Californium

by R. Dean Johnson

  Mrs. D answers the door, smiling when she recognizes me. “I’m sorry, Reece,” she says, “Treat’s not home from school yet.”

  “That’s okay,” I say, and I’m pretty sure it sounds happier than it should. “I’m just wondering if my jacket is still here.”

  She steps back and opens the front door all the way to let me in. “Goodness, I’m not sure—”

  “It’s probably in the . . .” and I want to say “studio,” because that’s what it was, but I just point at the door to the garage. “You know, probably out there where we practiced.”

  She walks me to the door and opens it for me. “You can have a look around.”

  Treat’s Bug is right in the middle now with the car cover over it, the >I< logo stretched across the roof, not a bit faded. The amps are stacked in a corner with the instruments. The chairs are folded up, leaning in another corner with the rolled-up carpet, and the computer boxes are stacked against only one wall now. It’s weird, you know? It’s all the same elements that made it a studio, but it feels totally different and hits me hard, like a little version of losing Uncle Ryan.

  I’m thinking maybe I’ll just go, but then I see this one computer monitor out, sitting on top of its box, and there’s my Packy jacket in a pile behind it like a little car cover that slipped off. I pick it up and dust it off, and the weight of it is a handshake from someone coming off the plane, that person you haven’t seen in forever, and everything’s okay now because he’s here.

  Mrs. Dumovitch walks me to the front door, saying she’s happy I found my jacket and that she thinks Cherise is a wonderful girl but misses seeing me and Keith. We’re invited over anytime, she says, and you can tell she means that the way she lingers at the door as I cross the driveway.

  It’s warm now but I don’t care. I slide my arms through the jacket, feel it tug around my shoulders and prop up my back. The patches are all here, stitched tight like they’ve always belonged, like they’re supposed to be right alongside the Packy patch.

  I head up the hill, thinking about tomorrow in the Bog when I tell Keith we’re starting a band. He’ll get excited and say DikNixon is back, but I’ll tell him no. DikNixon is dead, and we’re not going to be Dixon or the Pardon or Ford spelled Fjord so it looks like we’re from Europe. We’re moving on to the next thing. Our own thing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I could not be a writer without the encouragement and support, early on and still, of my parents, Kathleen and Robert, and my wife’s parents, Joy and Mike Hensley. And I wouldn’t be the writer I am without my wife, Julie Hensley, who not only told me early on that this was a book, but also what it was really about and what the title should be.

  I’m so fortunate to have had early readers for this project, many of whom could see its potential before I could and pushed me forward: Lex Williford, Jewel Parker Rhodes, Bert Bender, Ron Carlson, and especially Mike McNally, whose influence is all over this book even if there’s still some baseball in it.

  Thanks to the Hall Farm Center for Arts & Education in Townsend, Vermont, for the time and beautiful space to write many of these chapters (and for the blueberries and beer). Thanks, too, to Kristen and Kara of Purdy’s Coffee Company in Richmond, Kentucky, for providing ambience and lattes so conducive to writing.

  Thanks to my agent, Mackenzie Brady Watson, whose editorial eye and enthusiasm have made this a better book. And thanks to everyone at Plume for their hard work, with special thanks to my editors, Matthew Daddona and Kate Napolitano, for their insight, their encouragement, and their ability to make the good, hard work of revision a joy (really).

  And for various reasons, thanks to Bernice, Boyd the elder, both Daves, Derek, Jay, Jennifer, Jim, Kenny, Nancy, Toan, Wes, and Young.

  Last of all, a sweeping, general thanks to all those bands (punk and otherwise) who hit the height of their fame in some backyard long ago, yet continue to inspire.

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