.
When the whole class is good, sometimes Mrs. Wirth lets us slip out of World History a couple minutes early since it’s the last period of the day. It’s amazing how campus is the quietest place in the world two minutes before the bell rings, before people come flying out the doors like it’s the Kentucky Derby.
My backpack’s nearly filled with homework when the wave of noise and people starts. No one’s gotten to my row of lockers yet and, bam, a book hits me in the thigh. It doesn’t hurt because it’s this tattered little paperback, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But like an idiot, I look up to van Doren’s locker even though he’s not there.
“Over here.”
I turn around and van Doren’s walking across the grass behind me.
“I hear you got a gig Friday night.”
Even though my backpack is set to go, I keep crouching there, looking up at him. “Uh-huh.”
He snatches the book from me and stuffs it into his back pocket. “Wonder Bowl?”
“What?”
Van Doren opens his locker. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“We’re playing in San Diego,” I say. “I’ll let you know when we play around here.”
“Not necessary,” van Doren says. The last bell rings and he pulls some sunglasses from his locker and slips them on. “I’ll know before you do.” He closes the locker soft and takes off across the grass, disappearing into the mass of people spreading out from the open doors.
.
We work on another Neil Diamond song after school, “Forever in Blue Jeans.” I’ve changed it to “Forever in Ripped Jeans,” just in case Treat or Keith might have heard it before. We get it punked up pretty good; then Treat wants to start in on another song. He says we need to work right through dusk and dinner and homework. Maybe even sleep. I say I can’t. Keith is all over me about commitment and hard work, and Treat’s nodding until I lie and say it’s my little sister’s birthday.
“So?” Keith says.
It’s not like I wouldn’t rather be here, but I can’t get away with missing my own birthday even if I haven’t wanted to celebrate much of anything lately.
Treat throws his hands up. “Blood,” he says. “It’s everything.” He pulls a patch from his back pocket and hands it to me. It’s a Dead Kennedys tomahawk, just the D and the K fused together yet somehow looking really threatening. Really simple. Really cool. “Go,” he says. “And start sewing these on.”
I’ve been unpinning the patches on my jacket every night and hiding them in the pockets until morning. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get away with making them permanent, but I can’t think about that now. “Check,” I say, and I’m gone.
.
My dad gets home from work when dinner is just about over. He’s excited, even smiling a little, and eats real fast to catch up. My mom brings out this chocolate fudge cake, which gets Brendan happy, and Colleen’s bouncing in her chair because she loves blowing out candles. It’s a weeknight, my dad in his work boots, my mom’s hair up and freckles still covered in powder. It doesn’t feel like my birthday even with everyone singing to me and smiling. I let Colleen help me blow out the candles. When we’re done with cake, my mom sets three normal-size boxes next to me on the table and one big one.
Brendan taps the big one. “You’ll never guess what this is.”
“Brendan!” my mom says. “Shush.”
I get a new batting glove for my right hand from Brendan, and one for my left from Colleen. My parents get me two checkered button-up shirts that they probably paid too much for. “I noticed you like these kinds of shirts now,” my mom says.
I try to imagine them bleached out and looking decent. “Thanks.”
Brendan shoves the big box in my face. “Now open this one,” he says, and the table shrinks in on me. Brendan and my mom lean forward, smiling. Colleen stands up on her chair and puts her elbows on the table. Even my dad sets down his cup of tea and leans forward.
It’s too light to be an Atari or some other kind of video-game system, and it’s not like my parents have heard of that stuff anyway. They don’t usually go in for gifts that cost a couple hundred bucks, especially if they don’t improve your hand-eye coordination, teach you your ABCs, or at least warm your toes and keep them dry.
For a second, I wonder if it’s something Uncle Ryan bought for me a long time ago and told my dad to save until I was a freshman, or fifteen, or something like that. I rip through the paper, more excited than I mean to be, to a plain white box that’s kind of flimsy with the paper off. The tape is just plain old Scotch—not the long, impossible-to-tear-without-ripping-the-box skinny stuff that companies use on things that are really worth something. The box pops open no problem. There’s tissue paper, but I can see dark blue through it with swirly white letters spelling out Yankees.
