In the mid-eighties most Prescott High band members cheat on the terminology test, since Mr. Madison can’t see past the front row. Brass and woodwinds retreat toward the percussion section, sit with answer keys on their music stands. Percussionist Colin Andrews sits alone, no cheat sheet, scores a 96%.
All three percussionists, Colin, Danny Gabriel, and Liz Reynolds, live in Perch Hollow Trailer Park. Colin gets it: growing up on the poor side of town naturally makes them want to pound the shit out of something.
Liz lets all the neighborhood boys practice on her in her father’s shed; they learn tricks they’ll use later when they’re out with their real girlfriends—at Lavio’s for pizza, the Prescott Theatre for Ghostbusters. Liz is tall, with broad shoulders, narrow hips. She stands behind the bass drum with a mallet in each hand, thrashes both sides like it deserves it, like it used to be her friend.
The percussion section chills while Mr. Madison rehearses the clarinets.
“Why didn’t you cheat on the terminology thing?” Liz says.
“I just like to know them.”
Colin doesn’t mention his favorite, legato tongue: the subtlest of articulations, a connecting pulse on a wind.
“You keep staring at the flute section. You have a thing for Keri, maybe? Missy?”
“No.” Colin imagines the sweetness of Missy Lavender’s voice, her flute’s soft trilling. “I don’t have a thing for anyone.”
Colin’s the oldest sibling, the first to go through puberty. Bad breath, smelly armpits, straggly chin whiskers, barbed wire crotch hair that’s constantly itching: of course he has a thing for the flute girls; he has more things than he can tally. But Missy is his primary. Across the band room he admires the flicker of her fingers, imagines the warmth of her breath, the moistness of her dabbing, darling tongue.
“Believe me, I have nothing to hide.”
Liz is alone, singing “Open Arms” in the band cloak closet when Colin goes in to find a marching band jacket. She laughs, tells him all the jackets are too big for him, he looks like a scarecrow.
Behind school at lunch she lights a cigarette. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she says, watching Denny Carpenter walk past with Missy, who’s wearing Denny’s football jersey.
Liz exhales while Denny and Missy sprint across the street through the drizzle, says “fuck” again, as if she’s telling it to the rain.
Colin nods, shifts away from the smoke, understands. Of course Liz has things, for Denny, for whoever: her mom left them, her dad is the neighborhood asshole. Everyone hears him yelling at the dog, yelling at Liz to quit thrashing her drum set, the rattle of slammed doors, the shatter of plates as he screams at her to keep those boys in the shed, don’t bring them inside, it’s nasty.
Liz and Colin are sitting on the grass behind her father’s shed.
“So you want this or not?” Liz says.
“Yeah, sure.”
Liz gives him a beer. “You’ve done it before?”
“I’ve done a couple things.”
“You have a few beers, it’ll be fine.” She sips. “I’ll show you my tits.”
Halfway through his second beer Colin’s head is swirling. “Where’d you get your drum set?” His tongue feels thick. “I hear you playing sometimes.”
Liz touches his leg and Colin’s heart jumps. “Mind if I have another beer?”
On a mattress in the shed, between broken lawnmowers, Liz shows him her breasts, but they’re not like the ones in Playboy. They’re damp, patchily red with a couple large moles, wispy hairs around the nipples.
“Just let me take care of this.”
She kisses his forehead, nose, chin, belly, with each leaves a splash of spit with her tongue—then goes down, uses her whole mouth to caress and envelop him, as if his penis is the most precious thing on earth. She gets him into a rubber, eases herself onto him. He’s taking deep breaths, trying not to panic.
“That’s it, follow me.”
She grunts with him as he climaxes, eyes closed.
“Just be quiet about this, okay?” she says after, reaching for a cigarette while Colin tugs up his underwear, bangs his forehead on a lawnmower. “Nobody needs to know.”
From your percussion section admirer, reads the note Colin slips into Missy’s locker, with a drawing of a flute and a snare drum.
The kids pass it around at lunch the next day, laugh uproariously. “What a douchebag.”
Two days later in band class, Colin’s sitting near the trumpet section, laughing when they laugh, pretending he’s part of it. They’re loud, everyone can hear them. Liz keeps her head down as she walks past.
“I hear Miss Austin found Liz and Bonkers Benny going at it in the janitor’s closet,” someone says. “She was sitting on a slop bucket, fucking wolfing up his dick.”
Liz sits in the back corner, reaches for her Walkman. Colin tries not to remember her tongue twisting between his lips, her breath mingling with his when they kissed: sour cigarettes, the slanted sweetness of warm beer.
Liz stays in the corner, doesn’t play at all, bobs her head to her Walkman. No one takes over her bass part, but Mr. Madison doesn’t say anything.
That weekend, while his parents are away, Colin drinks three of his mom’s wine coolers, walks to Liz’s trailer in his marching band uniform, and knocks on the door. Her dad opens the door, stands in the doorway: tank top, red-rimmed eyes.
“Is Liz home?”
“Why the hell are you wearing that?”
Colin sways, steadies himself. “Tell her it’s Colin Andrews, from down the street.”
Her dad disappears; after a minute he comes back with a wicked grin. “She says she never heard of you.”
What can Colin say? His stomach’s roiling, the world’s sliding to the left, soon he’ll need to throw up. He lowers his eyes; his band pants swish as he turns and walks away.
“Get the fuck outta here!” Liz’s dad calls after him.