I Found A Reason - Chapter Six
Disclaimer: I don’t own RENT.
This story will contain a female OC. She will be a main character. She also will not be “involved” with either Mark or Roger. Ever. She’s there to bring them together and be cute. Seriously, we promise. She won’t boink the boys.
I Found a Reason
Chapter Six - Monday Morningness and Mixtapes
Mark’s POV
Monday morning starts with me being unable to locate my usual shoes. I tear my room apart in an apathetic sort of confusion until I have to give up, realizing that any more time spent searching will make me late. I grab an older pair from under my bed that pinch my feet and hurry to gather my books, still strewn across my floor from finishing my homework around midnight. I shove them into my bag, grab my camera and stop briefly in the bathroom to run a hand through my still-damp hair. I rake my fingers through it, trying to go for artfully disheveled. It flops back into place, leaving a wet smear on the upper corner of my right lens. I frown and wipe my glasses on my shirt as I hurry downstairs to grab some toast from my mom before running to the car.
Being late results in a parking spot in the back end of the parking lot. The only thing I have to be grateful for is that gym is first period. By now, I definitely wouldn’t have made it on time to any other class. So I take my time, adjusting the contents of my bag to make sure my heavy History book won’t crush my camera before walking to the school.
I stroll into the locker room a couple minutes after the bell to find Roger leaning against my locker waiting, already in his uniform. He looks rather tired, but I pass it off as Monday morningness. I give him a push to the side as a way of greeting, setting down my bag on the bench behind me and reach for my lock.
“Are we officially starting our feeble attempts at participation today?” I ask him, glancing over my shoulder to catch him going through various pockets of my bag. He wrinkles his nose and shrugs, pulling a notebook out of my bag and taking a seat to flip through it.
“We have to start sometime.” He pauses on one page then grins, turning the notebook to the side. “I guess you weren’t too interested in the Revolutionary War.”
I move to look over his shoulder and see my notes from last week covered in various sketches and doodlings.
“Well, I drew some soldiers too.” I say, pointing. “Look, that one has a gun. I think their uniforms might even be historically accurate.”
Roger smirks and continues flipping through my notebook. “Weight room, okay?” He asks, looking up briefly.
I nod, pulling my uniform out of my locker. I take my glasses off and set them beside Roger on the bench, so I can change shirts. He loses interest in the notebook and picks up my glasses instead and puts them on, his eyes blinking profusely behind the lenses as he adjusts to the change in his vision.
“Your eyes must suck.” He says, taking them off a moment later and rubbing his eyes. He hands them back and resumes his search through my bag.
“Are you looking for something?” I ask him, switching my cords for the gym shorts. He shakes his head and shrugs, uncapping a pen to draw something on the cover of one of my other notebooks. I try to lean over to see but Roger grins and flips the notebook back toward himself.
“You’ll see it later.” He says, writing something else and then shoving my notebook back into my bag. I roll my eyes and grab my bag from him to shove it in my locker with my clothes. Roger stands up and stretches, then reaches down to the floor and picks up two bottles of water, tossing one to me.
“Thanks,” I say as he uncaps his. “You didn’t have…”
“Aw, I just stole them from the lunchroom.” He grins, waving me off. “It’s their fault for leaving
the vending machine open and unattended while they’re stocking it.”
“A felony is a great way to start the week.” I agree, slowly following him out of the locker room. He turns around and walks backwards to smirk and shake the water bottle at me.
“I prefer to think of it as a misdemeanor, Mark. It’s just petty theft.” His heels hit the bottom stair and he has to turn around and face forward, and I take two steps at once to catch up and climb the rest beside him.
“You seem to know this area of the law pretty well.” I tease and he crosses his arms, pretending to be defensive.
“Well if you’d like to attempt forty minutes of hanging out with a bunch of sweaty jocks in their natural habitat while pretending to be getting involved, without your stolen water, go right ahead. I’ll take two.” He says, reaching for mine and I pull it out of his grasp.
“No, I’m good.” I grin, making my way into the weight room and heading towards the far corner to plop onto an innocent looking device geared toward the leg muscles. Roger takes the one beside me. Across the room is the heavy lifting area, reserved usually only for the varsity athletes. This side of the room is for freshman who don’t know how to get away with not working yet, the girls who come for the cardio weight circuit, and for guys like me and Roger who don’t give a damn either way.
Since Roger stole water, I go grab us some score cards and pens to write down our progress, to turn in at the end of class for credit. Roger scribbles his name on the card and then tosses it on the floor in front of him and picks up his water bottle. I can’t help but do the same, the air in the room is stifling.
There’s already a good amount of people joining us for the workout. Maybe fifteen or twenty over in the varsity section, ten or so girls ready for the cardio portion. There’s a good portion of sophomore girls doing weights today, some of them glancing over at Roger once in awhile and giggling between each other, though I’m sure I saw at least one small freshman girl give me the eye too.
Roger nudges me and gestures absently with his water bottle. “Take a drink every time a freshman actually does what they’re supposed to.” Sure enough, there’s a couple of them grouped together where he pointed already straining and sweating after only a few minutes.
“Poor kids,” He says, almost sympathetically. “Well, they’ll learn eventually.”
“We all do.” I agree, hooking my feet under the bar of my weight machine and having a go at lifting it. It doesn’t budge and I frown down at my skinny legs and try again. Roger lets out a laugh.
“Hang on, Mark. Some musclehead stuck the pin in at 150.” He jumps down from his machine and sticks my pin it at the line the gym teachers draw, representing the minimum weight we can lift for credit.
“What was someone lifting 150 doing on this side of the room?” I mutter, trying again and this time my legs move up with the machine. I let them drop and look around for the coach. He’s spotting someone on the varsity end, so I lean back and give up. Roger makes a face.
“Take a drink every time one of the football players camps out in front of the mirror.” He says, with a vague laugh.
I take a drink with him and watch a couple of the guys on the other end of the room who do in fact inevitably flex for the mirror after each set of reps.
“They’re worse than girls.” Roger snorts, wiping his forehead. “It’s fucking hot in here.”
It’s my turn to grin. “Take a drink every time one of your fangirls goes to pieces when you move, breathe, laugh or otherwise exist.” I say, referring to girls on the cardio circuit who keep looking in our direction and the sophomore girls who keep giggling and slapping each other.
