What We Stay Alive For

Chapter Sixteen: Poetics Mean Nothing When Written Over in Ink

19 November, 1959. Continued.

A part of Todd feels guilty that he does not immediately remember that Charlie Dalton can play the saxophone. His music fills the sooty air of the cave, made that way by the pipes each of the boys breathe in and out of. At first, it's a plethora of nothing, a blurb of sound with no discernable melody. The only thing that Charlie gets out of his non-tune is Gerard upset with him; the match he lit gets extinguished when Charlie blows the instrument in his face. He also gets asked to prove if he can play well at all.

'Poetrusic,' that's the word Charlie uses, playing a short slurry of notes that slide into a poem that forms Charlie's truth.

Gotta do more, gotta be more.

In that cave, under Neil's arm, Todd convinces himself that he hadn't forgotten Charlie could play. He only needed to be reminded. Besides, the first time around Charlie stops playing maybe three years after graduation. When that happened, when Todd noticed that his case was packed up in the back of his closet, he asked about it. Charlie answered that he always hated the instrument. Todd told him then that it was the clarinet he always hated. To that, Charlie said that they were practically the same thing, clarinets and saxophones.

They absolutely were not. But with how proud Charlie looks of his skills now, playing for his friends for the first time, Todd hopes that he sticks with it when all this is said and done.

"I love the clarinet," says a smiling Cameron when Charlie finishes his performance.

"I hated it." Charlie says. Cameron's smile falls as fast as it had come. "The saxophone...the saxophone is more...sonorous."

Todd can agree with that. He's about to say so when Knox jumps to his feet, overcome by a feeling he's been stewing in. He's had plenty of time to do this, as he's been in a slump ever since Neil and Todd had joined the group for that evening's meeting. It's a big feeling, one big enough that he tells his friends that if he can't have Chris, he'll kill himself.

Now, Todd can't fully agree with that. Maybe it's hypocritical or thought up purely due to experience. After all, Todd had run out of Keating's class when he realized how in love he was. That was a dramatic thing and certainly a counterpart of what Knox is experiencing now. But perhaps that's the before and afterthoughts.

So, when Knox runs out of the cave, back to Welton, shouting that he has to call Chris, Todd tries his best not to trip following. And when he calls her, Todd stays quiet. He doesn't want to take a chance on advice he cannot fully consider. That's also why he does not speak up when Knox tells them Chris has invited him to a party occurring the next night at Chet's house. Some things, Todd decides, do not need second chances.

The only second that happens in this enclosed space is when Knox hangs up the phone and shouts 'YAWP!' He's the first one to use the word after Todd, which makes that hypocritical feeling return a lot more familiar than neighborly. That barbaric yawp is more proof that he is here, that Knox is here. It's a declaration of a discovery, shouted only when on the perimeters of winnings. Yeah. Todd thinks that's it.

That's exactly it. And even though Todd keeps quiet, he does nod his head noticeably more than the others when Knox tells them that it's going to happen, him and Chris. Even when this was the first time he had heard this, Todd believes he agreed then, too. Because, really, he had seen crazier things. He's seen crazier things. He saw Knox get Chris the first time and Neil get him the second.

And even though Charlie seems far from believing in Knox now, Todd also thinks that he'll believe in him, in time. He'll believe in Knox because Charlie's got his own growing yawp inside of him. When they all part their ways into their rooms for the night, Charlie has his hand on the small of Cameron's back. Cameron doesn't say anything about it, which would mean that he isn't upset by this. By Charlie touching him.