Disclaimer: I don't own RENT.
Author's Note: Yeah, okay. So... it's not like it was an entire year this time.
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 Nine– Pointless Vandalism and Panic Attacks
Roger's POV
Despite however significantly more productive Mark and I find skipping gym to be, by the time midterms rolled around, we realized how much we had screwed ourselves.
Which is how we ended up begging Mark's dad, a pediatrician, to write us passes out of gym for the rest of the semester. It's been a good forty minutes at this point, and so far Mark hasn't managed to make much of a dent in his father's refusal to endorse our inability to go to class.
"Dad, this isn't like math or science. You can't study for gym. There's no way I'll be able to pass," Mark says, looking imploringly at his father. "I'm physically incapable of performing at an acceptable level and I feel that it is profoundly unfair of a biased school system to force me to do so."
Mr. Cohen isn't exactly pleased at our predicament, but he isn't mad either. It might be safe to say he's at least mildly amused. He crosses his arms over his chest and peers down at Mark over his glasses.
"You mean to believe that a healthy young man like yourself is incapable of meeting New York State's fitness requirements?"
"Exactly," Mark says, pushing his glasses up his nose.
"Come on now, son," Mr. Cohen says, attempting to hide a smile. "What's the big deal about a couple of push-ups?"
Mark scowls. "Dad, have you ever done push-ups? Or chin-ups for that matter? They're a systematic way of torturing the subculture of students who would rather study than work out."
"So now it's a conspiracy?" asks Mr. Cohen.
"A bunch of embittered jocks who were whacked on the knuckles by nuns a few too many times created some menial exercises in order to humble the people who actually work hard at every other aspect of life," Mark says. "Obviously."
Mark's dad cracks a smile. He looks over at me.
"And what's your excuse?" He asks, his eyebrows raised expectantly.
"Exercise gives me panic attacks," I tell him solemnly. "If my body overexerts itself, I hyperventilate and lose control of my emotional intelligence."
"He cries like a little girl," Mark adds, and I resist the urge to shove him or make a face.
Mr. Cohen considers, scrutinizing us with narrowed eyes, but also with a small smile.
"Boys, I don't think much of giving you a free ride for the rest of the semester," he sighs. "But I don't want you to fail either."
He gives another heavy sigh. "I'll write you out of the midterms and final, but I'm recommending you for the remedial gym program."
Inwardly, I cringe. Remedial gym is for fat kids with asthma and medical conditions. Occasionally someone with a broken arm finds their way in. The activities are pretty much either walking around the track during gym or throwing dodge balls at each other inside. They might be allowed to play tennis, I don't remember. Annoying, but definitely better than running laps or playing basketball. Except that remedial gym is a lot harder to skip since it's heavily monitored due to the increased chance of a medical emergency.
Mark looks like he's going to argue some more, then looks over at me. I shrug and he relents. We both assume this is about as good as it's going to get for us at this point and take the deal. On our way upstairs we hear Mark's parents laughing good-naturedly at us in the kitchen.
"Well, damn," Mark says.
I shrug. "Hey, no more chin-ups and no more mile running. I can pretend to be asthmatic for forty minutes a day."
Mark sighs. "I guess that's all that really matters."
"Violet actually goes to gym," I tell him, collapsing on his bed and stretching. "She must be part of the athletic plot to overthrow the educated."
"She's probably a spy," Mark says absently, popping a tape into his stereo before joining me on the bed.
"What are we going to do next semester?" I ask him, stealing a pillow.
He shrugs. "There's no way he'll write us more passes. We'll have to really develop a paranoid fear of dumbbells or something."
"Maybe we should practice our push-ups," I offer.
"It's too bad we can't pay big jocky guys to take gym for us like big jocky guys can pay smart kids to write papers or take tests for them," Mark says, almost wistfully.
"It's a flawed system, what are you gonna do?"
Mark frowns. "Shit, now I have to get up ten minutes earlier to make sure I have enough time to change before gym."
"Ten minutes? That might be grounds for suicide." I tease him. He looks so put out by the idea of losing out on a miniscule amount of sleep I almost feel bad.
He recovers quickly, singing along off key to the Elvis Costello tape that's playing for a while before he finally looks over at me.
