I Do This From Time To Time - Standalone {Cobra Starship, The Academy Is...}
I’ve heard people say that there is always one day that changes your life forever. For some people, it’s good; the day they win a Nobel Prize, the day they graduate high school, college, get that job they’ve been striving for…or maybe it’s not good, like the day their father dies or the day they lose someone else that they’re close too. For me, it wasn’t any of that, for me it was the day that I met him. It wasn’t the day I first saw him, that day could be over ridden by almost every day of my life - and I didn’t think that the day I met him was special at the time, but I was wrong. It was late, maybe 3 in the morning and Midtown had just finished packing up from the show earlier. I pulled my hoodie around me and headed to the parking lot to drive home, bass case in hand, stopping when something caught my attention.
“Fucking hell, jesus Christ god damnit fuck you dumbass bitch fucking cunt!” I approached to see a young man - check that, boy; all skinny arms, skinny legs and barely-there torso, kicking the tire of a beater car, screaming as many profanities as he could think of. “Asshole fucking shitmobile!”
“That’s a lot of cursing, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“I fucking locked my mother fucking keys in my god damned car.” He sighed, turning around to face me. “I - oh shit, you’re from Midtown.” His jaw dropped slightly and his eyes grew wide.
“Yeah, I am.” I nodded. “But look, it’s no big deal, I mean-”
“You guys are really good, you know? I mean I’ve been coming to hear you guys here for a bit now,” he admitted.
“I know.” I nodded without really thinking. “I’ve seen you a couple of times.”
“Oh.” the boy just nodded.
“I’m Gabe.” I held my hand out, shaking his.
“I know,” the boy replied. “I mean, um, I’m William.”
“Look, do you want me to give you a ride somewhere? It’s late, you can’t call anyone tonight…” I set my case down on the ground and folded my arms across my chest. “Besides, it’s too cold to wait out here.”
“I’m fine,” William said, showing off a pretty thick coat and fingerless gloves.
“Bullshit. Come on, let me take you to your place, it’s the least I can do, I mean you pay my bills after all.” I shrugged.
“Nah, couldn’t.” William shook his head. “I live in fucking East Jesus Nowhere and I wouldn’t be able to get back here tomorrow to get the shitmobile anyways; I’ll just wait it out.”
“You’ll get sick,” I stated. “Look, why don’t you come crash on my couch. I know I don’t know you, but I mean it’s better than you staying out here all night.”
“I don’t think so…” He spoke hesitantly, his eyebrows furrowed in a frown.
“Fine, suit yourself, freeze your ass off.” I shrugged my hoodie off of my shoulders. “But take this; it’s warmer than it looks.” I handed the purple sweatshirt to him.
“No, that’s crazy…it’s your jacket!”
“And I’m going home to a heated apartment and a nice warm bed,” I pointed out. “Just give it back next time I see you.” With a wink and a smile, I walked away from him for the first, but definitely not the last time.
The next morning, I woke early, still driven by the rush from the show. That was normal, I often woke early on mornings following shows, but this morning something abnormal happened: I couldn’t stop thinking. Normally my problem was getting my brain to turn on, getting myself to care about something for long enough to write about it and then move on, but this morning I couldn’t stop thinking about the boy from the parking lot. I frowned and got into my car, driving back to the venue, mostly to make sure that he had managed to get help. I was sure that I wouldn’t find him, sure that he would have gotten up with the sun and gone home. I was wrong.
When I got to the parking lot, his car was the only one still there. I parked my own car and walked over to his, expecting to find that he had gone to get help of some sort. Again, I was wrong. William was sitting on the ground, his jacket and my sweatshirt pulled tightly around him, shivering as he slept, his back resting against the side of his car.
“Hey.” I crouched down and shook him gently. “William, wake up.”
“No! I didn’t pick up the milk, I forgot! I’m sorry! Don’t kill me!”
“Relax, I’m not going to kill you.” I laughed as he woke from some strange dream. “Killing isn’t really my thing.”
“Oh shit.” His ears, already red from the cold, turned even redder. “It’s you again.”
“I’m sorry.” I frowned. “I didn’t realize that I was such a problem.”
“No, that’s not what I meant, fuck…” William sighed, trailing off. “I just meant that I wasn’t expecting you; I mean who would be? You’re famous.”
“Only to emo teenagers.” I shrugged.
