by Maddy Wells
Tim, on the other hand, starts humming when I play a new tune and all of a sudden words shoot out of his mouth that are not only seriously moving but they are original, by which I mean they are not trite or full of emotions that he read about somewhere but you can tell that all this stuff is happening inside him or happened to someone else somewhere but he is so empathetic that the vibes find their way into his lyric box. That’s where I need to get.
Writing songs is the only thing I can actually see myself doing for the rest of my life, so, if I can’t learn how to write lyrics in school, I don’t see the point. I’m dropping out if I can get The Griffin to sign my release and give me a little cash to get me started in Houston. Jane says if The Griffin will sign she will, too. She doesn’t want to hold the bag for my potentially disastrous decision or my tantrums if I don’t get my way. “There’s more to an education than just facts,” she says. “You have to learn how to get along with the human race and how are you going to find out how to do that looking at a screen?” but I seriously think she’s wrong. She went to college after she had me and look at her: teaching juvenile delinquents she clearly does not give a shit about. And look at The Griffin. He dropped out at sixteen and is the leader of a successful rock band that works all the time.
It’s a simple choice made simpler by the fact that The Griffin is coming through Milltown on his way from Toronto to Houston where he will open his first solo tour in ten years. At which time I will get him to sign me up for real life.
“I can always get a GED if I turn out to be a total loser and need to become a teacher,” I tell Jane, who pretends not to hear me when I cut her like Lady Gaga cuts Madonna. “I mean, sixteen is not the end of the world,” which is an even meaner thing to say because sixteen is exactly when Jane’s world ended.
Jane said, “Maybe you should clean out the Trap if you want The Griffin to jam with you.”
Two days till The Griffin lands. I open the garage door to the Trap and start sweeping out the crap that gets in under the door and was in the middle of a sneezing fit—I think I have allergies nobody ever bothered testing me for—when Tim pulls up on his bicycle with his guitar over his shoulder. He hops off the bike and pulls the guitar out of its case and starts playing. I put down my broom, pick up the Fender and keep up with him. After about an hour, we stop, spent, breathing like we just climbed Mt. Everest.
“I can’t believe The Griffin is actually coming to Milltown,” he said.
“He’s coming to see me and Jane.” I felt it was important to make the distinction.
“He’s going to be here, though, right? Right here?”
Here’s the thing about being the daughter of a famous person. You’re never quite sure why people like you. It’s especially problematic when you have a band and your parent is a famous rock star. Until right now, Tim Coles had never said a word about The Griffin and he had moved here six months ago from Black Eddy and we had been playing together for five of those months. So I’ve had five months of naïve stupidity where I allowed myself to think that news of my juicy endowment didn’t matter to him. Look how he fought me on the berets. If he were trying to kiss up, he would have stuck a beret on his head and asked me if I approved of the angle.
“Yes, he’s going to be right here,” I said.
“We got to get a drummer,” he said, excited. “We’ll sound much better with a drummer. Do you think Raymond would sit in?”
Raymond, which everyone pronounced with the accent on the second syllable with no d as if he were French or something—Raymon not Raaaaaymond—is The Griffin’s bass man. He is from Montreal, which doesn’t make him French at all. I’m not trying to be snotty, it’s just a fact. But he acts French, that is, he has strong opinions about everything like whether you got fatter since the last time he saw you—“Cher Mercy, your avoirdupois is looking trės Americain. No more pommes frites pour toi!”—to whether or not the latest song you wrote is worth anything. Since he is the best musician in The Griffin, actually one of the best bass players in the world, his opinion matters and his cuts always hurt.
“We can ask him,” I said. “They just usually crash out when they come here, though. They crash and get high. I don’t know if The Griffin’ll want to hear us play.”
“Of course, he will,” he said, “You’re his daughter, Mercy.”
It’s a complete waste of time to wonder how things would feel if this or that were different in your life. Like what would it be like to have a mother who gave me helpful tips on my changing body, like why getting my period made me feel like a griffin myself, ready to pounce at the least offence and why it took my body so damned long to change in the first place. Or what it would be like to have a father who thought it was worth his time to pay attention to me when I didn’t have a guitar in my hands, although I did notice that every picture of Isak on Facebook featured him playing the guitar, so I’m not the only one obviously. All that neglected spawn stuff is in a box called “yeah, right” which I opened once to sample and almost threw up it tasted so bad.
“What should we play?” I asked, humoring Tim.
“You know that tune you were playing yesterday? I gave it some words.”
Which we put to the tune, then the tune changed to fit the words and pretty soon we had a real song on our hands. It was so depressing that I couldn’t come up with words like Tim could. There had to be a website that addressed my deficiency.
Tim put his guitar in its case to get ready to go to his job at the Seven-Eleven. I picked up the broom to continue the clean-up I’d begun. He walked his bike up and stared at me.
