Dissonance - Chapter 23

While I had thought about her a few times, I hadn’t talked to Sydney since our impromptu lunch the previous Tuesday, which is why I was surprised when she intercepted me on the way to the lunch table Monday.

“Hey,” she said, stepping apparently out of nowhere in front of me.

“Hey yourself.”

“Did you want to come sit with me and my friends today?”

“Really?” I said.

I don't know what I thought she was going to say, but that wasn’t it. I couldn’t help but think about my first time getting to know Rhonda, and how that had been one of the first things she’d done also, asking me to eat lunch with her and her friends. Although Sydney and I had had lunch together the other day and she’d been a little fan-girly when she’d first talked to me during the swimming competition, it hadn’t occurred to me that she might actually be into me.

Maybe I was reading too much into it and she just liked talking to me and wanted to hang out more, but after Rhonda and listening to my lunch friends talk, I’d realized there was a lot more social maneuvering involved in who sat where. You couldn’t just sit down with any group at lunch, at least not without people wondering what you were doing. Being invited to join someone’s lunch table had all kinds of implications associated with it. Hanna had brought me to her lunch table as a friend, and I’d ended up with a bunch of friends here at school that remained even after she went to school. With Rhonda, it was an audition to see if her friends would accept me if we started dating.

Of course, there was added weight to that for Rhonda, since she was extremely concerned with what others thought of her and her position as queen bee of her group of friends. I didn’t get that vibe at all from Sydney. I was still learning about how all of this social hierarchy worked here, but I was pretty sure this wasn’t Sydney just wanting to hang out or join her friend group.

I had figured out enough to know that if I said no, she’d definitely read that as I wasn’t interested in her beyond as friends. Although I hadn’t thought of her like that yet, now that I did, I didn’t hate the idea. She was smart, easy to talk to, not superficial like Rhonda had been and, now that I was considering it, pretty cute.

“Yeah. We haven’t talked since the other day and you’re so busy I thought this would be a nice to hang out.”

Since I’d only ever dated Rhonda, I still didn’t know all of the steps to this dance, but I was pretty sure she couldn’t just say ‘ohh, I think you’re cute and want to see if my friends approve of you,’ even though that would be a lot easier. Maybe she just wanted to hang out again, but the way she looked at me, I was pretty it was more than that. But what did I know? Even though my two best friends were girls, women were still an absolute mystery to me.

“Uhh, sure,” I said, which earned me a big smile.

She whipped around, her shoulder-length hair swooshing around her face and led me towards a table with two groups sitting at it and a gap of three seats making it clear they were very much separate. Since one group was five girls who looked to be around the same grade as Sydney and the other were goths, with their all-black wardrobe and emphasis on dark makeup regardless of gender, it wasn’t hard to figure out which group we were heading towards.

Even though the town was small and the school didn’t have a huge number of students, I surprisingly knew very few other the other kids, except the ones I had classes with or who happened to be friends of friends. Partly, it’s because the kids who went here came from a wide area, many from farms outside of town, and partly because I didn’t really socialize with anyone outside of my friend group. I assumed they were all sophomores like Sydney, since I didn’t recognize any of them.

“Guy, this is Charlie. Charlie, that’s Shelly, Sabrina, Beth, Stacy and Tasha.”

“Hey,” I said, setting my lunch down. “Are y’all on the swim team with Sydney?”

“Hell no. Do you know how many practices they have over the summer, the girl Sydney had called Sabrina said. No, we were all in middle school together and became friends and just sort of, stayed friends after that.”

“Beth is on the Soccer team, Tasha’s in theatre, Stacy and Sabrina spend all their time studying and are huge nerds …” Stacy said and then stopped as the girls protested.

“Hey,” Sabrina said.

“Yeah, hey. And I’m in math club,” Stacy said.

“Fine, not huge nerds but they spend too much time studying to do any extracurricular, and Shelly there is a farm girl who goes right home to do chores every day.”

“She competes in barrel racing, to be fair,” Tasha said.

