Gone

Gone

We arrived. It was a slow, and laborious process, but eventually we did arrive, with metaphorical sweat on our brows—with the bright, eager smiles of excited children—with the endearing naiveté of kids who simply had no idea what they were getting into.

I had never before been to a music festival. Before Ian, I didn’t really listen to too much music. I mean, I listened, but I listened in the way a little fan girl listens, to the four of five bands that she really likes. Then there was Ian.



He was, to put it quite simply, one of those people who had their finger on the pulse of the music industry. Wanted to know when the new album for The New Pornographers was coming out? Ask Ian. Wanted to know if there was going to be a Regina Spektor concert in your area in the next year or so? Ian probably knew. If he didn’t he knew someone who did. Where could you find a recording of the super-indie (nobody had really heard of them, except perhaps the lead singer’s mother) band The Lashes? Ian had their album. He’d lend it to you.

This knowledge was contagious. Being around him, and talking to him, it seeped through your skin and into your brain and all of a sudden you, too, knew the names of every member of The Arcade Fire.

But, despite all of this, I had never been to a musical festival. I’d been to poetry festivals, and I’d been to marching band festivals in support of my little brother, who played the mellophone. But none of that could have ever prepared me for the madness that was this. And if I was anything like right, Pete and Ian and Mark were likewise shocked.

For one, it was raining. Simply stepping out of the rain put you ankle-deep in mud. Despite this, people were rushing from tent-covered stage to tent-covered stage, bolting from simple tent to simple tent, holding their clipboards (meant to make them look important, as if these twenty-somethings commanded authority) over their heads to block out the elements.

I didn’t try to save myself from this torrential downpour. I was too much in shock.

Maybe that was stupid. I had expected something glamorous and sexy, like a rocker on stage.
But no—this was efficient, with just the slightest frantic undertones. And it was muddy and messy and not the least sexy and I would be cleaning dirt out of my expectations for the next many, many weeks.

It was still kind of cool, though. It might even have been cooler because it was so gross.

One of the twenty-somethings came up to us with her clipboard held over her head. She was still soaking wet, and the mud splattered up her jeans to her knees. Her glasses frames were thick, and her hair was plastered to her face, but she looked nice, like the kind of girl who worked too hard to make people happy. The poor girl would work at this job and work at this job and work at this job, probably for the love of the music, and then she’d end up burnt out because no matter how hard she tried the overlords of the music festival always wanted more from her and she never had the guts to say no.

“Hi,” she said as she came up to us, taking her clipboard off her head and looking at her soaked pages. She had a pencil behind her ear. I hoped, for her sake, that she didn’t try to write on all those sopping important-looking documents. They’d get ripped to shreds. “I’m Jean. I’ll check you guys in and take you to where you can put your stuff and practice for tomorrow.”

Tomorrow was the first performance. “Who are you guys?”

Ian stepped forward to answer her questions. It would always be Ian who answered all the questions; spokesman was the unofficial subset of “lead singer.” He shot poor, frazzled Jean a smile. She smiled back, and seemed to look a little more relaxed for about a nanosecond because of it. “I’m Ian McLellan,” he introduced—all the official papers were in his name, because he’d turned eighteen before Mark or Pete or Adnan. “We’re Feral Children.”

The name of the band was actually Pete’s brainchild. He had been hanging out with Lys, who had been watching The Jungle Book for an AP Psychology project—which seemed just bizarre enough to Pete to warrant a comment. She’d explained to him that the whole feral children thing actually happened, even in present day. He’d been impressed enough (I secretly thought Pete would have liked to be one, even though I thought it was a scary-ass thing) to bring it up when they’d been naming the band, almost four years ago.

Since neither Mark nor Ian had had any objections and Adnan hadn’t been part of the band yet, and they didn’t have anything better to go on, they became Feral Children. I thought it was sort of a stupid name, but names are just something you get used to and stop thinking about. Like Sloan Kettering.

Jean took her pencil out from behind her ear, looked at it, and then pulled a marker out of her pocket. I was glad, for her. There would almost certainly be trouble if she ripped all the important papers, and she looked like a nice enough girl, and girls who looked like they would be nice enough shouldn’t get in trouble just because it’s raining. Besides, she was already spattered with mud, and didn’t need any more trouble than that, now did she?

So she used the marker to cross us off on her official sheet of paper, and then said, “Follow me.” And so we followed her across the festival, zigzagging though all the little tiny buildings that looked quite a bit like circus tents. And let me tell you, it was hard going, because I was carrying the sandwiches and one of Pete’s stupid drums, because he couldn’t carry all of them himself. Kay had had to grab one, too.

Our (well, technically, their, since I most certainly would not be practicing—I played some guitar, and some bass, but I made a point to never play in front of these four. I simply did not need to be mocked for things I could have so easily avoided) practice space wasn’t ours alone. Four other boys and one other girl milled around, setting up their instruments. I had a feeling that Ian and Pete weren’t going to enjoy this.

