Call Me Noah (short story)

In the fall of 2018, me and my best friends Alex and Trent went on a 4-hour road trip to Jacksonville. We planned to spend two nights there for a Sierra West concert, an indie pop artist we’d been obsessed with since for years. Per our adventurous-but-broke nature, we had a tradition of piling all of our things into Trent’s jeep and hitting the road, all agreeing beforehand that we would take shifts driving. I’m not saying this trip was my self-actualizing, burning bush experience, but definitely one I won’t forget. Here is the story of how someone (who is both a stranger and family at once) subtly transformed my life.

“Trent, there is no possible way her hair is naturally pink,” Alex yells.

Indie pop blares from the speakers of the Jeep.

“Have you seen Shark-boy and Lava-girl?” Trent screams over the music. “Holy foot, you haven’t seen Shark-boy and lava-girl. We need the movie. Actually, put a DVD place in my GPS right now. Come on! Do it!”

Alex sweeps her dark, long hair behind her ears, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

“We’re definitely not detouring for this,” I veto. “It’s already 11.”

“Come on, Dosky, live a little,” Trent turns his head in the backseat to wink at me, and it takes that exact amount of time for him to swerve into the opposite lane.

“Eyes on the road!” Alex yells.

Streetlights blur by, and I lean my head against the window in exhaustion.

When we finally make it to our AirBnB, it’s not long before we’re all in dreamland.

The next day, we listen to Sierra West’s debut album on repeat the way to and from a terrible shark film. The city of Jacksonville is innocent and beautiful, like New York before it got its first gang.

“Do you guys think Sierra West’s drummer is on crack?” Trent inquiries from the back seat.

Alex sighs.

“I mean, hey, anyone that rises to fame that fast has to do drugs, right?” He qualifies. “It’s like a thing, like for sure.”

“This is the restaurant,” Alex points to my left.

I pull into a parking lot across the street. We get out of the car, and suddenly, my gut clenches.

“G-guys,” I point a shaky finger down the road, towards a furniture shop.

Down the street, walking into “Sit in It,” a couch shop with see through windows and doors, is a small girl flanked by a really large man and a really fabulous one. She’s wearing jeans, a hoodie and dark sunglasses, but a single lock of salmon-colored hair pokes from her hood.

“Holy foot, holy foot, holy foot,” Trent presses his hands to his temples.

“Sierra West,” I gawk.

Alex squints. “Guys, that’s not her. You can’t even see her face.”

But I know it is. She way she walks, how she keeps looking to her left, like she doesn’t want to be spotted.

“Screw dinner,” Trent says. “That’s her. That’s literally her.”

“Guys—” Alex tries.

“Why else would there be a giant man following a person wearing a disguise?” Trent shrieks. “I think, uh, BODYGUARD! Screw dinner, we’re following her in there.”

“What?” Alex hisses.

I can’t even think straight. Sierra and her duo open the door and disappear into the store.

“You can’t seriously agree with this,” Alex looks at me.

“Screw dinner,” I agree in a trance.

“Oh my God,” Alex holds her forehead. “We’re going to get beaten to death by Sierra West’s bodyguard.”

“Dosky’s 6’3,” Trent counters. “240 pounds. We’ll be fine.”

Once we get into the furniture store, we all split up to find her. I squeeze my hands together to stop them from shaking. I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, and I’m starting to sweat through my flannel.

There’s a lot happening. Let me explain. Sierra West is a short, skinny, Latina indie pop singer with bright pink jaw-length hair and a wild spirit. I found her when I was in a dark place. I fell in love with her YouTube videos 3 years ago, then two years later, she released a few songs on Spotify and blew up. She started gigging, and one thing lead to another, and now she’s something of a small celebrity. 32 million streams on Spotify, sold out stadiums of 10 thousand people, a platinum album. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I feel like my entire young adulthood is connected to Sierra West.

So, when I turn a corner in this oddly smelling antique couch shop and see her sitting in a throne-like chair, I start wheezing. I slump into a big red couch with golden wave designs sewn into the fabric.

Okay, Dosky, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, I think to myself.

I turn to look back at the throne-chair, but Sierra’s gone.

