Breakout (23 page)

“Anthony, I just want you to know, your song means a lot to me.”

“You told me,” I say. Motor to 10.5.

“No, like
a lot
,” says Skye, and her voice gets closer to my ear and more whispery. “Listen, you can’t tell anyone, but it’s the reason I broke up with Keenan.”

Uh-oh. “Huh?”

“I mean, I was wondering what to do anyway, but then I was awake at like two a.m. that Friday night and Keenan texted me that the song was up. He probably thought I’d hear it and it would make me like him again, but when I heard it … all I could think about was
you
.”

I am trying to process this and I realize there are things I’m supposed to say right now, hundreds of movie lines, but it’s not happening and then I realize I’ve let like three seconds go by and Skye is staring at me so I say, “Okay.”

Skye stays by my ear. “You stood up for something real. You gave a voice to everyone who can’t. That’s so amazing. I want to do that someday, but you’re doing it right now. I believe in the song. I believe in you.”

My thoughts feel confused. I think about how when I came up with Flying Aces, I was thinking about wanting to change things, but then also I think about how I just wrote the song because it was how I felt. I wasn’t trying to give anyone a voice. I was just feeling things. And I think about Skye and her causes, and that she’s right, there are things worth fighting for. But fighting for a sparrow doesn’t break any school rules. She’s not going to get suspended over Winky’s romantic life.

“I know you’re totally focused on the show,” says Skye, leaning even closer, and this time it’s like she’s breathing all the way into my ear, and the warm air almost makes me flinch. I start picturing those diagrams of ear canals from science class and how they connect to your throat and you have all these weird sinuses in the back of your head and stuff. “We can talk after it’s over …,” she says, “and
more
.” She touches my chest with her index finger, right on my sternum.

I feel like there is a balloon exploding in my head, making it impossible to think. I figure maybe Jake Diamond would go for the silent approach right now, so I try that too, because on the one hand, I smell Skye’s coconut conditioner and maybe
even for a second picture that summer sunset over the water and taste the weird sweet metal taste of Lake Washington and picture the
more
she is talking about after the show. But then I am also checking again to make sure Valerie isn’t nearby.

Skye kind of huffs. “Don’t you want to be with … me again?”

She means going out. Of course she does, and I realize I am probably an idiot for suddenly feeling like I did not see this coming, because,
duh
, Anthony! This has been coming like the Luftwaffe on a clear morning. Or maybe I did know but I’ve been trying to avoid dealing with it, hoping it would go away. It seems to be doing the opposite of going away. And I like Skye! Don’t I? She gets this whole thing with the song. She gets me … I think. Ugh! I need more time to figure all this out! Why can’t it wait until
after
the biggest show of my life?

And so I just try to stall: “But you just broke up with my best friend.”

“I don’t think that’s a problem.” Skye glances over to Keenan and Meron and so do I and, oh …

They’re totally making out.

Okay, well, so much for playing the
it would hurt Keenan
card.

“Yeah …,” I say.

Then everyone is applauding. The chorus is finished. Which means I’m free from this moment with Skye, but also …

Motor to 11.

It’s time.

Keenan pulls his face from Meron’s and stands up.

“I gotta go,” I say to Skye. “So, you’re sure everybody is really gonna sing?” I ask, and maybe now you can even hear the motor humming in my voice. “You know where the right spot is—”

Skye cuts me off. “I know the song by heart. Everybody does. You’re going to be amazing.” She gives me the big serious eyes and says, “Good luck,” like I’m an action hero about to break into the evil genius’s lair and defuse the nuclear weapon. I nod and stand up fast before anything else can happen.

Keenan and I head backstage and we help the chorus kids move the risers. We slide the drums to the middle of the stage and roll the amps to either side and then the Bespin Mining Guild comes out.

Me and Valerie and Keenan stand behind the velvet curtains listening to Eric, James, and the rest of the band. They are rough around the edges, but I’m glad to be near their music. It gives me an excuse to not speak because the motor is running so high right now I feel like it might overload.

My hands have started to shake. I’m fiddling with a pick in my pocket and can feel the cold slick of sweat on it. I am thinking,
This is it, you can do this, this is the moment and you are going to do this
, and at the same time I am wondering if I am going to throw up or what.

And then the sixth graders are done and it’s showtime.
Keenan walks by me and pats me hard on the shoulder and gives me what I guess is some kind of meaningful look. “Let’s get those Nazi bastards,” he says with a cowboy drawl.

I nod and want to say something back but my voice feels stuck. I catch Valerie glancing at me. “Hey,” I say to her. She turns to the stage, holding her sticks with both hands and her knuckles are white and I realize again that this is her first real show ever. Her big debut. Keenan and I have been here before, but Valerie hasn’t. Every second of this is new for her. “Good luck,” I say. “You’re going to rock.”

She nods, her mouth scrunching, and then she says, “You too.”

We both stand there for another second, the sixth graders shuffling past us with their gear. In this last moment, I feel like I want to say something, but I have no idea what.

Then Valerie says, “It’s been fun playing with you.”

“Huh?” But then I realize that she’s saying this because of what will probably happen to us when it’s over.

“Yeah,” I say, “you too.”

“It would’ve rocked either way,” she adds, and then heads onstage.

It takes me a second to understand what she means, but then I realize she’s talking about the song, about the words, and I’m filled with doubt again. Now I just want to run in the other direction because to go out on that stage means no turning back.

Standing there, with my motor revving out of control, my heart pounding, hands shaking, I wonder: what was I even
thinking wanting to be the singer, writing those stupid words? Everything just feels like a mess now, but I try, I try
so hard
to tell myself,
Anthony, no, you can
do
this. This is
your
time
.

