For What It's Worth

by Janet Tashjian

  I know it doesn’t make any sense, but for some reason my parents splitting up and Brett going missing are inexplicably linked in my mind. It’s as if finding Brett and solving his problems with the draft board could create some kind of domino effect that would eventually cause my parents to get back together. Illogical, yes, but what do you expect from a fourteen-year-old going through major music withdrawal?

  FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

  6/72

  Carlos Santana washed dishes and played guitar on the streets for spare change in San Francisco before his life radically changed one Sunday afternoon. Promoter Bill Graham used to run matinees at the Fillmore, where he showcased three acts for a dollar. When Paul Butterfield showed up barefoot and wasted for his set, Graham assembled some musicians from the audience, guys from the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, as well as Michael Bloomfield, who was supposed to play with Butterfield. They needed a guitarist, and Santana’s roommate told them he knew a “skinny Mexican kid” who could really play. Bloomfield said okay, Santana went from audience member to bandmate, and proceeded to blow everyone away with his emotional guitar solos. He started forming a band the next day.

  As I pass the newsstand on Santa Monica, a man scanning the magazines takes a step back, blocking my path. I start to walk around him but am frozen in my steps because the guy standing in front of me is Brett.

  “I’m sorry if I got you in trouble with the police.” He pulls a magazine from the rack and thumbs through it as he talks.

  “I’m the one who caused YOU trouble,” I say. “It was stupid of me to go to the cabin, never mind invite my friends.” I look from side to side to make sure no policemen are around.

  I tell him Soosie is back from Boston and has spent the past several days looking for him. “She’s selling her van to get you some money. She’s got a guy coming to look at it in a few days.”

  “Tell her not to. I’m turning myself in today—I can’t take it anymore.”

  “You’ve been here for months. Can’t you hold out a little longer?”

  “I’m living like a prisoner anyway, an inch away from a nervous breakdown. I have to turn myself in so I can sleep.”

  I’m shocked by how much older Brett seems than the first time I saw him. It looks like he hasn’t slept or showered in weeks.

  He gazes over my shoulder to make sure no one’s walking toward us. “If I’d gone to college or lied to the draft board and told them I was a homosexual, I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. Instead I’m going to be sitting in a jail cell or traveling thousands of miles to a country on the other side of the world trying to kill people I’ve never met. It’s not really what I had in mind when I turned nineteen.”

  The man who runs the newsstand is just a few feet away, rearranging newspapers. He’s probably waiting to see if we’ll buy anything, but his presence gives us both the creeps, so Brett and I start walking.

  The last thing I ever thought I’d be doing is giving some older kid advice on the war, but my mom is right—like it or not, the war has affected me and I can’t hide my head in the sand anymore.

  “I know you feel like you’re abandoning your country, but sitting in jail for the next few years is just as much of a waste as the war is. You should leave.”

  “I can’t afford to,” he says. “Can’t even afford to hitchhike home. I’m turning myself into the marine office on Melrose after saying goodbye to some friends. Is Soosie around?”

  I tell him she and Tanya went on a buying trip for the store and won’t be back for a few days. I beg him to wait, but he says he can’t.

  “Good luck, Quinn. I hope this war and the draft are over before you’re my age. I’d hate to see a good kid like you go through this too. Give my parents a call—they’ll know where I end up. You guys come visit me, okay?”

  The thought of Soosie and me going through prison metal detectors and talking to Brett on battered old telephones while he sits behind a wall of glass seems ludicrous, like out of a movie. I didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse, but as I climb the cement steps to school, I do.

  Ryan grabs me in the hall to talk about the eponymous Eagles album finally being released, the kind of conversation I usually look forward to. But all I can think about is the decision Brett made today, based on laws and rules he didn’t have a say in.

  Mr. Woodrow looks at his watch as we take our seats. “Let’s start off with another photograph,” he says. “This one ran in almost every newspaper in the country this week. It was taken by AP photographer Nick Ut in a small village in South Vietnam.” This time, he doesn’t hand out one photograph for us to pass around; he’s made crisp copies. When the stack of photos gets to me, I’m too flabbergasted to pass along the rest. It’s an image of a group of young Vietnamese children, running down the street screaming, surrounded by smoke and military men. One of the girls is naked and crying.

  “A South Vietnamese pilot mistook these civilians and soldiers for the enemy and bombed them with napalm. The little girl in the center tore off her clothes and was yelling ‘too hot, too hot’ in her native language.”

  Many of my classmates turn the photos over on their desks to spare themselves the horrific image. I, on the other hand, am transfixed. It’s the expression of panic, fear, and confusion on the girl’s face as she literally runs for her life. I look over to Caroline, who’s as shocked as I am. She doesn’t even care that her eyes are brimming with tears.

  “This isn’t fair!” she shouts. “How old is this girl—eleven?”

  “Nine,” Woodrow answers.

