Broken Piano for President

by Patrick Wensink

  A slim silver car pulls up. A woman in sunglasses floats past without looking either in the face. Napoleon jumps behind the driver’s seat. He returns to the awning a few minutes later. “Well, I mean, I guess coconut.”

  “Really? I saw you as a shark man.”

  A black car worth several years of Deshler’s salary rolls slow and gropes the curb.

  “The shark would be drawn out and bloody…I’d be helpless. Way too much biting and chewing for me. Plus, salt water in an open wound…no thanks. I guess if a coconut killed me, it’d be over in a snap.”

  “I’m disappointed,” Deshler says, straightening his jacket. “I’d give you a fighting chance against a shark.”

  “Thanks,” he says with pep. Napoleon eyes their next customer. “Hey, man, you know that video camera I bought?”

  The man in the car is a blob. He oozes out like the seat is waxed. He flips a few stray French fries from shirtfront to his mouth. A bulldozer chest fills out his ketchup-colored suit to the point of demolition. Each stitch is pulled rigid as a violin string. He looks like Christopher Winters twenty years ago, if Christopher Winters had swallowed a tugboat.

  “Uh, no I don’t…” Dean says, fading. His headache almost completely gone.

  “It’s cool, really cool, just picked it up a couple days ago. Some old Sony, it actually uses VHS tapes. VHS tapes! I’m getting pretty handy with it. There’s some stuff you need to check out.”

  “Yeah, buddy, sure.”

  “Twenty bucks at the Goodwill. Shot some crazy footage last night. You should see it. You’re the star of the show, if you know what I mean.”

  “What? Yeah right. Whatever.”

  Dean marvels at how the man’s suit wraps his skin like a red ink stain. Extra chins waggle under a plump brown mustache. He stands tall and adjusts the mustard yellow tie around a mustard yellow shirt.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” Deshler growls, helping the thick man with the door. “Welcome to the—”

  “Hey there, Mystery Boy.” The man flashes a set of teeth like crumbling cement. “Long time no see.”

  A familiar, confused sensation weighs Dean’s body down. The same feeling when that Malinta girl woke up and started talking. Dean is perfectly comfortable blacking out, but he’s not so wild about this sudden trend of forgetting Cliff Drinking acquaintances.

  Some things, he decides, are better left ignored. “Thank you, sir. Will you be staying with us long?”

  “Seriously, Deshler, you need to drop this gig. What are you trying to accomplish by parking cars? It’s like you’re on one of those religious missions, like self-punishment. Ask yourself, if life were a tasty hamburger would you be the onions or the ketchup. Wait no, let me start over.”

  “Sir?”

  “Would you rather be the relish or the something-something?”

  “I’m not following.”

  The man smiles and undoes a jacket button. “Good one, buddy, never mind. You do what you gotta do. You know where I’ll be.” The man wobbles a line to the door. Napoleon holds it open as the man turns back: “See you at the Beef Club tonight, Dean?”

  Deshler’s successful morning of lying rears back. “You…bet,” passes from his throat and through the chilly air in gray gas. He stands for a few seconds and lets the breeze scratch his cheeks, failing to recall any time they might have met.

  Blank.

  Finally, Deshler slips behind the wheel. Other than how to barely work a stick, Deshler knows nothing about cars. He grinds the gears and pulls off. Dean does, however, know a cool car when he drives one, and this isn’t the coolest by a long shot.

  The Batmobile

  No shit, the Batmobile. Not the space shuttle-looking piece of crap Michael Keaton drove. The original from the sixties. The owner was in town for a comic book convention and decided to stay at Deshler’s hotel. No fenders were dented.

  The Pope Mobile

  A few years ago the Pope was in town speaking to 50,000 people at the arena. This was actually the backup Pope Mobile. It was little more than a bulletproof pickup truck with a Kevlar phone booth in the back. No doors were scratched, amen.