“Still, famous is famous - and hey! I’m not an emo teenager!” William objected.
“You’re not?” I just tilted my head to the side, looking at him.
“Ok, fine, maybe a little.” He sighed.
“Did you stay out here all night?” I asked, my expression turning to one of slight concern.
“Yes.” William nodded. “I didn’t mean to, well I did, but I was going to call Triple A really early, but…well, um, my cell phone battery died.”
“Jesus Christ!” I burst out laughing. “This is not your day!”
“No, it’s not.” William agreed with me. “Though I hardly think that it’s something to laugh at.”
“Sorry, you’re right.” I stopped my laughter, heeding the slight frown that had made its way back onto his face. “Here, you can use my phone to call somebody and then while we’re waiting for them to show up, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee across the street.”
“I’ll accept the phone call,” William replied, taking the phone that I held out to him and dialing the number from memory with numb fingers. I listened to him give his location and his problem to whoever answered before thanking them and hanging up. “Thirty minutes,” William said, handing the phone back to me.
“You have the Tripe A number committed to memory?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah.” William laughed dryly. “I’m what one might call highly unlucky; in other words, this sort of thing happens to me a lot.”
“Wow.” I let out a reserved chuckle before getting to my feet and sliding my phone back into my pocket. “Now how about that cup of coffee?”
“I can’t.” William shook his head. “I really should stay with my car.”
“There’s a place right across the street,” I countered. “It only costs like a buck for a cup of coffee. It’s shit, but it’ll keep your fingers warm while you wait.”
“Fine.” William gave in and I smiled, offering him a hand to help him to his feet. He took it somewhat reluctantly and followed me to the coffee shop.
“So you really stayed out in this weather all night long?” I asked as I paid for the coffee, beating William’s still numb joints to the tab.
“Yeah, it was only like…three hours since you left, that’s only about - Fucking hell! Jesus Christ, god damnit, I’m sorry!” A string of curse words left William’s mouth as he spilled his coffee, splashing a good deal of it onto the lower half of my jeans and sneakers.
“It’s fine!” I laughed again, checking to make sure that the brunt of the hot beverage had hit me and not William; he didn’t need another thing to go wrong. Luckily, there was either no coffee or very little on the boy, but that didn’t make him any less frustrated.
“This always fucking happens to me!” He groaned.
“Well at least it’s free refills,” I pointed out, trying to lighten the mood as the barista handed William a second cup of coffee, this time with a lid.
“I’m sorry, really.” William looked at me apologetically as he took a sip of his coffee, holding on to it tightly.
“Seriously, it’s fine!” I shook my head, holding the door open to him so that he could, as he insisted, go wait with his car. “A little coffee never hurt anyone; in fact, I’ve heard that there’s nothing like some hot coffee to the ego to keep a musician from a power trip.” William burst out laughing, unexpectedly, I might add, and I smiled, enjoying the way his laughter sounded as it echoed in the early morning.
“So,” William leaned up against his car, coffee still in hand, luckily. “You know what I was doing at an empty parking lot at 6 AM, but what were you doing?”
“Honestly?” I asked, taking a large gulp of coffee before responding. “I wanted to make sure you got home alright; didn’t really want to lose an awesome fan to the seedy underbelly of the windy city.”
“Poetic.” William rolled his eyes. “But I’m serious.”
“Yeah, so am I.” I shrugged.
“Oh.” William’s ears grew still redder and I began to wonder how that shade of red was even possible. “Well I guess no one can say that Midtown doesn’t care about their fans.”
“Damn skippy.”
“Damn skippy?” William asked, raising his eyebrow as he laughed again.
“What’s wrong with saying ‘damn skippy?’” I asked innocently.
“Nothing, nothing at all.” William shook his head. “Just - I think the last time that I heard someone use that phrase I was in a retirement home and the response was ‘good on ya!’”
“That’s either a true story or you’re clever on your feet.”
“Take your pick.” William shrugged.
“I like you.” I smiled at the boy. He was creative and entertaining, probably at least a little musical if he was willing to drive all the way from East Jesus Nowhere to hear us play, and cute. He was my type through and through; funny, tall and skinny with intense eyes, long hair and tight clothes. True, he was unlucky, but that was just a small hitch.
“Thanks.” He looked down, scuffing the toe of his barely together black converse against the cement of the parking lot. We fell into silence, both drinking the cheap coffee as we waited for the car company. “Oh! Help is here!” William looked up gleefully and set his coffee cup down on the roof of his car.
