[story picture]
By Kellyanne Lynch
26 June 2001, 5:38 PM
- 27 June 2001, 3:51 AM
Disclaimmer: This story is fiction, meaning it
never really happened, though I wish it had. I have no connection with the Red
Hot Chili Peppers. Again, I wish! This fanfic is for entertainment purposes. At
least I’M amused. Characters who are not the Chili Peppers are me and my
relatives. We all belong to ourselves, thank you very much.
Summary: The
Chili Peppers come to the rescue of a lonely fan
Rating: PG
*
Please e-mail dearjoan@mikeypower.com with questions, comments, theories,
complaints, or words of
wisdom.
------------------------------
"Fireworks
next Tuesday
"Barbecue picnic An old-fashioned barbecue picnic and
concert is set for GAR Park Tuesday, July 3. Tickets go on sale Monday for $2
each. Dinner will be served at the Citizens Center, 10 Welcome Street. Menu
choices are chicken and mild Italian sausages. Persons should bring their lawn
chairs and blankets to the park.
"Fourth of July Festivities The
Haverhill Stadium will have music, carnival rides and fireworks. Music will
start at 6 p.m., the gates will open at 5:30. Fireworks will begin at 10 p.m. at
Riverside Park next to the stadium. Tickets are $3 for adults and $1 for
children 9 to 16 years old. Children under 9 will be admitted free."
This
is an email that my mother sent me today, the one that inspired this story. Upon
seeing the word "concert", I thought of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Then I read
the part about the fireworks on the fourth of July. This fireworks display is a
staple of every year’s festivities, and the park mentioned in the email is just
across the street from my parents’ house. My relatives come over and watch the
display from the lawn.
There’s a song by the Wallflowers called "One
Headlight", which has a line that goes like this: "She said it’s cold, feels
like Independence Day, and I can’t break away from this parade. But there’s got
to be an opening, somewhere here in front of me, through this maze of ugliness
and greed". Typically, that’s how I feel on the fourth of July, every year. In
high school, I used to imagine somebody sitting with me on that lonely day,
watching the fireworks by my side. Usually, it was MacGyver. But, this time,
another fantasy comes to mind...
Kellyanne kneeled on the love seat,
one knee embedded into each cushion, as she stared out the picture window.
Outside, cars lined Lincoln Avenue. People shuffled along, some holding the
sticky, cotton-candied hands of kids. All laughter and smiles. The air came to
life with excited chatter, giggles, and music.
She gazed to the right, at
the stadium. Over its walls peaked out a Ferris wheel, a Zipline, and balloons.
Ecstatic screams shrilled from it.
She sighed. Not for her. Too many
people. She knew that, if she went, she would feel lonely anyway, just more
anxious.
The sky faded to black, and she watched the sun’s rays drain
from it. Lights from the stadium invaded the dark skies, imposing its hideous
glare upon the night. If only it would get dark... dark... maybe they would all
go away.
Jiggling from her left. She turned as the front door swung open.
In walked a beaming little blonde. Tiny slits of eyes sparkled over her chubby
cheeks. She scampered into the house, and ran through the living room, a balloon
bobbing along behind her.
"Anna!"
A teenage boy stepped into the
house. He adjusted the baseball cap over his sun-kissed hair. Sighing, he
grabbed a lawn chair from the pile stacked against the wall and dragged it
outside. The screen door whooshed shut behind him.
Anna pattered into the
living room, clutching Fritos in both hands. "Jonny?"
"I’m outside,
Anna!" the teenage boy’s voice carried through the screen. "Come
on!"
Anna’s sneakered feet slapped against the hard wood floor as she
scurried through the living room.
Kellyanne turned back to the window. A
dark haired man sat in a lawn chair just outside, a bronze arm slung around his
blonde companion. The two glanced up as Jonny and Anna approached them. Anna
slid into the woman’s lap, Jonny into the chair beside the man. Kellyanne
watched as Anna snuggled up to the woman. The man snatched Jonny’s hat. Smiles
swept across both faces as Jonny grabbed at the hat, his finger tips inches away
from its brim.
