For What It's Worth

by Janet Tashjian

  I make sure the gate latches behind us. “You want to help me raise money for Brett?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Is she serious? A while ago, I worried whether Caroline would turn him in. I tell her I’ll have to think about it.

  “You mean you have to run it by Club 27. Admit it—that’s what you’re thinking, right?”

  The girl knows me too well. “I’ll let you know what they say.”

  The second I get home, that’s exactly what I do. As I slide the board out from underneath my bed, my mother enters my room and catches me red-handed.

  “I was just cleaning up,” I stammer.

  She waves me off as if the Ouija is the last thing on her mind. “I just want to check in. Is everything okay?”

  I slide the board back under my bed. “Everything’s fine.”

  She sits at the foot of my bed. “Excited to play at the dance?”

  “You’re not going to come, are you? It’ll make me nervous.”

  “Well, we don’t want that.” She gives me a tired smile. “How are things with Caroline?”

  “Good.”

  “Ellen is having a party on Sunday afternoon if you want to come—you can bring Caroline too.”

  I nod as if this is the kind of exciting couples invitation I get all the time.

  “I’m going to call Soosie—do you want to talk to her when I’m done?”

  “Sure.” I want to ask Soosie what she thinks about a fund-raiser for Brett and get some inside info on the Lookout Mountain place. But as soon as my mother leaves the room, I have a more pressing matter to attend to.

  I place my fingers lightly on the planchette. I realize asking advice from three rock stars who died from abusing various illegal substances probably isn’t the best plan, but I do it anyway. But before I even get to ask a question, the planchette begins to move. I say the letters out loud as the Ouija chooses them.

  S-H-E C-A-N-T S-T-A-Y.

  You’re wrong, I think. She can stay—she WILL. And I decide to tell Caroline to go ahead and set up her stupid séance. If that’ll make her happy, then that’s what we’ll do. I slap on my headphones and crank up some Kinks to seal the deal.

  I know what you’re thinking—that whole “if you love something, set it free” philosophy, right? I never liked that saying, never made a lick of sense to me. I’m going down fighting on this one.

  FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

  5/72

  The Kinks’ third single “You Really Got Me” was written by Ray Davies and was a huge international hit, which sent them to the studio to quickly record their first album. The song got its distorted dirty guitar sound from Ray’s brother Dave slashing the speaker cone on his amp with a razor and poking holes in it with a pin. The fuzz from the vibrating fabric of the speaker gave the song its indelible trashy riff; those killer power chords went on to influence lots of other bands, such as the Rolling Stones and The Who. And how old were they when they were creating that new sound? Ray was 20; Dave was 17.

  My dad’s working late, which makes it easier to sneak out of the house without a lot of explanations. Mom’s got the living room full of boxes of clothes to inventory and barely looks up when I tell her I’ll be at Caroline’s. She doesn’t notice that I’m carrying a bag filled with candles I’ve snatched from every room in the house.

  When I get to the log cabin, Caroline’s already there. She helps me distribute the candles throughout several of the underground rooms.

  “This is going to be great,” she says. “Tom, Lynne, Ashley, Willy, Ryan—”

  “Ryan’s not coming,” I interrupt. “He hates anything supernatural.”

  “Well, he told me he is coming. Marvin too.”

  I feel even more stupid than I did before—I mean, I am a bit obsessed with the supernatural, but it’s not usually something I discuss with my friends. Music, sure, that’s a normal thing to talk about with other guys. But communicating with the dead? Not your basic conversation topic in the school lunch line.

  “Did you bring the Ouija board?” Caroline asks.

  I tell her I didn’t, then watch her freak out.

  “Calm down. Of course I did.” I remove the board and planchette from my bag.

  “Do you think we should try to get in touch with Houdini too?”

  I shrug as if I don’t care, but to be honest, I’ve given this whole séance thing a LOT of thought. Not just because I want the supernatural piece to go smoothly but because this is the closest thing to having a party at my house. Should there be music or will it interfere with the séance? Will kids be bored and want to leave early? I realize I’m making too big a deal over something that will probably only last an hour and tell myself to just have a good time.

