The Bad Decisions Playlist

by Michael Rubens

  “Austin,” repeats my mom as she approaches behind me. “Who’s at the​—”

  She cuts herself off. Shane is looking past me at her, his face a mixture of hope and uncertainty, like he’s got a gift to offer and isn’t sure how it’s going to be received. And then he smiles.

  “Hey, KD. How have you OW, CRAP! OW OW OW! WHAT’D YOU DO THAT FOR?” he shrieks, frantically shaking his head and wiping at his face, because she’s just dashed her scalding-hot herbal infusion right at him, splat on his shirt and neck and right cheek. I can’t even get a word out I’m so astonished, staring at him wide-eyed as he dances on the front porch, swearing, pulling his steaming black T-shirt away from his chest to escape the burning. “KD! Are you out of your fricking​—” Which is as far as he gets before BONK her heavy mug rebounds off his forehead, snapping his head back. The rest of his body follows that momentum, his rear foot missing the edge of the porch and finding air, and he flails his way backwards to land ass first in the hedge, moaning.

  “Mom!” I say, finally able to force some words out. “Do you know who that is?!”

  “Of course I know who it is!” she says. “It’s your friggin’ father!”

  I got off at the wrong station of the holy cross /

  and I was lost / the light too bright to see my way

  “You told me he was dead!”

  “I never said that!”

  “What?! Mom, you told me​—​it was my fourth birthday, we were at the frigging nature preserve​—​and you told me that he died in a car wreck!”

  “Oh my God, Austin, I can’t believe this. You know, Terry was completely right. She predicted this month would be full of drama. She said, ‘The coming month will​—​’”

  “Mom, are you going to explain​—”

  “Do you have any weed?”

  “Mom!”

  It’s twelve thirty at night and we’re in the kitchen, and I swear we’ve been arguing like this since MY DAD showed up on the front porch earlier NOT BEING DEAD. My mom has her elbows on the tiny kitchen table, her face in her hands.

  “I know you have weed somewhere, Austin.”

  “I want you to explain to me how you could tell me all these years that​—”

  “I need. Some. Weed.”

  “Mom, you’re not supposed to​—”

  “I’m not supposed to drink, Austin. And right now it’s either drinking or smoking some goddamn weed. Get me some weed.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  You ever hear someone shriek at someone else with such rage and volume that you’re worried their vocal cords will rupture and explode out of their mouth? And the shrieker happens to be your mom? And have that barely coherent uber-shrieking happen on your front yard, so that all the neighborhood can enjoy it? That’s what I got to see tonight as my mom assaulted my still-alive dad with the contents of her mug and then the mug itself, followed by her fists and feet and then nearly one of the logs from the front porch woodpile as he scrabbled backwards on the lawn, trying to shield himself.

  She had the log raised up, ready to do to my nondeceased father what Todd had done to me, except I finally shook off my paralysis and ran up behind her and grabbed her arm so that my continuing-to-be-alive father could continue to be alive. Up until that point, I had just watched in stunned silence as she assaulted him physically and verbally, screaming a mixture of really bad words and “Get out! Go! Never come back!”

  While I was tussling with my mom and trying to get the log out of her hand, Rick came running out of the house, saying, “What’s going on? What’s going on?”

  “Go back inside!” screamed my mom, either at me or Rick or both, and jerked the log out of my grasp and went after Shane, who was still crab-scuttling backwards, apparently aiming for the relative safety of a blue vintage Range Rover that was parked at the curb.

  Rick, meanwhile, was following after my mom, saying “Honey . . . honey . . .”, and tentatively reaching for her shoulder, and she was violently shrugging him off. Shane had made it to his feet and was yanking at the passenger door, then dove in and slammed it just as my mom took a home-run swing at him, batting the sideview mirror clean off the car and sending it in a fifty-foot arc into the Elofsons’ front yard. When he finally got the car started up and screeched away down the block, my mother turned her ire on everyone else, trailer-park style, screaming, “What’re y’all looking at!”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Your father,” says my mom now, pausing to exhale some blue-tinged smoke, “is not dead.”

