More Than a Band

Reed leaned flat over his desk and reached his arms out to grab the back of the seat in front of him. It made a loud squeak as he pulled back on it. “Reed, would you like to answer this question?” the teacher asked, “since you seem like you’re free enough to do…” He raised his eyebrows “… whatever you’re doing.”

“Stretches,” Reed replied. “The answer to your question is that I’m doing stretches. It’s good for the brain. And then this…” He breathed into his hands and rubbed them together. “This is good for warming your hands and getting your circulation up and going.”

Again, the teacher raised his eyebrows. “Okay,” he said. “But can you answer this problem on the board?”

Reed squinted at the calculus problem written on the front. He sighed and raised his eyebrows at the teacher who liked raising his eyebrows. Both of their eyebrows were raised. Reed liked to imagine that it was a eyebrow raising contest and a staring contest in one. This was intense. “But I already answered a question,” he said. “Why two?”

“Answer it, Reed.”

“Oh okay it’s uh, it’s,” he scratched as his cheek. “Give me a second.” He pretended to scribble something down on his desk as he glanced at the paper of the student next to him. “The integral of squared x minus one, of course,” he told the man. “Easy peezy.” He winked.

“Okay,” the teacher said, seeming a bit disappointed that he couldn’t stump the distracted brunet, and moved on.

Reed sighed in relief as he erased the pencil marks from his desk and swept away the eraser residuals. He spent the rest of the class squinting at the teacher, trying to figure out why he didn’t like him. The teacher was like, targeting him, locking down on him. It wasn’t like he did anything bad. Well, Reed supposed that his staring was starting to make the man uncomfortable, so maybe he should lay it off. And maybe he should lay off the desk drumming too.

After his classes, he met with the band again. Babycakes, honeybuns, studmuffin, they were all there before him. “Hey, folks, the life of the party is here, let’s get rollin’!” he shouted as he ran toward them with open arms, until he realized they were gathered around a piece of paper, instead of their instruments. “Uh oh, that paperwork looks scary.” He stopped in his tracks.

“It’s the application for the Play It Live competition,” Isobel explained.

Reed pivoted in his spot and started walking toward the door. “Call me back once you’re all done, Honeybuns!” he sang.

“Don’t call me that, you nincompoop,” Isobel said.

“Reed, come here and sit down!” Ali shouted, her voice sharp. “Don’t push off all the work on us.”

He slowed down and walked backwards, until he bumped into Joey, who shot him a look, and sat next to the jock. “Anything for Babycakes,” Reed said.

“Alright, back to business,” Joey said. “We’ve got to write down a band name, but the thing is, we don’t even have a band name yet.”

“I think something with one word could be catchier and easier for people to remember,” Ali suggested.

“I’m happy with anything as long as it doesn’t sound lame,” Isobel commented.

“What kind of image do we want to have?” Joey asked. “Maybe something intense and hardcore. That way, we’ll be cool, and it wouldn’t be embarrassing to say our name.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “But not too hardcore, I’d rather not turn into a thrashing metal band, you know? Lay it on easy.”

“How about… the Studmuffins?” Reed asked, wrapping an arm around Joey and grinning.

“Well,” Joey said, shrugging and laughing. “We are studs.”

Reed gave him the finger guns. “Pew pew, you get me.”

“Pew pew, I get you,” Joey replied, shooting imaginary bullets in reciprocation.

“How about no?” Ali said, shaking her head, though a smile was clearly visible on her face. “It sounds a little too conceited, don’t you think? Something pretty humble or neutral, not self-grading but like… something that doesn’t really concern our confidence or esteem would be best, you know?”

“Something with an image would be best, like Joey said,” Isobel said, propping her feet on the table. “Something easy to say and make a logo out of.”

“I don’t know about you guys but my image is probably a woodwind reed because of my name,” Reed said. “Joey would be a football or some sort of sports ball, and Ali would probably be books. Isobel… ah, I don’t know exactly. But what if we combined those together like, books, woodwinds, balls, and Isobel?”

Ali waved him off. “Too much, too much,” she said.

“We could be Field Goal,” Joey suggested, his eyes suddenly brightening. “It could represent, I don’t know, how we’re only worth less than half the points of a touchdown but in the long run, we do matter you know?”

“Nice one, Studmuffin!”

“That’s good but it’s a bit too sporty for me,” Isobel said, distracted with twirling a strand of her hair around her finger.

“I agree,” Ali nodded. She searched the room for ideas. “What if…” her eyes landed on the doorknob. “What if we did something about a keyhole? That’s not too sporty, and it could symbolize a lot of things too, since that seems to be what Joey was shooting for.”

“The Lockpickers,” Reed said.

“We’re not here to become criminals,” Isobel said.

“Lock and Key,” Joey said.

“That’s actually the title of a romance book I’ve read recently,” Ali said.

Joey scrunched up his nose. “Never mind.”

“Lockdown then,” Isobel muttered, almost inaudibly.

The room fell silent all of a sudden, like they ran out of comments to say, retorts to reply with, or the energy to shut another one down. Isobel looked up from her hair and met eyes with Joey, who had a wide-eyed, amazed expression, and suddenly, she liked the idea that was originally just a blind throw into a whirlpool of suggestions a little more than she originally did. Reed looked at Ali and nodded at her, and she nodded back at him.

“Yes,” Ali said. “That’s almost perfect.”

“Not sure what it symbolizes but it sounds pretty darn cool,” said Joey.

Reed leaned forward and playfully punched Isobel in the arm. She recoiled, since it hurt a little bit more than she expected.

“Hey,” Reed said, grinning. “Nice one, Honeybuns.” He sat back in his chair. “For a person who didn’t seem to care about the name, you have some pretty good ideas. Lockdown, it is.”