Plus One

by Christopher Noxon

  Nine

  I’m out of my gourd on cough syrup and malt liquor the night I catch the Germs at the Starwood. I’m too young and fucked up to be out on my own, but so’s everyone. We’re all crazy, no-clue, wayward juvie punks, latchkey kids getting our ears blasted and our minds exploded. And for a glorious nanosecond, the sorry horde of us gets just what we’re after: oblivion.

  Alex punched the return key and looked out the window. He’d set up his office in a corner of the solarium when they’d moved in two months ago. Every day after dropping the kids at school, he’d head home, march to his desk, and plop down under an arched window with a panoramic view of the backyard. Framed by clumps of pink rhododendron, the scene was ridiculously pretty. A flagstone path rolled across the lawn to the guest cottage, nestled in a thicket of trees like something out of a Thomas Kinkade painting. Looking over the scene now, he felt a knot of anxiety coil up in his throat.

  What was his problem? Was it the work, the house? It couldn’t be the writing. He’d started working on his book the day after they moved in. Coming across his fanzine, he’d decided, had been a sign. He needed to write a balls-out account of the birth of SoCal punk, a hard-nosed, knockabout tour through the clubs and halls and garages where the scene took root. That’s how he’d pitched it to Figgy: Almost Famous without the muttonchops or shitty classic rock.

  Partly to compensate for the wrongness of writing his paean to punk in a fucking solarium, he’d decided to work on the same model typewriter he’d used to produce his ’zine way back when. It had been easy enough to locate an IBM Selectric on Craigslist. It came with three fresh, still-in-the-box ribbons and had the same chipped avocado-green frame as the typewriter he’d used to write R.I.P. It emitted a deep hum when switched on, vibrating the desktop. Unfortunately, the punk rock choice was turning out to be kind of a hassle. The keys were constantly getting jammed, and he kept smearing globs of Wite-Out on the plastic window that flattened the paper against the roller. Still, he soldiered on.

  With my notebook tucked in the back pocket of my Dickies and my bodacious eighteen-year-old babysitter Dotti as a ride, I’m a wide-eyed waif among hardcore diehards from OC and the South Bay. Those fuckers will pound your face or unleash globs of mucus in your eye just for shits and giggles. I keep my back to the wall and stay busy noting detailed set lists. The music is sloppy and disgusting and unhealthy, like a chili dog dripping down your shirt. I gorge myself on the greasy mess of it.

  Alex stopped typing and looked up, a mysterious thud emanating from upstairs. He felt like he spent half the day wandering from room to room, staring at the bare walls, trying to decipher the groans, creaks, and thuds that constituted the house’s secret vocabulary. He kept waiting for the tranquility of new ownership to kick in, the satisfaction he’d expected to take over once the initial shock of the move wore off. But so far, being here just made him feel like he was squatting while the real owners were away. Hoo boy, were they gonna be pissed when they got home.

  Yesterday he’d barely written a word, getting up every five minutes to let Albert outside to pee or help Rosa with the washing machine or sign for FedEx. At a certain point he gave up entirely and decided what he really needed was a long soak in the big whirlpool tub upstairs. Because why not? He could do that. He’d while away an hour scrubbing and dozing and maybe even cracking one of Sammy’s scented bath oils. He needed to enjoy the spoils a little, soak it up, stop worrying so much.

  But of course, not three minutes after stripping down, pouring a half bottle of hibiscus-scented oil and lowering himself into the water—and feeling in a delicious rush how incredible it was that he was here and not, say, slaving in his old cubicle at BestSelf—right then, a metallic clank thudded down over his head. Just above the windowsill, not three feet away, appeared the ruddy, mustachioed face of Rudolfo the gardener. He scrambled out of the bath, bubbles flying, his penis flapping around in a horrific soapy scramble.

  He wasn’t sure how much Rudolfo had actually seen—he’d been busy trimming the ivy, and Alex had retrieved a towel with bionic quickness. But even if the particulars had been fuzzy, there was no mistaking the overall gestalt, which was that the new boss, the man of the house, El Jefe, was having a big frothy pink-hued bubble bath at eleven in the morning.

