Page 42 of Echoes of a Muted Song

We’d get to have that now and everything else we’d talked about.

For the first time since his announcement about being cleared, I could finally breathe and focus on a future where the smiling, grinning man at the table wouldn’t be staring out at me from behind bars.

As I watched him take off one of the dozen bracelets he wore specifically for the teenage fans and slip it on the wrist of a green-haired youth, I was reminded of the story he’d told me about them, as we lay curled up in bed together in Palm Springs.

“Rebel and I went to this book event at the community college when we were like, fifteen or so. It was like a supersized Scholastic book fair. We totally blew all the money we had with us and what we could get from the ATM. My bank account was down to like, four bucks and my wallet was hating me by the time we were through, but it was an awesome day, and we really stocked up on thingsto read when we were stuck inside for what they predicted to be a wicked winter. It was, worse than they said, but I didn’t run out of books and neither did Rebel, since we’d agreed to let the other read whatever they wanted. That way we didn’t have to double up on what we bought.”

“I can see where that would get expensive.”

“Seriously. Lawn and leaf season only pads the account so far when everyone’s niece and grandkid was out there raking, too. You ever go out to try and shovel walkways to make a few bucks, only to step outside and see several variations of pom-pom hats on shovelers up and down the block?”

“I know the struggle. Everyone sent their kid out to shovel so they wouldn’t have to pay someone else’s kid to do it.”

“Exactly,” Johnny moaned. “Even the kid who didn’t even try to get out of the way of the dodgeball in gym class was out there pushing a shovel and cussing.”

“So, um, what does that have to do with the bracelets?”

“Huh, ohh, well, everyone was giving them away at the book fair. They were at every table. Some just had bright colors and the author’s name, but others had quotes, slogans, taglines, even tropes written in wickedly amusing ways that made us snicker. So we went around collecting them. Had them completely covering our wrists and running up our forearms when we went to school on Monday, too. We’d kept expecting to see Jagger there, he said he was coming,but when we saw him Monday morning, he just shrugged and said something came up. It turned out that his brother had an episode and took a bunch of pills. Jagger was getting dressed to catch the bus to the book fair when he couldn’t find the t-shirt he wanted to wear and went to see if his brother had it. He found him on the floor and managed to get him to the hospital with only a few stall outs, since he wasn’t used to a manual transmission. He looked so sad, but he wouldn’t tell us what happened, not at the time, so Rebel and I each took off one of the bracelets and gave them to him. His face lit up and he hugged us and thanked us for brightening his day. Still didn’t say anything about why he never showed up, though. Not for a long time afterwards. Rebel got tired of the bracelets after a couple of weeks and gave them to me, and I’d walk around with them up my arms like they were the coolest thing in the world. And every time I’d see Jagger frowning, I’d slip him one or leave it hanging from one of the hooks in his locker. I always knew when he found it, because he’d be smiling and running his fingers over the surface of it on his wrist. I liked being able to make him happy with something so simple, but it was his idea for me to keep doing it when the band started ordering merch. They aren’t expensive to buy in bulk, and I’ve gotten so I can read when people need one. So far, it’s never failed to earn me a smile.”

Son of a bitch, there was another idea right there, and one that would be uniquely Johnny.We’d get some of those doodles of his printed out on bracelets he could wear and give away. I’d even seen him kneel and pass them to fans he could reach, an image that had once graced the front cover ofRoaring Metalmagazine. Somedays, I doubted he even realized how special he was, and not just for the music, but that was okay, because whenever he needed a reminder, I planned to be right there to give it to him.

Chapter 21

(Johnny)

“So, we’ve touched a little upon what it was like for you and Rebel growing up together and the bands you admired, but a few fans have phoned in a couple questions about the band’s name. Rebecca from Vancouver, Washington wants to know who came up with the name Blissfully Immune, while Cade from Beaverton wants to know if there’s a meaning behind it,” DJ Cyril DeMill asked as we returned from break.

“Yes,” Rebel blurted, chuckling when Cyril made a motion for him to elaborate.

“Well,” I began when Rebel remained silent. “Technically, Dash inspired it, Rebel was the cause of it, and Ozzy was the one to actually say the words that prompted us to adopt it as the band’s name.”

“You should really elaborate on all of that,” Rebel insisted, grinning at me.

“Gee, thanks, Rebel. You were there, why don’tyou elaborate?”

“Because I was busy being the butt of the joke.”

Cyril and I both laughed, before he leveled his gaze on Rebel. “Oh, now you really have to be the one to elaborate.”

“Of course I do,” Rebel grumbled before sticking his tongue out at me. “So, it really was all Dash’s fault, truly. He was behind the whole mess and then he had the nerve to sleep through the chaos. That’s where the name comes from. The way he lay there blissfully immune as our tour bus turned into a disaster area.”

“Oh, but you’ve gotta explain who was causing the disasters in the first place,” I added, just poking the bear since there was nothing Rebel could do but answer or risk dead air.

“We were in the middle of an epic prank war,” Rebel explained. “Dash kicked it off, when he put Big League Chew in Ozzy’s spaghetti and meatballs. Talk about funny, that right there was more classic than silly string. The colors meshed up better and when it got sticky Ozzy started raving about how awesome it was that they’d put so much cheese on the dish. That guy drops a small fortune every time we go to Wisconsin, just sampling cheese curds and cheese spread and anything else with cheese in the description that he’s able to get his hands on.”

“He hoards it, too,” I explained. “If we’re lucky, each of us might get a little nibble off whatever it is, but that’s about it. The rest of us learneda long time ago to grab a batch we can share if we’re remotely interested in something, because he’s never gonna pass any over.”

“Which was what made the prank so great,” Rebel said. “He wouldn’t even offer us a bite so we could see if there was anything wrong with it. Meanwhile, Dash is sitting there stoic behind his shades, total poker face as he brings a meatball to his lips and takes a big bite. By the fourth or fifth bite, we could see Ozzy struggling to chew, and he’s just trying and trying, and his teeth are starting to get stuck together, so he’s chewing more, and he can’t even swallow and take a drink, but he’s refusing to spit it out, too, because by then, he knew we’d done something to it.”

“Oh man, were you guys always pranking each other?” Cyril asked.

“We still do,” I said. “But it’s gotten harder to pull off a successful one after how many times we’ve gotten something over on someone over the years.”

“The best part now is that we’ve got a new group of guys on the road with us and they’re not familiar with our shenanigans, so we’ve gotten them a few times and they’ve gotten us, and this tour is shaping up to be a legendary battleground,” Rebel said.

“All in good fun, of course,” Cyril said.

“Of course,” I said. “The guys in Damaged Saints are like family, we’ve known each other for years so while we’d all like to prove that we’reup to the challenge, there are lines we’d never cross.”

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