The Weapon of Young Gods #25: Electric Hubris

“Yeah!! Yeah, it’s like that, baby!”

Alan’s voice rang with defiant glee through the ragged PA speakers as we bashed out the last notes of “Eat Shit And Die” from the center stage of my old high school’s main hall. Our frontmanly singer-guitarist’s enthusiasm was met with scattered applause and semi-comprehension from the inert mob of teenagers below, who seemed to wonder why their lunch hour was being interrupted by an assault of Old Dead Sixties Music. Alan sensed that his precious span of glory was almost over, and he wasn’t gonna go without a fight.

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Neither were the rest of the Blue Monkeynuts. R.J. and Alan had whipped us into well-rehearsed shape over the past few weeks, and I’d learned all the covers they’d chosen as well as teaching them “Narcoleptic Blues,” which I’d finished in an intense three-hour fit of inspiration in Frankie’s room while she slept. The gig had begun a little shakily, but I soon fell into lockstep with Mike, the drummer, and we gave R.J. and Alan a nice fat backdrop to raise hell for the past thirty minutes.

We took things up a few degrees for the last song, a hyperactive cover of “Miserlou,” Some of the kids knew it, probably only from Pulp Fiction, but as I looked up at the second-floor balcony I almost lost it with relieved laughter when I saw one of my old English teachers twisting away to the venerable surf classic. Another guy I recognized as my brother’s history teacher pumped his fist with glee when R.J. unloaded a vicious solo. I scanned the faces of the crowd, vaguely curious to see if Nadia would ever show up, but guessed she probably wouldn’t if she wanted to avoid an uncomfortable boyfriend-rocking-with-ex-boyfriend situation.

Olivia Arroyo was there, though, front and center with the other giddy student government kids who’d booked us. She was bopping along next to my little sister Robin, who had her own retinue of freshmen paying cursory attention. R.J. tore through the song’s riff two more times, Alan careened across the stage like Pete Townshend on speed, and then Mike brought the song, and the gig, to a crashing, chaotic end with a slapdash around-the-kit roll. The kids finally went wild, and the fifth-period bell was drowned out by their cheers. I felt electric hubris course through my soul and took a bow with the other guys before we started packing up.

We had to move fast so that my bandmates, all still tethered to a high school schedule, could get to class without being too tardy. R.J. and I congratulated ourselves as we hauled our gear out to the parking lot and stashed it in Mike’s dad’s van, but in ten minutes flat everything was all set. Alan, Mike, and R.J. sped off for their classrooms while I went to wait for them in the activities office, taking up an offer from Olivia to kill time with the other A.S. kids as they casually avoided their own dubious obligations.

Olivia and I sat over in a corner of the room, away from the other chattering students, and we soon slid into easy conversation, catching up on everything that had gone under the bridge since we’d last seen each other at New Year’s. It became a harsh litany of enjoyable topics: her sister’s meth-fuelled relapses and new stint in rehab; my lame relationship problems with the Nadia-Alan business and then with the suddenly indecisive, reticent Francesca (who last week had suddenly withheld intimacy and reverted to her previous platonic demeanor); the strained, nervous interviews we all endured with the O.C. Sheriff’s detective.

I learned that Lisa’s addiction was causing problems with her extended family, including the  Addison wing on her mom’s side, the one her cousins belonged to, but I must have been wrapped up in my own problems, I guess, because a lot of it went right out my other ear. Even so, I felt a little cleaner and saner as we both extricated ourselves from the annoying details of everything that had gone wrong in the past four months. I fell into such a good mood that I agreed almost immediately when she suggested that the best way for me to cap off a great, re-emergent sort of event- namely the day’s great gig- would be a night out with her.

Never mind that the rest of the band had already made celebratory plans involving me (drinking Mike’s dad’s beer, spa-side, while he was gone on business, and chilling with all the pretty young things Robin would bring along with her). Never mind that they’d need my stepdad’s car too, and me to stay sober to drive everyone home later. I’d become quickly and completely comfortable with the new, serenely sage Olivia, and felt happy to follow her around. I even made the reckless mistake of saying “surprise me,” when she’d buttered me up enough to ask what I felt like doing that night.

