Californium

by R. Dean Johnson

  “What are you talking about?” I say, but Edie doesn’t answer, doesn’t even stop. She hits the stairs early, slipping between people and knocking others sideways as she trots her way up and away from me.

  .

  Right after school, me and Keith pick up his guitar and amp and go straight to Treat’s. Treat has the garage open and the Bug out on the driveway. Mr. Dumovitch has taped some old egg cartons on the other wall and garage door. He’s thrown a cloth tarp over the floor and it makes the garage kind of soft and less echoey. There’s some folding chairs set out and an extension cord too, and when we set Keith’s amp down and lean the guitar against it, it looks right with the brown boxes towering behind.

  “Bitchin’,” Treat says. “Let’s plan to meet in the studio every day by three thirty.”

  “Studio?” Keith says. “The Two-Car Studio?”

  Treat steps up to Keith, the Mohawk reaching out over the top of Keith’s head like a wave about to crash on him. “Anywhere you create art is a studio.”

  Treat likes the logo with Dik on top of Nixon. He covers the bottom words with his fingers so just >I< shows. “People will recognize this after they get used to seeing it over Nixon. Pretty soon, all we’ll need is the top part. Like how people know it’s the Dead Kennedys just by seeing the tomahawk or the Clash when all they see is the guy bent over, smashing his guitar.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Keith says.

  “That’s because I was talking about cool people,” Treat says. “Not you.”

  Me and Treat laugh. Keith walks over to the back wall of boxes. “What if we drew the logo real huge on these boxes?” He looks at Treat. “When we have the garage door open, people will see it behind us while we’re playing.”

  Treat steps over to the wall and outlines the logo with his hand. “Yeah. We could pull a few boxes out to stand on too. That way we’ll be taller than the crowd in the driveway.”

  They both look back my way and out the garage door like there’s a hundred people standing on the driveway.

  “Hello?” I say. “We have one guitar, no drummer, and no microphone.”

  “Wait,” Treat says and runs into the house. A second later he’s back. He’s got a bullhorn and sets it down on a chair, like, Ta-da!

  “Are we going to protest drummers?” Keith says.

  I tap Keith in the chest with the back of my hand. “No, it’s like Starsky & Hutch. We’re going to try to get them to come out of the studio with their hands up.”

  Keith picks up the bullhorn and says, “Just drop your drumsticks and come on out. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  Treat shakes his head. He flips on the amp, picks up the guitar, and walks it over to me. “When I say ‘four,’ start strumming really fast and keep strumming until I hold up my fist.”

  He grabs the bullhorn from Keith and says, “One-two, one-two-three-four!”

  I fling my hand down, smacking it against the guitar, and as it comes up, each string punches a finger. The amp fires out this whining, deep twang-twang, like a hundred nuns playing acoustic guitars.

  Treat leans back and holds the bullhorn to his mouth, pointing it at the rafters. “You don’t care / that I don’t care / and I don’t care / that you don’t care.” It sounds like Treat’s screaming from the other end of a tube you have up to your ear. It’s mixing with the music and vibrating in my chest. “No one cares that we don’t care / so all we do / is stare, stare, stare / all we do / is stare!” Treat’s arm flies up, his fist tight, and I stop just like he said. The last twangs crackle out of the amp. My hand is throbbing, red and hot, but I hold it up in a fist like Treat’s.

  Keith falls into a chair. “Holy shit. That sounded real.”

  Treat sits down in another chair, wrapping his arms around himself with the bullhorn sticking out the side. “See?”

  I do see. I see people on the driveway, crowding around, pogoing all over the place, crashing into each other. Treat’s jumping around and singing. Keith’s on a box, strumming away, his eyes relaxed and cool. I’m up on a box too, my hands on the guitar in all the right places. And Astrid’s in the front of the crowd, her hair tied back with a big bow that’s more cute than pretty, her arms over her head, fingers snapping to the song. It’s not sexy like I want it to be, but she looks good. Then Edie appears. She’s wearing that white shirt and the puka shells, standing perfectly still, even with everyone bouncing all around her. She’s glancing at Treat and Keith and everyone else but keeps looking back at me, her arms wrapped around a folder and pulled up to her chest and that I know something you don’t know grin across her face.

