Mixtape for the End of the World Read online

  Once at the front gates of the stadium, Cassandra got out and bolted. On the way to the stadium, she had made it known that she didn’t want to be seen with him or his “nerd friend.”

  “I’ll pick you up right over here after the game ends,” Dee said. She drove off, leaving the boys in the parking lot. She and Doug would have a kid-free date night. He had a rare evening off, and they had decided on a nice dinner out instead of joining the kids at the game.

  “So now that you’re on the tennis team, you won't be able to walk home after school with me anymore,” AJ said.

  Derrick had thought about it, but pushed it aside out of guilt. After their runin with Ty in the middle of the street, he didn’t want to think about AJ walking by himself, even though his friend assured him that the bully wouldn’t do anything more than threaten him.

  “Yeah, but we’ll still have the morning walk and the weekends. Plus, once the season starts, there’s no Friday practice. We can hang out and jam on Fridays,” Derrick capitulated.

  “Where do you want to sit?” Derrick asked.

  “Sit?”

  “Yeah. To watch the game,” Derrick said.

  “Dude, unless you were part of the football team, the marching band or the dance team, you don’t watch the game,” AJ explained.

  “Then why are we here?” Derrick asked.

  “To be seen. To hang out. Meet chicks,” AJ grinned and raised his eyebrows a few times in quick succession.

  Inside the confines of the high fence that surrounded the stadium, Derrick saw what he meant. Students clustered in groups, some just a handful, others nearing a dozen, all in their own bubbles, all in their own respective conversations, like a private party amidst a sea of private parties.

  AJ led the way and they climbed the hill, the walkway rising up to the top level of the stadium. The concession stands and bathrooms sat on top behind the stands. From up above, Derrick could see the field, the two teams lining up and then playing. Mount Vernon’s defense, in maroon and white, rushed the quarterback after he’d called for the snap and was immediately creamed by three large linemen. The crowd went wild after the sack.

  The stands, full of maroon and white shirts, clapped along as the cheerleaders on the edge of the field led a chant. “Maroon, white, go fight fight!” echoed through the entire stadium. On the other side, the visitor’s section was cold and quiet, a scattering of navy blue shirts in the concrete stands. The scoreboard on the west end of the field read the score, with Mount Vernon winning by two touchdowns within the first seven minutes of play.

  “Bro, the concession stand,” AJ said, elbowing Derrick.

  Derrick looked over and could see, a dozen yards ahead of them and tucked next to the concession stand, a group of students. Haley stood off to one side, surrounded by some of the girls on the tennis team. Her hair was tied in a maroon bow and she was smiling, laughing at something someone said.

  AJ pulled him as they started walking and Haley turned as they approached. Her eyes lit up when she saw Derrick, which made him both smile and flush.

  “Hey!” she cried out with her arms out wide. She enveloped him in a giant hug. “You guys, this guy,” she said with her arm around Derrick, “is my prodigy! He made the tennis team today!”

  The other students, some Derrick recognized, others he didn’t, all congratulated him. AJ stood beside him and Derrick felt awkward having all the attention on himself, but he liked having Haley’s arms around his shoulders.

  “What are you guys up to?” she asked.

  AJ spoke up, “Just wanted to come hang out with everyone tonight. First game of the season, it’s always a blast.”

  “AJ and I have been hanging out quite a bit lately. You should hear this guy play guitar,” Derrick said.

  “No way, dude. I’m nothing compared to this guy,” AJ said. “Derrick is probably the best guitar player in this school. He would smoke everyone else. He knows Silverchair, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, all kinds of stuff.”

  Derrick felt his face getting even more red.

  “Wow!” Haley said, impressed. “I know you said you played, but I didn’t know you were that talented,” she said. Then her eyes lit up. “You guys should play for the talent show!”

  Derrick looked at AJ, who met his nervous wide-eyed gaze with a determined grin. “Talent show?” Derrick stuttered.

  “Yeah!” Her eyes were wide with imagination now. “You guys would be great. You could play guitars. It’s in December, right before Christmas break.”

