Californium

by R. Dean Johnson

  I need to look somewhere else if I’m ever going to fit back into my jeans, and there, in the bathroom mirror, I see them: Astrid’s panties. There’s a bunch of them slung over the shower rod with matching bras—white lacy ones like you’d expect, and a maroon one to match our school colors. There’s one pair of black ones, the stringiest and smallest, and my eyes blur for a second. My brain can almost put Astrid in them, and now the smell of lotions and potions wafting around the bathroom is like the soft parts of a girl you’re not supposed to touch if she’s not your girlfriend—her cheek and the back of her neck, her stomach and thighs. I still haven’t put myself away, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to now unless I do what my old confirmation teacher told us was “officially forbidden by the Catholic Church. But,” he went on, “you should also know is scientifically natural and—now, this is my opinion here and not the Church’s—nothing to be embarrassed about. Just be discreet.” Then he told us what discreet meant.

  I’m trying to be discreet fast. My breath goes shaky and loud, like holding a shell to my ear, and for a few seconds it’s me and Astrid right there on the bathroom counter until a crack rings out. My heart launches from my chest and I’m stuffing myself back into my jeans fast, trying to zip up, and did I ever lock the bathroom door? What if Mr. Thompson walks in? Or Astrid? I peg-leg step over to the door to keep my dick from breaking in two and turning into hafnium. It’s locked. Has been the whole time. Then I let go of the breath I didn’t know I was holding and start washing my hands in cold water. This should calm me down, but Astrid’s soap leaves a spicy perfume on my hands. And as I go to dry them on a towel slung over the shower rod, it hits me: This must be the towel Astrid used last night after her shower. It’s been everywhere: All. Over. Her. Body. I’m inches from the black bra and panties and somehow the bra brushes across my cheek. The palm of my hand folds around one of the cups. The lace panties are scratchier than you might think and they weigh about a feather squared. And in the mirror, you can’t even tell they’re in my front pocket.

  I have this vision of the panties slipping out when I’m leaning over to hold a bracket and the whole Thompson family looking at me like I’m some perv, which I must be because even before hanging them back up I know I’m going to let them brush across my cheek. They feel so sexy on my face and I don’t know why but I want to smell them. I mean, who does that? Me, I guess, because I press the thin crotch against my nose soft and take a deep breath like I’m at the doctor’s office. It smells like nothing, maybe detergent, and I let the panties glide across my cheek once more before hanging them up.

  Now, as much as I wanted to see Astrid in her robe and pillow hair, if she’s waiting outside the door, I don’t know how I’ll wipe the panty-sniffing look off my face. My chest and arms and legs are warm and tingly and my face is so flushed with school spirit that splashing cold water on it only gets me back to almost normal.

  I take another deep breath and open the door. It’s clear all the way back downstairs, where my dad is sanding out scratches on the cabinet door Mr. Thompson dropped when he was trying to install it. My dad doesn’t give me anything to do and that’s the worst. If Astrid comes downstairs now, I’m not sure how to look at her without feeling like I stole something; you know, like I saw the answers to the test before taking it.

  We’re cleaning up when the phone rings, and a second later Mrs. Thompson is jingling keys, saying she’s off to pick up Astrid from Karen’s.

  .

  After church Sunday, my dad lets us pick up doughnuts and makes a big Irish breakfast with all the meats and puddings. He brags about our bar project, so my mom makes Brendan and Colleen each say something interesting they did this weekend too, I guess so my dad can keep up with who we are.

  In the afternoon, I get away to my room to start writing songs. Nothing comes at first and pretty soon I’m writing a letter to Uncle Ryan instead, bringing him up to date on the bar project and how it wasn’t too awful, plus the band and how Treat says we’re supposed to write songs about anarchy and injustice and consumerism and how the world won’t listen. Then I ask if he ever did anything crazy for a girl without explaining what I mean by “crazy.”

  I’m back at it again after dinner and homework, trying to write songs. Nothing.

