“I don’t think anyone’s gonna care,” he said. “Come on, join me.” He stepped deeper inside the room. I had no choice if I didn’t want to look like an idiot and I didn’t want us to draw attention, so I stuck my bare feet into the slits in the foam and entered.
“Wow, this is weird,” I said, feeling a little disoriented at first. I reached out to Jim to steady myself and he guided my hand to a table, also covered in mirrors and glass. I hadn’t even really perceived the table or its matching chair, but I suspected you weren’t supposed to really sit on it. “I’m okay, now,” I said after a few seconds. “Incredible!”
“It don’t have anything to do with the kind of art you make,” he said, grinning. “But it’s still pretty damn cool.” Somehow, I’d missed it on my class trip. Maybe they’d steered us away from it, so an obnoxious gang of seventh graders wouldn’t try to barge in? (Not that we were, but I knew how grown-ups thought of us in groups of more than three.)
Inside, infinite yous trailed deep in every direction too. Jim and Maggi, everywhere you looked. Except without shoes on, every Maggi just barely came up to the shoulders of all the Jims. I wondered what their lives were like. Probably, every one of them had to find ways of sneaking out, even just to do something regular together, like going to an art museum.
“See, I knew you’d love it.” He pointed at one of the rows of Maggis, smiling at the rows of Jims. We looked into each other’s eyes, but only in reflection. “The farther in you go,” he said, gently guiding my shoulder, “the stronger the illusion.” The real us was no longer visible to the guard, but I’m sure at least a hundred of the other Jims and Maggis were quite visible to anyone looking into the room.
“So why were you in the hospital?” I pointed down to the freaky foam things.
“Appendicitis,” he said. “Feels like you’re being stabbed, and you don’t have a lot of time to get to the hospital from the time you first start feeling bad.”
“What do they do for it?”
“Snip it out,” he said, holding up fingers and making a scissors motion.
“You got a scar?” This was something I’d learned about guys from all the City Indians I used to hang out with. Those Reynolds boys were excited anytime they could show you a new scar. Sometimes, they peeled their scabs before they healed, to leave bigger scars.
“Yeah, it’s not too bad, though. You gotta get your butt to the hospital, and on the table, super fast, but the procedure itself I guess ain’t too complicated.”
“You gonna show it to me?” I asked, figuring older guys so far didn’t seem all that different from younger guys, except they were bigger, hairier, and had more resources.
“Not exactly in a place you show casual friends,” he said, patting to the area of his jeans right between the front pocket and the fly, where the denim faded in gentle creases. We were still each looking at the reflection of the other. The only light came in through the open door, but because it was reflected so many times, the room was no darker than the average living room, maybe even better lit than my own.
The reflected Jim was just a shade too removed for me to read his expression, and by the time I turned to face him directly, it had changed a little. I wished I had a camera so I could have captured whatever that expression had been, for later study. Sometimes, I beaded images following the shapes and contours of other images I liked. When you remade them yourself, you understood the lines and shapes differently (less casually). If I made a beaded version of Jim’s face just then, maybe I’d understand it better, I thought. Marvin could carve a more accurate one in soapstone, if I’d ever let him meet Jim.
“So what do you say we hit those other pieces you wanted to check out?” he said, putting on a smile. We found the Warhols (weirdly colored repeated pictures of Elvis and of Marilyn Monroe), and I stopped in front of the giant chaos paint splash painting by that guy Pollock. “Do you really like this?” Jim asked. “It looks like the drop cloths about the time Rooter gets rid of them ’cause they’re too stiff. There’s probably a whole pile of …” He glanced at the little information card. “ ‘Convergences’ in the painter’s storage room behind our break room.”
“You can go look at the naked lady statues in the other room if you want,” I said. “I’m here. I’m gonna enjoy what I came to see.” It felt weird when, at times, Jim seemed to wrestle between being a man and a boy like he was my age.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really didn’t think you liked it. Can you explain it to me?” Just then, an announcement came over the PA that the museum was closing in fifteen minutes. “Maybe over dinner, I guess. Something to eat? Lot of nice restaurants here in Buffalo.” What he wasn’t saying, of course, was that we weren’t likely to run into anyone either of us knew at a restaurant in Buffalo. Not like Niagara Falls.
