Californium

by R. Dean Johnson

  “What are you doing?” I say.

  He looks at his watch. “Don’t worry, Alex is up.”

  Alex? I didn’t know my dad ever talked to Astrid’s dad. Has he been over there talking to Astrid’s dad in front of Astrid? Did he bring me up in front of Astrid, like, Little Reece will help out too on this project, Alex. It’ll be cute to let him hammer a nail or two.

  My shorts are about a size too small, my shirt ripped and stained. My hair looks like who knows what. My pillow probably. “I can’t go in there.”

  I start backing into the garage and my dad whisper-yells at me. “Reece!”

  “Do this part without me.”

  My dad stops at the bricks on Astrid’s walkway. “You need to hold the other end of the tape measure.”

  He’s right. I take a deep breath and say, “Let me run and get a hat.”

  My dad takes a deep breath too and looks out at the cul-de-sac. “Hurry up.”

  I set my mug down to show him how fast I’ll go. And I do. In an instant I’ve got on a hat, some jeans, and the City of Huntington Beach Water Treatment button-up shirt Treat talked me into that used to belong to a guy named Dat.

  Mr. Thompson is at the front door, all smiles and handshakes, calling my dad Pat and saying, “Come in, come in.” He looks me over and smiles at my shirt. Astrid’s mom comes gliding out of the kitchen wearing this robe straight out of Japan, silky with weird plant patterns and those letter characters. Her hair is perfect, like she’s hosting a dinner party, and you can see where Astrid gets it, you know? She hands my dad a cup of coffee without even asking him. My dad takes a sip and Mrs. Thompson says, “Isn’t that nice, Pat? It’s hazelnut.”

  “Hazelnut?” my dad says and takes another sip like he’s thinking it over. “That is a nice surprise, Ashley.” Then he looks at me, like, Not a word.

  “Would you like some orange juice, Reece?” My chest goes warm like it’s hugging her, because how does she know my name? Did Astrid tell her?

  The living room and dining room are a snowdrift—white carpet, white leather couch, white curtains, and white pillows everywhere. It’s so pure it makes the ivory-and-glass coffee table, the ivory-and-glass dining room table, and the ivory vases (with white flowers in, and etched on, them) look almost dirty.

  “No, thanks,” I say to the orange juice. Who needs that pressure?

  Their family room is the same size as ours. Only, instead of an old couch with a new cover on it and a stereo cabinet with an eight-track player, Mr. Thompson has these cushioned red chairs with a little table between them. The little couch in the room is actually a little beaten up, but there’s a pool table too. It’s the nonwhite room.

  Mr. Thompson asks if we can get a “complementary” wood. “White oak,” my dad says and taps me to write it down on the pad. They talk about where the bar will go and how big it should be. We take measurements, and I’ve never been so perfect, doing everything my dad asks and doing it right the first time. I just want to get out of here before Astrid comes downstairs, silk robe and soft footsteps, messy hair and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. It’s what you’d want to wake up to every morning. But I don’t want her to see me here, the official measuring-tape holder and Berlin Wall champion. The first time we’re in that family room together, I need to be holding a guitar, or maybe a corsage.

  We get out of there before anything goes wrong. My dad says he’ll pick up everything we need after work. “We can get started building the bar tonight,” he says, like it’s some treat; then he leaves for work.

  .

  Keith wasn’t up when I knocked, so I told his mom I’d be at Treat’s. It’s earlier than we said, but Treat’s happy to see me. He’s got some ideas for my Packy jacket and shows me how to line safety pins up along the shoulder, like I’m a general in some punk army. We’re totally into it, sitting on the floor with our backs against Treat’s bed, putting the last pins on, when we hear the front door. Me and Treat grin at each other like it’s Christmas morning.

  Keith comes in the room and tosses a brown sack onto the floor.

  “What is that?” I say.

  Treat pulls something flat out of the bag.

  “It’s a car cover,” Keith says. He sits down on the floor across from me, his back against the wall. “It’s a gift for when the Bug’s parked outside because my dad thinks you’re a ‘fine young man.’”

  Treat stands up. “Yeah, right.”

  “You blew it,” Keith says.

  “I blew it? You didn’t say dick after the game last night.”

  I wad up the sack and toss it at Keith. “He’s right.”

