Zits: Shredded

by Jerry Scott

  you want to listen to him.

  “What’s your name, anyway?” asks Pierce.

  The guy’s back is shaped like a question mark, probably

  from leaning over mixing boards all day, but then he straight-

  ens up and suddenly is about four inches taller.

  “Fnu Lnu. First name unknown, Last name unknown. You

  can call me Fnu.” He starts dragging mic stands and amps

  around the room while muttering to himself. Fnu makes

  Hector and me trade places, and then stands in the middle of

  the room, squinting at us. “You guys have potential. That’s not

  to say it won’t take a miracle for me to pull it together in there,

  but if anyone can do it, it’s me.”

  Wow. That may be the biggest compliment we’ve gotten

  since my mom said that our music helped her sinuses drain.

  “Where’s your bass player?”

  “He couldn’t make the trip,” I say cautiously. “But on the

  way here I sang the song to him over the phone. He recorded

  his track at home and then emailed me an MP3 file.”

  “Resourceful. I like that,” says Fnu. He grabs my phone and

  walks back to the booth. “I’ll download it and cue it up. You

  guys get ready for your first and final take. It’s almost eleven,

  and I’ve got things to do today.”

  Way back when Hector and I were in elementary school,

  our moms made us join the glee club. Who knows why parents

  do these things? Maybe they just figure that emotional scar-

  ring is cute when it’s dressed in a red vest and a bow tie. There

  was one big holiday concert, and the kid who was supposed to

  sing a duet version of “Jingle Bell Rock” with me threw up on

  the woodwinds during the opening number and had to go sit

  in his mom’s lap for the rest of the show.

  Our music teacher, Mrs. Henn, knew that Hector and I

  were best friends, so I guess she figured that we could sing

  together. No rehearsal, no warm-up, just a shove in the back,

  and we were standing in front of two microphones center stage

  with a white-hot spotlight on us. Neither one of us could move.

  But then I remembered one of the baseball signs we made up

  in Little League.

  It meant to hit a home run or “shoot for the moon,” which,

  okay, never even came close to happening, but it was really

  cool to a have a signal for it anyway. When Mrs. Henn started

  playing the intro, I knew what had to be done, so I just gave

  Hector the signal.

  Needless to say, we tore the place up, and Mrs. Henn retired

  midyear.

  “Rolling tape,” says Fnu from the booth. I look over at

  Hector, and he shoots for the moon. Yeah. We got this.

  We don’t even wait for an answer.

  “NAILED IT,” yells Pierce.

  You know how it feels when you hit a grand slam or a

  killer tennis shot, or even ace a multiple-choice test? Me

  either, but this is probably like that. We’re giving each other

  high fives and jumping around the studio like a bunch of

  idiots. Pierce even kisses his bass drum/suitcase, and I

  text Tim to let him in on the celebration. “Dude,” I text.

  “Awesome session.” And then I add, “We killed it like your

  uncle’s roaches,” and press Send. As I’m putting my gui-

  tar back in the case, Fnu flicks on the speaker and says,

  “Congratulations. The hard drive failed. I guess you’ll get a

  second take after all. Stand by.”

  As Sara would say, “It’s so quiet in here, you could hear a

  jaw drop.” Pierce, Hector, and I just stand there staring at one

  another for a while. There’s nothing really to do but tune up

  and go again, so we do, and it’s good. Not killer good, like the

  first take, but it’ll do. Oh, well . . . there will always be other

  once-in-a-lifetime performances.

  A few hours later, Hector is asleep in the van, and I’m

  sharing a victory box of graham crackers and bean dip with

  Pierce while we watch storm clouds build over the lake.

  Sheboygan looks like a pretty cool place, if you don’t count

  this parking lot around Dog Tired Records. But if the crud,

  weeds, trash, and decay were scraped away, even this dump

  would have a certain charm to it.

  The side door of the building falls open—literally—with a

  thud. Fnu mumbles something about the door not being right

  since Meat Loaf knocked it off its hinges trying to get to the

  lunch wagon. He picks it up, props it against the wall, and calls

  us over. We all gather around, looking at the cool silvery disc

  in his hands.

  “This is your stamper disc. Don’t scratch it. We never give

  these things to the customer, but since my boss is both under-

  standing and also not here at the moment, I’m making an

  exception.”

  He’s holding the stamper by the edges really carefully, like

  it’s made out of silver or something.

  “What’s a stamper disc and what are we supposed to do

  with it?” Hector asks.

  Fnu rolls his eyes and heads back into the building with us

  right behind. “The stamper is a negative mold of your record.

  You press it against warm vinyl to make a record, you idiots.”

  “And that isn’t occurring now because . . .” I say.

  Fnu waves an arm toward a hulking, wacky-looking piece

  of machinery that occupies most of the room. “A Chinese com-

  pany bought all of our equipment and is going to use it to make

  cell phones or something,” he says. “Anyway, it’s time for me

  to move on. Make your own records. The coupon lied. Deal

  with it.” Fnu picks up his backpack from a dusty corner of the

  building and heads for the door.

