Amit and Ethan Reconnect at The Whisper Room
Short Fiction
Amit didn’t need anyone to tell him his flow was looking nice. He didn’t need anyone to tell him how naturally his soft but sturdy, tan, designer t-shirt fit his build and complexion. He didn’t need anyone to ask if he’d been working out lately (though he never minded when they did). And he sure as hell didn’t need anyone to compliment the new cross he wore, hanging off its thin but still showy gold chain.
He didn’t need anyone to say it because he knew he looked fresh. He’d spent enough money- nah, scratch that. He’d worked his ass off to earn the right to look good when he went out.
Because, yeah, you already know he was going out. Friday night, end of the work week, what else would he do? Ricky and Theo, the roommates, the homies, the other two thirds of the inner circle, he didn’t even have to ask, they weren’t just down to go out, the three of them were hosting the pregame. A few of the boys were coming up from San Marcos for tonight. And then Jay Garza, the homie from way back, he was coming too, bringing some of his college buddies. Jessica, this girl Amit was talking to, was playing a show in the backyard of the Whisper Room on East 6th, and after the set, Amit’s crew would probably meet up with her and the band. Honestly, come to think of it, they were rolling pretty deep tonight.
Amit lived for shit like this.
Ethan hadn’t really seen anyone since he got back to town. Kind of a weird situation because he’d tried to stay in touch with all of them over the 6 years since he left for college and always said that when he came home he’d love to catch up. But when he was actually back in town, no one ever hit him up. He didn’t blame them or take it personally. They probably just weren’t in the habit of keeping him in the loop. If they had plans, he wasn’t high on the list of people to inform.
Although, they did know he was back. He’d told pretty much everyone that he’d be around for like a month: Masha, Lexi, John E, Travis. If anyone was in charge of organizing social outings, it was definitely one of those four.
Maybe they assumed he had other plans? He most certainly did not have other plans.
It was a Friday night, which made him feel like kind of a loser. If he didn’t hang out with Masha and them, the closest thing to a plan he’d have for tonight would be watching The Voice with his parents, which could, in theory, be fun, if he didn’t hate The Voice and if his parents were interested in having conversations rather than scrolling twitter during the commercials.
Chances were, his friends would be going out. That wasn’t really his scene (not that he really had a “scene” at all); maybe that’s why they weren’t inviting him. Because they didn’t think he’d have fun? But as long as it was somewhere chill like East 6th or up North where the bars were low-stress and you could actually have a conversation, he would at least appreciate an invite. If they were going to a club or something, then yeah, he could see why they wouldn’t invite him. As far as he knew, they didn’t go to clubs, though.
Probably wherever they were going, he’d get along fine. They knew that. And, still, no one had texted him.
So yeah, maybe he did take it a little personally.
Amit was already six lonestars in by the end of the pregame at 9:30. Man, it was nice to see old Garza. Dude was just solid, as always. He didn’t take up too much space, but he got along well with the new homies. His TCU guys fit right in with Amit’s Texas State boys. The girls he’d brought were kind of boring, but at least there were some girls around.
Hanging out with Garza, it didn’t feel weird like it did to hang out with other people from high school. Both of them had changed enough that they didn’t have to revert to the way they acted when they were like 17, 18 years old. Even when they reminisced on the fuckshit they used to get up to riding the varsity soccer bench, they were able to look back at themselves from the perspective of men, with all the maturity and self-confidence that came with being men. Damn, they were little losers back then. If Amit had the confidence he had now back when he was a senior, even if he was still just as skinny and uncoordinated as he used to be, he would have led the district in goals. Just based on pure confidence. No doubt.
If there was anything more pathetic than having nothing better to do than watch The Voice with your parents on a friday night, it was sending out a group text to 5 people you knew for a fact were hanging out without you, saying, “Y’all doing anything tonight?”
Out of pity, or because it would have looked suspicious for all of them to blatantly ignore his text, they told Ethan they were going to East and that, in the words of Lexi, “it would be so fun if you came!!!”
So now, not only did he have the option to go out, it was expected of him. It would be weird to invite himself and then bail, right? Or was that actually what they were hoping he’d do? Was that the unspoken best option? Part of him said everyone would feel just a little more comfortable if he didn’t go, including himself. Why was he trying to go out in the first place? Loneliness? Fear of being judged for being a loner? Even more pathetic.
