Chapter 6 Jessa
JESSA
I get to Dade’s thirty minutes early. I don’t like being late, it feels disrespectful.
Dade doesn’t give a shit about being late, ’cause when his mom lets me in and yells downstairs that I’m here, I find him in boxers and an undershirt playing Silent Hill, which he knows I hate but he loves, so I sit and watch him a bit as he wanders through fog looking for horrors.
“Dade, why the hell don’t you have your clothes on?” Dade in boxers isn’t a new thing, but he takes forever to get ready. We’re gonna be late.
“Unlike you, I want to look nice,” he says, nodding at my Smashing Pumpkins tee with its somewhat scrubbed pawprint smears, my flannel, and the ripped jeans I frequent. “Don’t need wrinkles and whatever that is.”
“I am looking nice,” I say, ignoring the almost cleaned imprint of Falstaff’s paws on my chest. “I wore my wallet chain, and that counts as jewelry. Go get ready.”
He uncovers something in the game and enters into a cutscene.
Dammit, this means we’re here for a haul.
“Soon as I finish this boss fight,” he says, and I prepare for his silence, the sounds of things getting hurt and dying, the weird grunts he makes when playing particularly hard, and try to avoid the screen until the horrors pass.
I reach into my side bag—a Dickies messenger special covered in band patches and pins—pull out my Discman, which has a huge Operation Ivy sticker on it, and pop in my newest acquisition, which has been on repeat since I picked it up at Pterodactyl Records.
It was a risky selection, never heard of her before really, some woman playing under the name Feist, but Dwayne at Pterodactyl Records promised me it was worth it. “It’s a new genre, whisper rock. Think like if Fleetwood Mac really just leaned into Stevie Nicks instead of letting the guys sing.”
Dwayne rarely steers me wrong, so I risked the fifteen bucks, ’cause buy local, right? I could lift the hot new Verve Pipe album from Tower, but at Pterodactyl I always pay. They actually hire music minds and not just pimply kids looking for $5.15 an hour.
At first listen to her debut album, Monarch, I was unsure, the instrumental seemed a bit much for a modern album, but each song got funkier and hopped a bit more and her voice lifted up like a bird floating on air currents—just natural, effortless.
I’ve listened to so much music because I felt the same lived experience.
This one, it gave me a taste of a world I didn’t have.
And her work is good, I can see her going far, especially if she drops the heavy-handedness of the guitar and leans more into her voice, upping those peppy beats.
I should write that down. Who knows? She could be big one day.
Maybe if I can prove I’m calling big artists ahead of time, I can get a music-reviewing job.
Maybe one of the local rags would hand me a column and I could go at that until I’m good enough to fuck off and maybe write with the big boys at Rolling Stone.
Positive dreams and hopes, it’s new for me.
I like the effect of Feist on my brain chemistry.
I guess I’m deep into the music because Dade jolts my Discman and it skips right in the middle of a track: cardinal sin. “Dammit, Dade,” I say, pulling off my headphones, “that can scratch the fucking CD, and you know it.”
He gives me a stupid joker-style grin and I see he’s dressed in a button-up, slacks, vest, and his ever-present trench coat. “Still dressing for the 1940s, I see.” If I can get in enough digs up front, maybe he won’t get me too bad in public. Gotta be nasty to avoid nasty.
“Better than Kurt Cobain wannabe,” he says, knowing damned well I hate it when my style gets compared to a dude’s.
“The world loves wannabes,” I say, and rattle my keys. “Plus, this is a straight-up Alanis Morissette look. If we leave now, we’ll only be fifteen minutes late.”
“Alanis my left nut,” he spits back, and heads out to the car, like he’s waiting on my ass.
Six Roots is my idea of home. Driving past industrial structures and arriving at the barely graveled mud pit of a lot in front of an old brick building that was god knows what before, I feel good just knowing I’m headed there.
The doors make an ungodly wail when they open and you can see the dents in the steel where someone once (or probably multiple times) tried to kick them in.
The place reeks of the thick, sweet smell of cloves—Jeremy, the owner, says cigarettes go outside, but cloves aren’t real cigarettes, so half the crowd is puffing on them.
The ancient worn wooden floor dips and bulges in places, from age and most likely abuse.
Areas are sticky with old spilled drinks, and others show the rounded burn marks of a clove cigarette stamped out when an ashtray was full.