  “What do we do next?” I say.

  The Anti-Mickey

  Thursday in Algebra I’m taking real notes because Edie isn’t talking to me. I’m working on the DikNixon logo in the margins too, making ones that match the one on my folder. When class is over, Edie grabs the folder and taps the logo. “So this is how you write it?”

  I nod.

  She hands back my folder, and her smirk appears. “Are you sure that’s English?”

  We walk together and I tell her how it’s supposed to work, people seeing the logo so much they’ll start to know exactly what it means even without the Nixon part.

  “Where?” she says.

  “I don’t know. Around?”

  “Okay.” She starts for the stairs. “See you . . .” she says, and waits until she’s a couple steps up before yelling back, “around.”

  .

  Friday morning, it looks like a ticker-tape parade hit campus overnight. There’s squares of notebook paper everywhere and I’m about to grab one when Keith says, “You’re not going to pick up someone else’s trash, are you?” It makes me wonder if it’s some kind of joke they play every year to mess with freshmen, so I don’t pick anything up. We just go to class.

  In Algebra, Edie is almost completely back to being Edie now. She says hi to me as I sit down and even smiles. Her hair is all up, shiny and kind of pushed forward. As cool as it looks on her, for some reason my eyes go to her neck because, I don’t know, I can see so much of it now. It’s not like girls are posing in Playboy to show off their naked necks, but you don’t always see a neck all smooth and soft and exposed like that. It’s weird that it can look that good. I mean, it’s just Edie’s neck.

  While Mr. Tomita is confiscating confetti from people who are showing it to each other, she slips me a note:

  (Check One)

  I am going to the football game tonight

  I think I’m too cool to go to the football game tonight

  I think, therefore I am (and I am going to the football game)

  I’m not a >I<, but I play one in my band (and I am not going to the game)

  Me and Keith have to be at the Two-Car Studio right after school for band stuff, but I could still probably make the game. Astrid will be there on the sidelines. Plus, Edie will probably be there with her friends, so I could sit with girls and not look like a total loser. And it’s not like my dad is going to surprise me with tickets to a baseball game tonight or something. He’ll get home late, say he has an overtime Saturday shift, and go to bed early. So I make a new choice and check: I thought, therefore I am (going. If I can get a ride).

  After class, Edie tells me Cherise’s parents are giving them a ride and to have a good weekend if she doesn’t see me at the game. Most of the confetti is gone now; just a couple pieces, wrinkled and dirty, are swirling around people’s feet as they rush to class. Astrid’s at her locker, her back to me, wearing varsity cheer pants, which are maroon and tight and a trap: The stripes hug her legs and curve so perfectly around her backside you can forget how long you’ve been obviously staring at her. I’m ready when she turns around, just about to flash my eyes forward like they’ve been where they’re supposed to be the whole time. But her head is down, a piece of that confetti in her hand,
and then she’s looking up and tapping another cheerleader on the shoulder.

  There’s no way the confetti is a trick if Astrid’s looking at it, so when I get to English I ask Treat if he’s seen it, but he hasn’t. Mrs. Reisdorf starts class saying we need to put any slips of paper we’ve found away, and to stop talking about whatever it is. “We don’t know what it is,” somebody says, and Mrs. Reisdorf says then that’s all the more reason to stop talking about it and to open our books to 463 for the author introduction to Our Town.

  .

  Keith has confetti in his hand on the way to lunch. “Look,” he says, bug-eyed as he hands over the paper.

  It’s just a line of typed words, but they’re not from a typewriter. Each letter is made up of all these dots, which is weird, but what’s even weirder is what it says: >I< Nixon is back.

  “Did you do this?” I say.

  Keith says his dad doesn’t have a dot-matrix printer at home. We figure Treat must since his dad makes computers, but when we get to the Bog, Treat says, “Did one of you guys do it?”

