Breakout (22 page)

“Yes, so he tells me,” Ms. Tiernan goes on, peering at me like she’s an intelligence officer who’s going to get me to confess no matter what. “But you could be lying to him too.”

“We’re not!” says Keenan.

Ms. Tiernan makes a clicking sound with her teeth. “You know, I think we’re going to have to cancel the Rock Band Club performances for tomorrow night.”

“What?” It comes out as a shout but I can’t help it.

Her reply is made of ice: “I am not going to have my students shouting the f-word at a public event.”

“That’s so unfair!” I say. “You’re punishing us and you don’t even have any proof! Not to mention ruining the night for the other two bands.”

Ms. Tiernan looks straight at me for a second, and I can see her wheels turning. “Okay then, Anthony, you know the rules of this school. Give me your word I can trust you to obey those rules tomorrow night, if I let your band play. Can I trust that you won’t let your band, or the other bands, down?”

I just stare at her. I want to burn her with my eyes. And I want to yell it at her all over again, how all I did was write
a song about how I felt and she’s
wrong
to censor it,
wrong
to make me promise not to be true to my art, to sell out,
wrong
to trap me like this, like she doesn’t respect us at all! I want to tell her all of it but
I already told her
, and what good did it do? She won’t listen. She never does.

So I square my shoulders and suck in my gut and nod and glare at her straight in the eye and say, “Yes.”

“Keenan?”

“Yep.”

“Valerie?”

Valerie studies the tips of her drumsticks, then she meets Tiernan’s gaze. “Yes.”

Ms. Tiernan stares at me again, a computer spinning, and I think,
Ha. Called your bluff
.

“Okay,” she says. “It’s my policy to believe a student who gives me his word. And I trust everyone to respect this community and its rules.” She stands up. “Sorry to take up your time, Mr. Darren.” She heads for the door.

“No problem,” says Mr. Darren, eyes still on his fret board.

Valerie peels a sliver of wood off one of her sticks.

“Oh, and one more thing, gentlemen,” Ms. Tiernan says from the doorway. “In case I didn’t mention it: I’m sure you realize that there will be major consequences if you sing those lyrics onstage. Suspension, kicked out of the Rock Band for the rest of the year. And not only will you be throwing away the rest of this year with Mr. Darren and this program, there will be a note about this added to your permanent record that will stay with you through high school and beyond.”

“Okay,” I say, almost sounding enthusiastic. Bring it on, Mein Herr!

When she’s gone, it’s quiet. We get out our axes. Once we’re set up, I step to the mic and Mr. Darren is looking at me and I can’t help saying, “What?”

“I know why you might be thinking of doing it,” says Mr. Darren.

“We’re not going to!” says Keenan.

Mr. Darren shrugs. “I’m just saying, from one musician to another, I understand it.” He starts to pluck at the Killer G riff. I’m expecting him to say more but he doesn’t.

“We’re not going to,” Keenan says again, and I’m like,
Shut up, you sound guilty!

“I heard you,” says Mr. Darren, and when he looks up at us he’s smiling, but it’s less than usual. Tired, is how it looks. And while I’ve seen him make that face so many times, now he’s joined the ranks who’ve made that face because of me. “Okay, Valerie, let’s rock it.”

And we do. We play and it goes well. I’m getting the hang of the motorcycle/bazooka control that is playing and singing. And it all sounds good. Good enough that I have some spare brain space to replay the conversation with Tiernan, to feel my anger rise, and to think:

I’m sorry, Mr. Darren, I know you’re exhausted, and I’m glad you understand, but
they
don’t
.

And that’s why the doubt is gone.

Tomorrow night we’re busting out of the stalag once and for all.

I barely say a word to anyone all day Tuesday and it is like that motor in my body has been cranked up two notches and is spinning at 7 now, and so my heart rate and my breathing are too quick and then everything else around me seems to be in kind of a blur, like I’m outside of time or something. It feels like that all day, until Mom is about to drive me over to the school that night. I have to be there early for sound check, and then before we go I get completely stuck standing there in my room trying to figure out what to wear.

I feel like now I completely understand why Jake Diamond has a personal wardrobe consultant, because this is way too much to worry about. I never care much about what I’m wearing but suddenly it completely matters because there are going to be hundreds of people watching us and we are going to be rock stars and if that’s not a time to make sure you look good then I don’t know what is.

I try the blazer and T-shirt look:
sucks
.

T-shirt only:
sucks
.

Untucked, unbuttoned button-down over T-shirt:
sucks
.

And so in the end I leave my room with a storm of clothes all over the bed and floor, and there I am in the car wearing my same dark gray hoodie sweatshirt that I always wear and the same baggy jeans and the only thing different is a new maroon Zombie Janitors T-shirt. The top of the design, a mop handle that has a corpse head impaled on it, is just visible. I’ll just be me, is the idea. Everything else looked even worse.

“You nervous?” Dad asks me on the way.

“Kinda,” I say, which means
yes, so much
.

“Will you be playing with a music stand, or have you memorized the words?” Mom asks.

I can see right through this question. She wants to say something about the old words, but she’s trying to tiptoe around it.

I feel like snapping at her but I have to keep my cool. “I can’t have a music stand onstage,” I say, like that idea is ridiculous. “But I’ve been practicing. I think I’ve got them.”

I wait, wondering if Mom will push it further. “Well, just do your best,” she says. “We’re very proud of you.”

You won’t be
, I think, and I don’t like that thought, but still: doing what’s best for me is not what’s best for them. And there’s no way they’re going to understand that.

They drop me off and go for Thai food, saving me some for after. I find Keenan in the student lounge. His journey to the indie-rock side is complete now that he’s wearing a ratty
white long underwear top that hangs down from beneath an old Posies’
Frosting on the Beater
T-shirt.

