Hubie used the kick drum and sang baritone notes into a microphone, since he didn’t have his bass or his traffic cone. Susan carried a lot of weight, like her keyboard was somehow several instruments at once. I kept my water drum doing a major tom and snare sound, and tried my hardest to shape my vocables like a hot electric arpeggio with a fuzz pedal. It was a secret I’d been practicing mostly by myself with a little help from Marvin listening to me sing with the record. The band grinned at my invention. Together, we did what a band does. We drove it home with the right sound—fun, easy, and ass-kicking all at the same time.
Real cheers swelled at the end of the song, but some people left the auditorium, probably pissed that Lewis had left up his Statue of Liberty flipping the bird. We smiled, taking it all in. I felt weird. Susan looked at her watch and spoke into her mic.
“Thank you, for sticking with us.” Another cheer. “Maybe some of you are wondering what I’m doing up here. Well, I got a little firsthand knowledge in what it means to be the minority in the room, to not get the jokes, not know how the table is set. But my friends showed me the way. I’m never going to know what my friends’ lives are really like, and I wouldn’t ever speak for them. You can ignore what Lewis said tonight, but I can’t.” She stopped and came forward, to the main mic, and Lewis stepped aside.
“Still, I can tell you, I walked around the mall with them one Saturday, and a security guard came up and asked me if I was being bothered by ‘these boys.’” I remembered that, distinctly. “We joked, but I was back in the mall a couple days later,” Susan continued. “And not one person noticed me. I even shoplifted something, just to test how I wasn’t being watched. That one small window shook up my world.” She looked at her watch again and whispered to Lewis. He nodded, then she nodded at me and Hubie, and we came forward.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, stepping to the mic. “We still have a couple minutes from our allotted time.” I didn’t know if we really did, but I was going forward. I elbowed Lewis, gently, smiling. “We haven’t rehearsed this next song with Lewis yet. We were going to surprise him and Carson Mastick, our absent leader. We figured they’d both know it even though it just came out last week, and Lewis says he does, so we’re going to go for it.” I stepped back to my own mic.
“After five years,” Lewis said, “John Lennon’s finally come out with a new album. He and his wife, Yoko Ono, shared the credits. They called it a Heart Play. I don’t know what that is, and … I don’t have it yet. David Bowie also recently released a new album, so I, um, already spent my music money for the month. But my friend Carson left me the new single, a gift, no strings attached. Like friends do.” Lewis looked up to the stands and waved. Maybe he thought Carson was here, but I doubted it. Not like him to go somewhere that denied him the spotlight.
“The single is called ‘Starting Over,’” Lewis said, “and that seems like a good enough way for us to go out on, tonight. Nyah-wheh for listening with a Good Mind.” He started alone, as we’d anticipated. We had it covered, just in case, but he took it on, singing about people and precious connections, and the ways they grow. He closed the first verse, still solo, him and his acoustic, singing about the ways we find each other again.
It was my turn, so I hit four machine-gun notes on my water drum, sharp and high near the skin’s edge, and the others joined in, as if they’d been playing this song for years. The song was about two people who love each other, but as he sang it, I realized Lewis was changing the lyrics a little. He was singing a song about us, our group, and the ways that we could find ourselves again, just like we were starting over.
The band finished, and the crowd cheered. Nothing spectacular. Not enthusiastic enough to acknowledge what they’d pulled off. But no one else knew how good we should have sounded, and how they, just them, together, shouldn’t have sounded as smooth as they did. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Had I wanted Lewis to be weak alone? Had I wanted all of them to be bad once I saw them walk on to help? To be good? To be decent but not as good as they would have with me?
They lingered for a few seconds too long, and the cheering died down before they unplugged and disappeared. A rookie mistake that wouldn’t have happened with me. But I wasn’t there, because I was more gullible than Lewis. I’d always believed bad things had come to him by his own fault. I guess bad things had come to me of my own fault too, but not entirely.
