A List of Best Intentions

I started small, but I started as quickly as I could. 2000 wasn’t taking me without a fight.

Number one: Grow a Goatee.

Too easy. At my age, hair came in great quantities…and in weird spots. All I had to do was wait a few days without shaving, then shape it a little. Soon enough, I had a dark brown patch of hair under my lip that matched my dark hair, and even though Cody said it looked like a poop stain, I walked with a little more swagger after growing it.

Radical.

It wasn’t like anybody noticed except Cody, though. Back when this whole thing began, I was basically anonymous at school – nobody knew my name. Well, I mean, people knew who I was; they just didn’t really care for me. As far as they knew, I was just some normal kid who smiled a lot.

After I made that list, that definitely changed. We’ll get to that sooner or later.

For starters, I realized just how bad school got in the way of half the stuff on my list.

Even if number four – Study for a Test – was in cahoots with it, school wasn’t a great place to accomplish some of the crazier things on the list (and by the way, when I did number four, I got the first A+ in my life).

As it turned out, the Y2K scare reached even the most remote corners of Tanglewood High School. You could pretend not to care, but once someone gave you the scoop, you were just another one of them, terrified of losing all your money and terrified to fly in a plane for fear of a bug-related crash.

I was glad I wasn’t the only person worried. Kids were throwing wild parties, getting wasted, and doing all kinds of insane crap to make our last year great, but none of them had taken the time to plan out everything before it was all supposed to go sour.

One Wednesday, Cody and I walked into Mr. Worthington’s class for another useless day of history. When I sat my backpack down, these two dudes Jon and Bruce came up to me, which hurt my brain. I barely knew them personally, but they were half of the hottest local band in town, I Am You Are. What did they want with me?

“Hey Kev,” Jon said to me. I turned around.

“Yeah?”

Bruce scratched his head. “You can play guitar, right?”

I nodded, slowly at first and then fully. I wasn’t no pro, but I could kinda hold a tune – my freshman year, I was park of the jazz band in high school in a bored attempt to have something to do after school while Cody was on the math team. (That year, our sophomore year, we didn’t do anything like that.)

“Well, Alyssa’s got the flu, and we got a gig at Ariani’s party on Friday, so we were wondering -” Bruce began.

“YES!”

“…If you would play with us…?” Jon finished.

I flailed. I didn’t even wait for them to finish speaking. “Yes! Yes!”

That was the first of many times opportunity had knocked on my door that year, rather than having me initiate it. Their guitarist was sick (in more ways than one; she was a shredder)! I could do number five – Rock with a Local Band!

Man, when God closes a door, he sure opens a window, I thought. Even if I didn’t even know who the heck Ariani was or why he was throwing a party, it was still good news to me.

Jon smiled and patted my shoulder. “Good man. We’re meeting at Bruce’s house tonight so we can go over the setlist. Can you come?”

I nodded quickly, excitement burning away at my bones. He gave me a piece of paper, the address I was to meet them at.

Even though it happened all at once and I acted like a complete starstruck idiot, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was onto something huge. They didn’t know a thing about the list I had made or the reasons why I was so excited to do it, but just the fact that they were willing to recruit me of all people was enough to make me happy for a long time.

When they were gone, Cody walked over, breathing down my neck. “Man, you’re freakin’ lucky. You’re actually getting things done.”

I did a double take, a little scared by his sudden appearance. “You mean you’re not gonna wear underwear on your head?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think I’m gonna do anything.”

I slapped him after leaving my mouth open for a minute.

He held his cheek. “Alright! God…I’ll stick by ya. We can do this crap together, I guess.”

~~~~~

That night I went over to Bruce’s house to go over some of I Am You Are’s songs. I brought my guitar, of course, but I was nervous as hell. I never played with a band before, especially local celebrities! I wasn’t really the most rad guitarist, either. Not compared to theirs, Alyssa Weaver. She could freakin’ shred it like a cheese grater when she wasn’t busy blowing her nose and coughing up a lung.

Why were they choosing me as a stand-in? There were a ton of other players at school. They could’ve just called off the gig or asked someone else to fill in. Whatever. As confused as I was, I wasn’t in the position to shrug it off, and instead, I pushed all the questions outta my mind and focused on the chords Alyssa was teaching me.

She sneezed. “I swear to God, I’m dying.”

Bruce smacked her on the back and laughed. “I don’t see a grim reaper in here.”

She slapped his hand away and scooted over to me, controlling my left hand. “Oh God, this is terrible. Your middle finger should be here, your index finger needs to be here -”

“Why don’t you just show ‘im the tabs?” Robert – the drummer – said flatly.

Alyssa froze, then dug into her pocket to retrieve a ghastly-sized assortment of papers. She tossed the pile to me, and I dropped half of them.

“Can you read tabs?” she asked.

I thought for a minute, and then I did a half-nod.

“Can you?” she repeated.

I shook my head, spilling the truth.

She sighed, wiped her nose on her hand, and then took the tabbed version of their song “Three Months.” Pretty soon I got the concept, after a crash course in reading music that I never had the patience to do before. Accomplishing stuff was shaping up to be actual work.

Robert wiggled one of his drumsticks around his fingers. “Can we practice yet?”

As if in defeat, she threw her hands in the air. “Whatever.” Bruce shot her an apologetic look and she snorted, crossing her arms.

These cats were solid. They were awesome for a bunch of teenagers, and I got a pillar of confidence being among them. Knowing that they thought I was capable of maybe sort-of living up to a fraction of the talent that Alyssa had was awesome in itself.

I almost felt bad for stealing Alyssa’s place for a night, but they were better off without me anyway – it wasn’t like I was a better guitarist than her. Then, I stopped feeling guilty. ‘Cause I mean hey, this was a once-in-a-lifetime deal here, and they didn’t know it, but they were helping me.

Ariani’s party was gonna be crazy, that’s all I knew for sure.