We left and headed deeper into the city, through busy shop areas, Jim turning down one-way side streets I’d never be able to find again, some that even went at forty-five-degree angles from the rest. I never came here, but it seemed like he wasn’t worried for one second.
“Where are we?” I asked as he closely studied the signs around us.
“Here we go,” he said. “I forgot to write it down, but figured if I drove around long enough, I’d remember.” Now he was having a tough time finding a parking spot wide enough for his giant industrial truck on these strange narrow streets. They had a random mix of houses packed together along with businesses thrown into the mix. “This is a great restaurant. You like Italian?”
I nodded. Most of Niagara Falls was Italian, so it was the most common kind of restaurant you found there. Not that they were like this place—one look as soon as you stepped in and you knew this place was fancier than anywhere I’d ever been. It even had a giant, elaborate gold-colored machine in the lounge that Jim explained made fancy coffee. (Seemed totally like overkill that it took a machine resembling a mini castle on a Vendor Cart, just to make coffee.)
A man in a tux grabbed silverware wrapped in little dish towels and took us to a small table. As we sat, the man plucked Jim’s cap off his head, handing it to Jim, explaining that gentlemen did not eat with hats on in their establishment. I thought Jim was going to punch the guy, but he settled down and smiled at me, running his fingers through his hair. Most of the garage guys who wore caps were hiding a thin area, or a spot that had already gone bald. But Jim’s hair was full, neatly parted a little old-fashioned to the side, and looked recently trimmed.
A waiter handed us menus, flipped our glasses, poured water, and delivered a tiny loaf of hot bread on a cutting board, asking if we’d like to see the wine list. I didn’t want to be proofed, so I said I was good, and Jim asked if he could have a beer. At first I wasn’t sure what to do with the dish towel (Jim called it a cloth napkin, so I didn’t have to ask). I worried about getting stains on it that would be tough to get out, thinking there was very little I could order at an Italian restaurant that wasn’t going to be at least somewhat messy.
“Do you go to the museum a lot?” I asked (the first of an imaginary set of 3 × 5 cards I had in my head, if we got stuck for conversation).
“Yeah, why not? People think of me one way, but I’m not. I got more going on than just muscle,” he said. “Even if I am noticeable in that department.” He grinned and flexed the biceps of his crossed arms, their tan almost glowing against the tablecloth.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you no elbows on the table?” I joked, gently prodding one of his firm forearms.
“Another rule like the No Hats one, Miss Manners? Nah, I’ve always had whatever freedom I want. Does your mom keep you on a short leash like that?”
“Are you comparing me to a dog, Jim Morgan?” I asked.
“Course not,” he said, frowning deeply to be sure I knew he was sincere. “If there’s one thing you don’t have to worry about, it’s being a woofer!”
“That’s not a nice—”
“I said I didn’t mean you,” he jumped in, cutting me of
f. I almost said something more, but the truth was, I’d said some things to Marie to make her feel like a woofer, myself, when I’d wanted to get to her.
“So back to the museum, do they move things around?” Most of what we’d seen was familiar, but it felt like a few things I’d liked were maybe missing. I’d only had a fleeting memory from the first time, so it was possible I was totally wrong.
“Got me. I ain’t studying that close. I brought you here partly to check out that room.”
“And partly what else?” I asked.
“Partly so we could go to dinner,” he said, at first leaning his head back and then changing directions, ducking it instead, peeking out at me from beneath those thick eyebrows. He went from seeming cocky to shy and vulnerable in a few seconds.
“Goof,” I said, smiling, as our dinners came. As we dug into our meal, we loosened up. The waiter came by to clean up our bread crumbs (running a mini version of my mom’s rug sweeper across the table), and we laughed at how weird it looked. I had lasagna, and Jim ordered something called gnocchi (tiny footballs made of pasta). My food was like a giant edible brick, bigger and richer and saucier than any I’d ever had. I guess I was used to Bargain Lasagna, the way Dark Deanna made it on the days she pronounced as Occasions.