We know the drill so we roll the amps down the hall and onto the stage. Their wheels rattle on the wooden floor. The chorus risers fill the middle of the stage so we put the amps to either side, plugging them in and flicking them to standby to warm up as we get our axes. I am just plugging Merle into the Marshall when a light shines on me. I look up, squinting through the bright center spotlight.

“Rusty Soles.” Mr. Darren’s voice echoes from the back of the arcing rows of seats, where the sound and light boards are.

I get a solid hum from the amp and then hit an E chord. The sound blasts out into the room. There is something great about sound check, about cranking it up in a huge empty room that will soon be full but right now is just yours. Keenan thumps the bass and the stage floor vibrates and that is
rock
.

The door squeaks open and Valerie shuffles in carrying the hi-hat and the snare drum on its stand. She’s wearing a fancy dress, like with a high-belt waist, and it’s kind of lavender and has frills that end around her knee. She’s got a dark green cardigan over that. Her hair is straight with big blue barrettes on either side.

She sees me checking her out and says, “My parents thought I should dress up. I tried to kinda make it too dressed up. You know, sort of subversive.” She blows at her bangs. “Not sure it worked.”

“No, it totally works,” I say, and try to smile as I say it because she really does look cute, and that look on a girl who
will then bash on the drums is pretty amazing. Seeing her makes the motor crank higher inside for what feels like a hundred reasons: being reminded that I like her, but also that she doesn’t believe in what I’m about to do.

She smiles at my compliment, then puts the stands down and starts offstage. “Can you guys give me a hand with the rest?”

Keenan and I follow her and I get the floor tom, she gets the bass drum, and Keenan grabs the rack tom and the other cymbal. We are all nervous-quiet as we walk back to the stage and set her up in front of the risers.

“Guys, run a mic cable for channel one, okay?” calls Mr. Darren. “Then monitors.” I loop a cable out from the direct input box on the stage floor, and then Keenan and I lug the two monitor wedges from the back and set them up at the front of the stage.

We tune and check our levels, and when Valerie has the drums all positioned Mr. Darren says, “Okay, play a few bars.”

We launch into the Killer G riff and sound explodes through the empty hall. I sing a little, miss a chord and worry that I can’t do it, but then settle in. I point at the ceiling to tell Mr. Darren to turn up the monitor, and we play for another minute, then stop. Our sound echoes into the dark. It’s a lonely sound but an amazing feeling.

Then we clear our guitars and the Bespin Mining Guild comes out to run their song. The Random Sample never did find a replacement singer, so tonight it’s just the two bands.

Keenan and I head down to watch from the seats. We sit
in the back row, just in front of the soundboard. That’s where things always sound the best. I look to see if Valerie will come sit with us, but her dad arrives and they sit near the front.

While the sixth graders play, and Mr. Darren checks the different banks of lights, I slouch down in the red fabric chair, watching the way our instruments shine in the lights. Merle looks like a work of art, except for the “Merle,” and yet that’s cool too because it has history. I wonder what other stages she’s been on. Has Merle been to New York already? Toured the world? And is she going to channel those far-off places tonight? Someday I’ve got to track down the original owner. I’ve done searches online but I’ve never come up with anything.

“You ready?” says Keenan.

I feel the motor inside clicking up to 8, making my fingers twitch. I’m not sure if it’s just that we’re performing, or what we’re planning to do, or all of it combined. One thing that helps remind me why we’re here is to think of Ms. Tiernan’s face and her ultimatums yesterday.

“Yeah,” I say. “Totally.”

Parents start to arrive and the room slowly fills up. The place is half full when we hear shouting from the entryway.

“Rusty Soles!”

“Wooooo!”

We look over to see Skye, Katie, and Meron moving away from Skye’s mom, who brought them, and hopping and bouncing their way over to us, all dressed up with their hair and makeup freaked out for the show. They have an
R
and
S
on each cheek.

“Rusty Soles rock!”

We’ve been saving them seats. Skye drops beside me and gives me a big hug. “How you feeling, rock star?”

I immediately glance in Valerie’s direction, but she’s not looking back here. Then I think,
Who cares if she is
? “Good,” I say, trying to hide any evidence of my speeding motor, because a rock-and-roll front man should be cooler now than ever.

Each time Skye and Meron and Katie spy a group of middle-school kids arriving they shout, “Woo! Rusty Soles!” and most of the kids look over and smile back but they don’t respond because they’re walking in beside parents and grandparents. Mica and his emo friends are on their own, and they respond with whoops and cheers that turn a lot of heads. Also, Mica catches my eye and flashes me the devil horns. I give him a serious nod. He and his friends seem ready for the moment.

Then I see my parents and sister come in. They don’t sit near me, but still I feel the motor inside kicking up to 9.

The room fills and the lights go down for the chorus. As they walk onstage, Skye leans over to me. “Everybody’s ready,” she says. “We’re all going to jump up and sing when you do. It’s going to be a rebellion.”

“Nice,” I say. Motor to 10. I picture POWs in drab coveralls
swarming through a blown hole in a concrete wall. I picture me at the front. I swallow big.

“You probably won’t even get in trouble,” Skye goes on, “since it will be all of us, and they can’t punish everyone.” She reaches over and takes my hand. I look down to see that we are holding hands. It feels like too much. More than I can handle.

“Right,” I say, but I also think about how the men leading the charge are usually the first to get gunned down.

The chorus begins. They’re doing some sad piece about Christmas from like a hundred years ago. The mother sitting next to me has a program and I see that the chorus is doing five songs, and then Bespin, and then us. Two songs in, Skye leans over to me and her hair touches my cheek and she whispers, “Hey.”

It’s the kind of
hey
that’s
important
, and so I say, “Yeah?”