(NOT fan fiction!) Kurt Cobain and Tally Fisk

Chapter Twenty

Tally, as it turns out, was late because she was writing a motto for us to recite at each meeting.

And, also, because her parents found Kyle's watch and spent quite a bit of time questioning her over it.

She told them it was mine and it she had borrowed it and forgotten to give it back. They didn't believe her, but she convinced them. Or wore them down until they finally just gave in. I'm assuming that's what really happened.

So, now I am in possession of Kyle's watch until such a time when he can reclaim it.

Perfect.

"Fellow Woodsmen," Tally says. "I have written our mission down. We will recite this statement at each meeting."

"What if we don't agree with it?" John asks. "You can't just make me take a disgusting blood oath and then tell me why I took it."

Tally huffs and flips her hair. Her gray tank top has tiny sequins scattered sparsely over it and she looks like she should be at the top of a Christmas tree.

"You may voice objections if you have them," she concedes.

"Lay it on us," I say.

Can I tell you how much more comfortable I am in worn jeans, that old shirt and a broken-in pair of Converse with no socks? I feel like I'm back in my own skin instead of someone else's.

The best part was my parents didn't give me a second glance.

Now, as I sit here in the firelight, feeling like myself, I'm more relaxed, more truly casual, than I've been in a long time. Maybe ever.

"Okay, here it is," Tally says. She reads from a parchment-colored paper. "We rise above the frivolous pageant put on by our peers. We reject the smoke and mirrors of this adolescent jungle. We vow to increase our intelligence, our empathy and our character, and to be an invisible force that betters the world."

I wish the girl who wrote these words, wasn't the same girl who smashes butterflies. Although, if there's anything I'm strong enough to protect someone from, it's a butterfly.

"Aaaa-men," John says.

"Shut up," Tally bites back.

"What? I agree with our mission statement. And I think we should learn Greek or something. Or study philosophy."

"I think Latin would be easier," I say. "At least we'll be able to recognize the letters, if not some of the words."

"And we should practice altruism," Mavis puts in.

"Like soup kitchens?" Tally asks.

Mavis shrugs.

"If they need the help. Just, you know, step in wherever we see a need."

"We could have like a book club or something," John says. "Read and discuss some classics so we'll look smart when we get to college."

"I'll never be able to afford college," Mavis says. "And I don't even know what I want to be."

"You'll figure it out," I say. "And not everyone has to be something anyway."

"That's so true," John says. "What's the big deal if you don't get some big, important job? Just pay the bills and do what you like in your spare time. You're not less of person if you don't have an impressive job."

"You can learn whatever you want to anyway," I say. "College is just an expensive piece of paper that says maybe you know some stuff. But nobody's keeping you from learning that stuff without college."

"I'm for sure going to college," Tally says. "Whatever it takes to get there."

We talk for a while about the things we want to learn, the things we want to understand, the things we don't want to learn that we have to.

"So, I see Spence is leaning on a guitar case," John says. "Whatcha got for us?"

I shake my head.

"Nothing really. It's kind of dumb. I just thought if there was a lull, I could fill it with this thing I found."

"Well, what is it? You cannot just keep things from your fellow Woodsmen."

"I just found this poem by Ernest Hemingway and it seemed so punk rock. And I kind of related. Because I used to feel like my youth was passing me by. Like I wasn't even a participant."

I take my guitar out. Tune that E string.

"So, I put it to music. It kind of reminded me of the ways some of the bands I like just sort of throw words together to evoke, not a story, but a feeling. Just a collection of words that come together to evoke one emotion."

"Verbose tonight, are we?"

I smirk at John.

"I'm stalling," I admit.

"Just play it."

"Okay. It's Hemingway's words and my music. It's called Along with Youth. Here goes."

A porcupine skin,

Stiff with bad tanning,

It must have ended somewhere.

Stuffed horned owl

Pompous

Yellow-eyed;

Chuck-wills-widow on a biassed twig

Sooted with dust.

Piles of old magazines,

Drawers of boy's letters

And the line of love

They must have ended somewhere.

Yesterday's Tribune is gone

Along with youth

And the canoe that went to pieces on the beach

The year of the big storm

When the hotel burned down

At Seney, Michigan.

It's not my best-received song.

I'm not met with accolades.

But, Ernest and me? We get it. And I'm sure there's someone else out there in the world who gets it too.

"It's kind of sad," Mavis says. "Even with the kind of ferocity you give it. It's aggressively sad."

Aggressively sad.

I think of Tally swatting that butterfly, smashing its wing.

That part of her is aggressively sad.