Ivyland (17 page)

AIDAN /// IVYLAND, NEW JERSEY ///
LAST WINTER

Normally you'd spot Henri from afar, his oversized aviators glinting like an SOS in the distance, but the dark dulls their polarized lenses as he surveys the stage—well, a vague section of sticky floor that sags less than the rest. Sipwell's never did strike me as a performance space, even before it took down the sign outside and went speakeasy.

Once noticed, of course, Henri sticks out like a gangrenous thumb, stumbling and panicked against a wall of weak neon script advertising the Adderades you probably can't even buy here, trying to look everywhere at once. He struggles to move a keyboard held together with duct tape, leaning it against a wall.

“There he is!” Phoebe says long after I've spied him, as he pushes through the grizzled regulars and recognizable IC seniors and even some professors. She slips a finger into one of my belt loops and tugs me an atom's length closer. A happiness echoes somewhere behind my Adam's apple, contained. I press two fingers on the small of her back; she smiles and downs the last of a crude sex-on-the-beach equivalent.

“How does one pluralize that drink?” I ask, my temples humming.

“Sex on lots of different beaches,” she says, grabbing the bartender's attention as Henri appears behind her.

“Audience's a little restless,” he notes, more wired on stage fright now that he's dispensed with setup. Someone starts counting into the mic.

“Screw them, we're the ones who count,” Phoebe says.

“Glad you could tear yourself away from scholarly pursuits,” Henri fake-sneers at me. I laugh. Phoebe kneads one set of knuckles with the other. We both do.

Peals of drunk laughter ricochet through the dinginess, overwhelming the self-introduction of a solo acoustic act. An especially wasted woman, oblivious to the amateur hour, pumps some quarters into the jukebox and puts “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” in direct conflict with Acoustic Boy's strums and wailing woe, and Jesus but you have to admire this kid for doubling down, yowling a whole lot louder, funneling newly minted anguish into his song. Jukebox Lady twists and bops next to the machine, swigging pills from a fat Belltruvin bottle, hip-checking anyone who tries to dance with her or cue up a new song.

“You better be good,” Phoebe says. “But I know you will,” she adds, terrifying and assuring Henri in one breath.

“Thanks.”

“Why are you wearing those stupid things,” I say. “
I
can barely see.”

“I'm worried Grady won't find me otherwise—he has this thing with facial recognition.”

“Who?” I ask. Henri starts to tell me, but I'm busy patting my jeans, trying to divine from the thickness of my wallet whether I or Phoebe paid for the mystery gin and tonic in hand.

“ … and he can't like it there, I think he'd be happier with a little more independence,” I hear Henri saying. “Not that his family would agree, but you gotta worry about what'll happen to him when his prepaid stint is up.” Whatever this is an answer to, I regret asking.

Acoustic Boy is met by a mounting blizzard of boos for his music, followed by cheers at his exit. A sweaty squiggle of a guy with a fifty-dollar electric guitar wanders on, mumbles into the mic with overwrought apathy. He twangs a chord incorrectly and warbles over it:

 

I remember the gang-rape well …

I remember the gang-rape … WEH-hell …

 

Sometimes I have a hard time believing Sipwell's, supplier of felonious booze or not, is still in business. Over in one corner sit some crew-cuts from high school, in their matching Endless-sponsored cop uniforms, fittingly enough, graveyard of Belltruvin bottles standing within their circle of mugs. One of them, Ed from the looks of it, spills beer on a guy at the next table, who yells himself hoarse about it till Jack pulls him creepily close and whispers in his ear.

“This guy isn't serious.” Phoebe asks. “I mean, am I really seeing this?”

“I think he's good,” Henri says. “These songs come from a real place—he's fearless.”

“O, that is such bullshit,” Phoebe informs him.

“Cheers, everyone,” I announce, and the three of us clink glasses. Once in a great while, the worries that drag you down from minute to minute shrivel and fall away. This ceasefire between pain and joy holds a special place, I tipsily decide, not as the happiest but most
satisfying
time I can remember, pleasures obvious and small and easy to come by, all wounds temporarily sealed.