  “What? I wasn’t the one saying how cool Japanese cars are and going, ‘Hey, check out my Bug.’”

  “Look,” Treat says. “Being an atheist should be enough.”

  Keith picks up the paper sack. “Not if you’re an atheist with a cool car.” He throws the sack at me but misses. Treat falls onto the bed, his whole upper body keeling over.

  “Are you really an atheist?” I say.

  “I’m punk rock.”

  “So punkers are atheists?”

  Keith stands up. “I’m not an atheist.”

  “You don’t have to be atheist,” Treat says. “It’s more of an anti-religion thing.”

  “Atheist,” Keith says.

  “No.” Treat sits up. “You don’t have to have religion to believe in God.”

  Keith sits back down. “Okay, I guess I’m still in the band.”

  I hit Keith with the sack again. “The one-instrument band.”

  “We’ll get instruments,” Treat says. “We’ll just have to do something else while we figure that out.” He reaches onto his nightstand and tosses a pencil and a pad of paper onto the bed. “Let’s write some songs.”

  Keith picks up the pad. “That might be good.”

  We’re in the room over an hour, mostly tossing the sack back and forth at each other because none of us really know how to write a song. Treat finally says we can go off later and each write some songs alone the way the Beatles did.

  So we go from writing songs to deciding the kinds of songs we want to write. Treat wants anti-religion songs. Me and Keith say okay as long as they’re not anti-God. We also figure we should have an anarchy song like “Anarchy in the U.K.,” but it can’t be “Anarchy in the USA,” since in the grand scheme of things we don’t really want that. “Maybe ‘Anarchy in Arkansas,’” Keith says, and we agree since none of us have ever been there.

  “See,” Treat says, “we’re in good shape. We’ve got a guitar, an amp, a bullhorn, and some songs on the way.”

  I pick up the car cover. “And this, to hide all our equipment under.”

  “No.” Treat snatches it from me. “It’s better than that. I asked and Lyle won’t let us draw our logo on the boxes, so we’ll draw it on this instead.”

  “That’d be bitchin’,” Keith says. “We can take it with us to gigs, too.”

  Treat’s eyes are getting big and he hands one end of the cover to Keith so they can stretch it out and get a good look. “It’ll take some time to get the logo on there,” he says. “We’re going to have to get together tomorrow, too.”

  Keith says he’s in even though it’s a Sunday, and how can I say no to that, a two-thirds majority? “Me too,” I say.

  .

  In the garage Saturday night, my dad does most of the cutting, leaving the boring stuff for me: measuring the wood, marking where the cuts should go, stacking the cut wood, and cleaning up sawdust.

  When it’s just support beams left to be cut, things no one will see, my dad sets me up with the wood already clamped to a vise and propped up on scrap pieces so the saw blade won’t cut the worktable. The goggles are scratched all over and milky in the corners. It’s amazing how once they’re on they don’t seem all that bad. For the millionth
time my dad shows me how to use the circular saw, two hands and look ahead of your cut so you see where you’re going and not where you’ve been. He’s over my shoulder, saying, “Be careful,” when I squeeze the trigger and drown him out with the whir of the saw.

  The cut will only be about two inches long, but the beams are thick. The blade spits out a line of sawdust and the wood heats up, making the whole garage smell like a campfire.

  We get going pretty good, me cutting and stacking the beams, my dad tossing the scrap and putting the next beam in the vise. We only need six but it goes even faster than you might think because our system is perfect.

  “These look great,” my dad says. “We’ll get everything sanded tomorrow after church and then treat the wood.”

  “I can’t,” I say. “I’m supposed to go study with Keith.”

  My dad unplugs the circular saw, winding its cord around itself. “You can study on your own tomorrow night.”

  “But I need to study with Keith. We have flash cards and everything.”

  He unplugs the extension cord and starts winding it. “You have a test Monday?”

  “Maybe,” I say and look my dad straight in the face since I’m not lying. “Mr. Krueger gives surprise quizzes on the periodic table, and then there’ll be a surprise test. We have to be ready for it at any time.”

  He nods and puts the cord away. “So you’re not going to the arcade?”

  “What arcade?” I say.