What?

“Hey, do you mind if I look at this chair?”

I shoot out of the couch and tumble to the floor, uttering an incoherent series of grunts.

Sierra West is standing in front of me. Any uncertainty is gone. It’s her for sure, and she’s taken her sunglasses off. Her brown eyes look smaller without makeup on. There is evidence of acne on her chin, and her hair is pulled back in a messy bun.

She’s the kind of pretty that distracts you, because you could stare at her face all day.

“Oh, jeez!” She rushes toward me. “Let me help you up!”

But I scramble away from her like she’s a blazing fire. She stops and raises her hands in surrender.

“Uh-gah, y-you’re,” I mumble.

“You’re Sierra West,” Alex finishes. Her and Trent appear behind me. Alex shakes Sierra’s hand while Trent helps me up and asks me in my ears whether or not I’m “sporting a boner”.

“You guys talking about me?” Sierra smirks. Her eyes and I’s have been locked into each other’s the whole time.

“Um, no he’s just being—"

“Goofy!” Trent says. “We’re huge fans. I’m Trent. I also answer to Abe Lincoln. May I hug you, or will your Incredible Hulk guy come through here and break a couch over our heads?”

“Um,” Sierra begins.

“Si, darling!” A tall, lanky white man wearing a silver suit with golden buttons emerges from the aisles. Every millimeter of his face is covered in makeup, and there are rainbow designs snaking across his fingernails. His black hair is streaked with blonde at the tips and is pulled back into an exquisite knot right above the absolute center of his head.

When he sees us, his eyebrows pull together in concern. “Si? What’s going on?”

Incredible Hulk follows Rainbow Boy out of the aisles. His biceps push against a plain gray shirt.

Sierra is still staring at me. She turns to her entourage.

“I ran into them by accident,” she says. “Everything is fine.”

“I’m Ricky,” chirps Rainbow Boy. “Nice meeting you all,” he finishes before we can respond with our names.

He pulls Sierra West along like she’s a child. She starts to walk away, but I finally find my voice.

“All Over Myself,” I call out.

Sierra stops in her tracks. Through the corner of my eye I see Alex pinch the bridge of her nose with embarrassment.

“There’s a line in your song, All Over Myself,” I recall. “You sing about sitting on a throne. Is that why you’re in a furniture store on the day of your show?”

When she turns around, her smirk is back, and her left eyebrow is raised.

“Si, we have to go,” Ricky Rainbow announces.

“Dude, you sound stalkery,” Trent mutters.

“Well,” Sierra tilts her head. “Someone did their research. Assuming I’ll see you tonight?”

“Um, yeah.” I mumble. “I’ll, uh, see you up there singing.”

Sierra breaks a smile. “What are you guys’ names? I know you said you were Troy.”

“Trent.”

“I’m Alex.”

“I’m Dosky.”

“Dosky, you’re cute,” Ricky says, “but please speak a little louder.”

“He is pretty cute,” Sierra concurs.

I swallow.

“You’re interesting,” she decides. “Ricky, give them the address for the after party.”

Trent makes a squealing sound.

“Si, these are strangers.”

“Just like everyone else at those parties, Ricky,” She taps him on the cheek lovingly. “Let’s jet.”

An hour and a half later, my friends and I are in line at Sierra’s concert venue. It’s a refurbished choral performance hall in downtown Jacksonville, and I’m hoping it looks better on the inside than on the outside. There are food wrappers strewn across dirt brown sidewalks. The brick looks generations old. Hundreds of buzzing indie pop fans color the fall evening. Stuffed into my pocket is the address of the party that Ricky scribbled on a receipt.

“Um, uh, yeah. I’ll, uh, see you up there, uh, singing, uh, I think,” Trent says.

“ALL OVER MYSELF!” Alex chimes in. “The third line of the second verse of track five on your debut 2017 album Wreck the Box, exactly at two minutes, thirteen seconds, you mention a throne!”

“It’s getting old, guys,” I weakly retort.

“But really, it doesn’t matter if you find a throne for your set piece,” Trent sings. “Because I’ll let you sit on my face!”

