Ache (5 page)

We get back to our rehearsal space and Todd drives by Tonya’s van and stops by the front door.  Actually, it’s a converted gas station that’s tucked in between an old industrial park and the railroad tracks that split the town — just like the cliché.

Tonya, she’s the singer in our band and even though we all help pay for the rehearsals space, it’s not very much, I guess she knows someone and gets it cheap.  We were just happy when she joined the band and invited us to use the space.  We were jamming in Todd’s garage before, but his parent’s bitched constantly and the neighbors didn’t exactly dig our vibe.  We were going nowhere and then she showed up.  She even has a P.A., what more can two growing boys want?

Once upon a time, the garage bays were being converted into one big office or retail space or some shit, but they never finished.  Metal studs and half complete drywall partitions line the room, the glass garage doors are still there and open up to our main rehearsal space.  Tonya lives in the converted supply loft upstairs.  Apart from the oil stained floors, it’s a pretty sweet set up, especially since it’s been my home-away-from-home for a while now.  We call it the
Garage
.

“See you later, dude, I have to go by work and pick up my check,” Todd says over the top of his shades.

“You want fries with that?” I ask.

“Kiss my ass,” he says, scowling.

I grab my shoes, duffle and shopping bag from the backseat and wave as Todd races out of the parking lot.  He’s always in a hurry, like it matters when he gets his check, but he seems to be having a good time just the same.  I think he’s bogarting the secrets to happiness.

I see that Keg Vomit’s van is gone.  They hit the stage last night wearing matching striped shirts from the sixties and were all sporting medium length blond hair that they had pushed to the side.  We thought they were going to do Beach Boys songs all night, but they torched the place, very intense.  We met them after the show and besides being a great band, they were a blast to hang out with, so we invited them over.

Everyone in the scene needs each other, not many are making any money playing punk, and hotels aren’t in the budget.  We’re still trying to be a big fish in a small pond, but lots of touring bands end up crashing with us and for the most part, they’re pretty cool, like they are staying with family — family they don’t owe money to. 

I open the door and walk in to hear Bow Wow Wow blasting, asking if I want candy.  I turn down the mixer.

“Tonya, you should keep the door locked,” I shout up at her through the balcony of the loft above.

I dump my things on the remaining case of beer and fall into the couch.  I look up to see Tonya leaning over the half-wall of her balcony.

“Be right down,” she calls.

I hear her rummaging around and then she turns the corner of the stairs.  Tonya is an enigma.  She always wears oversized flannels over t-shirts and baggy chinos with waffle-stomper boots, regardless of how hot it gets.  They m
ake her look heavier, frumpy, but it’s hard to tell because she seems kind of petite too.  She has big brown eyes, smooth skin and a light complexion that makes her look younger than her nineteen years.  Her hair is a shoulder-length mess of purple and red.  She’s wearing an old, baggy sweat suit now that says
Property of North
, which I assume refers to the High School on the other side of town — the one I didn’t go to — and those white pom-pom socks that I’m sure frequent those same high school halls.

She was really shy and acted a little weird when we first met.  But when she joined the band earlier this year, we hit it off just the same, and we just kept getting closer, but over the last three days, since she picked me up from the Emergency Room, it’s become something else, something special.  She looks at my stuff and then steps up onto the couch and collapses down over her legs, tucking them underneath.  She looks small sitting on the couch like that.  She leans her head against my shoulder and takes my hand, cradling it.

“Was your dad there?” she asks.

“No.”

“Want to talk about it?” she asks.

“Not really.”

“Okay, you know I’m always here, right?”

“Yeah, thanks.  Thanks for everything.  I’d have been fucked without you this past year.”

“I’m your friend.  Friends don’t abandon each other, thick and thin.”

I squeeze her hand and lay my head against hers.

“What did you buy?” she asks.

“I thought the bloody shoes were a bit much, might wear them on stage though.  I got some Reebok hi-tops.”

“White?”

“Of course.”

“Socks?  Underwear?”

“Who wears underwear?”

“Commando? Gross.”  Her cheeks flush.  It’s cute.

I laugh.  “Yeah, I got some from the house, which reminds me, we can’t use my dad’s washer and dryer anymore, so I need to go the Laundromat later. 

She sits up.  “I didn’t think about that.  This totally sucks.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Yeah it is.  The Laundromats are super nasty, my shoes always stick to the floor and I don’t even want to think about what that is,” she says as she holds her toes.

“I’m out of clean pretty much everything.  I have to go.  Give me a ride?”

“Yeah.”  She grins.  “You know what the worst part is?”

“What” I ask.

“I’m going to have to do my clothes there too.  Your dad really does suck.”

“Because of the laundry?”

“Well, yeah, why else?”  Her grin turns sheepish.

“But we’re not going to talk about it, right?”  I remind her.

“Yeah, but Connor, I do need to talk to you about something.  Can I talk to you, honestly?”

“Always,” I say.

“I mean, really honest?”

“Yes.”  I lean forward so I can see her face and look at her with concern.

She looks up at me, those big brown eyes all serious.

Her mouth gets small.

I’m suddenly worried.

She turns away, pauses dramatically and then looks back up at me with puppy dog eyes.

“What?  What?” I ask.

“You stink, dude.  Can you please take a shower, like soon?  Please?” she says through a grin.

I lift an arm and sniff and then look at her again.  “What?”

“Grody!”

She stands up and pulls me to my feet.  “Let’s take care of your head first.”