“It’s authentic,” my dad says as I hold it up, a shiny blue, satin jacket. “We had your aunt Mary pick it up for us by the stadium and mail it out.”
“When?” I say.
My mom smiles. “We’ve been working on this since school started and we had to give you your father’s jacket.”
She looks so proud of herself that I have to look down because I can feel how blank my face is. I trace the big letters with my fingers, try to think of something to say. “It’s got the real stitching.”
“That’s what I told your aunt,” my dad says. “Don’t get one of those cheap, ironed-on deals. We want the real thing.”
I still can’t look up. “It’s really nice.”
“Put it on,” my dad says.
I stand up and slide it over my shoulders and down my arms, slick until my hands break through and the cloth at the end of the sleeves grips my wrists snug. Each blue button snaps together with a solid pop, and the cloth around the neck goes just to my collar, not too high, not too low. The letters are stiff and glowing across my chest, and it looks so official that for just a second, it has me. I’m thinking of a night game in Yankee Stadium with my dad, me leaning over a railing and asking Bobby Murcer to sign right on the Y.
My mom leans back in her chair, hands together, that proud smile still on her face. “It really looks good on you.”
Brendan grabs the right shoulder. “Look,” he says. “It’s even got the official Yankees patch.” The Uncle Sam hat on top of a bat with Yankees across it is stitched perfectly to the shoulder.
“Cool.” I walk around the table to give my mom a kiss and my dad a hug.
“You like it?” my dad says like he’s not so sure.
“Yeah.” I glance at him but it won’t stick, so I start gathering up the other boxes. “I’ve always wanted a Yankees jacket. It’s perfect.” I leave the jacket on, to sort of prove how much I like it already, and say I can help with dishes after I run this stuff up to my room.
Colleen’s gone back to searching her mess of cake for any icing she might have missed, but Brendan looks up at me like I’m crazy.
My mom shakes her head and my dad says, “It’s your birthday. Don’t worry about the dishes.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I better get up there. I’ve got a load of homework to get to.”
In my room, I hang the Yankees jacket in my closet and sit down at my desk. My Packy jacket is on the back of my chair, the patches and safety pins in the pockets. I get to work and everything goes fine until the last couple algebra problems. Those are always the hardest, the ones that aren’t just number 23; they’re 23a, b, and c. And if you get 23a wrong, you’re screwed for b and c. It’s not like Mr. Tomita won’t give you full credit if you get everything done but those last few, but I figure, why not call for help when someone has offered it?
At the top of the stairs, I hear the water running and the clang of pots and pans. Probably my mom. I go back to my room to wait her out. My homework is pretty much done, so I get out my notebook. The Ya
nkees logo looks funny now, and I could use my jacket as a model to make a different one, but instead I make a new DikNixon logo, the >I< part bigger and better than the NY.
In my new letter to Uncle Ryan, I’m wondering how I’m supposed to be punk rock and also wear a Yankees jacket. I know you know what I’m talking about, because I remember my dad always giving you a hard time when you’d wear your army jacket since you were never in the army. I was just a kid and I knew it was really a John Lennon jacket, and cool. How could my dad not know that? I tell Uncle Ryan that the only guys at school who actually wear Dodgers or Angels jackets don’t really play ball. Or talk to girls. Or end up at good parties. And it’s not like my dad’s taking me to a game anytime soon. Not with his work and without you here to make him do it, I write. So where do I wear this thing? I stop writing after that because it’s making me mad just thinking about the jacket. I even start feeling a little mad at Uncle Ryan, you know, because without him around, my dad doesn’t do so good with things that are different. But like I said, I don’t write any of that down.
The kitchen is empty and dark now. Even though it’s still before ten o’clock, it feels funny calling Edie this late, especially when she picks up, real polite. “Okuda residence.”
“Miss Okuda,” I say. “Now is the time to talk.”
She doesn’t laugh. “How was practice?”
