Page 19 of You Spin Me

Grace leans back in her chair and props her thigh-high boots on the table. Jones gives her a look but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he hands out the week’s playlists before reading a memo from corporate re keeping the on-air shenanigans rated PG.

Guy nods enthusiastically and straightens the satin station jacket he’s never without. The WBAR logo is emblazoned across the back, and his name’s embroidered over his heart. I have one too, but I never wear it. Too likely to garner attention. Motor grumbles about how the shock jocks on our rival station manage to get away with all kinds of R-rated crapola. He has a right to be pissed. They’ve done a number on him lately—outing him as gay and stirring up hatred about it. No one here gives a shit about his sexuality, but he’s been getting ugly letters and phone calls.

I can’t even imagine what those jerks over there would say about me.

My contemplation of that scenario is interrupted by Gracie’s hand waving in front of my face.

“Earth to Cal?”

“Sorry, what’d I miss?”

“I said, aren’t you, like, pen pals with Joe Berg from that Canadian band?”

“Uh, sort of. A Toronto DJ turned me on to them several months ago. Why?”

“Why Not Happiness playing at The Paradise this week,” Jones says, tipping his head toward the window, which has a great view of Lansdowne Street, where it seems like half the clubs in Boston are located. Spit, Metro—they’re all within walking distance. We moved to this location from a high-rise further downtown a year ago, and management’s been on us to get bands in here to chat or play acoustic sets. Jones knocks on the table. “Think you can get them for an interview?”

The egg sandwich I wolfed down before the meeting turns to cement in my gut. Jones’s lifted eyebrows remind me that I need to step up to keep my shift.

I rub the scarred edge of my left eyebrow. A nervous habit. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Jones smiles. “Great. Keep me posted.”

There’s no way I won’t get the interview since the station has such a good reputation for putting bands on the map. Thing is, I’ve never done one before. Sinking into my seat, my mind churns with dread while a typical meeting continues around me. Impassioned arguments about songs moving in and out of rotation are punctuated by various objects flying across the table, from plush puffins—our station mascot—to balled-up food wrappers.

Big Bob and Special Kay are laughing so hard that they’re falling off their chairs when Jones gives up and ends the meeting with his usual call to action. “Get out of here, and don’t come back until you’ve discovered the next big thing.”

He catches me in the hall before I can escape to the gym. “You’re spinning at Metro this Saturday; don’t forget.”

I side-eye him. “Can I forget it if I get this interview?”

He shakes his head. “No way. We need all the jocks on tap for this marathon. It’s a big publicity opp as well as a fundraiser.”

I give him my scariest half-grimace. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”

He claps a hand on my shoulder. The right one. Nobody ever touches me on the bad side. “It’ll be chill, Cal, you’ll see.”

“Eat my short, Jones.” And then I escape before he can ask me to do anything else.

I gotthe shit beaten out of me on a weekly basis in ninth grade. In fights I picked. When it was kids bullying me, that was one thing. I’d heard all the taunts on the playground all through elementary school. But when my younger sister joined me in junior high, kids picked on Penny because of me. I couldn’t have that, so shit went down. I’d go after the tormentor and get walloped. Over and over again.

Against my mom’s wishes, my dad took me to the boxing gym his friend Sam ran, and I learned how to fight. I got good. The bullying stopped.

Usually hitting the bag makes me feel good. Even when it hurts.

Some days—like today—I need to feel fresh pain. It cuts through the static of my fucked-up nerve endings. Makes more sense than phantom pain. Clarifies things.

It doesn’t make sense to some in my family—in particular, my sister and my mom. They can’t believe that I want to inflict pain on myself. But like getting tattoos, this is pain that I get to choose.

After only twenty minutes of punching the bag today, I’ve had enough. Normally, I go at it until I’m on the verge of getting overheated, but today I can’t seem to focus.

Jones and my boxing coach going at it inside my head probably isn’t helping. They’re like an angel and devil, one on each shoulder. Except they’re both devils.

You can’t be completely invisible anymore, Jones says.

Again, Sam bellows.I don’t have time for whiners.

It’ll be chill, jabs Jones.

---