What if I’d just told Marchese that I’d forgotten to thaw the turkey? Would she have made an accommodation? What if I hadn’t taken on Custard? Would I have taken him on, if I’d known he was her husband? I’d like to believe so, but I couldn’t tell myself a lie, to make this easier. I’d always believed that I’d always gotten by on my charm. I didn’t like to admit that I used it, but maybe it wasn’t even true. Some people feared my dad as much as I did, with good reason. Maybe I’d been given a pass for stunts I pulled, out of that fear.
Or maybe my real gift had been the one I used regularly but hated to acknowledge: my ability to blend in. Even in budget rock-star clothes at school, I still looked like a flashy white kid. I could take the easier path with someone like Evan Reiniger because of my ChameleIndian powers. I’d known what I was even before I’d come up with a word to describe it.
Mrs. Thatcher stepped up to introduce Artie’s band. Was Susan going to get back up there with them? Was that allowable, or had she disqualified herself by performing with Lewis? Was Tami going on even though she knew I got kicked out?
The bands were allowed to clean up in the locker rooms and encouraged to go out front and be good sports for our competitors. Would they let me back through to see Lewis and Doobie, or was I banished from that too? Artie’s band came on, with Tami on her sad tambourine. They sounded decent, but I could hear the places he’d been maybe counting on Susan to fill out their sound the way she had for Lewis’s band.
Lewis’s band. Weird! Even in my head, it wasn’t pleasant. What should they be called in that lineup? Hard to be Quarry Men when two of the four people onstage were girls. And they couldn’t be the Dog Street Devils without me. Without me. It was for me, but not a part of me. If anything, it was apart from me. None of those songs were ones I’d ever practiced. I couldn’t have jumped up, even if I’d been allowed to at the last minute. Together, they’d found some extra practice time. Someone had come up with arrangements.
I made my way near the backstage entry area, and the chaperone there, the jazz-beard Mr. Tromboner himself, was shaking his head at me before I could even get in hearing range over Artie’s band. They finished an intense version of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and kicked up Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz” without even a breather. It made sense that Artie, a drummer, would want to lead with songs that highlighted him.
Just as Mr. Tromboner was about to turn me out, Groffini showed up out of nowhere and put his arm around my shoulders, nodding. Tromboner reluctantly let us through. We didn’t say anything because there was no way to be heard until we got to the locker room, where we found Lewis and Hubie both drying off after hitting the showers. Each of them had a change of clothes laid out on the benches. Groffini, such a Bizarro, shook hands with them and gave congratulations, even while they stood there buck-ass naked.
“Come on in here when you got your clothes on, guys,” he said, pointing to the coach’s office with the big plate-glass windows that looked out onto the lockers.
“Why do you have keys to this?” I asked as he ushered me through and offered me one of the less comfortable chairs. He flopped down in the nice desk chair.
“You really need to ask that?” he asked, bemused. Somehow, I’d forgotten that, in addition to being the Rez guidance counselor, he was also the head lacrosse coach. The other guidance counselors seemed to be divided up randomly, but Groffini was the only one who worked with us, and he didn’t work with anyone else. I wondered if he was paid by the treaty funding that supported our education—as with so many other things, we were sort of within the school distric
t, but not quite fully of the district.
Lewis came in, mostly dressed. “Who knew you could get up there and pull it off!” I said. “Pretty damn good!” I gave him sort of a one-armed, slap-on-the-back guy hug. This was the Rez equivalent of letting off fireworks to celebrate, and he grinned a bit, sitting to yank on his stupid Beatle boots.
Doobie joined us a minute later, stuffing his T-shirt bottom into his jeans. He should have undone the button and zipper to get a smoother fit, but he was on the chubbier side. It was probably tough enough on him that we’d walked in before he’d gotten dressed.
I’d been right about the idea of performance outfits. Onstage, they had a passing resemblance of a rock band. But here in Groffini’s grubby office, back in their regular clothes, they just looked like two misfit Indians—one skinny and one chubby, a Rez Laurel and Hardy.