"It's Halloween soon," he says. "Are you a Halloween person?"
I nod. "Of course. Molly loves it, I take her trick-or-treating every year," I tell him. "Which reminds me, my mom bought her a fucking terrible princess costume."
"What's so terrible about princesses?" Mark asks. "Little girls love princesses."
"Yeah, and every other little girl in the country will be dressed like a princess. Molly's way too cool for that shit."
Mark raises an eyebrow cynically. "Don't you think you should wait until she's at least in junior high before trying to teach her how to buck the system? Six year olds aren't exactly wired for that yet."
I stare at him. "Mark, it's not anarchy, it's a Halloween costume."
He rolls his eyes and leans back onto his pillow. "You want to watch a movie or something?" He asks me.
I shrug. "Sure, toss whatever grainy-picture-with-no-plot movie you want in. I'm not going to understand it anyway." I grin at him so he knows I'm joking.
He makes a face at me, but drags himself off the bed and picks one of his movies out.
"Hey, I have some new pictures, you want to see them?" He asks while he puts a movie in the VCR.
"You know I do, bring 'em over," I say. "Unless they're the ones of me shirtless looking like I've been hit by a car. No one ever needs to see those."
He smirks. "It's not my fault you decided to lay around my house hung over after two days of heavy drinking. I got bored listening to you moan, and you looked photogenic. Sorry buddy."
"It's not art, it's blackmail," I grumble, scowling at him, but he laughs me off and joins me on the bed again, bringing a new box of photos. Some Polaroids and some from a higher quality camera. He picks up the top stack and hands them to me carefully. I sift through them while he narrates.
"I took these with my dad's camera in the park. I know you hate fall, but aren't the colours awesome?" He looks at me inquiringly and I nod, staring down at the pictures.
Mark goes on about framing and whatever and I smile, listening to him. The guy loves his art. And he definitely knows what he's talking about, though I don't follow a word of it. It's probably how he feels whenever I go off about music.
We dig through pictures for the better part of an hour, completely forgetting about whatever movie Mark put on.
"Aren't there other people you can take pictures of?" I ask him, after seeing another roll of film of me and Violet studying. I'm starting to believe that I simply cannot make a normal face when there's a camera pointed at me. I really need to learn how to pose or something. I have album covers to think about in the future.
Mark smiles shyly. "Well yeah, but I've never had good friends before. Well, uh, I mean I've had friends, obviously. But not like, really good ones? I mean…" he trails off, unsure of how to word it.
"I know what you mean, Marky," I grin at him and he relaxes, relieved from the stress of trying to explain our current situation. "I've never had best friends either. Maybe when I was like, five. But not since then."
We flip through the pictures for a few more minutes, I steal a couple of Violet and Mark, and one of me and Mark that Violet took. We settle back onto the bed and try to watch the movie, but at this point my attention span is not settling for a movie, and I have absolutely no idea what's going on. Even Mark looks disinterested.
"Hey, you know what we should do for Halloween?" I ask, looking over at Mark.
He smirks. "Hopefully this won't be one of your ideas that if executed would end up with us serving time in juvy."
"At least you'd get laid," I reply, grinning when I can tell he's trying to will his face not to redden. "But no, you and Violet should come out with me and Molly. Then we can go see a slasher flick or something."
Mark wrinkles his nose. "A slasher? Isn't there anything else playing?"
I roll my eyes. "Well, yeah, obviously. But it's Halloween. You can't just go see like, a romantic comedy or something. You have to watch people die. That's the point of the holiday. Don't you want to watch people die?"
"I guess so?" he says, smiling awkwardly. Then he shrugs. "Yeah, whatever. I'm up for gore."
I walk beside Julian, absently kicking dead leaves out of my way. Fall has arrived full force and I'm grateful I thought to wear my leather jacket before venturing out. As he walks, Julian rifles through our dwindling supply of posters, advertising our need of decent band members, that Mark and Vi had made for us.
"Where else do you want to put some?" He asks, looking over at me from underneath his dark mop of hair as we head back to his car.
"Well, we've gotten just about every record store, club and guitar shop within about 30 miles," I say, thinking out loud. "Maybe we can stick a couple more up near your high school on the way back."
