Page 71 of Best Man on Campus

I nod. Focusing on hockey wipes my problems clear. For now.

Chapter 16

Jazzy

,

And the dreams, you dare to dream oh why oh why can't I?

Oh why, oh why can’t I?

I’ll wake up where the clouds are far behind me

Somewhere over the Rainbow - Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole

Ben calls again and I think of answering the phone, then I think of throwing it in the toilet. But I don’t do either. I was supposed to call him last night after his game. His fucking hockey game that he won. Again. Of course. Lying on the saggy mattress on the floor of a room that feels more like a closet, I don’t get up even though sunlight streams in through a slit in the yellow shade on the window.

I can’t face talking to Ben. Can barely look at myself, figuratively. I had to stay with these guys last night, my new musician friends in Brooklyn who said I could crash with them. Two guys and two girls. I managed to get myself a gig for tonight at the Shallow Pool. I’m not proud that I lied my ass off to Ben about having it lined up. Maybe it was more like exaggeration than a flat out lie. I’ll drive home after that. Home? Not home. Back to my shitty studio. Home is wherever me and my guitar find ourselves, right?

It was a good move to meet-up with this group I met through TikTok, they’re part of the music scene in Brooklyn. Majik checked them out and found they were legit. I’m not that crazy ass nuts. Only around Ben. Ben the hockey unicorn.

Majik calls and I answer. She asks her if I’ve seen Ben, says she’s worried about him.

“Don’t try that cliché mother-guilt trick on me. I know you’re full of fucking shit. Ben is fine. He’s a big boy. The strongest fucker I ever met. I couldn’t put a dent in him if I tried. He’s so resilient he makes Rocky Balboa look like a quitter. There’s no way anything I do or say can have any effect on him at all. I… he…”

“Are you finished with your fucking monologue? Because I wasn’t arguing with you. You were arguing with yourself.”

“Fuck you.” My words are choked and I can’t hold back the tears. “I don’t give a shit about him and he doesn’t care... doesn’t give a fuck about me.”

She says nothing. I try and get my emotions under control. Fuck the tears. Fuck the caring. It’s over rated. But I don’t say the words to Majik because she knows.

I care about her. I’ve cared about her for a long while now and I can’t take it back. And she knows.

“What makes you so sure I care about fucking Ben the unicorn?”

She doesn’t even bother with a snort or a real laugh. She fucking hangs up on me.

Majik is right. I do care about Ben. I make the mistake of thinking I can talk myself out of it, but it’s like trying to talk myself out of living, out of breathing, out of having even a grain of hope. Something in me—that survival instinct—stops me from giving up, forces me to care.

Getting up from my mattress, I grab my guitar and sit on my shitty piece of luggage because there’s no chair in the room, and I play.

I hope you don’t mind if I love you | but it’s just too bad if you do | because you know that it’s true…

After I strum a few minutes, fiddling with the melody, I get a knock on the door. Shit. I must have woken someone up. But when I open the door, I find out I’m wrong. These people are excited about my so-called song. In love with it if I believe them, which I don’t.

“You’re so good, man. You have the soul of a poet and the voice of a sweet songbird,” One of the guys says. I shrug it off. Claptrap, but I hold my tongue, mostly.

“It’s a good thing my voice is sweet, because that’s the only thing about me that is. Keep that in mind.”

They laugh and I decide not to disillusion the delusional bastards since they’re feeding me lunch and putting up with me in their crowded apartment. They say crazy things like that I should move down to Brooklyn, forget about school, forget about New Hampshire and come where the music scene is alive. Some kind of protective streak rises up in me that I don’t know I have, forcing me to defend my so-called home.

“The fucking New Hampshire backwoods and stupid fucking school is where I wrote my TikTok song.” That shuts them up because none of them has a song or video or anything that’s come close to the views I’ve had, that I’m still getting. My followers are through the roof, and though it’s a meaningless factoid to me, these guys are impressed with it. So, I do what I always do and use it as a weapon against them.

I’m still not a people person. They’re still poison. And the thought of living in the city surrounded by them, except to play my music, makes me nauseous.

In spite of the well-meaning musicians who’ve befriended me and their cloying attention, I make it to the gig and wait in a back room by myself. Me and my sucky thoughts. Time for all my demons to come and haunt me.

My Killian and Sarah and my mother visit and I play my guitar to keep them out. But as I hum, I know I can get past them, put them away in my past. It’s finally time for me to take the stage, or rather the eight by ten plywood platform they say is the stage. There’s a keyboard, drums and a few stools behind me, but the stool and microphone center stage is for me. Solo. I turn down their offer of accompaniment.