We seriously enjoy the show. Watching Sierra in action is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. We are nestled to the far-left balcony of the stadium, but it doesn’t matter. Sierra is such a crazy performer that she is never facing one direction for more than one verse of a song. For two hours of pop, she gallops around the stage, in and out of dance routines with the backup dancers. The lights constantly change colors, the band’s arrangements stray farther and farther away from the music in the original tracks, until it’s like we’re watching a totally reimagined visual of Sierra’s debut project.

Several times, I cry. More times than that, Trent accidentally crashes into someone because of his wild dancing. Alex, the only actual singer in our group, belts along with Sierra for the entirety of the set.

When the show finally finishes, my friends and I sit in our seats while the stadium starts to clear out.

I pull the crumpled address of the party that Ricky scribbled on a receipt and show it to my friends.

“Party time.”

Traffic is absolutely terrible. When we finally get to the address, it’s already 11 pm. We park on the grass lot of a huge two-story house. Latin music oozes from inside.

Incredible Hulk is standing at the front door.

I present the address from my pocket. He inspects Ricky’s scribbled handwriting and swings open the front door. I wish I could describe the literal mansion we walked into, but it was packed body to body with partiers. The roof felt miles above our heads, and white and gold paint and tile decorated the first floor living room.

A salsa song starts, and people start grabbing partners. Trent winks at Alex, and she rolls her eyes and assumes the position. Call me crazy, but I scan the crowd for Sierra West.

When I spot her, she’s sitting down on a couch with a white man with long, curly brown hair. He’s pierced at the nose and totally shirtless, his chest detailed with tattoos of monsters. He plays with Sierra’s hair like he’s her father, styling it for her first day of 4th grade. She swats his hand away, looking uncomfortable.

I push through a crowd of dancing people and break into the clearing where Sierra sits.

“Hey,” I call over the sound of the music.

“The cute one!” She screams.

“Who the hell are you?” The long-haired guy says.

“Don’t, Nico. He’s shy,” Sierra defends. She looks at me. “Dosky, right?”

I nod.

“What kind of name is Dosky?” Nico continues.

“Um, I wanted to tell you that the show was really good,” I yell.

I try to go into more detail about the show, but it’s useless with the music so loud, and half of Sierra’s attention was spent on inching herself away from Nico, and him closing the space again, taking her hair back into his hands.

“Do you want to go somewhere quieter?” Sierra laughs. “You don’t seem like you yell a lot.”

“You just got here,” Nico weighs in. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Are you guys dating?” I ask.

“Get lost, Doggy,” Nico starts.

“Okay, you’re being ridiculous,” Sierra gets up from the chair, but so does Nico. He yanks her by the arm back into the seat.

“Did you hear what I said?” Nico growls. “Maybe have your guys turn this shitty beaner music down—”

But he doesn’t finish his sentence, because I swing on him. Right across his cheek.

Luckily, Sierra is too stunned to immediately call Incredible Hulk to flatten my head.

Nico slowly lifts his hand to his face, swipes the blood away, and smiles at me. Then he screams at the top of his lungs and charges in my direction. He tackles me to the floor and starts scratching me across the face like a deranged cat.

“Nico, stop!” Sierra screams. She rushes forward, but someone holds her back.

People start to gather around us.

I throw his bony body off of mine, and get on top of him, but he closes his hands around my throat. He digs his thumb right at the base of my neck where my larynx is, and I panic. I lift him up from the floor by his shoulders and slam him down again, and his body goes limp.

I get up, and Sierra rushes forward and checks Nico’s pulse.

She exhales in relief, then faces the onlookers and wipes tears from her eyes.

“No one call the cops,” she says. Then she turns to me. “Let’s get out of here.”

I follow Sierra to the second story of this giant house. She leads up navy blue carpeted stairs and down a dimly lit hallway. We break into a bedroom, and the bed is fully made. There are no family pictures or evidence that anyone sleeps here.

We walk across the bedroom to a set of double doors opposite the door we entered. Sierra pulls the drapes aside and push open the doors, and I catch my breath. The city of Jacksonville glistens in the night before us. Cool air blows into the house from the white-ringed balcony.

