Chapter 5: (FIVE) Search For The Beat In This Dirty Town

21:47 23 May

After my talk with my aunt, I headed upstairs for a shower with a spring in my step. I untwisted my hair from the braid and brushed it out, then undressed while the water warmed up. I got in, avoiding my reflection – a habit I picked up in high school; I was not one of those musclebound football lunks I shared a locker room with, and the whole experience made me pretty uncomfortable – and did most of my shower with my eyes closed, thinking. I used mom’s shampoo and conditioner, following the advice probably-not-Narindra had given me and the instructions on the bottles. It was still kinda straw-ish afterward, so I did it again and let the conditioner sit longer this time. Once I was done, I dried off, pulled on my bathrobe, and crossed the hall to my room, letting my hair air-dry like usual.

I sat down at my computer and then checked my phone; Kelly had texted me and Bailey, so I texted back the group chat.

 

       KELLY

       So, were you serious about the band thing?

       JACK

       Absolutely. Are you interested?

       KELLY

       Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it could be fun

       BAILEY

       Yeah, I’m totally down

       Should we get together somewhere and talk about it?

       JACK

       Lunch tomorrow maybe? Wendys? 1 or so?

       KELLY

       Sure, that sounds cool

       BAILEY

       Yeah! Meetcha there!

       JACK

       You’re talking to her and not me, right?

       BAILEY

       Durr! See you like noon-thirty at your place.

 

With that set, I plugged in my phone, then put my guitar back on the stand. I browsed the web while I waited for my hair to dry. Early YouTube was an experience, so far. Though if we did start a band… hm. There were some possibilities there.

I dug a notebook out of my desk and made a hard-copy note of that.

Maybe a tumblr too? Might be a bit early for that to be worthwhile.

I spend another half hour or so bouncing around the internet with my advanced knowledge of ‘how to google’ and finding a few sites I hadn’t realized already existed, and some I’d never seen that presumably died before I really started spending time on the internet last time around or in the dream or previous continuity or whatever.

Hey, ‘previous continuity’, I like that. It also nicely sidestepped having to think about explanations for it when I thought about the rest of it.

After I turned off my computer, I had a thought. I’d always been really happy about how flexible I was as a child. Losing that was another one of those regrets I’d had in the previous continuity.

Yep, love that. Anyway, no more!

I vaguely remembered being able to do the splits at one point when I was little; I wasn’t quite there anymore, so I guess I was a bit out of practice already, but that wasn’t going to stop me. Nor was the pain, I could work through that if it let me amaze people with my awesome bendy powers. I spent the rest of the time before I went to bed doing flexibility exercises.

###

11:58 24 May

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty, rise and shine!”

“Gluh?” I forced my eyes open and rubbed at them. Once cleared, my vision revealed Bailey standing at the foot of my bed, hands on her hips, looking much too beamish for however early it was. “Mwurg.” I glanced over at my alarm clock, frowned, then looked at her askance.

She rolled her eyes.

“I’m not that early. Come on, lazybones, up and at ‘em! We’re meeting Kelly for lunch, remember?”

I yawned. “Okay, okay. Gimme a minute.”

“You still don’t wake up well, do you?”

“I’m just making the most of it,” I said as I pushed off my covers. “Sleep is like, the free trial of dying.”

“Does that make dreams the annoying ads?”

“Hm.” I paused after setting my feet on the floor. “Actually that’s usually the good part. Maybe that’s not my best metaphor. Or, wait, was that a simile?”

“Simile, you used ‘like’.”

“Right. I always get those two mixed up.”

Once I was actually standing, Bailey gave me some privacy to get dressed. I went with a pair of cargo shorts, and my Nancy Drew shirt again. I tied a hoodie around my waist, shoved some cash and my phone in my pocket, and tugged on my beanie, then headed to join her.

We skipped breakfast – or I did at least, I had no idea how long she’d been up – since we were going to eat lunch soon anyway. We hung around for a while and then headed out.

The bike ride to Wendy’s was a quick couple miles, and Kelly was hopping out of a car in the parking lot as we cycled up to the bike rack. She waved to us as the car pulled away.

“Hey guys!”