"You think anyone will call?" He asks, shoving the posters under his arm and putting his hands in his pockets.
"I hope so," I shrug. "There's got to be some other decent musicians out here. If not, we'll expand our search, put some up in the city. It would be more convenient to join up with someone nearby, but the city's only an hour away, it wouldn't be a big deal."
"Guess you're right." He says, giving me a half-hearted smile. I can't tell if he's sharing my anxiety about the band or if it's something else.
"What's up, man?" I ask him. "The guys giving you shit or something?"
He shakes his head. "Nah, We don't really talk. I don't think it's that much a loss," he adds absently.
"We only really need a decent bass player, anyway," he says, changing the subject and looking less melancholy. "Since you're going to play lead. Rhythm would be nice, but not necessary. And anyone can play rhythm, we can add someone later if we want."
"Yeah, there's that," I agree. "I just want someone who's not a complete waste of space."
"Anyone who's even heard of The Stooges would be nice." Julian sighs wistfully.
"Anyone who has progressed past the Zeppelin stage of male development." I add and he nods solemnly.
I am of the firm belief that every man (except maybe Mark) goes through a Zeppelin stage. Some of us progress past this and emerge as musically mature individuals. Some of us never leave this stage and will spend the rest of our lives believing that cock rock is a genre of musical integrity. I'm not saying that Zeppelin isn't a decent band. I definitely had a Zeppelin stage. It was a couple weeks stashed between a brief affair with my mom's Laura Nyro records and my discovery of glam rock. Not a time period I'm fond of, but there's no use denying it happened. There is definitely worse music for a man to be passionate about.
"Maybe we can get a major Bowie fan," I joke. "Then we'll have a trifecta of rock power. Lou, Iggy and Bowie."
"It will make compromising on cover songs a lot easier," Julian says with a smile. "We'll all get along musically. You can sing Stooges songs, right?"
"With or without the stage diving, indecent exposure, drug use and self-injury?" I ask, grinning.
He laughs. "Well I'm not going to oppose a good, healthy bout of stage diving, or even crowd flashing. But please don't bleed or vomit on me."
After school on Monday, we go thrifting for Halloween costumes. When I told Molly I was bringing Mark and Vi trick-or-treating with us she got really excited and then insisted that we need to dress up as well. Since I can never say no to my little sisters, I decided to go for it, and luckily for me, Mark and Violet were up for some fun as well.
I descend upon a rack of jeans when we get there, and immediately try to find a couple good pairs of black ones. Now that it's nearly winter and I can wear my leather jacket everywhere I can start trying to copy Lou Reed's look circa the late 60s. I find a good pair and duck into a fitting room to pull them on. After a good deal of effort, I take a look in the cracked mirror and grin. Like a second skin.
When I emerge, still wearing the pants, Violet is wearing a tophat and flipping through a rack of skirts. Mark has discovered an old looking camera thing. I saunter over to him to stare over his shoulder. He acknowledges me briefly, then does a double take when he sees I've changed pants.
"How are you breathing?" He asks.
"Stop staring at my crotch, Marky," I tease him, and reaching out, I steal the camera away from him while he rolls his eyes, far from embarrassed.
"What the hell is this?" I ask him, turning it over in my hands.
He shrugs. "I don't know. It's a camera. Isn't it awesome?"
I pretend I'm filming him. "You know how to use this? You know this takes pictures that move, right?"
He puts his hand up in front of his face to block the camera, even though it's clearly not running. "I don't know much about filmmaking," he admits. "But it's cool, right?"
I laugh at him and toss it back. "You're going to make movies now?"
He smiles distantly and shrugs one shoulder. "I have no idea. But I feel compelled to buy this. This might be what I need, you know? I'll need a projector though, too. Maybe my dad would know where to get one."
I ruffle his hair affectionately and lead him over to where Violet is.
"You think they'll let me buy these while I'm wearing them?" I ask him as we sneak up behind Violet.
"If you're trying to scare me, don't bother. I could hear you boys coming a mile away," Violet says, looking over her shoulder at us. I cross my arms and lean against a bookshelf next to her.