“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
To my horror, because I should have seen it coming, he leaned over and kissed me on the lips, which I actually really wanted him to do for a long time, but I hated that he did it now. I actually liked his hairless chest and his incredible triceps and I liked him, but I wanted him to like me for myself, not because of The Griffin on my coat of arms.
“Don’t forget to find us a drummer,” he said as he swung a leg over the bike and coasted down the driveway.
I waited until he turned around to see if I was watching him to lift my sleeve to wipe my mouth, just to prove how little his kiss meant to me, but later, when I remembered it, I licked my lips.
Chapter 3
It was the end of May and school was almost over. The seniors, except for the idiots who were slogging through remedial reading and writing, had finished classes and were waiting for graduation and the Prom bacchanalia, meanwhile buzzing the school in their cars because they were like dogs who only knew their way from the kennel to home. The halls were mostly empty as most of the underclassmen were on educational field trips to the Franklin Museum in Philly or the Met in New York City. It seemed pointless to put up flyers looking for a drummer at school, but I did anyway.
I printed the flyers on Barbie Girl pink paper and sprinkled glitter on them—girl drummer bait. Girls, myself included, and even girls who wear only black and even girls who have had abortions, have some chemical that makes it impossible to resist pink sparkly shit. Pink brings up girlish happy reminders of innocence or something, which is hilarious because no girl I know is either happy or innocent.
I taped the flyers in all the usual places: the band room, the library, the cafeteria and I had one left so I headed to the gym. I had no sooner taped a flyer to the girls locker room door when a sturdy junior, Janet Kirby, who had been the captain of the field hockey team since she was a sophomore—Captain Kirby they called her—knocked me off balance when she pushed the door open.
“Soooooorrrry,” I said, waiting for her to apologize back.
“No problem.”
Captain Kirby looked back at the door to see what was so interesting, read the flyer and pulled it off the door. “A drummer. Hey! Unless…you saw it first.” She handed the flyer to me with a show of polite sportsmanship. “You go ahead.”
“No, no,” I said. “I’m already in the band. It’s
my band, I mean. Do you drum?”
“I dabble,” she said.
“We don’t need a dabbler, we need a drummer.”
“Hehe…hehehe,” she said. Her voice was really low. “Sounds like fun.”
“We need someone who can actually keep a beat.”
“I can keep a beat. What do you think hockey is all about?”
I had no idea what hockey was all about, but I was hoping that a girl drummer would take Tim’s attention away from me until he decided what it was he liked about me: the real Mercy or Mercy, daughter of The Griffin. And it didn’t seem likely that Captain Kirby was the girl to do it. It wasn’t that I was a beauty or something—as I said, average average average—it was just that with a mostly shaved head with bangs in front and a bullish neck Captain Kirby didn’t look like a girl to distract Tim from me.
“Well, why don’t we find out what drumming and hockey have in common?” I said. “Here, come to the Trap.” I wrote the street number down. “Can you come tonight?” It would give us two nights to practice before The Griffin showed up.
“Yeah, I can come tonight.” She pocketed the address and patted it.
Right. I could see where she probably didn’t need a secretary to keep her social life straight.
“What kind of music do you like?” I asked. “Do you like rock? We’re a rock band.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Captain Kirby said. “Whatever. I like everything.”
Definitely the wrong answer to give a rocker. She must have seen my disapproving look.
“Drummers, you know,” Captain Kirby said, “Can’t be particular. We’re the dumb blondes—no offence—of a band. No one wants our opinion or they laugh when we give it. They just want us to do our job and keep quiet. So to speak.” She did a little air drumming, flicking her wrists expertly enough so I was hopeful she could do what she said she could. At the end of it, she did an impromptu dance and was surprisingly light on her feet considering how big she was.
“Have you played with a band before?” I asked.
“My cousins.”
Great. Everyone plays with their cousins or their brothers.
“There are some famous professional musicians coming to the Trap the day after tomorrow. You think you might want to jam? I mean you still have to audition and everything.”
“What is this Trap you keep talking about? I never heard of it.”
I’m not sure why I thought my Trap was the most famous band practice space in Milltown but clearly news of it hadn’t traveled to the girls’ locker room so how famous could it be?
“It’s just my garage, actually.”
“And who are these famous musicians we’re going to jam with? I don’t care, mind you,” Captain Kirby said. “Like I said, it’s all the same to me. I just do my job and…” She put her thumb and index finger together and dragged them across her lips.
“Right. Well, it’s The Griffin.” I peered into her eyes, waiting for that glint of recognition.
“The Griffith?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Just come tonight and audition. We’ll see what you can do.”
She looked down at the flyer. “Cool flyer.” She touched some of the glitter and patted her nose. Even Captain Kirby wasn’t immune to glitter and pink. “So you’re Mercy? As in Have Mercy, the name of the band?”
“Yeah, that’s me. That’s the band.”
“Cool.”
“I’m not saying you’re in or anything, I mean it’s an audition process,” I said. “And the other band members have to approve.”
“I totally get it,” she said.
