FROM JOSH IN The Puffy Chair to John in Cyrus to Jeff in Jeff, Who Lives at Home, our stories’ antiheroes are often called “lovable losers” by press and viewers. And this character archetype is one that both of us simultaneously love and resent. We truly love the unconventional protagonist’s journey but resent that those characters are often reductively labeled as “losers” so that people can process them. Why can’t they just be called people? That are sometimes lovable and sometimes not. Depending on who you are as a viewer. Depending on your mood that day. People whose lives you can experience and from whom you can learn a little something. Who make you feel a little differently. This approach to character is, in our opinion, storytelling at its best. Stories that don’t clearly tell you what to feel about your protagonist. Stories that take you deep inside someone that you wouldn’t normally look twice at on the street. Stories that, in short, simply put you in someone else’s shoes for a bit so you can see the world through their strange, unexpected lens….
You are a boy, almost a man. You are fifteen. You are wearing a blue denim jacket with a self-sewn Megadeth patch on the back. Your gray jeans are acid-washed, but not well, because you also did them yourself. Because your parents are poor. And you worked at your cousin’s auto-body shop to save money for clothes and concerts for this summer. This is a summer you have been looking forward to for a long time. Because you hate school. Because you don’t really fit in. And because the girls there don’t like you. They call you Rat Face or sometimes Zit Face and also Pig.
But tonight this does not concern you as much as it normally does. Because tonight you have saved enough money to see your favorite new band. Your favorite new band is called Iron Maiden. It is 1980, and they have just released their first, self-titled record. The way it makes you feel when you listen to it is inexplicable. It is not separate from you. It is a part of you. The rare combination of death metal, prog rock, rock opera singing, and heartfelt lyrics…it’s as if it were made for you. No, scratch that. It’s as if you made it. Somehow. Through Iron Maiden. And it has come back to you, in thanks, to let you enjoy it. Tonight. Friday night. At the XYZ. A place that doesn’t often ask for ID, thank God. Because you are only fifteen and have no legal business being inside this club, except for the fact that no one belongs here more than you.
But fuck all of this because here comes the band. Oh my God. You knew it. You just…you fucking knew it. Of course they would start with “Running Free.” That drumbeat. You’d recognize it anywhere. One of the few drumbeats that you can play with minimal precision. Because you don’t have enough money for drums and can only play on a makeshift set of empty paint cans you have assembled in your shared bedroom with your dipshit little sister, who is always ratting you out for bringing chocolate into your room. But, again, fuck all this. Because “Running Free” is in full swing now….
I’ve got nowhere to call my own, hit the gas, and here I go.
I’m running free, yeah, I’m running free.
And you can’t believe they sound better live than they do on the actual album but of course you can believe it because they are Iron FUCKING Maiden and this is the way they always were and always will be. And you know now more than ever that this is who you are, and this is where you belong, and that all these pretty girls around you who don’t give a shit about you and look at those red marks on your face with disgust will never know the true beauty of you and Iron Maiden and how you are inextricably linked for all time. And you are confident that even though they smell delicious and that your raging boner thinks it is meant for them, it is not. Because they are not good enough for your boner. Your boner belongs with the gods tonight. And if it can’t be with the gods, then, well, it can be with you and your hand back in your bedroom, after your stupid little sister goes to sleep and you get to have your boner and your chocolate and your memory of this perfect night with Iron Maiden, who, holy fuck, you still can’t believe they sound this good live but of course you can believe it and—OH FUCK! Now they’re gonna go right into “Phantom of the Opera”! The seven-minute prog opus that anchors the entire album. Of course they’d play it second…because when you have greatness like that in your back pocket you can’t just sit on it, you have to let it REIGN!
And oh my God look at these girls nodding their heads. They probably don’t even know this record. But they want Iron Maiden to think they do cuz maybe they can go backstage and…do whatever they would want to do with the band after the show. Like they’re the real fans. And they’re just dancing. And not even noticing that you can smell them and that they’re actually rubbing against you, even though they were looking at you with those disgusted faces right before the show started and didn’t want anything to do with you, now they’re just “accidentally” rubbing up against you but you know deep down that you don’t need them or want them even though they are so fucking hot and smell so good….You know the eternal value of your boner and that you are smarter than your boner and you won’t let it get excited about these dumb girls even though they smell so good and are so beautiful and the music is so incredible and it’s almost like a perfect unexpected moment of God stuff and devil stuff that both weirdly seem so right to you right now—oh God, she just looked at me and smiled—oh God—oh FUUUUUUUUUCK!
Fuck.
Shit.
Really.
Come on.
And you know it. Immediately.
You know that you moaned out loud. And that even though she didn’t hear you moan she could see you out of the corner of her eye. She could see you smiling and then closing your eyes in the existential gorgeous pain of you coming in your pants. She knew what happened.
Fuck.
And now it’s like…different somehow. The music. It’s different. You are different. She is different. She is somehow…more important. Bigger in the room. A force. Almost like…like she owns Iron Maiden now. Like, even though she doesn’t even own the album or know any of the words, she stole your boner and she took Iron Maiden from your soul. And she’s not gonna give it back. And it crushes you. And you fucking hate yourself for still being fifteen and for things like this making you cry and run out of the XYZ so no one can see you cry. And you ride your bike really fucking fast home and ignore the tears even though they might actually be freezing onto your cheeks in the bitter cold fast air coming at you. And you come right through the front door and you want to get to your room before your parents can ask “How was it?” but they catch you before you get there and ask the question and you gruffly say “Fine” and go to your (shared) room so your parents can’t see you crying and your sister can’t see you crying and you lie in your bed and you put your headphones on and you put on Iron Maiden’s self-titled record in one last, desperate attempt to take it back from that shitty, vapid, hot, awesome-smelling girl who stole your boner and accidentally took Iron Maiden along with it. And you lie…and you lie…and you just lie…and you hope…and you hope…and you just hope…and you actually start to pray. Which you haven’t done since you were five years old. And you pray that it will get easier. Somehow. Easier. And you don’t believe it. But you pray. And you let “Prowler,” the opening track, take you away.