T W E N T Y T H R E E
Save me from who I'm supposed to be
THE COUNSELOR LOOKED AT HIS FILE ONE MORE TIME BEFORE LEAVING IT ON THE DESK, GLANCING AT THE BOY.
"So, Luke, I see you do very well in school."
"Yeah... well except for Biology. I still don't understand how knowing the anatomy of a reptile could be useful in the outside world, you know?" He clicked his tongue, pointing at the window with his head. The counselor didn't find that funny.
"You have a B plus on Biology. That's not bad."
"Kinda screws the GPA, you know? B of Bye Yale, Harvard or Penn. B of... bong, try next time. B of... be right back, I have to go to class."
"Sit down, Mister Patterson." He sat down again on the chair, sighing. He was going to get out soon.
"Hey, have you seen the movie The Graduate? Dustin Hoffman? 1967?"
"No, I have not."
"It's really cool. Is this college graduate who has no idea what he's gonna do with his life and ends up sleeping with his dad's best friend's wife." The counselor raised his eyebrows. "Then he fall in love with the daughter. And when they all found out everyone goes crazy. Because... well mother and daughter. Crazy to think about. I mean, well not me, but someone my age has something with your wife and then proposes to your daughter!? That should be... Am I talking to much?"
"Yeah... you are. And not about the subject I've been meaning to discuss—"
"Have you see Breakfast at Tiffany's? Now that's a weird movie. She talks to the criminal like she's his best friend! Holly in that movie really misses like the whole set of screws or something. She's gorgeous though, beautiful woman. Even though my first crush was definitely Elaine from Seinfeld. Just to think about it makes me go nuts. I named my truck after her!"
"Luke, let me get straight to the point here," the counselor interrupted. "You are wanted in at least every college of the state. Even private universities have contacted the school and asked about you! And you don't seem to care! Your SATs scores are the best of your class! Why am I talking about your class!? The county, the state... Luke... aren't you excited?"
"With wanted... you mean like... The Hateful Eight wanted? Like I could get fifteen thousand gold coins for my head? Because I could use a new truck."
"Luke... stop with the jokes..."
"Oh, you thought it was a joke," he whispered.
"You are smart. You are probably the smartest person I have ever met. When you were asked in third grade if you wanted to skip a grade you refused."
"Yeah, because I didn't have friends fifth grade except for that lousy kid who thought that was better at chess than me. He never defeated me."
"Then you were asked in fourth grade, and you refused... again."
"They were going to sent me to high school. What was I, a ten year old, gonna do in High School? Show them my Power Ranger collection while they chatted about sex and hormones? No thank you."
The counselor exhaled. "Why don't you admit you are smart?"
"Because I don't want to be smart. I don't want to be one of those celebrities who also happens to be an Ivy League alumnus like Natalie Portman or Matt Damon. He's like an English Mayor graduated from Harvard or something. I don't want to carry around a suitcase, wear a tie and be locked to my desk for eight hours five days a week. No offense, man."
"None taken."
"The only reason I did well in my SATs was in order to get in the music program of NYU, okay?"
"The music pro— Luke... NYU would beg for you at this point. If you want New York, Columbia is already begging for you."
"Look, man, I really appreciate it. It's nice for people to think that I'm smarter that what I look like. Most of my friends think I have a 2.8 GPA—"
"You have a 4.6 GPA, Luke, and I don't even know how is that possible."
"I just want to make music, read Agatha Christie or an old book of Charles Dickens, be the best rockstar this world has ever seen, actually stop climate change, make gay marriage legal everywhere, maybe write a book when I'm old, and die being better than Mick Jagger. And that's a lot." The counselor looked at him in complete silence. "I just want to reach the point that my fingers aren't even able to play the guitar anymore. I want to read a biography about my life, probably written by Gabriella Swan since she's the only one I trust to do it, and actually feel proud of what I have done when I was alive. If I become an engineer from Berkeley, I would probably puke."
