Some Place Better Than Here

Chapter 26: Band On The Run

26
Band on the Run

===========DANNY===========

The weeks that followed after I had last seen Mary were sparse in design. And the days of those weeks were surprisingly pleasant; a solid mask of blue draped the sky and a northerly wind rolled over the East Coast, winnowing the hazy gray humidity out from the atmosphere, keeping each day just on the knife's edge of cool. August's heat wave had crested and had begun to decline; September was about to descend upon Gilmore Park and its unsuspecting inhabitants. Including me. Although those weeks possessed a satirical sense of irony because I couldn't enjoy the blue skies I begged for all summer—because I spent those weeks hopelessly waiting for the phone to ring with her call.

The majority of my quiet hours those weeks were consumed with my hand poised atop the blue lines of my Lyric Book, waiting for the right words to spur endless scribbles of poetry across the page—and avoiding Mom at all costs.

Needless to say, Mom did not take to my decision all that well...

"What? Danny, what? What do you mean you're not going?"

"I told you what I said, Mom. I am not going to California."

"Danny—stop. No. We're not going through this again. You're already enrolled at LACM, it's paid for. I just finished finalizing the paperwork to secure my new job—no. Just, no. We are not doing this again."

"I had already called and revoked my acceptance, and we're getting refunded on nearly everything except the registration fees."

"Which were over five-hundred dollars."

"I'll pay you back—I have a lot saved up from the carwash."

"Danny—it's not about the money. I mean, my God! I'm not just getting a job at Wal-Mart. I'm moving into a salary position! We're planned to move—we're moving. That's it. I'll take not a word more of this bullshit."

"Ok, well, then as I was saying this entire time—you move!"

"How can you be doing this to me, Danny? You can't be doing this to me."

"Mom, I can't leave my friends! So I'm not going!"

"Danny! I know you care about your friends, but, like, I've begun listing our house!"

"WHAT? No! No you're not! Not this house!"

"We've talked about this!"

"I'm not letting you list this house! I'm not moving! I'm not leaving my friends. I'm not leaving this house. I'm going to be a legal adult and I want to stay here!"

"You're being so unfair to me and so insensitive. I can't even believe you."

"You're being insensitive!" I yelled back and then spun around to storm out of her room. Grabbing the edge of her door, determined on slamming it. But then realizing what I was about to succumb to, that taunting rage dwelling inside of me, my hand turned light as air and I let go. Channeling my anger into a guitar solo instead.

Mom and I had several discussions—arguments—such as that over the next few days. Two enormous hands took hold of my conscience and pulled me apart. I was terribly in the wrong by how I treated Mom. Of course I was being indubitably cruel, backing out at the eleventh hour. But, I couldn't leave Mary. Couldn't leave not knowing the outcome of her disposition.

Not a word of anything lyrically worthwhile came to me. But I somehow had invented an abundance of episodic titles like:

The Doomed and the Defeated, Ballad of the Broken Hearts, The Saints that Looked Like Sinners—and other titles in the same vein. I knew they were melodramatic—and yet no drama could compare.