Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

Still, maybe the right thing to do now was to kiss her again or squeeze her breasts or something. It would’ve been good to have Zack around for advice on things like this. I wasn’t sure what would be best, so I put my hand behind her head to give her a little neck rub. She flinched, but then she saw what I was doing and let me. Her muscles stayed pretty tight while I rubbed, though.

“How’d you get here tonight?” I asked. “Did your parents drop you off?”

I thought back to my father carrying me in his arms back to Jane at the riverfront concert. That was maybe my only real memory of them being in the same place together besides in our apartment.

“Yeah, right,” Dana said. “They don’t drive me anywhere . I can’t wait till I get my license. I took the bus.”

Every time one of us moved, the beanbag popped and snapped at a million decibels. I didn’t know what to say to girls offstage or when I wasn’t signing autographs or posing for pictures, and I really didn’t know what to say after something like this. “What bands are you into?” she said.

I could tell if I said MJ, she’d think it was gay. She might not even know what MJ stood for. And I couldn’t say Tyler Beats, who I bet she thought also sang shitty pop songs. There’s no way all the members of the 99 Percent Dilution combined had the talent that either of them had in their toenails. If no one’s heard of you, there’s a reason for it.

“The Clash is a major influence for me,” I said.

Right after I said that, the song “Stay” by Maurice Williams came on the playlist, which made what I said about the Clash sound like a lie. That was when Rog was teaching me how to sing falsetto. I don’t like doing it other than for MJ songs, because I sound like a girl, so it’s only on “You Hurt Me.” “Stay” is very short, about a minute and a half. That’s part of what makes it such a strong song, right as you’re getting into it, it ends and leaves you wanting more. It makes you feel what Maurice Williams is singing about, which is what any good song does, but usually not with track length.

“They’re cool,” she said. “I’m more into the Pistols. But I mostly listen to Cincinnati bands. You know the Upper-Middle Classmen? I’ve seen like nine of their shows this winter.”

“No. You know the Latchkeys?”

“Ugh. They suck. They’re like corporate indie rock for the masses. The Urban Outfitters of bands.”

I stopped rubbing her neck. “What do you mean?”

“They’re the type of music you can tell was cooked up in some laboratory by a group of record executives to sound exactly like it wasn’t .”

“No, they met in college. And they sound like the Stones meets the early Strokes.”

“Whatever,” she said. “They’re still rich white boys pretending to be something they’re not. Their front man, Nick something?”

“Zack. Zack Ford.”

“More like Zack Fake. I saw an interview with him? He was trying so hard to be clever. Only rich white boys try to be clever. I was like, ‘ Really? ’ ”

“He is clever. He can make up funny songs on the spot. And he’s not rich. He’s working-class from New Jersey.”

“He’s rich now,” she said. “All that matters is what you are now.”

That wasn’t true, because you always knew who you were before and you kept thinking of yourself like that even if no one else did, but once she said that, I knew Zack wouldn’t even care if he knew about me getting a blow job. He probably wasn’t thinking about me at all except for being pissed that he took me along to the nightclub even though I’m the one who got them in because no one in Memphis gives a fuck who the Latchkeys are, which was why they were lucky to be asked on my tour in the first place with my Walmart fans.

“You want any food?” I said. “You looked super-hungry before.”

“No,” she said. “If I’m not back by ten I’ll be in deep shit.” I’d wanted her to leave before that, but once she said she wanted to leave, I kind of hoped she’d stick around.

She opened the door. Walter was right outside on a chair. I asked him to get the car service for her. “You gonna remember me?” she said.

Dana probably gave blow jobs to everyone in the Upper-Middle Classmen, whoever they were, and to all the other Cincinnati bands, but she wasn’t hot enough to get backstage for any bands with national profiles, so I was the most famous person she’d ever give a blow job to, which was the only reason she’d remember me, and down the road she’d probably change what happened in her memory so she could feel proud of that one time she made Jonny Valentine come.

“Totally,” I said. “What’s your last name?”

“Hollister.”

“Like the clothing company. They send me stuff sometimes.”

In my head so I wouldn’t forget I repeated to myself, Dana Hollister, Dana Hollister, Dana Hollister.

“Diana Hollister,” I said out loud.

“Dana,” she said. “ Dana Hollister.”

“Right. Dana.”

Walter escorted her out, and after I closed the door, “Stay” finished and the playlist ended and it was quiet. I played Zenon while I waited for Walter. I had my game saved right before the level’s minion who kept killing me, but this time, instead of running into the room and attacking him, I realized I could run in, attack him once, and run out before he could counterattack. It took a lot longer, but eventually I wore him down and advanced to the next level. Sometimes in Zenon you just have to take your time and not be in a rush to attack.

Me and Walter didn’t talk about it on the ride back except when he said, “Don’t expect that to become a regular service, brother. When you’re older you can do it all you want.” I guess I couldn’t ask him how to spell blow job now. And I didn’t tell him I didn’t want to do it again for a while anyway. Unless maybe I got a skinnier girl next time.

On the morning of Jane’s birthday, Nadine gave me my first set of final exams on the bus and in the hotel before she went back to L.A. in two days for winter break. The next day was going to be history plus language/reading, which meant an essay on slavery. I think I did okay overall, because it was vocab (superb), math (middling), and science (subpar), but I wasted a few minutes at the start imagining taking them in a real classroom, with all the other students getting nervous before and comparing the answers after. It wasn’t exactly like having teammates, because you were basically competing against them, but it sounded sort of fun.

When I finished, Jane said she’d reserved a nice lunch for us. She didn’t look so hot. All these tiny blue veins I’d never noticed before popped out under her eyes like the roots of a plant, and she was really skinny, skinnier than when the tour started, but not in a good way. She still had chub in some areas, like her stomach and hips, but was too skinny in others, like her forearms and face. Rog is always stressing the importance of a balanced dancer’s body to prevent injury. Jane’s is im balanced.

Walter escorted me and Jane out the hotel through the lobby to the car service, since Cleveland doesn’t have anything set up for celebrities. Right after the revolving doors, this guy was standing there in a cheap suit, holding a big white envelope. “Jane Valentine?” he asked.

“No autographs or interviews, sorry,” she said, and Walter started to move between them while keeping an eye on me.

He quickly pushed the envelope on her before Walter could provide buffer. “You’ve been served,” he said, and walked away. She watched him for a few seconds and folded the envelope up and stuffed it in her bag.