The following morning/afternoon, I lie in bed trying to think of a reason to get up. But I can’t think of one, so I just stay in my room.
A few years ago, I decided to make my room look like a painting I’d seen of Van Gogh’s bedroom. The first time I saw it, I was immediately struck with how the layout was identical to that of my room, down to where the window and bed were positioned. So naturally, my first thought was that I was Van Gogh in a past life. Of course I then realized the utter ridiculousness of such a thought. But in some egotistical way, I guess a part of me hasn’t really let go of the notion, which is why I went to all the trouble of painting my walls that same shade of blue, as best I could match it, and setting up most of my furniture as true to the painting as possible. And my room became one of my favorite places to be, rivaled only by the cemetery.
Andy had liked Van Gogh. My junior year I sat diagonally from him in English class. One day, as he sat sideways in his seat, like he always did before class started, I came into class and slammed my Van Gogh sketchbook on my desk. Andy had said, “Van Gogh,” and tapped his black pen on the cover.
“Yeah,” I’d said.
“Cool guy.”
“Well, I don’t know him, but I hear he was pretty great,” I answered, even as my stomach flipped with excitement at having something in common with Andy Cooper.
Andy had smiled. “Kind of crazy,” he’d said, pulling on his own ear. He knew about Van Gogh’s ear. I was impressed.
“I like crazy,” I told him.
He looked down at the floor, and then he looked back up at me, his hair falling over his eyes, making my hand tingle with an impulsive desire to reach over and touch it.
“I’m crazy,” he whispered.
My stomach drops and a little bit of acid creeps up into my throat as I remember those words.
I’m crazy. That’s what he said. I should have asked him what he meant.
But I didn’t. Instead, I acted like I was in a straitjacket and said, “The voices, Mommy, the voices!”
Andy cracked up and I still remember the warm feeling that washed over me when he pointed at me with his pen and said, “Funny.”
He was exactly the kind of guy I swore I’d never like. Exactly the kind of guy I’d make fun of for looking a little too pretty. Verging on preppy. The kind of guy who would vacation with his family somewhere like Martha’s Vineyard. Definitely not the kind of guy I’d run into at a club checking out a local band.
But there was something about the way he carried himself, something about the way he looked disinterested in everyone, not because he was arrogant, just because he was preoccupied with something in his thoughts, that always made Andy the kind of guy you wanted to know. Whose thoughts you wanted to read. The kind of guy who you somehow knew was more than what he seemed.
And that year, when I sat near him, I realized I was right. Andy Cooper was cool. And a little bit of a paradox. I mean, sure he wore khaki shorts and boat shoes without socks, and looked like he might be a conceited prick, but the boy read poetry and liked Van Gogh. He carried a book of poems with him all year, and in class discussions, he always said some pretty deep stuff that made me forgive his prettiness.
Most times when I saw him in the halls, he was by himself. But the weird thing is Andy was incredibly popular. I think everyone wanted to figure him out, or maybe everyone thought they had him figured out. Maybe that was the problem. Either way, I think everyone felt weirdly drawn to him even though he was never really close to anybody in particular. People knew him, but they didn’t really know him. Only if you watched him day in and day out for a few years, did you realize Andy wasn’t at all who you would think he was. I feel like only I knew that. And maybe Zeena Fuller, who was the only girl Andy ever dated that I knew of.
I close my eyes. I see Andy glancing back at me saying, “I’m crazy.” Did he really say that?
I run through the memory again, trying to recall everything exactly as it happened. But the harder I try to remember, the more unsure I am of what he said, until I’m left wondering if that moment even happened at all.
The doorbell rings, cutting into my thoughts, and I listen as Mom answers the front door. I hear a tone of surprise in her voice as she talks to whoever it is, and then the door shuts with a thud and footsteps get louder as someone comes down the hallway to my room. I look at my clock. Noon.
There’s a knock on my partially open door. “French?” It’s Joel. A small surge of annoyance shoots through me.
“Come in,” I say, but he doesn’t. “I said come in.”
“I have to make an entrance,” he says from the other side.
I sit up and look at the door.
“Are you ready?” he calls.
“Yeah, I guess. But what do you mean?” The door opens slowly, and then I see him and nearly die.
“Well?” Joel says. “What do you think?”
“What the hell, Joel!” I think he’s gone mad. I think I’m going to cry.
“It was Lily’s idea; she’s the one who did it, actually. But I was so ready for it,” he says.
Of course it was Lily’s idea. Who else would advise Joel to shave off his dreads.
He rubs his hand through his now nonexistent hair as he comes in my room. He sits down on the edge of my bed and all I can do is stare. It doesn’t even look like Joel anymore.
“It’s crazy, huh?” he says with a grin. And then looks at me like he’s waiting for an answer.
I close my mouth. Open it again. Then close it and swallow the lump in my throat.
“Well?” he demands, “Say something.”
“It’s so . . . different.”
“Different? Oh man, French. Why don’t you just tell me I look like shit?”
“No, no, you look good. It’s just . . . different. You look so . . .”
“Dashing?” He laughs again, and I swear, it’s like I haven’t seen him this peppy in a long time, and that’s saying a lot since he’s been so freaking happy lately anyway. He almost seems . . . lighter.
“Lily loves it. But I gotta admit, I kind of freaked out when she suggested it last night, but then I thought it really is time.” He looks around my room. “I’m kind of ready for something new, you know? I mean, think about it. This is probably the one time in our lives that we can really do what we want, right? Someday, even though we say we won’t, we’ll probably become these people who have to think about shit like jobs and house payments and all that crap, but right now . . . well, right now we can do anything. Think of all the things we can do. And . . .” He shakes his head like he’s embarrassed. “I know it sounds stupid or whatever, but cutting my dreads made me feel like I’m ready for anything, you know what I mean? I’m ready to kind of leave all this.” He gestures to everything around him.
