by Rob Harrell
If my head wasn’t locked down, I’d sit up.
“It is?”
Callie nods. “Yeah . . . it is. Sorry. It’s thinning. But the hair’ll grow back pretty quickly.”
I feel like I need to get up. If only to find a mirror. “The hair will, but not the eyebrow. I heard that’s permanent.”
Frank steps up. “Having two eyebrows is waaaaay overrated. You wanna be just like everybody else?”
“Yes!” I nod as much as the mask will let me. “Yeah, I very much do!”
Callie pushes a few buttons on the panel beside her. “Well, too late, buddy! You’re special!”
I close my eyes and groan. “Well, being special sucks.”
Frank smiles and points at the equipment. “All right, Tips of Steel. You know the drill.”
My dad drops me off for my guitar lesson a few minutes before six thirty.
“I’m going to AT&T.” His antique of a phone has finally given up the ghost. “I’ll be back in an hour unless it takes longer than that. If so, just . . . wait. I’ll be here.” He pats me on the back before I get out.
As I come through the screen door, Frank is still in his scrubs from work, messing with an electric guitar on the dining room table.
“Is that new?”
He looks up. “Old, actually. And ruined. It’s a long story, but Denny backed over it last weekend after our show. It’s toast.”
He picks it up as I walk over.
“See there?” The body is cracked, and the surface has deep scrape marks. “If I only teach you one thing in this life, let it be this: Never let the drummer drive.”
I nod. “Got it.”
He walks over to the couch and pushes a bunch of wrinkled copies of Guitar Player magazine onto the floor.
“Also, never trust a guy in pleated pants. That’s not related. It’s just good life advice.” He plops down and crosses his feet on the coffee table.
I hear a crash from the back of the house. “Who’s that?
Frank looks in that direction. “Denny. He’s in his room studying for some entrance exam. Wants to repair fridges, which pays better than being in a failing band. And they don’t care if you have tattoos of Willie Nelson and Elvis Presley down your arms.”
He starts clapping his hands.
“Let’s go! Play me some beautiful scales, Coin Slot!”
I pop open the guitar case. “It’s Dime Slot.” Then I lift out the guitar, grab a pick, take a deep breath—and proceed to play a painful series of wrong notes, mistakes, and screwups. My fingers have a mind of their own. Frank stops me.
“Okay. Wow. That was god-awful.” He nods like he’s thinking it over. “I don’t even know what you were trying to do there. Just . . . relax. Breathe. And try again.”
I take another deep breath and start again . . . with even worse results.
Frank has one eyebrow raised. “You in there today? You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” I have to sniff after I say it. I’m not okay. My good eye is blurring with water, and the bad one is stinging like acid. I look up and lean back, trying to stop it from going any further.
“I’m just . . . Gah! Give me a second.”
Frank nods slowly, watching, while I fish out some eye drops. He grabs a Kleenex from the box on the side table and hands it to me.
I let out a long breath. I’ve been numb all day, just staring at the ceiling. Now it’s like the guitar playing has pushed the On button for all my emotions. Maybe if I stay still enough, my thoughts’ll calm down and stop pinging off the inside of my skull like a pinball machine.
Frank picks up his own guitar and starts playing it quietly. Effortlessly.
“This isn’t about Jerry, is it?”
“No.” I close my eyes. “I mean, yes. That . . . and other stuff. A bunch of stuff.”
He picks through a couple of chord progressions. “Such as?”
“Well. There’s just a lot . . .” I lift my head. Stare at a dent in the side of the trunk table. Rub my eyes with the back of my hand.
“Spill, buddy. I don’t have anywhere to be.”
So I do.
“My best friend and I aren’t speaking . . . and she’s moving in a few weeks . . . I was a total jerk to my stepmom . . . My hair’s falling out, and my eyebrow’s gone for good . . . And my other friend, Isaac, has just vanished . . . acts like he barely knows me . . . My face and eye hurt . . . I managed to embarrass myself in front of this awesome girl, and my entire . . .” It just keeps coming. Like word barf. Once I start, the floodgates open.
