Page 7 of Check Me Out

“Just about thick enough.” A hint of a naughty smirk. “By the time we put on our dinner music, we’ll be good to go.”

The main living space might have been a formal dining room at one time, maybe a century ago. But now it was as plasteredwith posters and mementos as the hallway, interspersed with half a dozen guitars hanging from the walls. A futon was splayed open on one side and an extensive vinyl collection groaned from an overburdened bookcase on the other.

“You pick,” Angus said. “After all, you’re the guest.”

I highly doubted he was offering from any sense of politeness. This was a test—one I’d most likely flunk, knowing next to nothing about the music scene. Hopefully grading would be on a curve, since at the very least, whatever I chose would come from Angus’s own collection. I was just about to grab something at random when a band name caught my eye.

The album was lying on the edge of the futon with its inner sleeve and a crescent of black and pink marbled vinyl poking out. I’d never been much for records, since it’s so much easier to stream whatever you want to hear. But between the artwork on the sleeve and special pop of color on the vinyl, I could see the appeal of collecting.

And then I turned over the album and saw the band name: AndHedonia.

Was it just that morning I’d seen the flyer at the grocery store? I’d agonized so long over ditching Angus at the register, the beginning of my day seemed like old history. I held the sleeve up for his inspection. “Are they local?”

“You could say that.” He put the record on. The gentle crackle of the needle touching down came through the speakers….

And then the music washed over me.

It was nothing remarkable, at first. The type of song I’d heard all my life in numerous different guises. But then the guitar struck a chord I hadn’t been expecting, and the timing wentfrom 4/4 to a disturbing, syncopated chaos. I’d just about given up making sense of it when the chaos repeated, and I realized it wasn’t chaos at all, but an unusual, elaborate structure.

“Well, that makes sense,” I said.

“Oh?” Angus replied cautiously. “How so?”

“The band name was clever. It stands to reason the music would be...too.” Just as the words left my mouth, I glimpsed a poster that was half-tucked behind a warped and rusted STOP sign. AndHedonia. Not just the logo this time, but a photo of the group.

And the guy in the photo with the blue hair and cocky smile was awfully familiar.

Embarrassed, I said, “That probably came off as a really bad pickup line.”

“And yet…it’s surprisingly effective.” We were half-shouting over the music. Angus stepped up to me, toe to toe, and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “If you stick around after dinner, I can let you in on all the deeper meanings.” And with that, he turned and headed back down the hall.

I don’t know much about Indian food, and whenever I find myself at Curry Corner I just play it safe and order the combo dish #1. But the pot waiting on the stove smelled like heaven. It drew me back into the kitchen as if the steam were a beckoning cartoon hand. Angus ladled out a heaping bowl of stew and topped it with the spiced oil he’d sizzled in a pan. “Dal palek. Eat to your heart’s content, there’s plenty for both of us.”

“It smells amazing,” I said.

“And that scorecard of yours will be happy to know that since I already had the seasonings in my pantry, it was super cheap to make.”

“It doesn’t smell cheap.”

When he cleared a spot at the table by plowing aside a dog-eared stack of junk mail, I tossed my coat over a chair, sat down, and took a bite.

“Well?” he asked. “What do you think?”

It was hot—both in temperature and in spice level—but it tasted divine. “It’s amazing. What’s in it?”

“A melange of aromatics, an assortment spices…but the real star of the show is nothing more exotic than the humble lentil.”

7

Angus

Newton, mid-bite, made a strangled sound. I was about to attempt the Heimlich maneuver when I realized he wasn’t choking, he was laughing. He knuckled a tear from his eye and said, “Just this morning I swore I’d never eat another lentil—but, for this, I’m glad I made an exception.”

“Exceptions are a lot more fun than rules anyhow.”

Newton’s brow furrowed. “Well…I could see rebelling against someone else’s rules. I mean, at best, they’re arbitrary. And at worst, they run counter to your own interests. Like my advisor pushing me to take fewer credits, supposedly to help me focus—when really, he just wants to talk me into grading all his undergrad quizzes. But we’ve all got an internal set of rules. Without those, we’d have no structure.”

He was serious.

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