Amit brought two roadies in his pocket for the walk. That was the benefit of living East. You could get to East 6th without having to pay for an Uber or walk under any sketchy highway overpasses filled with homeless people or anything.
The squad was in peak form tonight, even though it was actually just a hodgepodge of unconnected people. Amit was the link, though. He had that power these days. He was someone who brought people together.
This Latina girl, Susie, who went to TCU with Jay Garza, was talking to him on the walk over. Amit had a vague sense that she was being flirty, but most of his attention was on Ricky and Theo who already had their shirts off and were chasing each other through people’s yards, spilling beer in flowerbeds. Fucking menaces.
He noticed Garza trying to insert himself between him and the TCU girl.
“Damn, look at me,” Amit thought, “Making the homie jealous without even trying. I really am a king out here.”
It took about 25 minutes, at trafficless 10pm, to get from Ethan’s parents’ house up in Cedar Park all the way down to East 6th. Long enough for Ethan to get off the highway and think about turning around and going home 3 different times on the way down. Each time, he forced himself to get back on the road by reminding himself that, even if it was excruciating and conversation came thickly in globs, at least he would have put himself out there. He gave himself permission to leave after 2 drinks, 2 trips to the restroom, and 3 attempts at conversation starters. If, after all that, nothing had caught, everyone would feel all the more comfortable in his absence. And he would have another reminder of why people didn’t include him in their Friday night plans.
After some deliberation, he had chosen to wear a stiff, brown t-shirt he’d found at goodwill and his adidas shorts with holes in them that went down past his knees. In retrospect it probably wasn’t the top choice of outfits. He thought about turning around again and changing but didn’t want to confess to his parents that that’s why he’d returned. Plus, if he returned to his closet, he might run into the same logic that had landed him in this dumpy outfit in the first place: if he dressed up to go out and then couldn’t behave like a normal goddamn human being for more than 15 minutes at a bar, it would look like he was trying to be someone he wasn’t and his compounding patheticness would be all the more evident to everyone.
The backyard patio at the Whisper Room was kinda popping off by the time Jessica’s band came onstage. It was the type of vibe where one group could be standing around chatting about work and another right next to them could be straight up moshing and neither would be thrown off by the other’s behavior. A true come-as-you-are crowd, but with good energy. Amit was into it. In fact, he was downright fucked up by now and didn’t even care what anyone else was doing. He was gonna do his thing regardless.
That girl from the walk over was trying to dance with him. Why the hell not?
The San Marcos boys had opened a tab with his card. Fuck it. He didn’t work his ass off all week for that money to rot away in his checking account.
“Put that shit on me,” he thought. “All night long.”
Ethan found a parking spot. He sent a text to the group: “Where you guys at?”
Where you guys at? What? Did he talk like that? No one talked like that. He was acting like an undercover dad pretending to be 24. Atrocious.
“Whisper room, come thru.”
Fine.
The Whisper Room, when he made it there, was packed. Luckily, they had no tacky theme, just pool tables, seating, a nice backyard with string-lights and a dancefloor. Ethan had been there before and had a decent enough time. If there was any bar in Austin where he could be at least a little comfortable, it was probably here.
Not recognizing anyone he knew inside, he went through to the back. A band was performing, but no one in the crowd really knew how to react to the show. Some people looked like they thought they were on PCP, others didn’t seem to realize anyone was playing music at all. From where he stood behind and above the crowd, he noticed that the guitar player seemed pretty pissed about it.
Someone accosted Amit right as he was really getting into it on the dancefloor.
“Bro bro bro!” It was Jay Garza. Each “bro” was more urgent than the one before.
Amit thought, “Damn, if this dude really doesn’t want me dancing with his girl or whatever, he should talk to her, not me.” He shrugged the arm off his shoulder like he would a sorry-ass defender in the open field and continued his press.
Garza kept with it, though, “Yo, you’ll never believe who’s here.”
“What?”
Susie had had about enough of these two being all over her all night and took this as her chance to slip away.
Amit got confused, felt the spins for a second, noticed Garza still standing there and said, “What are you saying?”
“You’ll never believe who’s here.”
“Who?”