The girl noticed our entrance (not bothering with introductions, Jean had run off to do other, important and administration-pleasing tasks as soon as she’d shown us the door) and nodded a greeting. “Hey.”

She was the kind of girl that made you wonder if she was in because she was hot or because she was good—at least I could tell from the way she held her guitar and from the calluses on her fingers that she played. She played. But more than that, she had a shock value to her, with the pin-straight red hair and the big lips and eyes outlined darkly. And she knew she was stunning. You could tell she knew from her posture, from the tight jeans and the tank top designed to show off long, thin arms.

At her greeting, all the boys turned around. There were two blondes, obviously brothers, probably twins, a jovial-looking sandy brunette, and a darker, more quizzical boy with a set of drumsticks in his hand.

We all stood in opposing lines, except for the dark boy, who hung back by the equipment. It was almost like an all-too-literal battle of the bands—or at least it had the potential to be, to come to a skirmish for territory—until the brunette stuck out his hand. It was always the cheery ones to make the first move.

“Hey,” he said, as Ian grasped his extended hand.

A Question:
How did people always know to talk to Ian?
Maybe it was because we always kept him at our center.

Another Question, Then:
Why did we always do that?

“Hey,” Ian offered in return. “We’re Feral Children. Who’re you guys?”

The boy shrugged. “Cremnomania. This is Keeley”—the redheaded girl nodded almost sagely—“Craig and Hank”—the angelic blonde twins—“I’m Dave, and back there’s Kyle, being antisocial.” Cheerful Dave grinned at us and Antisocial Drummer Kyle stared. I didn’t like the way he stared, all assessing and interested. I especially didn’t like it when that look turned on me. I especially didn’t like it when that look turned on Ian.

Ian pointed us out, one by one. “I’m Ian, and this is Mark, Kay, Sloan, Pete, and Adnan.” His tone, though perfectly reasonable, seemed icy cold next to Dave’s.

“Is this your first time doing a tour like this?” Keeley asked. She had a light and lilting voice, the kind that danced over syllables. I hoped I’d get to hear her sing. She was the sort of girl that would be good.

Kyle interjected with an exasperated sigh. “They don’t put the hotshots in with the newbies, Keel,” he simpered. She and Dave shot him a glance of pure venom. This was not an isolated occurrence, apparently.

“I was just asking,” she mumbled. I wondered if I fight was about to break out. Even though this drummer boy was pretty big—not fat, or necessarily muscled, but even taller than Adnan and no baby sapling—I kind of thought she could take him. She was an easy five-nine, and that only in Chuck Taylors. Besides, from the way things were going, Dave would probably be on her side, and he was probably six-two, six-three. Skinny, sure, and probably lacked technique , but seemed like one of those guys who would get such a rush of adrenaline and endorphins that he’d be literally unstoppable. They nice guys were always like that, I’d learned from watching Adnan fight.

Always the pacifist, Mark stepped forward. “Our first time, yes.” One of the twins—Craig or Hank?—smiled at him. Of course the angel twins would be as peaceful as our own Mother Theresa. “And we’re glad to meet you, but we really need to set up so that we can practice some before our performance tomorrow.”

The other angel twin stepped forward, part of the peace delegation. “When do you perform?” My God, but they were of the same mold, weren’t they? Both the angel twin and Mark had the same soft voice, the kind that kept them from ever being a singer in this environment, because you practically had to lean forward to catch what he was saying. All Mark ever wanted was for everyone to get along, and to fade into the background with his base line, being important in an obscure way.

Dave answered. “Tomorrow at one.” Mark nodded.

“We’re tomorrow at three, so maybe you’d like to practice tonight, and we’ll do tomorrow morning?” Ah, Mark, always sensible. Always the pretty compromiser. It would, indeed, be something like difficult for both bands to play in this small space at the same time.

“Sure,” said Dave amiably. There was a terse moment of silence, and everyone was about to go back to their business when Kyle asked, “What does she play?”

She:
Me.
Kyle was looking at me.

Even though I knew he was looking at me, I held my hand up to my chest in that charlatan “Moi?” movement that had been made so joyously classic in countless ridiculous movies. Kyle nodded once. I looked up at Ian, but he wasn’t looking down at me, so I was left on my own to say, “I don’t play anything.”

For some reason, it felt shameful to admit this. And this Kyle character wasn’t accepting it. “You don’t play anything at all?” he pressed. “Or you just don’t play in the band?” I couldn’t understand why he was interested. I wasn’t some drummer opposition. Pete, with his drumsticks ever-present in his pockets, obviously filled that persona.

But I didn’t see any reason not to answer, so I shrugged and said, “I play the piano and a little guitar and even less bass.”

If I had been expecting some follow-up to these inquiries (which I had been), I was to be sorely disappointed. Kyle merely nodded and then turned back to his drums, which he’d been setting up when we’d entered.

And when they started practicing, they sure sounded good.