I approached the door causally as to not let him know that I was out there. I pressed my ear upon the woodwork of the door ad listened trying to identify the song that was flooding into my head.
The music sang out at me at a surpassingly upbeat tempo for the subject that the group was singing about. I have only heard this song once before, but I remember it being really cool. I have to know who it is.
I hesitated, but then knocked quietly on the door.
Nobody answered so I knocked a little harder. All I could hear after that was an "AHHHHHHHH!", and a loud THUD. The music turned off, the door opened, and then Zac appeared from behind the door.
"Are you alright man?" I asked him.
He smiled at me.
"Yeah, just perfect, me okay. Dur ...um...I mean I'm okay. Yeah, I'm okay."
"Alright then."
I sorta froze. I mean like, I was all cool and everything until he opened the door. Then I froze. I couldn't find anything to say.
We both kinda stood there starring at each other for a while.
"Um... music?" I said. I really don't know why I said it in sentence fragment form, but I did.
"Is good?" He replied obviously trying to make sense of what I just said.
"No, what were you listening to?" I asked him.
"Oh, Good Charlotte. Do you like them?"
"I only heard that one song on the radio before, and thought it was cool."
"Oh. Well, they are a good band anyway."
"Yeah.."
"So do you want to come in?"
"I guess, if you wouldn't mind. It's a lot better than sitting downstairs."
He let me into his bedroom. I just stood there waiting to be instructed as of what to do.
"You can it over there." He said pointing to a race car bed in the corner. You know, one that a five year old would sleep in.
"Is that your bed?" I asked him.
"Yeah, it is." he said. I could see the slightest blush come into his cheeks, and I felt bad for him. I walked over to it and sat down. My hand came down on something hard.
It was a book. A really big book at that. I picked it up and ran my finger along the cover while reading it.
"Moby Dick. Is this for school?" I asked.
"No, I don't go to school. I read on my own for fun."
"Are you a dropout?"
"No, I'm home schooled. I'm on the road with my band a lot, and that means I can't go to school."
"You have a band? Are you any good?"
This was a very rare and wonderful thing for me. There is barely a teenage girl alive who doesn't know who Hanson is. Everywhere I go I get mobbed, and I hate it!
"We're pretty good. My brothers and I are in it."
"Oh, that's pretty cool. I hope you guys get your big break someday!"
Does this seem a little weird to you to? I mean, this girl that hates me and has been really mean to me all day is all of a sudden all buddy buddy to me. She must have been really bored, but I'm sure glad she came up to my room, cause I was bored too.
"So do you want to listen to some music?" I asked her to keep her happy and in my room.
"Okay, what do you got?"
I handed her my rack with every CD I own in it. She calmly flipped through and studied the case of each one. Then she came to a copy of Middle Of Nowhere....
I looked through Zac's CD collection, and saw many things that appealed to me. Some Aerosmith, Blink182, some Zeppelin stuff, Sum 41, MxPx, and such. I recognized everything until I came to a yellow CD. It had three funny looking girls on the cover and sorta looked like an indie picture, faded out in yellow. Hanson, it read big on it.
"Hey." I said holding up the CD to him. "Isn't that your last name?"
He nodded. I studied the picture more closely. The little girl in the right of the picture who could be no more than nine, sorta resembled Avery. The two others in a weird way resembled Ike and Tay. Strange I thought. It's ironic how Zac mentioned that he was in a band with his brothers, and how he has a CD with people who look like his family on the cover. Funny isn't it. HOLY CRAP!
The realization hit me like a ton of bricks falling on my head. This is his band! Zac is a Hanson! As in MMMBop Hanson.
"Oh my gosh man, that's you! Holy crap! Why didn't you tell me? AHHHHHHHHH!"
"AHHHHHHHH, calm down! Don't attack me! I'm too young to die!!!" He said while backing up.
"Dude, relax. I'm not gonna do anything to you. I'm just pissed at myself for not realizing this earlier that's all. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Well, it's nothing that I like to tell people if they don't already know. I don't like it when girls go spastic and try to grab at me and crap like that. It's nothing personal, I just kinda like it better that way."
"I'm not gonna try to grab at you so just calm down. Here, sit down next to me. We can have a nice civilized talk."
He cautiously sat down on his bed next to me.
"Now Zac, what were you and your brothers thinking when you wrote that annoying song of yours?!?" I asked. He looked suprised.
"So I'm not the only one who thinks it's annoying huh? Man, I am so sick of playing it. I'm so sick of being in the limelight! I'm just sick of the band man!" he said while falling backwards on his bed in frustration.
"That must really suck huh? You like can't go anywhere without being attacked can you? Your fans are possessive."
"Ugh tell me about it! I hate the fans! Well, I'm not saying that I don't appreciate them, it's just that they don't appreciate us. They are so disrespectful. It's like most of them claim that they like the music and that it has great meaning to them, but we all know it really doesn't. They just fantizie about what Tay wears to bed, or about what shampoo Ike uses. Sometimes I think that we should have never been a pop band at all. It would have been a lot more benififal to us if we were just a rock band like it was planned out to be."
"Huh? Explain." It is a very rare experience to have one of the biggest pop stars in America sit down and tell you about how much he hates his life. It's actually quite disturbing to me, because these are the people who are supposed to have the perfect lives, and who we are supposed to model our lives after. They are our monarchy.
