My Favorite Band Does Not Exist Page 5

  Idea didn't say a word. "Chapter 64" continued to play.

  He couldn't decide whether he was more angry, worried, or amazed. Angry because someone out there was taking advantage of all his hard work, and not just to sell a few T-shirts. Worried because the title, "Chapter 64," had an ominous ring that fit right in with his Deity Syndrome fears of being stuck in a novel.

  Amazed because the band he was listening to sounded exactly the way he'd always imagined Youforia would sound.

  IT wasn't enough for Gail Virtuoso to quit playing her drums in the middle of Reacher's new song. Apparently, the only way she could adequately express her feelings about it was to kick over half of her drum kit and throw her drumsticks across the barn where Youforia was practicing.

  "I can't play this piece of suckage!" she yelled. "What the hell is 'Chapter 64' supposed to mean, anyway?"

  "I already told you," Reacher replied. "It's part of the rock opera. The main character, Impulse Devilcare, thinks he's trapped in a book, and he's doomed to die in Chapter 64."

  "But you never mention Chapter 64 in the damn lyrics," said Wicked Livenbladder, flopping his shaggy mane around as he shook his head.

  "That's because Impulse wants to be in any chapter other than 64," explained Reacher. "He imagines himself jumping through chapters out of sequence to avoid Chapter 64. Then, he imagines jumping out of the book he thinks he's in and jumping into another one, where he won't die at all."

  "A book song!" Gail marched out from behind the parts of ten her drum kit that were still standing. "Now, that'll get the teenagers worked up on the dance floor."

  "It's not really about books, though," Reacher said as Gail stomped past. "It's about God and fate and life. Impulse is like a god, because he creates this world of his own on the Internet, right? But he's still at the mercy of the God in the real world. Impulse wants to write his own life, but forces beyond his control won't let him."

  Gail spun to face him. "Oh, Reacher, your song is just so deep and meaningful."

  Chick Sintensity plucked some notes on his bass guitar and laughed. "Eurydice seems okay with it, Gail. Or doesn't the Reacher-stealer's opinion count?"

  Gail glared across the barn at Eurydice, who was sitting on a hay bale, watching and listening. "It's not stealing if you take what somebody else already threw away."

  "Oooo." Wicked grinned at Reacher. "She just called you garbage, man!"

  Suddenly Reacher stuck two fingers in his mouth and let loose a shrill whistle. Everyone fell silent and looked at him.

  "We've only got the barn rented for another hour," he said. "I still think the song'll grow on you, Gail, but let's take a vote. Who wants to quit rehearsing songs and just jam for an hour?" Reacher raised his hand.

  Wicked's hand shot up, too, followed by Chick's.

  Gail glared at them for a moment with arms folded across her chest. She cast her vote by stomping back to her drum kit and picking up the pieces that she'd kicked over.

  "All right, then." Reacher smiled, and the star-shaped port-wine stain on his right cheek dented into a crescent. "When in doubt, jam."

  Wicked churned out a wild lick on his guitar. "Jam early and often!"

  Chick hammered the strings of his bass. "Make jams, not war!"

  Gail pounded out a thundering beat on the kick drum.

  "Shut up and play!"

  Sty Latherclad nodded at Eurydice on his way into the barn, then stopped in front of the band and pointed at his wristwatch.

  Youforia was in the middle of a careening jam and kept at it for another minute before winding down. Chick dropped out first, then Wicked, then Reacher. Gail got in the last word with one more full-throttle blast across her drums.

  "Yeah!" Wicked unplugged his guitar from an amp. "There's the fun part!"

  "I was wondering where it ran off to," said Chick as he packed his bass in its case.

  Sty cleared his throat loudly. "I've got news."

  "Let me guess," said Wicked. "They're charting my bowel movements on the website."

  Chick laughed. "We've been nominated for best nonexistent band, nonexistent record of the year, and best nonperformance in a nonexistent category."

  "None of the above," said Sty. "You have a price on your heads."

  Reacher scowled as he adjusted his red and black bowling shirt with a shrug of his shoulders. "You're kidding."