  “We should pick up some of this trash,” Caroline says. “The wind’s blown all these papers and leaves in.”

  I tell her no one’s going to be looking at the décor and go to the gate when I hear Ryan, Willy, and Marvin.

  “This is so cool,” Ryan says. “Why don’t we practice here?”

  “How about tomorrow?” Marvin suggests.

  I tell him there’s no electricity.

  “Acoustic,” Willy answers. “We need to practice as much as we can before next Saturday.”

  Caroline hands Ryan a candle and leads the three of them down to the main room. A few minutes later, I’m shocked by the number of kids milling around the grotto. I ask Caroline how many she invited.

  She shrugs. “Everyone from our class—at five dollars each, too.”

  “WHAT?”

  “I’m going to start collecting. Is that okay?’ she asks.

  I suddenly feel like a deep-sea diver with the bends. TOO … MUCH … PRESSURE. I tell her to collect on the way out in case I screw up.

  “Are you sure?” Caroline asks. “This is for Brett, remember?”

  She’s right, but I’ve been much more worried about Caroline breaking up with me than helping Brett, whom I haven’t seen in a while. I pause on one of the footbridges to take some deep breaths. Have I taken this Club 27 thing too far? What started out as a lark now is a moneymaking proposition—suppose the Ouija doesn’t work here, suppose some of the other kids think it’s a hoax? If I knew how it worked, it would be one thing, but I don’t have a clue. Suppose people don’t like what they hear? Hey, I don’t like what I hear half the time. If Club 27 is wrong about Caroline, they can be wrong about anything, right?

  “You ready, Houdini?” Ryan asks. “I hope you don’t think I’m going to pay.”

  “This was Caroline’s idea,” I explain. “I’ve never done a séance before.”

  Ryan fake-punches me in the stomach, but all I can think of is that’s how Houdini died. “You have to be open, right?”

  He ushers me downstairs, where I take a quick headcount and come up with thirty-two. YIKES.

  I pull a U-turn and face Ryan. “How about if we forget the séance and just play some of the songs we’re doing for the dance?”

  “What, a capella? We don’t have any instruments.” He gives me a little shove. “Go pull the wool over their eyes, Quinn.”

  Needless to say, I don’t appreciate the put-down. When I look over at Caroline, she wears a “what are you waiting for?” expression.

  Before sitting down next to her, I scan the room. The candles give off the only light in the basement and with all the shadows from the trees outside, the effect is dark and eerie. Most of the candles are my mom’s clove votives from home, so the room smells like someone just baked fresh gingerbread—an aroma diametrically opposed to the scary visuals.

  “I want to thank everyone for coming,” I begin. “Tonight we’re going to start off with a nod to Harry Houdini.” I can see by his expression that Tom is disappointed we’re not going straight to Hendrix.

  Just as I take my seat, a breeze shoots in from the window and blows out several of the candles. A collective ooooh fills the room as Caroline and I relight them. I sit back down and realize the entire room
is now holding hands. I grab Caroline’s on one side and Ryan’s on the other. (Were they holding hands before I sat down?)

  When the shutter of the window bangs against the house, several of the girls scream—in a good, haunted-house way, not a help-I’m-getting-mugged kind of way. As much as I was reluctant to do this, tonight might turn out to be one of the main social events of the season.

  I’ve always been superstitious and fascinated by the Ouija board, but I’ve never been to a séance, never mind orchestrating one. Thankfully, Kathye and Caroline pick up the lead and run.

  “We invoke the spirits of Club 27.” Caroline’s voice is loud enough to be heard by the crowd, but still pretty low, almost sinister. I have to admit I’m a little taken aback.

  “Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison,” Kathye continues, “give us a sign you can hear us.”

  I dramatically place my hand on the planchette; Caroline joins me. For the first time in my Ouija career, nothing happens. The planchette sits there as if nailed to the board.

  “Give us a sign,” I say. I realize I can speed this process along by moving the planchette myself, but cheating now—in front of this many kids—doesn’t seem like a smart move.

