THE PERSPIRATION PUDDLES on my shirt, down my chest and along my sides, and not just mine. I’ve been banging into bodies bouncing around the mosh pit, flailing arms and legs and smashing chests, surging into me then over me, surfing the waves of hands above me. We got here early enough to stake out a place close to the stage but once Joyce Manor came on, the mosh pit formed around us and Mindy pulled us back, out from the stage and away from mortal danger. But when the opening chords of “Derailed” spilled from the speakers, Jeff smiled at me and I followed him into the crush of bodies, sucking us in and making us whole.
I’ve been trying to respect everyone else’s space, pogoing up and down in one place, but every few seconds I get blindsided by a cannonball attack by some lunatic who knocks me sideways into another person and sends that person sprawling into another stranger. And I can barely see the band, not with all the bouncing bodies up and down around me, the constant fear of random assaults from oversized drunken dudes slamming into my body. It’s amazing.
I find a little daylight to catch the band up on the stage, the lead singer of Joyce Manor leaning out into the crowd with the microphone stand and a full sleeve tattoo covering his left arm. So cool. His raspy voice echoes from the speakers, along with the guitars and drums, an implausible level of amp explosion besieging my ears at once. He’s kind of cute—or really cute—and I’m bouncing up and down next to Jeff, so it’s a wonderful feeling, a full perfect feeling, and I can’t believe I never attended a concert before.
Union Transfer is in a shady part of Philly, so Dad said under no circumstances were we allowed to drive down here without him, but then Mindy had me put him on the phone, and she used some kind of friend/parent jujitsu because he ended up giving us permission and I didn’t even have to beg. Jeff’s stepfather was harder to convince.
We enlisted Aunt Donna, who happened to be moving this weekend, so Jeff and I volunteered to be part of her moving crew—just as an alibi—but the stepfuck didn’t believe us, the way he hates everything fun and doesn’t trust Jeff, but also who moves to a new apartment on a Saturday night. Donna called him, though, and explained how she works the day shift on weekends at the hospital and she somehow convinced him because Jeff is here and Joyce Manor is on the stage and I owe Donna more favors than I can ever repay. She said I have to let her move in with me when she’s too old to take care of herself. Seems like a small price to pay.
Joyce Manor’s singer climbs down from the stage and pushes out into the audience, wading into the center of the pit, almost on top of me, and we all spread out to give him room but I’m bursting, holding onto Jeff and all these fellow fans, catching our collective breaths like a wave about to break. The drummer slams the skins behind the two guitarists up front, freaking out on the stage like all of us in the pit. I can’t breathe.
The singer jumps back to the platform so I focus on the drummer—short brown hair and forearms flexing up and down behind the kit, head turned to the left, clasping the cymbals and crashing down again, elbows straight with no wrist, hands above the snare then back to the toms like he’s not even concentrating. I don’t know how he does it, drumming with such speed while looking out at the crowd long enough for me to see, but then “Five Beer Plan” erupts from the speakers and the crowd collapses around me. I can’t see.
“Holy fuck, this is incredible!” Jeff shouts during a break between tracks. My ears are numb so it takes a second or two for his words to register. I don’t know what happened to Mindy.
“I can’t breathe,” I say and he pulls me closer, away from the thunder of the pit, his sweaty grip around me.
“I know, man. It’s awesome.”
The drummer lays down the beat for the next track, one two three before the guitars kick into gear and the audience reacts to “Christmas Card” in one extended spasm, a tsunami more than a wave this time. We try to stay at the edge but the mosh pit expands around us, these flailing bodies whirling past me, the speakers above the stage blasting the music so loud they shake. I feel Jeff’s hand on my side, clutching my waistband to help me stabilize, to keep me from sprawling across the concrete. Keeping me safe.
Joyce Manor was the first band Jeff introduced me to last year and I almost forget what I was into before I met him—indie rock I guess, like my dad listens to. Death Cab for Cutie or Arcade Fire, maybe, but Jeff says you’re not listening to anything meaningful if it ends up in a commercial for a minivan. And there’s beauty in hardcore, the way it fills you with a sense of something bigger than yourself, or better, this swelling emotion swept up with the rage until you release all your thoughts and disengage. Revel in the beauty of the sound.
I focus on the drummer again, to see if I can learn how he keeps up with the beat, all controlled but rapid motion, no respite from his motion, a double bass attack over to the cymbals to the snare, hi-hat and then back again, speeding up and spreading thin and I need to begin practicing again. Impress the shit out of Jeff by playing that well, or close to that well. The audience roars as Joyce Manor finishes their set and Jeff moves over to me.
“I think I’ve sweat off ten pounds tonight,” he says.
I nod and find my breath but I still can’t hear, my ears ringing with every sound. I almost forgot Mindy was here until she steps up beside us.
“That was great,” she says.
Jeff touches my back, ignoring.
“Can you breathe?” he says.
“A little.”
He laughs and his lips stay parted for a smile.
“Nobody’s leaving,” Mindy says. “Why is nobody leaving?”