“Good,” I say. “We’re practicing again tomorrow night.”
“I know. Cherise and I are coming over to watch.”
“You are?”
“Yeah,” she says, like, haven’t I known about this for weeks? “We’re going to walk over with you and Keith after school.”
“Really?”
“Really. I talked to Keith about it earlier when he called.”
It’s weird thinking of Keith calling Edie. What would he say to her? Band stuff, probably. “Okay. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”
“And after,” Edie says and leaves it kind of up, not exactly a good-bye. I guess in case I want to say something else. Only, I can’t think of what else to say, and it stays quiet until she asks, “Is that what you were calling about?”
It’s like one of those questions you see on a game show where the answer is right there, and you know the person knows, but they go retarded because of the pressure: Name a fruit whose skin you can eat: Watermelon. Orange. Banana. Guh!
“Yeah, that’s why I called.”
“Okay,” she says and waits another second. “Now is the time to say bye.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Bye.”
Only, Edie doesn’t say “bye” back; she says, “Good night.” It tickles my ear, runs down to my feet, makes me warm everywhere like when you’re a kid and your mom tucks you in, only better because it’s not your mom; it’s someone who doesn’t really have to do it.
I don’t touch the last algebra problem, don’t even look over to see if Astrid’s light is off. I pull my desk chair closer to the bed, turn the light out, and climb in. In the dark, my hand slides up the desk chair and onto the rough cotton of the Packy jacket. My fingers work into the front pocket, tracing over the letters on each patch, reading them like Braille: TSOL, GBH, and Dead Kennedys. It makes me happy the way acing a test does, how you know you did good even before you turn it in, how you could’ve done it half asleep and gotten it perfect.
Lyle the Fascist
Me and Edie are walking to the stairs after Algebra, after I’ve given her the note Keith wrote last night even though he talked to her on the phone, even though we’ll see her at lunch and after school.
“Can you do me a favor?” she says.
“Not another note.”
Edie grins. “Why, are you tempted to read them?”
“How do you know I don’t?”
“I’d know.” She pats the one in her back pocket. “But I’m going to see you guys at lunch, so why would I hand off a note?”
“Well, yeah.”
Edie looks behind us like maybe we’re being followed. “I just need you to promise not to tell Treat about us coming over after school. Okay?”
She nods like I’ve already agreed, then turns to go. It happens so fast that as I’m reaching out to make her wait, her shoulder flies by and I catch her hand as it swings back. She stops and turns back, her eyes huge spheres. “What is it, Reece?”
Her hand is so soft and light to the touch I’m not even sure if I’m actually holding it. “I can’t not tell Treat,” I say. “He doesn’t do so good with surprises.”
Edie squeezes my hand, a quick one that lets off without letting go. We are still touching. And now the warmth wraps around my fingers. Edie says something like “Please, as a favor,” and I must ask, “Why?” because she’s talking about how she wants to tell me and she will tell me but she can’t tell me right now. She keeps squeezing my hand, like a tiny massage, until I say, “Fine.”
The whole walk to English I’m sort of wondering why Treat can’t know and why Keith is still getting notes. Mostly, though, I’m wondering why my hand feels like it’s glowing. My eyes are who knows where until some girl at her locker comes into focus. She’s wearing a warm-up suit with school colors, tight and stretchy. It looks good so I keep looking, like it’s a sunset, and now she’s looking back. Our eyes are locked; I know because her head follows me. Then this little grin pulls up the corners of her mouth and makes me feel great all over, definitely better than a little hand glow.
It’s so smooth, almost normal, until I think: Wow, who is this? Then it’s like I’ve woken up late for school. Astrid? Astrid! I should say something. Or do something. Or something. And I do. I throw a hand up in the air the way Uncle Ryan used to do. “Happy Friday.”
Astrid’s eyes slide back and forth real smooth, her mouth a tight grin until she says, “Happy Friday.” Then she shakes her head, the grin still there, and I don’t know if that means I look potential boyfriend cute or just puppy cute.
.