  The Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile

  There is a giant hotdog that drives around the country spreading goodwill and news about franks. The driver said he wanted to eat at the hotel’s restaurant but couldn’t find adequate street parking. It was amazing the giant dog was allowed in the city limits, this being such a hamburger town. By some miracle Deshler convinced the wiener man to let him find a spot. It was a lot like driving an eighteen-wheeler, which Deshler has also done. No buns were burned.

  A Giant Slice of Tofu

  Not nearly as exciting as the hotdog, but slightly more memorable. Some woman named Wilhelmina was in town, trying to promote healthy eating. She wouldn’t stop talking to Dean about the protein benefits of tofu as opposed to meat. No beans were curded.

  Out of habit, Dean reaches in his breast pocket for a burned Lothario Speedwagon CD. Slipping a copy into everyone’s player is his form of guerrilla marketing. Though, he’s pretty sure it never converts any fans.

  Deshler zones out and wishes his band had a more artistic name, like the Butthole Surfers. He wishes people would take them seriously. He wishes people would listen. He kind of wishes audiences would stop throwing things, but kind of doesn’t. Shaking up listeners’ anger and confusion is the price an artist pays, he is reminded.

  Dean parallels the car and the passenger door lets out a painful squeal, grinding against a parking lot guardrail. The opening bass notes of Broken Piano for President fill the stereo so Deshler doesn’t hear the impact. It’s too bad, too, because Deshler likes to keep a tally of all the fancy rides he ruins.

  Jogging through the lot back to his post under the hotel awning, Dean snaps out of that band-focused haze. There she is again, across the street with a white bandage wrapped around her head like a World War One casualty. The girl doesn’t see Deshler. Words bubble up to the surface of his throat, but hold back. He’s not sure if this Malinta’s the kind of woman he should ever talk to again. Maybe he’s not the kind of guy she’d like to talk to again, for that matter.

  “Dude, do you know who that guy was?” Napoleon says, jealous.

  “Possibly?”

  “Roland Winters.” Napoleon’s fingers make a ridiculous ta-da move.

  “What? The hamburger guy? Christopher Winters’ kid?”

  Napoleon slowly nods as if Deshler just came back from the dead and asked for a cigarette. “What was that shit he said to you?”

  “I wish I knew.” He realizes this isn’t a lie. What was that slob babbling about?

  “Dude, I can’t believe I let you drive his car,” Napoleon says with kid brother awe. “That guy is Mister Hamburger. What did it smell like?”

  “Oh, you know,” Dean tries to remember, but goes back to lying. “Space Burgers.”

  “Ahhh, I knew it. No wonder he looks like that, it’s gotta be impossible to stay in shape eating junk all day. Though, I hear that new Space Burger only weighs about a third as much as a regular Winters Burger. Crazy huh? Healthy burgers.”

  Napoleon parks an elderly woman’s Lincoln. She walks syrup slow to the door Deshler holds.

  Napoleon wanders back to the awning jingling keys, tossing them from hand to hand. “God, man,” his hefty partner says. “You look like shit. Do you have any clue what you did last night?”

  Lothario Speedwagon has played together for half a year and is banned from all but one bar around town. The electricity has been switched off the stage fourteen times. The band has only finished its set five times. Five that Deshler remembers, at least.

  Shows usually end early when the singer throws things, which include, but are not limited to:

  Chairs.

  Ziploc bags of water.

  Microphone stands.

  Hamburgers.

  Ziploc bags of ketchup.

  Other bands’ equipment.

  Beer bottles.
/>   Punches.

  Ziploc bags of urine.

  The band self-released a cassette, Broken Piano for President, a few months ago. Tapes, being insanely outdated, are cheaper than CDs and seven-inch records, while being a million times cooler than MP3s—at least to the band. The lowest deal they could get was for five hundred copies pressed without artwork. In lieu of professional cover art, the band slapped on a Lothario Speedwagon sticker and randomly glued pieces of junk to the plastic tape cases. Dean’s favorite copy features fingernail clippings and bloody band-aids. At the time of this publication, three hundred and five copies have been sold. Two hundred and sixty went through the band’s website to Japan.

