4. I Should Be Allowed to Think

John Sid's getting a strange feeling about all this.

 

John Linnell rode the subway back to Brooklyn with the answering machine sitting, breathing hate into his lap. The hand below his broken wrist fingered the grill, the exposed part of his thumb covering the call back button. The other hand gripped his departure ticket tightly as he stared out his window. The light shifted in garish blips, making it hard for John Sid to concentrate on dwelling inside himself.

            It was hard to think that there was daylight above him when he had been stuck in a swarming terminal for an hour. Now he was stuck in a subway car with three faceless others, their countenance lit only by a single fluorescent bulb. He was thinking of night again. And that he hadn’t had a single cup of coffee all day.

            Using the soft pads of his free thumb and forefinger, he pushed his eyeballs into his head, watching, and being entertained by the pink and orange fireworks that he took pleasure in knowing that he could only see. A dark cloud parked in front of him.

            “Hey, man, you gotta cigarette?”

            John Sid’s eyes flew open to a ragged hippy’s inches from his own. The man was feverishly searching his own pockets and his eyes had a glassy, importunate look to them.

            Linnell shook his head and looked down, clutching Flansburgh’s answering machine to him tighter.

            “Y-You’re sure, man?”

            John chanced another look at the man and saw hostility dawning there.

            “Sorry, man,” he stammered. “I don’t.”

            “Friggin’ f*g…” And the man walked to his end of the subway car.

            John Sid slid back further into his seat. The air was stifling with the man who had just condemned him ten feet away. He’d never get used to New York City. The punk atmosphere had dried up and only the moroseness of the period remained. Yes. Massachusetts and Rhode Island were so much more conclusive.

            With a jolt of atmosphere and the thick accent of God barking to “get off,” John Linnell rose cautiously from his seat, pretending to reorganize the order of things in his hands. Once the unwanted man staggered out the sliding doors, John stepped off into the terminal with his wallet, key ring, stylophone, and answering machine back in their appropriate places.

            John Linnell stepped through the pneumatic doors. Something hit him in the chest and he was pulled roughly off the car. His elbow withdrew at once and shot back out at the blurred face in front of him.

            “F*****g-A, Linnell!”

            John Sid relaxed his squinting eyes and found his friend, John Flansburgh standing in front of him, rubbing the bridge of his small, rounded nose.

            “Huh? What’re you doing here?”

            “I work here,” Flansburgh said, displaying the way-station dramatically. “Better be glad that I don’t wear glasses, Sid, GOD! What the hell was that for?”

            “Er, sorry, I thought some crazy b*****d wanted to hit me.”

            “Oh, dandy,” John Flansburgh said, throwing up his hands and walking away. “Let’s go, I’ve been waiting for you forever.”

            Linnell exhaled. Out the corner of his eye he saw groups of people observing him curiously. He moved on, trying his damnedest not to notice.

 

“Hey, can I see it?”

            John Flansburgh and John Sid Linnell pushed past commuters, erupting out into the brilliant, gold light of another fine New York autumn day. Spots of green and yellow and intense red peppered the trees lining the sidewalk, showering the more pleasant side of Brooklyn. John Linnell shuddered from it. It looked too planned.

            John Sid passed Flansburgh the answering machine and they headed to the closest vacant bench. John Flansburgh tapped the orange price tag.

            “Two dollars, huh? Not bad,” he grinned. “You don’t have to get me that guitar now.”

            “No, I’m still going to get you that,” Linnell smiled tensely. “I owe you big time, I think.”

            “Don’t think too much ‘bout it.”

            “What are you planning on doing with the answering machine, John? Are you really going to follow through with that song service idea?”
            “Sure, why not?”

            “’Cause we could be doing something else,” Linnell said, bluntly. “Like, something useful. We could be writing songs instead of messing around with some damn dial-a-song idea.”

            “Oooh, good one, Linnell!”

            “What?”

            “Dial-A-Song. I like.”

            “Oh come on,” Linnell snorted. “Are you serious? That sounds something like sex-phone or sports-phone.”

            “Oh, trust me on this!” Flansburgh laughed.

            “Fine, Flansy. It’s your project.” John Sid made to get up, but Flansy grabbed his denim sleeve. Linnell was a little surprised at the initial contact. He wondered if Flansburgh had noticed how his eyes had walked from Flansy’s large hands all the way to his face, lingering on his windblown cheek. It was a weird thing to think, John Sid realized, but he couldn’t shake it off. He dragged his foot through a particular carpet of pale yellow leaves. Flans let go of his arm, but he still felt the pressure. He did not feel comfortable sitting next to him again. Instead, he concentrated on a woman talking to her friend on the corner, but Flansburgh prattled on.

            “We can still write songs. This could be, like, a way to reach out to a broader audience. Instead of saying ‘hey, this is us, leave a message’” Flansburgh inhaled sharply. “‘What if we just sing a song instead? Something in the works, like, like—we can totally get feedback that way! People would just tell us what they think after the song’s through! How do you not see that this is a good idea?”

            Flansburgh paused, as if having a revelation. He then raised an eyebrow, and snickered.

            “What, are you jealous, Linnell?”

            Linnell threw up his hands, his cast nearly whacking him in the head; but not that he would’ve cared. It all seemed so logical in his head, but when Flansburgh derided him like that, like always he felt silly and amateurish. Not that he should care. He should be allowed to think whatever he wanted. Hell, if Flansy wanted to waste valuable time and effort on an answering machine, so effing be it.

            “Whatever, Flansy,” he said, as he began to walk down Fifth Avenue again. “Are you coming back to the apartment or not? Or would you rather go out for another spontaneous shopping spree? For an old, beat-up Slurpee machine or something?”

            “Good idea,” Flans sighed, getting up. “Really, Linnell, I think you’ll like this. I had you in mind when I thought of it.”

            “Oh,” Linnell stared grippingly at his shoelaces. They were bouncing again in the downdraft.

            Flansburgh handed the answering machine back to him.

            “And I do appreciate you getting this for me. Work was swamped this morning,” Flans sighed. “If we don’t make it, John, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t count people getting on the G Line to Queens for a living anymore. I just can’t take that.”