I tell him everything that’s happened plus a good amount of the garbage swirling around in my head. As I ramble like a lunatic for five or ten minutes, barely taking a breath, Frank slowly stops picking out notes.
He just nods, making quick comments like “Whoa” and “Aw, man.”
After my rant, the room feels extra quiet.
I take a couple of deep breaths and scratch up under my hat—carefully. We sit in silence for almost a minute.
“That’s tough stuff, Ross.” He’s looking down at his guitar. “I’d say your plate is . . . full. Too full, by far. And those memes, that’s just . . .” He tapers off.
“Yeah.” I’m back to staring at the trunk.
He plucks a couple of notes. “I’m searching my brain for something smart to say. Some piece of advice that’ll make things better, but all I can think of is ‘Screw ’em.’”
I let out a puff of a laugh.
He goes on. “Sometimes life is just the WORST, y’know? Sometimes it can be hard as hell. All you can do is ride it out, and maybe . . . focus on the things you love? The people you love? And just kind of . . . hang on. With both hands.”
He sighs, and we sit there for a few seconds in silence.
Finally, Frank looks up at me. “Do you like blowing stuff up?”
“I . . .” I’m not sure I heard him right. “Like, with explosives?”
Frank sets his guitar down. “No. Like video games. Denny’s got some new game—it just came out. Mars something.”
“Wait. Not Annihilation: Mars?”
Frank snaps. “That’s it.”
I scoot forward on the couch. “That doesn’t come out for a month.”
Frank shrugs. “Yeah, I don’t know about this stuff. But Denny knows a guy who tests games or something? Got him a bootleg copy. I bet he’d let us play.”
I look down at the guitar in my lap. “Now? And not finish the . . .”
Frank gives me a look. “You’re not in your head. Nothing’s gonna stick today, and I don’t blame you. I think blowing stuff up on a foreign planet would be a lot more productive.”
Then he yells at the top of his lungs, “DENNY! STUDY BREAK!”
Ten minutes later, Denny and Frank are cheering as I storm an alien compound, plasma guns blazing. Best of all, the TV is about three times louder than anything my dad and Linda will put up with when Frank shouts, “Turn it up more!”
Denny grabs the remote and puts it up even further, until the windows are shaking. For a guy who doesn’t like technology, Frank has a pretty amazing surround sound system.
With Frank and his giant tattooed drummer looking on, I kick in the compound’s front portal and lay gory, violent waste to mountains of hostile bug-faced alien freaks, a fine mist of blood and entrails in my wake.
And it feels gooood.
When Denny can’t take it anymore, he grabs the controller from me and takes a turn. He’s pretty funny to watch, ducking and leaning around on the couch yelling, “Oooh! Don’t eat me, you crazy-faced alien $%#@&!”
Denny’s character is digging through the rubble for health and energy packs when he leans over and bumps my shoulder with his.
“You know, Jimmy’s pretty decent on drums. You guys should get together and jam sometime.”
My stomach drops.
“Oh. That’s . . . that’s okay. I’m good.”
Denny jumps when an alien pops out from a storage closet�
�blasts it—and laughs.
“No, seriously. I know you aren’t exactly best friends, but who cares?”
Frank is pointing at the screen. “There. Behind the control thingy. One of the green packs.” Denny collects it.
I walk over to the sink and pour water into a faded IU cup. “‘Not best friends’ is putting it pretty lightly. He said he still owes me a beatdown.”
Denny makes a dismissive sound. “Whatever. He’s all bark. I’ll set him straight if he—GYYAAAAHHHH!!”
Onscreen, his character’s head is being eaten by a red monkey-looking thing. He falls back into the couch. Flings the remote to Frank and looks over.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“It’s . . .” This whole thing is making me squirm. “Don’t bother. If there’s one thing I can tell you, Jimmy and me playing together is never going to happen.”
25
JIMMY
My dad’s dropping me off at Frank’s just as Jimmy I pulls onto the gravel driveway on a beat-up old ten-speed. It’s way too small for him, making him look a little like a grizzly on a tricycle.
