Super Fake Love Song Page 8

  For now here were all the tracks the Mortals had ever performed, in various states of development. I already knew almost all of them. The ones I didn’t know were named Vocals Rough or Random Beats 08 or Untitled Project 32—scratch ideas full of stops and starts that could not even be called songs.

  And there, at the very top of the list—meaning the most recent—was a file called Beauty Is Truth Final.

  BEAUTY IS TRUTH IS BEAUTY IS TRUTH IS

  I hit Play.

  To understand my reaction to this track, it would help to understand the typical Mortals song, which like all power pop punk hewed to a precise click track and traditional song structure to produce something like:

  VERSE 1 → CHORUS

  VERSE 2 → CHORUS

  BRIDGE → CHORUS

  “Beauty Is Truth” did not hew to traditional structure. It did not hew to anything. It was seven minutes long—twice the length of a typical song. Its tempo fluctuated anywhere between anthem slow and mosh-pit fast. It jumped around all over the place, ignoring genre boundaries. Mapped out, it looked like this:

  FREEFORM INTRO → VERSE 1 (ROCK) → CHORUS A

  EDM BREAKDOWN → CHORUS B → VERSE 2 (ROCK)

  BRIDGE 1 (TRAP) → VERSE 3 (ACOUSTIC) → BRIDGE 2 (A CAPELLA)

  FINAL CHORUS → OUTRO (TECHNO)

  I finished the track. I examined the iPod with amazement. I tightened the headphone band on my head.

  And I listened again.

  The song got better. I could not understand how it did that.

  By the fourth listen, I knew enough of the lyrics to mouth along. As I did, I held the framed photo of me and Gray, and I discovered I wanted to cry a little.

  As far as I knew, Gray worked on this song in secret during his senior year of high school. The song had never been performed onstage. It lived only on this forgotten device. Gray hadn’t told anyone about it. Why not? Did he think people wouldn’t like it?

  Why hadn’t Gray ever told me about it?

  The song ended—again—and I found myself shaking my head with wonder.

  The song was the most Gray thing I had ever experienced. It was pure Gray.

  Like characters in a game, all people are born endowed with specific magicks. Unlike games, however, that magic depletes over time without careful cultivation and care. Very few people possess the strength to hold on to the magic for very long. It gets even harder as the vine of magic grows thinner and thinner, eventually becoming as thin as a desiccated branch that breaks off with a snap.

  Gray’s song—“Beauty Is Truth”—was magic.

  I wished I could tell Gray that, but Gray didn’t seem to be listening to anyone right now.

  Sleepy. I doffed the headphones, stood the guitar upright. Clicked off the amp.

  BEAUTY IS TRUTH IS BEAUTY IS TRUTH IS

  Did the wheel start with Beauty? Or Truth?

  I went to my room and lay on my bed. I hadn’t put on my sleep cap or night guard or anything yet, but found I didn’t care right now about halitosis or proper cephalic thermoregulation or the perils of unchecked bruxism.

  I just lay there missing Gray, even as he slept just two floors away. I looked at the orange-stained photo of us.

  I took a tissue and carefully wiped as much of the orange off as I could, set the photo aside, and clap-clap, turned out the light.

  Shame

  Thursday. After school.

  With fingers still sore from music practice, I adjusted my desk lamp and opened my notebook.

  DIY FANTASY FX—SUNNY DAE

  I took the tiny pen from the tiny knight and wrote Prop ideas.

  I had ten minutes before it was time to head to Cirrus’s house before the football game, so I figured I would get some brainstorming done.

  I spent the next four minutes doing nothing but tapping the pen.

  Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

  Cir-rus-Soh. Cir-rus-Soh.

  I looked at the page. It was freckled with ink.

  Knock-knock, went the door, and Dad poked his head in. He wore a suit. He was staring at his phone.

  “Dinner’s downstairs if you’re hungry,” said Dad.

  “I’ll just get something at the football game,” I said.

  Dad looked up with alarm. “Since when do you go to football games?”

  “Cirrus has never seen one,” I said.