“So listen, guys,” Groffini said, putting his feet on his desk. “As I said, terrific performance. The last band is still on. Once they’re done, all the other bands’ll be brought back out for the announcement. Winning band gets to play one last song. But, um, you don’t get to go. Not even for the announcement. I’m sorry.”
He dropped his feet, leaning forward. None of us said anything.
“Look. I don’t make the rules. The band that went on was supposed to be the band that signed up. You would have been disqualified, even if you hadn’t, um, chosen your particular unorthodox stage presence.” Would Artie’s team have been disqualified if Susan had stepped out? Could I make an issue because Tami went out onstage without being on his approved roster? I couldn’t do that to my cousin, but I had to wonder.
“What’s the real reason?” I asked. Groffini leaned back again, sighing. “They could say it’s because I wasn’t there, even though they blocked me from being there, or they could say it’s because Lewis sang some unapproved ‘fucks’ in unapproved songs, but that’s not the real reason.” Groffini reached up under his cuff and scratched his impossibly hairy leg. Every single kid on the Rez knew this was his personal sign that he was going to lie to us.
“Hube?” he said. “The girls are being told the same thing right now. They should be out in the staging area. Maybe you could find them and tell them we’ll be right along. I’ll make sure you guys get out without any trouble.”
“No,” I said. “Whatever you have to say to us, you can say in front of Doobie. We’re a band. We trust him with everything.” Lewis nodded, slapping Doobie’s back.
“I can’t, boys,” Groffini said, rocking forward again. “What I have to say to you concerns your academic record, and I can’t share that with anyone but you, or your parents. Afterward, if you want to tell Hube? That’s your business.” And there was the Leg-Scratch Lie. Groffini spent most of his career bending school policies. That was kind of the nature of a Rez guidance counselor. He just wanted to ask me and Lewis something or tell us something, and he didn’t want Doobie there for some reason. This should be interesting.
“It’s okay,” Doobie said. “I understand. See you guys out there.” He stuffed his sweaty stage clothes into his bag and slumped out of the locker room. I could see in his shoulders the weight of every year he’d been stuck behind us since flunking kindergarten. This was just one more thing he was being left out of. I told myself to try never calling him Doobie again. After the door slammed shut, Groffini took the extra measure and shut the three of us inside his office.
“So, uh, I went looking for Mrs. Marchese tonight. I figured she might want to see if you tried to show up. Or not. She’s awfully mad about her husband’s Vendor Table situation.”
“But—” Lewis started. Groffini raised his palm, and Lewis immediately shut up—guess his rule-following days weren’t quite over yet. So much for rock and roll.
“I’m not saying anyone’s right or anyone’s wrong,” Groffini said. “But I went looking, to see if you were going to get a deficiency if you’d figured out some way to get up on that stage.” He looked directly at Lewis. “Sorry, Carson. There wasn’t anything I could do to pull her back in from doing what she’d already done to you. But a little bird told me the others were planning something.” Which little bird—Magpie? Is that what he was saying?
“Not all of us,” Lewis said. “Just me and Hubie and Susan Critcher. I told them I was going to try, and gave them the option to join me if I made it onstage. I was surprised as anyone else when Maggi showed up out of nowhere.” Lewis had no secret sign that he was lying. No leg scratch, no twitch. Or did he? I’d assumed he didn’t lie much because he knew he was terrible at it. Maybe I’d been wrong all along.
“So Marchese can’t do anything to her,” Lewis added. Funny. He’d set it up so the person who’d done the most serious thing wouldn’t be caught at all. I guess I had some things to learn about loyalty from my bandmates. My bandmates? Not my band? Correct, Carson, some other voice inside my head said. It sounded freakily like Lewis’s damned Uncle Albert.
“See, now, that’s the funny thing,” Groffini said. “I did find Mrs. Marchese, but not until Lewis had already done his thing. It was during your last song.” He rocked forward again. “Before I could even ask about the possibility of Lewis getting a deficiency, to argue against it, she took me out into the hall and said … she’d reconsidered her position.”
“What does that mean?” Lewis asked. I knew what it meant.