He doesn’t acknowledge us.
After locking up his bike, he climbs the front steps right behind me, and nudges me out of the way. I stand back as he opens the door. He lets the screen door slap shut in my face.
I shake it off.
I knew things were off when Jimmy sat down beside me in class this morning. I could feel him staring at me, so I looked over. He huffed and looked away, chewing loudly. So, I bent to get my books out and could tell he was looking over again.
I jerked my head up. “What?”
“What?” He shot me an angry look and rolled his eyes away to the front of the room, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe this was happening. Closed his eyes and let out a huge sigh.
“So, my cousin . . .” He mumbled it and tapered off, scratching at his hat-squished hair.
“Denny.”
He sat up and looked at me like I was an idiot. “Yeah. Denny. My cousin.” It looked like this conversation was killing him.
“Yeah.” I nod. “He told me you play drums. That you’re pretty good.”
He glared at me a bit more, then waved his hand. “He says we should go over tonight and try playing. Or whatever.”
I made a quick mental note to kill Denny.
I stared at the top of my desk for a bit. Sarah came in and sat down in front of me, and I thought once again about how she always smells like sunshine and joy. A vision flashed through my head of her watching me play at the talent show.
I turned to Jimmy. “I’m okay with that if you are.”
Jimmy nodded a couple of times. “Whatever. Fine. Only ’cause Denny has himself all in a twist about it.”
Now we’re both here. Frank and Denny take us down to the basement. It’s unfinished, and they’ve covered the walls with blankets and tapestries to muffle the sound. There’s a big backdrop hanging between the high windows with RiPE SPoNgE in swirly letters. Half a dozen amplifiers are scattered around. Electric guitars on stands. A keyboard. A drum set.
“Welcome to the lair, Ross.” Frank picks up an acoustic guitar and starts checking the tuning. Denny adjusts the height of a cymbal.
Jimmy goes over and throws a leg over the stool to sit down at the drum kit. He takes a pair of sticks out of his back pocket and tests the sound of a few drums.
Jimmy and I still haven’t spoken to each other since we got here.
Frank plugs a cord into the end of the guitar. An electric acoustic? I have to admit I didn’t even realize that was a thing. I take it and put the strap over my head, noticing the hum of the amp.
I look up, and Denny and Frank are looking at me. Then Denny jumps like he forgot something. “Wait! Wait! We need rock-and-roll lighting.” He flips on a couple of lamps and shuts off the overhead lights. “Need the right look. This could be a historic moment. Like Keith Richards and Mick Jagger in a studio for the first time together.”
I’ve read up on my Rolling Stones because of the mix. “Except Jagger didn’t play drums.”
Jimmy makes a disgusted sound. “And Keith Richards wasn’t a little zit-faced dork!” He shoots me a death glare and points a stick at me.
“All right. Let’s see what you got, Maloy!”
26
CREATIVE DIFFERENCES
Jimmy smacks his sticks together four times and then he’s playing—louder and a lot faster than I expected. I look over at Frank.
Frank leans back against the windowsill, smiling. “Play something. A chord progression or . . . Just jump in!”
I watch Jimmy for a few bars—he’s better than I expected—and then I go for it.
I play the simplest progression I know—the first one Frank showed me—but even so I can’t change my chords fast enough. It sounds like garbage.
I fumble, then stop, and then Jimmy stops.
“What was that?” He looks like I wiped a booger on him. I feel my cheeks go red. I curse the fingers of my left hand.
Denny throws some kind of rag at Jimmy’s head. “Slow it down, dummy! You’ve been playing for a year. Ross just started a few weeks ago.”
Jimmy rolls his eyes and turns some knob on one of the drums. “Fine.”
He thinks about it for a second, then starts in—a different beat than before. A little slower.
I wait a few bars, and then I’m in.
The first time through, the chords are kind of sloppy. But then I click into the beat. And it feels great. Like two cogs in my brain have finally synced up.