“Fine, she’s a horse girl,” Sydney said.

“You’re in theatre?” I asked Tasha. “Do you know Cameron Barnes?”

“Yeah. I mean, not personally. I only got small parts last year, so we didn’t really have scenes or whatever, and he tends to hang out with the upperclassmen. He’s nice though.”

“Ohh, I didn’t realize there was a whole hierarchy in theatre.”

“You have no idea. I mean, it’s not huge so we all talk or whatever, but there are definitely cliques. Like, I mostly hang with the background people, the stage and lighting guys mostly stay to themselves, and the upperclassmen that get all the big roles mostly stay to themselves. It’s not malicious or anything like out here, and if someone wanted to sit in with one of the other groups, I don’t think they’d get a lot of complaints, but we just don’t really do it.”

“I get it. Baseball was kind of that way too, I guess. The JV and varsity guys didn’t really hang out.”

“So what’s up with your ex-girlfriend?” Beth asked.

I was taken aback by the question, since it was both out of the blue and a little hostile.

Sydney was also clearly not expecting it, because she got an annoyed expression on her face and said, “Beth!”

“What. He’s here and you keep telling us how great he is, then he can man up and deal with the bitch.”

“BETH,” Sydney said, her eyes darting to me and then back to her friend, panicked.

If it wasn’t for the bit about Rhonda, I’d actually find it funny. I’d already figured out Sydney liked me, or at least I had once she invited me to sit over here, and it would normally be fun to see her squirm as her friends spilled her secrets. However, I hadn’t spoken to Rhonda since before the summer and had only seen her in passing once or twice since school started back up. As far as I was aware, we were completely done with each other. She’d tried to make trouble with Kat at the end of last year, but I had thought that had been about Kat and Aaron, maybe trying to get some kind of social cred from Aaron’s crew, and had been pretty sure it hadn’t had anything to do specifically with me.

If she was going after Sydney, then that was maybe something else. Sydney and I weren’t dating, but I think people had seen us out together and figured out we liked each other. The two times we’d talked we’d been in pretty public and Rhonda was popular enough that it wasn’t hard to imagine word getting back to her. Of course, that still didn’t explain why she’d want to go after Sydney. She’d made it clear she didn’t have any interest in me anymore.

“What happened with Rhonda?” I asked Sydney, who clearly didn’t want any part of this.

“It was nothing. She just stopped me outside the school this morning to talk.”

“She told Sydney that she should stay away from you, accused her of chasing you cause she thinks you’re going to be famous, and called her a slut.” Sabrina said.

“Really? She just came up and said that?” I asked Sydney.

Sydney looked more embarrassed by the whole thing than upset, nodded and said, “Yeah, but it’s not a big deal. She didn’t actually do anything. Just insulted me, and I don’t care what she thinks of me.”

“Still, she shouldn’t have done that, especially since we haven’t spoken since last year. I’ll talk to her.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Sydney said. “It wasn’t a big deal, really.”

“It is and I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I promise I won’t make a big deal of it or anything.”

“Please don’t,” Sydney said, making hard eye contact with me. “I really just want it to drop.”

“Fine, but if she does it again, or escalates somehow, I’m going to talk to her, okay?”

“We’ll see.”

“So, what’s it like playing traveling around, playing in clubs?” Beth asked.

“It’s fun, although really exhausting. A lot depends on which clubs we play. The ones that are more bars than live music, as opposed to living music venues that also serve alcohol, kind of suck. People aren’t really paying attention, and that kills the vibe. A lot of what makes being up on stage fun is playing off the audience, using their excitement and energy and feeding it back to them.”

“I can’t imagine what that’s like. We’ve only had a couple of small swim meets, and even then, I have to pretend there aren’t any people watching or I get so nervous. I can’t imagine playing in front of thousands of people.”

