Five Flavors of Dumb - Antony John [1]
Or maybe not, but that’s how it seemed to me.
Anyway, I stuck around for a few minutes and watched the threesome thrashing their poor defenseless instruments with sadistic abandon: swoony Josh Cooke on vocals, his mouth moving preternaturally fast and hips gyrating as if a gerbil had gained unauthorized access to his crotch; Will Cooke, Josh’s non-identical twin brother, on bass guitar, his lank hair obscuring most of his pale, gaunt face, hands moving so sluggishly you would think they’d been sedated; Tash Hartley on lead guitar, her left hand flying along the neck of the guitar while she stared down her audience like a boxer sizing up her opponent before a fight. Not that anyone—male or female—would be stupid enough to take on Tash.
I was going to slide past them as soon as they finished a song, but as far as I could tell that never actually happened, so I just held back. Anyway, the scene on the steps was oddly compelling, even aesthetically pleasing. The bright, late September sun glinted off the teen-proof tempered windows. Beside me, Kallie Sims, supermodel wannabe, was a vision of flawless dark skin and meticulously flat-ironed hair. Even Dumb’s instruments looked shiny and cared for. And all the while I could feel the music pounding in my hands, my feet, my chest. For a moment, I understood how Dumb might have won the Battle of the Bands on pure energy alone. I could even believe they were set to conquer the world—if the world were a small public high school in a predominantly white, middle-class suburb of Seattle.
There must have been a hundred of us out there when I first noticed someone staring at me. I didn’t even know her, but when I smiled she looked away guiltily. Then someone else glanced over. She tried to look nonchalant, but was clearly confused to see me with a group of mostly popular kids, listening to music of all things.
Suddenly I couldn’t watch the band, couldn’t enjoy the scene. As I scanned the crowd I saw more pairs of eyes trained on me, each of them wondering what I was doing there. And there was whispering too, which should have seemed comical—why go to the trouble of whispering around me, right?—but instead made me feel even more self-conscious. I just wanted to make it to the end of the song, but I was beginning to wonder if that would ever happen.
Finally Dumb relaxed, like they were pausing to draw breath. I couldn’t bear to move, however; couldn’t face drawing even more attention to myself. I watched as the performers knelt down before their amplifiers and turned a few knobs. Then, smiling at each other, they attacked their instruments with renewed vigor, spewing out noise that replicated a small earthquake, while Josh gave us an unparalleled view of his tonsils. Satisfied at having initiated seismic activity on school grounds, they played on even when smoke started rising from Will’s amp—maybe they figured it was only appropriate that they should provide their own pyrotechnics as well. They didn’t even seem to mind when the small black box, clearly fed up with this particular brand of thrash-scream cacophony, began sparking, then flaming gently.
Kallie’s supermodel posse was first to evacuate, presumably afraid that the chemicals in their hair might spontaneously combust, although Kallie herself stuck around. This surprised me. Gradually everyone else shuffled off as well. They knew things were about to turn seriously ugly and didn’t want to be at the crime scene when punishments were being doled out. Eventually only Kallie and I remained. Together we watched Dumb’s unofficial concert end in a literal blaze of glory. Even as I struggled to avoid inhaling the noxious