“It means she pulled my deficiency. Right?” Groffini nodded. “What Lewis did actually worked? No shit. I’d have never guessed that.”
“No, that’s not it,” he said, and sighed. Before I could ask, he continued, “She wouldn’t tell me why she changed her mind. When I tried to ask—and I’m expecting you to be discrete about this, no awyock.” We both silently decided not to correct him on his massacre of pronouncing Eee-ogg. “She got moody. Said something like isn’t it enough I’m not failing that little bastard after what he did to my family. Not exact words, but you get the picture.”
“I bet ‘bastard’ was an exact word,” I said, laughing. Groffini gave a tiny grin. “Well, then how do you know she didn’t cave because of Lewis and Maggi and Hubie and Susan?” I wanted their bravery, Lewis’s finally growing a pair of balls on his own, to have meant something.
“That was the last thing she said. And this time I can quote. I wrote it down. ‘It wasn’t that stupid juvenile protest either. Don’t those kids know the sixties are dead?’”
“Harsh,” I said. “Guess she’s kind of bitter that we had even a little effect.”
“As someone who did grow up in the sixties,” Groffini said, “I can say, it stung. And I don’t think it had a little effect. You made a difference. I wouldn’t be doing this job if I didn’t believe I could make a difference.” Lewis and I stood up. A weight was gone. We hadn’t won, and our chances at New York City were gone gone gone, but we’d be free at the end of June. My New York City future would just have to rely on my own resourcefulness.
“Not so fast, men,” Groffini said, and we both sat right back down, though we were itching to leave. “I’m only going to ask this once. And the answer will never leave this office. I promise you. Counselor-student confidentiality.” That was a load of shit. He had to tell parents and teachers all kinds of things about any kid stuck in the system. But I was willing to let it slide. I believed him. “Let’s assume she’s telling the truth, that your protests didn’t have any effect. Did one of you do something to make her back off? Extortion’s serious. Do I have to start preparing some defense for you?” I was shocked Groffini was willing to do that, and to tell us.
“No idea,” Lewis said. “None, whatsoever.” Groffini looked at me, and I shook my head. He asked me to say aloud that I had no idea why, and I did. He let us go a few minutes later.
“You think Groffini was recording us?” I asked as we got to the staging area. “That that’s why he made me say it?” He agreed it was possible.
Stepping into the staging area, I thought about what to say to Lewis next. It might have been a
thank-you for sticking up for me tonight, but I still had the hardest time saying it, beyond a mumbled Nyah-wheh on the Rez. I found myself tensing up even now. I think maybe I inherited that trouble from my dad. He never said thank you. To anyone. He said it made you look weak if you were in someone’s debt.
“Gotta do what’s right when you have the chance,” Lewis said. “Your Custard protest confirmed what I’ve believed all along, even if it didn’t work out as you planned.” I nodded, realizing I had trouble with generosity, period. My dad, with his screwed-up, random ways, had made me wary of even gifts. Whenever I got them, I wondered how long it was going to be before someone randomly snatched them out of my hands.
The moment passed and we joined the others, enjoyed ourselves as a group for a while. When Artie’s band came back to staging after the announcements, we congratulated him on their win. He said it was the band’s win, not his. I went to pass the praise around, but the rest of my band beat me to it. Marvin had made his way back too and was grinning at Maggi, impressed with what she’d pulled off at the last minute. Some others came up and talked with us, and after a few minutes, Susan said she was catching a ride with her brother, tagging along in their celebration. We told her we appreciated her going out onstage with Lewis, even though it meant she’d sacrificed the prize money and the trip. She said it was part of being a band.
“Hey, Marv?” Doobie asked, grabbing his bag. “You and Maggi need a ride? I’m heading out.” We all looked around. Somehow, she’d vanished. Marvin frowned, then said he’d catch a ride with Marie. We all looked at him, knowing Marie didn’t own a car, but he said she’d come with friends and then he peeled out quick, saying he’d better catch them before they left. Hubie tagged along with Marv, to make sure Marie hadn’t left her brother behind.
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