“It’s more like dozens of people. We mostly play small clubs and bars that aren’t that much bigger than the Blue Ridge. We played a few music-specific venues, one that held over a thousand people and was half full, which was fun. We did get to open for House of Grace, and they had a huge, packed audience. That was otherworldly.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Sydney said.

“It’s pretty exciting, although I honestly don’t know if it’s because of the crowds or just because I like playing. I mean, I have a good time even when we’re practicing and there’s no one around but us. That’s when it’s all about the music. Sometimes we aren’t figuring stuff out, we’re just jamming, maybe even playing covers.”

“That sounds fun,” Sydney said.

“You could come someday, if you want. I can’t promise it will be too exciting, but I think our practices are pretty fun.”

“I’d like that,” she said.

***

I’d done an excellent job so far staying out of the house as much as possible, until Thursday night. Kat had therapy, which Hanna’s mom took her to, the band didn’t practice on Thursdays since we’d be playing all weekend, Chef had to get to do dinner service, and Sydney’s mom was taking her to Asheville for something. All of which meant I didn’t have anywhere else to hide, and was stuck having dinner with my Dad until Mom got home.

I spent most of it hiding in my room, but when Dad called and said dinner was ready, I couldn’t really just ignore it. For one, I was starving, since it was almost eight and school lunch had been at eleven-thirty in the morning. And two, Dad was actually a pretty good cook. If Mom was around, he’d always insist on having her do it while he ‘practiced,’ which usually meant plucking aimlessly on his guitar while drinking a stack of beers. That was always wild to me, because he was actually a better cook than she was, especially when trying to make something worth eating on the extremely stretched budget we lived on when I was younger. He knew it too, since he pointed out the fact to Mom all the time when she made something that didn’t quite work.

Tonight, he’d made spaghetti, which for us was a small amount of ground beef, a few cans of tomato sauce, some Italian seasoning, and spaghetti noodles. With that, you could make enough to feed the three people for three meals, for just about seven dollars if you got the store-brand stuff only, not counting the Italian seasoning, salt, pepper or garlic powder, all of which could stretch over a lot of meals, adding only a ten cents or so to the total of each.

It wasn’t a gourmet meal, but it was filling and actually wasn’t half bad.

“I made your favorite,” he said, which showed how little he actually paid attention

While I liked it, it was far from my favorite meal when I was a kid, and wouldn’t be in the top fifty now. It’s just that this was the best thing he made, and it was better than mom’s cooking, so it was better than the alternative. But give me a fast food burger and friends, or literally anything from the Blue Ridge, and I’d take it any day. What he meant was, “this was the thing I make that you like the best, and I only pay attention to you when it somehow involves me.”

“Great,” I said, biting my tongue.

For a while, we ate in silence. He may be been self-involved, but he wasn’t an idiot and could feel the tension as well as I could.

I just wanted to eat and get back to my room with as few sentences said as possible, but Dad had other plans. Although I’d only eaten at home a handful of times since in the two weeks since I’d been back, all of them had required waiting on mom to get home from work and cook something. It should have occurred to me that he’d had a purpose behind it, beyond simple sustenance or as some kind of peace offering. Unfortunately, it didn’t until he started talking that it occurred to me. If I’d been paying more attention, I would have realized what was going on and skipped the meal.

“So, you’re mom told me you have a meeting coming up with your new manager.”

It wasn’t a question, but I could hear the request behind the words. I’d actually debated not telling Mom about the meeting, but Kent would be there and he’d specifically asked about her availability. Because of the structure of my contract and the fact that I was a minor, I had to have an adult representative at any meeting or function with the label. Hanna had filled that role while we were on the road, but I was home and she was off to college, so I’d had no choice but to tell Mom about it. I’d asked her to not tell dad about it, but clearly that hadn’t worked.

“Don’t give me that look,” he said when I couldn’t keep the frown off my face. “You’re mother and I just want to make sure your interests are taken care of. I know you think you can do this all by yourself, but I was serious when I said we were going to step in and make sure you’re making the right decision and that I would be taking the lead on that, since I know more about this industry and what to watch out for than your mother. You can say no all you want, but as long as you’re a minor under our roof, you’re going to have to live with it.”

