Chapter 4: Problema-Brick

Boomer's POV

Brick didn't come out of his room for almost four full days. He didn't leave for any reason, whatsoever, whether he needed to use the restroom (he says he pissed out the window and convinced the crazy homeless man that lives on the side of the volcano beneath him that it was raining in the middle of a cloudless day), whether Mojo prepared his favorite hibachi dish for him, or even to talk to us or change his clothes. The only indication that he was even still alive in there is when he would slam out heavy drum solos (he always wanted to be the next Bonzo, even though he knew that's who I always wanted to be), and occasionally play a few chords on his acoustic.

Butch and I couldn't stand hearing him in there. He had no dignity, and sounded as though he hated life. So together, we smashed through his door and caught a giant whiff of cigarette smoke that had practically replaced all of the oxygen. We nearly suffocated in there while searching for him, and when we did find him, he was huddled in the closet, begging us to close the door. We dragged him out of his room by his feet, and when we were clear of the smoke, Butch smacked Brick across his face with all of his might.

"Come on! What the hell is the matter with you?! We're supposed to look up to you, and you get devastated because you got embarrassed over something that doesn't even matter!" Butch screamed in his face with bulging veins. "Everybody thinks that you're a giant pussy now, because you had a meltdown in front of the whole school, including the girl you wanted!"

Butch's POV

"Hey, don't get pissed off at me when you damn well know that you both like her sisters! I was simply the one to be humiliated at the worst of times!" He told me with another, yet much less severe river of tears. "I just couldn't take it, anymore! Nothing like that has ever happened to me, before!"

"But, dude, your image is severely altered, now," Boomer chimed, "I mean, you looked like a little girl who didn't get everything on her Christmas list! I know it was humiliating for Mitch to do that to you, but you're looked up to by so many people that you can't just do what you did!"

"Oh yeah, we'll guess what, I have feelings, too! Did you ever think about that for one second? I'm always under so much pressure from everybody, and it's been that way for years! I've had all that crap bottled up my entire life, but this little incident was the bursting point!" He shouted in one long, nonstop breath.