Chapter 69

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

I WENT TO CHURCH with Mom and Dad and Pey Sunday morning. I even managed to get up early enough to make pancakes and bacon before Pey came stumbling out of her bedroom to give me a hug. It might have been because I was a good child Sunday morning that Mom and Dad failed to mention I’d missed curfew last night.

During Rev. Davis’s sermon, I got to thinking about the meaning of ‘service’. The word was commonly tossed around now to simply mean ‘National Service’, as if serving two years for the country was all the service a person was expected to do. Rev. Davis talked about the difference between mandatory service and voluntary service, quoting the scripture that said ‘If someone forces you to go with him one mile, go with him two miles.’ I found myself falling into the mindset of my contemporaries, that the government shouldn’t have the right to force us into service. When Adrienne, Leslie, and Rosie left our table last night, they’d held eye contact with Joan, Rachel, and Livy. The six girls had put their hands together in the middle of the table like a football team in a huddle. Then they’d burst out, “Repeal 28!”

I was going to ask Em how she felt about that when she called this week. She was in the service. Would she be angry if the twenty-eighth amendment was repealed after she’d already served her time? Repealing the amendment wouldn’t be something done overnight, though. If they started the ball in action now, I’d probably still be through my service before the repeal was ratified. I started to realize how completely fucked up and contradictory my V1 opinions had been. Oh, I had a solution for everything. Making all kids serve for a year or two would teach them discipline and get us ahead of badly needed infrastructure repairs. Trading off free college seemed to be a good idea, but kids would come out of service with skills they could use to become productive citizens at once.

On the other hand, I’d been opposed to a lot of social services programs as wasteful and giving a handout to people who didn’t deserve it. I figured that was what churches and charities were for and the government shouldn’t be funding them.

But mandatory service undercut the very volunteer services that I thought should be responsible for helping the poor and homeless and immigrants and the sick. This government didn’t have charitable tax-deductible donations. But now the church could receive government grants for providing the same social services I’d believed should be provided by charities that I felt should be better regulated and not tax-deductible.

I felt a nudge in my side and stood up for the last hymn.

“It looks like you were out last night a little too late to stay awake during church,” Dad said. I started to protest and just shut my mouth. Hadn’t I told everyone V1 knew that parents needed to hold their children accountable for their actions? That’s what was wrong with the world. IMHO. We sang and left the church. It still felt odd not to have an offering.

After we’d eaten lunch at a Mexican restaurant, we went home and I went to my room to play my guitar.

I guess I played a long time. I looked up and Pey was standing beside me. I couldn’t remember what I’d been playing.

“Mom wants to know if you are coming out for popcorn and TV,” she said.

“Already?”

She took my left hand and looked at my fingers. I realized they were numb. They were red and swollen.

“You did that before ... J, don’t die.”

“Oh, God no!” I said, setting the guitar aside and catching my little sister in my arms. “I’m a whole different person now, Pey. I’ll never do that again. I just had a lot on my mind this morning and I guess I got carried away playing. Don’t ever think that just because I get lost playing the guitar it means I’m going to go away. I’m not, baby sister. I’m not.”

I held her and rocked her for a few minutes and then carried her out to the living room. We watched a new video on Netflix and ate popcorn and drank milk and were a family.

The teachers were right back into the swing of things on Monday morning with the start of the second grading period. If anything, it seemed like they were piling on more homework than ever. I guess that’s how it always seems. Last year at this time, I didn’t have anything to do but sit at home and study. What a long way I’d come in a year.

I agreed with Mom and Dad to have a quiet family celebration of my sixteenth birthday on Thursday night. In return, I’d have all afternoon and evening to celebrate with my girlfriends who were planning a party and day of fun. Only Rachel and I knew that the first part of that day of fun was going to be between Livy’s legs. The thought of that made me clench my knees together as my cock pulsed.

Mom made beef stroganoff for my birthday dinner. That was always one of V1’s favorite dishes and my V3 mother was a better cook than V1’s. Peyton made me a birthday hat and I sat at the place of honor at the table while Mom gave me a huge serving of stroganoff. I was laughing pretty hard when Dad suggested that I might have another five or ten girlfriends by this time next year.