“I don’t think you trying to convince me to drop out of school so I can tour full time is you looking out for my best interest.”

“You have no idea what the music industry is really like. You’ve had the friend of one of your teachers help produce an album and got a contract with training wheels on it. I’m not trying to knock you what your achievement, since it’s a big deal and you should be proud of it, but it isn’t the same as what it’s like when you’re really out there. I’ve seen the checks you’ve gotten. They’re good money for a kid, but you aren’t going to make a living that way. If you play your cards right, though, you could be set for life. I know you’re mother’s filled your head with ideas about school and college, but you’ve got a real opportunity here, if you’ll just listen to me.”

“Dad, I told you …”

“I wasn’t finished,” he said, banging a fist on the table.

I was ready to just get up and walk away from the table, mostly to keep from doing or saying something I might regret. To his credit, he flattened his palm on the table and took a deep breath, regaining his composure, before continuing. Since he got himself under control, I just made a go-ahead gesture before leaning back and crossing my arms.

“I heard what you had to say, and I’ll honor your wishes. If you want to finish school, hell, if you want to go to college and get some useless liberal arts degree to make your mother happy, I won’t stand in your way. I might point out how useless it is from time to time and how much money you’re leaving on the table, but I won’t make any decision on that front without talking to you first. As for the rest of it, you’re going to have to trust my judgment.”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘the rest of it?’”

“Well for starters, this band of yours. They aren’t in your contract, so there’s no reason to humor them. I said you were making okay money, but not real money, and the main reason for that is because you insist on giving away two-thirds of everything you make to these people. I heard them play, and they’re all fine, but nothing you won’t find in any city you go to and nothing your new manager can’t arrange for. When we meet with them, I want him to tell us how he’d phase them out and start working on making sure you had backing people when you travel. If they still want a gig, they can keep playing with you while you’re here, or hell, even in a close enough distance to travel too, but they’re going to do it at fair gig rates, not at this one-fourth cut bullshit you arranged.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve been here less than a month after being locked up because you’re a drunk and a shitty human being, and you think you can decide how I’m going to run my career? I don’t give a shit what you think I should do. I’d rather quit music entirely and go work flipping burgers than have you anywhere near my career.”

“What did you say to me, you little shit?” he said, standing up and coming around the table, trying to loom over me.

It was his move when I was little, using his size to try and intimidate me, sometimes coupled with cuffing me around the ears if I didn’t get in line fast enough. That was when I was little. I was his height now and he’d lost weight in prison, while I’d been working out steadily for a year. It was time he found out things had changed.

“I said you’re a terrible human being and a drunk, and I don’t want you within a mile of my career,” I said, standing up and getting in his face.

He was about to say something when the door swung open and mom, looking worried, came rushing in. Normally, I would have heard her steps coming up to the trailer, but we’d been yelling and I’d been focused on him, and hadn’t noticed. Her appearance was enough to break the tension, or at least put it on pause for a second, as we both turned to look at her instead of each other, although Dad was clearly not finished yet. He was still breathing heavily, his hands clenched into fists.

“What’s happening,” she asked, dropping her bag by the door and moving to try and put herself between us.

“This little shit thinks he can tell me what decisions I can make under my own roof. I was about to teach him a lesson.”

“I think I can tell you what I’m going to do with my career, and you don’t get a say in it. He’s telling me he wants to come to the meeting with Kent and my possible new manager, where he was going to tell them I no longer had a regular band I played with.”

“John, we talked about this. I thought we’d decided …” She started to say, when dad’s hand struck up, backhanding her across the face.

The swing was slow and predictable, and had Mom not been between us, I could have intercepted it. Instead, she went crashing to the ground, a hand on her face, looking up terrified at him. Even though it was clear, for a second I paused, flashbacks of my childhood hitting me in a wave. I wasn’t afraid of this man anymore and knew I could take him if it came to it, but I hadn’t realized how much his violence had imprinted on me. Even though I wasn’t afraid of him, I could feel the terror I’d felt as a child, when he’d smack mom and me around.