"Well, my brothers and I have been listening to rock music all of our lives. We never liked pop, so naturally we didn't like to play pop. We started out with rock songs but the record company made us soften them up so they would sell. Well, of course they were right, but we hated the music at the time. Now my two traitor brothers like writing and performing pop music so that's what we do."
I looked at him for a second. He seemed to be very unhappy about the whole pop thing, and I don't blame him. Pop music is a poison that they feed the unsuspecting teenagers to get them to follow the trends that the media puts out. They make the music catchy enough so you have no choice but to like it. Then of course the singer happens to be absolutely gorgeous, so you want to be exactly like them. They show you pictures of them with all these "cool" clothes and accessories, and you automatically want them.
I was starting to like Zac a little more than I did before. Well, how could you not like someone who doesn't like pop? He is also really nice, and sweet, and... cute. Okay, I'm admitting it. I wasn't to nice to him, because I had a little bit of a crush on him. Who couldn't fall for those big brown puppy dog eyes, and that cute little smirk that makes you think that he always has a secret? You would have to be inhuman not to like those traits. It's a given that any girl would fall for him, and he knows it to.
"I think that you guys would have made an awesome rock band, although I really couldn't picture MMMbop being in the least way rock."
He sat up and snicked a little bit. "Believe it or not I had my fanites about that very subject." he said while giving me another little smirk.
"Oh no, what are you gonna do?" I asked him.
He opened his closet and started wildly flinging things over hs head. I ended up with a pair of his boxers on my shoulder. He finally stopped rummaging and turned around clutching a cassette tape.
"Opps, sorry about that."he said, blushing while he removed the boxers from my shoulder. "They must like you or something. Oh um yeah, here's what I was looking for." he said while handing the tape to me.
"My Demented Little Fantacy" I read out loud. "What is it?"
"You'll see."
I handed the tape back to him, and he put it in his stereo and hit play. We listened to dead air for a few seconds until a voice came on.
It was his voice and it said "This is not meant for anyone to hear because it's not right, so if your hearing this, you either bribed me, gagged me, or I'm dead. Now, we shall proceed."
After that message played a faint music flooded my ears. It had an amazing guitar opening and a heavy bass line. It sounded awesome. It was grungey, yet also had a light air about it. Then the lyrics came. It was MMMBop!
I played it for Taylor one time and he gave me a sarcastic look and laughed at me. I put a lot of hard work into getting it just right too. I was stupid to trust Taylor anyway, because he acts like a real asshole to me lot of the time. At home is is pretty nice and treats me like a friend, an equal, but in public, he acts like I'm just his pesky little brother that always gets in the way. Ike said that he just does that so his friends think he's cool, but he doesn't know how much it hurts me. That's why I like Isaac. We have always been friends, and he treats me like we are both the same age, instead of five years apart like we really are. He's my true brother.
"This is really good man, how did you do it?" she asked me with the same happy look from before.
"Well, from playing for about ten years in total, I got to know what it sounds like on each instrument. I used a computer program and played each instrument in separately, but distorted the guitar to a much low key, and replaced the keyboard with bass. It was all too easy." I explained rather proudly.
I actually was very proud of the thing for the matter that I was a Hanson, and I now know that I am fully capable of making a grunge song by myself, as opposed to a pop song.
The song stopped, and I sat down next to her. The very thought of the two of us sitting on my bed gave me that tingly feeling again. I was really starting to like her.
He actually did make MMMbop sound really good. I was in a weird way proud of him.
All of a sudden I started getting that feeling that I wanted to hug him again. This was my chance. We were alone in his bedroom, and were on a level of trust between each other. I decided to take that chance.
I moved over a little closer to him when he wasn't quite paying attention, lifted my arm up, and just about had to around his waist when a very loud knock on the door startled me, and I fell backwards. Luckily he didn't see me try to get close to him. He gave me the little smirk that he always wears.
"Yes?" he said. The door opened, and in came Mrs. Hanson, her long hair trailing close behind her like a faithful little watchdog.
"Oh there you two are, we didn't know where you went. Um, Quaker your grandmother wanted you, I think she wants to go home now." she said
"Thank you." I said while standing up and moving towards the door. Just as I was in the door frame I paused and turned towards Zac. "Hope to see ya soon. Peace man."
He smiled at me, and I left.
I walked into my bedroom and shut the door. Only eleven o'clock and I was exhausted.
I walked over to my dresser, pulled out my pajamas and put them on. Before I climbed into bed I turned my light out and stood in front of the window, starring at the Hanson's house. There were still various lights on throughout the house, but one in particular caught me eye. I studied it and could make out a figure that had the makings of Zac. The figure paced around a little bit, tinkering with stuff on shelves. Then a slightly taller figure came in. That must be Taylor. The two stood facing each other for a bit, talking I guess, then the taller figure punched the smaller one on the shoulder, and disappeared into the depths of the bedroom. The smaller one stood in the same place for a while, and then the light went off ending my show.
I walked away from the window and climbed into bed, where I lay thinking about Zac for a while. He was definatly a great person, and I was wrong to judge him. He seemed so depressed, I wish I could help him. If only there was a way....but wait! There could be a way to help him, and I know what it is!