The worst, though, was when the portfolio of his best drawings didn’t get him into the Art Institute Advanced Placement program. Probably he shouldn’t have included those comic book pages he’d been so proud of. So he wasn’t good enough; but that was what art school was for, wasn’t it? To help you do it better.
His parents said, “Some creative people are late bloomers.” They smiled encouragingly, but disappointment hung over them like those little black rain clouds that float above sad cartoon characters. Josh got depressed, too. He quit drawing, writing, even hanging out in the local museum (a small collection, but they had two awesome Basquiats and a set of spectacular watercolors by a local guy — he could see these things in his mind anyway, they were that good).
He shut himself off as much as he could, using his iPod to enclose himself in a shield of sound: Coldplay, a couple of rappers, some older groups like the Clash. And the Decemberists, at the top of his list since he had heard them in a live concert and had been blown away.
Then at the farmer’s market one Saturday he heard a band performing and stopped to listen.
They were heading for a music festival in Colorado, according to the cardboard sign propped up in an open guitar case: a sturdy guy on a camp stool with one drum and a light, easy beat; a skinny, capering guitarist who wore a T-shirt on his head like a jester’s cap and bells; a low-slung blonde who padded around with her eyes half closed, fiddling the sweetest riffs Josh had ever heard; and a square-shouldered girl with a voice like a trumpet, belting out offbeat love songs and political ballads without ever needing to pause for breath.
They were too cool to talk to — in their twenties, playing barefoot on the grass for gas money — but he stayed until they started to repeat themselves. Their songs were good — quirky, catchy, wry, sad, the works. Okay, they were not Danger Mouse or the Decemberists. But they were surely what those groups had been when they started out: talented friends who went out to play whatever they could to whoever would listen, learning how to make great songs.
That was what he needed to do. That was the life he wanted.
So when the class play, an original musical, needed more songs, he volunteered to help. His reward was to be assigned to write two songs with Annie Frye. Writing verses (what was he thinking? Now he was really going to be killed in the boys’ bathroom) — with Freaky Frye!
But Annie was fun to work with, and lyrics for her tunes came surprisingly easily. Didn’t that mean something?
Annie introduced him to some seniors she knew who played gigs around town for beer money. They called themselves the Mister Wrongs, and they needed a writer (obviously). He began spending time with them, rehearsing in Brandon White’s garage. Annie had a fight with the drummer and walked out. Josh stayed, not just writing songs but singing them. His voice was getting better. They said if he could grow some decent stubble, he might make himself into an acceptable front man.
He had two big problems. One, his mother thought pop music was stupid and destroyed your hearing, so for the first time she was carping about what he was doing instead of cheering him on.
Two, he was so far behind! He couldn’t seem to get the hang of reading music. The only instrument he could play was a Casio keyboard (secondhand from Ivan’s). He existed, musically speaking, in a whole other galaxy from the Decemberists and their peers.
But Brandon’s group liked his lyrics, and sometimes his words and their music did awesome things together. Brandon’s girl Betts knew some people in Portland. They talked about heading up there to do a demo tape. Things were looking good.
Then Betts’s parents moved across the river, and Brandon’s house was repossessed after his whole family snuck away overnight. The others drifted away, and it was all over.
Josh holed up in his room, working on songs about wishing he was dead. He told his parents that he wasn’t going back for senior year.
After the inevitable meltdown, his mom got him the summer job at Ivan’s mall, no ifs, ands, or buts. Obviously his parents hoped that a microscopic paycheck for grunt work in “the real world” plus some “time to think things over” would change his decision.
As if! All he wanted was to get the hell out of Dodge and go someplace he could find new musicians to work with, someplace with a real music scene that went beyond country whining, salsa, and bad rock. He needed a fresh start, in Portland or Seattle — someplace. Once he got there, his nowhere origins wouldn’t be a problem. Colin Meloy was from Montana.
Basically, though, what he really wanted was for the world to stop for a while so he could make a really good musician of himself. He needed to make up all the time he’d wasted on science and arts.
The vampires’ arrival, of course, changed everything.
The first-look sale of old Mrs. Ledley’s estate ran till eleven p.m. on a Friday night. Josh was posted in a back booth, with orders to keep his eyes open. The crowd was mostly dealers, but you couldn’t be too careful in a huge warehouse space broken up into forty-five different dealers’ booths and four aisles.
Tired from schlepping furniture and boxes all day for Ivan’s renters (who all had bad backs from years of schlepping furniture and boxes), he sat at an old oak desk in booth forty-one (Victoriana, especially toys and kids’ furniture), doodling on a sketch pad. He’d have worked on song lyrics (“The day flies past my dreaming eyes. ”), but not with Sinatra blatting “My Way” from a booth up front that sold scratchy old long plays.
Hearing a little tick, tick sound close by, he glanced up.
A woman in a green linen suit stood across the aisle, tapping a pencil against her front teeth and studying the display in a glass-fronted cabinet. Josh sketched fast. She might work as a goth-flavored Madonna, being pointy faced and olive skinned with thick, dark hair.
Next time he looked, he met a laserlike stare. Her eyes, crow footed at the outer corners, were shadowed in the same shade of parakeet blue as the polish on her nails (good-bye, Madonna).
He closed his pad and asked if she wanted to see anything from the locked cases.
“Have you got any furs?” she said. Her English had a foreign tinge. “Whole fox skins, to wear around the neck in winter?”
He shook his head. “Some came in with the estate, but they’ve already gone to a vintage clothing store.”
She sniffed. “Then show me what you’re drawing.”
He meant to refuse but found himself handing over his pad anyway.
She flipped pages. “Jesus and sheep? Are you Catholic?”
“You can always sell a religious picture in here sooner or later,” he said, folding his arms defensively. “Minimum wage sucks.”
“This isn’t bad,” she said, tapping the top sketch, “but I would stay in school if I were you.” What was she expecting, Michaelangelo?
“I’m dropping out.” Not that it was any of her business.
“Then this is a good place for you,” she said, handing back the pad. “One can always make a living in antiques.”
“It’s just a summer job,” he mumbled. “I’m a musician, actually.”
“Oh? What’s your instrument?”
“Keyboards. But I’m more of a songwriter.” She had moved closer. Her perfume was making his eyes water.
“Can you sing something you’ve written? My name is Odette Delauney; I know a lot of people. Maybe I can put you in touch, ah.?”
“Josh,” he muttered, “and I’m a songwriter.” He was not about to sing anything at a building-sized party of old farts zoned out on — Stevie Wonder, now. He avoided mentioning two blurry video clips, made with Brandon and Betts, on YouTube. He had to remember to take the stupid things down.