Roger rolls his eyes. “That’s nothing.” He acknowledges the girls with a grin and wink and then uncaps his water. The giggling actually drowns out the droning beeps of the timer for the cardio girls and the laughing and encouragement coming from the varsity section for a couple seconds.
“Why the fuck do they do that?” He frowns. “Girls can be so cute, but they fucking ruin it by acting like idiots.”
I shrug. “You can give them a pass to your good friend, Mark if you want.”
He smiles. “Pedophile, those are underclassmen. They’re like, fourteen. And you can have them. Take your pick, tell them I sent you.”
“Is that like, the Roger Davis girlfriend discount? Half the effort if I mention you upfront?” I grin at him.
“Tell her you can get her backstage and I bet you’ll get laid.” He offers and looks around. “Should we change machines? We’ve been doing this one awhile.”
I nod and follow him to a different set, designed for the arms. “How many reps do you think we did for legs?” I ask, staring down at my progress card.
“I’d say about fifty.” He shrugs, writing it in.
“Probably at like, 80lbs, right?” I ask.
He furrows his brow. “Yeah, that’s plausible. I think.” He smiles to himself. “I have to confess, I don’t know anything about lifting weights.”
“I know that I’m supposed to sit here and move stuff around once in awhile,” I shrug. “One time I sat on this leg machine thing all wrong. I was trying to bench press or something. Instead of explaining to me why I was an idiot, I just got no credit.”
Roger laughs. “Sometimes I think I use more effort pretending to work than if I’d actually just do it, you know?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “But I still feel more accomplished if I just sit here.”
Someone blows a whistle and we both jump. “Cohen! Davis! Get to work!”
“Shit.” I sigh, gripping the handles of my machine and pushing.
“Pull, Mark.” Roger mutters, his eyes on the coach when I fail to make progress.
“Oh, yeah.” I laugh awkwardly. “I knew that.”
The coach passes us by and we resume our half-ass work out from before. Roger glares daggers over at the varsity section.
“Take a drink every time he walks past athletes who aren’t working and doesn’t say a word.” Roger growls, his eyes on a group who have been sitting around aimlessly like us for most of the period.
“We could be doing something so much more productive right now.” I muse.
“Practicing.” Roger sighs.
“Studying for History.” I moan, thinking about the homework I definitely should have started Friday night.
Roger winces at the mention of History. “Is that test today?” I nod unenthusiastically.
“For me it is.” I sigh, just as the whistle gets blown again.
“If I have to warn you two again you’re both getting no credit for the day.”
“Shit,” Roger says. “I’m rusty. He usually never catches me.”
I nod, having no choice but to refocus on the workout.
I head toward Roger’s locker to meet up with him for lunch. He’s leaning against it, flipping through his History textbook and looking somewhat panicked. When he sees me he reaches out to grab my arm and pull me closer.
“Who was the King during the Revolutionary War?” He asks.
“George.” I squint. “Second or Third, I don’t remember.”
“Shit.” He moans, flipping to the index of the book. I take hold of his upper arm and start leading him out of the building.
“It’s all right, we’ll figure out what you don’t know. We have all period, Roger.” I say, trying to calm him down.
He still looks miserable, but manages a tight smile. We drop down under the tree to join Violet. Roger throws his book out in front of him and lays on his stomach, furiously skimming through chapters and mumbling to himself.
Violet pops her gum. “Did he forget to study?” She asks me.
I shrug. “I don’t know. Hey, maybe you don’t even have the test today, Roger. We are in different classes. Ask someone in your class.”
He scowls down into his book. “I don’t know anyone in my class.”
“You don’t have to know them, you just have to ask them if you have a test or not.” I tell him patiently. “That doesn’t really require past conversation.”
“Why did they fight so many battles?” He moans, dropping his head down onto his book.
Violet smiles sympathetically, reaching over to rub one of his shoulders. “Just calm down. You’re not going to be able to remember anything if you’re all crazy.”
I drop down on my stomach beside Roger and nudge him over a bit so I can see his book too. He’s frowning down at the Battle of Bunker Hill and looking terribly put out. Calmly, I start explaining the main concepts of each of the battles, hoping he’ll retain enough information to be able to give at least a brief summary of most of them. Roger takes a few illegible notes, nodding every so often, his brow furrowed. Violet drops in to elaborate on certain details, and slips him a piece of gum while I tell him that the British captured Ticonderoga in 1777.
When the bell rings he hastily gathers his book and his notes and takes a moment to give me a brief one-armed hug and playfully give Violet’s ponytail a tug before muttering a thanks and running away, his eyes locked onto his notes.
Once I’m home, I realize I don’t have any homework for the night and drop my bag to the floor near the front door with relief. I spend my afternoon going through boxes of old pictures, critiquing my past work and planning some new things. I also continue the fruitless quest for my favourite shoes, which remain nowhere to be found.
Around six, I get rather bored with myself. I figure dinner will be ready soon so I head downstairs and look around for my mom before remembering that she told me when I got home she was going out to dinner with Nanette’s mother. They’re fantastic friends and love to get together to talk about how great it would be if Mark and Nanette got married.
My father is still working, which means I’m definitely on my own. My mom said there’s plenty in the fridge to heat up but when I open the fridge I’m less than impressed and still bored. I wonder what Roger’s doing right now. We’re in a lot of the same classes, and I know he couldn’t have had much homework, if any. I pick up my bag and dig out my camera, checking that I have enough film. I catch sight of the notebook Roger was drawing on before gym and pull it out. I smirk at the stick figure wearing glasses and holding a lightsaber with an arrow pointing from the word ‘Luke!’. Underneath is a phone number.
Taking it as a sign, I grab a phone and dial Roger’s number. It rings a couple times before I hear either Molly or Audrey giggling in the background and his mother saying hello.
“Hey, Mrs. Davis, it’s Mark. Is Roger there?”
I hear a faint banging sound and Roger’s voice. “He just walked in,” his mother tells me pleasantly. “How are you, Mark?” She asks.
“Great, Mrs. Davis.” I say, smiling and waiting for Roger who takes the phone a second later.
“Hey,” he says, sounding much happier than during lunch. “What’s up?”
“Let’s go bowling,” I suggest. “I’m bored. I can come pick you up.”
