AN: I'm not satisfied with this chapter at all, I'm not quite sure why. Oh well.
Solitary Dragon: I wasn't being sarcastic at all (I know it's a bit difficult to tell in print since my story is so snarky) You were my first reviewer, therefore I'm sort of spoiled. I love the length and detail you go into describing what you liked and what you didn't, they're quite helpful (and the job they do on my ego Jesus!) I'm really happy you liked the dialogue, I'm always afraid I'm way too out of character, I try to imagine the characters saying these lines but I'm always worried about it. I went through a Poe stage too, about fourteen I think right in between Walt Whitman and Robert Frost. I loved "Catcher in the Rye" and you should definitely read "Metamorphosis" its beautiful and quite depressing.
I'm not sure exactly, it does seem as if Zack's a masochist doesn't it? I don't think he can handle any of the stuff that's thrown at him so he's sarcastic and I think he's gotten used to the product of his sarcasm (usually violence) and a small part of him wants that to continue so at least something in his life will be consistent. If that makes any sense.
Rockerchik777: Thank-you, I always have an awful time trying to balance imagery with dialogue and the content of the character's heads.
Vaguely Specific: I'm glad you liked it! I'm sorry if the fight was confusing. Ah…I probably should have explained this earlier; there exists currently a very thick strand of animosity between Freddy and Zack for events that will be explained in later chapters. They've drifted from the "friendship" they both used to enjoy and I've always thought of Freddy as the possessor of a splendid temper and even if they had been close friends and Zack had said those things to him…I would most likely expect the same results. I have issues with being clear and coherent when I'm writing something like that, it's a bit like trying to see through fog, sorry about that.
MellowYellow36: "Wonderwall" is awesome, I like Oasis…I just like making fun of them a little bit more.
Syaint Jimmy: I'm sorry you were confused, chapter three skipped round a bit.
No Such things as Happy songs: Thanks for the review!
United Nude Postmasters IDH: Yeah…I can go a little overboard with the imagery sometimes, once I get starred it's a bit difficult to stop. I'm glad you liked the story though! Thanks for the Kenny G fact as well, I could have sworn it was the flute.
This chapter actually exists as a continuation from the last one (It's a miracle) but first, another visit to the therapist office. I've noticed my chapters (this one included) don't quite go anywhere, it's difficult but chapter five should have some mobility in it, at least change locations once or twice. Jesus.
IV
Growing Pains
"The sun came up with no conclusions,
Flowers sleeping in their beds,
The cities cemeteries humming
I'm wide awake its morning."
Bright Eyes "Road to Joy"
" Tell me about Dewey."
"What do you mean?"
"Dewey. I want to know about him."
"Is this like that time you wanted me to explain who James Taylor was and you thought I was talking about one of those guys from Hanson?"
"You talk about him often, he seems to be important to you."
"Oddly enough, he's a guy…and his name is Dewey, I think that's the gist man."
"He's your music teacher."
"Did you get that one all by yourself?"
"Your parents told me all about him, sounds like a character."
"Didn't know you were interested."
"I am because you are."
"Because I am?"
"That's right."
"So if I wanted to sell pot to third graders and hunt water buffalo…"
"We could see about getting you an off campus pass."
"Hm."
"You seem relaxed."
"Mother and I shared an Oxycontin cocktail on the way over."
"I thought you're parents were out of town?"
"And I thought being a doctor implied the possession of at least one iota of intelligence."
"I just mean you seem lighter, less guarded, there's a youth about your face Zack, it wasn't there a week ago. Have the days been good?"
"Better than bad ones."
"I would think, and Dewey…Staying with Mr. Finn, that's part of it, you're enjoyment of that?"
"I guess. Though the manual labor and the porn marathons do wear on one's nerves after a while. Price you pay I guess."
The fork-tongue of Gene Simmons knocked him off the thick tidal wave of his salty sun stained dream and cut into his sleep like a hungry python. "Rock and Roll all Night" blared dully in his head as the edges of the room swam in foamy forms against his eyes.
The gigantic poster of Jim Morrison on the ceiling seemed to be peering into his soul, and judging by his harsh glare he wasn't too satisfied with the contents. Zack lay on his back listening to the heavy snores that sounded like cats being sat on sailing through the dull yellow walls.
The sounds of the morning beat his ears into a silent submission as he closed his eyes buried his face into the worn Flintstones pillow, and wrapped his arms around a flighty elusive slumber.