  Astrid’s light clicks on, so it must be after eight. She’s less than fifty feet away, probably in a silky robe and definitely in lace panties. It’s all I can think about, but I’m not going to get discreet. I don’t want anything to happen with Astrid in my imagination anymore. If it isn’t real, what’s the point? And the only way to make it real is to bring DikNixon to life.

  I go over to Brendan’s room, the stink of sweaty socks hitting me as soon as my head’s through his door. He’s lying on his bed, looking at the pictures in Sports Illustrated (he never reads the articles).

  “You know any punk songs?” I say.

  His head drops over the side of the bed and he looks at me upside down. “You like punk?”

  “Some. Do you know any or not?”

  “Is Devo punk?” He sits up. “‘Satisfaction’ is a good song.”

  “That’s a Rolling Stones song.”

  Brendan looks back down at the magazine. “I like how Devo does it.”

  I walk down the hall thinking how the Devo version of “Satisfaction” doesn’t even sound like the original. How it’s pretty much a different song except for the lyrics. Isn’t that stealing? And why doesn’t anyone care? I mean, they played that song all over the radio for a while; people must have thought it was okay. Next thing I know, I’m downstairs flipping through my parents’ albums, wondering what DikNixon can steal. There isn’t anything good, no Rolling Stones or Beatles. My dad won’t listen to English bands because of the things he says the English did to the Irish. The only time he ever got red-faced at Uncle Ryan was when a Rolling Stones song came on the radio, and there’s my dad, trying to change the station, and Uncle Ryan saying the only thing Mick Jagger ever did to the Irish was introduce them to soul, and then my dad laughed and said fine, just this one time.

  Back at my desk, I’ve got some albums that have the lyrics printed inside the cover or on the sleeves. I reach over to my cassette player and pop in one of The Nixon Tapes. The music seems pretty good at first, an easy, thump-thump-thump beat and then guitars flying in like a plane landing. It’s fast and distorted and every once in a while everything stops except the drums. The singers fire through the lyrics and change the shape of some words so it almost sounds like another language. I read through the lyrics of the albums I’ve got and copy down a few. They’re not exactly punk, but at least they’re real songs. I tuck the lyrics into a new folder with a >I< logo on it.

  Astrid’s light is off when I crawl into bed. Treat will probably have some better songs tomorrow, and I think about how good we’ll look playing in front of Astrid, those lacy black panties hiding beneath her jeans while she sways to our music. I almost get discreet, but I fight it off by thinking about the periodic table. When that doesn’t work, van Doren shows up next to Astrid, only he’s not swaying. He’s staring me down, looking kind of shocked and mad that we can be this cool. That works so perfect my hands start behaving themselves and instead I just feel kind of nervous.

  .

  I’ve got my lunch and my song folder with me at the Bog on Monday. Edie and Cherise are already standing there with Keith. Edie’s sandwich, juice, apple, and carrots are laid out perfect on the bricks. Cherise has a plastic bag full of almonds and a can of V8 vegetable juice, with a straw. Keith’s food is still in the bag, and he’s talk-singing from a paper in his hand: “They don’t respect you / won’t infect you / all they want to do / is connect you.”

  “‘Connect you’?” I say.

  “Yeah,” Keith says. “Connected. Like in The Godfather.”

  Edie grins. “What do you have?”

  “Some things you can’t hear.
”

  She gives me an Oh really? smile. “Love songs about Astrid?”

  There’s a million people out there in the quad, and every one of them goes quiet right as Edie says that. Cherise takes a drink of her V8, her eyes getting big all of a sudden like the can is sucking back; then Treat comes trouncing up behind me, through the planter. He hops down, throws his arm over my shoulder, and looks at Edie, like, Don’t mind me.

  “You’re getting embarrassed,” Edie says.

  “I didn’t write any love songs. These are punk.”

  Treat gives me a nod and my face cools off.

  Edie takes a bite of her apple. “What about you, Treat? What songs do you have?”

  “Why?” he says.