“Bowling?” He says faintly, and I sense his mood dimming. “Um, well…”
I smirk. “Come on, it’ll be fun. I’m terrible. Unless you’ve got homework or something?”
“Oh. Uh, no. Well, uh…” he sighs. “Yeah, great. Whenever you want, I guess. Is Violet coming?”
“I was going to call her. I’ll have to look her up in the phone book. You okay?” I ask, and I have a feeling that he’s nodding, even though I can’t see him, since there’s a delay in his response.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just show up whenever. I’ll see you.” He sighs.
When we hang up I almost regret calling him. I was hoping to get him out to cheer him up, but the idea didn’t seem to do much for his mood, despite bringing it down a notch or two.
I look up Violet in the phonebook who asks for a few minutes to get ready, so I scribble a quick note for my parents, grab my bag and leave for Roger’s house first to give her time.
Roger is sitting with his acoustic in front of the house, leaning against the door and strumming idly when I pull up. Seeing me he offers a half-hearted wave and goes inside for a moment, resurfacing without his guitar. He heads over and drops into the passenger seat.
“Hey.” I say.
“Hey.” he sighs in return.
“Did you have your test?” I ask him and he nods, brightening slightly.
“Yeah, I did fine on it too.” He smiles. “It was pretty easy. Thanks, man. I totally owe you.”
I shrug. “You saved my ass in Geometry. Fair is fair.” He grins and relaxes a bit, then yawns.
“Tired?” I ask him. “You seemed sort of dead today.”
He nods. “Band practice yesterday and today after school. I’ll be disappearing most of this week when I’m not in school.” He jokes, then scowls. “We don’t have a show until next weekend, but I have to make sure I learn some of the guitar parts. Ryan decided he liked the fuller sound with me playing rhythm guitar, so now I have to learn all his shitty songs and most of the covers.” Roger goes off on a rant for a few minutes, leaving me to agree with him once in awhile and nod sympathetically.
We pick up Violet a few minutes later and head for the bowling alley, Roger turning surly again as we drive. Within a few minutes of getting our shoes, picking balls and setting up our score card for the lane, we find out why. Roger’s first attempt results in the ball bouncing directly into the gutter, in the lane next to ours, and it doesn’t get much better from there. His next few tries are more lane jumpers and immediate gutterballs. I’ve never seen anyone worse at bowling.
Violet keeps score for us, popping her gum while writing down the numbers. She frowns miserably at each of Roger’s failed attempts.
“It’s not even like I can make up number for pins to make him feel better. He hasn’t hit any yet.” She whispers to me as the guy from the next lane shoves the ball that had rolled over by his feet into Roger’s arms and tells him to get lost. Roger scowls and drops down into the seat next to me. I exchange a look with Violet. Neither one of us is any good either, but we’ve at least knocked down a couple of pins here and there. I take the ball from Roger and grab his sleeve to pull him up.
“Come on, Roger. Look, roll it like this.” I get down on my knees with the ball and push it a couple inches. I hand it to Roger and lead him over to the lane. “Just roll it like that.”
He grumbles, but gets down and takes the ball, taking time to aim it carefully and then pushes it. It wobbles for a couple feet, then drops into the gutter. He stomps away, crossing his arms and falling into his seat.
“Here, Roger.” Violet says, standing up. “Try it this way.”
“It’s not my turn.” He insists. “It’s yours. Go ahead.”
“No, I want you to have fun.” She smiles and pulls him over to the lane and hands him his ball again, taking hers as well.
“Lean over and roll it like this, okay?” She says, bending over with her legs spread and her arms and the ball between her feet. She chucks the ball down the lane and it goes fairly straight until the end, taking out two pins on the side.
Roger begrudgingly mimics her, getting into the awkward position and hurling his ball after hers. To his credit, it makes it all the way down the lane, but plummets out of sight without hitting any pins at the end. He throws up his hands and walks away. I turn around in my seat to call after him but he waves me away and heads off to the arcade.
“He’ll be fine,” I tell Violet. “He’s just being a jerk.”
She shrugs, picking up the scorecard again. “He’s frustrated. It happens.”
We resume our game for awhile and I find myself admiring my bowling shoes during one of Violet’s turns. They’re a few terrible shades of red and blue and green. With mustard coloured laces and a big number 10 on the back of the heel. They’re vaguely clownish, but still pretty fucking cool.
We finish off our game with scores barely breaching 100 and head off to find Roger. He’s discovered the vending machines and is halfway through a Cherry Coke. Looking relatively pleased with himself, he lifts his coat away from his chest and reaches into the pocket and tosses Violet a tiny pink stuffed bear and me a little plastic dinosaur.
“I fucking rock at skee ball.” He says with a little smile. “Sorry I’m being a jerk.”
Violet gives him a hug and pulls us over to the eating area where she gets a giant pretzel and me and Roger opt for enormous slices of greasy pizza. Roger cheers up significantly since he’s no longer anywhere near the bowling lanes and gets back to being himself. He teases me for only getting cheese pizza and buys us a round of soda.
We gather up our junk and officially close down our lane. I hang back while Violet and Roger return their shoes and then casually follow them out of the building. I bite my lip walking back to my car, but no one comes after me. Roger notices my feet and laughs outloud.
“Souvenir?” He asks, with a grin.
I smile driving home with my bowling shoes still on my feet. They’ll be a nice replacement for
the pair that seems to have completely walked out of my life.
True to his word about band practice, I don’t see Roger outside of school all week. Friday morning he comes into gym with a big grin on his face.
“You and Violet are coming over after school.” He announces. “I just bought a bunch of vinyl last night, and I made you something.”
So after school we head over to Roger’s house to hear the new additions to his vinyl collection. In the car he’s raving about Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, and readjusts what he planned on making us listen to, since I’ve never even heard of Lou Reed.
Roger’s mother is making cookies in the kitchen and Molly greets us at the door to hug Roger and then immediately hides behinds his legs when I attempt to say hello as well. Roger grins at me and winks, leading Molly back into the kitchen where she had been colouring and eating oatmeal cookies. Mrs. Davis wraps one arm around Roger while she cuts some dough with her other hand, then hands him a plate for us. Roger introduces her to Violet and Mrs. Davis wipes her hands on her pants to come over and say hello.