  My dad starts sweeping the floor. “Your mother’s making her corned beef for dinner tomorrow.” This is his way of saying it’s okay for me to be gone on a Sunday, just as long as I’m back in time for dinner.

  .

  On Sundays back in Paterson, sometimes Uncle Ryan and Aunt Mary would come over after church. Uncle Ryan would walk across the front lawn with a bottle of wine in his hand, and he’d yell, “Happy Sunday,” to the first person he saw. We’d watch baseball or have a catch, and my mom and Aunt Mary would cook a bunch of food. If me and Brendan had a game or a puzzle going, Uncle Ryan would say, “Mare, I’m going to join these gentlemen in their recreation. Tell Packy his presence and two glasses of wine are required.”

  When we went places, it was usually some restaurant my mom wanted to try. And if the weather was nice, we’d go all the way down to Seaside Heights. Aunt Mary and Mom would find a bench on the boardwalk, happy just to talk and stay out of the sand. Dad and Uncle Ryan would take all us kids down to the beach for Wiffle ball. You never knew how long we’d be down there, but you’d know it was time to go when Uncle Ryan said, “Who thinks they can beat me at air hockey?” He was usually good for a game or two before my dad gave out a handful of quarters and said, “Half an hour. And keep an eye on your sister.”

  On the way to dinner, Mom would send me into whichever bar Dad and Uncle Ryan had snuck into so I could tell them where to meet us.

  It’d be pretty quiet until Uncle Ryan got to the restaurant. Then he’d order a beer real loud and pretend to complain about the food. “Have you felt this bread? Mickey Mantle never owned a bat this hard.”

  The waiter would act sorry and try to grab the bread basket.

  “Hold on,” Uncle Ryan would say. “Just get me another beer and I’ll soften it up. Packy, you want another beer?” He wouldn’t wait for my dad’s answer, which always cracked me and Brendan up, seeing Dad get bossed around by his little brother. “Two more pints.”

  Dad laughed every time, and if he started making jokes too, we knew Mom was driving us home.

  Toward the end of dinner, when Uncle Ryan went off to the bathroom, Aunt Mary would get me to go through the pockets of his army jacket for his keys. Sometimes, Dad told me to do it before Aunt Mary did. That was the only time Uncle Ryan ever got mad. “I can drive,” he’d say. “How do you think I get home from work every day?”

  “It’s a wonder,” Aunt Mary always said, and suddenly Mom would be all over me and Brendan and Colleen: “Hug your aunt and uncle good-bye.”

  In California, no one comes over after church. My dad makes a huge brunch for everyone: bacon, eggs, sausage, potatoes, toast, tea, coffee, juice, and blood pudding sometimes too. The real stuff. He used to get so happy making everything because when he was a kid, the oldest boy still living at home made the Sunday brunch. “My dad taught me,” he’d remind me and Brendan, “and then I taught your uncle Ryan before your mother and I got married.” “We know,” we’d say, and then he’d tell us more stuff we already knew, how someday I’d learn too and then it would be my job to teach Brendan. He’d get all happy when he said that stuff, like it was going to be better than going to Disney World. But now he just gets it done like it’s one more chore, like it’s no different from our Sunday dinners, which are always ham and cabbage, or corned beef and cabbage, anything and cabbage, or mystery stew and soda bread. Basically, every flavor of boring you can imagine.

  .

  Keith’s at the door before I’m done with brunch, so I stuff some bacon in my mouth and say I’m full. I grab my backpack and throw my jacket on. The new pins make it look more punk, more like I’m in a band, and once we’re outside I thrash my hair around with my fingers until Keith says it looks like an explosion. That’s when it’s perfect, when you can’t tell how it got the way it is or where it’s going. Treat’s out on the driveway with the Bug as we come down his street. He puts his finger up to his mouth when we get close and waves us into the Two-Car Studio. “Lyle and Margaret are getting in touch with the earth,” he whispers. Me and Keith look at each other and Treat says, “They’re meditating.” He smiles like we’re supposed to laugh, then shushes us when we start to.

  The car cover’s spread out on the floor with little black dots of permanent marker outlining the >I< logo. We start scratching away with markers, coloring it in, and every once in a while we hear chanting or a chime, like some tiny version of the bell they ring at mass.