“So why’d you want to know all those things?” Jim asked, shoveling his food in. “Want some?” He pierced a few gnocchi on his fork, the utensil that had just been in his mouth. I returned the offer. We each used the other’s fork.
“Do you know if that museum has anything by an artist named Yoko Ono?”
“An artist named Yoko One?” he said, laughing a little. “You trying to get me to believe that you don’t know who Yoko Ono is?”
“I really didn’t,” I said. “I don’t know a ton about the Beatles. But I recently found out that she does, um, conceptual art? Like a lot of those artists back there did. Like that mirror room.”
“She’s known for something other than art,” he said, frowning, like he had a much bigger opinion of her than it seemed like he should have.
“No woman breaks up a band if the relationships are strong enough,” I said, thinking about my own new band I was sort of in. It felt fragile, like one wrong step could tear it apart.
“Shows what little you know,” he said, making a sad but irritated face. “Pretty much every marriage kills off the friendships the guy has. He might have a best man on his wedding day, but that’s about the last day he does.” I didn’t like where this was going, so I decided to use up the last topic I’d saved.
“You don’t strike me as a Bee Gees kind of guy,” I said, pointing to the cap the host had removed, which had the band’s emblem in snazzy gold letters across the front.
“I’m not. It’s a joke. My … friend, one of the others, gave it to me ’cause I’m on Buildings and Grounds.” I remembered Kenny introducing him that way, for his wrestling match. “I shouldn’t even wear it. Hate that disco crap.” He held it out to me. “You a Bee Gees sort?” I shook my head, a little disappointed. I’d planned to offer adding some beadwork, but if it was just a joke, that was a stupid idea. Beadworking trucker caps was tough to do.
“I wanted to talk to you about Buildings and Grounds. You wanna keep working in the school year? I can request a transfer. Two hours a day, but it keeps cash in your pocket.” Lewis had never raised the idea—maybe the garage only needed one kid, him, during the school year. “And I can give you rides. I’ll make sure to still be there when you leave. All the time.”
That had been a worry, but I was also concerned about band practice. Lewis would be working after school, himself, though, so I said yes, I’d like that.
“Great!” he said, smiling as we left the restaurant. I stopped to look at something. He followed my gaze, and I pointed, raising my eyebrows. “Yup, that’s a bullet hole. Someone got shot here about, I don’t know, ten years ago? Bullet went straight through the window. I guess they keep it that way because it’s kind of, I don’t know, exciting?”
“Probably not for the person who got shot,” I said.
“Most people who get shot …” He paused, lowering his voice. “It’s for a reason.”
He couldn’t know that! I thought suddenly of that little plaque you see at virtually every Indian household, about not judging your neighbor until you’d walked a mile in his moccasins. I still had those funny, papery foam slippers in my backpack. I’d walked in Jim’s shoes, sort of. Maybe not a mile, and maybe not any he’d actually ever worn, but they were his, just the same. It didn’t seem possible that he could ever walk in mine (if I really thought about it).
I kept thinking of what I knew about Carson’s brother. I wondered if he felt like he deserved to get shot. Or if that guy, General Custard, felt like he had the right to do it. He said he had the right on TV, but when he was lying in bed, surely, he didn’t really believe he was in the right firing a gun at someone a few feet away. I didn’t think I’d ever hear the full story of what happened that night in Custard’s Last Stand. Only one of the two people there that night was in a talkative mood.
“What’s this?” Lewis asked, getting into the Chevelle, looking at the clothes on the seat.
“Your stage duds,” I said, pretending we’d already talked about this. “Gotta look the part, man.” Our gig at The Bug’s house was two months ago, and our band was gelling. We practiced together maybe not as often as I wanted but more often than I thought I’d get away with. When you’re forceful with people, it’s amazing how many cave almost immediately.