Upstairs, Roger sets down the plate of cookies for us and heads over to his record player. Roger’s room is fairly messy, but the fact that it’s big saves it from being overbearing. His stereo is big and expensive and next to it is his record player. One entire corner of his room is devoted to milk crates full of vinyl and cassette tapes and even an odd 8-track, though I don’t see anywhere for him to play them. Next to that is his electric guitar on a stand near an impressive sized amp and his acoustic in a case. His closet is open and full of his uniform of tight jeans and shirts. He tosses his leather jacket on his bed.
“What’s up with Molly?” I ask him, remembering her reaction to me that I found strange after we’d hung out with her at the park.
Roger grins cheekily. “She likes you. She renamed her Ken doll after you.” He pushes a pile of vinyl over toward us and then digs into one of his crates and pulls out a few more.
“How can you not have heard this?” He asks, shaking his head. “We’ll start with VU,” he says. “Then Lou Reed.” He puts on a record and comes over to sit next to me, leaning against his bed and closes his eyes.
“Velvet Underground is amazing.” He says. “They’ve got all this weird shit and then these ballads, and they still know how to rock.” He sighs, the opening notes filtering through the speakers around us, loud and beautiful. I don’t know what a note of it means, but I like it. Roger starts humming to himself, muttering what could be chord changes under his breath. His fingers tap gently on his floor along with the easy beat. The singer is rough, his voice hardly sounds functional on some songs.
“Lou Reed, man.” Roger sighs. “My favourite singer who can’t really sing,” he laughs. He opens his eyes and looks over at us, gauging our reaction after hearing a few songs. Violet is on the same level as me, we’ve both been listening intently, loving the sound surrounding us and loving Roger’s reaction to each song. He smiles almost dreamily.
“Some people think that Lou’s solo albums are pretentious, or that all he did was use a lot of VU songs on them with some little changes. But Lou fucking was VU. He wrote all that shit anyway, and all he did was make it better.”
Roger goes on and on about a song called ‘Heroin’, unable to decide if he prefers the original or the thirteen minute version on Rock n Roll Animal. It all sounds like nonsense to me when he starts talking music theory and gets introspective.
“I just don’t know,” Roger says softly. “Some of Lou’s solo stuff is so fucking weird. And like, I don’t get it. But I think he’s one of those crazy musicians who’s always ahead of their time, you know? I mean, no one knew who the fuck VU was until Bowie started dropping the name around. If you’re always like, fifteen years ahead of everyone else, you’re always going to be. Transformer is brilliant now, but it mostly just freaked people out back then. Maybe in another few years some of his stuff will make more sense.”
He smiles. “I don’t think he’s lost it. I think he’s just too fucking amazing for us.”
Roger decides to switch to Transformer so we can hear what he’s talking about. He can’t help but sing along to ‘Vicious’, bobbing his head in rhythm and keeping beat on his knees with his hands.
“Can you hear his guitar?” Roger sighs. “He practically started this shit. All the feedback and the distortion. I mean, people were doing it, but nobody made it sound so fucking good.”
Roger changes records a couple times. We hear ‘Lisa Says’ and ‘Sad Song’ and ‘Berlin’, which is possibly one of the most oddly depressing things I’ve ever heard. Eventually, though, Roger comes down from his Lou Reed high and brings out his acoustic guitar to play along aimlessly with old Johnny Cash songs, while we finally remember the cookies his mother made and dig in. He switches to Bowie, which we all know, so we can sing along to ‘Rebel Rebel’ and the rest of Diamond Dogs. Roger confesses that if he had his way with his band, they’d be covering a lot of the “glam rock” era, updating some retro Cash and keeping some of the seventies punk music. They’d be playing originals with hard rock style guitar solos and driving bass lines, but with the soul behind it that The Smiths had. He has vague visions of a band comprised of what he thinks is “the good stuff” and fitting it all with a modern edge.
“I don’t want to abandon the punk completely,” he grins. “I love that shit too. But I’ve had my fill for a few years. I’ve never wanted to be one of those people that’s a musician because they look good doing it. One of the things I hate about punk is the lack of ability.” He says. “They can’t play.” He scowls. “The further we get, the less the rock stars know about what they’re doing.”
“Are you classically trained?” Violet asks him, a bit surprised, and he shakes his head and then reconsiders.
“Well, I am, I guess.” He admits. “I know theory, I’ve been listening to Chopin and Mendelssohn since I was a kid. I buy anything of Beethoven’s I can find. My mom plays her operas when she paints. I’ve had a couple guitar teachers who were college music majors. I know what I’m doing. I’m not some fucking asshole with a bad haircut who learned how to play D, G and C and jumped up onstage.” He looks bitter for a moment. “I just fucking wish I got to play onstage.”
“You said you were going to, though.” I say, recalling our conversation earlier in the week.
He snorts. “I’m playing rhythm for our classic rock stuff while Ryan fucks up songs by the Ramones.” He looks over at me. “He offered to let me play our ACDC stuff, which no one wants to hear anyway, and it’s only because he can’t fucking play it and he knows it. What the fuck kind of lead guitar player can’t play an ACDC song?
“I need to quit.” He sighs. “I need something else.”
Our music party lasts another hour or so, after Roger pulls out Nick Drake’s Pink Moon and then makes us listen to U2’s ‘October’ before he calls it a night and offers to take us out for something to eat. We end up at a diner across town, me and Roger ordering giant chocolate sundaes and Violet with a fruit plate. Our waitress flirts with Roger, who for once doesn’t seem to mind, since his mood is so elevated. He shrugs it off when I tease him and starts singing ‘Ballad of Teenage Queen’. He leans on me and gives Violet the cherry from his sundae, laughing loudly and draping an arm around each of us. I pull out my camera and we convince our waitress to take a few pictures of the three of us grouped together, since my attempts at doing it for us resulted in a waste of film.
When I drop Roger off he slips a cassette into my hand, punches me in the arm as a goodbye and grins when he gets out of the car and heads into his house. It’s a mix tape, featuring some of the songs we listened to today and a lot of other things. As I’m at home laying in bed with my eyes steadily closing as The Smiths dreary ‘Asleep’ fades out and kicks into ‘Search and Destroy’, I start laughing. It seems so fucking funny that he’s got the most amazing potential as a rock star, but Roger can’t make a mix tape to save his life.