"And I'm sure you enjoy that your parents trust you? Enough to go out of the country without you, after what happened?"
"Its flattering, the chip in my brain not only files and faxes a detailed report every time I piss, it also alerts them whenever I have a distinctively impure thought about my elderly neighbors or when I eat foods high in sugar."
"You think they don't trust you?"
"I don't think they want to. He smiled widely. "Dad wanted the economy-sized chip that measured my brain waves and had an automatic police dialer just in case I ever killed anyone, its sweet."
"I would think you're parents were perfectly justified in being apprehensive about leaving you alone, after what happened wouldn't you? I would think they were being quite lenient, quite trusting. How long are they gone?"
"Till one of them remembers they have a son at home I expect."
Said sleep was broken into a hundred tiny shards by the sharp rapping on the door, then a creak that sounded like the death of patience, the clear voice of his class president like brisk winter against his ears, prattling on interrupted by a short scream. He landed on the hardwood floor of the rumpus room nose first, blunt pain knocking the sleep from him in swift blows. Then Dewey's voice racked with lost sleep and too much saki.
"Sorry about that, Tinkerbell let me just grab a shirt."
"Your father told me you started cursing."
"Did he buy you a chip too?"
" He came to see me before he left, wanted to make sure you attended sessions while they were gone."
"The Bubonic plague couldn't keep me away."
"He said the cursing came from Dewey. Same with the loud music at three am, and the sarcasm and the insubordination."
"And the energy crises and the Aids epidemic and Castro still being in power its all Dewey, he's infecting our air and impregnating our women."
"You think your father's worries are unfounded?"
"My dad wakes up and realizes its been fourteen years and he doesn't know me and I can run an internet search and know more about him than I do right now, I get it completely Dewey's fault."
"But your father still resents him?"
"He isn't really selective about the loathing."
"I understand they got off on the wrong foot, first impressions can prove to be quite lasting."
"He thought Dewey was a pethaphile big deal, I'm sure it happens to you all the time."
He was buzzing all over, stale stocks of static electricity burrowing into his blood stream and setting his capillaries on fire. Bits of sleep stuck to the edges of his eyes like webbing, the bright room framed with pieces of phantasmal foam smashed against his retinas splitting the room into bright shards.
He lay in the pale yellow morning with his ears pressed against the soft pillow his eyes closed, slipping into the canyons and valleys of that voice as it unfurled itself in his ears like clear winter wind.
Stuck between the soft sun and the dark starlit realms of sleep it rode into his head like soft thunder ripe with rain. Grin large and painful as he felt the erosion of the warm soil in the forests of his mind, uprooting trees and tracking all over the soft terra firma making fingerprints on the red dust on the walls of his brain. Winter sunlight in his head. Sending tufts of melting hail to rest against the cemetery of his unprocessed thought
It had been so long since he'd heard her voice.
"And it's better staying with Dewey, there are more good days?"
"I don't know, I haven't been counting."
He followed the lazy curve of his long shadow that spread itself on the narrow walls like slow black fire until the corridor opened and he was struck with the sun coming through high windows. KISS pouring from somewhere in the corner of his head blasted the wide room into pieces and shook the dim light over his head.
Bare feet on the cold floor in between long shafts of light that made the air glitter, dense jungles of green plants stretching their arms across worn furniture touching the greasy lids of empty pizza boxes. Broken black Saki cups lay dismembered across the coffee table, guitar picks resting in pairs of unlaced Converse sneakers straps and cables lay in thick trains across the floor. Plants hanging from the ceiling, decrepit old rockers glaring at him in large black and white photographs from above the fireplace, air and space, the sunlight chiseling at the narrow canyons of their cheeks.
Zack breathed in until he was dizzy.
"Ah, and in your mind would you say that you respect this man? That you hold him in a different light than you would most people?"
"I guess."
"I suppose what I'm trying to ask is, do you see Dewey as part of the whole, as this large force you're constantly having to fight against? Or do you see him more as one would a father? Is he like a paternal figure to you?"
Zack sat up on the white sofa, hair falling into his eyes like dark snow and gave his captor a steady look so grim and satisfied in its confidence it caused the air to shake with an electric calm.
"He's better."
"Top of the morning homie."
Dewey stood in the kitchen holding out his coffee mug in a jovial toast, blue robe flowing behind him lapping softly against his large calves, hair stretching itself dangerously close to the swift turning blades of the ceiling fan. He looked like a giddy mildly disoriented Mary Poppins. As if inhaling a few tanks of methane gas helped the medicine go down.