Through the haze I can see the mismatched couches, chairs, and coffee tables that litter the room.
I used to be suspicious of the place’s cleanliness but gave up a while back and determined that showers are mandatory post-Roots.
The plague would flourish here. I flop down in a big beige monstrosity from the seventies, one of the few spots left since the poetry show is about to start. Ugh, feelings and words.
“Get me a coffee, black,” I tell Dade, and when he gets ready to bitch, I follow up with, “A little Bird said I get free coffee tonight.” He rolls his eyes and walks toward the coffee counter; the pitch of milk being steamed cuts through the chatter.
All around me are a mix of the types of high schoolers who would rather be eaten alive by sharks than be present at a pep rally.
Six Roots is a safe space for us queers, but also goth kids, punks, straight-edgers, hippie kids, stoners, and just about any other freak or geek out there.
I see the vamps getting geared up to play their masquerade game…
I’d say it’s cringey, but they like it a lot and laugh more than I do with my so-called friends, so who am I to judge?
Oh wait, I’m me and it’s cringey as fuck.
None of you are real children of the night.
Dade comes back balancing three mugs, all mismatched, and hands me a tall one that says CLEVELAND COUNTY TEAM BUILDING RETREAT 1996.
I can see the swirl of shine on the top that tells me the coffee is hot, dark, and potent.
Just what I need to make it through two hours of excruciatingly bad teen poetry.
“Double fisting?” I ask, and nod at the third cup, which has frothy cream and sprinkles… my god. He struggles with the wobbly table and drips something light and foamy from his mug—which has a Skynet logo on the side. Fitting he’d give himself the cooler mug.
“Ugh, table’s uneven,” he says, and starts wadding up a napkin and trying to stuff it under the short leg, just managing to raise another leg a bit higher, still threatening to spill all our shit. “It’s for Kayla.”
“How sweet.” I nod at the whipped cream and make the wwwh-kssh of a whip snapping.
“Being a gentleman doesn’t mean I’m whipped,” he says, wiping up the spill. “Be nice. If Kayla starts to hate you, I may not spend much time with you anymore.”
He’s joking, but I’m not sure it’s a joke. Fear pits in my stomach; I’ve been alone before and I don’t want to be again. Dade may be an ass, but he’s the only ass willing to spend time with me. I lose him, I lose everything. Fuck Kayla for that, fuck her for even being here. Shit, she’s here.
She sways up to the table, her gigantic JNCOs swishing against the floor, accentuating her hips and forcing eyes to zero in on her peekaboo belly with the belly-button ring that has a pot leaf on it.
Such a badass… I roll my eyes thinking of what a wannabe she is.
Dade rises to her presence… thankfully just by standing up.
She jumps toward him and he catches her as her legs wrap around his waist, and they begin a process much like Ouroboros trying to swallow his tail. So. Much. Tongue.
“Hey, where’s your friend?” I shout, trying anything to make them unlatch.
Kayla ignores me as usual. And then, as if I hadn’t already asked, Dade glances around when they part for air. “Is your friend here, or what?”
“She’s somewhere around here.” Kayla laughs and waves her hand through the air. “Probably barfing from stage fright or something.”
And they’re back at it again.
I am now forgotten, and I take the time to look about the crowd more, seeking a familiar if not friendly face.
There’s a few dicks around here I know from school.
Not the worst, but they’ve taken potshots before, so I’m not likely to strike up small talk with them.
A lot of people here I’ve seen but never really talked to.
A social desert. But my oasis shows up in the form of Natalie Sprigman.
A year ago Natalie came up to me at lunch and asked if I wanted to come over and study together.
I am unsure if Natalie has ever studied in her life, but it turned out she was looking to brush up on anatomy and early exploration—of me.
In her mom’s trailer, steeped in old cigarettes and the ever-present smell of boiled mac and cheese, we had an encounter that was awkward and somewhat satiating for my raging hormones.
After, she held my hand as we stared at the ceiling and murmured, “This was just for fun. No one knows, okay?”
Then she showed me the wonders of weed, and I’ve never looked back from the green seven-pointed love of my life.
Best part about seeing her is I know she’s carrying something kush, which is a relief ’cause I’m dry.
I catch her eye and she smiles big, showing off the gap in her front teeth.
I tilt my head toward the bathroom, and she stands up, walks over, and gives me a loose hug—just like a platonic friend would.
I hate that it still excites something in me.