This story will contain a female OC. She will be a main character. She also will not be “involved” with either Mark or Roger. Ever. She’s there to bring them together and be cute. Seriously, we promise. She won’t boink the boys.
I Found a Reason
Chapter Six - Monday Morningness and Mixtapes
Mark’s POV
Monday morning starts with me being unable to locate my usual shoes. I tear my room apart in an apathetic sort of confusion until I have to give up, realizing that any more time spent searching will make me late. I grab an older pair from under my bed that pinch my feet and hurry to gather my books, still strewn across my floor from finishing my homework around midnight. I shove them into my bag, grab my camera and stop briefly in the bathroom to run a hand through my still-damp hair. I rake my fingers through it, trying to go for artfully disheveled. It flops back into place, leaving a wet smear on the upper corner of my right lens. I frown and wipe my glasses on my shirt as I hurry downstairs to grab some toast from my mom before running to the car.
Being late results in a parking spot in the back end of the parking lot. The only thing I have to be grateful for is that gym is first period. By now, I definitely wouldn’t have made it on time to any other class. So I take my time, adjusting the contents of my bag to make sure my heavy History book won’t crush my camera before walking to the school.
I stroll into the locker room a couple minutes after the bell to find Roger leaning against my locker waiting, already in his uniform. He looks rather tired, but I pass it off as Monday morningness. I give him a push to the side as a way of greeting, setting down my bag on the bench behind me and reach for my lock.
“Are we officially starting our feeble attempts at participation today?” I ask him, glancing over my shoulder to catch him going through various pockets of my bag. He wrinkles his nose and shrugs, pulling a notebook out of my bag and taking a seat to flip through it.
“We have to start sometime.” He pauses on one page then grins, turning the notebook to the side. “I guess you weren’t too interested in the Revolutionary War.”
I move to look over his shoulder and see my notes from last week covered in various sketches and doodlings.
“Well, I drew some soldiers too.” I say, pointing. “Look, that one has a gun. I think their uniforms might even be historically accurate.”
Roger smirks and continues flipping through my notebook. “Weight room, okay?” He asks, looking up briefly.
I nod, pulling my uniform out of my locker. I take my glasses off and set them beside Roger on the bench, so I can change shirts. He loses interest in the notebook and picks up my glasses instead and puts them on, his eyes blinking profusely behind the lenses as he adjusts to the change in his vision.
“Your eyes must suck.” He says, taking them off a moment later and rubbing his eyes. He hands them back and resumes his search through my bag.
“Are you looking for something?” I ask him, switching my cords for the gym shorts. He shakes his head and shrugs, uncapping a pen to draw something on the cover of one of my other notebooks. I try to lean over to see but Roger grins and flips the notebook back toward himself.
“You’ll see it later.” He says, writing something else and then shoving my notebook back into my bag. I roll my eyes and grab my bag from him to shove it in my locker with my clothes. Roger stands up and stretches, then reaches down to the floor and picks up two bottles of water, tossing one to me.
“Thanks,” I say as he uncaps his. “You didn’t have…”
“Aw, I just stole them from the lunchroom.” He grins, waving me off. “It’s their fault for leaving
the vending machine open and unattended while they’re stocking it.”
“A felony is a great way to start the week.” I agree, slowly following him out of the locker room. He turns around and walks backwards to smirk and shake the water bottle at me.
“I prefer to think of it as a misdemeanor, Mark. It’s just petty theft.” His heels hit the bottom stair and he has to turn around and face forward, and I take two steps at once to catch up and climb the rest beside him.
“You seem to know this area of the law pretty well.” I tease and he crosses his arms, pretending to be defensive.
“Well if you’d like to attempt forty minutes of hanging out with a bunch of sweaty jocks in their natural habitat while pretending to be getting involved, without your stolen water, go right ahead. I’ll take two.” He says, reaching for mine and I pull it out of his grasp.
“No, I’m good.” I grin, making my way into the weight room and heading towards the far corner to plop onto an innocent looking device geared toward the leg muscles. Roger takes the one beside me. Across the room is the heavy lifting area, reserved usually only for the varsity athletes. This side of the room is for freshman who don’t know how to get away with not working yet, the girls who come for the cardio weight circuit, and for guys like me and Roger who don’t give a damn either way.
Since Roger stole water, I go grab us some score cards and pens to write down our progress, to turn in at the end of class for credit. Roger scribbles his name on the card and then tosses it on the floor in front of him and picks up his water bottle. I can’t help but do the same, the air in the room is stifling.
There’s already a good amount of people joining us for the workout. Maybe fifteen or twenty over in the varsity section, ten or so girls ready for the cardio portion. There’s a good portion of sophomore girls doing weights today, some of them glancing over at Roger once in awhile and giggling between each other, though I’m sure I saw at least one small freshman girl give me the eye too.
Roger nudges me and gestures absently with his water bottle. “Take a drink every time a freshman actually does what they’re supposed to.” Sure enough, there’s a couple of them grouped together where he pointed already straining and sweating after only a few minutes.
“Poor kids,” He says, almost sympathetically. “Well, they’ll learn eventually.”
“We all do.” I agree, hooking my feet under the bar of my weight machine and having a go at lifting it. It doesn’t budge and I frown down at my skinny legs and try again. Roger lets out a laugh.
“Hang on, Mark. Some musclehead stuck the pin in at 150.” He jumps down from his machine and sticks my pin it at the line the gym teachers draw, representing the minimum weight we can lift for credit.
“What was someone lifting 150 doing on this side of the room?” I mutter, trying again and this time my legs move up with the machine. I let them drop and look around for the coach. He’s spotting someone on the varsity end, so I lean back and give up. Roger makes a face.
“Take a drink every time one of the football players camps out in front of the mirror.” He says, with a vague laugh.
I take a drink with him and watch a couple of the guys on the other end of the room who do in fact inevitably flex for the mirror after each set of reps.
“They’re worse than girls.” Roger snorts, wiping his forehead. “It’s fucking hot in here.”
It’s my turn to grin. “Take a drink every time one of your fangirls goes to pieces when you move, breathe, laugh or otherwise exist.” I say, referring to girls on the cardio circuit who keep looking in our direction and the sophomore girls who keep giggling and slapping each other.