  “No kidding,” I say, and hold out a hand for the joint.

  We’re both seated at the kitchen table. Things are a little calmer now. Rick is staying at his penthouse apartment tonight, sent home by my mother. All other issues​—​including the tutor crisis​—​have been eclipsed.

  “My dad is Shane Tyler. The Shane Tyler.”

  “Yeah, so what. Big deal. And he’s your dad in that, yes, you know, we​—”

  “I get it.” Yech.

  “But he’s not your dad dad, like a dad should be.”

  She takes the joint and puffs on it. “A dad is supposed to be there. You know? That’s what a dad is. Jesus, this stuff is terrible.”

  I give her the what’d-you-expect expression, shrugging, hands palm up to the ceiling.

  “It’s bad for you, you know,” she says.

  “Being lied to by your mom?”

  “No. Well, yes, I’m sorry, I already told you I’m sorry. Weed is bad for you.”

  She emphasizes that point by taking another drag. You see why I might have some issues?

  “So how did you,” I say, trying to figure out exactly how to angle into this, “I mean, what . . . ?”

  “What happened? I was seventeen. He was, what, twenty-one, maybe?”

  “This was down​—”

  “In Austin, yes. When I lived with my dad. Then you were born, and when my dad died I moved up here with you to live with my mom. You were two.”

  This house once belonged to my grandmother, and my mom inherited it when my grandmother died. You think we could afford to live in richy-rich Edina, Minnesota, otherwise? No way. My mom had me and never went to college.

  “My dad’s the one who named you,” she says. “You know that?”

  “Yeah, I believe you’ve mentioned that several times. And also that he liked barbecue and vintage cars and took you skeet shooting. Good ol’ grandpa. It’s that other thing you somehow forgot to mention, that thing about​—​what was it? Oh, right, my dad still being alive.”

  “How many times you want me to apologize?”

  “But why even do that? Why lie to me?”

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

  I have a whole warehouse full of whys for her, but I know my mom and know I’m not going to get any answers. I have a lot of other questions, too, all of them jumping up and down and waving their hands, and I’m not sure who to call on first.

  “When’s the last time you talked to him?” I say, because that seems a reasonable place to start.

  “Since before you were ever in this world. He ran out, I shut that door, I’ve never taken a dime from him, I didn’t want it, I don’t want it, I’m not interested, I don’t want him back in my life, or your life, thank you, good night. Nothing.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it. Him being who he is, that’s why you don’t like me playing music.”

  “What I like is the idea of you going to college and having some options in your life. That’s why it makes me happy that the tutor is working out. He’s helping you?”

  She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know!

  “She. Yes. She is. She’s helping. A lot.”

  “Good. Will you promise me you’ll study and work hard and pass that class?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you promise me that you’ll work hard at your job?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pinky promise?”

  Holds her pinky up. What choice do I have? W
e hook pinkies and she smiles, pleased. Then she stands and says, “C’mere, buddy,” and I stand up so she can hug me. Buddy, like we used to call each other. And for just a moment I’m five again and feel safe and warm and want to stay that way. Go back to when it was me and my mom, buddies against the world.

  “I love you, you know,” she says.

  “I know. I love you too.”

  When we both sit down, we’re quiet until I say, “What if Shane comes back?”

  She takes another drag on the joint.

  “He comes back? He’s leaving in a pine box, that’s what. I don’t want you talking to him. He’s a bad influence.” Punctuating the sentence by gesturing with the hand holding the joint.

  There’s a beat. Then we both do a little giggling at that one.

  “Austin, seriously,” she says, “that guy is all sweet words and BS. He’s an awful, lying, treacherous bastard.”

  “Aren’t I, by definition, sort of a bastard?”

  “You know what I mean. And you, Austin, you are not going to go looking for him. Do you hear me? You are not going to go looking for him.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Of course I’m going to look for him!”

