Chapter 15 #2
Kenny is verbally re-creating the experience of being expelled from a mother’s womb at birth (“You’re scared and confused, floating in a warm, dark space, then all of a sudden, there’s a light at the end of a tunnel”), and I can’t help but glance over and find Hannah’s eyes.
They’re so shockingly blue they send my brain into high alert.
“Suit, eyes closed,” Kenny commands. “I’m going to share an affirmation imparted to me by my spiritual guru and Burning Man campmate, Chaos Skittles.”
I struggle, but obey.
“All of your life has been building to this moment.” Kenny’s voice turns rich and deep, the register he uses when singing backup for Hannah.
“All the problems of your past”—he beats his drums—“the hurdles, the disappointments, the people who’ve hurt you, the ones you’ve hurt.
All of it happened to bring you to this moment.
You’re exactly where you’re meant to be.
Gaia, Mother Earth, folds you in her embrace. ”
When I open my eyes, Hannah’s squinting at me. “Are you crying?”
I touch my wet cheeks. “No.” Damnit, Kenny.
She grins. “You must be in your Happy place.”
“Oh, for sure,” I say, nodding along. “It’s definitely the drugs.”
But no one’s feeling the drugs more than Matt.
He’s staring wideeyed at a woman with a mohawk on the other side of the drum circle, as if her hair’s some sort of nesting bird on the verge of breaking into flight.
“I think we need to babysit the reporter,” Hannah says, and her voice snaps Matt to attention.
“I want to play truth or dare,” he blurts. My impression of him changes instantly: at the Bellmore, he’d seemed older and wiser than his youthful appearance; however, it seems the ayahuasca tea has turned him into a tall child.
Ripper snorts. Hannah glares at him. “We’ll play whatever you want,” she tells Matt.
I slap my hand in the center of the circle. “But everything is off the record. No taping anything.” Good god, these people have terrible instincts when it comes to reporters.
Matt’s eyes are dilated like some kind of cartoon character, but he manages to look wounded. “I would never.” He turns to Ripper. “Truth or dare?”
“As if you need to ask.”
“Dare, then.” Matt scans the room until his eyes light up. “The fire-eater.”
Distracted by Kenny’s drum circle, we all somehow missed the gorgeous dark-haired wizard in the corner. She slides flaming sticks down her throat in a demonstration pre–Happy pill Theo would’ve condemned as a fire hazard, but new Theo pretends to find enthralling.
“I dare you to let her do that to you,” Matt says, with an exuberant glee that tells me he wasn’t invited to many truth-or-dare parties in his youth and we’re all participating in his redemption arc.
“Who, Katrina?” Kenny’s alarmed.
“That’s Dr. G’s ex. She burned off all Kenny’s facial hair and swore it was an accident,” Hannah whispers. As she leans in, I catch her ocean scent, clean and mineral. “He was eyebrow-less for months. Kept making children cry.”
I think back to Bowie patting his eyebrows. “That explains it.”
Ripper flattens his lips, like Matt’s dare is beneath him. “Piece of cake.” He gets up and saunters over in his tight pants. Hannah gives me a look. “Okay, Suit. Where’s your big speech about responsibility? Rip could light himself on fire.”
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” I say, eyeing her to see if she buys it.
Her mouth quirks, and for a second, it’s possible to imagine she finds me funny.
“It’s happening,” says Matt, and we all jerk back to Ripper, who’s kneeling with his mouth open, as the fire-eater—Katrina—slides in a small metal stick dancing with flames.
“He’s invincible,” Matt whispers, at the same time Hannah mutters, “Show-off.”
Katrina slowly pulls the stick back out—no harm, no foul—and we breathe a sigh of relief.
Ripper throws out his arms and yells, “I am a golden god,” then blows hard on the fire, sending an impressive gust into the air just as a familiar man in a Himalayan warrior robe ambles past. Instantly, the robe catches fire.
“Gunthy!” Kenny yelps. Dr. G looks back at his flaming behind and shrieks, taking off across the living room. Ripper runs after him, shouting, “Dude, hold on! Let me put it out.” The two of them streak into the hallway.
“Well.” Kenny shrugs and turns back to us. “Not the first fire at a Gunthy party. Theo, truth or dare?”
I’m still debating whether to go chasing after the Fire Brothers, so I’m distracted when I say, “Truth.”
“I’m about to take your measure as a man,” Kenny warns. “Favorite album.”
It’s an impossible question to answer among musicians.
I try to think of what would impress him without bruising his ego.
Art-house rock so obscure no one’s heard of it?