"What'd you find?" I ask her. She smiles and holds up a can of silver hairspray paint.
"We should dress Mark up like Andy Warhol," she suggests, and I grin and grab the can from her and give it a shake. It still has a good amount of paint in it.
Mark raises an eyebrow and looks doubtful. "You're going to put that in my hair?"
I move closer to inspect his hair. "Yeah, definitely. It will totally work."
"How do you know? Do you frequently spray paint your hair?" He takes the can from me and examines the label.
"Marky, it's not spray paint. It's hairspray paint. It's supposed to be put on your hair," I assure him.
He rolls his eyes. "Alright, whatever. Who are you going to be?"
"We should all be people who hung around The Factory," Violet says and I nod in agreement.
"You can be Nico," I tell her and she smiles.
Mark laughs at me. "And you can pretend to be Lou Reed, like you do everyday."
"These pants are perfect. I need some aviators." I announce, and head toward the back of the thrift store, trying to find where they keep their sunglasses. I can hear Mark and Violet talking about the camera he found behind me.
I dig through a bin full of sunglasses, picking out a couple pairs to try on in front of the mirror. When I join up with Mark and Violet again, Vi has ditched the top hat and is now wearing a long, blonde wig.
"That looks great," I tell her. "Good wig for a thrift store find."
"Are you going to paint your hair black?" Mark asks me. I turn around and frown at my reflection in the mirror. I try on one of the pairs of aviators and slump against the wall with my hands in the pockets of my leather jacket, scowling. Satisfied, I turn back to my friends.
"Nah. If I had time to grow a jewfro I might, but it won't look right anyway. I think he bleached his hair a couple times. So whatever." I tell them.
While Mark and Vi argue over what Nico would wear I flip through another rack of pants and to my delight find a pair of leather pants that look about my size.
"Roger, no," Mark says from behind me. "Put those back."
I turn around, frowning. "What?"
He points at the pants. "Come on, Rog. Rock stars who wear leather pants always end up dying alone in their late twenties face down in their own vomit. Do you really want to take that chance?"
"Besides," Violet says, joining us. "Mark is going to make fun of you every time you wear them. Can your self-esteem really handle that?"
I pout, but give up and put the leather pants back. Why do I have friends?
Finally, once we've all picked out some stuff for our costumes and I've dug through the used records and found myself some Johnny Cash, and an album called Kill City I told Violet to give to Julian, we check out and head back to my car.
"So, should we just come over to your house after school tomorrow?" Mark asks.
"Yeah, that works. If you guys want I can drive us all to school, then we only have one car," I offer.
Mark looks mortified. "You're going to have to get up early."
Violet laughs at him. "Mark, there's an entire subculture of morning people out there."
"Tell you what, Marky," I say. "Just so you can get your beauty sleep, I'll pick up Violet before you, even though it would make more sense to go your direction first."
I grin at him when he looks guilty and starts to protest. "No, for real. Please get your extra fifteen minutes of sleep. I want you wide awake for our first day of remedial gym."
"Remedial gym?" Violet asks. "How did that happen?"
"Well apparently to pass gym, you actually have to go," Mark says.
"Apparently taking turns listening to Mark's walkman isn't considered cardio," I add.
Violet shakes her head, digging some gum out of her purse and offering it to us. "You boys are unbelievable."
"Hey, we do alright in everything else," I protest. "We just have better things to do than throw basketballs at each other and grunt."
We joke around for a while longer, comparing how much homework we have. I agree to drive over to Mark's house later if he has trouble with Geometry, although I know I'll probably end up over there later anyway. We have a way of finding excuses to hang out.
"Hey Vi, can you bring some blue or purple eye makeup shit over tomorrow?" I ask her.
She nods, smiling slightly. "Sure, Rog. But I don't think it would be too cute on you."
"It's not for me." I tell her and she shrugs at Mark but agrees.
Violet examines the albums she bought for Julian. "What is this, anyway?"
I grin. "It's Iggy Pop and James Williamson. His was scratched and old when he bought it and it doesn't really play anymore. He's been looking for a new one for awhile, so let me warn you, he might tackle you."
She smiles and pops her gum. "Well thanks, Roger."