  “Mmmph,” says Devon on the phone.

  “I mean, are you crazy? Shane Tyler is my father!”

  “Mmmph,” he says again.

  I started blowing up Devon’s phone immediately after the conversation with my mom, text after text:

  Shane Tyler is my dad!

  He came over today.

  My mom beat the crap out of him.

  SHANE TYLER IS MY DAD!!!

  Until he wrote back,

  Dude it’s two a.m. WTF are you talking about

  I called him, hanging up twice when I got voicemail and calling right back, until he answered.

  “Austin, it’s two a.m.!”

  “This is two a.m. news!”

  So I recount the whole thing, everything: Shane’s sudden appearance, my mom, the mug, the attempted murder with the log, Rick, all of it, barely pausing to breathe.

  “Whoa,” he says.

  “Right?”

  “That kind of explains it,” he says.

  “Explains what?”

  “You.”

  Now he says, “Austin, this is the most amazing thing I have ever heard. It’s, like, mind-blowing. Really.”

  “I know!”

  “Can I go back to sleep now?”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  I stay up for another hour finding everything possible about Shane on the Internet​—​songs, videos, lyrics. His Wikipedia page is bare bones: a short description; his date of birth, putting him at thirty-seven years old; a discography that indicates his last album was recorded a decade ago. No update on what he’d been doing since then or is doing now, no truly personal information. Certainly nothing about a sixteen-year-old son named Austin Methune.

  There are reviews of his music, a really good one from ten years ago in Rolling Stone, favorable comparisons to Jeff Tweedy and Jeff Buckley and Rhett Miller. People calling him a musician’s musician. An ancient fan page. Some mentions on discussion forums, people asking what happened to him, is he dead, no, he’s in Atlanta working as an audio engineer, no, he’s in Nashville, no, Los Angeles, he’s given up music entirely. Then I change the search to find mentions in the past few months and something pops up: a mention on Pitchfork, then one on Stereogum, both mentioning rumors that Shane Tyler, now more myth than man, is back in the recording studio after a decade of mysterious nonactivity, legendary producer Barry Perlman backing the effort. No details on where he’s recording, but there are reports that he’s in Minneapolis.

  I have a mission! I have a goal, something to focus on!

  I do a search for local recording studios, inputting numbers into my phone, a strategy forming, then get in bed.

  Then get out again and do a search for Josephine Lindahl.

  No Facebook page, but she’s tagged in a few photos, one for Edina High School student government. Debate team, holding a trophy. Oh, look, there she is posing with the staff at a nursing home where she volunteered, because of course. I find a paper she wrote about the Plantagenets. Not much else. I go back and click through the photos of this girl I don’t like but can’t stop thinking about.

  I get back in bed and lie there, trying to focus on the reappearance of my father and my new mission. As I’m drifting off, I hear the music. Shy at first, the instruments gently announcing their arrival as they join, intertwine, soothing me, lulling me deeper​—​then they abruptly scatter like frightened deer and I’m fully awake again. Pulled out of sleep by the ragged sound of my mother weeping.

  Know that sound? It says that everything is not okay, won’t be okay.

  It terrifies me.

  The last time I remember her crying with this intensity was when I was thirteen and she had to go away, and I had to stay with Devon’s family for three weeks.

  I see my mom like the game where you pile the sticks atop each other, the structure going higher and higher and more wobbly with each new addition. Then finally there’re too many sticks and everything collapses. I’m guessing that the appearance of Shane Tyler is a big stick. I have to make sure I’m not adding another one. Plus, there’s a spot waiting for me in the incoming class at Marymount Academy.

  That means my mom can’t know I’m looking for Shane. And it means I have to either get another tutor or convince Josephine to take me back. And it means I can’t just up and quit the job, even though Todd’s working on the crew. Actually, screw him​—​I’m determined to keep the job exactly because he’s on the crew, and there’s no way he’s going to make me quit. Seriously​—​what could he possibly do to me?