  We’re starting in on the Nixon part when Mr. and Mrs. Dumovitch open the door from the house. They’re wearing sweatpants and sandals and these shirts that look like they’re made out of potato sacks.

  “Looks good so far, guys.”

  Me and Keith harmonize for the only time ever. “Thanks, Mr. Dumovitch.”

  Treat’s mom asks if we’re going to do everything in black.

  “Do we have any red?” Treat asks.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Did you look?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Kind of?” she razzes him.

  “Well, I was trying to be quiet, Margaret.”

  “All right,” Treat’s dad says. “Let’s just calm down.” He takes a good look at the car cover. “Where did this come from?”

  “It’s a gift from Keith’s dad,” Treat says. “He supports us having a band.”

  Mr. Dumovitch takes the rubber band out of his ponytail and fluffs his hair out. With his beard and long hair and potato-sack shirt, he looks like Jesus. “What’s going on, Treat?”

  “Nothing. We’re just trying to make a difference, and it isn’t easy.”

  It’s quiet until Treat’s mom is back with a red marker. She hands it to me and says, “Uh-oh, are we having a moment?”

  Treat won’t look up. “No.”

  “Treat,” Mr. Dumovitch says. “Just talk straight. Remember what Dr. Andy says?”

  Mrs. Dumovitch says, “Talk to us, sweetie.”

  Treat keeps scratching away at the car cover, harder and faster, giving me chills the way it squeaks. “We don’t have all our instruments for the band,” I say. “We had a plan to get some, only it didn’t go like we thought.”

  Mr. Dumovitch strokes his beard like he’s thinking. “What do you need?”

  Treat looks up. “A bass, amp, drums, microphones, distortion pedals. Just everything.”

  Treat’s mom puts her arm around his dad. “My brother has a bass.”
<
br />   “That’s right,” Mr. D says, and they both smile. “Remember how he’d leave it in his living room for Carol to see when they were dating?”

  Mrs. D rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah,” she says and does her fingers like she’s quoting herself, “his ‘jazz quartet.’”

  “Too bad the band broke up before Carol had a chance to see them,” Mr. D says, and Mrs. D covers her mouth like it’s so funny she can barely stand it.

  “Treat,” Mr. D says, “I’ll call Uncle Arvil about his bass. Will that help?”

  Treat stays hunkered down with the marker in his hand. No answer.

  “You boys must be getting hungry,” Mrs. D says. “I’ll have some fresh hummus ready in a bit.”

  Me and Keith thank her, and Mr. and Mrs. D go back in the house.

  With Treat not talking anymore, me and Keith start quizzing each other on the periodic table: “What’s Ar?” I say.

  “Arkansas?”

  “On the periodic table?”

  Keith grins. “An element.”

  I laugh because I really don’t know the answer. “We really need to study.”

  “We will.”

  “You have to promise,” I say. “It’ll look pretty bad if we spend all this time”—and I do my fingers like Mrs. D—“‘studying’ and flunk the test.”

  Treat stays quiet squeaking away at the car cover until the hummus is ready and we go inside. The pita bread is soft, the hummus smooth, and with so many good flavors my whole mouth has to work to make sense of it all. There’s olives and peppers and other stuff too, everything so much better than anything that’s waiting for me at home. Mrs. D says to eat all we want, and I do, too much.

  When I get home later, the smell of the corned beef about kills me. And no matter how annoyed my dad looks, I can barely touch anything on my plate.

  Mr. Explosive Particle

  Treat wasn’t in English this morning, which is kind of weird considering he wasn’t sick or anything yesterday. Maybe kind of mad for no real reason, but not sick. It’s probably good, though, because at lunch Edie and Cherise find me and Keith in the Bog and we all eat together for the first time. Edie eats normal stuff, a sandwich and chips and some little carrots. Cherise’s food looks like one of those plates your aunt puts on the coffee table at Thanksgiving: crackers, cheese, broccoli, and celery. She says she’s a vegetarian and me and Keith look at her, like, Why? She starts talking about slaughterhouses and saturated fat, artificial colors and sweeteners, red dye number five and food additives. Keith’s munching down his Fritos and says, “What about the napalm they use to keep the bugs off that celery?” That really gets Cherise fired up, and she says more in an hour than she’s said all year.