The House of Tomorrow Read online

  I pointed and Jared nudged the hood up over his glasses.

  “Hell no,” he said. “The guy who runs that place is a complete ass-hat. He wouldn’t let me buy a Black Flag album once unless I came back with my mom.”

  I looked in and saw the same overweight man with the stocking cap.

  “We need our poster up with those other famous bands, side by side,” I said. “It’s the ideal last spot. You know it’s true.”

  “We don’t want to be next to those bands,” said Jared. “They’re all corporate shills who write songs about missionary sex with their ladies.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The guy’s a total ass-hat,” Jared said, turning away from me.

  “Well, I’m going in to ask,” I said.

  I began my trek across the street, pushing my bike next to me.

  “Dammit, Sebastian,” Jared said.

  I didn’t turn around but I could already hear his sneakers scuffing behind me. I walked directly to the shop without breaking stride, leaving my bike by the window. Inside, the air was choked with the same flavor of incense as last time. The music was ear-splitting dissonant guitar sounds. The guy who had sold me my first CD was pressing price labels on discs by hand, and each neon orange sticker was crooked and misshapen. When I sidled up to the counter, he was trying to peel one off of his middle finger.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m on break right now.”

  He looked down at me and then back to his thick finger.

  “Well, I’m just inquiring about possibly hanging up our band’s poster in the window. We have a performance coming up, and we’re trying to draw a bit of a crowd.”

  The man finally got the sticker off his finger and onto the plastic. He adjusted his stocking cap. “Listen up,” he said, “because I’ll say this one time: the display window is for labels that pay for advertising. Not for any poseur with a garage band. Okay? So sorry about that and everything.”

  I was about to speak again, when Jared cut me off.

  “It’s not for our band,” he said. “We just told the band we’d try to get their posters up around town. They’re a hard-core act from D.C. Maybe you heard of them. The Rash.”

  “No,” he said, “I haven’t.”

  He chuckled to himself.

  “Oh, you haven’t?” Jared said. It was the most condescending voice I’d ever heard him use. “Wow, what is this? A music store for retirees? Is there anyone actually following the scene in here? Or are you into contemporary Christian mainly?”

  “Hey,” he said. “Listen, you little gnome, I saw Fugazi play for a crowd of twenty people before your parents even did it. So give it a rest, and take a hike.”

  “Okay, fine,” said Jared. “You were cool in 1991. But maybe you should try listening to new music once in a while. Music didn’t die when you turned thirty. This show is the coolest thing that ever happened to North Branch and you’re not going to put up a poster? Maybe you should work at a Wal-Mart.”

  He was giving Jared his full attention now.

  “I never even heard of their album,” he said. “It’s not in any of our catalogs.”

  “Limited release seven-inch,” said Jared.

  I knew enough to stay out of the way now. I had no idea what he was talking about. The guy pulled another neon sticker off his sheet and placed it on a CD. The sticker folded over itself, into a useless blob. Suddenly, he threw the sheet of stickers across the store. It fluttered to the ground somewhere in the Folk section.

  “I keep telling the owner that we need to carry vinyl,” he said. “But the idiot won’t listen! Maybe if he had any taste we could actually do something cool with this place . . . It pisses me off to no end! I’m tired of it.”

  “A real shame,” said Jared.

  The guy looked down at us again. I turned my head so he wouldn’t recognize me.

  “Gimme that stupid poster!” he said.

  Jared handed him one. He held it up, reading it slowly from top to bottom.

  “They’re playing a Methodist church?” he asked.

  “Pure irony,” said Jared.

  The guy nodded.

  “Save some cred,” said Jared. “Support real music for once.”

  The song on the stereo ended, leaving the small shop in silence. The large man stared at his window, full of professional banners and 3-D cardboard displays. There was a wistful look in his eyes. I wondered for a moment if he was going to cry.

