Scratch and the Sniffs

by Chris Lynch

  Jerome’s face turned so red from the mere suggestion that I think we could feel safe that he would not be disrobing for the camera.

  Steven came in, wearing a button-down shirt, a button-down face, and a buttoned-up lip. Silently, he mounted the small stage where his stuff had been set up. He picked up his sticks and stared out into space.

  The tension coming from Steve-o was giving off sparks. I wheeled right up to him.

  “Stage fright?” I asked, in an honest attempt to be helpful.

  “Take a walk,” he growled.

  Get it? Take a walk? Wheelchair? A most wicked thing to say.

  Times like these bring Steve-o and me close.

  “Listen,” I said. “I know you threw up on TV that one other time, but this is different. You won’t have to answer anybody’s questions. The crowd is not going to be against us….”

  “And Monica’s not gonna be here, right, Wolfgang?” he blurted.

  I thought that was a little strong.

  “Steven. I’m hurt that you’d even ask me. Did I not agree not to bring her?”

  “You slug,” he said. “If she shows up, I’m going to beat you to death with my own two drumsticks.”

  I gave him a big fake yawn. “Fine, as long as you don’t lose the beat. You are a professional, remember.” Then I reached up—he didn’t even lean closer when he saw me straining—and unbuttoned the top four buttons of his shirt. He stared at me as if I’d taken food off his plate. “There’s an extra two bucks in it for you,” I said. “You’ve got thirty-nine chest hairs, Steven. Use ’em.”

  We were all in place when Sammy Blue and his crew of one came in. Sammy carried a large, fancy reel-to-reel recorder with him, and his assistant carried a big videocam-lighting setup.

  “By the way,” Steven asked, “what song do they want to record?”

  “Sammy said we can do whatever we want. So I decided to unveil our first single, ‘Sniff This.’”

  Groans went up from each little platform, except Scratch’s.

  “Wolf, what is ‘Sniff This’?” Jerome asked. “How are we going to play a song we have not rehearsed, and we have never heard before? What are we going to play?”

  “You’re going to play the same thing you always play. Jerome, who do you think you’re talking to here? I know what we do, remember? Every song is the same. You guys just whack away back there and I’ll sing. When the words change, it’s a new song.”

  Jerome relaxed. “Oh ya, I forgot.”

  “Okay now, people, let’s not get caught up in our own myth, shall we?”

  Again, a rhetorical question. Again, Cecil.

  “Okay, we won’t.”

  The equipment was set up, the one big light crisping us like french fries, when His Lingness finally arrived. Even I was impressed.

  He wore lemon-colored pants made out of parachute material. He wore the shiniest forest-green sport coat I had ever seen, with the seams all visible, and with no shirt underneath. He wore an oversize mariachi band hat and the tiniest granny sunglasses that made his face look the size of Greenland. And he had somebody with him.

  “Nice jacket, Ling,” I said as I stared past him at his guest.

  “I know,” he answered. “It’s the lining. It’s the nuttiest thing, you know. With the coolest part of the jacket hidden on the inside, why doesn’t everybody wear them this way?”

  “Ya,” I murmured. “Nutty. Who’s your friend, Ling?”

  “She’s not my friend, she’s my mother.”

  I grabbed him by the arm and yanked him down close for a good He-Man scolding. “You brought your mom?”

  “You said to bring girls. She’s the only girl I know. Anyway, she’s psyched—she’ll make a great audience.”

  “Ya, but …” I tried to be delicate, which we know is not my regular mode. “But she looks like you”—which she most certainly did. I think they even shared clothes.

  Ling looked at his mother. She smiled at him. He smiled at her. He turned back to me. “Ya, so what’s your point?”

  Even I could not be that mean. At least we could finally break the secret of Ling-Ling’s real name.

  “Have a seat. Mrs. …?”

  “Ling,” she said.

  “Of course,” I sighed.

  I made sure the technician shined the light right in Steven’s eyes when the fans poured in. But I knew it was just a stall tactic. I think he smelled her.

  “I’m going to kill you, Wolfgang,” he hissed from behind me.