  Even I’m surprised when the sign comes not from the immobile Ouija board but from the candles. Another gust breezes in, this time blowing out all the lights but one. It’s either a coincidence or we really have stumbled on something. Goose bumps shoot up my arm as I realize I’m as much a spectator in this event as the other kids are. Girls are screaming, guys are laughing, but everyone can feel the suspense. Caroline reaches across the board to give my arm a squeeze, which sends another jolt through my already electric body.

  We pick up the candles and light them again. I wait for everyone to settle down and return to the makeshift circle before speaking. “Jimi, Janis, and Jim, we know you’re with us. This place is safe—please come back.”

  Even though there are more than thirty of us, you can literally hear a pin drop as we hold our collective breath. The rough-hewn logs, the dirt floor, the coyotes baying in the woods outside all add to the ambience and tension. None of the Hollywood production designers who live here in the Canyon could’ve come up with a better set.

  I think I smell smoke but am thrown off by Lindy’s moaning. Her low voice suddenly shifts to an ear-piercing scream as she backs out of the circle toward the wall.

  “Morrison is here!” she shouts.

  Several others start screaming now too—and not just girls. Willy knocks over a candle on his way to the exit; so does Maria. I force myself to turn around to see what’s causing such fear. Through the panic, I see a hazy image of a guy with long, dark, wavy hair. He’s got a round face, wide sideburns, and several days of stubble.

  “It’s Morrison,” Ryan says. “He didn’t die in Paris!”

  “Or it’s his ghost,” Tom adds. “Where’s Jimi—is he here too?”

  The burning smell is now strong and the basement is full of smoke. I wave my arms to clear the air. Could this really be the work of Jim Morrison’s ghost?

  I peer through the increasing haze and realize it’s not the Lizard King.

  It’s Brett.

  “I came back to get some things,” Brett says. “I didn’t know you were having a party.”

  Ryan still stares as if I’m standing in the middle of Zappa’s old basement having a conversation with Jim Morrison, back from the dead. With lots of trepidation, Ryan extends his hand to Brett. “I’m a big fan, always have been.”

  Brett turns to me in confusion. “What’s going on?”

  What brings me back to reality isn’t Brett’s question but Caroline tugging at my arm. “Those papers caught on fire—it’s spreading. Come on! We have to get someone to call the fire department!”

  I have taken off my jacket and started beating back the flames when I hear sirens racing across the Canyon.

  “All that screaming and smoke—someone called the police,” Caroline says. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  I realize that as much trouble as we’re all going to be in, the one with the most to lose is Brett. “Run!” I yell through the confusion.

  He looks around for his things, but I push him out of the room. “Go!”

  He reluctantly runs upstairs with Caroline. When I realize Ryan is still in the basement, I stumble through the haze to find him.

  “Ryan!” I yell through the smoke. “Come on!”

  I grab him by the shirt and pull him upstairs. “I knew he wasn’t dead,” Ryan says. “Knew he couldn’t stay away.”

  I want to tell Ryan what he witnessed was not some rock-and-roll apparition but my sister’s friend from Boston. But the explanation will have to wait because as soon as I climb over the fence onto Lookout Mountain Avenue, I am face-to-face with four of L.A.P.D.’s finest.

  Who do you think was maddest—my parents, who grounded me for a month?

  The principal of the junior high, who banned us from playing the dance?

  The police, who found Brett’s bag with his ID inside and are now searching all over town to bring him in on his warrant?

  The owner of the property, who was there with insurance inspectors and locksmiths all week?

  Ryan, when he found out his I-HAD-AN-ENCOUNTER-WITH-A-DEAD-ROCK-STAR story was utter hogwash?

  Caroline at Brett for ruining our séance? Or at me for not helping her clean up the newspapers beforehand? Or for not letting her collect everyone’s fee up front?

  Or me—mad at myself for the police finding out about Brett? Losing privileges for a month, not to mention MY PARENTS CONFISCATING MY ALBUMS AND OUIJA BOARD?

  Flip a coin, join the club. EVERYBODY’S mad at yours truly.

  FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

  5/72

  Sri Yukteswar Giri, Aleister Crowley, Mae West, Lenny Bruce, Karlheinz Stockhausen, W. C. Fields, Carl Jung, Edgar Allan Poe, Fred Astaire, Richard Merkin, the Vargas Girl, Huntz Hall, Simon Rodia, Bob Dylan, Aubrey Beardsley, Sir Robert Peel, Aldous Huxley, Dylan Thomas, Terry Southern, Dion, Tony Curtis, Wallace Berman, Tommy Handley, Marilyn Monroe, William S. Burroughs, Sri Mahavatar Babaji, Stan Laurel, Richard Lindner, Oliver Hardy, Karl Marx, H. G. Wells, Sri Paramahansa Yogananda, Sigmund Freud, Stuart Sutcliffe, Max Miller, “Petty Girl,” Marlon Brando, Tom Mix, Oscar Wilde, Tyrone Power, Larry Bell, Dr. David Livingstone, Johnny Weissmuller, Stephen Crane, Issy Bonn, George Bernard Shaw, H. C. Westermann, Albert Stubbins, Sri Lahiri Mahasaya, Lewis Carroll, T. E. Lawrence, Sonny Liston, George Harrison, John Lennon, Shirley Temple, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Albert Einstein, Bobby Breen, Marlene Dietrich, an American legionnaire, Diana Dors, and Shirley Temple again.

  Since I’m grounded with no music and no guitar, I’m sitting at the library with a record, an encyclopedia, and microfiche identifying all the people on the cover of Sgt. Peppers--the closest I can get to appreciating an album without listening to it. What a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Yippee!

  Songs to Sing at the Top of Your Lungs When You’re Grounded

  “We’re Not Gonna Take It”—The Who

  “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”—The Animals

  “Ballad of Dwight Fry”—Alice Cooper

  “White Room”—Cream

  “Paint It Black”—The Rolling Stones

  “My Generation”—The Who

  “Like a Rolling Stone”—Bob Dylan

  “In My Room”—The Beach Boys

  “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”—The Rolling Stones (The Stones versus The Who: which band writes the best songs for disaffected youth? I vote The Who, but you decide.)

  My mother goes into overdrive at her analyst’s, blaming herself for not being around enough in the past few months. I tell her that even if she’d been here every second, it wouldn’t have changed the situation with Brett. She and my father spend many mornings on the phone with Soosie, who’s in almost as much trouble as I am. Her finals ended this week and she’s driving home for the summer—a
fine cross-country trip THAT’S going to be.

  “Don’t tell Mom and Dad,” she says when she gets me alone on the phone, “but I’m coming home to sell the van. We have to find Brett and help him get out of the States before they arrest him. If I know him, he’s ready to turn himself in—the last thing he ever wants to do is cause anybody any trouble.”

  “Well, he caused me a TON of trouble.”

  “You shouldn’t have thrown a party at the cabin,” Soosie says. “Or started a fire. That’s on you, not Brett.”

  I tell her for the millionth time I wouldn’t have been there in the first place if I hadn’t been looking for a place to hide her friend. “You owe me big time.”

  “I’ll be home next week,” she says. “Just worry about finding him.”

  The days go by like a prison sentence. I’m depressed about losing my albums but am surprised by how much I miss the band. It’s almost like Willy, Ryan, and Marvin use getting busted as an excuse to throw in the towel. Sure, practicing is a lot of work and we aren’t good yet, but won’t it be worth the effort in the end? I mean, what else do we have to do with our time? I spend hours on the phone with all three of them trying to change their minds, but with summer on the horizon, everyone but me votes to call it quits for a while. I lick my wounds by playing guitar alone for hours every afternoon.

  After dinner, I go out to the porch to find my parents waiting for me. Great, yet another interrogation about Brett.

  “I don’t understand why you didn’t come to us,” my father says. “Did you really think I was going to put on my old navy whites and march him over to the induction center?” He actually seems hurt. “I’m against this war as much as you are.”

  “You’ve been more informed lately, which is good,” Mom adds. “I don’t know if it’s because of Mr. Woodrow or Brett, but it seems like you’re at least thinking about the war now. So there’s that to be grateful for.” My mother mindlessly braids her hair with deft fingers as she talks. “That poor boy should’ve stayed in Soosie’s room, not hidden in the woods like an animal—I still feel bad about that.”