The kids on our bus were not the only ones who avoided eye contact with Travis and me unless it was the deer-caught-in-headlights look. No one came near us if they could help it. No one stood in our way. No one threw anything at us. No one shoulder-checked us. A few people even walked into trash cans and support beams trying to stay away from us. As soon as we entered a classroom, the usual rancor of unruly students immediately ceased. We probably did 25% of our teachers’ jobs for them that day.
Despite both of us simultaneously having this exact same experience, Travis and I were on completely different wavelengths. He was still stuck on the guitar strings the janitor gave me yesterday that I “dropped,” even though I don’t bring my music gear to school. I was more concerned with what we were supposed to do now that everyone was afraid to go near us.
They thought we had summoned a demon.
Here’s the version of the story Tom Seiks, the only kid who was brave enough to talk to us today, told us this morning:
“Jeff Hennessy and his buddies were hanging out under the bleachers after classes like they normally did before lacrosse practice. You two approached and said ‘Get lost, this is our turf.’ Jeff and his gang refused, so you threatened them, saying ‘If you don’t leave, we will make your lives miserable.’
“Jeff and his friends decided they had had enough of you two bothering them, and tried to rough you up so you would bug off. Just as one of Jeff’s friends was about to push you away, an enormous, humanoid entity appeared out of nowhere and froze his arms in place. I only heard sketchy versions of what happened after that, but the demon said something about tearing their souls apart and throwing the pieces into an abyss. Anyway, they all ran away and told their friends and now the whole school is terrified of you. I shouldn’t even be seen talking to you; people might think I’m in on it, too.”
I was trying to comprehend the truckload of nonsense Tom just dumped into my ears when Travis asked, “You said he appeared out of nowhere?”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard,” Tom replied.
“Hey Eric, maybe that’s where those guitar strings came from! Maybe he pulled them out of nowhere, too!” Travis exclaimed. Tom’s eyes expanded to the size of dinner plates.
“Travis?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“Shut. Up.”
It was too late. Tom bolted away at the thought of me receiving a gift from this so-called demon before I could ask him any more questions.
“Thanks, Travis,” I said.
The two of us spent the rest of the day with the entire school avoiding us. We couldn’t find anyone else as “brave” as Tom was to talk to us, so by the time school let out we hadn’t learned anything new about how this rumor got out of hand.
Travis and I are no strangers to having rumors spread about us. It’s the only thing reminding most of the popular kids we even exist. My entire second grade class thought I had a crush on this girl Kayla Murphy for a couple weeks just because I let her use my set of 120 Crayola crayons one time. Three different homerooms thought Travis only aced the fifth grade botany unit so he could train a venus fly trap to eat his little sister. And everyone blamed us when Chuck, Mrs. Rathburne’s pet iguana, disappeared, saying we sacrificed it (a janitor later found Chuck happily subsisting off of bugs in a broom closet, but we never got an apology).
As you might infer from these stories, our progression into metalheads tends to correspond with the rumors people spread about us, so in a way this rumor was just the next, ahem, logical step. At this point, it’s the only thing most other kids even know about us. Jeff Hennessy and his crew aren’t very popular either, and most kids at school lack any critical thinking skills, so I could see how this became a rumor. But it was still the most ridiculous one. Tom Seiks probably only heard a mild version of the story, since he was at least brave enough to get near us until Travis screwed that up.
Travis and I got together under the bleachers after classes let out. Not surprisingly, no one bothered us this time. We discussed how we were going to proceed now that everyone was terrified of us. I knew this rumor couldn’t last forever; the only things worse than middle schoolers’ critical thinking abilities are their attention spans.
“We need to figure out a way to work this whole ‘summoned a demon’ rumor to our advantage,” I said.
“What more could you want?” Travis asked, “you can’t stand those other kids. The best ones unintentionally make our lives difficult because they don’t know nor care that we exist. The worst ones go out of their way to make our lives difficult. Now everyone is going out of their way to leave us alone. What could be better than that? I’m more concerned about where those guitar strings came from, to be honest.”
“Forget the guitar strings! I don’t know how this could get better, but I feel we need to do something. If we just accept this at face value, everyone will eventually forget about us again once the next dumb rumor comes around, and our lives will go back to normal. I don’t want normal. I don’t want to be normal. I want to be a metal legend, and right now my entire school thinks I summoned a demon. There’s gotta be something we can do to make the most of this.”
