Ed felt the anxiety pool in his chest, as he aimed his finger to press in the buzzer on the next house down.
Heâd been lucky so far but sooner or later that luck would run itâs course and heâd find himself face to face with a kid from his school. The thought of it made the acid in his gut stir. Â
It wasnât the thought of seeing a classmate, though for certain there were classmates he DID NOT have any desire to casually run into. The fear was of the question theyâd ask, questions theyâd been avoiding since they had disappeared from school last fall.Â
They were questions Ed knew heâd have to face sooner or later, but he very much hoped later would win out in that equation.
He had hoped to push the questions off to the start of next year, save up all the anxiety for that first day back. Heâd be dreading it either way he figured, and at least then heâd be able to return to the sanctuary of the Radio room when it all became too much.
Ed fiddled with the long-since-past-itsâ-prime disc player. It was currently skipping on the underwriting part of one of his last years pre-recorded overnight sets for the station. A irritating krazylazkrazylazkrazylaz reverberated over and over in their head, as the disk tried desperate to play out an ad for the local laser tag place.Â
Finally, the cacophony reached a fever pitch and Ed ripped the ear buds from his ears and shoved them and the device deeply into the inner pocket of his jean jacket. Â
They really need to convince Hornigold to start letting them record digitally. They ended up converting them anyways to put them in the overnight line-up, and it would make it a lot easy to take his shows home too.Â
Ed knew it might be lame to listen to his own shows like this, or so Jack had often informed him. But the station always got demos, so a lot of that music was really only accessible through his old shows, and, after all, he had picked those song because he liked them.
He also knew, or, again, had unhelpfully been told, that his focus on collecting music was narcotic at best, and obsessive at worst. But the thought of a song disappearing into his memory, until he couldnât even hum the melody anymore, triggered something deeply melancholy in him.Â
It was the same reason why the art which heâd scrolled on his bedroom walls included so many lyrics, poems, or lines from movies. They were more then a collection, each one held a story. Each had made contact with something inside him at the exact moment when he had needed it. He could, and often did, run his fingers along the multi-colored sharpie lines, and feel the memories and emotions of when heâd written them flood back into him.
He still mourned the loss of the markings on his bedroom door, which had been replaced after a particular bad night the prior summer. Many of the sentiments written there on had already faded out of his consciousness, into nothing.
He hated loosing things in general, but most of all he hate loosing memories, not being able to feel them anymore.
If he didnât remember them who would.
Ed could hear the faint whirl of the struggling player in his pocket as he starred down the dark green paneling of the neighbors door.
He waited a few beats, possibly shorter then would be preferable to his program director, before retreating in the direction of the next house.Â
He didnât see the harm in it, figuring the theatre program would survive even if he didnât sell his fair share of no-bake cookie dough.Â
It wasnât that he didnât care. He actually enjoyed theatre, even when it wasnât an alternative to incarceration. Though, he admittedly did like it more so when he didnât have to spend his summer going door to door fundraising for it, and risking run ins with classmates with every ring of a new doorbell.Â
Ed knew he had technically gotten off easy. A month in Juvenile and a referral to the summer theatre program his school hosted for troubled youths was light punishment in anyones book for certain. He wondered if Izzy had faired as well.Â
That would be one good thing about classes starting at least. Getting to see his friends again.Â
His father had thoroughly isolated them from most of their friends since the incident. No computer, no phone, no visitors. Â
The last time heâd seen Izzy, he was being shuffled off to a different room in the precinct.
That was another problem with the questions, he hadnât gotten to talk to Izzy, didnât know how much he wanted him to share.Â
Ed began contemplating the possibility of using the whole âselling cookie doughâ thing as a ruse to justify going to Izzyâs neighborhood, wondering if they could steal a few moments to talk about things before his mom made it to the door, and strategizing what he might do where Izzyâs mom to be the one to answer the bell.Â
He was turning this scenario every which way in his mind, examining all the angles as, he pressed in the bell for the house five down from his.
The house was older and modest in size, like most of those on the block, though even from the curb it bore the telltale markings of the new money that had recently started flooding into the established neighborhood, buying up property and ârehabbingâ it. The newly installed sod lawn, in the place of the front garden, was a death knell for the neighborhood, a harbinger of things to come.Â
The house itself was mostly unassuming, construction on the externals looked to be just getting underway, siding being replaced, new concrete laid for the front steps, and a fresh coat of teal paint on the front door.Â
The door which had swung open before the doorbell could finish ringing out itsâ rendition of Gnossienne no. 5, a song which Ed thought deserved better then to be watered down to a 10 second clip played through doorbell speakers.
A door which behind it revealed a boy.Â
This was not a boy Ed knew from school. Though he did look to be of a similar age to them, he could have also been a year older. A college student? Or perhaps, from the local private school? That would certainly fit, considering the house. In any case, there was something familiar about him that Ed couldnât place.Â
Something almost nostalgic about the shape of the constellation of freckles on his cheek, and the soft curl of his golden hair, which currently stood up at odd angles, as if heâd just rolled from bed. Ed wondered if this may in fact be the case, considering his state of dress.Â
Ed may have had more luck placing him in their memory had it not been for that detail, because the state of dress, with which he had chosen to fling open the door for the whole world to see, was a pair of dinosaur boxers and now thatâs all Edâs mind had room to hold.