We exchanged greetings and high-fives and all headed inside and up to the counter. By the time we’d moved up the line to the front, we’d all figured out what we wanted. It wasn’t very hard; I was pretty sure Bailey and I had both been ordering the same things since way before we were old enough to order for ourselves. She went first, then Kelly. The guy at the counter looked me in the eyes.

“And for you, miss?”

What?

“Uh, um, burger, pickles, no cheese, uh, medium fries and frosty, thanks,” I stammered. I was pretty sure I was blushing, if that warm feeling that ran up from my chest was any indication. I think that was embarrassment, anyway, sometimes I was bad at interpreting my emotions. I didn’t want to look at the girls; I had no idea what their expressions would be. I apparently looked a bit further past the other side of androgynous than I thought, ‘cause this hadn’t happened to me in a while, or it felt like it anyway with the whole ‘previous continuity’ thing, I’d kinda forgotten how it felt.

“Will that be everything?” the guy asked while Kelly grabbed our cups.

“Yep, thanks!” Bailey answered, since I was still indisposed.

“Okay. That’ll be twenty-three dollars, girls.”

I fished out eight bucks for my part and handed it to Bailey, keeping my gaze firmly on the floor, then followed her shoes when she started moving.

We got to a table by the front windows and sat down.

“Uh,” I finally got out. I looked up at the girls. They weren’t laughing, at least. That was a nice change from Bryce and his asshole buddies. Bailey had that reassuring smile of hers, which worked wonders. Kelly just looked a little confused.

“Does that happen a lot?” Kelly asked. Having no clue how to answer that, I shrugged and looked at Bailey. She shrugged back and sort of half-smiled.

“Probably more than you think, Jay.”

“…huh.”

Should I know how to feel about that?

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Well, the girls don’t seem too bothered by it, and it’s not like it’s that embarrassing if I could stop blushing every time, so I guess it’s okay.

It’s… I mean, other than the blushing, I don’t really mind.

“So, er, music?” I offered, masterfully changing the subject. “Kelly’s drums, I can do guitar and sing. We could use a bass player. Bay, you want to pick up another instrument?”

“I don’t have a problem with it. Do we even know what kind of music we wanna play, though?”

“Oh! Ooh ooh!” Kelly said, waving her hand like she wanted a teacher to call on her. I pointed at her.

“Yes, Kelly?”

“What if we all go to The Record Store after we eat? We each find a bunch of stuff we like, then we can figure out what it has in common!”

Bailey and I nodded simultaneously. Then they called our number from the front. I shook my head just in case one of them was going to volunteer me.

“I don’t wanna!”

“I wasn’t gonna ask, but it’s not like you have to talk to anyone y’know, just hand them our number.”

“Well, I mean, yeah, it’d be weird to like, talk to the guy when I went up there, but if I didn’t he’d keep thinking I was a girl, and it’s weirder to not say anything about that, right? But then if I did say, he’d probably get all embarrassed about getting it wrong and stuff, and then it would just be like super awkward for both of us.”

I thought that made sense, but they just sorta looked at me like I was the weird one. I thought over what I’d said.

“Okay, it’s possible I’m catastrophizing,” I admitted.

“That is kind of a thing you do, Jay,” Bailey said, squeezing my shoulder as she stood up. “I’m gonna go get our food.”

Kelly propped up her chin on her hand as she looked at me. “Jack, do you, like, take anything for your anxiety?”

“For my what now?”

She blinked. “Y’know, how you get all nervous about talking to people?”

I shook my head and waved it off. “Oh, nah, that’s just ‘cause, I dunno, it just makes me uncomfortable. I wouldn’t really say nervous. I just don’t like it. I think it’s just, like, people seeing me.” I shrugged. “I may have self-confidence issues.”

“Look at you, being all introspecty!” Bailey said proudly as she set our trays down. “Good for you!”

“Hey, come on. I’m plenty introspecty! I’m the instrospectiest!”

Kelly snerked. “Introspectiest? What even?”

Then we were all laughing. Once I thought I could swallow without choking, I dipped a fry into my frosty and popped it in my mouth, then Bailey dipped one of her own fries.

“Mm-mm! Thanks!”

Kelly gave us a weirded-out look.

“What, have you never tried it?” asked Bailey. “Seriously, it’s the best.”

