Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,75

at three thirty, curtains at four. Any fundraising merch goes on the table downstairs. Everybody ready to put on a show?”

We clapped. Everyone pitched in, each helping the other set up their equipment, spike the stage with fluorescent tape, and so on. We handed around snacks while Gunner manned the sound booth, barking orders to move a light or adjust a mic. He was good at this. I idly wondered if he’d be useful for future DIY Fantasy FX videos.

Finally there was a lull. Everyone was sitting around, hanging out with their legs dangling off the black stage, taking selfies, buzzing with anticipation.

“Immortals, to the stage for sound check,” cried Mr. Tweed from the theater.

I jumped to my feet, bumping off a column to bump right into another.

Jamal and Milo took their stations. As soon as I joined them, Gunner plugged us in and sprinted back to the board to adjust our levels.

“Immortals are good to go,” said Gunner over the speakers.

All around us were kids and parents and teachers, all carrying stuff or taping things down or whatever across the empty audience pit, which seemed just really too huge, like an airplane hangar, really.

They all glanced at me as they hustled by, with this look that said, Oh, so that’s the show’s finale, and Sunny’s the front man.

I grimaced at Milo and Jamal. They grimaced back. Then we launched into the intro.

Jamal played on an impeccable Orange with unlimited tightness and tone. Milo finally sat before a real drum set, a beast that could move huge quantities of percussive air—much better than that gangly cocktail kit that looked like a vaporator from the Skywalker farm.

And me? I had a mic on a stand with a scarf. I had a floor monitor to lean up on, and acres of stage upon which to earn style points. I had a Marshall stack towering behind me, a blind and all-powerful moai waiting to unleash its ancient scream.

We played. We opened the doors of hell, just a crack, just a fiery slit of orange with screams coming from within. I leaned up to the mic—I preferred it just a few centimeters out of reach—and screamed those first lines penned by Gray so long ago:

You fade out, I reach in

Crack the floor, fall within

After sixteen bars, I slit my throat with the edge of my hand to stop Milo and Jamal. From the back of the club I saw Gunner underlit by the orange lights of the mixing board. He looked demonic, but friendly, a friendly demon, and gave us a thumbs-up.

“Levels are good,” boomed Gunner.

The crowd around us gave a house cheer.

Mr. Tweed hopped up onto the stage and bellowed into a mic, “Whoo, Sunny and his Immortals bringing it!” he said. “And that was just a teaser!”

The whole room looked at me. I could only wave back, like a motorized mannequin beckoning customers from the side of the road.

In the greenroom, Jamal and Milo massaged what muscles they could find in my shoulders.

“You got this,” said Jamal. “Think about your reward. Clean slate with Cirrus. Livestream with Lady Lashblade tomorrow. Back on track.”

“Are you shaking?” said Milo.

“I got this,” I said. “I got this Igotthis igotthis.”

“You kinda have to,” said Jamal.

I breathed in and out. “Okay.”

I sat at the dressing room mirror and began streaking my face with tears as dark as ash. Jamal and Milo joined me, and we regarded our collective reflection.

“We look like an old-skool album cover,” said Jamal with delight.

We sat and stared at one another, the most nervous goth metalheads ever. I waited a few minutes until we had the room to ourselves; then I took a marker from my disaster preparedness kit, found the spot on the wall, and added the words:

THE IMMORTALS 2020

Then I wordlessly motioned for Jamal and Milo to crowd in for a selfie.

We crowded around the screen to examine the resulting photo.

“We look great,” I said.

“We look like we need buckets to barf into,” said Jamal.

“They have buckets in the loading dock,” said Milo.

There was a commotion, and distant applause. I crouched and peeked out beyond the stage, where Mr. Tweed was. He murmured this and that to a small crowd.

“They’re here already?” I wondered.

Milo crowded in. “Who?”

“People,” said Jamal, kneeling at my side.

Dad was there, standing oddly stock-still even as Mom held his arm and danced to the pre-show music coming from the speakers. She punched him playfully, and he snapped out of whatever daze he was in to