"Dude." Zack said slowly. "Close your robe."
"Oh sorry man, I was trying to give that foxy chica across the street a little peep show." He pulled the waistband of his Pink Floyd boxers above the equator of his porcine belly and tied his robe round him.
His laughter came in great fiery bursts cultivated by Zack's expression.
"Were you trying to proposition her or blind her?"
"Proposition her dude, what do I need with a blind girl?" Then his wide squire contance spread itself into a revolutionary grin. "Hold that thought man."
"I wish I had a time machine so that every time you said stuff like that I could hop in it and prevent your birth."
"Dude I'm actually old enough to have prevented your birth, I wouldn't have minded splitting up your units because lets face it your mom's pretty hot."
"Dude!"
"You asked for it Mr. Morning Diplomacy, but you're lucky man I'm not a homewrecker."
Zack put his head in his hands trying to pummel the disturbing images and make them come out of his ears. "Dude!"
"I'm sorry man, the truth must be known, now eat some breakfast and I'll try my best to forget about how hot your mom is. Hey, if you're gonna blow chunks get on it doggone it. We gotta jet soon."
"Yeah, Zack muttered quickly. "I wasn't actually planning on going today."
Dewey looked confused. "Ah damn it did I miss another holiday?"
"No dude," He put his hands on the cool counter and took a quick breath. "I was just planning to take a day of mourning that's all."
"For?"
"Break of Blink 182." Zack nodded vigorously.
"Come again?"
"It happened about a week ago dude, I thought you knew. It was just so unexpected man I-I think I'm just gonna take some time." He put his hand to his heart and leaned on the counter for support.
Dewey stared at him. "You think you're funny?"
"What? The boy asked incredulously. "It cut me deep!"
"That's disgusting, try again."
"What happened to musical tolerance Ghandi?"
"That's when we were talking about Oasis. His beady eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Have you been watching VH-1?"
"Dewey I-""Don't lie to me dude, I can smell it on your breath."
"You don't even have cable!"
"So? How do I know you aren't sneaking off to Best Buy and watching it on the big screens? Like some junkie."
"I didn't-"
"Dude music television kills your brain." His crazy eyebrows shook and danced along the plains of his forehead eyes riddled with a drunken mania. We've been through this dude,
I don't think you're ready for the downward spiral watching MTV and VHI and DIY is gonna throw you down, first you're watching I heart the forties, next you're buying cardigans and sweaters originally made for girls the next thing you know you've got a goatee and your in a Journey tribute band. Is that what you want?"
"I-"
"Is it?"
"No."
Dewey threw his hands up in the hair, gesticulating wildly. "Then what the hell dude?"
"I don't feel like it. Going I mean." Zack groaned and hoisted himself onto the counter sitting morosely next to the gleaming white toaster. "Screw school."
"That's the spirit brother."
"School is the breeding ground for the man."
"Yes."
"Prep school is the playground of oppression."
"Yeah dude but playgrounds have swings."
. He leaned on the counter and fixed the wide fellow with a calm look. "Do I have to?"
"Yeah man, its important you know…reading and stuff."
"I know how to read Dewey."
The rotund man's face fell. "Well's there's other stuff like you know, addition."
"Got it."
"Subtraction."
"Yeah."
"Uh, those little things where there's like a number on the top and another one on the bottom-"
"Fractions?"
"If that's what they're calling 'em now."
"Fourth grade."
"Damn."
"Come on man its just a bunch a burn outs with teaching degrees trying to live vicariously through us or something it's total bull."
"Dude, dude." Dewey sighed coming to stand in front of him under the broken lamp that swung above their heads like a dead crane "No one can make you feel better about going to a school full of la cross playing, glue sniffing zombies. But this is me Sensei Dewey telling you, trust me, it could be worse man."
"How?" Zack groaned.
He ran a large hand through his messy beard that looked like a sloth had died on his face it shone in the pale sunlight that came from the narrow window behind a haggard looking photograph of Hendrix smoking a joint.
"We could be in prehistoric times and then you'd have to worry about getting' to Chem on time and outrunning the T-Rex. Don't look at me like that dude, it could happen."
Zack glanced at him. "Again, what's the point?"
"I just told you, Dewey sang. to live and to learn and the world will be a better place for you. He paused. And for me."