  Sty held up a magazine. "Tuned has posted a reward for your capture. They'll pay fifty thousand dollars to anyone who delivers the whole band. Individually, each of you is worth ten grand ... except Reacher, who's worth fifteen."

  "Unbelievable." Reacher took the magazine from Sty and stared at the page it was folded open to.

  "I could really use that ten K." Wicked cast an evil look in Chick's direction. "Could you step outside and help me with something, Chick old pal?"

  "Only if I can bring that there pitchfork."

  "Whoa," said Gail. "We really have hit the big time. What will people do when we go public?"

  "Speaking of which"—Sty locked eyes with Reacher—"I think it's time."

  "You've been saying that since last Junuary." Reacher slapped the magazine against Sty's chest. "This doesn't change anything."

  Wicked and Gail laughed out loud. Chick winced.

  "You're kidding, right?" said Gail. "Everybody and their cousin's uncle's grandniece will be out looking for us now!"

  "Hiya Permaneck isn't the only one chasing you anymore," Sty agreed. "The band has been outed. Secrecy is no longer an option."

  Eurydice cracked her gum loudly. "That's not entirely true." She boosted herself off the hay bale and walked over to join the others. "The only pictures they have of you are the artist's renderings on the website, which suck. As long as you don't walk around wearing T-shirts with 'I'm in Youforia' printed on them, no one will know who you are."

  "The van's been described on the website," said Sty. "And whoever's been feeding information to the site keeps leaking our whereabouts."

  "Not always," said Reacher. "This barn seems to be off the radar. No one's found us here yet."

  "It's time," Sty insisted. "How's this for a photo opportunity? For their first official public appearance, the members of Youforia turn themselves in for the reward!"

  Reacher walked away from the group and began coiling microphone cables. "It's not time yet."

  "They're going to get us!" said Gail. "Isn't it better to go public while we have a choice, rather than be hauled in by some moron with a gun?"

  Sty left the group and stood in front of Reacher. "I'm telling you, it's time. This is a real no-brainer."

  Reacher looked around at everyone and nodded. "If the rest of you want to do this, be my guest. That's your call. But I won't go with you. Not yet. I'm going to see this thing through."

  Sty shook his head. "This is the 'thing.' This is how it's supposed to work out. Now that you've been on your secret tour for a year, you take your secret band and go public in the most attention-getting way possible."

  Reacher glared at him with icy contempt. "Is that how it's supposed to work? Thanks for explaining it to us, Sty."

  Chick stepped forward, rubbing his chin. "You really think this'll get us big-time attention?"

  "How much more attention-getting can you get?" Sty continued. "And it's all being handed to you! Free buzz, man! Do you know how hard that is to come by?"

  "What's the problem here?" said Reacher. "I already told you to do what you want."

  "We need everybody," said Sty. "The whole band."

  "No, you don't," Reacher replied. "Chick can sing. Let him be your lead singer."

  "No way, man," said Chick. "This is your band, Reacher. Your dream."

  Reacher smirked. "Well whatta you know? Somebody remembered."

  Sty snorted. "Yeah, great. Like no one else has any stake in this. Like none of us has anything to lose when you let your dream shrivel up and die because you're too scared of failure to put it out there! Because you're too scared to per
form in front of an audience without a mask on."

  "Maybe if we worried less about going public and more about the music, we'd be ready by now," said Reacher.

  Sty laughed humorlessly. "Here's something to think about, gang." He looked around at the members of Youforia. "Maybe he's more afraid of not failing. Maybe the band's been ready for a while now, and he's holding you back because he's terrified you'll succeed."

  With that, Sty spun on his heel and marched straight out of the barn under a sky that was the perfect shade of emerald.

  "SINCE when are you the boss of me?" Eunice Truant asked as she drove her Beetle down a street in Chicago, under the bright blue morning sky.

  "Left at the stoplight." Idea watched their progress on a GPS app on his phone. "Then a quick right on Lincoln."

  All he could think about were the tickets they were on their way to buy. Somewhere between Cleveland and Chicago, he'd found them online. He had to check them out, since they were tickets to an impossible show.