  “You’ll thank me when you’re famous,” I said.

  “I’m going to be famous for killing you,” he answered.

  We had just enough girls, and a few degenerate, rock-and-roll-looking bony boys, to be totally legit when taping started.

  “All right,” Sammy called, clapping his hands. “We’ll do this in two stages. First will be strictly audio. I want you to do one take of the song first, then we’ll do the videotape second. Got it?”

  We got it. It was like the rodeo bull that’s caged up until the last second before he comes blasting out of the gate trying to kick the stupid cowboy off his back and into the next world. Sammy hadn’t gotten the words out before Scratch tore into his guitar, Steven mauled his drums, and the rest of them kicked in behind.

  The fans went right into high-pitch screech.

  “Trade with me!” Jerome screamed at Ling when Nessy made her first lunge at his ankle. Jerome had to kick her off.

  Ling was only too happy to move up front, and the switch went off in mid-performance without a hitch. Jerome breathed a little easier and beat holy hamburger out of his tambourine, and Ling slapped the bass drum deliriously with his forehead.

  “Johnny!!!!!” came Monica’s lovely, squealy voice. “Oh Johnnyyyyyy! Beat that drum, you big, strong savage.”

  How could you not love that woman? What a shame she was wasted on Steve-o He-Mannequin.

  Because we had not rehearsed the song—had not rehearsed anything, actually—we sounded our absolute best. The band was motoring along on all cylinders when I finally kicked in. I closed my eyes and forgot all about Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond and the Vienna Boys Choir singing the Beatles and all that other stuff they nearly broke me with in therapy. I made two rock-hard fists, punched myself once in the temple and once in the solar plexus, and I sang.

  All right, I didn’t sing. I screamed, equal parts gangsta rap, heavy metal squall, and a Reverend Jesse Jackson preach speech.

  We don’t like girls

  But we don’t like boys

  And we don’t know what we’re sayin’

  But we make a lot of noise

  And we can’t play music

  But we can’t play football

  But we must know somethin’

  ’Cause we’re takin’ dough from you-all

  SNIFF THIS!

  I say we’re takin’ dough from you-all

  SNIFF THIS!

  Ya, we’re takin’ dough from you-all.

  I paused to take note, and Sammy was ecstatic. He was making that foolish little A-okay sign with his fingers, and shouting, “More, more, more,” at us along with the assembled adoring fandom. I think I’ll have “More, more, more” on my headstone, the way people keep yelling it at me. If, that is, I ever decide to die.

  And all the girlies love Chesthair

  And Jerome, the King of Ting

  But they know they’re gettin’ nowhere

  ’Cause we’re He-Men and we sing

  SNIFF THIS!

  Yes we’re the He-Men and we sing

  SNIFF THIS!

  If you don’t like it talk to Ling.

  Now, by the third time around, the crowd had caught Sniff fever, and I held out the microphone for them to deliver the SNIFF THIS! line. By the fifth round, the Sniffs themselves had figured it out, musically challenged though they were.

  So one of us vomits

  And one of us cries

  And one of us eats car parts

  And one o
f us lies

  We ain’t losin’ sleep

  And you can’t make us think

  We ain’t changin’ nothin’

  You love us ’cause we stink.

  So Sir Scratch won’t change his clothes

  And we couldn’t whip the Girl Scouts

  But you know you’re gonna join in

  When the Wolf-man tells ya shout out

  SNIFF THIS!

  Let’s go scratchin’ and a-sniffin’

  SNIFF THIS!

  While we’re wailin’ and a-riffin’

  SNIFF THIS!

  Can you guess what we been rollin’ in?

  SNIFF THIS!

  It’s the shorts your dad went bowlin’ in. …

  We didn’t want to stop. They made us. It was time to do the video portion of the program. Right away while we were still sweaty. The crowd was frenzied. Monica and her gang of savage Girl Scouts—in full uniform, of course—were throwing shoes and oil cans and whatever they could find on the garage floor. Loch Nessy was trying desperately to get at our poor Jerome while being restrained by Mrs. Ling, who I’m sure was convinced the girl was after her teen idol son.