  All three of us are grinning and looking at each other like somebody is going to admit it. Then Edie comes marching up, a piece of confetti in her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” she says.

  Some guy near us holds up the confetti he was showing his friends and says, “Do you guys know what this is?”

  Edie turns and looks at the guy like he’s an idiot. “Duh. You’ve never heard of the band DikNixon?”

  Treat grins and as soon as the Mohawk starts nodding, the guy says, “Yeah, DikNixon is awesome.” His friends nod too, like they’ve been listening to DikNixon for years. “I just didn’t know if this meant they’re coming back here.”

  “They are,” Treat says. “So get ready.”

  When the guy and his friends go back to talking to each other and Edie leaves, I ask, “Seriously, who did this?”

  “Does it matter?” Treat says. “It’s done. It’s working.”

  Keith’s still watching Edie as she walks away, and it takes him a second to realize we’re watching him watch her. “What?” he says.

  “We need to jam tonight,” Treat says. “Don’t lose focus.”

  It sounds so cool, so exactly what I want to tell Astrid the next time we’re taking out the trash together. I almost forget we don’t have drums, or a bass guitar, or anything else. “We need instruments.”

  Keith scratches his chin. “Yes. A fine point.”

  Treat looks out of the Bog toward the band room. “We could ‘borrow’ some things.”

  A cartoon of Keith rolling some big drum across campus in the middle of the night flashes in my head. Then it’s me in the confessional, asking if it’s a sin to steal instruments for the punk band you started so people will think you’re cool and this cheerleader will start liking you in ways that you hope will have you back in the confessional every week for doing things with her that, if you’re honest, you won’t be sorry about. “No,” I say to Treat. “That would make us a gang, not a band.”

  Treat nods and grins and says, “And DikNixon is not a crook.”

  I’m laughing right away and Keith is quiet. I almost want to tell him it’s a Watergate joke just so he’ll say, I thought Watergate was a dam. But Keith’s still got his hand on his chin, still thinking, and then he says, “Here’s what we can do: I’ll tell my dad the band needs to practice at our house. Then we’ll bring Treat over, and as soon as my dad sees the Mohawk, he’ll buy us anything we need if we promise to go somewhere else.”

  Keith looks at Treat, then me. No grins. No punch line.

  “Would your dad really do that?” I say.

  “Oh yeah,” Keith says. “He’s afraid of anyone whose hair is longer than a flattop.”

  Treat says he has no problem being scary if it’ll help the band. After that, the plan just fuses together. Keith will ask his dad to drive us to the football game tonight. We’ll meet at his house. Treat will be Treat. We’ll go to the game, get a ride home, Treat being Treat, and on Saturday we’ll meet at Treat’s house to make up a shopping list for Keith to take back to Mr. Curtis.

  When I get to my locker after lunch, van Doren is there talking to one of the guys from Filibuster. “All I know is, I’ve never heard of these guys.”

  “Me neither,” the other guy says, “but do you think they’re coming here? Like Black Flag did at Katella?”

  Van Doren doesn’t even look at me as I slide down and start opening my locker. He hands the other guy a book and says, “After that riot? They’d be scared to let Barry Manilow do the morning announcements at Katella.”

  “Well,” the other guy says, “DikNixon is going to be somewhere around here.”

  “Hooray,” van Doren says, flat and low, like someone just told him he’d been drafted. He’s so annoyed, he forgets to drop anything on me.

  .

  I get to Keith’s early. He’s just out of the shower, ripped jeans on and a towel around his neck. “I can’t figure out a shirt,” he says.

  I don’t have anything maroon to wear to the game, so I’m wearing my red paisley, spotty and bleached and totally punk rock. Keith doesn’t have any maroon either, but he’s got a closet full of red T-shirts from vacations: Maui, Taos, Vail, Disneyland, and Disney World. “Wear Mickey,” I say.

  Keith holds up the Disneyland shirt. “Treat will kill me just out of principle.”