  “Dammit,” he said finally. “Fine. Put it up. What do I care? I got to get out of here anyway. I need to move to Des Moines or something.”

  “Great decision,” said Jared. “You’re right back in the fold, man.”

  We walked to the window and took down a poster of a half-naked woman on a beach. We put ours up in its place. Then we left our man grumbling to himself at the counter. Outside, we stood by my bike, just looking at our poster in the window. Our breath fogged the glass. Jared lit another cigarette. In spite of his initial protest I could tell he was pleased. Validated in some way. The poster looked not dissimilar to the others hanging up. As far as anyone else knew, we had an album for sale inside. Jared nodded his head to the record store clerk. The guy nodded back and mouthed something that looked like “right on.”

  “Total ass-hat,” said Jared.

  WE MADE SURE MY BIKE WAS SAFELY STOWED BACK in the garage a good hour before Janice came home from work that afternoon. We required at least a half hour for the next item on the agenda: a full dress rehearsal of our act. It would be complete with hairstyles, attire, and a run-through of the songs just as we would perform them at the talent show. But first, Jared sent me downstairs with a bottle of hair gel and a pair of scissors I was supposed to use to cut up my band shirt. I had pressed for a full explanation, but Jared only said, “Not now, Sebastian,” and then belched.

  In the bathroom, I sat down on the toilet and jabbed the dull blade of the scissors into the fabric of my T-shirt until it tore and frayed. I cut a hole over my heart and one under my armpit to be used as an air vent. Then I poked one more at random that turned out to be directly over my right nipple. Next I squirted a handful of pink coagulated ooze into the cup of my palm and shaped my hair into a ridiculous tower that leaned to the left no matter how much I tried to straighten it. It wasn’t exactly the Mohawk that Jared had asked for; I didn’t know how to classify it, exactly. But I exited the bathroom and tried not to move my head as I took the stairs one at a time.

  Back in Jared’s bedroom, I found my front man asleep in the fetal position at the end of his bed. He was drooling, and his ears were still red from the cold. His glasses had dropped off the side of the bed and onto the dark carpet below. I picked them up. Then I flipped on the humidifier on the other side of the room. I sat down on the bed and felt my hair shift to the side. I put a hand on Jared’s shoe. He looked so peaceful in repose. Not at all like the dour insult-spitting kid from a half hour ago.

  “Jared,” I whispered.

  His left eyelid quivered.

  “Jared, I’m leaving in two days.”

  I listened to his breath, coming in like a gasp, going out like a sigh. Gaassp. Sighhhh. Gaassp. Sighhhh. I ran my fingers through my hair and came out with a handful of slime. I wiped it on my pants and sighed. “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I wish I did. But I’ve reached an impasse.”

  I got up and left the room, turning off the light on the way out. I needed to wash my hair. That was the only thing I was completely sure of. It was hard to feel properly melancholy when you looked as ludicrous as I did. And when you were confused, the last thing to do was dress up in costume. It was time to find my old clothes, wherever they’d gone. I gripped the banister and dragged my feet down the stairs.

  “Very nice,” I heard, the second my foot hit the kitchen tile.

  Meredith was drinking a glass of milk. Her schoolbag lay on the f
loor. Her shoes looked like they’d walked off her feet and died halfway to the fridge.

  “All you need now is some eyeliner,” she said.

  I tried to make it out of the kitchen without turning around, but I couldn’t. And when I did, I nearly buckled. In all my days at the Whitcomb house, I had never seen her look so pretty. Her hair was up, gathered behind her head in some kind of bun. Her eyes were glistening from the warmth of the kitchen. There was just a smudge of pink lipstick left at the center of her bottom lip. She had a pencil-thin milk mustache.

  I wanted to fall at her feet.

  “You knew I was leaving,” I managed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I must have looked like a fool with my debilitated hairdo. But Meredith didn’t laugh at me. She slowly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “Why would I tell you sooner than you needed to know?”

