“And unafraid to wear a stranger’s old shoes. What do you put on to keep warm, kid?”
I pull a flannel out of my backpack.
“Yes, yes,” PBR says. “I could’ve called that.”
“Young man,” Walt says. “Let us now lead you to The Library.”
We push through the crowd to get to a shelf of books above the bed.
“Peruse these titles if you will,” Walt says, “and tell us which, if any, you’ve read.”
I scan Walt’s collection of books: some thrillers, some Hemingway, three dated issues of Hustler, a few contemporary novels.
“The Sun Also Rises,” I say. “And For Whom the Bells Tolls. Oh, and some of that Raymond Chandler collection, too. ‘Red Wind,’ right? That story’s rad.”
“I don’t want to appear obsequious, but you’re a smart kid.”
“Put together, but not fussy,” PBR says.
“Good-looking guy for sure. But not pretty. Strong jawline. And masculine taste in books.”
“Yeah, well I don’t think you had any books by women,” I say.
Walt hesitates, surveys his shelf.
“Observant,” he says to PBR.
“Calls it like it is.”
“Mellow,” Walt adds.
“So we good?” PBR asks.
“Yeah,” Walt says. “I think we’ve found a beer for our young friend.”
Walt returns with a Guinness for himself and a Guinness for me.
“Welcome to the club,” he says, and moves on to a group of arriving people.
PBR and I lean against the wall of The Bedroom and drink our beers.
“So what’s up with this place?” I ask.
“It’s a long story but I’ll tell you,” PBR says. “Story is that Walt never left his parents’ house. It’s f**king pathetic. And then his mom got sick and died, and his dad never really had a job, at least not that I can remember. You like your beer?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Walt had a job at the hardware store once, but he got fired for stealing a tool kit and no one really wanted to hire him after that.”
“Why’d he steal a tool kit?”
PBR guy takes another swig of his beer.
“Why the f**k not steal a tool kit? That shit is useful. Anyway, no one was paying the mortgage so eventually the bank kicked them out. Walt’s dad moved in with some family in Redding and Walt couch surfed, mostly on my couch. Unfortunately. That was maybe seven months ago. But the bank never did anything with the place. It was just sitting here unoccupied, so eventually Walt was like ‘Screw it,’ and moved back into the basement. And then—as an extra little f**k you to the man—he started hosting shows here.”
As if on cue, Walt’s voice comes thundering out of the speakers.
“What’s up party people? We have a special band tonight. All the way from Frisco. They call themselves . . . The Disenchantments!”
Meg and Alexa are in position behind Walt. Bev isn’t there. I scan the room for her and find her off to one side, talking to some guy who must be at least Walt’s age. The guy is leaning into her, talking all close with his mouth by her ear. Bev pulls away from him and gives him this look, all aloof and mysterious but also inviting, and even though I’ve seen her give that look a million times before, it makes me feel sick. For the first time it strikes me, how it’s so calculated. She knows exactly how pretty she is and exactly how to play it. It’s one thing to do that to some sleazy stranger who’s at least ten years older than you are, and another thing to do it to your best friend. And now that I know that she knows how I feel about her, that she’s probably known for years, it’s even worse that she’s doing this in front of me. Yeah, we’ve both made out with a lot of other people, but if I ever thought she might want something more with me, I swear, I would have forgotten about every other girl.
Alexa gives a weak hit of a drum to kick off the first song. Bev picks up her guitar and strums a chord that has no place in any tuning, standard or otherwise. The amps thunder static, unable to endure Meg’s low notes. For a minute, before Bev starts to sing, they sound so terrible that anyone with a sense of humor would assume they were joking.
But as soon as Bev starts singing, two things register: first, that Bev is the most beautiful being on Earth, and second, that they are playing in earnest. That they aren’t going to stop and laugh and say, No, really? You guys thought this was real?
As usually happens when The Disenchantments start a show for strangers instead of just kids at our school, the crowd stares at them in a stunned silence. Soon, I know, the audience members will regain their composure and start to talk loudly enough that the music is irrelevant. Once in a while they’ll glance away from whomever they’re talking to and remember that there’s a band up there. They will admire the guitar player’s gorgeous face, regardless of the fact that she can’t tune her own instrument. They’ll move on to the drummer and think, Who cares if she’s too blissed-out to pound a beat—that concentration! Those blue-inked hands! They’ll look at the bassist, too distracted by her great legs and pink hair to be bothered by the terrible static that thunders with every low note. And when Bev is singing, devastating and breathy, above the sound of everything else, they’ll either want to be her or to be the person she loves, and they’ll know that in spite of the cacophony of everything else, she is worth staying for.