wip

every friday and sometimes for an hour here or there throughout the week (when he couldn't sleep or didn't have to work) he drove the thirty miles or so to the nearest guitar shop where he ostensibly went to look for new equipment, though his intentions were more than transparent to anyone who talked to him. what he really wanted (and what contributed significantly to his inability to sleep--the frequent bouts of excitement and anxiety) was to start a band. he'd been in bands before but not since he was a teenager. he was in a led zeppelin cover band throughout most of the latter half of high school and he liked to cite this as the one reason he got laid. he believed this with such absolute conviction, in fact, that he wondered if it ever would have happened otherwise--if today he'd still be a virgin had he decided not to play in a led zeppelin cover band. the truth was: he didn't (at the time) particularly even like led zeppelin. he did it because he was approached by a fellow student whom he envied, though he'd never admit it, for his popular standing with the lower caste of students--the kids who smoked cigarettes and never seemed to wash their hair. he also did it because it felt right--like an opportunity to finally prove his worth as a musician and by extension lap up all the glory that came with being in a rock n roll band.

he got a random phone call one evening. it was the summer before his junior year. he didn't have a lot of friends at the time but he had a close network of a few friends and that was enough to make him not feel like he'd somehow failed socially. it was after hanging out with these friends--they'd just been to a late-night drive-in screening of some big-name comedy that summer--that he received the call. the voice on the other line was unfamiliar--crisp and cool-sounding, unlike his friends, whose voices he could recognize by their characteristic awkwardness--the undulating speech patterns and voice-cracks; the way they enunciated poorly and spoke in broken sentences. this voice was different. it carried an air of distinction though he'd only as of yet heard it request his name.

this is he, he said.
hey. this is mark schroder. i'm in your bio class.
immediately, he was seized with an impulse to not sound dumb. this was mark schroder after all--king of the rejects; the one kid who would probably make a name for himself after high school.
listen: i have a proposition for you. me and some other guys--you know mike stawalski, right?--well, me, mike and some other guys were looking to start this band--like a led zeppelin cover band--and we were wondering--because i remember you saying something about playing drums--if you wanted to be our drummer?
he pulled the phone away briefly and tried to suppress a smile. his mom watched him in the other room and pantomimed the barely visible smile. he looked away irritated. a.) because it confirmed that he truly was smiling--a weakness as it indicated he was giddy and unable to control himself or act cool because mark schroder actually wanted anything to do with him and b.) because he wanted to remember this incident unlike how it was--with his mom in the other room smiling at him because she could easily detect just how difficult it was for him to suppress his excitement.
well, i'm no jon bonham, he said, finally, priding himself on managing to be so witty under such stressful circumstances (this was mark schroder he was talking to), to which there was no response on the other line--just dead silence, the opposite of the reaction he was anticipating from mark though he instantly understood--mark wasn't the type of guy who would laugh at such stupid banter. mark had sex regularly with at least three different girls and had pictures to prove it--the only reason he was talking to him, he decided, was because he needed someone to drum in his band. the last thing mark schroder wanted was a friend.
alright then, mark said, after an infinite pause. practice is friday. be there.
sure thing, he said, to the sound of a click on the other line, indicating that mark hadn't the time to piddle around with formal goodbyes or general telephone etiquette.