  “I don’t need your pity,” I said.

  “I didn’t say you did.”

  I eyed her. “I see through the act,” I said.

  “What act?”

  “Your poster-making act. Your dish-washing smiley act. Maybe it’s good I’m leaving.”

  She set her milk down on the table with a bang.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “This hasn’t exactly been the most dignified experience for me.”

  Now she looked up at my hair, at my torn shirt. “I see what you mean,” she said.

  “I’m getting in the shower,” I said.

  “Wait,” she said, “I was just kidding.”

  I walked out of the room, but right away I heard her chair slide back on the kitchen floor. My eyes were burning. I stopped at the bathroom door, then went inside and closed it. I took off my shirt and pants. I slipped off a pair of Jared’s boxers and wrapped a towel around my waist.

  “Fine,” she said from outside the door. “It might be true, but it’s not because of me. I don’t have to act any certain way for you. I don’t have to be what you expect.”

  “Consistency!” I yelled. “Can’t you just ignore me all the time?”

  “Maybe I’m a fickle woman. Have you ever thought about that?”

  She was right outside the door now. I pushed the shower curtain aside and started the water. It screeched through the pipes and erupted onto the floor of the tub. It was so completely different from the misting shower in the dome. I still couldn’t get over it.

  “Maybe I can’t be consistent about anything,” she said. “Don’t take everything so personally. Don’t you know our whole family is completely screwed up? Are you blind or something?”

  I held my hand out to test the water and felt it growing warmer. The air directly above the tub was already starting to steam. I took the few steps back to the door and opened it a crack. Meredith was still standing there.

  “I don’t think you’re screwed up,” I said. “I like it here.”

  “I can’t begin to understand why.”

  “I can’t help it,” I said. “And I like you.”

  “Another mystery.”

  “It shouldn’t be.”

  She frowned.

  “Why do I always have to say the right thing?” I asked. “I haven’t learned how to do that yet.”

  She pushed the door open wider and I took a shocked step backward. She stepped into the bathroom. The room was hot, but the air from the hall was cool. Meredith leaned forward in a blur and pressed her lips to mine. I made an involuntary noise that I can’t really describe, except to say that it was not a flattering one. But her lips held. They were wet and they stayed glued there for the longest three seconds of my life. One. Mississippi. Two. Mississippi . . . She pulled them off with a small smack, and then came back for one more. Her mouth opened and so did mine, and I felt her tongue come in and lazily circle once around my mouth. Her breath had no taste. But it was hotter than the steam from the shower. I saw her pink cheeks and the dark blue makeup over her eyelids. Her eyebrows were blond and thin. She smiled shyly and stepped back into the hall.

  “You really live out there in that dome?”

  “I did,” I said. “I will again.”

  “Are you from another planet, Sebastian?”

  “Maybe.”

  I pulled the door slowly closed and I could just barely hear her socks on the wood floor as she walked away. I stood next to the pouring shower. Gradually, I found myself regaining feeling in my fingertips. It spread down my arms and through the rest of my body. I threw the curtains aside and jumped inside. And for the next ten minutes or so while I washed the gel out of my hair, and pushed my face into the torrents of hot water, I forgot all about everything else that was happening in my life. I just stood in the water, watching my skin turn pink, thinking about her.

  29.

  The World’s Forgotten Boys

  LATER THAT NIGHT, LYING TEN FEET AWAY FROM A sleeping Jared, I was not so clear-minded. The reality of the deal I had made with Janice was beginning to set in. I had trouble visualizing my return to the dome, even after such a short time away. It was obscured now. One of the original advantages of living in a geodesic dome was the “invisible barrier” it provided between the inside and outside worlds. Of any shelter out there, it allowed the most immediate connection with our environment and firmament. Its creation was even inspired by terrestrial and celestial spheres.