  “I don’t know,” Derrick started.

  “We’ll do it,” AJ said in tandem.

  “Awesome. There’ll be more information in October,” Haley said.

  Some of her friends began tugging her toward the stands and the steps that led to the field. “Okay, gotta go. We made spirit signs,” she said.

  Derrick realized she had a poster board tucked beneath her arm, and he could make out just a few things on it—#17 in maroon glitter and the beginning of the name Ty Anderson.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We’re just gonna hang out up here.”

  “Cool. See you at the pool party tomorrow?” She looked at AJ. “You can come too, if you want.”

  “Yeah, we’ll be there,” Derrick said.

  AJ nodded as well. “Can’t wait,” he said.

  After Haley and her group of friends left, Derrick and AJ watched as the gaggle of girls bounded down the steps toward the field to show off their spirit signs.

  “Dude, this is gonna be huge!” AJ said. “Can you imagine? Us up on stage in front of the whole school, rocking out? We’ll be like rockstars.”

  Derrick’s hands went clammy with the thought. “I don’t know, man.”

  AJ continued, not paying attention to Derrick’s apprehension. “Oh man. I’ve got it. Let’s form a band. Let’s get up there and do this for real. I mean, just think. You and me, rocking out for everyone to see. Every girl in school will want to date us.”

  Derrick thought about that for a moment. As he watched Haley cheer for Ty down near the field, he thought about what it would be like to have her cheering for him. Looking down from the stage and her eyes on him as he played some loud guitar riff. The whole crowd cheering, but seeing no one but her.

  “Yeah dude,” Derrick said. “Let’s do it.”

  ♪ ♪ ♪

  The Lions beat the Prep Tigers by two touchdowns, and after the game Dee drove them back home. They’d protested, wanting to walk, but she insisted on driving them since it was so late. After fighting through the parking lot, zippering in line to leave the campus, they got home and Derrick and AJ immediately went to his bedroom to collect guitars and amplifiers and went to the garage.

  “We need a drummer,” Derrick said.

  “I know a kid. His name is Dustin Duncan. He’s a grade above us. He plays in the drumline for the marching band. Let’s ask him on Monday if he’d be interested in jamming with us,” AJ said.

  “Is he cool?”

  “He’s kind of a loner, actually. His parents run the auto parts store over on Western Street, and I see him there all the time. I guess they make him work it after school and on weekends, so he’s never hanging out with anyone. But yeah, he’s cool.”

  “Okay,” Derrick said. He strapped his Telecaster over his shoulders and let it hang. “How many songs do we need for the talent show?”

  “I would say at least three. Three good ones,” AJ said. He was crouched in front of the Yamaha amplifier, a squat black box with a single twelve-inch speaker as he worked the knobs on the front panel. Strumming a chord on his Epiphone electric guitar, the amp roared to life in a succession of power chords that were distorted to a Pearl Jam-like crunch.

  Derrick matched him with volume and rocked the pickup selector on his Telecaster to the bridge pickup, which had more treble and more “bite” than the neck pickup. He played a solo over AJ’s chord progression, and AJ stared at him.

  “Dude, you’re, like, really good,” he said.
/>   Derrick just shrugged. “I just practice a lot.”

  “I’m serious. Do that again,” AJ said as he started playing the chord progression again.

  Derrick’s fingers hammered on the fretboard of his instrument, listening to AJ’s I-IV-V chords and finding notes to play over them.

  “Okay, we need a drummer immediately. This sounds great,” AJ said.

  “Let’s see if that Dustin guy would be interested in jamming with us,” Derrick said. He looked at the clock hanging on the wall above Doug’s toolbox. It read nearly one in the morning.

  AJ took his guitar off and flipped the power switch on the amp. “Not a bad first jam session.”

  A few minutes later they were in Derrick’s bedroom, lounging on the floor. AJ had brought a sleeping bag, and Derrick threw a blanket down on the ground as well. They talked about music and what songs they’d like to play for the school talent show.