“So. See you later?”
“See you later.”
I twirled around to leave, thinking it was actually pretty great that Captain Kirby had a shaved head so I could mentally measure her for a beret. It was even greater that she didn’t know who The Griffin was.
Chapter 4
“It’s too bad The Griffin is coming on prom night,” Jane said. “But, I guess, we get him when we get him.”
She was punching the pillows on the sofa, her big skill in housekeeping arts. She thwacked away until she finally got the result she wanted: zig-zag creases down their middle. She actually hired a cleaning lady twice a month on her skimpy salary saying that she was too busy to dust and vacuum. I told her she should hire me. I could use the cash, seeing how I only get some measly walking around money from whatever The Griffin sends from the road—I noticed that the return address was never Houston—and I had to roll up my sleeves before she forked it over so she could go through some mom routine she’d seen on Oprah, checking my forearms for tracks and the base of my back for an upside down cross or whatever. She said it wasn’t right to pay me for work around the house, and if I did anything around the house it should be because I wanted to contribute to the common good. Commie talk, definitely. If Jane ever watched the news, she would know that Commies were a giant threat, and I told her I hoped she wasn’t talking like that in the teachers’ lounge. “You’re a funny kid,” she’d said. “Where do you get this stuff?”
“Well, who cares if it’s prom night?” I told her now. “That just means there will be fewer groupies to buy take-out for.”
“I’m a chaperone so I have to stay till it’s over,” Jane sighed, as if she hated chaperone duty. “It’s too late to back out.” It pleased her that students requested her more often than any other teacher so she was always chaperoning some lame-o student festivity or field trip. She kept a purse full of rubbers to pass out in violation of official school district think that high school students didn’t sprout genitals until after graduation, and a flask full of vodka which she disguised with orange soda in the bathroom when the fun got a little too boring even for her.
“So don’t go,” I said. “Proms are lame.”
“You’ve never been to one, so how would you know?”
“It’s not that I haven’t been asked,” I lied.
“Somebody asked you to the prom? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m not going. I’m only a freshman. I think people should act their age.”
I followed her upstairs and helped her put some clean sheets on the guestroom beds then she went outside for a smoke break and I had an idea for a song, so I went to the Trap and turned on the amp.
Da da da, something something something Jane… Jane Jane Jane.
Mother’s Day was a couple of weeks ago and I forgot it. It gets hard when you’re older to remember holidays because teachers don’t have you making Popsicle stick art a week in advance and the whole time “Mother’s Day Mother’s Day Mother’s Day” is dangling from the ceiling in big red cut out letters. You’re on your own in the holiday department in high school so my freshman year I forgot every holiday that didn’t involve me getting a present. Jane didn’t say anything about my lapse until we were riding around—she actually let me get some driving time in—that Sunday night looking for a place to eat and I saw a big sign on Friday’s that said “Moms Eat Half Price,” and I said “Why do Moms get to eat half price. That’s discrimination.” or something equally wise-ass and Jane said, quietly, “It’s Mother’s Day.”
“Oh, shit, I forgot!” I said, and Jane smiled and said, “That’s okay. It’s just a Hallmark Holiday. We’re cooler than that. Really. Aren’t we the Two Cool Society?” She patted my hand and I felt really really awful even though we were cooler than Hallmark and I wanted to make it up to her with a song just about her but I couldn’t think of anything to say until just now. There was something about her karate chopping those pillows that I found…I don’t know….lonely, I guess. Like it was just her and me and neither of us, but especially her, had any idea how to do things. She didn’t even know how to balance a checkbook: that was one of my chores the last day of the month, writing out checks for our bills. I mean she didn’t even have a Facebook page like every other mom in Milltown who used Facebook to spy on their kids—I don’t think she even realized that was an option�
�and she only used a computer for grading papers.
Jane Jane Jane da da da la dee da… I played some chords but no words came.
“Hey, that’s pretty good.”
I looked up to see Captain Kirby backlit in the driveway. A size 14. At least. Big. Really big. If she wasn’t stronger than every other girl at school she would have been beaten up every day of her life for that girth.
“I brought my sticks,” she said.
“Great,” I said. “I have a set up right here.”
“So I see.” She got behind the Pearl ePro Live EPLX205P/C464 Electronic Drum Kit, which came in Quilted Maple Fade which I had special ordered in Quilted Pink Fade since The Griffin, changing the subject when I asked him if Jane and I could visit Isak and Marjewel the next summer, had volunteered to buy them for me.
Captain Kirby pulled her sticks out of the case and rat a tat tat and a foot pedal boom then bada bing on the cymbal.
“Sweet,” she said. She touched the rims of the smaller drums lovingly.
“My dad bought them for me.”
“They’re so cool.”
“My dad is The Griffin. I guess I should have told you.”
“Your dad is the famous rocker you were telling me about?” She had a funny look on her face and for a second I thought she was going to cry or something, but then she perked up.
“You okay?” I asked.