THE FOOTBALL STADIUM’S lights glowed high above the football field. Dug from a mound and into the ground, the stadium was a hole in the dirt with an Astroturf field below. The metal and concrete benches were built onto the sides of the dugout hill and it caused the cheers to reverberate through the entire ten thousand seat stadium. Most of the town shut down on the Friday nights that the Mount Vernon Lions were playing at home. They could hear the raucousness as Derrick’s mother Dee drove both him and AJ to the game. They sat in the backseat of the Corolla while Cassandra sat up front.
Once at the front gates of the stadium, Cassandra got out and bolted. On the way to the stadium, she had made it known that she didn’t want to be seen with him or his “nerd friend.”
“I’ll pick you up right over here after the game ends,” Dee said. She drove off, leaving the boys in the parking lot. She and Doug would have a kid-free date night. He had a rare evening off, and they had decided on a nice dinner out instead of joining the kids at the game.
“So now that you’re on the tennis team, you won't be able to walk home after school with me anymore,” AJ said.
Derrick had thought about it, but pushed it aside out of guilt. After their runin with Ty in the middle of the street, he didn’t want to think about AJ walking by himself, even though his friend assured him that the bully wouldn’t do anything more than threaten him.
“Yeah, but we’ll still have the morning walk and the weekends. Plus, once the season starts, there’s no Friday practice. We can hang out and jam on Fridays,” Derrick capitulated.
“Where do you want to sit?” Derrick asked.
“Sit?”
“Yeah. To watch the game,” Derrick said.
“Dude, unless you were part of the football team, the marching band or the dance team, you don’t watch the game,” AJ explained.
“Then why are we here?” Derrick asked.
“To be seen. To hang out. Meet chicks,” AJ grinned and raised his eyebrows a few times in quick succession.
Inside the confines of the high fence that surrounded the stadium, Derrick saw what he meant. Students clustered in groups, some just a handful, others nearing a dozen, all in their own bubbles, all in their own respective conversations, like a private party amidst a sea of private parties.
AJ led the way and they climbed the hill, the walkway rising up to the top level of the stadium. The concession stands and bathrooms sat on top behind the stands. From up above, Derrick could see the field, the two teams lining up and then playing. Mount Vernon’s defense, in maroon and white, rushed the quarterback after he’d called for the snap and was immediately creamed by three large linemen. The crowd went wild after the sack.
The stands, full of maroon and white shirts, clapped along as the cheerleaders on the edge of the field led a chant. “Maroon, white, go fight fight!” echoed through the entire stadium. On the other side, the visitor’s section was cold and quiet, a scattering of navy blue shirts in the concrete stands. The scoreboard on the west end of the field read the score, with Mount Vernon winning by two touchdowns within the first seven minutes of play.
“Bro, the concession stand,” AJ said, elbowing Derrick.
Derrick looked over and could see, a dozen yards ahead of them and tucked next to the concession stand, a group of students. Haley stood off to one side, surrounded by some of the girls on the tennis team. Her hair was tied in a maroon bow and she was smiling, laughing at something someone said.
AJ pulled him as they started walking and Haley turned as they approached. Her eyes lit up when she saw Derrick, which made him both smile and flush.
“Hey!” she cried out with her arms out wide. She enveloped him in a giant hug. “You guys, this guy,” she said with her arm around Derrick, “is my prodigy! He made the tennis team today!”
The other students, some Derrick recognized, others he didn’t, all congratulated him. AJ stood beside him and Derrick felt awkward having all the attention on himself, but he liked having Haley’s arms around his shoulders.
“What are you guys up to?” she asked.
AJ spoke up, “Just wanted to come hang out with everyone tonight. First game of the season, it’s always a blast.”
“AJ and I have been hanging out quite a bit lately. You should hear this guy play guitar,” Derrick said.
“No way, dude. I’m nothing compared to this guy,” AJ said. “Derrick is probably the best guitar player in this school. He would smoke everyone else. He knows Silverchair, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, all kinds of stuff.”
Derrick felt his face getting even more red.
“Wow!” Haley said, impressed. “I know you said you played, but I didn’t know you were that talented,” she said. Then her eyes lit up. “You guys should play for the talent show!”
Derrick looked at AJ, who met his nervous wide-eyed gaze with a determined grin. “Talent show?” Derrick stuttered.
“Yeah!” Her eyes were wide with imagination now. “You guys would be great. You could play guitars. It’s in December, right before Christmas break.”
“I don’t know,” Derrick started.
“We’ll do it,” AJ said in tandem.
“Awesome. There’ll be more information in October,” Haley said.
Some of her friends began tugging her toward the stands and the steps that led to the field. “Okay, gotta go. We made spirit signs,” she said.
Derrick realized she had a poster board tucked beneath her arm, and he could make out just a few things on it—#17 in maroon glitter and the beginning of the name Ty Anderson.
“Yeah,” he said. “We’re just gonna hang out up here.”
“Cool. See you at the pool party tomorrow?” She looked at AJ. “You can come too, if you want.”
“Yeah, we’ll be there,” Derrick said.
AJ nodded as well. “Can’t wait,” he said.
After Haley and her group of friends left, Derrick and AJ watched as the gaggle of girls bounded down the steps toward the field to show off their spirit signs.