“Ricky books random houses for after parties.” Sierra says. “I like views.”

“That’s, um, really cool.” I rub my sore knuckles.

“You knocked out my boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Sierra gazes at me.

“I’m sorry, this is weird,” she says.

“Why is it weird?” I ask.

“It’s just, you’re a fan, I don’t want to take advantage—"

“I feel like after rescuing you from Nico, I’ve elevated a little.”

My phone rings, but I decline the call.

“Answer your friends,” Sierra orders.

“They’ll be fine,” I dismiss. “That party is rotten, and you weren’t having fun, right?”

“Right.”

“So, I’ll stay,” I say, breathing shakily. “You find me interesting. And cute.”

“Dosky, you’re a fan.” Sierra says. “A few months later you’re going to wake up and think to yourself, what kind of monster sleeps with a stranger knowing the power they have over said stranger through a celebrity dynamic?”

“I never said I wanted to sleep with you,” I point out.

I start to wonder if this is the kind of behavior Sierra is used to. I think about Ricky and Nico, her hooded disguise in the furniture store. Her music is about breaking free from cultural norms, from restrictive and abusive patterns, from expectations.

But she seems pretty chained up to me.

“Oh,” she bites her lip. “Yikes, now I look like a slut.”

Sierra turns from the city view and goes back into the bedroom, producing a bottle of something from a minifridge. She half-fills two short glasses with the something. She hands me a cup of the something. I hold it in my hand while Sierra gulps hers in one go.

“You know, you’re one of the most compelling people I’ve ever met. And I meet a lot of people, Dosky.”

“Noah.”

“What?”

“My name. It’s Noah Twardosky.”

“Who started the nickname?”

“Not sure. Everyone likes it though.”

“Do you like it?”

“Not really.”

“Well, stop answering to it.”

It’s not that simple, I think. I peel my eyes from the city and look at her.

“I feel like I’m dreaming,” I say to her. “Or that this balcony is some kind of alternate universe where it’s not weird that I’m talking to Sierra West.”

“Just breathe,” Sierra laughs. “I’m a person.”

“I’m trying.”

“What makes you comfortable?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think of something.”

“Talk to me about your album.”

For the next 10 minutes, I listen to Sierra West talk about being Sierra West. She is 21, a year older than me. She is from Jersey. Her story is not pretty. She spent the majority of high school in musical theatre club, where she constantly got bullied for being brown and skinny. She struggled with eating disorders, beauty standards, and the complicated expectations of women in her Latino household. When she broke into the music industry after graduating high school, she spent the first year running from manipulative producers that wanted to take advantage of her gifts and brand her as things she wasn’t. She did hard gigs and sang BGV’S for long, stressful tours until she had raised enough money to get her album, Wreck the Box, recorded and produced. She released it to streaming and became a sensation. Now, she was on tour, and she’d stopped in Jacksonville to find what she called a “tall, quiet charming black boy that she will never see again”. She doesn’t bring up Nico, or about what he may have done in the past.

“That’s crazy,” I mumble after she finishes.

“Yeah. Your turn. Tell me about Noah. Your quirks, your art, creativity. That stuff.”

“There’s not much—”

“You’re lying.”

“Not really.”

“What’s up with you and shrinking yourself?”

“What?”

“Like, with your friends? You definitely seem to be in charge, Ricky pointed out that much, but you can be in charge and still shrink yourself for your friends at the same time. I’ve been around people like you. It’s this weird, friend-group-mom, sacrificial type stuff. Like, why would you punch a total stranger for me? Nico has knives, you know.”

An odd silence passes while I consider her assertions.

“Well, I write Haikus,” I confess.

“Shut your mouth.”

“Not kidding.”

“Holy crap, Noah Twardosky,” Sierra starts smirking again.

“Me and my ex-girlfriend used to write poetry to each other all the time,” I pull out my phone. “I can see if I can pull a few up.”

I scroll through old emails. It’s been 3 years. I should be able to talk about this.

“That’s interesting,” Sierra inserts. “I’d really started to consider whether you were gay.”

“Heat, pressure, time. It is browned, swollen, ready. My jelly donut.”

Sierra clasps her hands around her mouth.

