Five Flavors of Dumb - Antony John [99]
Will stepped forward, and I just knew he was going to tell Kallie to leave the stage, or to retrieve her guitar from me. I hated feeling so completely unable to stop what was happening. But in the glare of the spotlights I read his lips perfectly: “Leave the stage, Josh. You’re done.”
Josh was undeterred. “I am . . . band.”
As he pulled back his hair, the look on Will’s face was one I’d never seen before. It was the look of someone beginning to discover his own power. “No, Josh. You were the band. And if you don’t give Kallie that microphone, we’ll tell the bouncers to remove you from the stage.”
Josh just laughed. He removed his hand from the microphone, filling the air with the whine of feedback, then turned to the crowd. “Kallie . . . joke . . . unplugged . . . amp . . . useless,” I heard over the loudspeakers, but it was even harder to follow him now than before. He paused to glance behind him, like he expected us to be applauding. And then he spotted me. “Piper?” He did a double take, whipped around to share the joke with the audience: “. . . manager . . . guitar . . . deaf!”
I felt the weight of a thousand pairs of eyes. I didn’t need to hear his words to know what he’d just said. He was Josh, and I was an obstacle—there were no other variables in this equation.
I could have left the stage then and never looked back—no one would have blamed me—but I didn’t. And it wasn’t because I belonged there, or because I had pink hair. It was because I no longer carried the gene necessary to back down. In two months I’d faced more crap than Josh Cooke could begin to imagine, and someone as worthless as him was simply incapable of bringing me down. And because I needed him to know that, I told him in the only way I knew how.
I pity you, I signed, hoping that even if only two people understood me, the message would spread like wildfire.
Josh snorted contemptuously, but he was forcing it. He hated not knowing what I’d said, being out of the loop like that. He hadn’t looked at the audience in ages, and it dawned on me this had nothing to do with reclaiming his former role anymore, or even stating his case to the crowd. It was about bringing us all down with him.
The crowd was booing now. I could feel the persistent hum growing more intense by the second. And I saw with frightening clarity the angry looks of a thousand-strong mob exposed to too many childish antics for one night.
“See!” Josh shouted at me with evident satisfaction. “No one . . . understands . . . saying!”
A stick flew across my field of vision and hit Josh squarely in the chest. The hum died down. I spun around and saw Ed towering over his drum set, a look of pure hatred in his eyes.
“She said she pities you!” he screamed. He shifted his attention to me, wanting to be sure I was okay with him standing up for me. But all I could think was that he had understood me when I needed it most.
I was on the verge of tears when I saw the stick making its return flight, but it crashed against a cymbal and clattered to the ground harmlessly. Ed picked it up and taunted Josh by spinning it around in his fingers.
The Showbox bouncers began sweeping toward the stage. They obviously knew about Dumb’s reputation for in-group violence, and didn’t seem eager to have our party piece reprised for the musically literate patrons of their historic venue. A burly guy in a black T-shirt almost knocked over a middle-aged couple clinging to each other for dear life—my parents. As our eyes met, I saw in their expressions the sad realization that their faith in me and in Dumb had yet again been misplaced. It was utterly soul-destroying, as crushing as the sight of Kallie and Josh wrestling for control of the microphone, or the bouncers launching themselves onto the stage at the very moment an ear-splitting shriek filled the air.
At first I assumed it was more feedback from the microphone, or maybe