“William Beckett?” The Triple A agent asked, stepping out of his car. So his last name was Beckett. I made a mental note.
“Yeah,” William nodded. “I locked my keys in my car.”
“For the third time in this month?” The man looked skeptical as he pulled some contraption from his trunk.
“I’m unlucky or forgetful or whatever you want to call it.” William sighed and the man rolled his eyes as he spent no more than three minutes poking a long, thin rod through the window of William’s beater, unlocking the door in no time.
“Good luck in the future.” The man didn’t say anything else as William thanked him profusely, driving off without so much as acknowledging William’s gratitude.
“Well, I should really be getting home.” William grabbed his keys, just to make sure that he had them this time. “I have about an hour and a half before my parents wake up and flip out.”
“Drive like the wind, unlucky one,” I joked.
“I will.” William smiled, preparing to get into his car. “Oh, I almost forgot!” he stepped out again and pulled off my sweatshirt, handing it back to me. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” I tucked the sweatshirt under my arm as William got into the car and shut the door, sliding the key into the ignition and rolling down the window.
“Thanks for everything, really.” William said, looking at me through the open window.
“No problem,” I repeated. “You know,” I leaned up against the window of the car, trying my luck. “You’re cute.”
“I’m barely sixteen,” William retorted quickly.
“Well in that case…” I reached into his car, grabbed a sharpie off of the dashboard, took his hand wrote down ten numbers. “Give me a call when you’re 18.” He tossed the pen back into the car and let go of William’s hand.
“Sure thing.” William nodded and started the car. “Thanks again.”
“Anytime.” I backed away from his vehicle with a slight wave as he started to drive. “OH WAIT! WIL-” It was too late. He didn’t hear me and the cup of coffee that had been on the roof of his car went flying into the empty parking lot as he took off, leaving me laughing as I walked back to my own car.
TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER
It was late, maybe 3 in the morning and Midtown had just finished packing up from the show earlier. I pulled my hoodie around me and headed to the parking lot to drive home, bass case in hand, stopping when something caught my attention.
“Fucking bitch asshole cunt of a locking device!” I couldn’t help but smile as I turned around to see William kicking the fender of his car, screaming his head off at the automobile just like he had the first time I met him. “Bastard son of a fucking whore with scabies!”
“Car trouble?” I asked, setting my case down and leaning up against the frame of his beat up car, a coy smile in place on my lips. “You never called me.”
“Wait…” William frowned as he turned to look at me. “You mean you actually wanted me to call?”
“I wouldn’t have given you my real number if I hadn’t,” I reasoned. “I mean I am Gabe Saporta, semi-famous, at least-”
“Among the emo teenagers.” William finished for me, a slightly frustrated grin on his face.
“You could have leaked it, I was taking a risk there.”
“I didn’t think it was a real number,” William admitted.
“Well it was.” I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. Keys locked in the car?”
“Bingo.” William nodded. “32nd time in a little over two years.”
“Jesus.” I let out a low whistle.
“You still got that heated apartment?” William asked, shivering in the windy, cold night air.
“That depends,” I winked. “You still jail bait?”
“Haven’t been for seven months.”
“Then I think we can work something out.” I nodded.
“I’m not having sex with you so that I can crash on your couch,” William retorted.
“Not what I meant,” I laughed. “I was more thinking you could crash on my couch and then I could take you out to breakfast.” William nodded in agreement. “And then comes the sex.” His eyes widened slightly, and I laughed.
“I’m just kidding.” I shook my head. “No sex, not on the first date, that’s not how I work.”
“Oh, so this is a date now?” William asked as I picked up my bass and began walking with him towards my car.
“It is indeed.” I nodded.
“I don’t recall agreeing to this date business.” William joked as he opened the door to the passenger’s side door.
“Wise ass,” I retorted, throwing my bass into the trunk before getting into the driver’s seat.
“Yeah well - OW!” William cried.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I pinched my finger in the seat belt buckle.”
I burst out laughing, and after sulking about it for a few seconds, William joined me. I never expected to be taking home a kid I barely knew, it wasn’t like me to pick people up without an extensive knowledge of their persona, but with William, things were different. I knew that he was smart, funny, unlucky and cute. That was enough at the time and I had no idea then that he would be enough for the rest of my life.