  Why was it so difficult to get comfortable in a house built for comfort? Figgy still basically lived at work, and Alex, the kids, and the dog found themselves moving in a tight herd from room to room, still not quite knowing what to do with all the new space. Getting home from carpool each afternoon, the kids would turn on the TV on the kitchen counter, and Alex would stand by their side chopping and slow roasting and arranging intricate bento boxes for the next day’s lunches.

  “You don’t value what comes easy to you,” Figgy had said recently, home at midnight and biting into a corn fritter. “Maybe you’re a cook, honey. Why don’t you take some classes?”

  Alex knew she was trying to be encouraging, but the suggestion landed with a sting. She obviously didn’t appreciate how busy his days were, with the book and the kids’ new school schedule and all the house repairs and the rest of it. She seemed to think he had vast, open chunks of the day free to formulate sauces. It also suggested Figgy wasn’t really on board with his book project. He bore down on the typewriter.

  I pay insane money for Cramps vinyl, get a pair of Creepers, shout and stomp and pogo in dark halls that reek of teen flop sweat. I’m caught up in the scrum, colliding and smashing and heaving. The pain is half the fun. I’m on the receiving end of an elbow to the ribs that leaves a fist-size purple welt. Think of all the chiropractors punk rock made rich! To say nothing of the manufacturers of hearing aids. I ask you: How many of my skinhead brothers are cuddled up on Tempurpedic pillows today?

  Hearing loss? Chiropractor bills? Shit. Alex reached for the Wite-Out. He’d set out to write about teen angst and go-for-broke, free-for-all fanaticism. But he kept getting sidetracked on cranky asides about torn ACLs, overcrowded venues, and the shocking amount of secondhand smoke.

  He ripped out the paper. Maybe he should ditch the memoir idea altogether. Who the hell was he to write a memoir anyhow? He felt like he’d spent his whole work life thinking: if only. If only I had time and freedom to do my own thing. Now if only was here. For at least these few hours a day, he could now do whatever he wanted. And right now what he wanted was to erase all traces of the nervous, equivocating, whiny, injured, virginal boarding school kid he’d been and reinvent his hero as a scrappy, snarling tough. A kid who’d bust his lip fighting neo-Nazi dirtbags. Who’d do lines of crank in bathroom stalls. Who’d get crabs from girls in ripped fishnets.

  That was it: He’d rewrite the whole thing in the third person, put some distance between himself and his lead guy. His own story, after all, wasn’t that interesting—the mountain hippie stuff had no place in a book on the L.A. hardcore scene, plus no self-respecting punk would ever trust a story from a scholarship kid at the Crestwood Academy. He could create an alter ego who’d be free to do all the stupid, risky, impulsive things Alex himself never did. But that would mean he’d be writing—what? A novel? And who read novels anymore?

  Alex got up from his desk and headed out to the kitchen. Pickup at the Pines was an hour away. And he’d promised Figgy he’d call the decorator about the backsplash tile.

  • • •

  Alex eased into his still-shiny Toyota Sienna—he’d just unloaded his old Subaru, which despite its outdoorsy cred didn’t have the Sienna’s computerized nav system or twenty-seven cup holders. While backing out into traffic, he called Dana the decorator. They’d hired Dana when house repairs escalated into something approaching a full redecoration—the contractors were already there, Figgy reasoned, so why not swap out the kitchen counters and fixtures, redo the master bath, and knock out all the little fix-its they’d never get to later? Alex took charge, pushing hard to finish everything before they moved in, but they’d been in the house for eight weeks now and there wer
e still unpainted walls and unfurnished rooms and endless decisions to be made. It was true: Everything took twice as long and cost twice as much as you thought. Also true: Remodeling was hell on a marriage. Every chair, every fabric, every handle, every hinge, every little goddamned screw—everything was a negotiation, a cost comparison, a referendum on their taste, their sensibilities, their budget, their confidence in themselves, and their trust in one another.

  “So sweetie—are we all good with the backsplash tile?” asked Dana, a pleasant hint of her native Tennessee in her voice. She was a slim, red-haired former set designer with a flirty, unfailingly upbeat manner that put Alex on edge. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to being called “sweetie” by someone who got a twenty percent commission.

