Chapter 3

At the same time Thomas was wasting all his time struggling with society, two other important things were happening.

The first important thing was that Jake Rogene's grandmother passed away in her sizable home in Los Angeles, California. She had left all her assets and belongings and fortunes to her daughter, Jake's mother. They moved to California, where they joined the middle-upper class.

At Jake's new school, when people asked him whether or not his dad owned Rogene, he said yes. Things were much better for Jake after that. The turn of events turned him into a devout Catholic.

The other important thing was that Katie Ericcson started an indie rock band with her boyfriend Simon and three of his friends, Jarad, Steven, and Fariesh. Fariesh was a drummer. His family was from Bosnia, but he was born in America. Everybody called him Fara. He was extremely talented, and extremely hairy. People often called him Osama. This frustrated Fara because he was not even remotely similar to the people in that part of the world, and he liked his very long beard. They all lived in LA.

Fara was also frustrated because his parents didn't even name him properly for his heritage. They just thought it was a cool name.

Katie played guitar and sang beautifully.

Beautifully in the way that Thomas Rogene would define beautifully.

She didn't much like to sing for people because she felt it was showing off. But she sang a lot by herself. It was her favorite thing to do.

She didn't have a favorite band. But she really liked The Shins and Belle & Sebastian and Bon Iver. She also loved Simon & Garfunkel.

She liked to pretend that her boyfriend and Simon from Simon & Garfunkel were the same. But she never told anybody that because it was really embarrassing. She also wasn't sure if they were actually two people or just a clever band name.

She was sixteen, and in love. Simon was fifteen and felt lucky to have her.

Katie's boyfriend Simon fell in love with Marijuana. It would tear them apart in the coming year.

They named their band The Seismic Toss. It was the name for a pokemon move in which the pokemon would lift its foe so very high that it would appear to circle the earth and then throw it down magnificently. There was nothing Seismic about the attack, and there was nothing musical about the band name. Fara loved pokemon. He mentioned it. Jarad and Simon backed him.

Steven didn't say anything about it.

Katie thought it was rather dumb.

So do I.