Page 89 of His Sound
Despite the funny visual, knowing he was there really does mean a lot to me. Monsieur Drolet’s class was one of the only places at school where I didn’t feel like a total idiot. I couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes in a history lesson. Even in music class, where I could play everything the teacher put in front of me, I’d end up getting thrown out in the hall after getting bored of repeating the same four bars of ‘My Heart Will Go On.’
When I was in Monsieur Drolet’s class, with a piece of machinery or a project in my hands, listening was easier. I couldfocus. He used to let me come in and work on stuff at lunchtime. We even spent my senior year building a homemade electric guitar together. He brought me all these brochures for carpentry and design schools, and he couldn’t hide his disappointment when I decided to go into political science.
“You know, I tell all my students that I taught Jean-Paul Bouchard-Guindon,” Monsieur Drolet says. “I tell them you were one of my best pupils.”
“I only got a seventy in your class,” I remind him.
It was my best grade ever.
“That was only because you never handed your projects in on time,” he shoots back. “They were always much better than the shit I usually have to assess. All those half-assed birdhouses...”
We laugh together for a moment. I still remembermybirdhouse. It was pimpin’.
“So they’re excited to know you taught Marc Bouchard’s son?” I ask.
He shakes his head, confused. “Mon gars,they’re excited to know I taughtyou. You’re the biggest celebrity in town. The high school is practically ready to erect a statue in your honour. Who would have thought a Francophone boy from Trois-Rivières would end up in the biggest rock band in the country? Marc Bouchard,ha. The kids these days don’t even know who Marc Bouchardis.”
He’s exaggerating. He has to be. My father’s shadow is too long to have lifted off this town so soon, and as for the statue part, well, there’s no way someone with my track record or grade average would ever be recognized in any way by that school.
“So, are you Christmas shopping?” Monsieur Drolet asks.
He doesn’t seem to notice how much he’s shocked me. Being admired in Montreal is one thing. Montreal doesn’t give a fuck about my past. Montreal has only ever known me as a rock star, but no matter how famous Sherbrooke Station gets, here in Trois-Rivières, I’m still just Jean-Paul. I’m still just the funny kid who wasn’t much good at anything but being funny.
“I, uh,non,” I scramble to reply. “Mymaman’smicrowave broke, and I’m buying some stuff to fix it.”
He claps my shoulder again. “There’s a good man. This is why everyone should take my shop class: real life skill application.”
I shake my head, grinning. “The most advanced thing we ever did in your class was build cars powered by mouse traps.”
He waves his hand at me. “Well, I gave you the fundamentals. I should get back to my wife now, Jean-Paul. Madame Drolet needs these light bulbs, and she is not a patient woman. Plus, I think those ladies are waiting to talk to you.”
He nods over my shoulder. I glance back to see two girls who can’t be older than twenty eyeing me with their phones in hand, the sure sign of a fan looking for a photo.
I turn to Monsieur Drolet again. “It was good to see you, Monsieur. Very good.”
“You should come by sometime. I have some CDs for you to sign, and our daughters aren’t coming home until New Year’s, so we have more Christmas baking than we know what do with.”
“I’d like that,” I tell him.
He pulls out the same style of graph paper notepad he always had on hand when I was in school and writes his number down for me. I don’t bother telling him I could have just put it straight in my phone. Once he’s gone, the girls approach and politely ask for some photos. I listen to them talk about how much they love Sherbrooke Station and how many of our shows they’ve been to, and for some reason, all I can think about is Molly.
Actually, there are a million reasons all I can think about is Molly: her face looking up at me from the front row of the crowd, the way her eyes shine when she hears just the right song at just the right moment, the bite of her fingernails digging into my shoulders before she falls apart in my arms. She’s in my brain. She’s in my blood. She’s the sound that keeps me up at night, the roar that refuses to let me forget.
It’s stupid. It’s fucking stupid to let something like that go, to watch it slip through your hands and out the door without even lifting a finger to stop it. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t havehadto do that. It’s all sowrong. The way I’ve been living has been so wrong for so many years, and it’s finally catching up with me. Matt asked me what my plan was, and I told him I’d go back to the way things were before Molly, but I’m starting to realize that isn’t an option.
There’s this big shift inside me I can’t ignore. My life is unstable ground, and I’m the rumbling, shuddering,fidgetingearthquake that’s going to tear it apart.
I pay for the microwave parts and hurry through the parking lot to the car. I’m so agitated I probably shouldn’t even be driving, but I make it through the ten minute trip back home and stride into the kitchen, whereMamanis still hunched over the stove. I drop the bag from the hardware store on the counter, and she looks up at me.
“Ah, bon, you’re back. Thank you for going.”
“You’re welcome.” Even I’m startled by how tense I sound.
“Are you all right?”Mamanasks.
I rifle through the bag and pull out a package of screws that I pretend to be busy with. “I don’t know.”
“Jean-Paul.”