  “Cirrus?” said Dad.

  Dad lowered his phone and gazed at me with crystal eyes.

  “Dad,” I said.

  Dad gazed at me with crystal—

  “Dad!” I said.

  “Right,” said Dad, “anyway, so, cool, hey, I wanted to ask your help.”

  “Press volume up, volume down, then hold the side button,” I said.

  “Not my phone,” said Dad.

  “Up up down down left right left right B A Start,” I said.

  “The Inspire NV has forty-eight cameras both inside and outside the vehicle, all constantly recording, with audio,” said Dad.

  “How is that okay?” I said.

  Dad shook a finger. “And! Did! You! Know! All the videos are on the Inspire customer portal.”

  I squinted. “Did you want to show me thrilling footage from your commute?”

  Dad gripped his phone. “Someone keyed my car. What kind of GD MF-ing A-hole SOB would pull this kind of BS on me?”

  “On the car, not you,” I said.

  “God, the optics!” said Dad.

  “Optics?” I said.

  Dad pinched his nose. “Now everyone’s gonna think, What did that guy do to deserve getting keyed like that? That guy must be some kind of douchebag!”

  “It depresses me how people blindly believe their car is an expression of their value as a human being,” I said.

  “You’re not helping,” said Dad. “Anyway: I can’t seem to log in to the Inspire portal.”

  “Did you use your finger?” I said. “Did you use your face?”

  “I don’t do that stuff,” said Dad.

  Jhk jhk, went my phone. I had changed the ringtone from Elf shot the food! to a snarling snippet of Dave Grohl’s electric guitar from a Foo Fighters intro.

  Ready when you are, wrote Cirrus. Ride your bike.

  You got a bike?!? I wrote back.

  Jhk jhk. Cirrus sent a photo of a gorgeous small-wheeled folding bike sitting in an empty bedroom. Was it her bedroom? Did all the rooms look like that in that condo of hers?

  “I’ll take a look at it later,” I said to Dad. “Gotta go.”

  Dad glanced at his gold-diamond-unobtanium wristwatch. “Crap, me too.”

  I tiptoed out to Gray’s room. As soon as I reached into his closet, I heard footsteps. I snatched up the first thing I could—a wondrous black hoodie studded with inverted silver crosses—and put it on.

  The hoodie fit me heavy and loose like a soothsayer’s cloak. An ancient tube of eyeliner was still in its pocket.

  I crept back out into the hallway, where I would then dash downstairs before anyone could spot me—

  “What the hell are you doing?” said Gray.

  My head snapped up. “I don’t, all my jackets, it’s gonna be cold, I never go out at night?”

  Gray made a sneering grin. “The year 2015 called and they want their clothes back—”

  I examined Gray. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Going from head to toe, Gray wore a dad-shirt, dad-tie, dad-slacks, and finally dad–boat shoes, all various shades of brown. He looked forty years old, and also dead.

  Dad appeared, rubbing sandalwood lotion into his hands. “You look great, Gray!”

  Gray’s face tightened with humiliation.

  Dad peered at me. “Is that a new hoodie?”

  “Yesno,” said me
and Gray.

  “Well, it’ll be nice and warm for the football game,” said Dad.

  “Football game?” pondered Gray.

  “He’s going with a gurl,” said Dad in an off-Broadway amateur-night stage whisper.

  Then Dad thumped Gray’s back and headed downstairs. “Let’s go shake some hands, dude! Trey Fortune awaits!”

  Gray held a palm down at me. “Just—shut up,” he muttered.

  I shut up. I could’ve launched any one of my dozen at-the-ready volleys against the cannibalistic blood-fever that was corporate America, but I did not. Because now Gray marched down the stairs after Dad, slow as a death march. He stopped at the door leading to the garage. He seemed to want to say something, but nixed the idea.

  In the end, he opened the door and fell through with a long, slow step.

  * * *

  —

  I sailed into the night. I wished I could wear my headlamp, which was obviously the smartest, most versatile choice in portable lighting. I settled instead for the primitive default reflectors, popular among most cyclists but good for nothing except feebly catching beams of homicidal oncoming cars in the moment before fatal impact.

