“Yeah, hey, it’s Robby,” Robby says into my phone while I struggle against Justin. “Robby. Robby. ROBBY! Damn, woman, what am I, deaf?”
“Shut ugh!” I grunt. Justin, giggling at Robby’s joke, digs an elbow into my gut, cutting off my breath.
“We’re just hanging out at the park, drinking a little,” Robby says to Becky. “Maybe a lot. I don’t remember. Guess that’s a good sign, huh? Yeah, so what’re you up to tonight?”
If my best friend drops dead right this second, I’ll be totally okay with that.
About two weeks into freshman year, I climbed on the city bus after school as usual. Mom, Dad, and my sister, Gabrielle, cared not at all that the city bus was a cesspool. In fact, they seemed to enjoy that I had to get up so early to make it to a bus that would get me to school on time, and catch a bus home that would take twice as long as a car. “I had to do it too,” Gabby had sung during breakfast on my first day. “Have a good one, freshman!”
The city bus idled in a pull-out just beyond the school parking lot. I didn’t know Robby when I sat down in the seat next to him. It was one of the few empty seats available, and I didn’t blame anyone else for not wanting to sit there. Robby had headphones on, and he used his thighs as a drum kit for whatever noise he was listening to. He sang all the parts: vocals, guitars, drums, the works, alternating one for another.
Sighing to myself, I sat gingerly on the blue upholstered seat. He didn’t even turn.
“‘Fatality!—reality!—await the final kaaaaaaaaaaa!’”
I had no idea what the last word was, because his voice reached an impossible pitch. He stopped drumming his legs long enough to throw two heavy-metal devil horns with his hands, turned to face himself. He was his own crowd.
At least he was having a good time. I turned to look out the window so as not to bug this weird kid . . . and saw Becky near the parking lot.
I sat up straight and watched as a flashy gray SUV pulled up to the sidewalk where Becky stood. She didn’t move. A minute must’ve gone by, during which the weird kid beside me began singing another song. Finally, a woman got out of the driver’s seat and walked around the back of the car toward Becky. I assumed it was her mom. The woman wore workout clothes with a baseball hat, hair pulled through the back, in a way that made me think she got dressed up and wore makeup to go exercise.
The woman paced quickly over to Becky and grabbed her shoulders. Pleading? Apologizing? I couldn’t tell.
“‘Trapped in purgatory!’” the kid beside me sang. “‘Galactic all triple eye!’”
Huh? I wasn’t sure if those were the actual lyrics or if the kid had no idea what they really were. Well, whatever.
The woman gave Becky a quick kiss on the forehead, scooted back to the driver’s side, and climbed in. Becky didn’t move; hadn’t moved, in fact, since I’d noticed her. After another few moments, she walked to the SUV and got in. I watched the SUV drive quickly out of the parking lot and head west away from school.
I almost yelped in shock when Robby whirled on me and thrust the headphones in my face.
“Dude!” he cried. “You gotta listen to this. Do it! Listen to the double bass, man, just listen!”
Shocked, I took the headphones from him and put them up to my ears while he scrolled to the beginning of another song. I didn’t recognize it, and it was too heavy and fast for my taste.
“You hear it?” Robby said, practically into my mouth. “Hear that double bass going?” He demonstrated the effect vocally.
I shook my head. “Sorry, man, I—”
“Listen!” Robby insisted, and started the song over again. “Listen deeper. Further back. Underneath the guitar.”
All I heard was noise, but with him sounding out the particular sound he was talking about, I was able to finally pick it out. And he was right: it was pretty cool once I could hear it.
“Yeah, that’s . . . cool,” I said, trying to give the headphones back.
“No, no! Wait for the bridge!” Robby said. “Nuh-nuh-nuh-NAH, nuh-nuh-NAH, nuh-nuh-NAH!”
I started laughing because I couldn’t help myself. This worried me, because generally speaking, people don’t like to be laughed at. But Robby just laughed right along with me.
Eventually, he allowed me to give him the headphones back as he went on and on about the band’s drummer. About halfway to my stop, he donned the phones again and resumed pounding out rhythms on his legs.
Robby and I both reached for the stop bell at the same time, about fifteen minutes later, and touched hands, which made us both jerk back and look embarrassed. You know how that goes. He ended up pressing the long yellow strip, and he followed me as I got up and walked off the bus.
When we both took a few steps in the same direction, Robby stopped and pulled the headphones off.
“Okay, so where are you going?” he demanded. “Because I don’t want to be all walking right next to you.”
I pointed in the direction of my street. “Pinetree,” I said.
“Aw, man, I’m on Cottonwood,” Robby said. “Well, I guess I’ll be walking right next to you after all. Unless you can’t keep up.”
With that, he started walking up the street. And I fell into step beside him, mostly because I needed to ask one question.
“Where’d you go to school last year?”
“Mohave,” Robby said. “You?”
“Navajo,” I said. “That’s weird. You live on Cottonwood? That’s only three streets up from me.”
Robby shrugged. “Districting, I guess.”
Turned out he was right about that. Our districts just happened to separate a block from my house. We ended up talking all the way to my street, mostly about our surrounding neighborhood and how weird it was that we’d never run into each other until today.
The next day, I got to the bus stop a little later than I’d meant to, and there was Robby, wearing a Megadeth T-shirt and playing drums on his legs again. When he saw me coming down the street, he waved and gave me devil horns.
“Morning, sunshine!” he shouted toward me. “By the way, I’m Robby.”
We’ve been friends ever since.