Pop Kids (37 page)

It’s 2:36 am when we reach the bovine scented North Bay town. Before we became the Gods of The Greats, Lynch and I used to come here to see bands play at an old theatre on Washington. Tonight, there was a hardcore show there. I think this is where our envoy got his hand stamped.

As we speed into Petaluma, Bickle suggests that we either drop Sparky off at the hospital or at the address that’s on his ID. I insist that we leave him behind the Phoenix. If he comes to, he’ll hopefully presume he’d been beaten up at the show for being a drunken prick. If he dies, I at least won’t have to worry about him remembering anything.

Standing guard at the gravely mouth of the deep, dark alley, I’m infinitely grateful to be texting while my muscle handles all the manual labor involved in our totally fucking annoying task.

Bickle carries Sparky to the end of the dusty path. Next to the dumpsters, he unwraps and deposits the body onto a splintered box spring. I tell him to save the sheets. He balls them up, brings them back, and stuffs them under the boots in the El Camino’s bed.

On the freeway, I cue up Morrissey. He sings, “
I want to start from before the beginning,”
over the voice of Ol’ Blue Eyes. The three of us sit, silently pressed together as Cruz drives the speed limit.

When our driver pulls over to pee behind the abandoned gas station, Bickle confesses.

When we arrive at the littered WAMU lot all is quiet. But Bickle’s words are looping through my mind.

I need to clean. With an armful of soaked sheets, I step into the desolate street.
It’s too late.
I look toward the hills where my parents are soon to be making breakfast. The sun is almost up.

I drift into The Palace. I pace across the empty ballroom. Springs eerily creak beneath my steps. In an unlit offstage bathroom, I douse bloody rags with thoughts of Stella, her TV show, Blake, Mr. Snow, The Premieres, Sparky, and Gina’s pancakes. I burn the sheets in the sink. I watch them smolder until they’re completely clean.

Saving my tie from the lost-and-found, I follow the still flickering Path of Prayers up to the purring Camino. I fall in and we peel away from the curb.

With my eyes still stingy from the smoky incineration, I thank the guys for all their help. Bickle hugs me. Cruz says, “Love you
Miguelito
.” They leave me at the end of a driveway in the nicest part of town.

I creep through Lynch’s door. I step over Star and Alvin then tiptoe down the hall. Morning light seeps through the blinds onto the California king. I undress, tie my wrinkled tie over my eyes, and crawl into Al’s disheveled sheets.

This is too tight. I loosen my blindfold. A virgin, draped in diaphanous, white shark-screened silks, encircled by a ring of fire, descends through the ceiling. Slipping between the purple satin, she swaddles me like the Christ child for McQueen.

“I missed you tonight.” I look up into her beaming greens. “Did you get my text? We shoulda hung out. Even if Gina was ruining my chances with pie, I know I woulda had a better time. Sharks are cool. I have a picture of you in my locker now. I don’t know if I can handle this.” As my eyes well, Holly joins Frankie in song.

It has to be me
.

Chapter 56

In her kitchen, Gina is packing my PB&J while I, scanning for any mention of a body found behind the live music venue of a nearby town, flip through her Monday paper: pumpkin growing competition; drunk cyclist arrested on ‘Bike to Work’ day; Interview with the baker at Cherie Cherie.
Good.
Still nothing. I grab my lunchbox and kiss the chef. She asks why I need my shades in this type of weather. “Just because it’s cloudy doesn’t mean that I can’t be seen, Mom.” I dash to the Deville.

Rolling into the flats, I ask Lynch if he’s heard anything regarding Bickle’s correctional service. He hasn’t.

“You. Need. To settle.” He turns up his voice with The Stooges. “Nasts like that get beaten up all the time. It was probably just another night out for him. Focus on your future man. You’ve got a huge party, a hot girlfriend, and a virgin with a vibrator who’s begging you to be the one. You’d better start dealing with that cuz if you don’t make it happen soon, someone else will.” He points to himself.

“Fucking yeah, dumbass!” Alvin springs up from the backseat.

I didn’t even know that he was here. Checking my hair in the sun visor, I sigh.

“I know. If I’d just hung out with Holly on Saturday, I’d have nothing to worry about now.” I pull open my eyelid and drop in Visine.
I’m getting better at this
. “I called her last night to see if she wanted to come over to touch or just hang and talk or whatever, but she had too much homework.” I palm the saline tears from my face. “We were on the phone for an hour. She didn’t say anything about our date or The Premiere.” I sniffle. “…Did you know that there are invisible sharks?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Lynch stops one-handedly texting and points his phone at me.

