Coin Heist (5 page)

Six

JASON

“This blows,” Chaddie
Galloway announced as we set up in a walk-in closet in our drummer Max's basement. “There's barely room to hold my guitar.”

When my mom and I were forced to move out of the headmaster's house, the band had lost the old stone carriage house out back that we'd been using as the Mixed Metaphors practice space. We had a lot of work to do to get ready for prom, so Max volunteered his game room for our Tuesday jamming sessions. Except his mom had already booked that space for her mahjongg group. She didn't want us to disturb her with our “racket,” so basically our only choice was to try and squeeze four dudes, all their gear, and their rock star dreams into the basement storage closet. It was a pretty nice storage closet, but still, we looked ridiculous all crammed together in there. Also? We couldn't smoke up before practice now, so everyone was weirdly anxious and high-strung. Or maybe that was just me.

“I'm sorry. We could look for a rental if this doesn't work,” Max said. He was the shortest of us, the smallest and the most timid, with a screechy little voice. But he had some sweet equipment, and therefore, he got to be our drummer.

“It'll work,” I said. The last thing I wanted to do was rent a space. It was too much effort. And too much money.

“I don't see how we're supposed to do it here,” Chaddie said. “What could it cost? A few hundred bucks a month?”

A few hundred I didn't have. “We'll figure it out,” I said.

“Figure out a new space? Or this one?” Chaddie pressed me. “The only way this one would work is if we get rid of some of the stuff down here.” He pointed to the shelves of boxes holding who knew what.

“Which we can't,” Max said. “Not allowed.”

I couldn't deal with Chaddie. Was this seriously what he was worried about? When the whole school was falling apart? I'd seen Dianne in the cafeteria that morning, and she'd informed me that the school had cut back the budget for the lunch program. “I think it just means we need to stop serving salmon,” she said, trying to smile. “So enjoy it while you can.”

I could see the worry in her eyes, though. And it wasn't just her. One of the security guys, Jed, told me they'd cut back his weekend hours.

It sucked for us, sure, but all these people who worked at HF, this was their
life
. This was how they supported their families. And I'd heard that rumors more cuts were coming.

Where was Zack when I needed him? I needed someone on my side—or at least to get Chaddie off my back. I checked my phone and saw Zack had texted to say he was on his way.

Late as usual. That was Zack. He always did things on his own time, and it usually included a stop-off at Wawa for a hot dog stuffed into a bagel. It annoyed me, yeah, but I usually just let it slide. Why make a big deal? Of course, right now I was eyeing up the door like a neglected puppy, waiting for him to come through.

My dad was still in jail. In the meantime, Ms. Coyle had come by to very politely explain that the school was taking back the house, since it was only supposed to be inhabited by the acting headmaster, which my dad no longer was. We had three days' notice to
vamanos
.

My mom and I had packed up what we could and moved into a little one-bedroom apartment down the road in a complex called Sagebrush, which sounded a lot nicer than it was. The walls of the building looked like cork and our unit smelled like rancid cooking oil, but it was okay. I mean, it was nothing like the headmaster's house, where there was a living room
and
a family room
and
offices for both my parents, not to mention a big fireplace and three bathrooms. The kitchen in our new apartment was what the realtor called a “galley,” I was sleeping on a pullout couch with zero privacy, and my mom and I were sharing a bathroom now, which was just . . . gross. “It's an adjustment,” my mom said. Understatement of the century.

Losing your dad, your house, and the life you'd always taken for granted? Yeah, I'd say that's an adjustment, all right.

I had to find a way to turn this around, for her and for everyone else. Dakota was right. It wasn't just us. This thing affected so many innocent people.
Maybe I could rob the Mint
, I thought idly.

Finally, Zack appeared in the doorway, guitar case slung over his shoulder, a white waxy Wawa bag crumpled in his hand.

“What's up, sucker?” I said, barely able to contain my relief.

“Sorry guys, I was hungry. I couldn't rehearse on an empty stomach.”

“Thank God,” Chaddie said. “Now we can actually start.”

