They say The Orpheum is a place where legends are made or dreams are killed. I never expected that to be taken so literally.
It's Sunday, only if you're looking at the clock on the wall. For me and the guy I met 5 hours ago, it's still Saturday. His name is Bobby. Robert Shaw. 17. Rhythm guitarist. Starting his senior year at Los Enfadado High School, three weeks out.
We were sitting in my car, three blocks from The Orpheum. Red and blue lights flashing across the building fronts. Neither the victims nor the culprits were still around. Yet, Bobby couldn't stop watching, waiting for something to happen.
I asked what he wanted to do now. He didn't answer. I hadn't heard him speak coherently since the ambulance left. The last thing he said, through a mess of tears and snot and blood-shot eyes, was, "We need to move."
… Before the police arrive, was what he meant. I figured it out when two cars rushed by as we drove away, and he sank into the seat.
"Are you some kind of criminal?" I'd asked.
"No," he'd replied earnestly. "It's a long story."
Victoria will be pissed when she hears about how I believed him. How I drove away from an active crime scene with the only connection buckled down beside me, how I hid him in our garage that night, and now him, on the ground curled under a scratchy blanket, tossing and turning with his eyes squeezed shut, and me, watching from the couch, using dad's work lantern so I don't alert anyone inside. She'll be pissed to know anything, but what was I supposed to do? He lost everything tonight, and suddenly the random bar server became one of the last people to see Sunset Curve in one piece.
It's Sunday, 2 AM. My hands still shake like it's Saturday, 8 PM.
I watch Bobby across the room, who's one toss and turn away from bolting upright with tears streaming down his face, and I wonder, what happens now?