Roger rolls his eyes. “That’s nothing.” He acknowledges the girls with a grin and wink and then uncaps his water. The giggling actually drowns out the droning beeps of the timer for the cardio girls and the laughing and encouragement coming from the varsity section for a couple seconds.
“Why the fuck do they do that?” He frowns. “Girls can be so cute, but they fucking ruin it by acting like idiots.”
I shrug. “You can give them a pass to your good friend, Mark if you want.”
He smiles. “Pedophile, those are underclassmen. They’re like, fourteen. And you can have them. Take your pick, tell them I sent you.”
“Is that like, the Roger Davis girlfriend discount? Half the effort if I mention you upfront?” I grin at him.
“Tell her you can get her backstage and I bet you’ll get laid.” He offers and looks around. “Should we change machines? We’ve been doing this one awhile.”
I nod and follow him to a different set, designed for the arms. “How many reps do you think we did for legs?” I ask, staring down at my progress card.
“I’d say about fifty.” He shrugs, writing it in.
“Probably at like, 80lbs, right?” I ask.
He furrows his brow. “Yeah, that’s plausible. I think.” He smiles to himself. “I have to confess, I don’t know anything about lifting weights.”
“I know that I’m supposed to sit here and move stuff around once in awhile,” I shrug. “One time I sat on this leg machine thing all wrong. I was trying to bench press or something. Instead of explaining to me why I was an idiot, I just got no credit.”
Roger laughs. “Sometimes I think I use more effort pretending to work than if I’d actually just do it, you know?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “But I still feel more accomplished if I just sit here.”
Someone blows a whistle and we both jump. “Cohen! Davis! Get to work!”
“Shit.” I sigh, gripping the handles of my machine and pushing.
“Pull, Mark.” Roger mutters, his eyes on the coach when I fail to make progress.
“Oh, yeah.” I laugh awkwardly. “I knew that.”
The coach passes us by and we resume our half-ass work out from before. Roger glares daggers over at the varsity section.
“Take a drink every time he walks past athletes who aren’t working and doesn’t say a word.” Roger growls, his eyes on a group who have been sitting around aimlessly like us for most of the period.
“We could be doing something so much more productive right now.” I muse.
“Practicing.” Roger sighs.
“Studying for History.” I moan, thinking about the homework I definitely should have started Friday night.
Roger winces at the mention of History. “Is that test today?” I nod unenthusiastically.
“For me it is.” I sigh, just as the whistle gets blown again.
“If I have to warn you two again you’re both getting no credit for the day.”
“Shit,” Roger says. “I’m rusty. He usually never catches me.”
I nod, having no choice but to refocus on the workout.
I head toward Roger’s locker to meet up with him for lunch. He’s leaning against it, flipping through his History textbook and looking somewhat panicked. When he sees me he reaches out to grab my arm and pull me closer.
“Who was the King during the Revolutionary War?” He asks.
“George.” I squint. “Second or Third, I don’t remember.”
“Shit.” He moans, flipping to the index of the book. I take hold of his upper arm and start leading him out of the building.
“It’s all right, we’ll figure out what you don’t know. We have all period, Roger.” I say, trying to calm him down.
He still looks miserable, but manages a tight smile. We drop down under the tree to join Violet. Roger throws his book out in front of him and lays on his stomach, furiously skimming through chapters and mumbling to himself.
Violet pops her gum. “Did he forget to study?” She asks me.
I shrug. “I don’t know. Hey, maybe you don’t even have the test today, Roger. We are in different classes. Ask someone in your class.”
He scowls down into his book. “I don’t know anyone in my class.”
“You don’t have to know them, you just have to ask them if you have a test or not.” I tell him patiently. “That doesn’t really require past conversation.”
“Why did they fight so many battles?” He moans, dropping his head down onto his book.
Violet smiles sympathetically, reaching over to rub one of his shoulders. “Just calm down. You’re not going to be able to remember anything if you’re all crazy.”
I drop down on my stomach beside Roger and nudge him over a bit so I can see his book too. He’s frowning down at the Battle of Bunker Hill and looking terribly put out. Calmly, I start explaining the main concepts of each of the battles, hoping he’ll retain enough information to be able to give at least a brief summary of most of them. Roger takes a few illegible notes, nodding every so often, his brow furrowed. Violet drops in to elaborate on certain details, and slips him a piece of gum while I tell him that the British captured Ticonderoga in 1777.
When the bell rings he hastily gathers his book and his notes and takes a moment to give me a brief one-armed hug and playfully give Violet’s ponytail a tug before muttering a thanks and running away, his eyes locked onto his notes.
Once I’m home, I realize I don’t have any homework for the night and drop my bag to the floor near the front door with relief. I spend my afternoon going through boxes of old pictures, critiquing my past work and planning some new things. I also continue the fruitless quest for my favourite shoes, which remain nowhere to be found.
Around six, I get rather bored with myself. I figure dinner will be ready soon so I head downstairs and look around for my mom before remembering that she told me when I got home she was going out to dinner with Nanette’s mother. They’re fantastic friends and love to get together to talk about how great it would be if Mark and Nanette got married.
My father is still working, which means I’m definitely on my own. My mom said there’s plenty in the fridge to heat up but when I open the fridge I’m less than impressed and still bored. I wonder what Roger’s doing right now. We’re in a lot of the same classes, and I know he couldn’t have had much homework, if any. I pick up my bag and dig out my camera, checking that I have enough film. I catch sight of the notebook Roger was drawing on before gym and pull it out. I smirk at the stick figure wearing glasses and holding a lightsaber with an arrow pointing from the word ‘Luke!’. Underneath is a phone number.
Taking it as a sign, I grab a phone and dial Roger’s number. It rings a couple times before I hear either Molly or Audrey giggling in the background and his mother saying hello.
“Hey, Mrs. Davis, it’s Mark. Is Roger there?”
I hear a faint banging sound and Roger’s voice. “He just walked in,” his mother tells me pleasantly. “How are you, Mark?” She asks.
“Great, Mrs. Davis.” I say, smiling and waiting for Roger who takes the phone a second later.
“Hey,” he says, sounding much happier than during lunch. “What’s up?”
“Let’s go bowling,” I suggest. “I’m bored. I can come pick you up.”
