Chapter Text
The air-conditioner was broken.
A month ago, Lewis Nixon’s mom had explained that it had something to do with squirrels that got into the ceiling from the trees in the backyard. This shit always happened. Nix’s dad once suggested to the neighborhood board that they cut the tree down. The neighborhood HOA said something about how the trees “bolstered the scenic value” which was just a fancy way of saying “sucks to be you”. The broken air-conditioner was bearable during May but as the temperature rose from a pleasant 70 degrees to an only barely tolerable 90 as June rolled into July, the Nixons were fairly certain that they didn’t need to commit a grave sin to understand what hell felt like.
Nix lay on his mattress, completely bare, save the lightest blanket he could find. The black-haired boy watched the fan lazily turn around and around above him, the dangling light switches making a clanging noise as they hit the blades. It wasn’t like the fan was doing much more than rotating the already hot air in Nix’s bedroom, but there wasn’t much he could do about that anyway. He considered opening his bedroom window again, but the odds were that there wasn’t going to be any breeze coming his way. Earlier, for all his efforts of opening the window, all he got were a couple of flies buzzing around his face. Nix could handle there being no respite from the heat, but he couldn’t stand bugs.
He’d even tried the whole “spray yourself with a water bottle” method, but it didn’t take long for the water droplets on his face to become indistinguishable from the sweat that covered every inch of his pale body. The heat of the Georgia summer was hot and sticky and heavy and thick and hot.
For a brief moment, he recalled the opening pages to Frankenstein , the last book he was required to read for the summer before AP Lit began in the fall. The story began with a Captain Robert Walton writing to his sister about how he's powering through the biting chill of the North Pole in search of fame and fortune. Eventually, he meets Victor Frankenstein, but that wasn't the point Nix was getting at. Anything, the damn North Pole even, would be better that this stupid weather.
A quick glance to the blinking digital clock above his dresser informed him that he had only an hour before he needed to be ready, prepped, and in order on the blacktop outside of Toccoa High School. He had two hours before he had to lead a number of marchers, faces both new and familiar. He had eleven hours before practice would be over and he would return home, arms sore from directing the band, and fall face-first onto his bed before the same thing happened the next day.
The only thing he got out of this was having the authority of being a drum major. That was pretty bitchin’.
Nix felt around for his phone and loudly groaned when he discovered that it wasn’t on the bed next to him anymore. He rolled over to his left, his mattress squeaking as he did, and looked down on his stain-covered carpeted floor where he found his phone face-down.
Picking it up, he rolled until he was on his back again and swiped to unlock it, still unwilling to add a passcode because who had the time? It’d bite him in the ass one day, but that day was yet to come.
He opened his contacts app and scrolled until he found the name “Dick”.
Me: I’m rethinking my life
Me: Is it too late to turn back now?
Dick: Yes.
Me: when i told you i wanted to be a drum major, you should’ve kicked my dream in the dick, dick
Dick: :) I’ll see you there!
“Damn it, Dick,” Nix grumbled. He used his elbows to prop himself up using his elbows and sighed. Although Dick didn’t say it in so many words, that smiley-face meant a whole bunch of things. Namely the fact that Lewis Nixon and Dick Winters had dreamed of being drum majors since they were freshmen. He remembered the first day of band camp the summer before freshman year, wearing his new sneakers and “cool” sunglasses that would eventually give his face tan lines. He remembered the command the drum majors had over what was otherwise a chaotic group of high-schoolers. He remembered thinking that directing the band and doing those salutes were so much cooler than playing the clarinet on the field.
Fourteen-year-old Nix informed his best friend of his plans and they were both determined to see their dreams come to fruition.
Fourteen-year-old me was an idiot, Nix thought as he stood from his bed and put a shirt on. He looked at his clock again. Fifty-four minutes.
“Here goes nothing, I guess,” Nix muttered. He grabbed his empty water bottle and headed to the kitchen to refill it. This schedule of 10 in the morning to 8 at night was gonna be a long one.