“It’s not over,” Jeff says. “They’ll be back for an encore.”
The crowd is clapping and some in the audience are stomping their feet and I don’t want to leave. I don’t ever want to leave.
I catch Mindy checking her phone so maybe she wasn’t as into the show as Jeff and me but I don’t care, I just want to be here. To live in this moment, Joyce Manor on the stage and Jeff and me in the mosh pit, slamming into strangers and bouncing into each other. His sweat on my skin.
“They’ll play at least three more songs,” Jeff says. “They haven’t played ‘Leather Jacket’ so that’s a definite and probably ‘Catalina Fight Song’—that’s a short one. Maybe ‘Beach Community’?”
Mindy laughs. “You really know their music.”
“The best band in history,” I say. Breathing out loud.
Mindy laughs, longer this time.
“You guys are hilarious,” she says and that’s the last thing I hear because the band returns and the crowd explodes and Jeff pulls me back into the pit.
“You know, I didn’t agree to be your chauffeur this evening,” Mindy says, pulling her Civic out into the streets of Philadelphia. “This is way beyond the expectation of our friend compact.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. Jeff sat shotgun on the way down, taking over Mindy’s radio with Joyce Manor on his Bluetooth, but he slid into the backseat next to me before we left the parking lot and I didn’t move. “If you want to pull over, I could—”
“It’s fine,” she says through the rearview. “What did you think of the concert?”
Jeff’s head is planted in my lap, face up with his eyes closed, and I can’t tell if he’s awake but his chest is moving in and out with his breathing.
“They were incredible,” I say.
“Yeah,” Mindy says. “I knew none of their songs before tonight and while I admire and respect the talent it takes to play in the multiple symphonies I’ve seen in person, this was another level of exciting.”
Mindy merges onto the highway, west toward central P.A. and I think we’re late—I know we’re late, but I’m afraid to look at my phone to see how late we are. I know Dad’s been texting. The windows are down and I can hear Mindy’s hair flapping against the seat, beneath Joyce Manor through the sound system.
“How come you didn’t come into the mosh pit with us?” I ask her.
“That didn’t seem safe,” Mindy says. “Didn’t you fall?”
“I did?”
“Dude, you totally fell,” Jeff says from my lap, his eyes still closed. “I picked you up.”
I don’t remember. I think I was in a daze from the moment they started playing.
“Don’t worry, I saved you.”
“You’re awake?”
“No,” he says. “Just dreaming.”
I adjust my jeans with his head between my legs. It’s so loud in the car with the wind and the music I don’t think Mindy can hear us.
“Dreaming of what?”
“Our band. Being up there on the stage. With you.”
I try to swallow but my mouth is too parched so I scratch at my throat instead.
“I’m sorry,” he says, opening his eyes.
“For what?”
“I just—” He bends his neck toward the front seat to see if Mindy is listening but she’s focused on the road. “Sorry about what happened after our—you know.”
He lifts his hand to his lips to make a kiss.
“Okay,” I say. I’m not sure what to say. He apologized already.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says. “I think—I think I might have hurt you.”
When Joyce Manor finished their set, Jeff and I were still in the mosh pit and he leaned on top of me—his hands on my shoulders as I cheered and clapped at the final flourish of “Beach Community.” He didn’t let go.
“I’ve missed you, man. These last two weeks. I’ve missed the band and my guitar and us.”
He shoves his legs against the door to push himself up, closer to my chest. He’s no longer whispering.
“You’re the one person I can count on of all the people in my life. Not my mom, not my dad—my real dad, I mean.”
I catch Mindy’s eyes in the rearview, watching us. I don’t know if she can hear us but as long as Jeff keeps speaking the way he’s speaking, the world could end right now.
“But you’re always there for me, Cy,” Jeff says. “And it wasn’t fair to dismiss it, you know. What we did.”
The wind pummels my face through the open windows, Jeff’s head on my chest. I let my fingers reach out for his hair and he lets me caress and I don’t want to say anything because I don’t want to say the wrong thing so I just pat the curly waves of brown like a pet. He keeps speaking.
“I don’t think of Sharane like that,” he says. “I try to—but—it’s not the same.”
I’m not sure what he means but I want him to mean it. He looks up at me. Smiling.
“It’s not the same as when I think about you.”
He reaches behind my head and pulls me down, my face to his lips. Upside down and strange but we’re kissing.
And it’s better this time, with the rush of the wind and the heat of his body pressed into my body. I keep my eyes open—watching him kiss me. His face and his skin. On my skin.
I feel like I’m bouncing about in the mosh pit, the adrenaline rush or the endorphin spin, Joyce Manor in my ears on the stereo system, louder than the wind. I don’t know how long we kissed before but this is longer. Better.
Mindy slams on the brakes too late and I hear a scream, an awful scream, then a punishing crunch under the tires and a high-pitched howl. My face smashes into the seat in front of me, Jeff on my lap crashing through me.
The car stops. Everything stops. I reach up to catch the blood streaming down my cheek. A long, low wail echoes in my ears.
“Shit!” Jeff says. “What the fuck was that?”