"Is your dad an engineer?" Asked the man and he nodded.
"And my mom. Both are graduates from Berkeley. I find it repulsive when parents try to apply their dreams and manners to their kids like they are some sort of mini clones of them. Like Oompa Loompas or some sh—" He interrupted himself. "Stuff..."
"So this is more... a rebellious thing? Against your parents?"
"You aren't getting it. I want to be a musician. I have a band. We just signed a deal with Columbia Records! The fancy woman said I will have my own perfume, you get that, Rooney?" He nodded slowly. "I had a Star Wars themed for it but now I'm kinda over it. Ever since Carrie said they were lame. It's not that I now find Star Wars lame because she said it, I totally disagree, but she understands cosmetics, and if she thinks it's lame, nobody's going to buy it."
"You talk a lot, mostly in movie references I can't begin to understand." Luke raised his eyebrows.
"You have heard nothing compared to the actual references I make. Look, this is the most interesting part of my own Behind the Music, where I have to pick between music and following a boring career far away from my girlfriend. And I pick music."
"But you can join the music program of Berkeley."
"Like my parents are going to let me be a music mayor. You really don't get it, do you? I'm not supposed to be tied to a desk."
"I don't think you have even given it the possibility." The counselor took from his drawer some flyers, making Luke exhale.
"You are like every teacher on a teen rom-com movie," whispered Luke as he extended the brochures to him.
"Columbia, Yale, Berkeley, USC, UCLA and NYU. Each one of those schools has a music program." He grabbed the brochures and looked at them. "All of those schools sent their applications for you, Luke Patterson, to fill up."
"Please don't tell my parents, they will start jumping of happiness like those kids before entering the Wonka Chocolate Factory," was the only thing he could say. "Yale wants me?"
"Luke... you are a smart kid."
Why was it for him so hard to believe that?
Maybe it was because his parents never made him believe he was smart. Maybe because he saw how his dad would put on a tie because he had to, not because he wanted to. Maybe it was because... being the smart kid in those movies he watched was never a good thing.
And because he liked music. And music made him good in math and physics. Who would say that Led Zeppelin's rhythm was good for equations?
Maybe it was because he always saw Ella and Peyton as the smartest people he knew not because they could to trigonometry in sixth grade, but because they always had something to say, an answer to even the most difficult question, a real comprehension of the outside world.
He spent his life reading the masters. He can quote Oscar Wilde's works and Ayn Rand's articles by memory. "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Shakespeare said in Hamlet, and he thought about that a lot.
He never considered him smart because he wasn't good with answers to questions. He doesn't think outside the box. He can tell you exactly how to build a rocket, what formulas to use, how to process it, the effect of the outer space towards the metal... but he couldn't answer you why. He didn't have an answer as to why the knowledge he knew was there, how did he got it, why is it true.
How does he know that Christopher Columbus invaded America on the 12th October 1492? He just knows it, he doesn't know why is that real.
And that's the thing that makes him think he's not smart. He can remember everything that he reads and doesn't doubt it.
Peyton always questions why. Why do we know this? Why is it like that? Why isn't this other way? Why do I have to use this formula and not this other?
Her brain wasn't a box.
He didn't want his brain to be a box.
Music made him feel like he was actually smart in something.
His connection to the music, to the rhythm.
He knows why. He knows why this chord works better than this other, and he knows why he knows that.
Music was more than memory. It was a information he could actually feel.
He never liked computers because, as Mr. Rupert Giles once confessed: "I don't like their smell."
Computers don't smell like anything, that clear, and that's what he doesn't like.
Smelling trigs some of the most dark and deep memories the human brain has. Flowers can trigger memories from where you were three years old. A particular smell in your grandma's house can make you remember exactly how your favorite dish tastes like.
The smell of books reminds you of knowledge.
He liked that. And he made that trigger smelling has, it's the same trigger that the feeling of his fingers on the strings has on him.