“Bowling?” He says faintly, and I sense his mood dimming. “Um, well…”
I smirk. “Come on, it’ll be fun. I’m terrible. Unless you’ve got homework or something?”
“Oh. Uh, no. Well, uh…” he sighs. “Yeah, great. Whenever you want, I guess. Is Violet coming?”
“I was going to call her. I’ll have to look her up in the phone book. You okay?” I ask, and I have a feeling that he’s nodding, even though I can’t see him, since there’s a delay in his response.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just show up whenever. I’ll see you.” He sighs.
When we hang up I almost regret calling him. I was hoping to get him out to cheer him up, but the idea didn’t seem to do much for his mood, despite bringing it down a notch or two.
I look up Violet in the phonebook who asks for a few minutes to get ready, so I scribble a quick note for my parents, grab my bag and leave for Roger’s house first to give her time.
Roger is sitting with his acoustic in front of the house, leaning against the door and strumming idly when I pull up. Seeing me he offers a half-hearted wave and goes inside for a moment, resurfacing without his guitar. He heads over and drops into the passenger seat.
“Hey.” I say.
“Hey.” he sighs in return.
“Did you have your test?” I ask him and he nods, brightening slightly.
“Yeah, I did fine on it too.” He smiles. “It was pretty easy. Thanks, man. I totally owe you.”
I shrug. “You saved my ass in Geometry. Fair is fair.” He grins and relaxes a bit, then yawns.
“Tired?” I ask him. “You seemed sort of dead today.”
He nods. “Band practice yesterday and today after school. I’ll be disappearing most of this week when I’m not in school.” He jokes, then scowls. “We don’t have a show until next weekend, but I have to make sure I learn some of the guitar parts. Ryan decided he liked the fuller sound with me playing rhythm guitar, so now I have to learn all his shitty songs and most of the covers.” Roger goes off on a rant for a few minutes, leaving me to agree with him once in awhile and nod sympathetically.
We pick up Violet a few minutes later and head for the bowling alley, Roger turning surly again as we drive. Within a few minutes of getting our shoes, picking balls and setting up our score card for the lane, we find out why. Roger’s first attempt results in the ball bouncing directly into the gutter, in the lane next to ours, and it doesn’t get much better from there. His next few tries are more lane jumpers and immediate gutterballs. I’ve never seen anyone worse at bowling.
Violet keeps score for us, popping her gum while writing down the numbers. She frowns miserably at each of Roger’s failed attempts.
“It’s not even like I can make up number for pins to make him feel better. He hasn’t hit any yet.” She whispers to me as the guy from the next lane shoves the ball that had rolled over by his feet into Roger’s arms and tells him to get lost. Roger scowls and drops down into the seat next to me. I exchange a look with Violet. Neither one of us is any good either, but we’ve at least knocked down a couple of pins here and there. I take the ball from Roger and grab his sleeve to pull him up.
“Come on, Roger. Look, roll it like this.” I get down on my knees with the ball and push it a couple inches. I hand it to Roger and lead him over to the lane. “Just roll it like that.”
He grumbles, but gets down and takes the ball, taking time to aim it carefully and then pushes it. It wobbles for a couple feet, then drops into the gutter. He stomps away, crossing his arms and falling into his seat.
“Here, Roger.” Violet says, standing up. “Try it this way.”
“It’s not my turn.” He insists. “It’s yours. Go ahead.”
“No, I want you to have fun.” She smiles and pulls him over to the lane and hands him his ball again, taking hers as well.
“Lean over and roll it like this, okay?” She says, bending over with her legs spread and her arms and the ball between her feet. She chucks the ball down the lane and it goes fairly straight until the end, taking out two pins on the side.
Roger begrudgingly mimics her, getting into the awkward position and hurling his ball after hers. To his credit, it makes it all the way down the lane, but plummets out of sight without hitting any pins at the end. He throws up his hands and walks away. I turn around in my seat to call after him but he waves me away and heads off to the arcade.
“He’ll be fine,” I tell Violet. “He’s just being a jerk.”
She shrugs, picking up the scorecard again. “He’s frustrated. It happens.”
We resume our game for awhile and I find myself admiring my bowling shoes during one of Violet’s turns. They’re a few terrible shades of red and blue and green. With mustard coloured laces and a big number 10 on the back of the heel. They’re vaguely clownish, but still pretty fucking cool.
We finish off our game with scores barely breaching 100 and head off to find Roger. He’s discovered the vending machines and is halfway through a Cherry Coke. Looking relatively pleased with himself, he lifts his coat away from his chest and reaches into the pocket and tosses Violet a tiny pink stuffed bear and me a little plastic dinosaur.
“I fucking rock at skee ball.” He says with a little smile. “Sorry I’m being a jerk.”
Violet gives him a hug and pulls us over to the eating area where she gets a giant pretzel and me and Roger opt for enormous slices of greasy pizza. Roger cheers up significantly since he’s no longer anywhere near the bowling lanes and gets back to being himself. He teases me for only getting cheese pizza and buys us a round of soda.
We gather up our junk and officially close down our lane. I hang back while Violet and Roger return their shoes and then casually follow them out of the building. I bite my lip walking back to my car, but no one comes after me. Roger notices my feet and laughs outloud.
“Souvenir?” He asks, with a grin.
I smile driving home with my bowling shoes still on my feet. They’ll be a nice replacement for
the pair that seems to have completely walked out of my life.
True to his word about band practice, I don’t see Roger outside of school all week. Friday morning he comes into gym with a big grin on his face.
“You and Violet are coming over after school.” He announces. “I just bought a bunch of vinyl last night, and I made you something.”
So after school we head over to Roger’s house to hear the new additions to his vinyl collection. In the car he’s raving about Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, and readjusts what he planned on making us listen to, since I’ve never even heard of Lou Reed.
Roger’s mother is making cookies in the kitchen and Molly greets us at the door to hug Roger and then immediately hides behinds his legs when I attempt to say hello as well. Roger grins at me and winks, leading Molly back into the kitchen where she had been colouring and eating oatmeal cookies. Mrs. Davis wraps one arm around Roger while she cuts some dough with her other hand, then hands him a plate for us. Roger introduces her to Violet and Mrs. Davis wipes her hands on her pants to come over and say hello.
