The Boy in the Tunnel

by Gardner Linn

33.

“We have visitors.” The walls of the tunnel began to melt away from around Mr. Delmonico. His belly heaved out, free, finally, and he groaned with relief. In place of the tunnel and its junction room grew an ornately decorated office of dark wood and brocaded wallpaper, lit by oil lamps on sconces. A painting of Mr. Delmonico and an Irish setter, its tongue lolling, hung above a fireplace. Joanie found herself in an upholstered armchair instead of on the floor. The fire was already starting to make the left side of her face uncomfortably hot. “More to play the game,” said Mr. Delmonico.

A door to Joanie’s right moaned open and an ancient gentleman in a black suit and white gloves stepped in. “Miss Kenya Cassidy and Miss Charlie St. James,” he announced, then bowed and retreated. Kenya and Charlie entered the room.

“Kenya?” said Joanie.

“Huh,” said Kenya, as if she’d seen stranger things today.

Mr. Delmonico stepped to a small side table laden with decanters. “May I offer anyone a brandy?” he asked, unstoppering the largest one.

“We don’t have time for the game,” said Charlie.

“You are a disappointment to me.” Mr. Delmonico poured a measure of brandy into a snifter.

“I said we don’t have time, Anthony. We just came to talk to the Queen.”

Mr. Delmonico took his silver snuff box from his waistcoat and, with a small silver spoon that hung by a chain around his neck, scooped out a bit of gunpowder into the brandy. “I learned this from a slave on my father’s farm,” he said to no one in particular, though Joanie directed her eyes to the floor to keep from looking at Kenya. Mr. Delmonico cupped the snifter and swirled the brandy and gunpowder. “The Queen has already agreed to play.”

“The Queen was not in possession of all the facts.”

Mr. Delmonico pulled a long wooden match from a crystal cylinder next to the decanter. “Just came in from a colleague in Paris,” he said. “Still in the developmental stages. Most exciting.” He struck the match against the wall, and it ignited with a burst of sparks. The smell of sulfur filled the room. Mr. Delmonico touched the flame to the brandy, and the liquid flared up, a base of blue flame with sparks popping above. Mr. Delmonico watched the flames for a moment, then blew them out. He swallowed the drink in one gulp.

“Your rug’s on fire,” said Kenya. One of the sparks from the match had landed on the frayed edge of a Persian rug, setting it aflame.

“Oh dear,” said Mr. Delmonico. He stepped on the blaze, smothering it. “As I said, the lucifers are still in development. Who wants to start?”

“Get over it, Anthony. You’re so useless,” said Charlie. “Joanie, you need to get in touch with your boyfriend.”

“I don’t—“

“Tim. There’s something in his room we need. Have you been to his room?”

“No.”

“He’s in Wintertree. Room 79A. Okay? Can you do this?”

Joanie picked at a speck of dirt on her jeans. “Funny story about that, actually.”

*************

Alex stood up and examined the ceiling. “Here, boost me up, man,” he said.

“What?” Tim flipped through his Handbook’s index, looking for something to help him figure out what was going on here.

“Just give me a boost.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” Alex pointed at the fluorescent tube. “Next time one of them comes in here, I’ll smash him with that.”

“I can’t stand up, man. My ankle’s fucked.” Tim scanned down a column of index entries, all of them about Joanie. First kiss with triggered Tim’s memory.

“Wait, you’re in a band, right?”

“Are you sure you can’t stand up?”

“The BabyShakers. I saw you last week. “I think my friend Joanie knows your bass player.”

Alex stared at the light. “Joanie?” Something clicked. “She’s not like super-tall, is she?”

“Yeah.”

“Holy shit, I remember her. What, are you dating her?”

“I don’t know. Sort of.”

“Nice job, dude.”

Tim turned to the beginning of the index. He’d already looked for Alex, to no avail, but BabyShakers, The was here, directing Tim to page 246.

The BabyShakers are currently the most popular band at the University, though that position is ephemeral at best; by next semester, if not next week, campus tastemakers will have discovered another group with catchier songs, a more attractive bass player, a greater penchant for self-destruction. Those three criteria in fact play the most important roles in determining which of the University community’s many bands will attract a following, and of the three, the first is the least important. If you want good songwriting, go discover the Beatles. That’s what dorms are for. The job of the local band is not to impress you with their musicianship, but to provide you access to a world that, four years from now, will seem as alien to you as your eventual career as a systems analyst or information technology consultant must seem to you now. The attractive female bass player (always a female bassist, and always smoking hot—you don’t know why, but a girl playing bass is right near the top of the list of Things That Blow Your Mind) is a vehicle by which you can picture yourself living the life that is not meant for you. She famous, desirable (to a small, fickle audience), but she projects the illusion of attainability. She gives you hope that you could fuck a rock star, to put it crassly. You could be a groupie. When are you ever again going to have that chance?

But we digress. The BabyShakers’ popularity is due partly to their hot bass player, but mostly to their attitude—the classic rock-star pose of barely controlled chaos. Since “Rocket 88,” bands have known that the best way to get attention is to take a lot of drugs and smash something on stage. You young people are hardwired to respond favorably to that. Again, it’s a way of allowing you entry into an otherwise forbidden world; you should have learned by now that popular music is store-bought rebellion for the masses. You watch the rock star destroy his body and his drum kit, and you feel like you’re actually helping to bring down a corrupt system.

The most successful rock stars are the ones who make this pose feel brand new, the ones for whom “rock star” seems the only viable career path. In that respect, Alex and Xander Pratt, the twin leaders of The BabyShakers, are rock stars of the highest order. They have no marketable skills beyond looking good in tight t-shirts and knowing a few basic guitar chords. If they hadn’t started a band, they would probably be dead by now. They’ll probably be dead within a year anyway.

Tim wondered why Alex wouldn’t have been included in the index, since he’s clearly mentioned right there on page 246. Sometimes there was no rhyme or reason to this stupid thing.

“Let me see your Handbook, dude,” said Alex.

“What for?”

“Sometimes you have to know the right thing to look for.”

“You can’t read my Handbook. Just tell me.”

Alex crouched down to bring his face level with Tim’s. “It doesn’t work like that. What are you, a freshman? You have no idea. I know somebody told you not to let anybody read your Handbook, but that’s just superstitious bullshit. Everybody’s is the same, they just change the names. Yours says something about Joanie, right? What was she, the girl in the R.E.M. t-shirt? The girl on the bus?” Tim nodded. “Everybody has a girl on the bus. Everybody has a girl in the R.E.M. t-shirt. Come on. What girl on campus doesn’t have an R.E.M. t-shirt?”

Tim’s grip on his Handbook loosened. It all made sense, after all. Alex took it from his hand. “There’s got to be something in here about fluorescent lights,” he said. Alex flipped through the index. “Here we go.”

The door to the cell opened, flooding the room with light. “Hey what the fuck” said Alex, but a figure silhouetted by the light grabbed him and dragged him outside. “Tim!” Alex shouted. “Tim!” But then a hand clamped down on his mouth and he was gone and the door slammed shut behind him.

© 2006 Gardner Linn