  “So,” AJ said, his fingers interlaced behind his head, his elbows splayed out, “how long have your mom and Chief Davis been dating?”

  “Like two years,” Derrick answered. He stared up at the ceiling, watching the fan’s blades lazily turn in the low light from the street lamps outside.

  “What does your dad do?” AJ asked. “Is he still back in Clearwater?”

  “I don’t know,” Derrick said. “I haven’t seen him since I was really little. I don’t know where he is.”

  AJ went quiet.

  Derrick continued, “It’s okay. They split when I was so young. I don’t really remember much about him.”

  “So you haven’t seen him since?”

  “No,” Derrick said. Then, he changed the subject. “What got you into playing guitar?”

  AJ let out a low laugh. “I needed a way for girls to like me.”

  Derrick agreed. “Same, actually. I’ve always felt invisible, like I didn’t have anything to stand out. I heard Fuel on the radio one day, and I just felt this sudden need to learn how to do that.”

  “I know what you mean. My older brother is five years older than me. My little brother is eight years younger. I feel like I’m just in the middle. I want to do something to break out of just being the middle child.”

  “I keep thinking about all the bands that came out of Seattle,” Derrick said. “I think that’s where I’d like to go after we graduate.”

  “I know what you mean,” AJ said. “I often wonder where I’m going to go. If I want to go to college, or if I want to pursue music. It’s scary to think about.”

  “I don’t think college is for me,” Derrick said. “Though my mom will probably have a fit if I tell her that. She’s convinced that me and Cassandra are going to be the first college graduates in our family.”

  “You got to do what makes you happy,” AJ said. He turned and sat up on his elbow. “Screw it. Let’s go to Seattle. After we graduate, we can make it up there, find the music scene.”

  “You would want to do that?”

  “We met for a reason,” AJ said. “Maybe we’re meant to make it big time, but we aren’t going to do it in Mount Vernon. I’m telling you, we are going to be rockstars.”

  At nearly four in the morning, they’d finally fallen asleep, and as Derrick drifted off, he had visions of being on stage, smoke and lights all around him, and a crowd of people in front of him.

  The spotlight wasn’t on him, though.

  It was on Haley.

  10

  ♪ Lit – My Own Worst Enemy ♪

  THERE WERE AT least twenty students at the pool party, and Derrick found himself standing by a folding table with a spread of snacks laid out on it. A boombox under the covered patio was playing a mixtape that Derrick had brought and Britney Spears echoed from the speakers, followed by Backstreet Boys. It wasn’t Derrick’s favorite music, but even he found himself bobbing his head. Plus, he knew that it was Haley’s favorite music, so he’d spent an entire afternoon downloading the songs from Napster on Doug’s computer and copying them to a tape. He’d labelled it “Pool Party ‘99”. When he’d given it to Haley, along with the track listing, she’d beamed and threw her arms around him.

  “It’s perfect! It’ll be the soundtrack for the whole semester,” she had said. “Everyone is going to love this. You’re awesome.”

  Now, Haley and a couple other girls were tossing a volleyball back and forth over the water while her boyfriend Ty Anderson was playing water basketball with some of the other football players.

  While Ty was around, Haley’s attention was elsewhere instead of on Derrick and he felt a tinge of jealousy inside him. He didn’t understand why someone so sweet was with such a jerk. She was bubbly and outgoing and seemed to love everyone around her. To Derrick, Ty just looked like a jerk.

  AJ stood next to him, drinking a Surge soda with a bag of 3D Doritos tucked under his arm. He had on a pair of Hawaiian shorts and a backward Mount Vernon Lions hat. “Look at those cavemen,” he said, nodding toward the football players. “I’m so glad we’re not like that. They’ve probably got six brain cells total.”

  Unfortunately, the prettiest girls in school seemed to be attracted to the cavemen, and even Derrick noticed the girls on one side of the pool stealing glances at the muscular, shirtless guys while not even noticing AJ or himself. “Yeah, but the girls seem to like them.”