“Dude, this is gonna be huge!” AJ said. “Can you imagine? Us up on stage in front of the whole school, rocking out? We’ll be like rockstars.”
Derrick’s hands went clammy with the thought. “I don’t know, man.”
AJ continued, not paying attention to Derrick’s apprehension. “Oh man. I’ve got it. Let’s form a band. Let’s get up there and do this for real. I mean, just think. You and me, rocking out for everyone to see. Every girl in school will want to date us.”
Derrick thought about that for a moment. As he watched Haley cheer for Ty down near the field, he thought about what it would be like to have her cheering for him. Looking down from the stage and her eyes on him as he played some loud guitar riff. The whole crowd cheering, but seeing no one but her.
“Yeah dude,” Derrick said. “Let’s do it.”
♪ ♪ ♪
The Lions beat the Prep Tigers by two touchdowns, and after the game Dee drove them back home. They’d protested, wanting to walk, but she insisted on driving them since it was so late. After fighting through the parking lot, zippering in line to leave the campus, they got home and Derrick and AJ immediately went to his bedroom to collect guitars and amplifiers and went to the garage.
“We need a drummer,” Derrick said.
“I know a kid. His name is Dustin Duncan. He’s a grade above us. He plays in the drumline for the marching band. Let’s ask him on Monday if he’d be interested in jamming with us,” AJ said.
“Is he cool?”
“He’s kind of a loner, actually. His parents run the auto parts store over on Western Street, and I see him there all the time. I guess they make him work it after school and on weekends, so he’s never hanging out with anyone. But yeah, he’s cool.”
“Okay,” Derrick said. He strapped his Telecaster over his shoulders and let it hang. “How many songs do we need for the talent show?”
“I would say at least three. Three good ones,” AJ said. He was crouched in front of the Yamaha amplifier, a squat black box with a single twelve-inch speaker as he worked the knobs on the front panel. Strumming a chord on his Epiphone electric guitar, the amp roared to life in a succession of power chords that were distorted to a Pearl Jam-like crunch.
Derrick matched him with volume and rocked the pickup selector on his Telecaster to the bridge pickup, which had more treble and more “bite” than the neck pickup. He played a solo over AJ’s chord progression, and AJ stared at him.
“Dude, you’re, like, really good,” he said.
Derrick just shrugged. “I just practice a lot.”
“I’m serious. Do that again,” AJ said as he started playing the chord progression again.
Derrick’s fingers hammered on the fretboard of his instrument, listening to AJ’s I-IV-V chords and finding notes to play over them.
“Okay, we need a drummer immediately. This sounds great,” AJ said.
“Let’s see if that Dustin guy would be interested in jamming with us,” Derrick said. He looked at the clock hanging on the wall above Doug’s toolbox. It read nearly one in the morning.
AJ took his guitar off and flipped the power switch on the amp. “Not a bad first jam session.”
A few minutes later they were in Derrick’s bedroom, lounging on the floor. AJ had brought a sleeping bag, and Derrick threw a blanket down on the ground as well. They talked about music and what songs they’d like to play for the school talent show.
“So,” AJ said, his fingers interlaced behind his head, his elbows splayed out, “how long have your mom and Chief Davis been dating?”
“Like two years,” Derrick answered. He stared up at the ceiling, watching the fan’s blades lazily turn in the low light from the street lamps outside.
“What does your dad do?” AJ asked. “Is he still back in Clearwater?”
“I don’t know,” Derrick said. “I haven’t seen him since I was really little. I don’t know where he is.”
AJ went quiet.
Derrick continued, “It’s okay. They split when I was so young. I don’t really remember much about him.”
“So you haven’t seen him since?”
“No,” Derrick said. Then, he changed the subject. “What got you into playing guitar?”
AJ let out a low laugh. “I needed a way for girls to like me.”
Derrick agreed. “Same, actually. I’ve always felt invisible, like I didn’t have anything to stand out. I heard Fuel on the radio one day, and I just felt this sudden need to learn how to do that.”
“I know what you mean. My older brother is five years older than me. My little brother is eight years younger. I feel like I’m just in the middle. I want to do something to break out of just being the middle child.”
“I keep thinking about all the bands that came out of Seattle,” Derrick said. “I think that’s where I’d like to go after we graduate.”
“I know what you mean,” AJ said. “I often wonder where I’m going to go. If I want to go to college, or if I want to pursue music. It’s scary to think about.”
“I don’t think college is for me,” Derrick said. “Though my mom will probably have a fit if I tell her that. She’s convinced that me and Cassandra are going to be the first college graduates in our family.”
“You got to do what makes you happy,” AJ said. He turned and sat up on his elbow. “Screw it. Let’s go to Seattle. After we graduate, we can make it up there, find the music scene.”
“You would want to do that?”
“We met for a reason,” AJ said. “Maybe we’re meant to make it big time, but we aren’t going to do it in Mount Vernon. I’m telling you, we are going to be rockstars.”
At nearly four in the morning, they’d finally fallen asleep, and as Derrick drifted off, he had visions of being on stage, smoke and lights all around him, and a crowd of people in front of him.
The spotlight wasn’t on him, though.
It was on Haley.