He remembers every chord composition he has ever played, by just touching those strings.
He knew that he didn't belong in a suit and tie world, and he convinced himself he wasn't smart until he actually believed it.
And now, someone was telling him that he was smart. After he rejected being upgraded in school twice, and maintained a perfect GPA, he still didn't think he was smart.
He would always say Alex was the brain of the band, even though Alex and Reggie knew how smart he was.
Luke never wanted to be smart.
And he doesn't want it now either.
He wants to write music, play music, record music, release music, and repeat. He wants to feel actual connection to other people.
He wants to feel alive all the time.
He just wished his parents would get that.
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Luke sneaked into Peyton's room, but she wasn't there. He decided to sit on her desk, waiting for her.
He looked at her drawing with curiosity, noticing how she's been perfecting her technique on the human figure.
Next, it was the application to the New York Academy of Art. He remembered how she has always talked about it as the school of her dreams.
She always had her future clear. Study to get into the Academy of Art, practice to get into the Academy, get into the Academy, graduate from the Academy of Art.
Their future has never been closer and he has no idea what to do.
He pulled the brochures from the bucket of his brown flannel, looking at them with curiosity.
Columbia... expensive. NYU... expensive.
The only college their parents would pay for is Berkeley and that's because they have saved for it all their life. Not any other.
USC? No... he couldn't. He...
Luke looked up from the info of USC towards one of the drawings in Peyton's wall, what it looked like to be a beautiful rose.
Its colors were attracting his eyes towards the drawing. It wasn't a common red rose, it was sparkly, filled with life.
He grabbed the drawing, staring at it for a few seconds before turning around the page.
Some rainy day during October
Peyton Swan
It was funny for him how she couldn't just look at the date on her phone. For some reason, that date made the drawing even better.
He folded it, placing it between the NYU brochure and keeping it on his pockets, just in time for Peyton to walk in holding her books.
"Give more essays to Peyton, they said. It's not like she has other subjects, they said," she complained as she tossed her books onto the bed, exhaling. "Don't worry about it, they said. It's not that much of work, they said."
"You have to deliver an essay?" Questioned Luke and she nodded.
"Essays, to be exact," she corrected. "You have any idea of how Mary Cassatt's works reflected what her era should've been? And how she was also considered a modern artist?"
"No idea. I thought we might... hang out?"
"Yeah, sure, what do you want to do besides helping me finish homework?"
"I don't you, you could help me pick one of these pencils so I can kill myself." Peyton raised his eyebrows. "Sorry... with what do you need help?"
"Modern art, Civil War, maybe... math." Luke chuckled, grabbing one of the folders and looking at it. "Hey, I didn't see you in third period, what were you up to?"
"Well, Alex got possessed by an evil hyena so I had to take care of that." Peyton laughed. "And I had counselor's meeting, which did not help me out in my Vampire Slayer duty."
"I thought it was hyenas," she said and he smiled.
"It's an episode from Buffy The Vampire Slayer." Peyton nodded, now understanding. "So... since when you take History?"
"It's important if I want to study art."
"But you also take Art History. Make it make sense, champ." Peyton chuckled, grabbing her folder and throwing herself onto her bed, him following her.
"Just forget it and tell me what did the counselor say to you."
Luke jumped onto the bed as laid next to her, grabbing her hand and interlocking their fingers with a tiny smile. With his free hand, he pulled the brochures out of his flannel jacket, leaving the drawing on the inside pocket. He gave them to her with a tiny smile.
"Those are the colleges that have sent their applications for me to fill up. The colleges that... want me."
"Luke... there are private schools here." He nodded. "Ivy League Schools. Wait... what's your GPA?"
He exhaled. "4.6," he admitted and she raised her eyebrows.
"Are you... and your SATs scores?"
"I got 768 in Reading and Writing and 782 on Maths." Peyton opened her mouth widely. "It's not that big of a deal."