  All Sammy Blue could do was pace back and forth while his cameraman prepared, muttering loudly to himself, “I’m gonna win, I’m gonna win, I know I’m gonna win this time.”

  Huh?

  No matter. We were on cloud He-Man. All we could manage to do, communication-wise, was high-five and slap each other and throw things at each other and make animal noises.

  Like zoo gorillas.

  Like guys. Guy communication.

  Except Scratch. Scratch just turned off his volume and kept on playing.

  “We’re ready now!” Sammy exclaimed. We all fell silent to listen to instructions. “This time, all I want you to do is fake it.”

  As club leader, I spoke up for the band.

  “Huh?”

  “You know, I’m going to play the tape back for you to hear, but I’m not going to be recording any sound. I’ll use the separate sound recording. For the video, you just go through the motions.”

  Pause ten seconds for it to sink in, then I wheeled around to face my troops.

  “Lip-synch!” I screamed, and the whole high-five, gorilla celebration started again. “Now we know we’ve made big time, if they want us to lip-synch a video!”

  Eventually, we calmed down enough for them to start the audio. It took a few seconds to get used to it. Then we kicked in and started the faking.

  Steven looked nervous all over again. It’s a video thing.

  Lars looked just as wooden and artificial as always.

  Cecil looked like he was unaware that we were not, actually, playing the song. There was some kind of genius in there somewhere.

  Jerome stared into the camera like one of those kidnap victims being forced at gunpoint to say everything was swell.

  Scratch kept shaking his head, but what are you going to do?

  Thank god we had me and Ling. Freed from the burden of actually playing, Ling did his tricks, twirling his sticks like batons. Tossing them up in the air like he was juggling torches. Blowing kisses to his mother. Ling had a definite future as a professional faker.

  But I did it because I am simply a pro. I held the microphone close, I played to it. The microphone loved me. I played to the camera. No surprise, the camera also loved me. I rolled down my custom-made ramp, and played to the audience. You can guess the result.

  At one point the camera swung around to pan our intimate but enthusiastic gathering. Monica and her gang unfurled a bedsheet with GIRL SCOUTS HAVE CHESTHAIR FEVER printed in brilliant red block letters.

  This was my moment. We rounded into the home stretch, final chorus. I waved the signal to my man Cecil. My man Cecil missed the signal. I waved it again, taking advantage of the nonaudio recording to shout Cecil!

  He got the message. I wheeled myself back up onto the platform, Cecil pulled the lever and … I was up, on Lars’s awesome hydraulic lift. Microphone in hand, I smiled, looked down on the rest of the band, looked down on the audience, looked down into the camera, which looked back up at me like a baby bird to its mother.

  Portrait of a rock star. This was it, the absolute zenith of life. Me on my platform six feet above the rest of the screaming, teeming world.

  By the time the song wound down and Cecil lowered me, I could already see myself in one of those paperback biographies in the rack at CVS, telling how I got where I am today. The other guys were in there too, but mostly it was about me.

  “I could not have imagined it any better,” Sammy was gushing as he rushed up to us. “This is going to be absolutely unbeatable. All you guys need to do now is sign these releases.” He quickly stuck these sheets in each band member’s hands.

  You could almost hear a group gasp.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Blue,” I said as calmly as I could.

  The top line of the release form read America’s Funniest Home Videos.

  “You want to tell me what this is about?”

  “Oh ya,” he said, still breathless with excitement. “I have been trying so long to get on this program, you have no idea. I tried the animal tricks video, the dangerous-stunts-that-end-in-disaster type video, the calling-up-people-and-telling-them-relatives-were-dead prank video … but this, this is it. You guys are going to kill them. I took this smoothie singer I found at a wedding, and I’m dubbing your audio over his video and his audio over your—”

  Claannggg!

  It was the sweetest music we ever made. It was the sound of Scratch’s guitar hitting the video camera.

  Clanggggg!

  That was the reel-to-reel.

  “I’m going to sue!” Sammy screamed. “Do you know how much money—”

  Sammy ran toward Scratch, who raised the guitar high once more. Sammy stopped, with his flunky right behind. The crowd was almost all gone now, the last few emptying out the back of the garage quickly, as agreed. No one noticed. The show was over.