We couldn't do anything without Zack. I mean, technically we were co-leaders, with Zack doing more of the management and me doing more of the creative vision stuff. We'd come up with the band together, but even though Zack was the lead singer, the name was my idea, and I'd written all the songs. I was also the one who'd come up with the idea of wearing clashing plaids at our shows. Granted, we'd only had one so far, but it had gotten us the prom. The prom was two months away, but now I was wondering if we'd even be ready by then. We'd already missed a couple weeks of rehearsal as we figured out the new practice space situation.

Zack wanted us to start with our best song, “First-World Problems,” which had a tight bass line and a jangly chord progression.

Chaddie counted off, but when Max came in off-tempo, he threw his arms down again in frustration. “This is really lame. I can't even hear myself.”

Maybe just my opinion, but a guy whose first name was Chadwick wasn't the best judge of lameness.

“Stop being a pussy,” I said.

“I'm not a pussy. This room is claustrophobic.”

“It's totally fine,” I said. I strummed a few notes and scraped my knuckles on the wall. Jesus, it hurt. But I didn't want to admit he was right, so I stifled my yelp of pain.

It
was
ridiculous, but as the person related to the person who'd caused all of this trouble for us, I didn't want them to know I was stressing out. Make adjustments, like my mom said. This band was the best thing I had going. The only thing, really.

I mean, it was important for all of us—I got that.

As we fumbled through the first few bars, I had to wonder. Maybe all this time I'd thought we were good because I'd been high. Because right now, hearing what I was hearing, I was pretty sure we sucked.

Max hit a few beats out on his snare and then pumped the pedal onto the bass drum. Zack cupped his hands over his ears. “Aagh. It's too loud.”

“I'm not even mic'd,” Max said.

“You're killing me. I can't hear my own voice.”

“What do you want me to do?” Max asked. “I'm trying my best over here.”

“Okay,” I relented. “Max, do you think we could try in your garage or something?”

“I guess my dad can move one of his cars when he gets home. But that's in a couple hours.”

We didn't have a couple of hours. We had
an
hour. Less than that, as we'd already wasted twenty minutes. “What are we playing at prom?” Zack asked.

“Dakota requested a bunch of covers. I have the list at home,” I said.

“Covers? I thought we were going straight original,” Chaddie said. “Covers are lame.”

“It's prom.” I shrugged. “People want to hear music they already know. And I promised Dakota we'd have some.”

“Then she should get a DJ,” Chaddie said. “I thought you of all people would want to play our own stuff, Jason. You're always saying we should do our own thing and not sell out.”

“I do want us to play our stuff,” I said quickly, not wanting this to turn into a thing. But even I had the good sense to know that high-school girls wanted something they could dance to. “Just not if it's gonna cause riots or flaming corsages and whatnot.”

“Flaming corsages,” Max said. “Maybe that's a song title.”

Chaddie put down his guitar. “What's the point of us doing it if we're just gonna flake out? Are we a real band or not?”

I laughed. “Of course we're a real band.”

He jutted his chin upward, defiant. “Yeah? Where are all the gigs you promised us we'd have by now? The all-ages shows in Philly and your friend's club in New York? How come we still don't have anything else lined up?”

Okay, so maybe I'd overpromised a bit—and maybe he'd picked up on that. It wasn't exactly a friend but an acquaintance of a guy I'd known at music camp three summers ago, who was now an intern at Mercury Lounge in NYC. And yeah, I had said I was going to go pound the pavement on weekends and get us some gigs downtown. It hadn't happened yet. I fully intended to—I'd just been busy. And then lately . . .

“We'll get them,” I said. “And we have a gig already, playing in front of the entire junior and senior classes. That's like two hundred and fifty people. You never know what that could lead to—”

“You're lying,” Chaddie cut in. “He's lying about the friend in New York.”

“I'm not
lying
,” I sputtered. Where was all this pressure coming from all of a sudden? “I just need to text the guy. Can we just focus here? I'm working on it . . . Zack, tell them.”

“Yeah,” Zack said unconvincingly. “You've said you're working on it.”