Kellyanne stared after them and sighed.
M & Ms
on the table beside her plinked in a glass dish. Small fingers raked through the
candies, clamping down on a handful. The fist drew to their owner’s rosy lips
and shoved them into her mouth. A clump of the girl’s fine blonde hair came with
it. She spat it out. She grabbed another handful as the screen door
opened.
"Bayley, that’s it!"
A raven haired woman stepped through
the door, and the girl scampered past her, outside. The woman’s tired emerald
eyes scanned the room before coming to rest on the chair pile.
"Susan!"
she called over her shoulder. "Do you have any more blankets?"
Another
woman appeared behind the first. She rubbed at the crows feet by her temples.
"There might be some upstairs. Why? Are there not enough chairs?"
The
first woman ran slender digits through her hair, holding a pony tail between
them. "Well, Rachel and Jon already have chairs. And Mama and Daddy brought
their own. Then there’s one left for Bev, and two for you and
Tim..."
Susan bit at her lower lip. Closing her eyes momentarily, she
said, "Tim and I are going to sit on the lawn."
"You sure now?" the other
steadied her eyes on Susan’s. " "‘Cause my kids can sit on a
blanket..."
"No, it’s fine, Karen." Susan passed her a couple
chairs.
"Ma!" a voice squawked from outdoors, and raced onward. "Can I
have $3.50? I want a glow necklace."
Susan heaved a weary sigh. Her eyes
widened. "Colleen! I just gave you carnival money!" she murmured.
"Yeah,
but Mary spent it all."
"Fine!" Susan strode to the right, disappearing
into the dining room. "But that’s IT until next week!"
Colleen stepped
into the house, her chestnut hair wound tight in spiral curls. She pushed up her
glasses and rubbed her nose with the heel of her hand. Peering to her left, her
dark eyes spotted the figure kneeled backwards on the love seat. They made eye
contact. Colleen’s face lit up. She covered the smile with her right hand and
turned away.
Susan returned, handed over the money, and the two went
outside. Turning her attention back to the window, Kellyanne found the lawn
swarming with her relatives. She watched as Karen set up chairs beside the
blonde woman holding Anna. The two looked at one another, smiled, and chatted
away.
Movement caught Kellyanne’s eye. She glanced to the right side of
the lawn. A girl was racing up the slope, her long blonde hair streaming behind
her. She waved a paper over her head and was screaming something, its meaning
muffled through the window. Colleen ran to the girl and clasped a hand over the
town crier’s mouth. Then glanced at the window.
Kellyanne raised an
eyebrow.
Electric blue shot across the sky and exploded overhead.
FIZZLE... FIZZLE FIZZLE FIZZLE FIZZLE... BOOM!
Red, green, purple
streaks fired into the darkened skies.
"It’s starting!" someone yelled by
the screen door. Kellyanne pressed herself against the window, peering out. She
caught sight of a young man on a blanket off to the side, his arm resting on the
shoulders of the red head sitting next to him. She drew closer to his body and
lay her head on his shoulder, as he ran a hand through her fiery silken
strands.
FIZZLE BOOM!
Not too far away, Colleen sat between Bayley
and the blonde haired girl on a blanket. She held the girl’s paper. Their faces
glowed with excitement as their mouths flapped at record breaking
rates.
BOOM!
Anna bounced in her mother’s lap, pointing at the
bursts of colour that streaked the skies. Jonny sat with his cap on backwards,
shoveling chips into his mouth and grinning. In front of him on a blanket, a
heavy set man draped an arm across Susan and rubbed her back.
BOOM!
FIZZLE FIZZLE FIZZLE...
An older couple sat to Karen’s right, beyond an
empty chair. The couple leaned toward one another, grinning.
