“Yeah, Mom?”
“Where are you off to?”
“I have a school project that I need to work on with…” My mind goes blank. There is no school project, and I can’t come up with a name to save this lie I’m about to tell.
“Who?” she asks, sensing my tension.
“Rob. You know, Rob Shultz. He has everything we need and he’s expecting me. So I better go.” Rob and I have been friends since third grade. He lives on the other end of our neighborhood, about a ten-minute bike ride away.
“Okay, Bill should be home by six. Will you be home in time for dinner?”
Bill Armstrong married my mother almost six years ago. We moved from Newtown to Villanova, leaving my childhood home behind. He officially adopted me last year after my father’s parental rights were finally terminated. Bill’s a cool dude, and he’s really good to my mother. She’s been happier with him than she ever was with my father, and that makes me feel good.
“I don’t think so. He’s ordering pizza for us.” I lie again.
She places a bookmark into the book that she’s reading on her lap and pulls off her glasses. Shit is about to get serious.
“Is everything okay?” she asks, and I shift back and forth, a bit jittery.
“Everything’s cool.” I wrap my hand around the doorknob and she speaks up again.
“Because you just don’t seem yourself.”
I let go of the handle and run my hand through my hair. “Mom, it’s all good.”
She puts her glasses back on, and the tension eases from my shoulders. She’s going to let me out without grilling me any more.
“Okay, if you say so.” She picks up her book again and opens it to the place where she shoved the bookmark. Her eyes drop to the pages and she says, “Tell Mrs. Shultz I said hi.”
Shit. I didn’t think this through. What happens when she sees Rob’s mom next week at the P.T.O. meeting?
I can’t worry about that now.
I pull the door open and ride my bike down the street. I look at my watch and see I only have ten minutes to make the next train on the Main Line. I increase my speed and turn the corner.
I lock up my bike on the bike rack and jog toward the train station. I’m panting as I reach the ticket booth and slide my money through the window. “Upper Darby.” I inhale deeply so I can regulate my breathing.
A ticket pops up, and my change is pushed back through the small opening. I swipe both and jog over to the track as the train pulls up.
If my mother knew I was getting on the train by myself, she’d flip. We’ve had long talks about me going into the city, and I’m not allowed to be doing this. I’m not really going into the city, I tell myself as if it’s okay to be going as far as I am.
I hop onto the train as soon as the doors open, pushing past the people trying to get off. I find the first empty seat and slide into it. As the doors close, I pull the crumpled piece of paper from my pocket. The address is written in my mother’s elegant handwriting. There’s a phone number under the address, but it’s been scratched out, barely legible.
I watch the stops speed by and soon it’s time to get off the train. After a quick cab ride, I’m on the street scrawled on the piece of paper that I’m holding. My heart starts to pound as I find the house with the number eighteen. The numbers are on a moldy post by the front door. They’re lopsided, and the number one is barely hanging on a bent rusty nail.
I force myself to walk up the overgrown sidewalk leading to the front door. All of the shades are drawn, and there’s no car in the driveway.
I wonder if he’s even home.
I press the cracked doorbell and don’t hear any chimes coming from inside the house. Broken.
I knock loudly on the storm door, and it rattles like it’s about to fall off the hinges. It pops open, revealing it wasn’t even latched or locked. I wait a few minutes for someone to respond to my knock on the outer door and then open it to bang louder on the front door.
Still no answer.
I hear the melodic beat of drums and try to determine where the sound is coming from. It’s not coming from inside this house, but it’s nearby. I bang again on the front door, this time with as much force as I can. My knuckles sting after the eleventh knock.
I back up and listen for sounds coming from inside the house.
Still nothing.
The drums get louder, and I hear the screeching sound of an electric guitar.
Where is that music coming from?
I flip open the black mailbox hanging next to the front door. It almost falls off the wall, but I notice that it’s stuffed to the brim. I pull out a couple pieces of mail, and there’s a notice from the post office stating they are holding all mail until they hear from the resident. It’s dated three months ago.
He’s not here.
I quickly turn and walk back toward the street, wondering how I’m going to find another cab to take me to the train. This was a complete waste of time, and if Mom finds out about this trip, she’s going to kill me.
The music is louder now, and I finally see where it’s coming from. Maybe they know where he is.
I walk up the driveway, and as soon as they see me, the music comes to a screeching halt. “Hey,” I say when they all lay their eyes on me.
The guy behind the microphone with the electric guitar says, “What’s up?” He nods his head, and the rest of the band watches me intently.
“Uh. I’m looking for the guy next door. Have you seen him?”
The drummer quickly responds, “What do you want him for?” He raises his eyebrows and is suddenly suspicious.
I look to the rest of the group and shove my hands into the pockets of my hoodie. “No reason. It just looks like he hasn’t been there in a while, and I was wondering if you knew where I could find him?” I wonder if he’s dead.
“No man. That dude is sketchy. He moved in, like, seven years ago. I think I’ve only seen him maybe three or four times.” The bass guitar player shifts back and forth and looks around to the other guys. There’s three of them in all, and they seem to be about my age. They all nod their heads in agreement.
“My mom said he went to jail,” the drummer says.
“Oh,” I say, and I can only imagine why. The last time I saw my father, he was rifling through my childhood house looking for money to pay off gambling debts. Years later, my mother explained that she got a restraining order filed the next day. Apparently the people he owed money to threatened to hurt me and her. She says it was to protect us from him. I believed her, but I’ve always had this need to find out why he never came back. Why he never tried to make things right.
“Yeah, he’s a weird dude. I don’t know why you’d want to see him,” the guy in front of the microphone says, and his voice echoes throughout the street. “Damn, I forgot to turn off the mic.” He smirks and steps on a pedal in front of him.
“You guys have a pretty cool setup,” I observe. Rob and I have only tinkered with our instruments and have nothing close to what these dudes have. There are at least six amplifiers, and their instruments are high end. I look around the neighborhood and see that it’s pretty run down. These guys don’t seem like they can afford some of the instruments that they’re holding in their hands. The bass player is playing a Rickenbacker that I know for a fact is over twelve hundred dollars. The guitarist, and I presume the lead singer, is playing a Fender American Telecaster—a majorly expensive model. The drums are a seven-piece Gretsch kit that reminds me of the setup of Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters.
Who are these guys?
“I’m Tristan,” the bassist says. “This is my house.”
I nod toward Tristan as I ogle the extra guitars lined up in front of the lead singer.
“Do you play?” the drummer asks.
“A little,” I say, and I walk toward one of the Fender Stratocasters.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Garrett.”
“You already met Tristan. I’m Dax, and this is our fearless leader, Alex.”