I proffered my frosty. “Go ahead, try it!”

“All the kids are doing it,” Bailey added.

“Just one won’t hurt!” I said with a smirk.

Finally Kelly got it and laughed at us as she dipped one of her fries. “You guys are dorks.” She stuck her fry in her mouth and her eyes widened. “Mm! Omigosh, you’re right! That’s delicious!”

“Oh no, she’s hooked,” I said flatly.

###

After lunch, Kelly hopped on my bike with me and we headed to The Record Store. That’s its’ name – ‘The Record Store’. There’s a big sign with that on it, but they sold cassettes and CDs, too. It wasn’t really a hipster retro place, because they’d started out selling records back before cassettes even became popular and they were still around, but there were definitely some members of that crowd there sometimes. The memories rattling around in my head told me the place wound up closing in like 2014.

Most importantly for our plans, they let you listen to stuff before you bought it.

We dismounted and headed inside, where I clapped my hands once for their attention.

“Okay, everybody split up and find some stuff, and then meet by the players?”

“Right.”

“Sounds good.”

I started off by just wandering around, trying to spot any new stuff I remembered as being good – which was a weird sentence construction but this whole week had frankly been a bit of a trip.

There was a display – more like a few shelves – with a modern black and white photo of some gals maybe in their twenties, in jeans and tees. A title below the photo said ‘Classic Riot Grrl’.

Is that a genre or a band name?

There was a bunch of stuff in the section, so I grabbed a couple LPs for listening – Pussy Whipped by Bikini Kill, a self-titled one by Sleater-Kinney, and a more recent LP by the same, The Woods – and moved on. I grabbed an old Blondie record, just ‘cause, and Joy Division, ‘cause duh.

I saw the other two moving toward the stereos by the front counter, so I followed.

“How can I help you ladies?”

There it is again! Still blushing, but still not getting laughed at, so I can get used to it.

“Um, can we get listener copies of these?”

“Sure, they’re all on CD, is that okay?”

She passed out the CDs and held our copies in a stack at the counter while we listened. I grabbed a pair of headphones and plugged them in, then paused.

Wow, this setup would not fly in 2022.

Eh, whatever.

I pulled them on, popped in the Bikini Kill one, and hit shuffle.

Ooh, this is the good shit! To my left, I saw Kelly sort of bopping to whichever she’d put in, and Bailey was grinning, so we were definitely doing alright so far.

After a while we decided it’d be rude to sit around there the whole day, so when Kelly suggested going back to her house for a more in-depth listening party, Bailey and I agreed pretty quick after we called our folks. Mine seemed pretty ecstatic that I was hanging out with more friends than just Bailey. Did I really used to be that solitary? Guess it made sense. It was sort of a chronic condition.

Due to the restrictions of pocket money, after pooling our funds we ended up whittling it down to my picks, some New Order and Sonic Youth that Kelly had found, an album Bailey picked titled Because I’m Awesome by the Dollyrots, which I voted for purely on principle – what a title! – and a couple others.

Kelly got on my bike again, and we headed off with her giving directions. She lived in a subdivision on the other side of town from Bailey and I – no problem, not that far to ride, and we got to the general area fairly quickly. It was a bit swankier than I expected, but all forest between the yards; I think the other side of the subdivision was the town borders and beyond was mostly woods.

“Hey, uh-oh!” Bailey blurted. Something crashing came from behind us, and I made a quick check back ohshit

A very large moose thundered toward us – apparently Kelly and I had pissed it off somehow, I hadn’t been chased by a moose in a while so maybe I wasn’t up on my etiquette. Kelly screamed, which didn’t seem to help.

“Shitshitshitshitshitshit!”

“Why is it after us?” Bailey yelled.

“I dunno, maybe my conditioner is tree-scented!” I panted.

“Turn right!” Kelly screeched. Bay and I just made the turn; if you’ve never watched a moose skid out on pavement, it’s kinda funny but I recommend doing it from a safe distance, they don’t like it when you laugh. Or at least it didn’t stop it coming after us.

“Jayjayjay brake!” Kelly screeched from ahead. I whipped my head back forward to find the curb at the end of a T in the road, and then we were airborne.

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