“What, my bedroom is getting to be too much for you?” I ask. He laughs.
“No, you know what I mean. Just everything. This place. This town.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say, though I don’t. Not really. I can’t understand Joel’s excitement for the future because I just want to escape the present. And I kind of envy and can’t stand his enthusiasm.
I stare at his head and it makes me sad, too. I picture Lily cutting off his dreads, how they would just fall to the floor, cut off from Joel. And then get thrown out like they were never a part of him at all. I almost feel like asking him if he thought to put them in a box and bury them, like they rightfully deserved.
“Which is why your stupid ass should have found a place for us in Chicago while you were there,” I say. “We could already be out of here.”
He messes with his head again. “Right, I know. But like I said, I couldn’t find a whole lot.”
I pull at a stray piece of thread from my blanket.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says, and we sit there quietly. Suddenly he gets up and starts messing with the stuff on my corner night table.
“Hey,” he says holding up an old picture, “this one’s from my birthday?”
“Yeah,” I say, though I don’t really feel like reminiscing with Joel right now. I kind of wish he’d just leave.
The picture is one of him purchasing cigarettes. We made a big show of it and the guy at the counter thought we were freaks when I said to him, “Mama and Daddy and I are proud of this one,” and I nodded in Joel’s direction. “Our whole family’s future is riding on him. Don’t forget the lotto tickets, Brother!”
“Damn, French, that was so funny. How do you come up with shit like that?” Joel asks. We’ve laughed about that story countless times, so I know it’s what he’s referring to.
I shrug. “It’s a gift,” I say, even though it seems like a long time since I’ve been funny. I picture us that day, how we sat outside scratching off lotto tickets, winning more free tickets, and then ten dollars that we used for a show that night.
“We saw the Purple Lemons that night,” he says and puts down the picture. He picks up my book of Emily Dickinson’s poems and leafs through it.
“Good band,” I say.
“Yeah, good times, French.”
“Yeah, good times.”
“What’s Em up to these days?” he says as he closes the book and sets it back down on my table.
“Oh, you know her. . . . Just some secret late-night cemetery raves,” I answer.
“Cool,” he says and smiles. The room gets quiet again and I wonder why this conversation with Joel suddenly feels so forced. Why he’s been here ten minutes already and we’re not listening to the Vinyls yet, or searching for cool new bands on the Internet. He sits down at the edge of my bed again.
“Oh, hey, I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. So remember Lily’s show at Zylos?”
Here we go again. I say, “Yeah.”
“Well there was this agent there and he seemed pretty interested in the band and got Sugar’s info. Lily thought it was no big deal, but it turns out this guy is like a legit agent. And he’s going to their show again tonight at the Stage.”
The Stage. My stomach turns at the name of this other club downtown. “Uh, that’s cool,” I say. I pick up the remote and turn on the TV. My favorite animated movie that’s been in the DVD player for the last few months flashes on the screen.
“The Iron Giant,” Joel says, “I haven’t seen this in forever.”
“I’m sick of it,” I lie as I switch to TV mode and start flipping through the channels.
“So, you’ll be there, right? Lily can use all the support.”
I stare at the screen. I hate that Joel assumes that I even want to support Lily. But even if I wanted to, there’s no way I could go to that place ever again.
“Last time I went there, you totally ditched me,” I remind him.
“What?” I stare at him. “Oh . . . yeah, that. Sorry,” he says. I can’t believe he almost forgot. That night we were all supposed to meet up and then he and Lily didn’t show up. And I was there, alone. And that’s why everything else went the way it did that night. “But that was forever ago. And I promise, I’ll be there this time,” he says.
Of course he will. That’s where Lily will be.
“I’d go, but Robyn and I are seeing a movie tonight . . . ,” I say. I figure I can convince Robyn to go to a movie instead.
“No, I talked to Robyn already,” Joel looks at me with a confused expression. “She’s going to the show so she can see Bobby.”
“Oh . . . maybe she forgot,” I say.
“Besides, I mean, this is like an agent.” And the way he says it basically means that Lily’s show is way more important than anything else. “It starts at ten but come earlier so we can hang out,” he says, getting up. And even though I wished he would leave just moments ago, I also want him to stay. Now I want him to be here with me like he’s always been, like I always thought he would be. If he could just stay in this room and not talk about Lily, not go on with his own life while I’m stuck in mine, and just be here so that I wouldn’t be alone, that would help.
The phrase misery loves company runs through my head and I feel like a terrible human being.
“Hey,” I say, “Want to go to Harold’s?”
He smiles. “Aw, man. I wish I could. But I told Lily I’d be back to help her check the equipment and then we have to load it up and . . .” He stops himself.
“What, are you her roadie now or something?”
“Yeah, I know right?” he says, breezing through my sarcasm. But suddenly we’re both quiet and there’s an awkward silence again and he says, “But you know what, I can be late. It’s no big deal. Just let me call Lily. . . .”
“No, no,” I say, suddenly feeling like a pity case. “Go, it’s no big deal.”
“Positive. Get out of here.”
“Another time, okay? I promise.”
“Yeah, sure,” I say. “When we catch that movie together.”
“Right,” he says and smiles. “So, I’ll see you later?”
“Later,” I say. He leaves and I watch him go. And I don’t know how he’s done it, but Joel has managed to make me feel even more miserable than when he first walked in with his missing dreads. I can’t even stand myself. I can’t stand being in my own skin. I turn my attention back to the TV and flip through more channels. I wonder if Andy can see everything happening down here. What does he think of me now?