“It’s okay, you can laugh.” I say.

“I’m so sorry,” She bites her lip. “I guess I expected deep, you know?”

“A man walks inside. He is naked, then banished. “I thought you sold clothes!””.

“What?”

“You said you wanted deep. The place he walked into is a clothing store,” I explain. “It’s a creative take on the idea that truly, nothing is ever free, and no one is ever totally self-made, because just like you walk into a clothing store with clothes already on, you always have to start somewhere.”

“That was the most I have ever heard you say in one go.”

“You should hear me talk about your music.”

Sierra smiles at me, looking down at my phone.

“That’s a lot of missed calls,” she said. “You may want to go back to your—wait what’s that one?”

Sierra reaches over and clicks on one of the emails.

“This ride is worn out. It’s brakes squeak and windows creak. It’s time to call it,” she reads out. “Noah, what is this?”

I swallow, considering a few options. I could tell her it’s about an old car. Or an old house.

“It’s my ex-girlfriend’s suicide note,” I say. “She, um, that’s the last haiku she ever wrote me.”

Sierra clasps her hands over her mouth.

“Shit, Noah…”

“It’s fine,” I lie.

Sierra West reaches over and grabs my hand.

Suddenly, there is a pounding on the door of the bedroom. Sierra gets up and opens it to Ricky.

“What are you doing?” Ricky demands. “I have been looking everywhere for you.”

I arise from the balcony and walk into the clearing.

“Tell me you’re kidding,” Ricky says to Sierra.

“We didn’t do anything, Ricky,” Sierra says. “I’m guessing we have to go?”

“Yes, we have to hit the road.” He says. “People recorded what happened with Nico and this young man,” he points to me.

“Yeah, yeah and the he blogs will be talking about it, and people know that I’m here, paparazzi, TMZ, blah blah blah,” Sierra says. “Give me a minute.”

Ricky dramatically sighs and exits, closing the door behind him.

“Can I hug you?” Sierra asks.

“Please.”

Sierra West embraces me. Her head does not even reach my shoulders. Then she looks up at me.

“This is going to sound weird coming from someone who does not know much about you, but we have a lot in common. “Dosky” is a character. A role. He’s got a name you don’t even like, and his only function seems to be the functioning of others.”

“Um, okay.”

“I’m not trying to diagnose you, but every time I lose someone close to me, I spend the next stage of my life trying to save and preserve everyone.”

“Sierra—”

“Until I realize it’s the trauma speaking, not me,” she whispers into my chest.

Tears well in the corners of my eyes.

“Kill Dosky. Be Noah.”

“Oh my God,” My lips quiver. “This is crazy, you don’t even know me,” I try.

“Be Noah,” she looks back into my eyes.

She walks towards the door.

“Also, never forget me,” she winks. “Even though that would be pretty hard anyways.”

A few minutes pass while I sit alone in on the perfectly made bed of this mansion sized room, tears streaming from my face.

“Come on, hear me out,” Trent rambles, “Is that if I were there, we could have taken him.”

Our things are packed into the back of Trent’s jeep. We’re way behind schedule driving back to school, but I’m not sure any of us care. Alex is squeezed into the backseat while I drive, and Trent rearranges the colored stickers on Alex’s Rubik’s cube so she can never solve it.

“But, Dosky did “take” him,” Alex argues. “The psycho is unconscious at the end of the video.”

“Listen I know Dosky is an absolute stud when it comes to slamming people on floors, I guess” Trent explains. “But man has got no defense. His face is still covered in scratch marks.”

“Also, he could have stabbed me apparently,” I said. “He has knives.”

“Did Sierra tell you that during you guys’ hot balcony make out session?” Trent asks.

“We didn’t make out,” I defend.

“Look if you have a thing for celebrities, that’s totally cool,” Alex says. “Maybe we’ll run into Idris Elba next year. I’d love to be on his balcony.”

“Ew,” I retort.

“All in all, good freakin’ trip, you freakin’ losers,” Trent says.

“When’s the next one, Dosky?” Alex asks.

“Noah,” I say.

“What?”

“Yeah, this might sound weird, but can you call me Noah?”