“It’s just the eye drops—”

“I’m talking about fucking a virgin and you’re talking about marine fucking biology. You called her to see if she wanted to come over to ‘hang and talk?’ What are you? In love?”

“C’mon man.” Blinking in the mirror, I see Alvin filming the Sweater Girls, walking up the hill in their rain boots. “I just want to be first. With a girl like her you can’t just—”

“Oh can’t you? Or are you just in fucking love? You are, aren’t you Mike!” Throwing himself over our seat, Al turns his camera on me. “What’s it like being in fucking love? It’s like Black fucking Sabbath ALL the fucking time, right? Right. I know. Do you wanna have babies? Little bleached blonde babies with green contacts? You’re getting old fucker, time to breed!”

I snatch The Flip cam, turn it off, and toss it in the backseat. Silencing, Al fetches it and resumes filming. The Grave-cutters at the cemetery gates strike tragic poses.

“Woah! Wait! He’s right! Your birthday’s this week, Hugh Grant! Eighteen!”

I’d almost forgotten. It’s this Friday.
I wonder if Holly knows.

Lynch shakes me by the shoulder.

“We’re doing it big this weekend Mike! Three in a row! Sunday matinee!” He pounds the steering wheel detailing our duty. “For your birthday! It must BE!”

“I’m totally in!” Alvin turns the camera back on me. “Fucker?”

I was planning to spend the entire upcoming weekend with Holly. But I mustn’t be short sighted. If we can pull off three Premieres in a row, it would be like the Oscars, VMAs, and AVAs all rolled into one. And if Blake heard about it, he’d for sure want to do a show about me.

I put on my shades and smile to the camera.

“I’m in!”

“Fuck yeah.” The brothers rejoice in unison.

It begins to rain as we cruise into Valley View.

Chapter 57

The buzz about my video has died down. I only miss it a little. With the way things have been going, I’m thankful that a ‘Live From the Fuck-it Premiere: It’s Teen Orgies and Murder’ video clip didn’t mysteriously appear on Stella’s blog this morning. When the break bell rings and the phones come out, I toss my D+ into the lab’s recycling bin and try to catch up to her. “Hey Babe, wait up.” She doesn’t stop
. I wonder what her problem is.

“Babe!” I call out again then watch her curvy pink pea coat disappear toward the art buildings.

It’s fine.
I’ll tell her about my birthday aspirations later.

Beneath my old Sponge Bob umbrella, I pull my Cherie Cherie bag from my Sherman and stroll toward the cafeteria. Someone is sitting at my spot against the wall. She’s slouched over. Oh, and she’s sobbing.
Great.

“Hey Ash.” Hovering over The Twin looking down and chewing dried cranberry, I hold my scone out as an offering. “What’s going on?”

“Michelle’s gone, Mike.” She looks up. There’s a clarity in her puffy blue eyes that hasn’t been there in months. Her hair is soaked. She’s shaking. “Mom and Dad sent her away.”

“Why?” Fearfully, I wave my pastry like a crumby magic wand. “They didn’t find out about the party did they?”

“No.” She bristles. I exhale.

Terribly relieved that my scone spell worked retroactively, I take another bite as she turns away to stare through the drizzle and into the gloom of the empty campus.

“They found out that she’s pregnant. Michelle is pregnant and they found our pills. They took away our fucking pills.”

“Oh, good.”

“Good?” As if I’d ratted out Roxy, Ash turns back to me with a terribly hateful glare. “How is that
good
?”

“Oh, um…” Covering my mouth, I chew and clarify. “I just meant that it’s good that your parents don’t know about the party … and that you guys are off the pills. It’s sucks about MK, though, for sure. … You’re not thinking about telling them how it happened are you?”

“Of course not.” She seethes.

I wonder when she stopped wearing her crucifix.

“And stop calling her MK you fucking freak. Her name’s Michelle.” She palms her red cheeks. ”They sent her to live with my crazy fucking aunt in Florida. They want us separated and they’re talking about rehab and exorcisms. …” She looks away. “But I’m not sticking around for that bullshit.”

“No, no of course not,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say.

I dodge her sober glare, checking to see if the straggling snackers are alarmed.