I had plenty of time to mull it all over while dispatching the handful of hours between the last bell of that school day and Olivia’s escape from her after-school color guard. When I mentioned my night’s abrupt course change to my brother, he endured it stone-faced, knowing he’d now have to stay off the sauce while Alan could whoop it up with a flock of bikini-clad freshman girls. R.J. took off under a sullen cloud of resigned inconvenience, but he’d only been gone for about twenty minutes when Olivia arrived in her battered old pickup, the stereo blaring an Elastica tape. When I got in and asked what she was gonna do with me, she unleashed a sly grin.

“Nothing indecent. Take you to Laguna. Check out a drum circle. Eat some Indian food.”

“Ooookay. I, um, really asked for it, didn’t I?”

“Oh yes, you certainly did, Roy.”

She was right, but more than she maybe would have liked, because over the next two hours or so we proceeded to have the most surprisingly boring time I’d experienced on any date, ever. It was the mirror opposite of what I thought would happen with someone as vibrantly, vivaciously fearless as Olivia Arroyo. Maybe she was holding back, or nervous, or something, but things went from mildly interesting to dull to nearly unbearable. The “drum circle” on the Main Beach boardwalk never materialized, and it turned out that an “Indian food” dinner meant enduring some kind of religious service at a Hare Krishna temple in exchange for a free bowl of cold yellow mush.

The night droned on and Olivia shot me an increasing number of anxious looks, but I kept quiet for fear of depleting my already-skimpy reserves of tact. She rescued me, though, when she saw how little I’d picked at my yellow glop and swiftly plucked it out of my hands before leaving to toss it out. She came back with a sheepish grimace on her face.

“Okay, I obviously bombed this one, Roy. Let me do us both a favor and lead the way out.”

The candor was a nice surprise, but I gripped her offered hand and we left. The sun was setting out over Catalina, and traffic on PCH was still immobile as we trudged back to her truck. Olivia started its engine, then peeked out from behind her curtain of thick black tresses.

“So, can I interest you in dessert and a movie in the exceedingly romantic location of my parents’ living room? I believe you’re familiar with that little dive.”

I said sure, figuring it would be exponentially more fun. We drove back to my house first, where I was able to swipe the evening’s rights to my stepdad’s car away from R.J., who’d changed his plans too, going bowling with Alan instead. I followed Olivia’s pickup back down Stonehill and into the maze of cul-de-sacs in her little Stratford neighborhood off Del Obispo, and passed her slowly when she turned into her driveway. I parked about two houses away and ambled back to hers, taking off my jacket and realizing this was the second time I’d been here without my trunks for the hot tub.  

Liv beamed as she opened the front door, and seconds later I was re-introduced to her mother Melissa, a round, sandy-blond woman still in her nursing scrubs. I couldn’t tell if she remembered the last time I was in this house, as Nadia’s prom date and part of a massive teenage throng under Olivia’s direction, but she greeted me pleasantly enough, and led her daughter and I back through the front room to the kitchen.

The walls were peppered with family photos, and in a few I recognized the infamous sneer of Elisa Arroyo, with Olivia’s sparkling eyes peering out of others. Two dark boys, their brothers, also posed proudly in other frames: Miguel in a police uniform, Ricardo in ROTC fatigues. A jolly-looking Chicano man I recognized as Jorge, their father, smiled out of a few more.

Mrs. Arroyo plied me with chocolate ice cream for the next hour while asking me all about UCSB and my new band, at one point ushering us to the sofa while pointedly inquiring if I’d enjoyed her daughter’s New Year’s party. I stammered something like “you knew about that?” and Olivia smiled at the floor, too coy to elaborate on how that disaster was discovered.

I was about to apologize to them both when Olivia’s mother swiftly got up and declared her exhaustion from another day in the hospital. “Well, goodnight you two,” she said. “Don’t stay up until dawn.” We waited silently as she climbed the stairs, and after a moment Olivia gave me a wink as she slipped off the sofa to pick out a video.

“Here we go- que romantico!” she said triumphantly, waving the Pretty In Pink box at me, and cued it up. Olivia settled down almost right on top of me, and took in an obvious childhood favorite for what seemed like the millionth time. She became animated as it played, whispering to the characters in Spanish and rippling into quiet giggles at the dated ’80s fashions.

I sat back and let it happen, let her get closer, come on to me, and thought of Frankie just long enough to shove her out of my head for the moment. Watching Olivia’s special-ops plan roll out in front of me was much more engrossing, especially once I realized I was the target. I was helpless and cornered and we both knew it.