In the Image of Grace (11 page)

After a while of standing around and eavesdropping on
people everybody somehow knew it was time to go upstairs. Jeremy
didn’t really tell me what his thing was that he had going on, but
I was assuming it had to do with music. I wasn’t too sure if he was
in a band or did the sound or something. I followed everybody up
the narrow staircase and we entered a place that was long, narrow
and painted black. I found a chair in the back to throw my jacket
onto. I took my wallet out of my coat pocket and slipped it into my
back jeans pocket. If somebody felt the need to pick pocket me they
wouldn’t have been getting much.

Once again everybody milled around in little groups.
There weren’t that many different people alone. I kind of felt odd
having nobody to chit chat with, but I didn’t mind because there
was so much to take in. Some people walked out a door onto the
stage and some people clapped and others moved closer to the stage
that was at the other end of the room. The stage was wall to wall
and wasn’t that high off the ground. Three guys were up there
tweaking around with all the equipment and instruments, one of them
being Jeremy. He strapped on a guitar and started turning the
tuning pegs on it. After he’d turn a peg he’d strum the guitar
until it sounded right. His hair hung in his face as he
concentrated. Another guy was at the drums, but went over to the
microphone and started testing it. He was rather short, probably
only a couple inches taller than me and I was around 5’3.

“Uh, testing,” he said. A few people hooted in
response.

There was a third guy doing something with the
amplifiers. He was turning knobs and stuff. He was probably almost
as tall as Jeremy. I realized he was the guy that came up to us
earlier in the day, the one that looked like he played sports. He
had on a tee-shirt that was kind of tight and if he didn’t play
sports he at least had to of worked out. They walked around the
stage a little longer checking the equipment and instruments. I
stood in the back watching them. Jeremy seemed busy, so I let him
do what he had to do.

After a bit they were all in place. The short guy at
the drums, tight tee-shirt guy was armed with a bass and Jeremy was
strapped with an electric guitar with the mic in front of him. I
squeezed my way up to the front. He saw me and smiled and said,
“Hi.”

The audience said hi back.

“Oh no, I wasn’t saying hi to you all.”

Everybody laughed.

“I was saying hi to my,” he cut himself off. “Oh,
let’s just get started.”

People clapped and cheered and with that there was a
surge of people to the front. All of a sudden I was enclosed in
bodies.

“Hi for real this time, we’re Final Resolution.”
Everyone hooted, hollered and whistled again. “This one’s for
Charlotte.” Jeremy smiled and they went straight into playing.

The audience then started to move. Some were jumping
around. Others were bouncing and bopping and some were head
bobbing. I tried to just stand in place and watch, but due to the
movement of the others, I was forced to sway with the ocean. I
didn’t mind. At first I felt a little self conscious, but then I
just chose to ignore everybody and listened to the music. I started
moving with it. It felt all right. I let everything else slip away
for a few brief minutes and just went with the flow. I listened to
Jeremy’s voice. It was soothing and melodic. The music was fast and
only consisted of several chords, but it made me feel good. I had
never heard anything like it. Since I spent most my life inside my
house I had never been exposed to a lot of music. All we ever
really got to listen to was classical and disco, pretty much what
was in our father’s collection. The first song ended and they went
right into another.

For the second song I just kind of watched Jeremy.
His glasses kept sliding down to the tip of his nose. He’d
occasionally shake his head and twitch his nose to get them back in
place. He played his guitar the whole time he sang. I noticed that
he would kind of stand on the outside of his feet and shrug up his
shoulders and shake the hair out of his face when the timing seemed
right. After a few songs he started to sweat a lot and half way
through one he took off his glasses and set them on the ground at
the front of the stage. He then continued right on. After the song
where Jeremy took off his glasses I could feel somebody up real
close behind. I felt hot breath on my neck. I turned and looked.
There was this guy with limp greasy hair and a flannel shirt
smiling crazily at me. I could tell he was in some sort of altered
state. I tried to move over a little, squishing through a small
horde of girls that appeared to be swooning and greasy guy just
followed me. When I stopped he stopped right on top on me. I could
feel his body parts pressing into my back side. I found it to be
quite disturbing.