"Anytime," I say with a wicked grin. "Let me know if you get lucky."
Mark groans while Violet laughs. "You're such a boy."
I make a face at him. "Don't be such a wet blanket, Marky. We're all red-blooded teenagers here."
"If you're going to defend my honour, Mark, at least climb to the top of the water tower or something. Then I'd know you really care," Violet teases.
"You can use your hairspray paint!" I add.
Mark can't help himself, his cheeks go a bit pink at our teasing. I relent and offer to buy us a pizza for our Geometry (or not) party later.
I clear my throat and give Violet a serious look. "I may joke, girly, but you better not be getting up to any shenanigans with our dear friend Julian."
"Shenanigans? No." She assures me and I smile, satisfied. She giggles. "Other scandalous behavior? Maybe."
"Don't tell him anything or he'll go into big brother mode and start threatening to beat up every guy within a 30 mile radius," Mark tells her quickly and I scowl, realizing they've turned my teasing back onto me.
We drop Violet off a couple minutes later and I tell her to let Julian know I'm keeping an eye on him. Mark takes her place in the front seat and we argue briefly over what tape to listen to. I'm all for some Smiths right now, but Mark is in the mood for something more upbeat.
"If you shut up, I'll get drunk and let you take Polaroids of me again," I tell him. "As long as you promise you're never going to sell them to the Enquirer or something."
"I assure you, they're for my own personal use," Mark says, grinning.
I roll my eyes. "You need a hobby."
"You want to come over now?" Mark asks. "Because, you know you'll be back in like, three hours anyway."
"We can't keep meeting like this," I say. "You really need to find a new tutor."
"One that I'm not perilously attracted to?" He deadpans.
"You might get more work done. You might even pass Geometry," I point out.
Mark nods solemnly. "Because let's face it, you know we're going to eat pizza and talk about music for the next five hours. We'll be lucky if our Geometry books get a sideways glance."
I start laughing. I can only keep up with Mark's dry brand of humour for so long. He sees me break and laughs as well.
He turns the volume on my stereo up. "So what do you want on this pizza you're buying me?" He asks.
After school on Tuesday, Mark changes in my room and Violet takes the upstairs bathroom. I just wore my "costume" to school, since I was basically wearing my regular clothes anyway. When they emerge, Violet and I corner Mark with the silver hair paint and reduce his shaggy blond hair to a silver mess, that Violet effectively styles to look pretty convincingly like a Warhol wig. Violet hands me a compact of various blue and purple eye shadows. I leave them in my room for a minute while I grab Molly, who has been jumping around us since we got home demanding to know when we're going to leave.
I dig through her closet and come up with a bright coloured shirt and some jeans.
"Here, little girl. Get dressed and I'll be right back." I tell her, messing up her hair as I duck out of her room for minute to say hi to my mom and Audrey.
Mom is in the kitchen with Audrey on her hip, assembling the bucket of candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters. I try to steal a couple pieces and she slaps my hand lightly.
"This is for the neighborhood kids," she says. "There's cookies cooling on the counter for you and your friends if you want."
My mom knows I substantially prefer cookies to candy. Which pretty much makes her amazing. I kiss her cheek and go over to take a plate of cookies upstairs. I eat one and make faces at Audrey who laughs and claps her hands. My mom smiles over her shoulder at me.
"Thanks for taking Molly out," she says. "What are you dressing her up as?"
I grin at her. "Debbie Harry."
She rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "She couldn't be a princess, but she can be Debbie Harry?"
"If it makes you feel better I'll call her Princess Debbie all night," I tell her, while Audrey's little hands grab at my fingers.
"No you won't," Mom says. "You'll sing Blondie songs to her all night, buy her milkshakes and feed her candy until she bursts."
"And then I'll bring her home and leave her to you to calm down," I laugh. "We're going into the city to eat and see a movie later."
She smiles. "Have fun. If you're out past midnight or stay somewhere else, call me."
I tickle Audrey one more time. "Of course, Mom."
Upstairs I leave the plate of cookies in my room for Mark and Violet and grab a can of hairspray and a comb out of the bathroom.
Molly is jumping on her bed when I go into her room again. She's put on a couple pieces of chunky little kid jewelry.