“You want to take the whole ‘fame through notoriety’ angle? What, like Ozzy biting the head off a bat? Like burning down churches? Is that what you’re thinking?” I could hear the skepticism in Travis’s voice.
“Maybe,” I replied undeterred, “you talk about those things like they’re absurd, but there’s a reason they came to your mind. They’re part of the bands’ lore. You can’t bring them up without mentioning the insane stuff they’ve done. We could be the band who got big because we summoned a demon to destroy our enemies!”
“You think the general metalhead population is going to believe the same rumor a bunch of preteens believe?” Travis was still skeptical, but he was asking questions, which was a good sign.
“It doesn’t matter if they actually believe it. It’s all about the image. We are the band who convinced their entire school they summoned a demon. Everyone was terrified of us. That will catch metalheads’ attention if we know how to pitch it correctly.”
“Yeah, just as long as we make sure no one ever finds out the demon is actually the guy who cleans up after those same middle school kids!” Travis snickered as he punched me lightly on the arm. “How are we supposed to pitch that to some tough-guy metalhead record label?”
Crap, Travis had a point. If we wanted to keep the mystique of being the band who summoned a demon, we needed to make sure no one at school found out the demon was actually a janitor. I had no idea how we would do that, but I had to do something, fast. There was no way I was letting my chance at being a metal legend slip away that easily.
“Travis, quick! Come with me! Janitors stay late at the school, he’s probably still inside! We have to find him!” I grabbed Travis by the wrist and booked it to the nearest entrance of the building.
“Wait, what!? We’re going to miss our bus! What do you think you’re going to do? Tell him to not show up for work anymore? Let go of me!” Travis shouted incredulously as I dragged him back inside. I wasn’t listening, I had a rumor to save.
We went inside through a back entrance to the art wing of the school, which wasn’t locked for some reason. That janitor had to be somewhere. “Are you out of your mind? The other kids are eventually going to see him and put two and two together, there’s nothing you can do!” Travis ranted.
“Shhh,” I put my finger to my lips and whispered, “Help me find this janitor. We can find him by listening for mopping sounds. I’ll call my mom and have her pick us up once we’re finished.” Travis had no choice but to help me. His parents wouldn’t get home from work for at least two more hours.
We walked through the art wing but couldn’t hear anything other than the hum of the fluorescent light bulbs in the ceiling. We started to make our way to the music wing when I heard something, but it wasn’t a mop.
Bum badda bum badda BUM Bum badda bum badda bum badda bum CLASH Bum badda bum badda bum CLASH PSH CLASH PSH BOOM!
Both of us immediately stopped and looked at each other as if to say “did you just hear that?!”
Takka tah takka tah takka BLAM BOOM Takka tah takka bah badda buh baddah buh badda BOOM!
It was coming from the band room, but we had never heard anyone in the school band drum like that. We had never even heard the school band play a drum set that sounded like that; there was no way they had the budget for a set that sounded that good. We slowly made our way to the band room, still not entirely believing what we were hearing. Finding the janitor was no longer a concern of ours, we needed to find out who was rocking those drums.
Travis approached the door that opened to the front of the band room and reached for the door handle, but I grabbed his hand before he could open it. “Wait!” I whispered, “He’s probably facing this door. I don’t want to interrupt him while he’s in the middle of his groove.” Good metal drummers have the reputation for being divas since they’re in such high demand. “Let’s go in quietly through the back door and we’ll introduce ourselves once he finishes playing,” I suggested. We made our way to the hallway behind the band room and found the back door. This one was unlocked as well, which was unusual for after school. We slowly opened it and quietly entered.
The drummer had long hair and was wearing a Slayer tour shirt with the sleeves cut off, revealing his muscular back and arms. He had some kind of tribal sleeve tattoo on his right arm and a strange symbol tattooed on his left. Whoever this person was, he was the real deal. I could have just stood there watching this drummer play for hours in awe, and may have done that if Travis hadn’t accidentally knocked over a music stand, causing a domino-like chain reaction of music stands knocking each other over, ending in the last music stand hitting a gong.
If the drummer hadn’t noticed us before, he sure did then. He quickly swiveled around on his drummer’s stool to see what had caused the commotion, and looked at us as we looked back at him, both parties in shock at seeing the other.
The drummer was the janitor and alleged demon who had scared away Jeff Hennessy and his gang yesterday.