“You know, though, son, we love your girlfriends. It was much harder for us to make friends with the parents of Emily’s boyfriends than with the parents of your girlfriends. Maybe it was because all those boys were a kind of threat, but also Emily let it be known they were temporary. Your girlfriends have a kind of stickiness to them. We don’t worry about losing new friends when you break up.”

Wow! That’s more words in one paragraph than I’ve heard my dad say in a long time. As I looked back, though, I could see where he was coming from. V1 had a daughter and I looked at every boy she dated as a threat to her virtue and a threat to our family unit. It wasn’t as difficult with our son but I always thought that was just because we’d done it once before and understood childrearing better.

“Who’s ready for birthday pie?” Mom asked. I’d never been much of a cake fan and when I asked for a lemon meringue pie for my twelfth birthday, it started a new tradition of pie on my birthdays. Mom brought out an apple pie that had those brown sugar crumbles all over the top instead of a crust. I just love that one. My phone rang just as Mom brought out the pie with sixteen candles on it. I answered it and Em joined in singing happy birthday. I blew out the candles and talked to Em while Mom cut the pie and Dad dished ice cream.

“Happy birthday, J.”

“Thank you, Em. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. It’s only another week, though. I get a week’s vacation after training here. I’ll be home next weekend.”

“Really? That’s great! A whole week? Maybe I can cut school that week. We can run in the mornings and talk all night.”

“You know, others are going to want a piece of my time, too,” Em laughed. “And we have to save some time to be with the other girlfriends. Someone needs to teach me to salsa dance!”

“You bet! Em, that’s the best news ever!”

Em stayed on the line while I opened my presents. Pey gave me a keyring. I had a package from Em that included a nice pair of driving gloves. Mom had already promised to take me to get my driver’s license on Monday. I was blown away, though, when dad handed me a guitar case with a bow on it. It was heavy enough that I could tell it wasn’t just the huge case. I clicked open the latches and looked inside. The label on the lid declared that it was from Zaveleta’s. I recognized the instrument. I’d lusted for it ever since I saw it at Vinnie’s guitar shop where I took lessons. A classical Spanish concert guitar with a rounded back. I’d long ago—in V2—replaced the steel strings on my acoustic guitar with nylon strings because I was never interested in rocking out. I loved the soft mellow tones of classical guitar music. But having a real concert guitar was beyond my wildest dreams. This guitar cost more than $10,000!

“Dad! I don’t know what to say! It’s so beautiful!” I couldn’t imagine how my parents ever afforded an instrument like this.

“Just keep playing, son. Sometimes, late at night, your mother and I stay awake with our door open just to hear you play.” Mom and Dad were holding hands. That’s something V1 would never have seen. Pey got as close to me as she could.

“Can I sit with you while you play tonight?” she asked. There had been many times in the past few weeks when my baby sister had come into my room while I was playing and settled in to lean against me. Those nights usually ended with me carrying her into her bedroom and tucking her in. I just nodded, not sure I could say anything.

“So, what are your birthday words?” Dad asked, extending his phone with the record light on.

“I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m thinking I might want to do something service oriented. I don’t know what it is. I just think we need to take more responsibility for the condition our world is in.”

Dad smiled and clicked off the recording.

18 October 2019

Houston, we have a problem. I only realized it when I woke up this morning. Last night was magical. I sat and played for two hours, getting used to the feel of my new guitar. New to me. It was probably close to fifty years old and showed a few light spots where fingers had worn the finish. I needed to get used to the wider neck, the round back, and the gut strings. Every tone that I plucked from its strings just sang in our living room.

But that’s not the problem. It finally sank in that Em is going to be home for a week next weekend. Precisely, next weekend on Desi’s sixteenth birthday. Desi and I have played and fooled around so much that the idea of actually fucking on her birthday has taken hold and is a major event the whole pod is looking forward to. I think they all just want to know what it will be like for Desi to have me as a sex slave for two weeks. But I’m not going to start that servitude during the week that Em is home on vacation! Who knows how long it will be before I see my sister again?

So, what do I do now? This problem is going to need more than duct tape and WD40.

I ran Friday morning. I didn’t have to worry about school since this was parent-teacher conference day. Nanette picked me up at our usual time and I was surprised she took us out in the country where we’d had a long run a few weeks ago.