After school, Keith’s all over Edie on the walk to Treat’s: How did her day go, how did the discussion of Huck Finn go in AP English, and was her history test as easy as she thought it’d be? She’s answering everything with smiles and jokes. Cherise walks next to me and she’s pushed her hair back behind her ear more times than she’s looked up or said a word to me.
“You should get one of those hair thingies,” I say.
She turns, looks me in the eye, and says, “My mom says they pull your scalp and weaken your follicles.” Then she goes back to chaperoning her feet.
“Okay.” We walk on for five, six, seven more sidewalk squares. “So, do you like punk?”
“Maybe,” she says to square nine. “I don’t think I know what it is.”
As we head across Yorba Linda Boulevard and down the hill to Treat’s, I list every punk song and band on The Nixon Tapes. Cherise is shaking her head no to everything. “Wait,” she finally says and pushes her hair back. “I might know ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’ Who’s that by?”
“The Sex Pistols,” Keith says. “Unless my mom’s asking. Then it’s the Sax Pistols.”
Edie and Cherise crack up and Keith leads us up the driveway and knocks on the Two-Car Studio. The garage door opens and Treat’s there by the button, studying some notebook paper in his hand.
“We need to get a couple more chairs,” Keith says.
Treat looks up, his eyes locking on Edie and Cherise. “Perfect,” he says, but not in a good way. He opens the door to the house and it slams behind him.
“He may not come back,” I say.
“Isn’t he getting chairs?” Edie says. Keith shakes his head and Edie looks at me. “Somebody should go get him.”
Keith sits down in the chair by his bass and starts getting it out.
“Fine,” I say to Keith. “If you’re too scared.”
“What? I’m getting things ready.�
�
Treat’s room is at the end of the hallway past his little sister’s room, the door with band stickers and a fake parking sign that says NO PARKING / EXCEPT FOR TREAT. He pops his head out before I can knock. “Why are they here?”
“Keith said they could come.”
Treat shakes the Mohawk. “I don’t care who brought them. Why are they here? Does one of them play drums? Does the other play tambourine?”
Even though he’s razzing me, I imagine Edie holding a tambourine and wearing fake cat ears and a tail like Josie and the Pussycats. Cartoon Edie looks at me and tilts her head like, Meow? What’s so funny? I start giggling.
Treat opens his door all the way, his arms folded to their hugest. “What?”
I explain about Josie and the Pussycats and Edie in the cat ears.
Treat grins. “That’s stupid. Cherise too?”
“Sure. And Keith,” I say, and we both laugh. “You coming out?”
He shakes his head.
“You know we need to practice in front of real people. And they’re cool. Edie won’t say anything bad.”
“What about Cherise?”
I roll my eyes. “She won’t say anything at all. She never does.”
Treat steps into the hallway. “One song.”
Keith has all the amps on, a couple extra chairs set up, and the garage door closed. As soon as Edie and Cherise see Treat behind me, they sit down.
“We’re only doing one song,” I say. “Then it’s got to be a closed studio session so we can work on new stuff.”
Cherise folds her hands in her lap real polite and Edie looks me over, and you know she’s thinking this whole thing is artificial—a garage studio, a band with no drummer, and three guys who don’t know what they’re doing. Any second the whole thing could blow up in our faces. But as me and Keith put on our guitars, she smiles at us both, like maybe she’s even a little excited.
Treat picks up the megaphone and turns to the electronic drums sitting on a box. “Solitary Man,” he whispers and hits start on the drums. After the tap-tap-tap, me and Keith blast waves of distorted sound at Edie and Cherise. Treat starts singing at the exact right time, but instead of jumping out in front of us like usual, he’s back by the boxes, facing the car cover with our logo on it. He sings the whole song this way. I can’t look up for more than a glance without missing a string, but it goes pretty good. Edie’s bobbing her head as the last twangs drain out of the amps and Cherise is a statue, staring at Treat’s back as he finishes singing with three fake coughs, “Huh-huh-huh.” Edie claps nice and loud and a millisecond later so does Cherise.
Californium Page 15