“Come on, loosen up,” she answered. She was weaving a little and driving way too fast. “Bet you didn’t know I was a hotshot driver.”
“No, I didn’t,” I said. “Now cut it out!”
“But you haven’t seen anything yet.”
We were approaching an intersection. Suzanne downshifted, cranked the wheel hard to the right and threw the car into a screaming full-speed turn.
We almost made the turn, but the Trans Am slid over onto the other side of the road. A car was coming head-on. All I saw were the headlights. Suzanne cranked the wheel hard to the right. Too far. Now we jumped the curb and were speeding across somebody’s lawn. Straight ahead was a tree.
Suzanne was pulling hard again on the wheel. But she still had her foot down on the gas. In a panic I reached for the ignition key, yanked it hard and pulled it out.
We were back on the sidewalk now and headed for the street. The car sputtered to a stop.
Suzanne hung her head. I thought she was going to cry. I was too mad to try and be nice to her.
“That was stupid” was all I could say. I was still holding her key chain. The keys felt warm in my hand.
I opened the door and got out.
“Give me my keys back so we can get out of here,” she insisted.
“Forget it!” I hollered. I threw them as far as I could off into the dark night.
Then I started walking.
Chapter Eight
I thought I wouldn’t want to see Suzanne again. But when she didn’t show the next night at The Dungeon, I phoned her house. There was no answer, even though I tried about twenty times.
My playing wasn’t so good. I hit some wrong chords in the middle of “Ugly Intruder.” At one point I nearly stumbled off the stage.
“What’s wrong with you?” Al asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I don’t feel inspired.”
“Inspired? Bull. Forget the girl. Get into the music.” Al looked over at Drek. “Kids today… I don’t know what gets into ‘em,” he said, shaking his head.
I looked around at the packed house. We had a reputation. We were just about the hottest band in town. Drek said it was time to cut a demo with our own money. We had lots of our own material. But I didn’t think we were ready. And I wanted to hold onto some of the money I’d made. I looked out at the crowd again and around at the faces. Something was missing. Suzanne wasn’t there.
Then I spotted a familiar face. Langford! My English teacher was here at The Dungeon! He was looking at me. He waved. I pretended I didn’t see him.
“Come on, Germ. Stop daydreaming. We have work to play,” Drek reminded me.
Al leaned across his drums and whispered, “Get inspired.”
So I got inspired. I wanted Langford to know why I was thinking about quitting school. He wasn’t such a bad guy. He deserved to know the truth.
I dug deep in my pocket for my favorite guitar pick. I closed my eyes and I let myself climb way inside the music. The old me was back. With my guitar I was off into deep space.
At the end of the set, Langford was standing beside the stage clapping. “We need to talk, Jeremy,” he said.
“I don’t know if there’s anything else I have to say. You can see the whole story.”
“Come on,” he said. “Just give me a minute.”
I could see he was not going to give up that easily. We sat down at a table. The waiter brought us each a beer, but I didn’t touch mine. Mr. Langford looked worried. He smiled at me. “That was fantastic music, Jeremy. I can see why you want to quit school. I played bass in a rock band when I was younger. It was 1969. We even opened for the Grateful Dead once.”
“No kidding?” I said, forgetting I was talking to my English teacher.
“No kidding,” Langford repeated. “But that’s ancient history. I just wanted you to know that I know what it feels like. But you should still stay in school. You will have plenty of time for music when you graduate. Don’t throw everything away for this.”
Now I felt uncomfortable. “Did you come here to hassle me or hear the band play?”
Langford threw his hands up in the air, but kept on talking.
What I didn’t know then was that Richie Gregg had been right behind us. He was playing spy and playing dirty. As soon as he began to get the picture he tromped off to get Stewy Lyons.
Richie came back and sat Stewy down at our table. Drek and Al spotted trouble and they came over too.
“Tell Stewy the truth, Germ-brain,” Richie said. “You’re underage and you’re still in school.”
Stewy looked really annoyed with the whole scene. Langford and my big mouth could lose us the gig. Al and Drek would be really choked. It would be the end of our having an audience for our music.
“And this guy here is his English teacher,” Richie continued. He said “English teacher” like he was talking about some gross disease.
Stewy rolled up his sleeves and flexed his tattoos. He always did that when he was bugged by something. He gave Langford a dirty look. “You got any problems with the kid playing a little music?”
“None at all,” Langford answered.
Stewy looked back at Richie.
“He’s underage,” Richie hissed. “He ain’t allowed to play here. He lied to you.”
Stewy looked straight at me and shook his head. “You should have told me the truth, kid.”
“Yeah,” Richie snapped, “and if the city finds out, they’re gonna kick him out of here. Maybe they’ll even shut you down. Man, you better do something quick.”
“Richie,” Stewy began slowly, “who’s gonna tell the city?”
“Him. Maybe he will,” Richie said, pointing at Mr. Langford.
“You gonna report me?” Stewy asked Langford.
Mr. L. just shook his head, no.
“What about you, Richie? Are you gonna tattle on us?”