FIZZLE
FIZZLE... BOOM!
Kellyanne’s stomach sank. Everyone had someone. Whether
it was a romantic someone, a child, or a cousin friend, everyone had someone
with whom they could watch the fireworks. Everyone had love.
"Sometimes I
feel like I don’t have a partner," Kellyanne whispered the song to herself,
drawing her hand to the picture window. She slid her fingers down the glass, the
friction stinging her palm. "Sometimes I feel like my only friend..." She hummed
the rest of the line, knowing that, in her case, it wasn’t true. The city was
only with her at night, when everyone else abandoned it, when it had nobody
better for company. And, tonight, it was too busy for her.
"I don’t ever
wanna feel," she breathed, "like I did that day..." She trailed off, hot tears
burning her bottom row of lashes. She closed her eyes, and they spilled down her
face like molten lava. ‘That day’, as the song referred to it, was today. It was
every fourth of July, every time her relatives, her only social contact, would
gather at her house and form their clichés, gushing over fireworks. To her, the
REAL fireworks were the connections everyone had with someone.
FIZZLE
FIZZLE... BOOM!
She always missed the fireworks. Every year. Without
fail.
She grabbed her jacket and slipped out the back door.
FIZZLE
BOOM! FIZZLE FIZZLE...
Inside, she had been deceived. The AC was
blasting, and she’d been chilled. But, outside, the air was warm, and slightly
sticky. She slung her fake leather jacket over her arm. A street stretched down
the side of her parents’ house, one not littered with people like the one in
front of the house. This one was boring. No bright lights, no carnival, nothing
but a row of Cape Cod style homes, lining either side of the street. She slipped
into it, into the darkness.
Footsteps slapped heavily against the
pavement behind her. She heard deep breathing at her right ear but didn’t turn
around. The newcomer’s steps fell in line with hers. And he walked beside
her.
FIZZLE FIZZLE FIZZLE BOOM!
The fireworks’ crackling and
crashing grew fainter as she, no, THEY wandered away from the display. More
lyrics drifted through her brain.
‘It’s hard to believe it, there’s
nobody out there. It’s hard to believe that I’m all alone...’
"So, so you
don’t like fireworks?"
That voice! Wait a minute... She halted. Turning
to the one beside her, Kellyanne’s gray/blues fell into wide and glossy
chocolate-toned eyes, ones she’d seen countless times in pictures, NOT three
dimensional, NOT with depth. His full lips curved into a smile as he watched her
mouth drop open.
"You’re Kellyanne, right?"
She nodded. Realising
her mouth was still open, she closed it and blushed.
"My name’s John
Frusciante," he replied as he scratched the back of his neck. Kellyanne felt her
left eye twitching as she gaped at him.
"I know." Her voice was almost
lost in the fading fireworks explosions.
John’s smile broadened. "So I’ve
heard. Your sister told me about you."
Crap. The bottom of Kellyanne’s
right eye jittered. She could just imagine Colleen saying, "My sister’s obsessed
with you. She writes stories about you and puts them on the Internet. She wants
to BE you." She rubbed at her eyes, hoping John wouldn’t notice the
twitching.
"I saw you in the window, looking out," he spoke, sinking his
hands into the pockets of his khakis. He shuffled his feet. "Why weren’t you
outside?"
If there was anyone she could tell, it was John Frusciante.
Sighing, she looked to her feet. But could she really tell him? She tossed out
her response. "Because nobody’s inside."
Now how would he take
that?
He exhaled through his nose and lay a hand on her shoulder. He
squeezed in between his fingers. "Sometimes," he said, "Sometimes, for people to
go inside, you have to go outside first. And it is a risk. I know it’s a risk.
But it’s worth taking." He sat down on the pavement, patting the space beside
him. Kellyanne flopped to the ground, her oversized T-shirt billowing out around
her. She folded one jeaned leg over the other. And stared at the ground.