  “Get the audio tape,” Scratch said to Ling. “Jerome, you get the video.”

  “You are going to jail, kid,” Sammy said.

  “No way,” Scratch said. “Those tapes belong to Scratch and the Sniffs.”

  We collected our tapes, they collected their equipment, and we split up.

  “At least we can add this to our one-of-a-kind tape collection,” Jerome joked.

  Nobody said another word about it.

  Not even me.

  We knew we had a new boss man. There was no debate, no discussion. I wouldn’t fight it, and even Steven agreed. We didn’t even bother taking an official vote.

  Those of us who actually lived off-site came into the club together that morning, with an unusual singularity of purpose. We went, as a team, right up to the Lincoln. Steven opened the door of the car to wake Scratch and give him the news.

  But he wasn’t there. His little bag of belongings, his guitar, his person, were gone.

  “Well, he got a good healthy start to his journey,” Steven said, pulling himself back out of the car. “He ate the gearshift knob.”

  I sniffed at the car. At least he’d left his scent behind.

  A Biography of Chris Lynch

  Chris Lynch (b. 1962) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the fifth of seven children. His father, Edward J. Lynch, was a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus and trolley driver, and his mother, Dorothy, was a stay-at-home mom. Lynch’s father passed away in 1967, when Lynch was just five years old. Along with her children, Dorothy was left with an old, black Rambler American car and no driver’s license. She eventually got her license, and raised her children as a single mother.

  Lynch grew up in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood, and recalls his childhood ambitions to become a hockey player (magically, without learning to ice skate properly), president of the United States, and/or a “rock and roll god.” He attended Catholic Memorial School in West Roxbury, before heading off to Boston University, neglecting to first
earn his high school diploma. He later transferred to Suffolk University, where he majored in journalism, and eventually received an MA from the writing program at Emerson College. Before becoming a writer, Lynch worked as a furniture mover, truck driver, house painter, and proofreader. He began writing fiction around 1989, and his first book, Shadow Boxer, was published in 1993. “I could not have a more perfect job for me than writer,” he says. “Other than not managing to voluntarily read a work of fiction until I was at university, this gig and I were made for each other. One might say I was a reluctant reader, which surely informs my work still.”

  In 1989, Lynch married, and later had two children, Sophia and Walker. The family moved to Roslindale, Massachusetts, where they lived for seven years. In 1996, Lynch moved his family to Ireland, his father’s birthplace, where Lynch has dual citizenship. After a few years in Ireland, he separated from his wife and met his current partner, Jules. In 1998, Jules and her son, Dylan, joined in the adventure when Lynch, Sophia, and Walker sailed to southwest Scotland, which remains the family’s base to this day. In 2010, Sophia had a son, Jackson, Lynch’s first grandchild.

  When his children were very young, Lynch would work at home, catching odd bits of available time to write. Now that his children are grown, he leaves the house to work, often writing in local libraries and “acting more like I have a regular nine-to-five(ish) job.”

  Lynch has written more than twenty-five books for young readers, including Inexcusable (2005), a National Book Award finalist; Freewill (2001), which won a Michael L. Printz Honor; and several novels cited as ALA Best Books for Young Adults, including Gold Dust (2000) and Slot Machine (1995).

  Lynch’s books are known for capturing the reality of teen life and experiences, and often center on adolescent male protagonists. “In voice and outlook,” Lynch says, “Elvin Bishop [in the novels Slot Machine; Extreme Elvin; and Me, Dead Dad, and Alcatraz] is the closest I have come to representing myself in a character.” Many of Lynch’s stories deal with intense, coming-of-age subject matters. The Blue-Eyed Son trilogy was particularly hard for him to write, because it explores an urban world riddled with race, fear, hate, violence, and small-mindedness. He describes the series as “critical of humanity in a lot of ways that I’m still not terribly comfortable thinking about. But that’s what novelists are supposed to do: get uncomfortable and still be able to find hope. I think the books do that. I hope they do.”