Casey Barnes Eponymous - By E.A. Rigg Page 0,3

he, of course, did not offer one. Casey’s eyes traveled downward. He was wearing a Ramones T-shirt. “I’m a senior,” he said, “They’re making noise about not releasing transcripts to colleges if we have outstanding library dues.” He rolled his eyes.

They’re making noise. These idiots. These temporary guardians who couldn’t even tell you what country Dee Dee Ramone was born in.

“Five dollars,” Mr. Cole said, “You can pay the principal’s secretary.” He walked back to the desk. Which left Casey standing there with him, alone.

Now, she knew how it had all gone down. She remembered what Leigh told her on the fifth day of school. But she still wanted more than anything for the moment not to end. So she forced herself to breathe. And, then, to lie.

For it was not as if she had not been hoping, expecting, on a certain level, that he would saunter into the library one day. She had even gotten an idea about how to handle it. It was from a girlie magazine she and Leigh read in the aisle of Seven Eleven.

Nothing drives a guy more crazy than knowing a girl who was once his is now with another guy. Even if he was the one who stopped showing interest. It had something to do with the way men are built.

“Sorry I haven’t really seen you around much,” she said, “I’ve been busy the past few weeks.”

His eyes studied her. She had almost forgotten how those eyes seemed like they were staring even when they were not. “That so?”

“Yeah,” she continued, “I kind of met someone.”

For a moment he did not appear to register it. She got nervous. But then she saw the wisdom in that girlie magazine. His eyes got harder. It was subtle, but there alright. He was jealous.

“Interesting,” he said.

She waited for him to say the next thing she was hoping he would. Namely: How dare you? Who is he? Please give me another chance. But he did not. Instead he put the magazine back into the rack and left.

3

Leigh’s second evil act of the day was not to tell Casey what she heard about him the moment Casey came over later. No, Casey had to wait until the end of her visit to hear that. And that would change everything.

After school and before going over to Leigh’s, she came home and rocked out. For Casey’s playlists were only the tip of iceberg when it came to her musical ambitions. That was because she wanted to be a rock star. And not just any rock star either. She wanted to be the most guitar-slaying, album-selling, hotel-room-trashing rock star of all time.

It began when she was thirteen. In that year there was a fateful day when her brother Yull was listening to The Ramones. As she eavesdropped she saw her future as clearly as she heard Johnny’s guitar. She begged Tricia for lessons and, given that her junior high grades were not the catastrophe they would later become, her wish was granted. After six months of lessons and steady practice, she got her first guitar for Christmas. A year later she bought an electric, a Strat, and began to write her own songs. Her first was a folk song about world peace.

“Name two countries currently at war,” Yull said when he heard it. She made a hand pistol and aimed it at Yull.

She soon started writing fast songs in minor chords that ranged in subject matter from the principal’s secret life as an internet pimp to the foreign language department’s secret ties with Al Qaeda. Despite her steady march towards world rock domination, however, there was still one element she had to master. And that was playing her songs anywhere but her basement, and for anyone other than Leigh, Yull, or her neighbor Clayton Gould.

It almost happened, once, at the end of freshman year. Casey was in the basement practicing and Yull was upstairs with a couple of friends. One of the friends heard her, came downstairs, and asked her to play a song. She strummed the opening notes of one. But then she got an image in her head of Yull and his friend laughing at her creation. She took the guitar off, said she had to go to the grocery store for Tricia, and left.

She did not even tell him.

After a few minutes of shredding, she heard the sound of someone leaning on the doorbell. She went upstairs and found Clayton Gould there. As soon as she let him