  The band is confused, since Lothario Speedwagon has never played in Japan and none of its songs feature Japanese lyrics.

  Practice is held in the drummer’s basement. His house is seemingly kept standing by thumb tacks. There’s a stiff breeze even when the windows are closed and what chunks of paint still hang to the slats are, at best, colored primer.

  Downstairs, mismatched scraps of carpet are nailed along the basement walls to dampen noise. For decoration, Pandemic hung a couple thousand Christmas bulbs. Every string is set to a different blinker schedule. The effect is close to LSD sequences in sixties movies.

  Behind Hamler’s amp is a garbage heap of bright painted masks. Dean came up with the band’s image one hungover morning after waking up in a costume shop/arts and crafts store: Day-glo papier-mâché masks and a lot of black lights around the stage.

  The mysterious look also keeps their identity a secret, which has come in handy more than a few times after rocky performances.

  At nine-thirty, Pandemic and Deshler lie around the practice space floor sharing a bottle of Night Train wine. The taste isn’t unlike kerosene cut with Kool-Aid.

  “What is wrong with your roommate?” Pandemic says. “I don’t have time for his slow-ass screwing around.”

  “Beats me,” Deshler says, bum wine burning a pool in his stomach. “He was crying about being on time this afternoon. Here we are.” Dean recognizes a familiar germ growing inside him thanks to the wine. Some call it creativity, others call it trouble.

  Dean’s heard rumors that Juan Pandemic is rich. He and Henry’s friends, who have played in bands with Pandemic before, back this theory up. Trust fund baby, they say. But from every angle Dean doubts that nametag applies to his methamphetamine-smoking drummer.

  Juan Pandemic’s skinny face and shaved head are scattered in welts from uncontrollable scratching. His everyday wardrobe consists of stained sweatpants and no shirt. He’s thin as a coat of paint and, occasionally, when he stays up for five nights in a row, carries a vinegar cat piss stink soaked into his skin. This aroma, Dean learned, is a signpost of brewing a batch of crystal meth. Hardly the calling card of a man who gets a check from daddy every month, Deshler thinks.

  With all this raggedness, though, one can’t spend more than a minute with Pandemic without getting the impression he thinks he’s better than you. As far as vain meth addicts go, he tops the leader board.

  All flaws aside, Pandemic is a madman drummer. He beats a fairly standard drum kit, plus his homemade Konkers, with brutal power. Pandemic’s Konkers include a metal trashcan—sometimes ignited with lighter fluid—cookie sheets, an oil drum, hubcaps, industrial springs and a mutilated car hood. His hands are scarred and enormous and bash away like sledgehammers. When the band is at full-tilt, Pandemic’s a junkyard in an earthquake. He’s the perfect backbeat for a group like Lothario Speedwagon.

  “You want more of this shit. I can tell,” the drummer says, picking something hard and yellow from his eye.

  “Well.”

  “You haven’t started talking weird yet. That’s not right. I have a couple more in the fridge.”

  “Yeah, dude, it’s not so bad after a few sips.” Deshler swallows a breath, scaring away building heartburn. “Hey, wait, talking weird?”

  Pandemic runs upstairs and Dean loses himself, thinking about Malinta. God, what a woman. But then again, I did nearly kill her.

  Didn’t I?

  I should stay away.

  “I don’t normally drink this shit, but I’m slumming it tonight.” The drummer stomps back down. “One for each of us. You can thank me later,” Pandemic says, holding two bottles of electric green Night Train.

  With each sip Dean senses that little germ graduating into a plague of creativity. There is no talking, just wet gurgles between the men. It’s satisfying, Dean thinks, to wait and just build up this magic pressure.

  That steam pushes against Dean’s temples, tight, right as his roommate thunders down the rotting wooden stairs.

  “About time, Henry.”

  “Don’t start, man, just don’t.” Henry’s stomach still feels oily and evil. “Can we just jam a while? I don’t want to practice our old shit today. I want something new. Something slow and dark.”