Clouds of unreal colors widen and contract as Sipwell's itself gets fast-forwarded, conversations ebbing and exploding and lapsing into silence on eerie schedules, bathroom breaks increasingly common, especially for Henri, who excuses himself for marathon sessions. Six drinks deep, I miss the bowl completely but correct myself, reliving an intense memory of spewing cocktails in the stalls of a condemned but still-operational London pub the semester previous, or maybe in Paris, a binge winding through three of a few thousand soulless discothèques where pills even the FDA would hem and haw over appeared in glass candy bowls carried by indifferent waitresses
.

Following the gang-rape one-off: an atrocious punk band, an equally atrocious pop-punk band, a medievally dressed woman whose poetry reading comes to a merciful halt when a beer bottle sails over her shoulder and explodes against the brick wall behind her and a pair of Belltruvin-addled slobs, who demonstrate a host of intolerable sounds on turntables and bongos.

“There he is,” Phoebe suddenly shushes me, if I was even talking.

Onstage, Henri (also a little buzzed, the trained eye confirms) fumbles a bit erecting his synthesizer stand. He heaves his trusted Korg atop the thing, which emphatically collapses, drawing spattered applause.

“Sorry, sorry,” he pants into the mic. I finish a drink.

“You keep that up, you'll wake up in a SurfHog parking lot,” Phoebe says.

“That's the plan. Slumber party?” She's putting her palm to mine. My fingers curl over the tips of hers.

“Ahem,” starts Henri. “Thanks for coming.”

He searches the crowd. Even with expression-killing aviators on there is an aura of sheer hysteria building itself up around him, pressure mounting as our night lurches into its logical blackout. Crowd's thinned out. People have quieted down, moved from the boisterous groups into poker-faced or sleepy or fiercely sexual pairs that speak only in body language. Henri taps the mic, already knows it's on. Phoebe's hand tracing my spine up and down stirs the thought:
I wish he'd get this over with.

He glances in my direction and introduces himself as “Caligula's Horse.” The synth makes a tiny pop when he plugs into the amp, and one keystroke brings a drone to life. He adds floating arpeggios. Major chords, nonetheless icy and sad. It's a perfect song until Henri sings, in the defeated voice of a foghorn:

 

Your twisted thoughts

Made an interloper

Kill himself

 

The more there are

The louder you shout

To try and drown them out

 

Your sleeping face

Stillborn

At once unafraid

 

You lying there

It's your little spine

It fits into mine

 

I will not run

Unless you want me to

I will not stay-ay-ay-ay

Unless you tell me not to

 

[Instrumental break, with noodling organ on top of bent metal notes, electric plinks riding precisely up and down the octaves. “Holy shit,” Phoebe whispers, not impressed or sarcastic, only surprised. I'd heard Henri's melodic figures gestating in the house over the month we've been roommates, but never foresaw a cohesion like this. I'm not aware of the bar, nor an intoxication, nor the insults people surely must have hurled at Henri, who keys into the measured rhythm of my blinking.]

 

And when we try to warn the others

They will not part from their mothers

And so we shuffle away

Just you and me again

 

It's such a stupid metaphor

That I'm passed out on the floor

In my dreams, I sadly stare

I'm just too happy to care

 

Those little lies

Piling up

Over the years

 

And now you're shy

Well it's too late for that

It's far too late for that

 

If you're walking down the aisle

Arm in arm and smile to smile

 

I will not run

Unless you want me to

I will not stay-ay-ay-ay

Unless you tell me not to

 

And when the fire starts to grow

Ships will sleep and cease to glow

And so we shuffle away

Just you and me again

 

Nobody said it would be fair

This never-ending ni-i-ghtmare

In my dreams I sadly stare

I'm just too happy to care

 

Curtain of electronic burbles withdrawing, the room again surges with grime and beer stink.

