casual . calum hood

one

I'll start from the beginning. Not the way beginning: In November of 1995 when my parents, sixteen years old at the time, had a memorable night after a rock concert, and ten months later I popped out. We'll start at the sort of beginning: The year 2003, when my mom decided that she no longer wanted to raise the twins and me backstage at my dad's concerts and moved in with a nice accountant in New South Wales.

"Dylan, you'll have your own room," I remember my mom telling me, glancing in the rearview mirror at me squished between the boys' car seats. "No more sharing with the boys. And there's a basement, too! And you'll start Second Grade in January..."

I stopped listening to her then. I missed my dad and I missed Melbourne and I missed the beach. I barely even knew the man in the driver's seat. At seven, I didn't know as much as I thought I did, but I knew my parents never really were like other parents. They were never married and they never lived together, but they were always around. Both of them. Now all I knew was that I'd have to take a plane twice a year to see my dad.

"Dylan? Are you even listening to me," my mom said as she turned around in her seat to face me. Ziggy babbled when he saw her face, clearly more interested in a conversation than I was.

"No," I told her. She scowled at me, a tiny wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. She would hate it if I told her that.

We pulled down the street of a neighborhood where all the houses looked the same. It was November, and warming up quickly, so the sidewalks and front lawns were littered with kids and teenagers. My stepdad almost ran over a group of teenagers on bikes before pulling into a driveway.

I stared out the window, taking it all in. At the house directly next to mine stood a boy who looked about my age. He was staring unabashedly at my car, clearly curious about who his new neighbors were.

I waited for my mom to free Ziggy from the cruel but safe confines of his car seat as my stepdad released Jagger from his before I could climb out of the car. When I did, I just stood on the black pavement and looked around at my surroundings. Trees, houses, cars, grass, birds. It looked the same as my neighborhood in Melbourne.

"Hey," shouted a voice to my left. I turned my head to see the boy next door. He was wearing a yellow jersey of some sort and blue-jeans with muddy knees. 

"Hi," I called out in response. At seven, I wasn't yet self-conscious around boys or strangers. I didn't think twice about the fact that my hair was messy from sleeping through most of our long drive or if he would the gap in my front teeth when I talked. 

"Are you moving in?" the boy asked, walking toward me holding his soccer ball.

I nodded, but I didn't move. "Yeah. I'm not happy about it though. I used to live in Melbourne, by the beach."

The little boy seemed to consider this. "We have beaches here."

"You do?"

The boy nodded. "Yeah. My mom takes me and my sister all the time."

"Oh," I replied. I didn't really have many reasons to dislike my new home besides the lack of beach, so I didn't have a comeback for that.

"I'm Calum."

"I'm Dylan."

Calum made a confused face in response to my name. "You have a boy name?"

I glared at this, having heard it many times before. This I had a comeback for. "I'm named after Bob Dylan. My dad's in a band, so my parents are really into music," I told him matter-of-factly. "It's true. My brothers' names are Ziggy and Jagger, which I feel terrible about for their future, but my parents don't always make the best choices."

Calum nodded and said, "Your dad is in a band? That guy?"

He pointed behind me and I turned around. Together, we watched my stepdad struggling to carry in our suitcases. He always wore dress pants and a dress shirt and had glasses with tiny wireframes. And I think he started balding at birth.

I laughed when I considered him from Calum's perspective. "No," I grinned. "That's Frank, my stepdad. My real dad is much cooler. He plays bass guitar."

Calum's eyes lit up at this information. "No way! I'm going to play in a band one day. My mom said she'd get me a guitar when I turn 10."

"I have a bass guitar," I boasted.

"No way."

"Yeah. It's still coming on the moving truck though," I shrugged. "You can play it when it comes."

"Okay! Just knock on my door, okay?" Calum grinned ear-to-ear. "Except not on Tuesday because it's my sister's birthday."