The truth was it hadn't turned out like I thought. I thought if I started writing great songs, the rest of it would fall into place—we'd have people begging us to play shows. We'd be legendary. But writing good songs was hard work.

“You always say this band is the most important thing ever, and you want to be famous and blah blah blah, but the truth is you haven't done crap,” Chaddie said.

What? Was he serious? “That's not true! I'm carrying all the weight here, all the responsibility. I'm doing things behind the scenes, spreading the word, trying to get us on college radio . . .” I struggled to think of other things I could/should be doing, but I was coming up short.

Zack tried to turn around to face me, only there wasn't quite enough room to fully rotate. “Look, dude, no offense, but maybe this whole thing isn't working out anymore.”

No no no, I thought.
My partner can't crap out
. “It's working out fine,” I said. “I don't know what the big deal is.”

“The big deal is we can't play in a closet,” Chaddie said. “Right, Zack?”

Zack shrugged to back him up. “It's pretty uncomfortable.”

“But we can't quit before our big prom gig,” Max said.

“How can we have a gig if we can't practice?” Chaddie asked. It was a chicken-and-egg dilemma. “It's your fault we're in this mess, Jason. So I think you need to take care of it.”

I knew what he was getting at. But if no one was going to mention my dad outright, I certainly wasn't going to.

“Okay. I'll find us a new space,” I said, finally. What else could I do? I had to just go with the flow, even if the flow was more shit. “Let me look around.”

“I've gotta go write my history paper.” Chaddie was already halfway up the stairs. Max followed him, saying he was going to get a soda.

Ugh. The doubt had already spread around like some green toxic gas in a cartoon. I could feel it hanging in the room, as everyone packed up the instruments they hadn't even used.

I wanted to be in a band. I wanted to be in a great band. The problem was, deep down, or maybe not even so deep down, I knew they were right about me. I couldn't be counted on to make it happen. It was just like my dad always said, that I stopped short of delivering the goods. No wonder he was embarrassed of me.

“Thanks,” I said to Zack once it was just the two of us.

“What? I had to air my doubts.” Zack chomped down on his sandwich, whatever it was. I wanted to grab it from him and chuck it across the room. And then what? We'd fistfight or something? We were best friends who hung out and debated the merits of Jarvis Cocker's vocal style. So instead I just packed up my gear and told him I'd call him later.

When I pulled the Jetta up to one of the spots outside the apartment, I found my mom waiting on the front step. She was all bundled up in her winter jacket and scarf, which made her look even tinier than usual.

“Where've you been?” she asked, standing up. “We have to go. Visiting hours are almost over.”

“I don't want to see Dad. I'm sorry, but I'm not going.” I had barely talked to him since he was put in the slammer. “I have homework to do.”

“Well, he wants to see you,” she said, all annoyed. “And really, right now? You're going to start doing homework, today of all days? Let's go.”

“It's cold out here,” I said. “You could have called.”

“I didn't want to use up our minutes. Let's take your car. You get better mileage.”

The Montgomery County Correctional Facility was a good half hour away in Norristown, a long way off from the Main Line. My mom sped the whole way, making me fear for the safety of my car.

She parked in the lot in back of the jail after a guard waved us in. I noticed two very large dogs barking and tussling around in the SUV next to us when we pulled up. It had an HF sticker on the back windshield.

“I guess Harold Smerconish is here,” my mom said.

“The trustee guy?” I asked. That was good news. Maybe he was here to tell my dad how they were going to rescue the school. “You can go in without me. I'll watch the car.”

“The guard will watch the car. This is a prison. No one's going to steal it.”

“What about escaped convicts?”

“I'm not going in without you, Jason. You're coming.”

My voice was hoarse, like something was caught in my throat. “I don't want to. Mom, please.”

“Look, Jason. This isn't easy for any of us. But you sitting out here pouting is just going to make my life more complicated, okay? Because then I'll have to explain to your father why his son is abandoning him. Don't make me do that.” She put her cold hand on my arm, and I noticed her diamond engagement band was missing. She was only wearing the slim gold wedding band, and there was a pale spot where the other one used to be.