  When I reached Cirrus’s condo, she was already out on the curb wearing a helmet.

  “Your bike is amazing,” I blurted, and immediately wished I had started with a more socially acceptable Hi or its popular variant, Hey.

  She clicked on a light smartly built right in to her helmet. “It’s a Blitzschnell Tango CAAD12 folding bike with hydraulic disc brakes and a shock-absorbing seat post,” she said.

  I wanted to tell her all about my Velociraptor® Elite. Instead, my brain became paralyzed with indecision. Could I afford to gush about such nerdery? Would it break my persona, cause suspicion?

  “You think my bike is dorky,” said Cirrus.

  “No,” I said. I wanted to say more, but found I couldn’t. “It’s not.”

  “They’re all over Copenhagen,” said Cirrus.

  “I bet,” I said.

  “I baked us some ham and cheese hand pies,” said Cirrus. “Do you like fontina?”

  “What’s a fontina?” I said.

  “You’ll see,” said Cirrus. “Let’s ride.”

  And now we sailed together. She wore high boots and a heavy skirt that flew like a cape. A bag of hand pies lightly bounced in a wicker cargo basket. She pedaled and shifted with an easy grace that was athletic and fashionable at the same time, something no American could ever pull off. Cirrus was cool. Cirrus could make anything seem cool, I reckoned.

  “Head toward that glow way over there,” I said.

  Cirrus squinted. “And . . . music?”

  We both leaned into a turn, then another, passing through encroaching rivers of cool night mist before reaching a cathedral of light.

  The football field.

  I had been here many times during the day, to laze about in the golden afternoon sun during track practice. But I had never seen this place at night. And why would I have? I always imagined football to be a sad contest full of huddle meetings and play reviews and administrata.

  But football was only half about the gameplay itself. I had never seen the other half of it: the balloons, the crowds, the dozens of headlights swiveling around the vast parking lot. I had never felt the thundering beat of the drum corps announcing impending war in the distance.

  It was electric.

  Cirrus came to a stop with her toe en pointe. “Incredible,” she gasped.

  “Yep, this is football,” I drawled, as nonchalantly as I could, to best mimic that bless-this-mess attitude that fans assumed when introducing their passion to someone new.

  “This happens every Thursday?” said Cirrus.

  “Well, they moved it because it’s supposed to rain tomorrow,” I said with authority, quoting what I had read earlier on the school portal. “Normally it’s every Friday, every week, just like church.”

  I gave her a game show host’s wink. Too much?

  “In Australia they play rugby rain or shine,” said Cirrus.

  “Southern Californians melt like wicked witches in the rain,” I said.

  “Let’s go closer,” said Cirrus.

  We lashed our bikes to a tree and melted into the crowd. Four pickup trucks sat back-to-back, flanking a barbecue smoking in the center tended by fans in Ruby High Ravagers regalia.

  “How early do the supporters arrive?” she said.

  You are the expert here, I told myself. Be the expert.

  “They’re called fans, and [I believe] this is called tailgating,” I said. “People get here six hours very early [or so I have heard] and bring nitrated meats food and drink [and that atrocious ‘Wagon Wheel’ song on a boombox].”

  Maybe it was the infectious energy in the place, because Cirrus raised a fist and shouted, “Go, Ravagers!” to the tailgaters. They instantly dropped what they were doing to shout back at us with painted faces.

  “That guy has a big foam hand,” said Cirrus.

  We approached a snack stand marked RAVAGER NATION NACHOS PIZZA HOT DOGS SODA.

  “So here’s where we can get classic football food things,” I said, “like nachos, pizza, hot dogs, and soda.”

  Cirrus wrinkled her nose. “But I made hand pies.”

  I leaned in and said, “The food here is crap, to be honest.” Totally not honest, of course, since I’d never eaten any of it before. But right away I could tell. Just look at it.

  Cirrus reached in her bag and offered me a still-warm pie, and it tasted like what I imagined merry old London in Sweeney Todd’s time must have tasted like.