"What is it you fear?" John questioned, clasping his hands
together.
"It’s not...," Kellyanne snatched a blade of grass and picked
at it with her fingernails. "It’s not so much fear as it’s energy. It’s like I’m
putting so much in..." her voice trailed off.
John nodded. "And not
getting anything back. It’s not always like that though. There are so many kinds
of people, and not everyone makes sense to everyone else. But there are certain
people... like I didn’t think that anyone was real. I thought people danced
around life like ah, like a choreographed routine. And that hurts, thinking that
everyone is fake. Many people ARE just dream characters, but some are real to
you. And you have to see them that way. Otherwise, there’s no point in, in doing
anything, in getting out of bed or dusting your house. I found real people,
people like Flea and Chad and Anthony... they’re my brothers and I love them.
And, and if I’d never gone outside, I wouldn’t have seen them and they make me a
better person."
Kellyanne dropped the blade of grass, and draped her
hands over her folded legs. She observed the contrast between her dark jeans and
her insanely pale hands. Then closed her eyes. What John said made so much
sense. Everything she’d heard him ever say was so REAL. How much more now, when
his words were directed at her, when he’d spoken them specifically FOR
her?
"You have the energy you need."
John got to his feet and
extended a hand to Kellyanne. She accepted it, and he pulled her to her feet.
They made eye contact, and she smiled. Her eyes were steady and strong, and not
twitching.
He led her back to the house. They stepped through the back
door, through the kitchen, down the hall to the living room. Then Kellyanne
stopped. From where she stood, she could see Chad Smith assembling a drum set on
the carpet. Flea stepped into view, cradling his bass, his head down. Kellyanne
and John entered the living room. Kellyanne found Colleen, Mary, and Bayley
squished together on the love seat, with Anna across their laps. Her cousin
Carla was perched on the recliner. Her eyes fell on the individual lounging on
the couch, the bleached blonde seated next to Jonny and his parents.
"Susan," Anthony Kiedis held up an empty glass and grinned. "This is
good iced tea."
Susan stood behind Anthony, in front of all of
Kellyanne’s other relatives. The adults by the door were buzzing with
conversation. Susan accepted the glass from the Chili Pepper. "I didn’t make it.
It’s Arizona iced tea. Want some more?"
"Yes, please."
Susan
disappeared, just as Flea looked up from his bass. "Hey, John!" he greeted his
friend. Chad looked up from his drums. "You found her!" Flea reached for a
guitar leaning against an entertainment centre. He snatched it and passed it to
John. After John freed Flea guitar-bearing hand, the bassist waved it at
Kellyanne.
She glanced about the room. Every seat was taken, the adults
firmly packed together by the door.
"Kel!" Colleen called, and Kellyanne
looked over. Anna and Bayley slid off the love seat, leaving a space between
Colleen and Mary. Kellyanne slid into it, and the three giggled as they mashed
into one another’s sides. Anna and Bayley sat on their laps, and laughter
exploded.
Gazing toward the couch, Kellyanne watched as Anthony grinned.
He chuckled to himself. "Figures I should have brought my
camera."
SNAP!
Light flashed through the room. All eyes shifted to
Chad as he lowered a 35 mm from his face. He smiled. "I’m glad I did!" he
commented, depositing the camera into a large black box labeled RHCP in white
block letters.
Susan returned with the iced tea. Her sights focused on
the love seat as she handed the glass to Anthony. "You guys are gonna break
that."
Anthony threw back half the iced tea in one shot. Lowering the
glass onto the coffee table in front of him, he got to his feet. "We ready
then?"
Adjusting a fret on his bass, Flea nodded. "Yeah. What song we
playing?"
"‘Give it away’!" John called out before anybody else could
open their mouths. Glancing at Kellyanne, he smiled. And she nodded. Always a
perfect Chili Peppers song for any occasion.
A smirk stretched across
Anthony’s face. "Crank it."
THE END