for a while, I break the silence.

“I’m going to check my e-mail,” I say.

I leave the living room. I don’t want to hear about Mom with him and their wild ways right now. I don’t want to be reminded of how different I am from them.

I want to make my own decisions. I want to do what I want. But I’m scared.

They didn’t listen to anyone but themselves. But look where it led them.

Although she comes to hang out at my pool almost every day now, Lake won’t get into the water. She doesn’t swim, ever.

“I don’t get wet,” she says.

My skin is all pruney from staying in the pool for too long. I stayed in hoping that it would be just long enough for Leo to show himself. But there’s been no sign of him. I pull myself out of the water and start to towel off.

Lake is following her usual routine, sitting in a lounge chair, fully dressed, with a big hat on so as to avoid the sun, scribbling lyrics into a composition notebook. Garth is still in the pool and he swims up to me and Lake, but he doesn’t come out and join us. He hangs on to the edge. He is looking up at Lake, kind of gazing at her. Whenever he sees Lake, he is always trying to get her attention. I think I know why he is staying in the water so long. He probably doesn’t want Lake to see his boner.

“I think I’m, like, a nihilist,” Garth says.

This makes Lake look up from her notebook, kind of curious, but with a wary eye.

“A nihilist?” I ask.

“I believe that it is necessary to destroy the current political and social institutions to enable the future improvement of them.”

“I know what nihilism means,” Lake says.

Well, I didn’t. I was glad for the definition. That’s an interesting word.

“Yeah, like school needs to be destroyed,” Garth says to me, but really it’s for Lake’s benefit. He’s trying to impress her. He’s so transparent. “School is an archaic institution.”

“So why do you go then?” Lake says.

“My mom makes me,” he says, and then shrugs. “My mom says I can be whatever I want once I’m eighteen, but as long as I live under her roof and eat her food, I have to be all talk and no action.”

“I like school,” I say. “I wouldn’t want to destroy it.”

“Why?” Lake asks.

I think about it.

“Books, knowledge, learning,” I say. But as soon as I say it, I realize that I’ve been getting all those things at the Los Feliz Library.

“And socializing,” I add. “Boys.”

Lake shrugs. Meaning my answer is OK with her. At least it’s honest.

Maybe I
don’t
need school. But if I say that, then there will be a flaw in my saying that I like school. I’ll have to take it back. And I don’t want to. I
do
like school. I do like
going
to school.

“If he is a nihilist, why is he always wearing an anarchy T-shirt?” Lake says to me, like Garth isn’t there, right in front of her, hanging on to her every word. Like she doesn’t see him.

Now I shrug. Meaning I don’t know. Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer.

“He should at least wear the right symbol,” Lake says. “It’s a nautical star or a backward
N.
”

“Yeah, well, anarchists, nihilists, you know, they are both rebellious,” Garth says. “They are both antiestablishment, and that’s what I am.” I can tell that he’s a bit upset. He wanted to look and sound cool to Lake, and she’s shot him down.

“And just FYI, if you were a real nihilist, you wouldn’t listen to your mother,” Lake says, laughing. “Mama’s boy.”

That must give her an idea, because she opens up her notebook again and scrawls something down. When she is done scribbling, she gets up.

“I’m outta here,” Lake says. “I’ve got band work to do.” She leaves.

Garth looks crushed. Like maybe he thinks I’m not so interesting, like the party is over now that Lake is gone.

“Want to make some sandwiches?” I say. “I’m kind of hungry.”

He nods, so I hand him his towel so he can get out and not be embarrassed. He towels off and we walk up to the apartment.

Garth doesn’t say anything. He heads straight for The Rat’s drum kit and sits behind it. He takes out some sticks from his messenger bag and starts to air drum. He doesn’t dare hit the skins.

Maybe it’s just the chlorine, but his eyes are a bit red, like he’s been crying.

He stops air drumming.

“I know that there is a difference between anarchy and nihilism,” he says. “I just get them mixed up sometimes.”

“It’s an easy thing to do,” I say. I don’t tell him that I didn’t even know that there was a difference.

“You could hit the skins,” I say. “Go ahead.”

“But they’re The Rat’s drums,” he says. “I couldn’t.”

“The Rat says that pounding them makes him feel better.”

“I say that, too!” Garth says.

“See?” I say. “So you know, he’d probably approve.”

“You sure?” he asks.

“Go crazy.”

Garth starts smashing on the skins and the cymbals and just letting it all out. Maybe it is better than crying. Maybe it’s the same thing.

I think about that as I close the door to the soundproof closet and go into the kitchen and start making sandwiches. I put the yellow cheese slices on the bread to the beat.