  I grab it. “We’ll rip the sleeves off and cut some slashes in it.”

  Keith rummages through his desk for scissors. “But it’ll still be Mickey.”

  “It’ll be Punk Mickey.”

  By the time the doorbell rings, we’ve sliced Mickey up good and put a Mohawk on him with a black marker. We fly past Mr. Curtis on the staircase and let Treat into the front hallway. He’s wearing his best holey jeans and a spiked dog collar. His black shirt shows through his sleeveless Levi’s jacket and his combat boots are shined up, blacker than ever. “What’s with Mickey?” he says.

  Keith looks at me and I say, “It’s the Anti-Mickey.”

  “Bitchin’.”

  Mr. Curtis steps between me and Keith and stops. “Well . . . ,” he says and doesn’t move for a second. “You must be Treat.” Mr. Curtis sticks out his hand.

  Treat grabs it so fast and hard their hands pop. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Curtis says. “You boys pile in the car. I’ll go grab my keys.”

  Me and Keith grin as we lead Treat through the house to the garage. Even with the “sir,” we know Mr. Curtis must be running to the kitchen to ask Keith’s mom, Have you seen this kid? Are we okay with this?

  Mr. Curtis has one of those new Buicks with the square headlights, the seats squeaky and crunchy and smelling like dress shoes. And everything moves with the touch of a button. Really Star Wars.

  Keith starts in on his dad right away about the band and how we’re ready to start practicing, how my garage is way too crowded while their house is perfect because we could practice late and I’d just be a block from home.

  From the backseat, I can’t tell how Mr. Curtis is taking it. He’s wearing these pilot sunglasses, his mouth steady like he’s keeping his eyes on the road and barely listening. Then he says, “What about your parents, Treat?”

  “What about them?”

  “Would they be worried if you walked home late at night?”

  “Nah.”

  Mr. Curtis keeps staring straight ahead. “Not even with all the news about kidnappings and child molesters?”

  Keith looks at his dad with his eyes bugging. “What are you talking about, Dad? What child molesters?”

  “I’m just saying, his parents may not be comfortable with him walking home alone at night.”

  “Nah,” Treat says. “They think people are basically good inside, so stuff like that doesn’t bother them.�
�

  Mr. Curtis nods and smiles. “Well, they sound like good Christians. Strong in their faith.”

  The first time I met Mr. Curtis, he said, “So your family moved all the way out here on their own? They sound like good Christians, letting the Lord guide them like that. Strong in their faith.”

  “We’re not Christians,” I had said. “We’re Catholics.”

  Back in Paterson, everyone was Catholic. That, or Jewish. Just because you didn’t see a guy in church didn’t mean he wasn’t Catholic. My uncle Ryan hadn’t been to church since Grandpa Houghton’s funeral, but every Christmas Eve, while everyone else went to midnight mass, he sat home with a glass of wine and watched the pope on TV from Rome.

  When I told Mr. Curtis I was Catholic, he said, “You could think of Catholicism and Christianity as different things. A lot of people do. But a lot of people would say they’re essentially the same thing. That’s what I think. We’re both followers of Christ, Reece. We’ll all be saved come Judgment Day.”

  “My parents aren’t Christians,” Treat says. “They’re Unitarians.”

  Mr. Curtis moves his head sideways a little. “You’re a Unitarian Universalist?”

  “I’m not.” Treat laughs. “My parents are. I’m an atheist.”

  Mr. Curtis takes off his sunglasses and stares at Treat in the rearview mirror. I don’t know what’s keeping us on the road, though I’m sure Mr. Curtis would say faith. “Atheist?” he says. “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, I don’t believe any of that religion crap.”

  Keith can’t look. He’s staring out the window like there’s something so amazing just over there, just on the other side of that other thing.

  “Who do you think made the universe?” Mr. Curtis says.

  “I don’t know,” Treat says. “I wasn’t there.”

  “God made it, Treat. He made it for all of us.”

  Treat straightens up and nods, the Mohawk scraping against the roof lining. “Yeah. Right after we made God.”