The Boy in the Tunnel

Fall 1997, Chapter 4: Audrey

Audrey hated every second she was kissing Xander but it went on for way more seconds than she wanted to admit. His tongue tasted like smoke mostly but also metal somehow and it wasn't as bad as she expected but it wasn't exactly good either. It had all been Xander's idea, she was pretty sure. Renee all draped over the filthy black leather couch, her hand so far up Alex's thigh Audrey expected her to ask him to turn his head and cough. Renee would have known Xander wouldn't take that well.

So it was Xander's fault and Renee's fault and probably also Shawn's fault because Hannah Is a Palindrome was going way longer than any opening band should go. There are only so many things you can do in a urine-scented "dressing room" while a shitty opening act takes up all your stage time.

The kiss lasted long enough that Audrey got bored and opened her eyes and saw that Xander's eyes were also open and pointed in the direction of Renee and Alex. Renee was pointedly not watching, but Alex couldn't help himself. His eyes were on his brother even as Renee's thumb brushed his zipper.

Audrey broke the kiss, and a single thread of saliva hung between her lips and Xander's for a semiquaver. Like a strand from a spiderweb - so gross. Audrey had no idea why everybody thought spiderwebs were cool, when they came straight out of a spider's butthole. Here's something that came out of the worst part of the worst animal, look how beautiful it is! Predictably, Xander had spiderwebs tattooed all over his milk-pale skin.

"That was, uh...nice," Xander said. Shut up, idiot. Shut up shut up shut up. Out front HIaP were playing their terrible cover of "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out." Shawn, like every boy Audrey had ever made out with, thought he could sing like Morrissey. He couldn't. She had no doubt Xander suffered from the same delusion. It's good to know what your type is, so you can at least pretend that not avoiding them is inevitable.

"There Is a Light" ended in some sadly intentional feedback and some even sadder applause. "That's our cue," Audrey said. "Where's our fucking drummer?"

She didn't even know why she asked, because even money said their fucking drummer was where he always was, i.e. four Jack & gingers deep at the bar, hitting on girls ten years younger than him. That's how she met him in the first place, and thank god Joanie had been there to keep her from making the worst mistake of her life, though maybe asking Patrick to join the band had actually been an even worse idea. If only Joanie was here tonight to keep her tongue out of Xander's mouth.

Audrey grabbed her Precision and walked out to the stage. Shawn was packing up his guitar, a black Rickenbacker of which he was inordinately proud, telling anyone who seemed even halfway interested that it's the exact same guitar Johnny Marr uses. But if Shawn couldn't sing like Morrissey, he definitely couldn't play like Marr, so it might as well have been made by fucking Fisher-Price. At least then if you wound it up it could play "Pop Goes the Weasel."

Shawn nodded in Audrey's direction as he snapped his case shut. "How'd we sound?" Audrey pretended not to hear him, focusing like a fucking laser on tuning her low E. "Whatever," he said, and walked offstage toward the bar, where this short Asian girl was waiting for him. Even over the roar of "Immigrant Song" on the PA, Audrey could hear her shout "You guys were awesome!" Audrey just tuned the shit out of that E string.

Audrey felt a hand on the small of her back and flinched away. "It's just me," said Xander, but that didn't make it any better. He didn't move his hand. "Hey, Patrick!" he yelled. "Get your ass up here!"

Patrick flung himself out of a knot of girls at the end of the bar, knocking over a stool in the process. "Shit," he said. One of the girls picked it up for him, giggling. He knocked back the drink in his right hand, then the one in his left, then took a running start and leapt up onto the stage. "Aaa-AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" he wailed along with Robert Plant. Part of Audrey wanted to wail too. She loved Zeppelin but wouldn't allow herself to admit it, because of dudes like Patrick. Who said rampaging Viking hordes had to be so macho? She and Joanie used to scream that song, blasting down the back road to the Carmike to see 12 Monkeys or whatever, dudes of all ages at the theatre just openly gawking at Joanie, regardless of their girlfriend/wife/daughter situation. Joanie ignored it, too deliberately, but Audrey would get pissed for her, staring right back at the guys, sometimes a bird fully extended, until they shifted their eyes a foot and a half down, saw her and guiltily turned away. Joanie never acknowledged these encounters, but Audrey liked to believe she was grateful for her tiny bodyguard. After graduation they were psyched to go to college together, but once they got to campus things were different - better, even, in some ways - and after that first Halloween they just didn't need each other anymore.