Upstairs, Roger sets down the plate of cookies for us and heads over to his record player. Roger’s room is fairly messy, but the fact that it’s big saves it from being overbearing. His stereo is big and expensive and next to it is his record player. One entire corner of his room is devoted to milk crates full of vinyl and cassette tapes and even an odd 8-track, though I don’t see anywhere for him to play them. Next to that is his electric guitar on a stand near an impressive sized amp and his acoustic in a case. His closet is open and full of his uniform of tight jeans and shirts. He tosses his leather jacket on his bed.
“What’s up with Molly?” I ask him, remembering her reaction to me that I found strange after we’d hung out with her at the park.
Roger grins cheekily. “She likes you. She renamed her Ken doll after you.” He pushes a pile of vinyl over toward us and then digs into one of his crates and pulls out a few more.
“How can you not have heard this?” He asks, shaking his head. “We’ll start with VU,” he says. “Then Lou Reed.” He puts on a record and comes over to sit next to me, leaning against his bed and closes his eyes.
“Velvet Underground is amazing.” He says. “They’ve got all this weird shit and then these ballads, and they still know how to rock.” He sighs, the opening notes filtering through the speakers around us, loud and beautiful. I don’t know what a note of it means, but I like it. Roger starts humming to himself, muttering what could be chord changes under his breath. His fingers tap gently on his floor along with the easy beat. The singer is rough, his voice hardly sounds functional on some songs.
“Lou Reed, man.” Roger sighs. “My favourite singer who can’t really sing,” he laughs. He opens his eyes and looks over at us, gauging our reaction after hearing a few songs. Violet is on the same level as me, we’ve both been listening intently, loving the sound surrounding us and loving Roger’s reaction to each song. He smiles almost dreamily.
“Some people think that Lou’s solo albums are pretentious, or that all he did was use a lot of VU songs on them with some little changes. But Lou fucking was VU. He wrote all that shit anyway, and all he did was make it better.”
Roger goes on and on about a song called ‘Heroin’, unable to decide if he prefers the original or the thirteen minute version on Rock n Roll Animal. It all sounds like nonsense to me when he starts talking music theory and gets introspective.
“I just don’t know,” Roger says softly. “Some of Lou’s solo stuff is so fucking weird. And like, I don’t get it. But I think he’s one of those crazy musicians who’s always ahead of their time, you know? I mean, no one knew who the fuck VU was until Bowie started dropping the name around. If you’re always like, fifteen years ahead of everyone else, you’re always going to be. Transformer is brilliant now, but it mostly just freaked people out back then. Maybe in another few years some of his stuff will make more sense.”
He smiles. “I don’t think he’s lost it. I think he’s just too fucking amazing for us.”
Roger decides to switch to Transformer so we can hear what he’s talking about. He can’t help but sing along to ‘Vicious’, bobbing his head in rhythm and keeping beat on his knees with his hands.
“Can you hear his guitar?” Roger sighs. “He practically started this shit. All the feedback and the distortion. I mean, people were doing it, but nobody made it sound so fucking good.”
Roger changes records a couple times. We hear ‘Lisa Says’ and ‘Sad Song’ and ‘Berlin’, which is possibly one of the most oddly depressing things I’ve ever heard. Eventually, though, Roger comes down from his Lou Reed high and brings out his acoustic guitar to play along aimlessly with old Johnny Cash songs, while we finally remember the cookies his mother made and dig in. He switches to Bowie, which we all know, so we can sing along to ‘Rebel Rebel’ and the rest of Diamond Dogs. Roger confesses that if he had his way with his band, they’d be covering a lot of the “glam rock” era, updating some retro Cash and keeping some of the seventies punk music. They’d be playing originals with hard rock style guitar solos and driving bass lines, but with the soul behind it that The Smiths had. He has vague visions of a band comprised of what he thinks is “the good stuff” and fitting it all with a modern edge.
“I don’t want to abandon the punk completely,” he grins. “I love that shit too. But I’ve had my fill for a few years. I’ve never wanted to be one of those people that’s a musician because they look good doing it. One of the things I hate about punk is the lack of ability.” He says. “They can’t play.” He scowls. “The further we get, the less the rock stars know about what they’re doing.”
“Are you classically trained?” Violet asks him, a bit surprised, and he shakes his head and then reconsiders.
“Well, I am, I guess.” He admits. “I know theory, I’ve been listening to Chopin and Mendelssohn since I was a kid. I buy anything of Beethoven’s I can find. My mom plays her operas when she paints. I’ve had a couple guitar teachers who were college music majors. I know what I’m doing. I’m not some fucking asshole with a bad haircut who learned how to play D, G and C and jumped up onstage.” He looks bitter for a moment. “I just fucking wish I got to play onstage.”
“You said you were going to, though.” I say, recalling our conversation earlier in the week.
He snorts. “I’m playing rhythm for our classic rock stuff while Ryan fucks up songs by the Ramones.” He looks over at me. “He offered to let me play our ACDC stuff, which no one wants to hear anyway, and it’s only because he can’t fucking play it and he knows it. What the fuck kind of lead guitar player can’t play an ACDC song?
“I need to quit.” He sighs. “I need something else.”
Our music party lasts another hour or so, after Roger pulls out Nick Drake’s Pink Moon and then makes us listen to U2’s ‘October’ before he calls it a night and offers to take us out for something to eat. We end up at a diner across town, me and Roger ordering giant chocolate sundaes and Violet with a fruit plate. Our waitress flirts with Roger, who for once doesn’t seem to mind, since his mood is so elevated. He shrugs it off when I tease him and starts singing ‘Ballad of Teenage Queen’. He leans on me and gives Violet the cherry from his sundae, laughing loudly and draping an arm around each of us. I pull out my camera and we convince our waitress to take a few pictures of the three of us grouped together, since my attempts at doing it for us resulted in a waste of film.
When I drop Roger off he slips a cassette into my hand, punches me in the arm as a goodbye and grins when he gets out of the car and heads into his house. It’s a mix tape, featuring some of the songs we listened to today and a lot of other things. As I’m at home laying in bed with my eyes steadily closing as The Smiths dreary ‘Asleep’ fades out and kicks into ‘Search and Destroy’, I start laughing. It seems so fucking funny that he’s got the most amazing potential as a rock star, but Roger can’t make a mix tape to save his life.