Richie acted like he was being shoved up against a wall. “Well, I could you know. And that would be the end of Thunderbowl.”
Stewy took a deep breath and stood up. He leaned over Richie and breathed heavily into his face. “Richie, if you tell anyone, I promise you I’ll fix it so you never get a paying job playing music in this city ever again. Your Mongrel Dogs will be eating out of garbage cans for the rest of your life.”
Then Stewy looked at me. “Richie’s right about one thing. If you’re underage, you’re supposed to stay backstage between sets.” Stewy’s voice was real low, but that was worse than him yelling at me. “If you hang out in the bar, I’m breaking the law. And if I get caught, I get closed down. No kid is getting me closed down.” Stewy sounded tough. “From now on, you don’t step off the front of the stage, you hear me?”
Suddenly I felt like a little kid being scolded. I nodded. Langford shook his head. Stewy scooped up the beer glasses off the table and walked away.
Richie gave me one final dirty look. “It’s not over, Germ-brain. Wait and see.”
Chapter Nine
The next day report cards came out. Bad news was written all over mine. Music had ruined my school career.
I walked out the front door of the school, headed for home, not even looking where I was going. Reaching the sidewalk, I almost ran into the side of Al’s van parked at the curb.
“Germy,” Drek greeted me. “What’s wrong with you?” He had on wraparound sunglasses that made him look like an alien. Al was in the driver’s seat.
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked. I wasn’t going to mention the report card to them. They would just laugh, think it was a hoot.
“We both quit our day jobs,” Drek said.
“You what? Why?”
Al laughed. He reached out the window and banged on the roof of the van. He let out a wild war cry and then said, “Get in, let’s cruise.”
I hauled myself into the back of the van and Al drove off. Something weird was happening. Al was grinning from ear to ear. I had never seen him like this before. “Tell him
, Drek,” he said.
Drek took off his shades. He squinted at the light. “It’s like this, my man. We’re about to bust into the big time.”
“Yeah, really?” They were putting me on.
“Yeah, really!” Drek said. “Stewy got a call from a scout from one of the record companies. The dude’s coming to check us out next week.”
“Sounds good, but it might be nothing, you know,” I said. I was a real downer.
“Come on, this is our big break, the chance we’ve been waiting for,” Al said, leaning on the horn to move some pedestrians out of the way. “We’re good. You’ve seen how the audience at The Dungeon reacts. Besides, Stewy thinks we’ve got a shot. He says we’re original.”
Drek tilted his head back smugly. He was acting like he was the mastermind of the whole thing. “You see, it works like this. If the man likes us, we talk options. The company takes us under its wing, sends us on some backup gigs with bands that have CDs out. We learn the ropes and make a few bucks.”
Al cut in, “And if things go well, we get a platinum record and a beach house in Malibu.”
“What if the guy doesn’t like us?” I asked. “What if we screw it up?”
“So we’ll still have the job at The Dungeon. We’re making real money. It’s time to unload the day work and get on with some serious music.” Drek sounded so confident he almost got me believing it. Almost.
When I got home I set my report card down on the table in the kitchen and went up to my room. Later, when I came downstairs to dinner, my parents looked like a death squad. I was about to be lectured to death, the cruelest torture of all.
“Hard day at work?” I asked my old man. My voice was sarcastic. I didn’t mean it to be.
“I’ve had worse,” he grunted.
“We’ve looked at your report card,” my mother said, getting down to the nitty-gritty.
“Would you pass the mashed potatoes?” I asked.
My father looked ready to explode.
“Okay. Forget the potatoes,” I said. Smart was not the way to play it, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Your grades are a disaster, Jeremy. You might not even pass this year. This is terrible,” Dad said, staring down at my report card on his plate.
“It could be worse,” I said.
“Jeremy, you’re not taking this seriously.”
“Look, I know what I’m doing,” I lied. I tried to make it sound convincing, but my brain was scrambled eggs. I was confused. All I wanted was out of this conversation.
“Tell us then,” he said. “What exactly are you doing?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m quitting school to work full-time with Thunderbowl.”
I saw tears welling up in my mother’s eyes. My father’s face was going through all the colors of the rainbow.
“We already have work, Okay? We play four nights a week at The Dungeon.”
“That’s where you’ve been going?” he asked. “You’ve been working in a bar?”
“Yeah. And making good money.”
My father was still trying to absorb what I was saying. “You think playing music in a bar is working? Well, let me tell you, you’ve got some thinking to do!”
“How can they let a kid play music in a bar? He’s only sixteen,” my mother asked him. She was wiping her eyes with her napkin. Dad ignored her. He was too busy glaring at me.
“You should come and hear us sometime,” I said. “We’re really good. We won the Battle of the Bands and we’re one of the best bands in town.”
My father looked flabbergasted. “I am not taking your mother to that place… to that Dungeon.”
“But, Dad, be real. Music is really important to me. You bought me my first guitar, remember? Besides, we might be landing a recording contract soon.” That was a long shot, but I needed to try and convince him that I was going somewhere, that I couldn’t give up.
