The moment I had been dreading the past three hours had arrived. My last class of the day was out. It was time to go to Purple Hair’s office for “not detention” and break my agreement with Charlie for the first time. The feeling was not unlike waking up to your alarm in the morning, knowing you need to get up, but really don’t want to. Once the class let out, I just sat there staring straight ahead like some kind of mental patient for what seemed like minutes on end, but was probably just a few seconds. My rash kept tingling the entire time. I eventually willed myself to stand up, get my stuff together, and start walking.
As I exited the classroom, the part of my brain that still hadn’t come to terms with the decision I made told me I could still go to rehearsal and not risk the wrath of a so-called demon in a pro wrestler’s body. You know how in cartoons a character is having a crisis of conscience and an angel is standing on one shoulder telling the character to do the right thing, and a devil is standing on the other shoulder telling him to do the wrong, but tempting thing? Well, that’s kind of how it felt, except in this case both decisions were the “wrong” decision. But I guess the voice telling me to go to band rehearsal had to be the devil by default considering the rumor surrounding our drummer.
Eventually I reached the hallway intersection where one way would take me to the admins’ offices, including that of Purple Hair, and the other that would take me to the music and arts department, where the band room was. I stood still for a few more seconds that seemed like hours as the conflicting voices in my head continued to scream at each other and me.
I walked toward the admins’ offices.
I arrived at the door to Purple Hair’s office and knocked.
“Come in!” she said from inside.
I opened the door to her smiling face and sat down.
“Hey Eric! Thanks for coming back. Where’s your friend Travis?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. I haven’t seen him since lunch.”
“Okay, no worries. He’s probably just running a few minutes late. So, how was the rest of your classes today?”
“Good.” I suck at making small talk normally. What was I supposed to tell this lady now? The rest of my classes were great! I didn’t get in trouble for writing obscene lyrics in almost any of them!
Purple Hair tried in vain to make small talk and get more than a one-word response out of me while we waited for someone that I knew wasn’t going to show up. After about five minutes of this, her patience must have worn out and she realized Travis wasn’t coming.
“I’m beginning to think our friend Travis stood us up,” she said, “Let me make a few calls just to be sure.”
She picked up her office phone and dialed a number. “Hi, Greg?” That must have been Mr. Moore, Travis’s science teacher. That’s his last class today. “Hi, I was wondering if Travis was still there in your room by any chance. No? Is he hanging out in the hallway outside your room? No? Okay, thanks Greg. No, no, everything’s fine. It’s just that Travis had an appointment with me after classes let out this afternoon and he hasn’t shown up at my office yet. You know how these things are sometimes. Thanks, anyway! Bye.”
She looked at me and said “Sorry to keep you waiting, Eric. Just one more call and we’ll get started, okay?”
Take your time, lady.
She dialed another number and waited a few seconds as it rang on the other end. I could only faintly overhear the phone, but I had called Travis’s house enough to recognize his parents’ answering machine recording when I heard it.
“Hi, this is Erica Hemway-Fischer, the guidance counselor at Felmore Middle School,” Purple Hair said to the phone, “Your son Travis and I had an appointment this afternoon about passing notes in class, but he should have shown up ten minutes ago and he’s still not here. He’s not in big trouble or anything, but if I can’t get ahold of him this may end up being a bigger problem. Call me back when you get the chance okay?” She read out her number and extension to call her back before hanging up.
She looked back at me and began to speak, “Now, let’s get back to those song lyrics you wr-”
“AAAAAAAUUUUAUAAUUAAAAAAUUGH!” I screamed as I suddenly experienced the worst agony I had ever felt in my life. The rash on my shoulder that had only been tingling since lunch had just taken the sensation up to 11, going from a mild irritation to straight-up torture. It was like a third-degree burn and thawing frostbite had a love child, with a grab-bag of exotic spider bites thrown in for good measure. I grabbed at my shoulder with my other arm, doubled over in pain. “OOOOAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
“Eric?! Eric?! What is it? Is it your shoulder? What’s wrong, Eric?! Let me see!” Purple Hair tried in desperation to communicate with me as I turned into a wild howling baboon.
I eventually gained enough control to pull up my sleeve and inspect the rash. It didn’t look much different, maybe a bit more inflamed, but that was definitely where the pain was coming from.
“Oh, that looks pretty nasty! Here, let’s get you to the nurse,” Purple Hair said. Although the pain hadn’t really subsided at this point, the initial shock had at least gone away and I became slightly more coherent. I tried to stop screaming, stood up, and followed Purple Hair to the nurse’s office. She told the nurse what happened when we got there, then said to me “It looks like our appointment just isn’t going to happen today. We’ll regroup once your shoulder is feeling better and I can get ahold of your friend Travis.” I nodded in understanding, still crippled with pain.
The nurse took me to a room with a bunch of hospital-style beds separated by curtains and examined my rash. I tried to explain what happened through painful, labored breaths. She applied some cooling ointment to it, which made it a little better, but when she found it didn’t eliminate the pain her face revealed that whatever this was was way above her pay grade.
“I’m going to be right back. Stay here, okay?” she said as she went back to her office. Didn’t need to tell me twice.
Suddenly the pain that had been all but killing me for the past ten minutes retreated back into the slight tingle I had felt all afternoon. Maybe that cooling ointment actually did the trick, I thought.
“Why aren’t you at rehearsal?” a deep, Eastern European-accented voice said from behind one of the curtains.
“Gaaiah!” I responded in shock.
A large, heavily tattooed hand came from behind the curtain and pulled it aside. Sitting there on the bed next to me was none other than Charlie, glaring at me.
“I asked you a question,” he continued, “Why aren’t you at rehearsal right now? What are you doing here?”
“Shhhh!” I put my finger to my lips and whispered, “I’m here because a rash I have on my shoulder suddenly decided to subject me to the worst pain I have ever experienced. What are you doing here?” I knew telling half-truths and deflecting the question wouldn’t get Charlie off my case, but it was at least worth a shot.
“No, no, no,” Charlie said, waving his finger and barely lowering his voice, “You think your rash just started hurting randomly? You went somewhere else instead of rehearsal before you came here, didn’t you?”
“Okay! Yes, I did, but you gotta let me explain! I had detention today that conflicted with rehearsal! One of our teachers caught Travis and me writing lyrics in class and sent us to see Ms. Hemway-Fischer, the guidance counselor, but we dragged the appointment on so long that she told us we had to see her again after class. She told both of us to go, but we didn’t both want to miss rehearsal, so we compromised! Travis went to rehearsal and I went to detention.”
Charlie looked confused, but he seemed to have bought it.
“Why didn’t you just ask me to take care of it?” he asked.
“What?” I replied. Now I was confused.
“I told you when we made our agreement I could help you out with people getting in your face. If you need me to be a demon, I can be a demon. I’ll let you off the hook for missing practice this one time, but after I take care of this we go back to what we had planned, understood?” Charlie replied.
“What?!” I was even more confused now, “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing crazy, don’t worry about it. That shoulder feel any better?” he asked, slapping my rash with the back of his hand. I flinched as he touched me, then realized my rash didn’t even hurt anymore. Even the tingle had gone away. It must have disappeared while I was talking to Charlie, but I hadn’t even noticed it.
“Yeah, it feels fine now.” I said, puzzled.
“Good, then go and tell the nurse you’re all better before she tells 911 to send an ambulance. I’ll see you tomorrow at band rehearsal. Go on, move!” Charlie gestured with his arm, shooing me away. I got up and left, but as Charlie shooed me away I noticed the symbol Charlie had tattooed on his left shoulder looked awfully familiar.