“Come on,” Keenan calls from the stage.

Okay. Deep breath. Here we go.

I walk out. From the distant back of the auditorium I hear Skye give a “Woo!” like I’m something special. A couple other kids do it too. That’s cool.

I take Merle off the stand and sling her around my neck. The crowd was chattering but now they are quieting down. Mr. Darren lowers the houselights and the sea of murmuring faces disappears into the dark.

Mr. Darren’s voice comes over the PA. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he booms, “the Rusty Soles!”

Everybody cheers big.

I look out at the dark silhouettes of heads as the sound washes over me. Wow.

Yes
.

And then the lights flash on. I can barely see anyone in the blinding white. I glance back at Valerie, bathed in crisscrossing blue and red, and nod at her.

She nods back, all business, and like a total pro she clicks her sticks four times.

In this last millisecond I feel a kind of sheer lightning bolt of energy, like what will happen next, what will I do can we or what I—

And then we are in.

Now there is just music. Mr. Darren times the lights to Valerie’s kick drum, pulsing on and off, and I finally feel okay. It’s not just the auditorium anymore, it’s the Vera Project, it’s New York, the basement club like we’ve imagined. Here we are.

I stand with my guitar against my hip and dig into the Killer G riff. I look at Keenan and he’s head down, doing the same. We’re locked in with Valerie and it’s tight, but I barely have a chance to enjoy it because after one time through I have to sing.

As I step toward the mic, the first verse coming at me like a wave, I think,
I am ready
—

But then I realize that I didn’t remember to change the mic stand after Tyler and he’s a lot shorter than me and so I have to kind of hunch over to get to it, and my lip bumps into it, and the mic gives me an electric shock as a welcome but here is the verse and there is no time. I try to control my hands on the guitar and strum the open G chord and the vocal is slipping up and out of my throat, and here we go—

And then we’re through it and I survived.

Valerie’s kick drum thumps. She adds in sixteenths on the toms for the second verse. Nice. Mr. Darren speeds up the lights to match. Is she playing those cool paradiddles? I want to glance back and see—

But
whoa
, I have to keep concentrating, because here comes the next verse, but already I am looking past that, toward the end of the song, like the end of a game level, coming at me.

Hundreds of people out there.

Am I really going to do this?

I know what I felt, but am I really going to shout my real lyrics into this room?

Wait, have to sing—

I’m barely keeping up but the words get out and are mostly the right notes.

My eyes flick down to the front rows of the crowd at the edge of the stage lights. It’s not a crowd of Vera Project teens
but instead parents, younger kids, grandparents, the exact mix that Ms. Tiernan was talking about.…

My eyes skip away but as I’m pulling them back in I spy Mein Herr herself, leaning against the side wall, arms crossed, a few feet from the stage stairs, and I realize that Ms. Tiernan is in position for battle. If I do it, she’s ready to sprint up here in her spiky heels and kill the song and apologize to the crowd. She is looking at me and I am looking at her and it is a showdown glare and
I hate her
.

Her stare says,
You gave me your word
.

Mine back says,
I will show you
.

And then the third verse arrives.

But my sweaty hand slips on the neck and why is it suddenly a thousand degrees up here? And then my next chord is a half step too high and ahhh it sounds terrible—

I jerk my hand away and have to look down at the fret board. Have to get my hand back to the right fret—I’ve totally forgotten how to play!

Which chord—

But Keenan is still laying down the riff and I find the
chord again except then I miss the beginning of the next lyric line and barely finish it.

The words jumble in my brain, skipping, I’m chasing them but they’re like a truck rolling ahead of me just out of my reach.…

And we have reached the change to the Flying Aces part and I look down and say to my hand,
Please get up to A and make the bar chord
, and yes! Somehow it gets there.

And then we are in my part, my first songwriting ever. We are here, live onstage playing a part that came completely from me, and that’s amazing and I want to enjoy it but all I can think about is what’s coming, because now we are heading toward
it
, and it’s like my head is crowded with a thousand voices, like everyone is shouting their opinions at me all at once and nothing is clear anymore and the universe is noise.

Mr. Darren puts a pure blue light on me. It feels like a force field beam, like I exist in some private universe.

The lead singer. Alone.

Keenan and Valerie are in greens and reds together outside it. I can barely see them.

Beyond that, in the dark space, the audience is waiting.
Waiting for me to come through. Some for me to sing my song the way it’s supposed to be, to be the hero. And some for me to prove myself as either a
Fine Upstanding Student
or a
Dangerous Element
, and then some others having no idea what is coming and if they did they would probably leave or cover their children’s ears.

Ahh my hand slips again on the neck and I hit a C-sharp instead of the D and there is a moment of uncertainty, the universe askew as half-step notes grind against one another. I swallow the lyric and how am I supposed to play and sing and be all these things at once? And I feel like,
No
, that’s it, no. I can’t do this. It’s too much. What were the changed words again? Forgive this place? No, that wasn’t quite it and this is all too much, I never planned on this. I just wrote a song! It was never my idea to show it to the world or make a school-wide plan or

But no! I can do this! I’m not going to give up. This is my chance and what am I if I don’t sing
my
song? All I am is some stupid fat kid who plays video games and who doesn’t do great at school and all I’ve got that I’m good at and maybe even
great
at is music and everything else sucks and if I don’t grab this and go for it then someday I am going to be arguing about
sound checks with my bassist for two-bit shows in between hospital visits for my bad circulation when life has passed me by and
I have to do this!!!