  “This is amazing,” I said.

  “After four hours in the kitchen, it better be,” said Cirrus.

  Shouts here and there made us look up.

  “Good luck, Gunner.”

  “Go get ’em, Gun.”

  Gunner came trotting out in full football gear, having peed (or whatever) in a nearby porta-potty. I could tell it was him despite the helmet because the name GUNNER was written on his blood-red jersey.

  Don’t jerseys typically bear last names, not first? was my thought right as Gunner’s eyes locked with mine and sharpened with contempt.

  “Who let this nerd in?” he said through his grille, and came straight toward me.

  I froze.

  Gunner was about to do what Gunner had done many times before in our simple, abusive relationship. He was about to clock my shoulder and send me spinning to the ground as he bulldozed past. Normally my lunch tray would be there to come down with me, but this time the hand pie would have to suffice.

  It was night, I was in foreign territory—his territory—and the energy of the crowd and the lights propelled him.

  Beside me, Cirrus raised her phone and snapped a picture. This was fun for her. And why wouldn’t it be? She had no idea.

  Gunner strode toward me with clear aim and intent. I could not let this happen. I was wearing a hoodie with protective silver crosses, for Antichrist’s sake. I was a rock star.

  So I began clapping and hooting. “Let’s go, Gunner, c’mon! We love you, buddy!”

  Cirrus, infected by my bogus enthusiasm, joined in with an awkward chant: “Go, Gun-Nur! Go, Gun-Nur!” She threw me a look that said, Is that how you say it?

  Surrounding fans corrected us with the more properly cadenced “Go, Gunner, go! Go, Gunner, go!”

  My ploy worked. Gunner quickly realized he could not strike down an innocent fan for no reason in front of everybody.

  “See ya, Sunny,” he blurted, clearly discombobulated. He spin-dodged me, thrilling the fans, and hustled off to the brilliant green field.

  “He knows you?” said Cirrus.

  I froze again, for a different reason this time. Normally, I would’ve turned around and run from Gunner.
This was the first time I had stood my ground, and the ground felt marvelous to stand on. I fully acknowledged the irony of gaining real confidence by faking being someone else. Maybe this was why people engaged in performance. To let go of old fears.

  A voice exploded above us.

  “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS, PLEASE STAND FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM!”

  The marching band wheezed their way through the desiccated Francis Scott Key relic, and the crowd groaned along with its hoary antiquated lyrics, as always omitting the third stanza threatening murder for free former slaves before erupting into a barbarian Woo.

  “Let’s get seats,” I said, and led Cirrus up into the blinding bleachers.

  “AND NOW, BOTH TEAMS WOULD LIKE TO OBSERVE A TOTALLY OPTIONAL NONDENOMINATIONAL MOMENT OF SILENT REFLECTION!” boomed the voice.

  At that instant, everyone around us began murmuring in unison.

  O God, we thank you for the privilege of playing football on this glorious night.

  Please fill us with athletic resolve and blessed energy.

  Grant us the grace to accept victory or defeat,

  Whichever way shall fall thine judgment.

  Cirrus gaped at me. “It really is like church,” she whispered.

  “I told you,” I said, bless-this-mess. But inside, I was just as awestruck as she was. I could not fathom why so many people would worship such a tedious game with this much reverence and gravitas. And yet here we were, surrounded by them.

  She touched one of the silver crosses on my arm. “You rebel heretic.”

  To my shock, she bowed her head, touched her forehead to mine, and giggled as the crowd prayed on.

  Watch over us as we tackle and run.

  Watch over the health and happiness of our loved ones young and old

  As they cheer thine glory in Jesus’s name, amen.

  “Ra-men,” I said, and looked up to see Cirrus’s eyes inches from mine. Those eyes of hers. She sat up, took in the crowd. She offered me another hand pie.

  “So now what?” she said.

  “Oh, so now what happens is, uh,” I said, stalling for time.

  “PLEASE GIVE A WARM WELCOME TO THE VISITING TEAM, THE DELGADO BEACH AVENGERS!”