Frank is bobbing his head. Rubbing his beard. “Okay! Okay, there we go! Nice! Just keep that going a bit. Get used to it.”
Jimmy’s scowl fades, and a big grin spreads across my face before I even realize it.
I can’t help it. This is AWESOME!
A few more times through, and I change up the way I’m strumming—a different pattern. Jimmy hears it and changes his rhythm to match it. Denny claps his enormous hands a few times and sits back on a stool. Laughs. “There ya go! A little call and response. This is MUSIC, ladies and gentlemen!” He starts bobbing his head so happily I can kind of see the nerdy band kid hiding under all the hair and tattoos.
We keep playing. After a while one of us changes something, then the other will follow and do something new. Back and forth. In a way it’s like a dance.
A dance with a big goof who wants to knock my block off.
Jimmy stops and grabs a towel from beside the drum kit to wipe his forehead. He’s always kind of a sweaty guy to start with, but now he’s really working. Through his wad of gum, he asks Frank to hand him a cup sitting in the corner.
Denny gives us a slow clap. “That was cool. That was very cool. More fun than practicing by yourself, am I right?”
Jimmy is nodding and slyly spitting into the cup between his legs when Denny realizes what he’s doing.
“Jimmy! What’d I tell you about that?” He walks over and holds an enormous hand out, waiting. “Hand it over.”
Jimmy rolls his eyes, busted. Holds out the cup.
“Whatever.”
Frank jumps up and takes the cup away from Jimmy.
“You can whatever all you want, but you’re not spitting in my favorite collectible Adventure Time cup.”
Denny keeps after him. “What have I told you about the spitting thing? It’s disgusting, dude. You aren’t still carrying that nasty jar around, are you?”
Jimmy looks away, embarrassed. “No.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. That kind of laugh that pops out of your throat like a seal bark.
“BAH!”
They all turn to look at me, especially Jimmy, and I can literally feel the heat in his glare.
Denny’s eyebrows go up. “He does? He still does it?”
I look over at Jimmy—he’s boring holes in me with his eyes—then back at Denny.
“I dunno. Maybe?” Denny puts his hands on his hips like that isn’t good enough. “Yeah
. A lot.”
Denny looks really irritated as he walks over and swats Jimmy on the back of the head. “Such a bonehead! You look like a freakin’ idiot. And it’s DISGUSTING! Chew a normal human-sized amount if you—”
He stops when Jimmy whips a drumstick at my head. Then Jimmy’s up and moving, coming around the kit. His shoulder knocks into that up-and-down cymbal thingy, and it goes down with a crash.
Then Frank is jumping between us. “Hey! Hey!” He puts his hands on Jimmy’s chest, holding him back. “Guitars! Expensive gear! Chill out!”
“Little rat!” Jimmy’s face is red, and he’s leaning into Frank’s hands. He spits his gum at me, but I step away. “You couldn’t just shut up, could you? Moron. Way to stick up for your bandmate, you—”
His words are cut off as Denny steps behind him and gets him in a headlock. Jimmy fights against the huge arm for a second before giving up.
Frank steps back beside me. “So, okay. Maybe that’s good for today. But it’s a jumping off point.”
Denny smiles. “Yeah, I think this went really well. Same time tomorrow?”
Later, I’ll admit that I hurry to my dad’s car—just in case Jimmy’s waiting to get in a late sucker punch. I’m home and halfway up the stairs before I remember.
Wait.
Did Jimmy refer to himself as my bandmate?
27
TAKE TWO
I look for Abby the next day—our fight has gone on too long, and I need my best friend—but I don’t see her around her locker. I go to the loading dock at lunch, but she isn’t there. She must be out for the day. It’s freezing, but I sit on the steps eating while I text her.
It’s a while before her response comes through.
In class, Jimmy and I ignore each other completely until the bell rings. Then he stands up and knocks my book off my desk. I look up at him, unsure what to do, and he’s giving me a challenging look.
“We gonna play tonight?”
I sit looking at his big Jimmy face for a second. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”
He nods once and skulks out.