“Can I help you?” I screamed at him as loud as I
could to make sure he could hear me.

The guy smiled exposing all his teeth which appeared
too small for his mouth and taupe in color. “What’s your name?” He
shouted back in a nasally voice.

“You need to take a step back,” I shouted.

“We’re at a show. Where am I supposed to go?”

“Away from me,” was my response. I turned back to the
front hoping he had gotten the message.

He then leaned into my ear. “I like you,” he
lisped.

“And I would like for you to leave me alone.”

“What’s wrong with you bitch?” Was the next thing he
said.

I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. What was
wrong with him? I pushed through some people and tried to get out
of the crowd. He just followed me. I stopped and sharply turned
around. He wasn’t expecting me to stop so suddenly and walked right
into me. I stomped on his toes.

“Ow, bitch,” he whined. He then took both his hands
and shoved me backwards. I landed on a couple of guys who were
holding cups of pop. Their pop went flying everywhere, getting the
girl in front of them wet.

“What the fuck,” somebody in the crowd said.

“I’m sorry,” I screamed at one of the pop holding
guys.

Greasy guy just stared at me. I walked up to him and
looked him in the face. His once blue eyes were bloodshot. I got
real close to him and quickly pulled up my knee and thrust it into
his groin. In an instant he was doubled over. I heard a few people
say, “damn,” but most were oblivious to what was going on because
it was so loud, dark and crowded. I pushed through the rest of the
crowd and popped out the back where there were people drinking and
just hanging out. I found a stool on the side and had a seat. I
didn’t see the greasy hair guy again.

…………………………………………………………….

When Jeremy’s band was done they went through the
door on the side of the stage. Another band came out and started
setting up. After a bit Jeremy and his band mates came out onto the
floor and set up their merchandise at a table where they all sat
behind. I walked over and looked at what they were selling. They
had some CDs, buttons and stickers and tee-shirts.

“Hey,” Jeremy said spotting me. He got up, walked
around the table to the front and leant up against it. I gave him a
quick kiss.

“Girlfriend,” I teased smiling.

“Uh, yeah, that kind of almost slipped out,” he said
wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He then scratched
the back of his neck and gazed at the floor like there was
something very intriguing down there.

“That’s okay.”

“Yeah,” he said looking up with a big grin spreading
across his face.

“Yeah.” I looked over at the table. “You guys have
your own merchandise, seems like a pretty big deal.”

“Nah, not really, we make it all ourselves, except
the CD. Our friends started a small record label, so they helped us
out with that.”

“That’s still pretty spectacular.”

“Ah, I wouldn’t go that far,” he said taking his
glasses out of his pocket and putting them back on. He blinked his
eyes. “So much better.”

“Jeremy,” called somebody from the other end of the
table.

Jeremy reached out and held both my hands.

“Go on,” I urged.

He squeezed my hands and walked towards a crowd at
the end of the table waiting for him.

“Hey,” I said.

He turned.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in a band?”

“Didn’t seem very important to everything you have
going on.”

“It is.”

“Wait for me?”

“I actually have to go. If my father comes home and
finds me gone he will kill me.”

“All right.”

I let him go do whatever mingling or what not that
awaited him. I went and found my jacket which was on floor behind
the chair I had placed it on earlier. I squeezed past a couple of
people in the stairwell thinking what would really happen if our
father came home and I wasn’t there. I didn’t even want to
know.

…………………………………….............................

I got to our house and opened up the gate with the
key and softly walked to the front door. I lightly knocked on the
door and waited, expecting Clarissa to open it. Instead it was our
father. I nearly fell over right there. Why was he home? He never
came home till around midnight or later. Something seemed very
fishy.

“Welcome home,” he said with a stoic look on his
face.