"You got a national score, Luke. Did you have like an award or something?"
"It's not a national score, that's not a thing. And I only got a good score so I could get into NYU."
"NYU— Luke... NYU is like... the worst of these schools you have here and NYU is a real good school. You could go to Yale. Yale! You know the amount of presidents that went to Yale."
"I don't want to be president."
"Yeah, that doesn't mean you can't. You are in the position to say that you don't want to be president, when you actually can. You are those kind of people that the nation asks them to be president and they say "no thanks" or something like that. Babe, you have the chance to get a great education."
Luke stared at her for a few seconds, a smirk growing on his face. "Babe?"
"I talked about a lot of important things and that's what you recalled?" Luke chuckled before kissing her cheek.
"I don't want to be president. I want to be a musician, and I also want to be your boyfriend," he whispered the last part, kissing her hand with a tiny smile.
"Well, my boyfriend is a freaking genius! Why didn't you tell me?"
He sighed, hugging her waist and looking at her. "There's a lot of things I haven't told you. In fourth grade they asked me if I wanted to skip grades and go to high school."
"And why did you say no?"
"Because I would be a ten year old in high school, then a fourteen year old in college to become what? An engineer? A doctor? Do you see me as a doctor? Hell no, I'd be like Doogie Howser or something. That's not what I want. Besides, I can't afford Yale, or any private school whatsoever. That's not what I want. What I want is to play every stadium in the world. Every each one. That's what I want."
Peyton ran her fingers through Luke's hair with a tiny smile growing on her face.
"If you are happy, then I'm happy," she whispered as he kissed her forehead. "But... you'll be doing my homework from now on, Doogie." Luke chuckled. "Hey so... my dad is coming to town next week..."
Ah well, that should be fun.
POP CULTURE REFERENCES GUIDE
chapter twenty three
"Hey, have you seen the movie The Graduate? Dustin Hoffman? 1967?"
The movie The Graduate (1967) stars Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. Benjamin (Hoffman) has an affair with Mrs. Robinson (Bancroft). Then later he meets her daughter and falls in love with her.
"Have you see Breakfast at Tiffany's? Now that's a weird movie. (...) Holly in that movie really misses like the whole set of screws or something. She's gorgeous though, beautiful woman"
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1961 American romantic comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, a naïve, eccentric café society girl who falls in love with a struggling writer.
"With wanted... you mean like... The Hateful Eight wanted? Like I could get fifteen thousand gold coins for my head?"
The Hateful Eight is a 2015 American revisionist Western thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern as eight strangers who seek refuge from a blizzard in a stagecoach stopover some time after the American Civil War.
"I just want to make music, read Agatha Christie."
Agatha Christie was an English writer known for her sixty-six detective novels and fourteen short story collections
"The fancy woman said I will have my own perfume, you get that, Rooney?"
Rooney is the principal in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off that to prove that Bueller isn't actually sick and is just skipping school. He's the hated character of the movie.
"He never liked computers because, as Mr. Rupert Giles once confessed: "I don't like their smell."
This is a quote from an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer in where watcher Rupert Giles is asked why he prefers books rather than computers and he answered with the quote "I don't like their smell."
"You have any idea of how Mary Cassatt's works reflected what her era should've been?"
Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, but lived much of her adult life in France where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists.
"Well, Alex got possessed by an evil hyena so I had to take care of that."
This is the plot of episode 6, season 1 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, where Buffy, Giles and Willow try to help Xander get back to normal after him and four other kids got possessed by demonic hyenas.
"Hell no, I'd be like Doogie Howser or something."
Doogie Howser, M.D. is an American medical drama that ran from 1989 to 1993, totaling 97 episodes. Created by Steven Bochco and David E. Kelley, the show stars Neil Patrick Harris in the title role as a teenage physician who balances the challenge of practicing medicine with the everyday problems of teenage life.