  “So Cherise and I can give you some feedback.”

  Treat looks at Cherise and you can tell she’s thinking, I never said that. I wouldn’t make you do anything. He rubs his hand around the Mohawk without touching it. “I don’t have my stuff with me.”

  “Well”—Edie turns to me—“I guess we’re stuck with your love songs.”

  “They’re not love songs.”

  Treat pulls a sandwich from his bag. “Let’s see one, Reece.”

  I flip open my folder and pull out the most anti-love song I’ve got. Treat snatches the paper and looks down. He’s perfectly still for a few seconds except for his eyes scanning up and down; then his lips move a little but no sound comes out. The four of us stare at him like something’s about to happen, and something does. Treat starts humming and he’s getting the tune right. His voice rises, fast and loud, like he’s angry, and he punks-up the lyrics, “I’ll be what I am-uh / a soli-tary man-uh.”

  He repeats the last line, like, three times, louder and faster each time. Then, he grips the paper tight and looks up at us. Edie and Cherise clap. He looks at me. “This is boss, Reece. What’s it called?”

  “‘Solitary Man,’” says my mouth; by Neil Diamond, says my head.

  “Bitchin’. It’s totally punk rock.”

  Keith nods. Serious. “That really is good, Reece.”

  Edie looks at me kind of surprised, not happy surprised or mad surprised, just surprised. “Keith’s is good too,” she says, “right, Cherise?”

  Cherise nods and wipes nothing from her lips. “Yeah. You guys are gonna be good.”

  Treat looks over everything in my folder, bouncing his head and moving his lips. He hops up on the planter and punks-up every song, tromping over shrubs and staring straight down at the pages. “Walk like a man-uh / talk like a man-uh / fuck this and fuck that-uh / fuck it all the fuck out of the fucking brat-uh.” He isn’t singing so much as talking out the lyrics. Everyone’s watching, so everyone sees Vice Principal Marshall rush past us and step right up into the planter. He grabs Treat by the back of the jacket. “Let’s go, Dumovitch. My office.”

  Treat turns his head to see who it is, grins, and yells, “I am not resisting arrest! I am not resisting arrest!”

  Mr. Marshall pushes Treat a little to hop down and start walking to the office. He grabs the papers in Treat’s hand but Treat won’t let go. It’s not like Treat’s trying anything; Mr. Marshall hasn’t exactly asked for the pages, but suddenly the whole quad is going “Oooooh.” Mr. Marshall gets so mad he lets go, holds open his hand to show Treat, and says, “Hand ’em over.”

  Treat holds the pages up, then lets them slip out of his hand and float down, back and forth like a pendulum, until they scratch to a stop on the pavement. Mr. Marshall scrapes them up. “Bad move, Dumovitch.” He points to his office door with the pages. “Get moving.”

  Military-Commercial Complex

  Treat’s suspended two days for vandalizing the planters and swearing. Mr. and Mrs. D aren’t mad about the swearing, though they still called Mr. Marshall and said Treat would be happy to spend his Saturday weeding all the planters on campus, which Mr. Marshall thought was a great idea.

  After school Tuesday, Treat’s got the Two-Car Studio open when me and Keith get there. He must’ve spent half the day putting together all the stuff Keith’s dad bought us. Keith’s guitar is on the left with its amp and a new distortion pedal. Treat’s uncle’s bass and a new amp are on the right. And there’s a little Roland drum machine on its shiny new box in the middle. Treat said you can’t always make a drummer do what you want, so the drum machine is fine for now. The three folding chairs are in a half circle next to the instruments, the bullhorn on the middle chair, and the car cover is pulled tight over the wall of boxes behind, a three-foot-tall >I< centered over the foot-tall DikNixon.

  Treat leads us in and the Mohawk mixes with the logo and the instruments and it all looks so real. It’s like how Mr. Krueger says sometimes things work out even when the original plan blows up in your face. “A happy accident,” though Mr. Krueger says there are no accidents, just incidents.