I nervously giggled. I looked around the front of the
house for other signs of life. All the lights were out except for a
light coming from the back of the house. My father looked in the
direction of the light and I obeyed and walked to the back of the
house. Nobody was back there. It was just my father and I. I had a
very uneasy feeling in my stomach. He waved in the direction of the
couch and I had a seat and took off my hat.

He got straight to the point. “You need to stop
fucking around.”

I was very taken aback. Our father generally said
very little to us, let alone curse. I answered with a surprised
look on my face.

“Don’t give me that look. I know you’ve been sneaking
out. Look, you just come waltzing in here at what hour.” He stopped
and rubbed his chin. He then continued on. “You are not going to be
some whore and set a bad example for your sisters. You understand?”
He didn’t give me time to answer. “After school you are to come
straight home, no clubs and homework excuses like you’ve been
giving Ms. Dunderfeltz. If you are not at school you are in this
house and that goes for weekends too. Give me your key.” He stood
over me with his hand out

I didn’t move. I didn’t want to give it up. I never
got around to making more copies. We’d be screwed. Ms. Dundefeltz
must have certainly enlightened him to our after school activities.
I just sat there on the edge of the couch staring at him.

“Charlotte,” he growled through gritted teeth. “Give
me your goddamn key.” I could see anger in his eyes. They were
pulled in together, squinted and looking down on me.

I gave in and took it out of my coat pocket and
handed it to him.

“Next time you sneak out there will be severe
consequences. Just because you girls go to an outside school now
does not mean you can go about doing whatever you want. You were
raised to be responsible, proper, young ladies and your behaviors
should reflect no less. Understand.”

I nodded my head and bit my lip. I had to bite my lip
to keep from screaming and shouting at him. I wanted to shout that
his technique wasn’t working, that we needed to experience the
world. What he was doing to us was causing more harm than good.
Look what happened to Elizabeth, but I didn’t say anything. I knew
it wouldn’t make a difference.

When my father was done making me feel like a
juvenile delinquent he sent me up to my room. On the way to my room
I paused at Isabelle’s doorway wondering if I should go and wake
her up, but I decided against it and went on to my room. I laid in
bed thinking about Elizabeth, about how everything was his fault,
all the lies. Our whole life was lies. Elizabeth never knew the
truth. At least Isabelle, Clarissa and I had some vague idea what
the truth might hold. Elizabeth deserved to know. I was going to
find it for her. Somehow I was going to find a way out of that
house. I quickly fell asleep and had the dream. The screaming was
so loud I thought it was going to burst my ear drums. I don’t
remember anything else from the dream except the screaming. I woke
up with a great feeling of anxiety. I felt like I was starting to
feel how Elizabeth might have felt.

I lay in bed for a while staring at the ceiling,
listening to myself breath in and out. My heart felt like it was
still racing from my dream and my hands felt all clammy. It was
still pretty early. I rolled over and looked out my windows at the
sun slowly popping up into the horizon. I pulled back my covers,
got up and walked down the hall. The house was totally quiet and
still except for the creaking floor beneath my feet. I knew our
father was gone already for the day and my sisters were still
asleep. I walked up and down the hallway trying to calm my
heart.

“What are you doing?” I heard. I turned and saw
Clarissa standing in her doorway.

“Trying to calm down,” I answered walking over to
her.

“Another dream?”

“Yeah.”

The two of us then went downstairs, ate breakfast and
waited for Isabelle to get up.

My sisters and I were alone in the house. Ms.
Dunderfeltz didn’t work on the weekends. Our father expected us to
stay there, but there was a small loop hole, not the safest, but
still we knew it was going to have to do. Our plan was to go out
Elizabeth’s window, since there wasn’t a motion detector on those
windows. We were going to jump to the ground and scale the fence
and be free to do what we needed to do on the other side.

……………………………………………..

My sisters and I all stood in Elizabeth’s room in
front of the window garbed in our outside gear. We had the window
open and were looking down at the ground.