“Yes, Mom
,” I answer.

She leads me up the stairs to her small apartment.  It’s really just an empty room that doesn’t even have proper walls or a closet.  The bed is made with a lavender quilt and she has a small teddy bear resting against the pillows.  The walls and exposed framing are painted a deep maroon.  A clothes rack on wheels sits out from the wall amidst piles of clothes.  A space heater is the only other thing in the room.

Fortunately, the one thing they did finished during the renovation was the bathroom.  It’s wrapped in white tile and has a real shower with real water pressure.

She guides me in and sits me down on the toilet facing the wide mirror on the wall behind.

“This may hurt,” she says and carefully pulls the ski cap off.  She grabs a few hair clips and pulls my hair away and pins it up to reveal the bandages.  Blood is soaking through.

“You need to take it easy, but it’s not as bad as it was yesterday,” she says.

She gently pulls at the edges of the bandage and begins to remove it.  I can feel it pulling at the scabs, it hurts, but nothing like it did — it’s more of a dull ache now.  I look up and see the concentration on her face.  I can see how careful she is trying to be.  The tip of her tongue is sticking out.

“What’s your story?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve known you for almost six months and as far as I know, you’re like Jason Bourne, I mean before you joined the band.  We never talk about you.  Family?  School?  Ever had a boyfriend?  I haven’t even seen any friends, what gives?”

“Jason who?”

“He’s a character in a Ludlum book, doesn’t know his past, never mind.”

“Hmm, you guys are my friends — we don’t really talk about you either, do we?  But none of that stuff matters anymore.  I don’t know if it ever did or does, family that is.  As for boyfriends, men are pigs, don’t you listen to my lyrics?  Except for you, you’re not a pig.”  She kisses the top of my head and drops the used bandages in the trash as she goes to the medicine cabinet.

“No, I’m a pig too.  I think it’s genetic or something.  But being a pig isn’t the same as being an asshole is it?

She retrieves the medical supplies and sets them down on the vanity.

“Close call,” she says.

“You didn’t really answer my question.”

”I don’t know, maybe I just haven’t met anyone yet, you know that special guy,” she says, waving jazz hands in the air.

“I think you go out of your way not to meet anyone.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“No, I’m serious.

“Do you miss school?” she asks, changing the subject.

“You mean high school?”

“Yeah.”

“I never thought about it.  We started gigging so much I just sort of stopped going everyday, and then one day I never went back.  I would have graduated this month, theoretically speaking that is.  Funny, I didn’t even think about it.”

“I feel bad about it, like I’m kind of responsible or something, like I should have pushed you more to go.  You only had a few months left.”

“You’re making the assumption I was passing any of my classes,” I say through a laugh.

“Well still, h
igh school can be so much fun.”

“Hey, you know what?  The band is cool.  Don’t apologize for what we’ve accomplished, everything started to happen when you got here.  Besides, it was miserable for me.  You did me a favor.  Everyone knew way too much about my family-time and I got picked on a lot, well, I used to anyway.  Not a lot of friends back there since Todd graduated.  I figured you’d have been picked on too.  Not so much?” I ask.

She grins in the mirror from behind me, steps over in front of the vanity and then she slowly begins to slide down, her head sinking behind me.  I turn and see her doing the splits, bouncing on the floor.  She leans over and touches her nose to the floor, and then she gracefully slides to her knees and stands back up.

“If we had more space I could show you a few other things.”  She winks.

“Okay, holy shit and all that, but I give,” I say.

“I was a cheerleader and pretty competitive in gymnastics,” she says as she wipes the blood away from my scalp and wounds.

“No shit?  You?”

“Well, don’t act that surprised.  I was little Miss Popular.”

“I just never figured.  A Cheerleader, wow, popular?”

“I think I’m a little offended,” she says through a fake scowl.

I start to respond and then flinch.

“Be still.  The stitches seem okay, but you’re going to have some nice Frankenstein scars,” she says.

“So what happened?  Bad breakup, what?  What sent you over the edge?”

“People change, that’s all,” she says while smearing the medical goo on the cuts.

“It was only two years ago.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes things happen fast.”

She grabs the scissors and starts cutting the medical tape.

“Hold out your fingers,” she says.

I hold my hands up and she starts sticking strips of tape to my fingers like streamers.

“In h
igh school, I had guys chasing me all the time.  I could take my pick, but now, I don’t know why I’m alone.  Why can’t I find a nice guy like you?”

“Who said I was nice?”

“You’re one of the good ones, Connor.”  She stops and stares at me in the mirror.  “You really are.”

I don’t like it when people say stuff like this, because it always rings like bullshit — I know better.

“Now that I think about it, there was this one guy, just after graduation.  He kind of swept me off my feet one night, but he blew me off and never called,” she says and gives me a funny look.

“Any guy that would blow you off is an asshole and doesn’t deserve you,” I say.

“Yeah, so what’s your excuse?’ she asks.

“For what?”

She looks away for a moment.  “I mean, you don’t have a girlfriend, why not?”

She starts pulling strips of tape off my fingers and applying the gauze bandages.

“I’ve had lots of girlfriends.”

“I mean a real girlfriend.”

“Oh, one of those.  It’s been a low priority for a few years.  My life has been what sociologists clinically refer to as a cluster-fuck, I saw a special on PBS about it.”

She grins.  “So what’s up with the Cameo?  That your Mom’s?”