“That was … new,” Phoebe says. “What was it about?”

“He's probably not sure himself,” I mumble.

Around the stage, a few patrons are taking the extra trouble to get up in Henri's face so he can be absolutely sure to appreciate how much they resent his being alive. Henri, docile to the point of duckling-hood, clops softly about, gathering up equipment. I push my already muted applause down to a golf clap, fearing mob-exacted punishment.

One heckler jumps up and down, stretches a pale twitching hand out to Henri. He sports a schizoid haircut and filthy pajama pants. Curiously, Henri doesn't brush away this dude's hand but shakes it, pumping hard.

“Who's that?” Phoebe wonders aloud.

“It must be …” I snap my fingers, pretending to search for a name, as Phoebe gazes stage-ward through the bottom of a whiskey rocks. Henri makes a path to the bar, rubbing his eyes, and orders the same.

“Need a stiff drink, do you?” I grin.

“We thought you were great,” Phoebe tells him.

“And I guess we kind of still do,” I say, poking Henri in his shoulder and getting an oddly painful shock. Pulling back my finger, a second, smaller charge leaps the gap from him to me, actually visible as a bright blue spark. “Did you see that?”

“See what?” Phoebe asks. Henri chuckles and flashes his worsening teeth.

“He shocked me.”

“So?”

“Was a
serious
shock. What'd you do, roll around on a carpet?” Henri is entering one of his childhood giggling fits, but he's phony about it. I laugh anyway, maybe grateful.

“I forgot to tell you,” Phoebe gushes without warning, sweeping a bowl of nuts off the bar with her arm. “I got a job! It's at this catering place that does weddings—”

“You told me,” Henri stops her, giggling.

“Didn't think I did.”

“Fieldcrest Manor, right?”

Our silence is broken by the weirdo that Henri shook hands with, who pops his head into our circle. It's when Phoebe moves to allow him entry that I see the too-big hands, the major neck that comes with boosted testosterone.

“Henri!” he crows. “You were the best of all.”

“No,” Henri says, releasing him after a moment's embrace, “
You
. My number one fan! Grady, I want you to meet my friends, Aidan and Phoebe. Want to say hi?”

“Hi!” Grady bleats.

“Grady lives over at the Harvey House,” Henri continues, and, unhappy as it makes me, the entirety of my reaction is reduced to:
a Hallaxor kid
?

“How do you like it over there?” Phoebe says, taking it in stride. He grins back. Phoebe tries again: “How do you like Harvey—”

“Harvey House is the tops,” Grady tells us. “We can have nicely helpers anytime.”

“Good, good!”

“Phoebe … outside for a cigarette?” I ask.

“They let you smoke in here.”

But I've already grabbed her elbow much too hard, leading her through packs of old men who nod like puppets as we pass. I glance back. Grady's hugging Henri like he forgot they already hugged.

“Ow, Aidan, let go,” Phoebe protests. “Stop.”

Outside is warmer than January's ever been in this town, and neither of us actually has cigarettes.

“Since when do you smoke?” Phoebe remembers to ask.

“Listen, what the fuck was that—Henri's hanging around with Hallaxor kids?”

“This what you brought me out for?”

“Partly.”

“Can't you be
nice
?” she says, setting needles of high school memories scrabbling along the underside my skull. “I think it's sweet. You jealous of someone?” She sways, eyes closed.

“Okay. Ha, ha, you caught me. Jealous of all that brain damage.”

“Come on. You say it like he's a criminal.”

“I know, okay, but here's what I'm saying: le dee da, Henri has a mentally not-good friend who yes, I'm sorry, was a victim of tragic medical fuckups. But this guy, it's going to be my house he barges into when he gets some  .  .  . desire to see Henri, which I'm guessing will be rather frequent? You know how they get, he'll obsess with him and shit, and  .  .  . why am I even explaining this? You know it'll be an issue. I mean, how would you like—”