"Hey girlie, you know what I told you about jumping on the bed. You're going to fall."
"You're no fun," she pouts, but jumps one more time before sitting down and sliding off her bed and running over to me.
"I get makeup?" She asks, seeing the compact Vi gave me.
"For tonight only," I tell her. "What do I say about makeup?"
She sighs and crosses her little arms. "No makeup and no boys until I'm a million years old."
"Damn right," I agree. "Boys have cooties. Come here, I'll do your hair."
She comes over and stands in front of me. I tell her to close her eyes and spray her head with the hairspray, using the comb to tease her blonde hair.
"Do I look pretty?" She asks, while I'm teasing her bangs.
"Beautiful." I assure her. "You're a little rock star."
I look down at the makeup compact and pick up the little brush inside. I realize I have no idea how to put this shit on.
"I'll be right back," I tell Molly. I turn her so she's facing the mirror in her room. "Killer, huh? You look awesome."
I head back to my room where Mark is shotgunning cookies and listening to Violet talk about an art project. I motion for them to follow me and hand the makeup to Violet.
"You have to put this on Molly. I don't get it."
Violet laughs at me and we head back in my sister's room. Molly is dancing in front of the mirror. I sneak up behind her and pick her up. She squeals at me and giggles.
"Hey, you remember Violet, right? She's going to put your makeup on, okay?" I tell Molly who smiles widely when she sees Violet.
Mark and I watch bemused while Violet instructs Molly to close her eyes and swipes the eye shadow on her effortlessly.
"You know, Molly," Violet says. "If it's okay with your big brother, I have some mascara and lipgloss if you want."
"Go for it, it's Halloween," I relent. "But just today, okay Molly?"
My little sister actually rolls her eyes at me and lets out a big sigh before grinning widely and Violet digs a couple things out of her purse and brings Molly back over to the mirror.
Finally, we're all dressed and ready to leave. I grab a pillowcase for Molly to put her candy in and we head out.
"What did you dress up as when you were a kid?" Mark asks me while Molly is talking a mile a minute to Violet.
"I was Indiana Jones once," I say, thinking back. "My mom made an awesome costume. And I remember in like, junior high I came to school as Morrissey and no one knew who I was. It was a pretty nondescript costume. And I think I was Batman when I was a little kid."
"Batman?" Mark asks skeptically. "Why Batman?"
"Because Batman is fucking killer," I say defensively. "He's the best superhero ever. Unless you count Indiana Jones as a superhero."
"Indiana Jones is not a superhero." Mark say.
"He should be. He like, kills Nazis and shit. That's superhero stuff."
"He's an exaggerated caricature of what archeologists actually are. And he's afraid of snakes. What kind of superhero is afraid of snakes?" Mark asks.
"Snakes are scary," I retort. "You don't think Indiana Jone is awesome?"
"Of course I do, I just don't think he should qualify as a superhero. He doesn't have superhero powers."
I frown. "Well, if he's a caricature of an archeologist, then he has the exaggerated qualities that a regular archeologist would have. He's smart, he wears an awesome hat and he's willing to travel halfway around the world to find an ancient piece of junk. Plus he gets chased by boulders and lives to tell about it. Can you outrun boulders, Mark?" Before he can answer I cut in again. "No, because that's a superpower."
"But the reason people like Indiana Jones so much is because he's not a superhero," Mark insists. "He gets hurt and fucks up and he's an imperfect character. That's what makes him awesome."
"Maybe Harrison Ford is a superhero," I muse, giving up.
Molly has been hitting up every house on this block and her bag is already getting heavy with candy. She returns from the next house and hands me the bag to hold for her.
"Getting tired already, Miss Molly? You got a big town to cover. You told me yesterday you weren't going to stop until you went to every house in town."
"Hey, look," Mark says. "It's one of those houses who put a giant bowl of candy outside and tell everyone to take one piece."
"No way, for real?" I ask, looking. And sure enough, just three houses away from us there it is.
"You're not going to steal all that candy, are you?" Violet asks us.
"Of course not," I assure her. "But Molly is."
"You're a bad influence," Mark tells me and I shrug, as Molly snatches the pillowcase away from me and runs toward the house.