“Get off it, Jeremy. Record companies don’t give contracts to sixteen-year-old kids. You’ve got to get your feet back on the ground. Your mother and I have let you live in your little dreamworld for too long. You are going to listen to us for once.”
Suddenly my old man was the great authority on everything. He thought he could order me around.
“You stay in school and work harder. You quit that stupid band and stay away from those nightclubs before you get into real trouble.” Now he had a fork in one hand and a knife in the other, both clenched tightly in his fists. “If you want to stay in this house, you will do as I say. That’s final!”
My blood began to boil. So it had come to this. I couldn’t believe they could be so unfair.
I got up from the table and walked up to my room. I felt dizzy. It seemed like I had been rocketed through deep space to some other planet. Nothing in the house looked the same. I knew I had to get out of there.
Chapter Ten
I could hear my parents downstairs. They were still talking about my problems at school. Then they got going about how I lied to them, how I couldn’t be trusted. Finally I had heard enough. I ran down the stairs and out the front door. Even though The Dungeon was all the way on the other side of town, I started walking in that direction. There was no other place to go.
I made up this fantasy that the record deal came through. Thunderbowl was an overnight success and we became millionaires. I bought my parents a new, fancy house to patch things up. My dad had to admit he was wrong about me and music, and we all lived happily ever after.
But it was just a dream. We might not get a recording contract. I might flunk school. I had come this far, though, and I had to keep going. I had to see it through.
At the first phone booth I came to, I looked up Langford’s number and called his house.
“Hi, Jeremy. What’s up?”
“Look, Mr. Langford, remember what we talked about the other day? About me and school? Well, I’ve made my decision. There is more to life than sitting in a boring classroom. I’m quitting. I want you to tell the office for me.”
“Jeremy, I think you should consider this more carefully—”
“No, man, I’ve made up my mind. I’m out of school.”
“Look, if it’s just your grades, there’s still time—”
“It’s not just my grades,” I told him, my voice cracking. “It’s more than that. Come on, I’m just asking you to do this one thing for me.”
Langford sounded disappointed. I knew he would be, but he didn’t try to talk me out of it. “Well, you’ll have to sign some papers. Come by the school in the morning.”
“Give me a break. I’m not going to come down there in the morning. Can’t you get them to send me the papers?”
There was a stony silence on the line. Then Langford responded. “Where should I have the papers sent?”
I didn’t know what to say. My jaw was locked. I felt like somebody was tying a rope around my stomach.
“Jeremy, are you still there?”
“Forget the papers. Just tell them I quit.” I slammed the receiver down and walked off toward The Dungeon.
I was almost there when a car turned onto the street and pulled up beside me. When I turned around, I saw that it was Suzanne.
“Hey, mister, do you want a ride?”
I was too tired to say no. I walked to the passenger side and climbed in.
“You saved me from wrecking my car the other night,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
“Look, I’m sorry about what happened. I have a way of messing up everything. Parents. School. Other guys. Now you.”
Traffic was backed up behind us as far as the lights at the intersection. Other drivers were honking at us to move. Suzanne let out the clutch slowly and we began to creep along.
“Hey, if you want to talk about real screw-ups, you are looking at an expert,” I said.
“Not you, Jeremy?” Suzanne gave me a warm smile. I leaned over and kissed her.
“Yeah, me,” I said. I told her about everything that had happ
ened in the last twenty-four hours. I told her about storming out of the house and my talk with Langford. Just hearing it out loud made me realize how lost and confused I was.
She gave me a long look. “You know, when this recording scout shows up, I bet he’s going to sign you guys up. You’re really good. After that, things won’t seem so bad.”
Her confidence made me feel a bit better. “Are you going to The Dungeon tonight?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” Suzanne said. “I was thinking about quitting that scene. I’ve spent too much time there, wasting my life. I should do something else with my evenings. Maybe I’ll go back to school.”
“Are you serious?” I said. “Why?”
“Yeah. You’ve been good for me. Made me realize I could be doing more with my life.” She smiled.
“That’s great. That’s just wonderful,” I told her. Honestly, the changes in Suzanne confused me. “But could you just be there tonight? For me?”
“Why?” She looked puzzled.
“I could really use a friend around tonight,” I said. “And I think I’ll go nuts if I have to sit around backstage by myself.”
“Sure. Okay,” she said as she pulled up in front of The Dungeon. “I’ll see you back here at the end of the first set.”
I gave her a quick kiss and climbed out of the car. As she drove off, I began to think that I had missed something about Suzanne before. Because she was older, I had figured she was smarter than me. Now I understood that she was mixed up and struggling to do the right thing, just like me. I was glad she wanted out of The Dungeon. But I knew I didn’t want her out of my life.
That night Al and Drek were really wired for sound. They were pretty pumped about quitting their jobs and the prospect of a scout coming to hear us. They had flown away to rock-and-roll heaven, but I was full of doubts. And I couldn’t get my act together. I was half a beat off at the beginning of every song.
The crowd could tell we weren’t on the money, but something else was wrong as well. Richie and Ike were sitting in the corner, giving us the evil eye.
I tried to concentrate on the music, but I hit a couple of wrong notes.
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