"But you have to agree that sometimes you've got to fight for your right to party."
Dewey nodded. "Yeah, but not when its gonna hurt someone else dude. After all, what the world needs now is love sweet love. You might say it's the only thing that there's just too little of."
"Dude we don't need no education."
"I hear you man, Dewey patted his shoulder. "But something tells me we'll all float on okay."
Zack stared at him.
"You're welcome." Dewey nodded slowly, fixing him with an appraising look.
"For what?"
"That Wonder Years moment we just had, it was like a pep talk for your brain."
"That was you blabbering incoherently and trying to distract me with song lyrics." Zack sniffed, then glanced at the rosy faced man critically. "Modest Mouse, really?"
"Don't go there man." The index finger of doom came to rest right in-between his eyes. "I liked them back in nineteen ninety five when no one had even heard of them so back off." He nodded vigorously at his young padawan
He hopped off the counter dejectedly and Dewey felt a silver bubble of sympathy rising in his throat. Sighing heavily, Zack turned to the avocado colored refrigerator while Dewey searched the Morning Times for the comics eager to see what trouble Marmaduke had gotten himself into that morning
And Zack, standing in front of the swamp colored fridge littered with ticket stubs and refrigerator magnets listening to the light sounds of the newspaper pages brushing together thought: This is normal. Laughter. Noise in a kitchen. This was how it's supposed to be. It was so warm and temperate comfortable: domestic, he didn't feel like a piece of furniture some chore that had to be attended to. He felt normal and irritated and happy like a kid was supposed to. Emotions were thick like blocks of color in his head, blotting each other out with the swift grace of a musical movement.
He could almost feel what was coming next, slipping down his spine like cool perspiration. Everything was so harsh and beautiful and it all went slinking down some pre formed line. Moments he'd lived before.
"Hey man, you just missed Summer."
Zack's pale hand shook slightly on the fridge handle. His thin fingers reverberating against the broad cold metal in a tremor bravado.
"Dropped off designs for the album cover some kid in her class made. They're pretty sweet man I don't know dude I think I might have like, messed her up in the head or something."
Tense shoulders like wet wings of a moth against his ears, pits of warm pressure encircling each other in his small shoulder blades. Raw sensation that lived in his skin burnt and battered by his boiling blood.
"I got to the door with the robe open cause I thought it was the paper guy. He doesn't ask any questions about the bill if he thinks you're part of a nudist colony."
" Summer freaked out. There was major wiggage so if you see her at school today tell her I'm sorry and I didn't mean to flash her and I thought she was the paper guy."
Dewey blinked at the back of the tense form huddled in the breakfast nook.
"Zack man, usually we keep the milk in the fridge. "I know you're used to the fresh stuff and I'm sorry we don't have a goat to milk but don't look down on homonogized milk dude, it's the shit."
His fingers tightened round the handle as he jerked open the fridge in a spurt of movement embroidered in haste. Some obscure Killers song started in his head and he felt the cold handle of the milk as he yanked it out of the abyss.
"You want to see the designs, they're pretty kick ass man, one of 'em is you guys in a submarine being chased by the grim reaper in a scuba diving outfit."
Zack shut the door with a snap. "Uh…yeah." His voice had gone odd, sounded like tripping down a narrow staircase in the dark.
"Zack? Hello? You okay dude?"
"Yeah." He said quickly as he retrieved the golden box from the shelf and began hunting for a clean bowl and spoon in the pack of filthy dishes that lay in the sink like victims of the plague.
Dewey frowned. "I'm sorry man, I'm talking about band stuff when you're trying to get your Captain Crunch on my bad.
"No man it's fine." He replied absently sinking down into his chair "Sounds cool."
His eyes lied but Dewey didn't go after it. "You know you're parents called me at like four o clock this morning?"
Zack in the midst of flooding his cereal in a shaky steam of milk sent a small spray over the sample album covers Dewey had strewn across the table.
"Like an hour after you went back to bed, I was having this sweet dream about Cream and Zeppelin getting into a street fight. Dude it was so annoying I gave 'em a piece of my mind until he yelled at me in that Hitler voice and I realized it your dad. Yeah that was awkward."
"What did he say?" Zack's eyes were riddled with a sharp focus and his voice had descended worn and heavy back to Earth.
Dewey shrugged. "Don't give you sugar or show you porn and stuff. He asked how stuff here was."
Zack gave him a long glance. "And what'd you tell him?"