  However, I remembered that as Buckminster Fuller’s career had progressed, he’d begun dreaming of grander and grander domes. And his original idea of environmental connection seemed to be replaced by one of control. In 1952, for example, Ford Motor Company hired Bucky to design a ninety-three-foot geodesic dome over its headquarters in Michigan. In 1959, he was commissioned to create a two-hundred-foot dome for a U.S. trade fair in Moscow. The domes kept growing. And flush with the success of his ever-towering space-age creations, Fuller became drunk with his own hubris.

  He dreamed someday of encasing all of mid-Manhattan under an enormous “skybreak bubble,” so New Yorkers could live in a virtual year-round garden. Energy costs would plummet. Tinted panels would fight skin cancer. In this way, man’s entire environment would be under complete command. Nana had never spoken much about these later ideas of Bucky’s. Whether this was for personal or professional reasons, I did not know. It was as if after they parted ways, he (and his inventions) had ceased to exist. And I wondered now how she had been able to sustain her devotion after he was gone. What was it that had kept the connection alive?

  I noticed after a while that Jared had become restless, his breathing troubled. He rolled over to the edge of his bed and coughed.

  “Jared?” I whispered into the darkness. “Are you suffering from insomnia?”

  “I’m suffering from your presence,” he returned. “You’re mumbling to yourself.”

  “Sorry.”

  He rolled toward me, winding himself up in the sheets.

  “I’ve been thinking of some things to do onstage,” he said, and cleared his throat. “So far I have crowd diving, playing a solo with my teeth, and spitting on the crowd.”

  “I don’t know about that last one,” I said.

  “Why? What’s wrong with my sputum?”

  I noticed he wasn’t speaking in his usual sarcastic way. There was something gone from his speech, some vibrancy.

  “You know the next thing for us to do,” I said, “is produce some tapes. I think you convinced that record store worker that we were a legitimate band. He would probably sell some homemade compact discs in there.”

  “I asked for a four-track recorder for Christmas last year,” Jared said. “I didn’t get it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Maybe my dad will pony up the dough if I write him a weepy letter,” he added. “But I doubt it. He doesn’t really write much anymore.”

  I thought again of Janice’s conversation with her husband. If he couldn’t handle
Jared’s health insurance, it seemed unlikely that he would buy his son any expensive recording equipment.

  “Ooh,” he said, “but maybe I could write the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They’re overdue to throw me a bone. If they send kids to Disneyland they could probably spare a couple hundred bucks for a four-track. I think you have to be a happy person to be considered, though. That might be a hurdle.”

  Jared lay quiet for a long time after that. And I thought, after a while, that he might have gone to sleep. It wasn’t necessarily an unwelcome development. But eventually he shifted around in bed again.

  “I’m not sure we should play tomorrow,” he said.

  I turned over on my side.

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “The whole town is covered in our posters.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “But maybe it’s not such a hot idea.”

  “What’s wrong? Are you feeling ill?”

  “I feel fine, doctor.”

  “Okay. Then we just require more practice,” I said. “We can practice right now even, with no amps.”

  Jared sighed and then crawled out of bed. I could barely make out his scrawny form as it lurked over to the window. Then I heard the flint of his lighter and saw his puckered mouth in the yellow light. His eyes always looked so small without his glasses. He lit a cigarette and opened the window. The air had grown chillier, and the wind through the screen raised the hairs on my arms.

  “Has it ever occurred to you, Sebastian, that I might be a tremendous fucking fraud?” he said.

  I watched him blow a mouthful of smoke into the street-lit night.

  “No,” I said, “it has not occurred to me. Because you’re not.”

  He didn’t appear to be listening to me.

  “What I’ve always loved about punk is that you can totally redefine yourself, right?” he said. “You are whatever your songs say you are. Like Iggy Pop. He can wear a white leotard and roll around on broken glass and that’s who he is that night. He’s broken-glass-leotard guy. But it’s all just onstage. Do you know Iggy Pop’s real name?”

  “No.”