“Ethan Deuterman.”
“The fuck do you mean? I thought he died or something.”
“Nah, I think he moved to California.”
“Same shit.”
After obligatory hugs and “Oh my gosh Ethan you look so good!”s, Masha said, “Do you know this band?”
Ethan said, “No, but they’re pretty good.”
“They kinda sound like your stuff,” said Ravel, Masha’s boyfriend from New York who Ethan had met once or twice.
“Yeah…” Ethan said, wondering how this guy had heard his music. “Same genre, I guess.”
“The guitarist is giving me the creeps,” Lexi said.
Ethan might have blushed, shuffled his feet a little, but this was enough.
“Oh my gosh, you like her!” said Masha.
“I’ve never even talked to her,” Ethan mumbled. John E., Travis, and Koji stood around sipping their Dos Equises. None of them came to Ethan’s rescue.
Ethan had nothing to say. He felt around in his pockets, found a pen, clicked it one-twice, open-closed, real fast.
Then he was being pulled backwards by the eye sockets.
The sweat from the hands that blinded him penetrated all lines of defense (brows, lashes, lids), and caused a stinging sensation which felt like it might end up reaching all the way to his brain. He tried to back up but the hands stayed firm. He had to stumble backwards not to end up on the ground.
Somehow he’d turned his back to the crowd, something he made a habit of never doing. This was exactly why: random, nonconsensual kidnappings.
But all the guys were cackling. The girls were gasping and someone behind him screamed, “Guess who motherfucker!”
John Cena? The cops? Death himself? Ethan had no idea.
Apparently he’d been squirming or excessively fluttering his eyelids under those hands because his captor let him free after some light, awkward grappling. He turned around for the big reveal and found himself looking at someone he recognized just enough to know he went to high school with him. Maybe just middle school.
“Amit!” Lexi and Masha were shouting, drawing out the second vowel sound and throwing themselves into his arms. Damn. Amit Prasadh? It’d been a while. In fact, Ethan probably hadn’t seen him since high school. Even then, they hadn’t known each other well enough to warrant the old “Guess Who” treatment. It would have taken hundreds of guesses before Ethan landed on Amit.
Meanwhile, Jay Garza was going around the circle, dapping up all the Dos Equis boys.
“Wow! What is this? The Cedarwood six year reunion?” Amit joked, loudly.
Ethan remembered Amit as kind of peripheral to the soccer douchebag friend group. He wasn’t in their inner circle, which either meant he knew enough to keep some distance or that he wanted to be one of them but wasn’t good enough at mimicking their behavior. It looked to Ethan like he’d had some practice over the last few years.
“Ethan, you still got flow for days, bro,” Amit said and was bold enough to reach out and run a hand through his hair.
Ethan couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Either way, it felt like a common response would be to compliment him in return. He looked the guy over but really couldn’t think of anything that stood out. What he landed on was, “Oh. Nice necklace. You real christian now or something?”
Amit could feel himself sobering up after just 3 minutes with these people. Ethan Deuterman. What a prick. Dude always thought he was such a big shot in highschool. Made fun of everyone else and didn’t even try to be slick about it. Huge cockblock too. Hung out with every girl in the grade just to talk shit about guys like Jay and Amit. He couldn’t think of one reason Ethan was here.
“You move back home?” Amit asked.
“Not really,” Ethan said.
“Just visiting?”
“Kind of.”
“How’d you get off work?”
“It isn’t hard if you don’t work in the first place.”
Amit thought this over and got confused. Clearly Ethan was mocking him in some way. How did this dude have power over him? This was Amit’s world. Ethan was the visitor.
Everyone was watching the two of them: the girls, who understood everything, Ethan’s friends, who seemed entertained, Jay Garza, who wanted another round of drinks.
Amit couldn’t let the conversation end without figuring out what the joke was.
“You still in California?”
“Well. No. Right now I’m here.”
Amit was baffled. Was this guy really so immature he couldn’t even give a straight answer about where he lived?
He said, “Yeah, good one, man.”
Ethan shrugged.