  No way could Youforia be playing a concert anywhere but in his imagination.

  Unfortunately, Eunice didn't seem to be as interested in the impossible tickets. She grumbled and sighed as he called out directions.

  "Remind me again why we're doing this?" she said. "Obviously, the guy selling the supposed tickets is a con artist. Wouldn't it be more important—"

  "Left here," Idea interrupted. "Then go three blocks and make a right."

  "Wouldn't it be more important for us to stop your parents from killing themselves?"

  "Uh-huh." Idea leaned forward to stare out the front window with the fixed attentiveness of a kid on the way to a toy store.

  "Then, why are we doing this right now?"

  "Don't worry about it," said Idea. "Make a right."

  Eunice turned, then slowed to a stop behind cars waiting at the red light. "Let's see." She raised her hands, palms up, as if they were the trays of a scale. "Parents"—she wiggled the fingers of her right hand—"versus supposed tickets to a Youforia show." Her left hand shot downward while her right stayed up. "What was I thinking? Of course bogus Youforia tickets outweigh your mom and dad."

  Idea poked an index finger between the two dice on the chest of his black T-shirt. "Someone's trying to make money from my hard work."

  "Hard work fooling people with a phony band, you mean?"

  Idea glared. "This guy's either ripping people off by selling tickets to a nonexistent concert, or he's selling tickets to a show by a band calling themselves Youforia. Maybe the same band that cut that phony 'Chapter 64' track."

  The light turned green and Eunice rolled the Beetle forward. "A nonexistent concert. I wonder if the tickets are nonexistent, too."

  Idea checked the GPS map on his phone's screen, then pointed ahead. "There it is. That's the place."

  ***

  "Bud System?" Idea said as the apartment door opened.

  A fat man with messy brown hair and a bushy beard to match looked out at them. He wore stained red sweatpants and a white T-shirt with a spaceship on the chest. "What do you want?" He frowned briefly at Idea but reserved most of his attention for Eunice.

  "We're here about the Youforia tickets," Idea said.

  Immediately Bud brightened. "Tickie-tickies." He turned his back on them and walked into the apartment. "Why didn't you say so?"

  "Actually, he just did," said Eunice, but Bud either ignored or missed her comment and disappeared through a doorway.

  Idea took two steps forward and looked around. Although Bud's personal appearance was sloppy, his apartment was immaculate. His living room sparkled right down to the last dust-free figurine on his bookshelves.

  "Where did you find these tickets, anyway?" Idea took another step forward. A figurine in a curio cabinet across the room had caught his eye and he wanted to get a closer look at it.

  "I saw an ad in a magazine." Bud lumbered back into the living room with a white business envelope in his hand. "I sent a check to a post office box, and the tickies came a few days later."

  At that moment, Idea was only half listening. The figurine on the top shelf of the curio cabinet had come fully into focus; it was a painted sculpture of a man clad in black leather whose head was engulfed in flames.

  "Fireskull." Idea pointed at the figurine.

  "Oh, yeah," said Bud. "I love that book."

  Eunice cleared her throat and gestured at Bud's envelope. "Are those the tickets?"

  Bud frowned as he looked her over. "Yeparooni." He un-tucked the flap of the envelope and tugged out two tickets without taking his eyes off her. "Here be me beauties."

  Idea reached for the tickets, but Bud pulled them away. "No touchy-touchy till you give me greeny-greenies."

  Idea lowered his hands, and Bud eased the tickets forward. Everything about them looked authentic, from the typeface and logos to the background holograms. What most fascinated Idea, though, was the name of the star attraction printed in large type in the middle of the ticket.

  He lifted his bangs with the edge of his hand so he could be sure of what he was seeing. "Youforia," he said, and then he read what was printed below. "'Stowe Amphitheater, Maysville, Pennsyltucky. Seven p.m.'" He frowned. "Where's Pennsyltucky?"

  "Look at the date." Eunice squeezed in beside him. "Saturday, July thirty-second?"

  Idea read it for himself. "I think you've been scammed, Bud."

  "What kind of Youforia fan are you?" scoffed Bud. "That's the date they've been advertising all along. They always have to give things a twist."