  “Does Mr. Marshall really have a Hot Wheels track in his office for whipping people?” Keith says. Treat tells him no, no track, no stick, no paddle. Not even a ruler. “Then what’d he do to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Keith drops his backpack next to a chair. “Come on, nothing?”

  “He actually said he was sorry he had to suspend me.” Treat steps around Keith and flips on the bass amp. “He filled out some paperwork, told me to have Lyle call with any questions, then made me sit in the office and do my homework until school let out.”

  “That’s it?” Keith says. “That’s like going to the doctor’s office.”

  Treat picks up the bass and hands it to Keith. “Yeah, I got bent over.”

  We laugh as Treat hits the button to close the garage door.

  “I’m bass?” Keith says.

  “Don’t worry,” Treat says. “Sid Vicious played bass.”

  I pick up the guitar and flip on the amp.

  Treat starts humming the tune for “Solitary Man,” and as me and Keith start figuring out how to make the guitars sound something like that, Treat gets the drums going.

  It takes forever, a lot of things sounding okay on their own and then just awful when they mix together. I’ve heard “Solitary Man” a million times when my mom cleans house with the stereo on. The guitar doesn’t sound anywhere near right. But with Treat getting all the lyrics punked-up, when we turn on the distortion pedals and play faster it sounds pretty decent with everything whirring and echoing. The song doesn’t sound the same twice in a row, but Treat says that’s okay. “Punk isn’t formulaic like corporate rock. It’s got synergy.”

  We do a version of “I Am, I Said,” and Treat’s yelling at the top of his lungs, “No one heard at all / not even the chair!” He kicks over some chairs and Mr. D comes out, eyes bugging, until Treat says, “It’s okay, Lyle, just part of the song.”

  “All right.” He looks around at the chairs, sideways and flipped over, me and Keith smiling real polite. “Just remember what we do with real anger.”

  Treat throws his arms out and looks around the studio at the chairs and the amps, then holds up the crumpled lyrics. “Use it creatively.”

  Mr. D holds his hands up and folds his fingers together like he’s praying. “Good. And be careful around the computers.”

  We work on a few more songs until Treat opens the garage door for some air. The sky’s bled way past orange and purple and settled into black.

  “We better get going,” I say.

  Treat walks us out onto the driveway. He pulls a couple patches out of his back pocket. “Here, Reece. You’re DikNixon’s official songwriter now.”

  One patch has TSOL and the Statue of Liberty’s head on it.

  “Sew it on your jacket,” Treat says.

  “Are these guys on The Nixon Tapes?”

  “Yeah. They do ‘World War III.’”

  Keith takes the patch in his hand. “T-S-O-L. Tell Satan, Ouch Lady?”

  Treat sh
akes his head. “True Sounds of Liberty.”

  The other patch is simple, just GBH on it, and Treat waits while Keith strokes his chin. “Guitar, Bass, and Harmony?”

  Treat laughs. “Grievous Bodily Harm. They’re on The Nixon Tapes too.”

  “Nice,” Keith says. “So when are we going to play a show?”

  “Gig,” Treat says.

  “Fine. When are we going to play a gig? Because everyone says we’re coming and if we’re going to get invited to Ted Three—”

  “Ted Three?” Treat says. His lips pucker up for a second and he says, “Why not Woodstock Two?”

  Keith glances at me and you can tell he’s thinking about the bird who hangs out with Snoopy, so I start giggling.

  Treat pushes my shoulder back. “You going to make a hippie joke?”

  “About Woodstock?”

  “Fuck you, Reece. Your parents were probably for the war.”

  Keith says, “World War Three?”

  Treat folds his arms and leans against the Bug. “Your dad’s an engineer, right, Keith? He probably wishes Vietnam was still going on so he could make more missiles and shit.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say.

  “The military-industrial complex, Reece. The balance of terror. Mutually assured destruction. The end of the world.” He looks over at Keith. “Your dad doesn’t share those tasty treats around the dinner table, does he?”