We were so dedicated that we’d fast pushed into getting through whole sets without breaking down too bad. Other than Lewis’s reluctance to stand out, my only real concern was Maggi’s drums. They were great and would give us a leg up in “uniqueness factor,” but I was worried about the logistics of getting them amplified enough. I was trying out a new plan today. This Labor Day party was our last shot at a test in front of any audience. Next week, school would start, and we’d have to commit to Battle of the Bands or back down. I didn’t want an unseasoned band that was going to lose their shit the first time we got on a stage.
“Just put it on,” I nudged. If Lewis couldn’t commit to stage clothes, we were doomed. Maggi’s water drum thing was only gonna take us so far. The white satin shirt with chrome flames was straight out of Saturday Night Fever—ridiculous for every day, but stage lights should hit it perfect. I had his back here. “I went to the trouble to arrange for it, in your size.”
“Well, where’s your stage clothes?” he asked.
“I’m wearing them,” I said. I had on black leather pants, a black T-shirt under a huge muscle shirt with a giant Indian chief head on it. My clothes would be at home in Rolling Stone, Circus, Creem, or Hit Parader. I could wear this to school, and no one would think a thing of it either. Did I know how? Nope, and I didn’t want to mess with my Mojo by thinking too hard.
“Your dad’s gonna beat your ass if he finds out you lifted his shirt.” We practiced outside at my house sometimes, so he knew what our cozy little home was like.
“I’m not even acknowledging your lack of coolness. Hurry up and change—we’re already late. We may be stuck going over to this white kid’s house on a regular basis, so I want to start off with a good track record.”
“Thought this was just a one shot. Some Labor Day party.”
“It is, but it isn’t just that,” I said. “Got a surprise for you when we get there.”
“What!”
“If I told you—”
“Wouldn’t be a surprise, funny. Come on! No farting around. You already pulled this once. I’ve agreed to the Battle of the Bands! What more do you want!” He dug into the bag I’d handed him. “You can’t seriously think I’m going to wear these pants,” he said, holding my garage sale purchase up. I thought they were painter pants when I’d bought them, like what you might buy at the Gap. Truth? They were real painter pants, like from Sherwin-Williams. I’d added silver piping down each leg. “W
hat is this? I’ll look like I’m in band.”
“You are in a band,” I said, then couldn’t help myself and grinned.
“I mean band band, like marching at the football games.”
“Forget that. We’re a real band,” I said, honking at Tami’s trailer as we pulled up.
“Exactly. That’s why I shouldn’t look like that. What’s next? Tassels? Epaulets?”
“What are epaulets?” Tami asked as she and Doobie came out.
“Never mind,” Lewis said. “I don’t want to give your cousin any ideas. And where’s your band outfit?” Tami was singing backup today, a safety net. Tami had on pretty much the same kind of clothes she usually wore: short Daisy Dukes, Converse high-tops with socks rolled down at the top, and a strappy T-shirt that seemed like it should have belonged to her little sister.
“This is my outfit,” she said.
“Not quite finished,” I said, popping the glove compartment. “One last addition.” I pulled out an assortment of spiked dog collars. “Take your pick.” I snatched the black one for myself.
“I was going to grab the black one,” Lewis said. Perfect. I’d gotten him to commit to wearing a dog collar, onstage, without hardly trying. “What’s next? Muzzle? Poop scoop?”
“Thought you didn’t want to give him any ideas,” Doobie said, grabbing blue. He put it on. Lewis sighed, going for purple, avoiding lime green or bright red. I hoped the red one would appeal to Maggi.
Lewis passed it to Tami, but she shook her head. “Not officially a member yet,” she said.
“Extra one?” Lewis asked.
“Nope, just enough,” I said, plucking the red one out of his hand. He wasn’t buying it. I guessed it was safe enough to give him the full plan, this deep in. What was he going to do, leave? “As of this afternoon, we have a new band member.”
“What? Who? Do the others know?” Lewis asked, and Doobie nodded, smug.
“Her name’s Susan,” Tami said. “Keyboards. And can she play!” Tami said. She’d been the one to tell me about Susan, saying she could flesh out Maggi’s water drum with little pads built into the keyboard, just in case.
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