The rain has driven most of school indoors. The few students braving the elements are running beneath umbrellas to find shelter. Ash sobs again. Crying, the mascara-smeared twin in four-hundred-dollar jeans melts in a rain puddle. The storm is building.
This is bad.
Moving in, clicking my lighter, I shield her from public view.

“I’m gonna get her out of there.” Over my metallic cry for salvation, with muted impunity, she defiantly insists, “Star is gonna help me. I’m leaving tomorrow. And I’m not coming back.”

“That’s good. That’s fabulous.” I soothe, supporting the runaway. “You two shouldn’t be apart … and Star’s cool. She’s like full on adult. And she’s loaded. It’s f—”

Sinatra’s voice crackles through the school’s PA. My skin shrinks.

“Do you hear that?” I pan the campus in horror.

“Yeah, so what?”

“Um…”

The song disappears beneath the warning bell.

”I mean … we should probably go to class.”

Ignoring me, the leftover twin digs a little box from her purse and pops a pill.

“Okay, well, I can’t be late for Pope. He’s such a hard-ass.” I back-step. “So … message me. Tell your sister to message me too.”

As I flee, I begin to recall all the good times I’ve had with the excommunicated.

“Um … hey…” Pausing, I turn back to her and hesitantly ask, “Is MK having the baby?”

“They say she has to.” Ash stares down, through the rain, tapping out a text.

“Do you know whose it is?”

“No Mike.” Snapping her head up, she threatens a life sentence. “We don’t know. How the fuck could we? Maybe it’s yours.”

Okay.
Solemnly, I nod in acquiescence. Then retreat.

It’s fine.
I’ve survived last weekend. This is nothing.

“Hey, Mr. Pope.” Happy to be the first to show up for Calculus, I shake out the thick layer of black moths trapped under my yellow umbrella.

“Mike!” My teacher turns from his sprawling chalky equation. His face drops. “Are you okay? Are you crying?”

“Oh, no.” I dab my cheeks with my bandana. “It’s just really coming down out there. Everything’s fine.”

Chapter 58

“Maybe I should start using the condoms…”

“It could be anyone’s man.” Lynch dips a cluster of fries into a chocolate shake. “You’ve seen Michelle’s scenes.”

A pink-haired girl from the Christian Club squeaks by in plaid rain boots. A flyer for a harvest party lands on our table. I light it and drop it into my lunchbox. Transfixed on its writhing deterioration, I consider some desperate actions of termination. It could be rather ceremonious if I were to close The Palace on my birthday.

“…Or maybe we should say fuck it all and shut down. Some Interscope guy named Sammy just messaged me. We could just use The Palace for Band FAIL! practice. Or maybe we could do study groups down there—”

I can’t believe that my ever-licentious co-host is advocating ending our party. I don’t like it. I was just thinking the same thing. But I don’t like it. Hearing Lynch’s doubt doubles my own.

“Fuck that.” Wounded, I snap shut my lunchbox. “It’s my birthday.”

“Dude, like I’d seriously suggest canceling your birthday? Like we practice. Settle.” He pours the remainder of his coffee into his shake and takes a steamy gulp. “This weekend is gonna be legendary.” He points across the packed cafeteria. “And you’d better bring me her as a party favor.”

Cream, sitting with a table of monochromatic girls, keeps talking to Periwinkle.

“Sorry man.” Smelling fetid, burnt propaganda, I pick at my PB&J. “I’m just all rattled.” I wave away a trace of escaping smoke. “I promise to bring you at least one of the sweaters.”

“Killer. I’ll getcha something good, too.”

“Hey, have you talked to Stella?” I ask, as he twists the orange frosting from a halloweeny Hostess cupcake. “I think that she gave me the wrong email for Blake. I tried to ask her about it but she’s being a real bitch today.”

“She’s pissed about you canceling the first Fuck It.” He obscenely licks lard.

“What? Why?” In disbelief l scan the moist, fluorescent-lit tiles for Hello Kitty. She’s standing in the pizza line with Mia. “So, Stella disappears for a week, doesn’t return my texts or calls, doesn’t ask Blake about me, doesn’t even respond to the Fuck-it invite, and now she’s all pissed off about last Friday? That’s TBS.”

“Yeah, but I think it was more about you canceling the party to try to bang your soon to be wife.” Shaking his head, sucking in, he hisses through a tickled grin. “I think that’s why she’s burned.”

“Wait. How did she know? She wasn’t even in town.”

“I don’t know man, ever heard of the Internet? Chicks talk.” He offers me his second Hostess. “Maybe Holly told her.”