An underappreciated classic? Music to trip to?
But before I can choose, whatever drug Dr. G is pumping through the vents cuts through all the bullshit and I tell the truth: “Whitesnake. Saints and Sinners.”
“Oof.” Matt winces. “You’ve heard of good records, right?”
But Kenny’s face holds no condemnation. “Why?”
I don’t want to reveal pieces of myself to the band. But I’m in for a penny. Might as well go for the pound. “Because it was my dad’s favorite. He used to play it when he came home from work. After he left, I listened to it every night for a year.”
Matt crosses his arms. “That’s kind of a bummer story, man.”
I shrug, unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes. Except . . . after a beat, as usual, I can’t help but check Hannah’s. She’s watching me curiously. “My turn,” I say, to cut the tension. I lift an eyebrow at her. “You playing?”
Hannah frowns for a moment, like she’s weighing something. Then she says, “Truth.”
“Why won’t you let me play guitar?” Ripper calls, running back into the room shirtless and soaked, a wet, sooty T-shirt in hand.
“Because you’re the dummy who lit Dr. G on fire,” Hannah says.
Ripper flops on the floor. “Relax. He jumped into a bathtub. He’s fine.”
“The real question: Why are you called the Future Saints? Where does your name come from?” I couldn’t find anything about it in their interviews.
Ripper grins. “Easy. One day we’ll be worshipped as the gods of rock we are.”
“The ayahuasca is really unleashing you, huh, Rip?”
I’m wondering if Hannah will even answer when she clears her throat.
“In high school Ginny and I were always getting called to the principal’s office, and our mom would get fed up.
One day Ginny just looked at her and said, ‘Mom, relax. We might be devils today, but I swear we’ll be saints tomorrow. ’”
Ripper throws his head back. “‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, there’s always tomorrow!’” Next to him, Kenny howls.
I study Hannah’s face. “So it’s a promise?”
“Promises are important to the human species,” intones Matt, like a master’s thesis sprung to life.
“According to Yuval Noah Harari, our success is due to the fact that we’re the only species capable of collectively imagining the future.
Making promises is what helped us to form early societies.
” His attention moves to the corner of the room and he brightens. “Look! Bouncy castle.”
I’m still processing his whiplash moods when the whimsical opening chords of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” emanate from the speakers. My stomach drops at the familiar notes. “Hannah, did you—”
She shakes her head. “I swear I had nothing to do with it.”
Matt gives me a guilty look and runs for the inflatable castle. I lunge for him, but Hannah grabs my arm. “Let him go. We can babysit from here.”
I watch him cannonball into the castle. “Rolling Stone is either going to love us or hate us in the morning.” I’m trying to focus on Matt, but there’s a heat growing under my collar.
Through the speak-ers, David Coverdale is singing about not knowing where he’s going, and every word is one I’ve memorized.
“Forget about work for a minute.” Whitesnake pounds the key-boards, and Coverdale’s voice rises.
Hannah takes my hands and laces our fingers together.
Before I can decide how to react, the electric guitars and drums come crashing in, and Hannah sways, forcing me to join her.
She laughs and lifts our locked hands, and my heart lifts with them.
People around us start to dance as we move into the chorus and David Coverdale shouts about being born to walk alone.
Hannah headbangs, thrashing her hair and playing air guitar like my dad used to, except she actually knows what she’s doing.
But I don’t. I love and hate this song so much my heart aches at the dissonance.
The song is fading by the time Hannah spins to face me again. Her smile abruptly melts into a look of alarm. “Matt!”
I spin in time to see Matt leap out of the bouncy castle and bound toward the massive spiral staircase in the corner of the living room.
It looks like Dr. G knocked down the walls between the floors to create the staircase himself out of rickety wood and rusted iron.
It’s a homemade death trap. Naturally, a crowd of partygoers have decided to surf down it on boogie boards, and, also naturally, the man who’s supposed to be giving us our first national media spotlight is determined to join.
“He’s going to break his neck,” I call to Hannah’s back.
As we race toward the stairs, the boogie boards are reaching an impressive velocity.
Each person jets out of the staircase, narrowly missing party-goers, farm animals, and furniture.
“You were supposed to make sure he didn’t get into trouble,” I add.
Her eyes narrow as she twists over her shoulder. “Keeping him out of trouble was your job. Mine was showing him a good time.”
“Without causing bodily harm,” I yell. “I specifically stated that.” I make it to the bottom of the stairs just as Matt crouches on his boogie board at the top. “Shit.” I clutch Hannah’s elbow.