  “We are good—absolutely,” he said, turning into traffic. He’d sent Dana an email the day before about tiles for the kitchen walls. He’d selected a plain, matte-finish subway tile the color of milky tea. Like most of his choices for the house, it was mid-priced, produced by an eco-friendly manufacturer, and passably grownup. “Let’s carry that right over the stove, across the counter. I think that cream color will be really nice—wouldn’t you say it’s more mocha?”

  There was a pause on the line. “So this is instead of the French ones? The hexagons?” asked Dana.

  “Hexagons? What hexagons?”

  “Figgy sent me a link yesterday. Said it was urgent? You know, the picture from Elle Decor. Looks like some sort of hacienda? Moroccan maybe? Hand painted, with the little goblin faces? Whimsical, for sure. My guy in Culver City said he could knock them off. Twenty-two bucks.”

  Alex took this in. “I know nothing of hexagons. Or goblins. But… the fee sounds okay, I guess.”

  “Oh, sweetie, it’s not a fee,” Dana laughed. “That’s cost-per-unit. Twenty-two a tile. We’ll need eight hundred—maybe a thousand.”

  Alex felt his pulse quicken as he tried to do the math and then flashed to a picture of their sun-dappled great room encircled by a thousand hand-painted goblin faces.

  “Let me have a conversation with Fig,” he finally said, knowing instantly how that conversation would go. It would go like the one about the color of the living room ceiling (“Metallic gold! How great is that?”), the dining room curtains (“Crushed purple velvet! Like Grauman’s Chinese!”), and the light fixture in the master bath (“Salvaged from the Googie coffee shop in El Monte! One of a kind!”). Somehow in the process of this renovation he’d been revealed as the moderate, penny-pinching superego to Figgy’s voracious, extravagant id.

  “I put in the order yesterday,” Dana said. “So I just need a check from you and we’re good to go.”

  Alex bumped his head back into the headrest, his mouth wide open in a silent wail. After his little private freakout was done, he rolled down the window and took a big breath. “Do me a favor, Dana, and just send me a picture of these goblin heads? I’ll get back to you.”

  • • •

  Alex drove in silence, fuming. After a few blocks, a text arrived from Dana with a snapshot of the backsplash tiles. Alex pulled over, picked up his phone, and enlarged the image with a quick reverse pinch. He was already composing his speech about the latest silly extravagance, how irony had no place in interior design… but as he looked at the backsplash tile, his fury broke apart at once. The goblin motif was more like a fleur de lis or a sunburst, and the tiles fit together in a repeating, Escher-like puzzle pattern. The design was odd, intricate, and undeniably wonderful. He’d just have to get over the fact that he’d spent the last two days comparing the subtle differences between various shades of cream only to have Figgy rip out a page of Elle Decor, which she probably did in about two seconds while sitting on the toilet.

  Alex merged back into traffic and hopped on the 101, feeding the address of the school into the minivan’s nav system. He knew the route fine. But in moments like these, with his jaw locked and his fingers clenched on the steering wheel, he liked the GPS on. There was something about the voice—he loved its calm assurance, its soothing authority.

  “Turn left in one hundred yards,” the GPS purred.

  And so he did, joining the long line of Volvos, Siennas, and Pri-i (that being the proper plural, he’d decided, for Prius) along the sidewalk beside the east gate of the Pines School. He pulled up behind Angela, the squat, square-jawed Honduran woman who looked after Huck and Kate’s kids. Angela was out of the car and standing at the ready clutching a foil juice pouch and a Ziploc of apple wedges. He scanned the sidewalk and saw a line of other nannies and mommies, out of their cars and ready for a little meet-and-greet, most of them ready with beverages and a nibble.

  As the kids began to dribble out, Alex bent over the passenger seat to look for Sam and Sylvie amid the crowd of kids. Pines boys generally wore fitted jeans, aviator shades, shaggy hair, and reproduction rock T-shirts (what eleven-year-old, Alex wanted to know, had ever actually heard Peter Frampton?). The girls were similarly disheveled but more artfully so, draped in diaphanous scarves and bangly beads and giant bulging leather bags.

  Alex caught sight of Sam and Sylvie. Sylvie had retired the orange backpack with her name stitched on the flap in favor of a new suede messenger bag. She was dressed in a ratty blue cardigan and brown cords. Just behind her, Sam lumbered along in some kind of newsie cap and checkered button-down. It felt like a month ago that they were still in Target basics and mini-mall haircuts: now they’d clearly joined the mid-seventies Topanga Canyon revival.