Had he just walked away, I’d probably have let him go, wrestling with my past trauma? He couldn’t walk away, though. He was worked up, and wanted to take his anger out on someone. He’d always been a bully and went for the easiest target he could find, which now that I was bigger than him, meant Mom.

His foot swung back, preparing for a kick in his ribs, which was enough to break me out of my own thoughts. He was slow, going for big windups to add power to his swings, brute force taking precedence over any kind of technique. My foot shot out, hooking around his as it started its downswing toward mom. If I’d tried to just half his kick, it would have pulled me off balance. Instead, I pulled his foot diagonally with mine, using his own force to help it change direction, while my hand shot out, grabbing the front of his shirt.

He was off balance already and my pull on his leg would have probably been enough to get him to fall down all on his own, but I wasn’t looking to just end the threat to mom. I was angry and wanted to hurt him. Not badly, but I wanted him to know he wasn’t going to get to take free shots anymore. Chef would have probably had something to say about how that went against the philosophy behind kung fu, but I didn’t care. The was a bully, no different than Aaron or Harry. He wouldn’t back down as long as he didn’t have consequences for his actions.

I pulled hard as he fell, causing him to tip forward, only ending when his head smashed into the fridge. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him out. I could see his eyes, filled with a mixture of surprise, terror, and fury, looking up at me as he ricochet off the appliance and fell to the ground, half lying on moms legs. I hadn’t meant to have him land on her, but she didn’t look injured as she scuttled backward, away from us.

I knew that’s what he was going to do. He was a brawler. If he’d been smart, he would have half gotten up and stayed low, going for a tackle to get me on the ground. I could have countered it, but it would have been more of a threat. He was still shaken by the knock to the head, and he didn’t take any time to get his balance back before he made the swing, making it even more slow and predictable than the slap he’d given mom.

“Son of a bi …” he started to say as he got up and took a swing at me.

I moved to the side, my hand locking onto his wrist, using his own power and the fact that his body was lunging forward to bring it down and around his back. I moved past him, a tight lock on his wrist, that I twisted hard, and grabbed the back of his neck. He had absolutely no balance left and if I let go, he would have fallen on his face. Instead, I used the hold on his neck and wrist to divert him into the fridge again, his cheek smashing into its textured, beige face. He struggled to push away, but he was at an angle, and I pressed my body into his, giving him even less leverage. I also pulled up hard on his hand, the wrist making a hard ninety-degree angle, putting a lot of strain on the joint.

He grimaced, spittle flying out of his mouth in an arc across the door of the fridge.

“If you ever touch mom or me again, I will break every fucking bone in your body, do you understand,” I said quietly, my mouth inches from his ear.

I’d been angry a lot over the last year. Angry at my memory of him. Angry at Aaron and Harry. Angry at Coach Bryant and Rhonda. None of that compared to the blind furry I felt at that moment.

“I’m going to ….” he started to say, his voice a growl that ended as a sharp help as I pulled his wrist another degree in the wrong direction.

“You’re not hearing me. I will break your arm right now unless you tell me you understand. If you touch mom, or me, again, I am going to beat you to death. Do you understand?”

I pulled a little further, causing him to yell, “Yes. Yes. God Damn it, yes.”

I pressed his face into the fridge as I stepped back and let go. I was between mom and him, still in a ready stance, the weight on the balls of my feet, ready to react if he decided he wasn’t done. Ever the classic bully though, he didn’t try anything, taking a step back from me, cradling his wrist with his other hand. I’d been very careful with the force I put into it and knew it wasn’t permanently injured, but Chef had done something similar showing me how to do some of those join locks, so I knew it would feel almost broken for the next hour or so.

“Get out. And you’d probably be smart to find somewhere else to stay tonight.”

He looked past me to Mom, but didn’t say anything before storming out.