"The truth man, that you were out scoring some nose candy before the rave started."
The boy dropped his spoon into his bowl, a grin blooming at the corner of his mouth
completely against his will.
"I'm kidding dude, relax." Dewey shrugged, folding the paper in half. "I told him you'd call him when you'd slept off the hangover."
He imagined the rictus of horror, the self-righteous fury that would spread across his patriarch's face like a badly drawn cartoon and tired to keep his face from seizing up into a smile that caught the entire morning in its glow.
"Doesn't have a sense of humor your dad." Dewey said from behind the paper.
"Yeah." Zack grinned feeling dizzy and full with a strange satiation that knotted in his stomach like defunct intestines, the shooting pains of freedom. "Not so much."
Dewey's mouth opened and Tommy Shaw's sprawling voice spilled out. It attacked Zack's ears like verbal poison. He grabbed his bowl as the kitchen began to quake. The walls shook with a domestic fury like the crumbling walls of a dirt cave; plates and glasses fell from their shelves and shattered on the floor, breaking into hundreds of pieces like glass butterflies. Coffee mugs and calendars flew past his head in sheets as the broken light shook dangerously overhead.
"God damn it!" Dewey growled.
Despite the fact that it was geographically impossible, Zack was sure it was an earthquake, it pounded in his head like an angry hurricane pummeling the air round him and made Dewey's hair stand up. The noise pollution rattled the small windows and shook the cat clock above the fireplace and Zack realized it wasn't an earthquake, it was worse.
Styx.
"That's it!" His wide musical mentor slammed his large fist on the table and made to stand. He gripped the back of his chair breathing like a crippled walrus. "If that mofo wants to dance we'll dance!"
He made a shaky path to the corner of the living room, books toppling off the shelves dangerously close to his head. Leaning against the fireplace, his face a mirage of sweat and mania he gripped a CD from the hanging disk shelf and tore it open.
Then music, so loud it nearly knocked Zack backwards. He grasped the table as the kitchen was blasted apart by Gene Simmons primal howling. Dewey stood next to the CD player beaming, and nodded his head enthusiastically. Calmly walking back to the table and plopping down he snatched up his newspaper and resumed his reading.
"You know this is only going to lead to more animosity?" Zack yelled.
"What?"
"It's only gonna make him whip out the Michael Bolton and the Celeine Dion!"
"I can't hear you!"
"This isn't going to solve anything!"
"What are you talking about dude, KISS brings everybody together. Hey you want me to go over there and request some Blink?"
"I'd rather go to school Zack shouted. "Or choke and die on my own vomit."
"Either way, you get out of the house dude."
"Can I use the phone?"
"Sure man. Who do you need to call?"
"Child Services, I'll only be on a minute"
"Forgot to pay the bill this month ese you can use fetus face's phone, he's down the hall dude."
Zack stood up with his hands pressed against his ears and proceeded to walk shakily across the crumbling kitchen.
"Where you going man?"
"To get dressed!"
"What do you mean?" Dewey's face trembled with the grin he was trying to beat back. I thought you were gonna hang here today dude?"
Zack made a dismissive motion with his long pale limbs as he padded slowly toward the bathroom. "That sucks man I was looking foreword to chilling with you today."
"Shut up."
"I'm serious man. He grinned widely as the bathroom door slammed shut. "I was totally digging hanging out, we were gonna surf some bars pick up some women go down to Gino's and bet on some horses it was gonna be sweet. Zack man! I hope your deafness doesn't mess with our friendship dude, I care about you man!"
He could hear the furious beat of the shower water underneath the bad ass bass solo. He totally felt like the a tool for using that reverse psychology thingy on the poor kid but he would have rather had to sit through a minor session of morose silence that spoke volumes about how much stuff sucked right now, then have an over the phone powwow with his old man about how he wasn't going to school and stuff. It was tricky, having Zack there was fucking awesome but it also meant being like a…god he couldn't even say the word, like a parent and that felt like he was taking a small internship for the Man.
Which sucked.
But dude having the kid there was worth it. And who knew what crazy ass stuff Papa Mooneyham would pull if he found out Zack wasn't going to school. Don't that about that. He shook himself and scanned the paper for the small circle with the huge dog in it. The joke only took him a second to get and the booming laughter that flew out of his lips filled the small silence in which his CD player changed tracks.
That damn Marmaduke.
AN: Oy with the irrelevance. The next chapter will deal with school, and will hopefully be a bit more even.