I shrug. "Every good girl has to have a little bad in her. She's not going to take all of it, just her favourite stuff."
When we catch up with her, Molly has taken all the M&Ms out of the bowl. I grin at her and she hands me her pillowcase.
"That's my girl," I tell Mark. "I did the same thing, who cares?"
"I feel like my head is melting. Is this silver shit all over my face yet?" He asks in response.
"Nah, it looks great. You should take a picture of it. Violet did a great job."
A few blocks later, Molly really is getting tired. I take pity on her and hoist her up onto my shoulders and start accompanying her to the doors with Mark holding open the candy bag for us. People are generous in our neighborhood, and we do one more block before calling it quits and heading back to my house to sort through the candy.
As predicted, Molly jumps all over my mom the minute we get home, Audrey screams my name until I come over to her. I take her from my mom, holding her on my hip and bouncing her while Molly tells Mom about the candy she got. My mom dumps the pillowcase open on the table and brings over another plate of cookies to the table as well. She takes Audrey back from me and sits at the table.
"You better get going," she tells us with a tired smile. "If you ever want to leave."
Taking her advice, we slip out and pile into my car to drive into the city.
"What do you guys feel like? Pizza again or what?" I ask them. "There's a good place near the theatre."
Mark agrees and we head off, blasting some Velvet Underground music and driving too fast.
We sit in the back of the grungy pizza place, poring over the paper and arguing over what movie to see. I start into my first slice of pizza and push my plate in the middle so Mark and Vi can dump the toppings they don't eat onto it. Violet folds the paper and pushes it over to Mark.
"What do you think?"
"Roger wants to see a slasher," Mark says.
"Well, we've got three options and none of them are pretty," she sighs.
"Let's hear 'em," I say, reaching for my Cherry Coke.
"Sleepaway Camp III – Teenage Wasteland, Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out, or The Terror Within."
"The Silent Night movies suck," I tell them. "Santa is not scary. Plus the sequels of horror movies are always terrible. Let's go for The Terror Within. What's it about?"
Violet sighs and scans the paper. "Something about humans fighting gargoyle monsters who impregnate women with their gargoyle babies after the apocalypse."
Mark frowns down at his pizza. "I was hungry."
"Come on, that sounds wicked, don't you think?" I insist. Eventually they give up their cynicism and we all get excited for an evening of demon gargoyle babies. Before we leave Mark adds the words "Low Budget Artwork" to the already wordy surface of our table and I write "Pointless Vandalism" underneath of it. We dump our trash and head off to the theatre, getting in the mood for horror by confessing our mutual adoration for Night of the Living Dead and continually saying "They're coming to get you Violet" while zombie walking.
At the end of the night we end up crashed on the couch bed in Violet's room, where both Mark and Vi are still verbally beating me up over making them see what according to them was 'the worst movie of the 80s'.
"You don't think it was awesome?" I ask for the millionth time.
"Roger, it was a blatant and horrible rip-off of Alien. It's what Alien would have been if it was a low budget piece of shit shot with a homemade camera in a film student's basement with his cokehead friends as the actors," Mark retorts.
"You're giving it too much credit," Violet says.
"You want to go see one of the other slashers this weekend or something?" I offer, trying to make up for what was apparently a bad choice of movies.
Mark shakes his head adamantly. "I'd rather makeout with Hitler."
"I own Night of the Living Dead," Violet cuts in. "If anyone is up for good old-fashioned brain-eating."
Mark looks relieved. "I'd say put it in, but I don't want to fall asleep with all this shit in my hair."
"You can take a shower if you want," Violet says. "We won't start it without you."
I yawn. "But we will raid Violet's fridge again."
She rolls her eyes at me and grabs some towels for Mark. While he's showering we grab some more food and blankets while I tease her about Julian some more, and try on her blonde Nico wig. When he emerges from the bathroom I twirl the fake hair around my finger and tell him enticingly to come to bed. Violet giggles at him when he throws a pillow at me and tells me to lay off the charm for one night.
Violet pops the movie in and the three of us cuddle up together under the covers with cans of Coke and popcorn, saying the lines to each other teasingly and pretending we don't have to be up in five hours to get to school.