  Ryan and Willy shove the page into their notebooks, already onto the next thing. Not me, not this time. The photo has split open a part of me I didn’t even know was closed. Woodrow lectures about a “picture being worth a thousand words,” how he hopes this photograph gets people furious enough to do something about the war. Maybe Caroline’s passion for album covers and photographs has rubbed off on me, maybe the images of girls screaming over dead bodies and running from napalm attacks have finally gotten through where words didn’t. This photographer thousands of miles away has made me realize with 100 percent certainty that Brett can’t spend the next few years in jail for opposing something as terrible and wrong as this war.

  When the bell rings, Caroline races to my desk. “Suppose my brother was in that village? He could’ve gotten killed! Is this the kind of thing he has to witness every day?”

  I nod but am busy formulating questions of my own. “Can you cover for me? Tell anyone who asks that I went home sick.”

  “Are you sick?” she asks.

  “To my stomach.” I grab my books and sneak out the side door.

  When I get home twenty minutes later, I’m surprised to find both my parents at the house, paying bills.

  “You okay?” my mother asks, always on alert. “What’s wrong?”

  “THIS is what’s wrong.” I take the copy of the photo and place it between them on the table.

  “Where did you get this?” my father asks. “This is horrible.”

  “It happened in Vietnam. It’s in all the papers.”

  My father hurries down to the driveway and returns with the Los Angeles Times.

  My mother’s hand covers her mouth and she shakes her head when she sees the photo, now official. “These are children. This is criminal!”

  It dawns on my father that I’m not at school. “Did you come home to show us this?”

  “No, I came home to get my records.”

  My parents look confused.

  “You want to listen to music at a time like this?” my mother asks. “They’re still confiscated, remember?”

  AS IF I COULD FORGET. I walk into Soosie’s room and stare at the crates of my prized possessions. “Can you give me a ride to the record store?”

  “Now?” my father asks. “Can’t this wait?”

  “You’re upset by the photograph—understandably,” my mother adds. “Let me drive you back to school.”

  My f
ather must recognize the determination in my eyes because he holds his hand out to stop my mother and asks what I’m planning to do.

  I hoist up the first crate and balance it on my hips. “Sell every last one of these records.”

  My mother still doesn’t get it. “I don’t see how selling your albums will help these poor children. What’s going on, Quinn?”

  “Maybe I can’t do much, but I can do SOMETHING.” Before the sentence is out of my mouth, my father grabs his keys and helps me load the car.

  Drastic? Impulsive?

  Maybe.

  But have you seen that picture? Go find it in your local newspaper or look it up at the library, then tell me you wouldn’t do everything in your power to make sure something like that never happens again.

  FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

  6/72

  Many of you know Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner from playing around town, most notably as Linda Ronstadt’s backup band. (I know a lot of you went to her show at Disneyland last year mostly to see them.) Well, they just formed their own band, and their debut album, Eagles, just hit the stores. (They’re called Eagles, not THE Eagles--get it right.) Now, critics can’t stop talking about “Southern California country rock,” but for those of us who live here, it’s nothing new. Bernie Leadon played with ex-Byrds members Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman in the Flying Burrito Brothers, a country rock band if there ever was one. Randy Meisner was in Poco, another country-based band from L.A. Not to mention the country sound in the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The critics can pretend this whole phenomenon is a hot trend, but anyone who’s been listening to the music coming out of the Canyon these past several years knows there’s nothing new about it at all.

  At the record store, Jeff and my father help me unload the car.

  “Are you sure about this?” Jeff says. “It’s taken you years to build this collection.”

  No one knows that better than I do.

  “You won’t get retail,” he continues. “I can only give you a percentage of what you paid new. You want to think about it for a few days?”

  I tell him I need the money today and bring in another crate. Even Terry, the music snob who almost never gives me the time of day when I come in, eyes my collection with interest. I take special pride when he slides the vinyl out of the sleeve of Alone Together. “You sure you want to trade this one in?” he asks.

  I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I hesitated a few moments before keeping that album in the pile. Terry nonchalantly slips the album behind the counter, probably to keep for himself.

  “This one too?” he asks.

  I say goodbye to GWW, the best of the Dylan bootlegs. “It’s all yours—as long as you pay me for it.”

  While Jeff adds up my total trade-in, my father hangs around the blues section eyeing a John Lee Hooker album with envy.

  “You want to get it?” I ask. “We’ll have enough credit.”

  “No, that money’s going to a good cause. I’ll get this another time.”

  After running the numbers through the adding machine he keeps underneath the counter, Jeff hands me a long strip of paper. “Three hundred twenty-two dollars. Seem right to you?”

  I have never once thought of selling my collection, have no idea what all of this music is worth. But $322 is more money than I’ve ever had my hands on and is certainly enough to get Brett over the Canadian border. I tell Jeff okay and he runs to the bank a few doors down to get some cash. When he comes back, he counts the twenties into a large stack in my outstretched hands.

  “You want a few moments alone with your albums?” Jeff asks solemnly.

  Most people might think he’s kidding, but Jeff’s as dead serious about his music as I am. He knows a giant chunk of my soul sits on that Formica counter and he has enough respect for me as a fellow devotee to offer me a few minutes alone to grieve.