  Come here and say that / I dare you, I dare you /

  you find out how little I care / and it might scare you

  “I’m gonna cut your balls off,” says Todd.

  Todd snaps shut the massive hedge shears to add some color to his threat. I believe him.

  “Todd, I’m just trying to mow the frigging lawn.”

  Todd and I and the hedge shears are at the far border of a big hilly lawn, beyond a rise that hides the buildings of the office park and hides us from Kent. My walk-behind mower is sitting patiently on the grass near me, the engine running, the mower unaware that Todd intends to do some topiary work on my nether regions.

  “What’s wrong, Methune? You afraid?” says Brad, standing behind Todd. “You look like you’re sweating.”

  “Uh, Todd here is threatening to cut my balls off with hedge shears,” I say. “So, yeah, I’m a little nervous.”

  Brad sniggers. This is definitely his kind of scene.

  What happened is this: It was getting near lunch. I was minding my business, head down, mowing mowing mowing along the pedestrian pathway by the parking lot, thinking about how I was going to use my day off tomorrow to find Shane Tyler. I look up, and who’s there? Alison, standing right in front of me, smiling and waving at me. I can’t hear her over the noise, but I can see her lips forming my name​—​“Austin! Austin!”

  There’s her car, parked by the pathway. She’s holding a brown paper bag. Todd’s lunch. She brought Todd his lunch, like she’s his mom. I stopped the forward motion of the mower and walked around it to go greet her.

  “Hi!” she said, or shouted, speaking over the racket from the engine.

  “Hi,” I said, or shouted.

  “How are you!” she says, all bright and cheery, and gives me a great big hug. And holds on. Right as Todd comes into my field of view. Looking not at all bright and cheery.

  There was a brief flash when I thought of going out in a blaze of glory, of pulling Alison into a ballroom dip and kissing her on the mouth. Instead I decided to keep living, and separated myself from her as quickly as possible.

  “I’mfinegoodtoseeyouIgottakeepgoing!” I said, and turned and quick-stepped it back to the mower, wrestled it in the other direction, and made my getaway at three
miles an hour, not even glancing back.

  Cut to about a minute ago. I’m mowing near the edge of the trees, and suddenly, boom, I’m shoved down on the grass, and when I scramble to my feet SNAP SNAP SNAP Todd starts chasing me around with a giant set of scissors.

  Now he’s advancing toward me, shears at the ready.

  “Todd,” I say, “why don’t you put those down, and we can settle this like real men?”

  “Okay,” he says. He drops the shears.

  “Actually,” I say, “can I borrow those?”

  Brad sniggers again.

  “I don’t like you, Methune,” says Todd.

  “Really? Things seem to be going so well between us.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Why am I . . . ? I love the land. I love the smell of grass and gasoline. What do you mean, why am I here? I need a job, Todd. And you know what? It’s actually your fault that I’m here, so, yeah, there’s a little poetic justice for you.”

  Confused rottweiler expression from him.

  “I want you off this crew,” he says.

  “Off the crew? Listen, Top Gun, it’s a lawn-care service, not a team of fighter pilots. Other than our stupid team meeting, we don’t even have to talk or deal with each other ever.”

  The Kent meeting, which of course ends in one of those hands-in-the-middle pregame-style “GO TEAM!” things.

  “You know what, Methune? Just seeing you makes me sick. So you’re gonna quit.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m not gonna quit. You can beat me up if you want to.”

  “Okay.”

  “No! I’m just saying that! You can’t actually beat me up! You understand that, right? You hit me again and I’ll tell Kent, and I’ll go to the cops, and I’ll frigging tell my mommy if I have to. And if you come another step closer to me, I swear I’ll poop in my hand and start throwing it at you.”

  He hesitates. More brow furrowing that suggests there’s some basic cave-bear-level cognition going on.

  “Oh, just beat his ass already,” says Brad.

  “Right,” Todd says, and starts stalking toward me again.