  Nobody argues and the band slithers through some riffs. Lothario Speedwagon is Pandemic on percussion, Henry on bass and Dean on vocals with occasional urine-tossing. They have a reputation among a tiny percentage of fans as a revolutionary live act. However, the vast majority of crowds around town think they are, at best, art school masturbation. Or, as the local alternative weekly said: “A kick in the shin to anyone with functional hearing.” Deshler taped that article to the refrigerator.

  Henry plucks some strings. His bass is detuned and hot-rodded to sound like a table saw through a stop sign.

  Deshler’s mile-long vocal chords come across somewhere between southern gospel preacher and Navy foghorn. That deep voice rattles his guts when hitting low notes. He never sang for school or for choirs or suppers. One day he just tried out the microphone and fell in love.

  An hour into practice, the magic pressure builds a bomb from countless sips. The singer is frustrated because his creative plague didn’t explode. It’s close, but he can’t light the wick. Dean snarls lyrics he hates, but can’t stop repeating:

  She drinks all the Night Train

  Riding on the bus

  You know you’re getting old

  When your momma hates your guts

  Words rattle off in different cadences, trying to find a fit for the musical chaos.

  And when the aerialist

  Begins to blow you a kiss

  You better slit your wrists

  ’Cause that’s when the credits roll

  Nothing works, but Dean knows art takes time. His art takes a little more than most. After their first few months together, the band only has five complete songs—the ones recorded for the Broken Piano for President tape.

  Dean digs for that click when the drums and the bass and his voice snap together to form some fire-lunged monster. They’d probably write more tunes, but Dean has a hard time remembering lyrics.

  Today I found my brother

  lyin’ in the gutter

  Said, “your suit is full of holes

  and it’s tearin’”

  He wiped the dust from his pants

  Looked me straight in the face

  and said:

  “If you were a carpenter would you be Jesus or Karen?”

  That one strikes the target.

  To Dean, Lothario Speedwagon just pushed the detonator on a stack of TNT. The explosion is narcotic. It’s the only time the world is all ears, nobody ignores him. How could they? In Dean’s mind, his parents—probably both sealed in boxes since last they spoke—finally sit up and take notice.

  Dean smiles between swigs of wine, still coherent enough to catch that thrill. Far too often he’s blacked-out during these little victories and only catches a glimpse from boom box practice recordings.

  Deshler’s tried a million different methods, but can’t write an ounce of a song without several pints of booze shaking his liver to death. While this is good for creativity, it cuts productivity out of the picture. Every band practice is walking a fine line even smaller than the one this morning with Malinta
.

  The band works up a thin layer of sweat and finishes more bottles. In the middle of a collective noise-demolition, Pandemic holds a metal sheet over his scuffed head, yelling: “Stop, stop, wait, hold on.” The band spins out of control with feedback and drunk muttering through the PA until the insect buzz of thousands of Christmas lights fills the room. “What time is it?”

  Henry looks at his phone. “Only ten forty five, why?”

  “Oh, man,” Pandemic pouts like a child with melted ice cream. “Why didn’t any of you tell me?”

  They look confused.

  “We’re done. Now I’m missing the webcast.”

  “Webcast of what?” Deshler asks, again questioning everyone’s commitment. He slumps against a wall, his loose skull bobbing side-to-side.

  “Jesus, dude. Come on. The Space Burger webcast.” Pandemic fetches a laptop and starts typing.

  “Oh, shit, right,” Henry says. “You better hurry, Comrade.”

  “Huh?” Pandemic looks at Henry.

  “That sorta means, ‘dude,’ in Russian. I took some classes in college.”

  “Some?”

  “Minored.”

  “Hey, we’re practicing,” Dean’s voice is like a nasty shove. “Don’t you guys care about this?”

  “Man, we can listen to my fine-ass drumming later. This shit’s important.” Juan looks down at his screen, face glowing blue.

  Through a haze of turpentine wine, Deshler thinks it is kind of odd that Pandemic has a laptop and even more unthinkable that this dump has Wi-Fi. “What are you guys so worried about?” Deshler says, annoyed.