  Sylvie shuffled toward the car behind a teacher’s assistant. She was sturdy—Alex would say stocky, Figgy would say plump. Alex kept telling her they shouldn’t worry, shouldn’t discourage Sylvie’s adventurous diet, shouldn’t risk getting a seven-year-old girl started on body issues. Figgy countered that seven years old was maybe too young to tutor a girl on the varieties of Spanish ham.

  As they were led to the van, Alex saw the teacher squeeze Sylvie’s shoulder and release a big honking laugh. Alex was wary about the Pines kids, but the teachers were a huge improvement over the irritable civil servants they’d encountered at their old public school. So far anyway, it looked to be true, what they said in the sales pitch: The Pines was indeed a school where “kids are pushed to greater levels of creativity and achievement in a warm and nurturing environment.”

  For $32,000 a year, Alex thought, it better be true.

  “Hey kiddos!” Alex said as the door heaved open and the two piled in. “All good?”

  Sam murmured an assent while Sylvie vaulted over the second row of seats and popped up in the far corner, a distant and mysterious region of the vehicle that Alex visited every few weeks to clear out the pistachio shells, seaweed scraps, cheese rinds, and other bits of castoff foodstuffs that Sylvie left in her wake.

  Ahead of the van, Alex noticed Huck and Kate’s daughter Penelope standing on the sidewalk beside her waiting car. Hip cocked as she sipped a juice pocket, she watched impassively as Angela loaded her knapsack into the trunk. Penelope looked as dazed and disinterested as a socialite emerging from a long night at a downtown club.

  “Everyone buckled?” Alex hollered, not waiting for a response. He put his foot down on the gas pedal, more forcefully than he’d intended, a squeal of rubber sounding out behind them. Indignant stares flashed from the sidewalk.

  “What the heck, Dad!” Sam called. “Slow down!”

  “Woo-hoo!” Sylvie said. “Allll-right!”

  “Sorry,” Alex looked in the rearview mirror at the kids. “Foot slipped. Not used to this baby’s horsepower. You okay?”

  “I guess,” Sam murmured. “Just don’t peel out anymore. Rodney and Jake were right there. They totally saw.”

  “Okay,” Alex said, wondering how peeling out with your dad could be construed as embarrassing. Wasn’t that cooler than nibbling Teddy Grahams while your nanny hauled your backpack? Then again, a lot of what Sam did at school seemed mortifying to Alex—like setting up a Sammy’s Salves booth on the quad and appearing in a red
unitard in the school production of Alice in Wonderland. Alex had urged Sam to maybe hold off launching the skin cream line and go out for another part besides the mincing, cuckolded King of Hearts in the school musical, but Sam did what he pleased.

  “How was school today? Do anything cool?”

  “Not really,” he said. “Drama in woodworking. None of the kids would line up! What kind of school doesn’t make the kids line up? Took us like an hour before we got to whittling.”

  Woodworking was big at the Pines—along with sewing, gardening, and pottery. It was all part of a “hands-on, experiential” curriculum that distinguished the Pines from other, more “achievement-oriented” private schools. Sylvie had come home last week with a clay pot filled with butter she’d churned herself. Alex wasn’t totally sold on the program—he was particularly ambivalent about the school’s discouragement of electronic media—but he loved the idea of his kids becoming skilled artisans in pioneer-era crafts. Someone needed to know how to rebuild Come the Revolution.

  “What’d you whittle?”

  “ ‘A natural form’—whatever that means,” he said. “The art teacher Sonya said we should ‘listen to the wood.’ This kid Jason said mine looked like boobs. His thing was supposed to be like a wave, but Sonya could tell it wasn’t that at all. It was totally a bazooka.”

  “Jason whittled a bazooka?”

  “It had a little shoulder holder and everything. Sonya got all mad and started talking about the non-violence dialogue we had at assembly. But Jason swore she was misinterpreting it. The whole thing took forever and I didn’t even get to finish my form.”

  “Come on, Sammy,” Alex said. “Just a few more days—school’s out next Friday. That’s good, right? Then we’re off to Maui! You excited?”

  “Sure,” he said, sounding not the least bit excited.