  My father doesn’t rush me as I slowly flip through my albums one last time. Donovan, Badfinger, Harry Nilsson, the Stooges, Plastic Ono Band, Quicksilver Messenger Service, James Gang, Nazz, Jethro Tull, America, Grand Funk Railroad, Joan Baez, Genesis, Yes, Firesign Theater, Cheech & Chong, R.E.O. Speedwagon, Mott the Hoople, Jackson Browne, Mountain, McCartney, Santana, Black Sabbath, Monty Python, Elton John, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, and so many others. It’s like saying goodbye to friends I know intimately, who have been inside my head for almost my entire life. After chiding myself for not making more cassette tapes, dozens of questions fill my head: How long will it take me to build a new collection? Will Ryan and Willy let me borrow some of theirs in the meantime? Will I survive by listening to Dad’s blues, jazz, and country records? Will I still be able to play guitar without all these album covers staring back at me? CAN I FUNCTION IN THE WORLD WITHOUT THIS WALL OF SOUND?

  But I don’t have time to sit around philosophizing; I’ve got to hurry to the induction center before Brett turns himself in.

  As Dad pulls the car onto Melrose, I remind myself to tell Soosie how wrong she was about our father. (I won’t need much reminding; one of my favorite things on the planet is letting Soosie know when she’s wrong.) Dad’s chomping at the bit at the red light, barely waiting till it turns green before hitting the gas. Just because he fought in Korea doesn’t mean he’s some war-mongering soldier out to make sure every last kid serves his country too.

  “Is it because you’re against the war?” I ask. “Is that why you dropped everything to help me today?”

  He turns the radio down. “It’s not that at all. I’m your dad—it’s my job to support you.”

  I try to follow that thread of logic. “So if I was racing to turn Brett in, you’d drive me there too?”

  He smiles. “In that case, I might’ve let you walk.”

  I point to a spot up ahead and Dad parallel parks the station wagon.

  “Why were you and Mom home today? Are you thinking of getting back together?”

  He hands me several coins to put in the meter and says that he and Mom were discussing stuff like mortgage payments.

  “You shouldn’t pin your hopes on your mom moving back in. We both love you very much—I’m just afraid we have to do it separately right now.”

  After seeing that photo in Woodrow’s class, my parents’ living situation has moved down a few rungs on the life and death ladder. Instead of worrying about their relationship for a change, I concentrate on how we’re going to find Brett.

  Dad suggests he go in first to see if he can find out any information about Brett without mentioning his name. I’m glad Dad volunteered. With my luck, I’d end up divulging some piece of critical information that would get Brett into even MORE trouble. While he’s inside, I flip through the wad of cash in my pocket, all the while telling myself not to get too attached.

  Fifteen minutes later, my father exits the building. “I chatted up the colonel on duty. It’s been a pretty slow morning so far, which means Brett hasn’t made it here yet. Any idea where he might be?”

  The log cabin? The woods? The newsstand? But I don’t have to guess because I recognize the figure with the hooded sweatshirt from a block away. I hurry toward Brett before he gets to the induction center. He seems shocked when I introduce him to my dad.

  “We’re here to stop you,” I explain. “To talk you into hitting the road instead.”

  I hand him the wad of bills. “It’s three hundred twenty-two dollars, hopefully enough to get to Vancouver.”

  The way Brett gazes at the money makes me think he’s never held this much cash before either.

  “I can’t take this,” he says. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to pay you back.”

  “I don’t want it back.” I smooth out the folded copy of the photo and hand it to him. “I just don’t want anything like this to happen again.”

  “I saw this today,” Brett says. “I couldn’t decide if I should cry or be angry.”

  “I got angry.”

  My dad suggests the man who took the photogra
ph was probably hoping for just that response. He also reaches into the pocket of his workpants and takes out a wad of folded bills. “Take this too. Between this and Quinn’s, you should be okay till you find a job up there.”

  How has my father gone from being awarded the Bronze Star in Korea to helping a draft dodger escape to Canada? It makes me wonder what’s changed more—him or war itself.

  “Shhh—do you hear that?” I ask.

  My father and Brett freeze when they hear the sirens.

  Three police cars suddenly screech to the curb in front of the induction center as two soldiers in khaki uniforms hurry out of the building. The three of us are a block away but hold our breath.

  “What do you think I should do, sir?” Brett asks.

  The fact that Brett just called my father sir makes me realize how incredibly difficult this whole desertion thing must be for him.

  Dad doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t blink. “I think you should go. Run.”

  It’s almost as if Brett has been waiting for someone to say just that. He draws me in for an awkward hug. “Tell Soosie goodbye for me. Tell her I couldn’t wait another day.”

  I tell him I will, then look over at the cop cars and soldiers a few yards away. “Go!”

  “It might take me years, but I’ll pay you back.”

  I want to tell him it’s unnecessary, but he’s already half a block west and can’t hear me. My father’s eyes are riveted on the men in uniform hurrying inside the building. He whips around to see if Brett is safely gone, then shoots his arm up into the air in an unmistakable peace sign. It’s a gesture I’ve seen a million times but never by this ex-soldier, this man in greasy workpants, struggling to do the right thing. My father holds his arm high, unwavering against the clouds. It’s the closest I’ve felt to my dad in years.