  “No charge, by the way. Not even for the miracle I just

  performed in the mixing booth. You should be proud. That

  was the freakiest tune I’ve recorded since Enya went reggae.

  Fitting that it’s the last.” He’s unchaining his bike from the

  cement post and I step forward.

  “C’mon, man! How are we supposed to make our own

  records?”

  Fnu hangs the bike chain around his neck and throws his

  leg over his junkyard bike. “How? Figure it out is how.”

  My phone starts vibrating again. It’s been doing that about

  every ten minutes for the last few hours, but since it was my

  mom calling, I’ve been letting it go to voice mail. It says she’s

  left eighteen messages, so I figure that it might be wise to

  answer this time. I wonder if she’s pissed.

  “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. I’m sorry. I didn’t pick up

  earlier because I was busy, um, doing stuff with Grandma.

  Yeah, like eating Neapolitan ice cream and stuff. Yum!” Man,

  even I’m not believing me. “You want to talk to her? Um, she

  can’t now because she, uh . . .”

  “ . . . is playing bingo!

  Yeah. It’s a madhouse!”

  I wave at Hector to join

  in. “What? I can hardly hear

  you, Mom.”

  I cover my other ear so I can hear better, and my mom says,

  “Okay, Jeremy. We’ll discuss this later. Your father and I have

 
to leave for the award ceremony now. Tell Grandma that I’ll

  call her tomorrow. Oh, and tell Pierce that the I numbers only

  go from sixteen to thirty.”

  I disconnect, and we all collapse against the side of the van,

  laughing the way you do when you realize that you probably

  just got away with something big. After a while the laugh-

  ing dies down, and then somebody sighs. This is like the

  turducken of feelings: incredible relief stuffed with remorse,

  stuffed with overpowering guilt. We’re three hundred fifty

  miles, a hundred records, and a web of lies away from home. I

  feel a raindrop splash on the end of my nose. We’re all quiet for

  a minute, then Hector looks over at me and says, “You know

  we’re going to hell, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  CHAPTER 10

  e drain the last of the Chunky’s chicken oil into the

  fuel tank as mid-afternoon squats down on Sheboygan.

  W

  Ordinarily, eighty gallons of oil would have taken us a couple

  of thousand miles or more (with a good tailwind), but Pierce’s

  stupid hamster chewed through the bungee cord that was

  holding it upright, and the whole thing dumped over. We

  didn’t discover it until just a while ago, and it’s taken me

  almost an hour to unload the van and squeegee the spilled

  oil through the rust holes in the floor. Just when you think

  your life can’t get any worse, some cosmic force turns up the

  suckage. Hector and I start cleaning up the last piles of empty

  snack bags, while Pierce stands there, staring into the back

  of the van. My grandma’s Pilates machine, once buried under

  several boxes of nacho cheese whatnot has been exhumed

  and sits strapped in the middle of the floor. Pierce slides the

  padded bed of the thing back and forth, muttering something

  to himself and scribbling notes on his arm. He seems pretty

  into it, so I just concentrate on jamming all this stuff into the

  Dumpster. Then I hear the van’s goofy little Looney Tunes

  horn honking.

  Sure. Why not? Maybe we’ll run across a press-your-own-

  records store on the way to my grandma’s house. It’s my turn

  to drive, so I climb in and get situated. As I’m adjusting the

  rearview mirror, I hear Pierce and Siri making plans in the

  back, so I guess he’s the navigator. I roll the van out to the cor-

  ner of Burned and Defeated and wait for instructions. Pierce

  keeps messing with his phone in the backseat, so I try to start

  a civil conversation about the crapitude of our lives.

  “Anybody know of a good warm vinyl shop nearby? Because

  maybe they have a drive-thru window that we could just pull

  up to and—”

  “Turn left,” barks Pierce. Call me old-fashioned, but I find it

  extremely rude when someone talks while I am pouring out a

  serious downer on everyone around me.

  “Good idea,” I say, hunching over the wheel. “I was just

  thinking that what we need right now is a ten-gallon barrel of

  multicolored paper clips.”

  “Just turn,” Pierce says, and despite the lessons I’ve learned

  from three years of friendship with an impulsive maniac drum-

  mer and his underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, I do.

  It’s raining pretty hard by the time Pierce waves us over to

  pick him up at the curb in front of Staples. Hector leans back

  and opens the rear door, and Pierce tumbles into the backseat

  carrying a George Foreman Lil’ Georgie Portable Deluxe

  Electric Hot Plate and a half-dozen bags of random supplies

  that almost crush Lucifer, who was chilling in an open plastic

  jug of turkey jerky. He gives Pierce the hamster stink eye and

  Pierce apologizes, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  Okay, maybe that is a good sign. I yank at the bag of kettle

  corn that we had jammed into the hole to waterproof the roof.