  "Yeah, okay," Idea said irritably. "I guess I'm not a true fan of Youforia. It's not like I followed them from the start or anything."

  Eunice elbowed him in the side. "It must just be a clever way of saying the show's on August first. The day after July thirty-first."

  "You ordered these through a post office box?" Idea asked. "What city and state?"

  Bud chuckled. "I don't know how they did it, but it was pretty cool." With a flourish, he held up the white envelope, tapping a finger on the return address.

  " 'PO Box sixty-four,' " read Eunice. " 'Gauntlet, Oklarado.' "

  " 'Oklarado'?" Idea repeated.

  Bud laughed. "I know! How would the postal service even deliver something like that? And look at the cancellation stamp. The state abbreviation is OO, as in Oklarado. Apparently there's a post office in a state I never even knew existed!"

  "So much for finding whoever's making the tickets," said Eunice. "Tickets to see a nonexistent band were mailed from a nonexistent state."

  "Box sixty-four," said Idea. "Like that song 'Chapter 64.' "

  "Anyway," said Bud. "The tickies are three hundred fifty bucks apiece, and you know that's a bargain. This is Youforia's big debut show, their first official concert ever."

  "Thanks, anyway," said Idea. "Not interested."

  "How 'bout three hundred apiece, then?" said Bud.

  "Save them for a true fan."

  Idea sat on the steps in front of Bud's apartment building and tapped away on his phone, adding text to Youforia's website. His fingers flew over the keypad with a speed born of anger, throwing down a storm of thoughts as fast as they came to him.

  Eunice watched over his shoulder, reading the text as it flowed onto the screen. "Look at you. Is this national Burn Your Bridges Day or something?"

  Idea's only answer was an annoyed nod as he kept typing.

  "I mean, this will be the end of your make-believe band," said Eunice. "People will know the truth about Youforia."

  ...like to thank everyone for their interest and support, typed Idea. The most important thing I've learned from all this is how the Internet can enable us to share a dream and make it a reality...

  Revealing the truth about Youforia was exactly what Idea had in mind. As proud as he was of the hoax he'd created, he now believed the time was right for him to confess online and thwart the opportunists who were taking advantage of his brainchild.

  Idea had decided to end the charade af
ter seeing Bud's tickets and realizing that people were cashing in on the buzz he'd generated, making hundreds of dollars a pop on phony tickets, or tickets to see a band of impostors.

  And please don't be fooled by anyone claiming to be Youforia, typed Idea. There is no Youforia!

  Youforia only exists on this website and in my imagination. If you hear music by a band calling themselves Youforia, it's fake. If someone tries to sell you tickets to a concert by Youforia, that band is not Youforia!

  If anyone tries to trick you or rip you off by selling Youforia merchandise or claiming to be Youforia, please contact me at the e-mail address on this home page.

  From now on, instead of featuring news, information, and chat about Youforia, this website will be dedicated to exposing frauds related to the imaginary band.

  "Now, there's an interesting twist," Eunice commented. "Creating the fake band was kind of a fraud in the first place, wasn't it?"

  ...and I will travel to Maysville, Kentucky, on the date of the supposed debut concert, to confront the individuals who stole the name of my creation ... if, in fact, a band shows up to play there at all.

  "Wait a minute." Eunice's voice quickly shifted from teasing to serious. "I thought it was Maysville, Pennsyltucky."

  "No such place," muttered Idea. "But there's a Maysville, Kentucky, according to the GPS."

  In this way, I hope to put an end to the lies and abuses that have become associated with Youforia.

  "We're going to Maysville on July thirty-second? But that's two days from now," said Eunice. "What about your parents?"

  Idea ignored her. To anyone who has suffered because of the thieves and impostors who have exploited my well-intentioned creation, I apologize.

  "I thought we had to hurry to San Diego to stop your mom and dad from killing themselves," said Eunice. "Kentucky's kind of out of our way, isn't it?"

  I will try to make it up to you. And maybe someday, if there is enough interest, Youforia will return in a new incarnation. Yours truly, Idea Deity.