~~~~~~

I almost wished I could be among the crowd, dancing and sweating, downing spiked punch because we were so damn good.

Okay. I Am You Are certainly didn’t sound perfect, of course, since I was being a stand-in. But we played LOUD. Freakin’ Metallica concert loud. Apparently, that made us party-worthy, and it definitely prompted a hectic atmosphere.

I’m not sure how many people noticed that Alyssa wasn’t there, or how many people knew who the heck I was, but just being a part of something this awesome felt great.

And I could cross off “Rock with a Local Band.”

The only time I’d ever been to a concert was the talent show a few years back in junior high when I Am You Are won…I don’t think that counts, though. I never really realized how nuts music could really make people when we weren’t in a school setting.

Bruce had to be the only dude I knew who could really sing. That kid had some pipes. And Jon was a total jazz kid and played bass like…I don’t know, a good bass player – he always stood out when he played with the jazz band for school. Robert beat the drums fast and loud, making sure not an inch of the house was silent. Put together, they were beastly.

But with me as their guitarist, they weren’t the best they sounded. Still, the party was wicked, and I had to feel sorry for Alyssa, ‘cause she was stuck back at home getting all the snot outta her nose.

I eyed Cody standing in the corner of the living room where we were playing. He didn’t look too enthusiastic, or happy. I wasn’t surprised; the poor dude sometimes had no drive. I asked him to come to the party, but it took like half an hour of begging before he finally acceded to it.

“To kill the friend in me…” Bruce finished up their hit song “Friend In Me,” taking a breath as he stepped away from the mic. He gave a nod to Jon and introduced the next one, “SoCal.”

I made a mental note to get one of their demos. It was the only place I could hear their stuff – on a CD. I could’a cherished it forever if it was on one of those babies.

The music lifted even the heaviest spirits, even Cody, who got the guts to start moving around in the crowd. His blonde hair flew around like everyone else’s, an unmistakable grin creeping onto his face. Atta boy, I thought. (It never occurred to me that he maybe took a drink of that punch they had made.)

And on the bridge, something incredible happened.

And you can call this clichéd and dumb and all that stuff, but hey, I was there, I saw it, and God knows I had the firsthand experience.

The prettiest girl in the whole wide world was right in front of the stage.

I almost lost it. I even stopped playing for a second until Jon elbowed me in the ribs. My breath caught in my throat, and I could’ve sworn my heart stopped. I couldn’t register the sight in my brain completely. I just…couldn’t. It was like there was that feeling you get when everything takes five minutes to figure out.

She was beautiful.

She had golden hair that poured over her shoulders and bangs that were cut just above her eyebrow. The girl wore a No Doubt tee and a bright red skirt, dancing quietly a few meters from the “stage,” with a soft smile gracing her dark red lips. She was…she was…so pretty.

My god, I sounded stupid just then. I’m trying to describe her the way I saw her in that moment, and that’s the best I can do – it’s as true-to-life as it’ll be.

Without really thinking about it, we powered through the final chorus with no difficulty. After that song, Bruce twisted his guitar strap around his neck and said into the mic, “We’re taking a break but we’ll be back!”

I zoomed right into the crowds to find Cody. I ran into at least five people who cursed me out, and when I finally found him, I bumped straight into his back. He stumbled forward with a choice swear word but when he saw it was me, he held his hand up for a hi-5. “Awesome job, Kev!”

I smacked his hand loudly. “Hell yeah!”

All of a sudden, I spotted a familiar face right over Cody’s shoulder – the same girl who had caused me to momentarily stop all thought processes while I was on the makeshift stage. I screamed, throwing my hands over my mouth. He raised an eyebrow, feeling his face for anything that would’ve caused my reaction. “What? What?! What’s wrong, man?!”

I couldn’t speak. I just flailed my arms in the air, which in hindsight, made me fit in a little more with our drunk peers who were doing the same.

Damn it. What was the matter with me? (Don’t answer that question.)

The girl caught a glimpse of my spasm and grinned. Mentally, I slapped myself.

When she started making her way over I ducked, hoping Cody could cover for me. He turned around to face me, a smirk plastered to his face. “Ohhh. Her?”

I nodded, my heart racing.

She came closer…

Closer…

I closed my eyes.

She tapped my shoulder and I jumped, doing my best to keep chill, but I couldn’t. I just really hoped she didn’t hear that odd little noise I made.

I averted her eyes, while she looked straight at me. “Hi,” she said.

I waved back sheepishly, unable to speak.

“You played really well up there,” she added, still beaming.

I just couldn’t bring myself to look directly at her. “Thanks. Er, thanks,” I mumbled, my face hotter than hell.

She laughed and turned away, getting back to moving like a teenager at a party normally would. I was stuck in a daze, watching her carefully until Cody slapped my cheek.

“Dude, snap out of it!”

I became aware of my surroundings. “What? Huh?”

He was smiling. “Oh, Kevin’s in love…”

“I am not! Shut up!”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Dude, I’m not stupid. Go talk to her or I’ll make her talk to you. She’s in my chemistry class, you know.”

I went silent for a second. “What’s her name?”

“Stephanie.”

“Stephanie…”

He snorted. “You’re helpless, dude.”