  It was sort of working, but the rain is coming down harder and

  I’m hungry again, so I shove the Hello Kitty umbrella through

  it and duct-tape it into place. Much better. Now we look just the

  right amount of insane. Hector grabs a handful of my kettle

  corn, turns around in his seat, and says to Pierce, “I found a

  Home Depot three-tenths of a mile away, like you asked me to.

  Maybe they’re still running their buy-a-skid-of-mulch-and-get-

  an-Elmo-glow-in-the-dark-hairband special.”

  Twenty minutes go by, and Pierce emerges from Home Depot

  pushing a squeaky orange flatbed cart loaded with a huge

  battery, an industrial hole punch, and more rolls of duct tape.

  We have to rearrange some junk food boxes to get everything

  into the van and I’m getting a little peeved. I lock eyes with

  Pierce before cramming him in like a Tokyo subway rider, and

  he meets my stare.

  I point the van toward I-43 and start doing the math. If we

  hit every light, we’re about six hours to Serene Surroundings,

  Grandma’s retirement village. Figuring four to five minutes

  to deliver the Pilates machine, use the bathroom, answer her

  questions about how I’m doing, and meet all her friends, we

  should beat my mom and dad home by at least a couple of

  hours. I’m beginning to breathe a little easier when Pierce

  shouts out, “Stop! That’s it! Pull into this pizza joint!”

  “Pierce! It’s getting late!” I yell. “Absolutely n—”

  Ordinarily I’d say that I’m as hungry as the next guy, but

  the guy next to me is Hector. The dude burns more calories

  sitting in a chair than most people do in an hour on a spin

  bike. I’m clearly outnumbered here, so I hit the blinker and

  reluctantly pull in to the You Wanna Pizza This? parking lot.

  While Hector and Pierce pile into the restaurant, I stew in the

  car and watch a parade of big doughy Wisconsinites come and

  go, licking pepperoni grease off their meaty fingers. A few

  cross the parking lot and line up at the fried cheese curd cart

  and others duck into the hot donuts shack next door. Which

  reminds me . . .

  “Dude, you’ll love it,” says Hector, handing me a pizza

  box through the driver’s-side window. “It’s the Swine Lover’s

  Special. Bacon, sausage, ham, and pulled pork, and they give

  you a little plastic lard bucket to drain the excess fat into. I got

  the Jumbo Dairy Land for myself, with nineteen cheeses and

  the lime Jell-O casserole dipping sauce.”

  “What did Pierce get?”

  The restaurant door swings open and Pierce comes out

  backward, carrying a swaying tower of empty pizza boxes.

  Whatever. I just find the highway and spend the next two

  hours in my own head, cataloging some evasive half-truths

  that I’ll need for the answers to the questions that I’ll be

  pelted with when I get home. It’s just getting dark when I

  spot Killian Street. It’s in a normalish-looking neighborhood

  full of sturdy Wisconsiny houses and one picked-over yard

  sale. I pull over to the curb at 1043, and a guy with bright

  red cheeks wearing a pair of tortured Dockers sets a heavy-

  looking box down.

  I
am not fluent in adult speak, and really bad with dialects,

  so I point at Pierce. He opens the side doors and smiles.

  “Hi der. See, we’re music lovers, oh yeah, and the fellas and

  me were hopin’ you had some old record albums fer sale. ’Zat

  possible?”

  “Oh, I hope you’re not pullin’ my leg,” the guy says. “I was

  just puttin’ dese boxes of LPs out on the curb for da trash man

  ta take in da mornin’. Der yours free if you want ’em. ’N you

  can take dat old turntable, too.”

  “Tanks,” Pierce says, and proceeds to cram three crates

  of the world’s most heinous musical crimes into the van. Two

  minutes and a couple of cheese-centric recipe exchanges later,

  we’re waving good-bye to Kenosha and rolling south again. I

  try to keep from steering the van into a ditch while Pierce and

  Hector read the titles of the albums.

  The Walmart parking lot that Pierce directs me to stretches

  across a vast swath of Wisconsin farmland. The store is closed,

  and the only occupants besides us are a few random shopping

  carts and several RVs circled wagon train–style under a tall

  streetlight. Pierce, Hector, and I are all crammed in the back

  of the van twisting wires, tightening screws, and generally

  following the blueprint that’s scribbled on Pierce’s arm and

  much of his left shoulder in red ballpoint ink. Pierce sits on the

  sliding bed of the Pilates machine and adjusts the tension on

  the springs. He pushes his feet against the piece of plywood

  that we duct-taped to the horizontal bar at one end and nods

  his head.

  “Heating up,” replies Hector. The battery Pierce bought

  has wires wrapped around both poles and is pumping juice

  to the hot plate and the shredder Hector won from Chunky’s.

  I press the shred button and the beast growls to life. Pierce