Amit looked around the circle for someone else who wasn’t amused by cheap snarkiness. He was pissed. Like, did Ethan think he wanted to be standing around, trying to make small talk with a brick wall? He had way better shit to do. At least two girls in this bar were probably wondering where he was. And those were just the ones he knew about. Probably a ton of girls had seen him and wondered what was up. The least Ethan could do was--
Amit saw Jessica standing between Masha and Lexi.
Evidently she’d been there for a second. The girls were all hugging her (how’d Jessica know girls from Cedarwood?) and the dudes were kissing her ass with “I loved your show” and shit like that when clearly they knew nothing about music.
She didn’t even look at Amit. What was up with that? Didn’t she remember matching with him and sending him her spotify? He’d checked out her top song. Wasn’t really his type of stuff, but if it was good enough to get her booked at the Whisper Room it was good enough for him.
In his mind, after she got off stage, she was supposed to come up to him with this huge smile and say, “What’d you think?” He’d be all sly and complementary and from there, who knows?
Instead, she’d caught him at the one moment when he’d lost control of the vibe. All night, the ball had been in his court. Until now. Until he ran into fucking Ethan Deuterman.
“Hey, Jess,” he said.
She looked at him sideways with her cheeks scrunched up a little. “I go by Jessica,” she said.
Ethan kept quiet and sucked his lip into the gap in his lower-right teeth. Rav and John E. kept giving him looks like, “Yooooo.” He tried not to make eye contact with them and hoped, if Jessica or anyone else saw it, they’d think the looks were intended for someone behind him. He made tiny but firm micro-shakes of his head to discourage any off-color comments.
She was even more casual up close. Masha somehow knew her, even after making disparaging remarks when she was on stage. The two of them talked as if they had all sorts of important stuff to catch up about. Masha gestured towards Lexi and said something to Jessica as if there was some fascinating coincidence going on. Jessica raised her eyebrows and nodded, looking amused. Ethan didn’t hear the specifics.
He was too busy working up courage. He tried to look back, from the future, at his own performance tonight. If he kept nodding and standing there stupidly, he would certainly regret it. Why did it feel so intimidating to say something? He wanted to look coolly uninterested, which precluded starting conversations. But for that to work, other people had to show interest in him. As far as the girls were concerned, he didn’t exist at all.
Boldly, Ethan stepped past all the dudes standing around, remnants of the pre-Jessica conversation. He looked at Jessica and said, “What type of guitar was that?”
Masha stopped talking. Apparently she had been talking. Jessica flinched a little out of surprise but politely turned to Ethan and said, “Ummm… Electric.”
Ethan laughed, a little too loud, and said, “I know that, but, I mean, like, what type?”
Jessica regarded him sideways, increasingly sourly. “Oh. It’s a Fender,” she said and turned back to Masha. Masha took a deep breath and then went back to whatever she’d been saying.
Amit couldn’t imagine what the hell Jessica was possibly discussing with Ethan Deuterman. Travis or Koji or one of those guys was trying to say something to him, but he was locked in on Ethan. He brushed past that noise and stepped into the new little inner circle.
“How do you know this guy?” he asked, wrapping an amicable arm around Ethan’s upper back.
While Jessica tried to formulate an answer, Masha swiveled quick to the two boys, who were standing there, the same height, wearing differently priced versions of the same outfit, both trying to smile but having difficulty. She interrupted her own sentence to say, “Are you two seriously kidding me?”
It was a tough one for either of them to answer. They didn’t think they were kidding anyone. They both sort of looked down and then around. But neither had anything to say for himself.
Masha bulged her eyes and inhaled again, in place of directing another comment at Amit and Ethan. Instead, she spoke to Lexi and Jessica. “You guys wanna get another drink inside?” The three of them stepped away.
Behind Amit and Ethan, blocked off from the botched conversation as they’d been, Jay Garza, Travis, John E, Koji, and Rav left to go find a pool table. Another band started playing, with a mellower sound. Amit’s buddies like Ricky and Theo were up to lord knows what heinous shenanigans by now. At home, Ethan’s parents were feeling uninspired by the contestants’ performances and wondered if they should switch over to the Amazing Race instead. Around the Whisper Room, people were laughing and dancing and catching up with old friends. Some decided it was pretty much time to leave. Some were already wishing they hadn’t drank so much. Standing alone in a strange parallel side-hug, Amit and Ethan felt sorry for themselves and a little pissed at everyone else.