  “Dude, just wait til we are on that stage for the talent show. Every girl in school will want to be our girlfriends. We’ll have to beat them off with a stick. I mean, you don’t even have to be good looking as long as you’re a rockstar. Look at Keith Richards. He’s been dead for fifteen years and he still gets chicks.”

  “Keith Richards died?” Derrick asked, confused.

  “Yeah, but no one has the heart to tell him,” AJ shrugged.

  Derrick paused for a moment and then groaned. “That’s so stupid.”

  “But, seriously,” AJ said. “Chicks dig musicians.”

  “You sound so confident.”

  “What can I say? It’s the truth. Girls love rockstars,” AJ said.

  From the wooden gate that led to the driveway from the backyard, another girl, followed closely by a guy, came into the party. She was tall and lanky, all elbows and knees, with braces that sparkled in the afternoon sun and blonde hair that fell to the small of her back. Derrick recognized her from the tennis team, though he’d never talked to her. Some of the girls squealed seeing another friend show up and she immediately dashed from the guy she was with to join them.

  “Hey,” AJ said, elbowing Derrick. “That’s Dustin. The drummer I was telling you about.”

  Dustin was short and stocky, with close-cropped dark hair and a towel draped over his shoulders. He was carrying a beach bag stuffed to the brim with what could only be his girlfriend’s belongings. He looked like a fish out of water, just as uncomfortable as Derrick.

  AJ tugged at Derrick and they went over to Dustin, who was setting his things down next to one of the lawn chairs lined between the pool and the patio.

  “Hey man,” AJ said. “How was the football game last night?”

  “It was okay,” Dustin said. “The first performance of the season can be hit or miss. But I feel like we did a good job.”

  AJ explained to Derrick that Dustin was the drum major for the marching band this year.

  Dustin continued, “But after the game, me and Lindsey went to see a midnight showing of that Sixth Sense movie. Have you guys seen it yet?”

  Both Derrick and AJ shook their heads.

  “I won’t ruin it for you, but the ending is nuts.” Noticing Derrick, he said, “Hey man, I’m Dustin.”

  “I’m Derrick.”

  “Oh yeah. You’re the new kid, right?”

  “Yeah, moved here right before school started.”

  “Dude, that sucks,” Dustin shrugged. “But welcome to Mount Vernon.”

  AJ said, “Hey man, you know that talent show coming up at the end of the semester?”

  Dustin nodded. “Yeah, Lindsey is on the pla
nning committee or something like that. What about it?”

  “Well, Derrick and I want to start a band for it. Play a couple of songs. We need a drummer. Would you be interested?”

  Dustin thought about it for a second. AJ continued to slurp down the Surge. “What kind of music?” Dustin asked. “I don’t want to do any of that pop punk crap or nu-metal.”

  “Rock,” Derrick said. “We thought maybe doing a song by Collective Soul or Pearl Jam and a song that we come up with ourselves.”

  “I don’t know, man,” Dustin said. “I’m pretty busy with the football season, so I like to spend as much time with Lindsey as I can when we’re not practicing for that.”

  “We’d just need a day or two per week to practice,” AJ said.

  “And we can use my garage for practice space,” Derrick said.

  “Well, we’d need a bassist,” Dustin said.

  “I’ll play bass,” AJ interjected.

  Derrick looked at him with confusion. “But you’re the second guitarist,” he said.

  “We don’t need a second guitarist. You’re good enough that you can handle the guitar stuff. I’ll play bass and sing. We’ll be like Rush.”

  “Rush is awesome,” Dustin said. He looked over toward the pool where the girls were splashing around and wading in the shallow end. “Let me think about it. I want to do it, but I just don’t have a lot of free time right now to say yes.”

  ♪ ♪ ♪

  After pizzas were delivered and everyone ate, the party migrated from the patio and back into the pool for a giant game of Marco Polo. Derrick was thrashing around the water, listening intently for Haley’s voice as he kept his eyes closed, hoping to tag someone. The boombox on the patio was playing a Mandy Moore song from the mixtape that he had brought and it made it hard to concentrate as everyone splashed around the pool.