The Vinyl Underground

by Rob Rufus

Then he burst into a coughing fit. I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

  He cleared his throat. He tried again.

  “Bruce was never right for the marines,” he said. “Physically, yes, but not in the head, not where it really matters. He didn’t have the concentration, the awareness. All he ever thought of was these records. That’s what got him killed. I know it is, I know it.”

  I tried to respond. I couldn’t speak. Dad couldn’t seem to stop.

  “But you coulda made it right, made it mean something. You’re strong enough; you were always strong enough, strong in the way a marine needs to be strong. But all the loud music he pushed on you, all the goddamn rock music—”

  “That music kept me safe! That music, his music, it saved my life.” I could feel my own tears coming as I crawled to where he lay. “Nothing I could’ve done in Vietnam would square what happened, or make it right. All we can do is celebrate who he was, Dad. Don’t you get it? Nothing we can do now will justify how or why he died.”

  He trembled, and then punched the floor with his heavy fist.

  “Oh son,” he cried, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or Bruce.

  Either way, he deserved a reply. So I opened the envelope clutched in my hand and unfolded the letter inside.

  “ʻAugust 12th, 1967,ʼ” I read.

  “What?” Dad stammered, looking up at me.

  “ʻHow’s the weather, Raspy Ronnie?ʼ” I recited. “ʻIt’s be-ya-utiful here in Paris Island, South Carolina. And by beautiful, ladies and germs, I mean miserably hot and disgusting. I tell ya, Little Brother, I feel like a boiled peanut!

  “ʻOne day I’m in high school, the next, I’m out here. Am I a chump or what? All and all, though, it’s been a breeze. Fuckin’ basic training, man. These drill sergeants have got nothin’ on Dad’s trash talk.ʼ”

  Dad let out a tearful laugh. I smiled. I kept reading.

  “ʻYesterday, a fella told me that we’ve got our own radio station in ʼNam called the American Forces Vietnam Network. Rolls off the tongue, right? I’m thinking maybe I can score an audition. It sure would be nice to spend my tour in a DJ booth instead of a foxhole. Oh, and as you probably noticed by the heading, I’m countin’ on you to keep my chops sharp! So drop that needle on the record, and let it spin.ʼ”

  I trailed off. I cleared my throat.

  “Does . . . does it say anything else?” Dad muttered.

  I handed him the letter. He sat up, now reeling from the booze. He held the letter up to his nose, and focused. “ʻPlay ‘Heat Wave’ by Martha and the Vandellas,ʼ” he read. Then he looked back to me. “I never could figure out how to work your brother’s turntable.”

  “Here, I’ll show ya.”

  I picked the record up off the floor.

  Then I took my father’s hand in mine so together we could stand.

  fifteen

  The Nearest Thing to Normal

  Things would never go back to how they were before Bruce was taken away. But the weeks that followed my draft exam were the nearest thing to normal I’d had all year. Mr. Dori never found out what we did at the theater. Stink and the bullies at school began to heed their fathers’ demands to leave Hana alone. Life after Bruce had always seemed impossible, and it still wasn’t easy, but the world had finally begun to settle.

  The day after the fire, my family gathered in Bruce’s room and read through all his letters, participating in his DJ ritual as a singular family unit. I swear I could feel him there with us, laughing as Momma searched for his copy of “Day Tripper.”

  It was a long and brutally heavy day, but allowed us to finally, openly, share our grief with one another. The pain still remained, but now we could bear it together instead of letting is smother us. Day by day, I began to breathe again.

  My hearing improved, too—but slowly. Focusing in class was nearly impossible, so I called in sick a lot and did my work at home. I spent most of those days at the beach, which was the one place I could think clearly—the roaring surf was able to drown the phantom sounds away.

  My time in the sand was haunted by that then-popular slogan: Today is the first day of the rest of your life. It looked good on buttons and posters, but was scary as shit when you were an eighteen-year-old high school senior.

  Now that I’d escaped the war, it was time to grapple with the fact that my life would extend into adulthood. I was running out of excuses, distractions, and time. I needed a plan, or at least a next step.

  I’d intended on heading to California with Bruce for so long, it felt almost blasphemous to do otherwise now. I’d come to terms with the fact that I didn’t really want to be a DJ anymore, but I felt a duty to carry on his legacy somehow.

  Hana said I should think about my own legacy. She wanted me to go to college. But my family wasn’t as well off as hers, so going to college wasn’t as easy as simply wanting to go. I’d need some type of scholarship to swing the tuition.

  The head of the wrestling program at University of Florida told Dad that my placement in the county finals gave me a slim shot at a scholarship. Dad started a full-on lobbying campaign, but I didn’t get my hopes up. The lack of effort that defined my wrestling career didn’t bode well for a last-minute free ride.

  Milo agreed that a scholarship was unlikely. He encouraged me to stick with California. But he had his sights set on Hollywood, too, so I think the idea of a running buddy appealed to him. He’d finally saved enough to buy his own movie camera—the Kodak Instamatic Super 8 from Sears—and after it left the box, it never left his hand. The camera was no bigger than a drugstore paperback, and Milo was obsessed with it.

  He began filming everything—record club meetings, walks to and from school, fire drills, church services, anything he could. He was determined to make a film about forward thinking in a backward town.

  His focus for the project, of course, was Hana. He documented her struggle to get her articles published—she wouldn’t let him read them, but he knew that the topics ranged from college protests to rape at rock concerts to civilian deaths in Vietnam—and he filmed her as she pitched the ideas to the uninterested editors of the school paper, the local paper, and the Florida Times-Union. He filmed her through every roadblock and every slammed door.

  She wouldn’t let me read her work either, but I was in constant admiration of her guts and vision. She was so ahead of me, of all of us. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, when I hadn’t even figured out what fucking questions I should ask.

  While Hana faced down the Man through her writing, Lewis engaged in a last-ditch effort to avoid him. His teachers, faculty, and fans wrote recommendation letters to the Bethill Baptist Scholarship Fund for Underprivileged Youth. I helped him fill out his application, and Dad drove him to Jacksonville so he could meet with Bethill’s board of directors.

  Our paths bent slightly as the sand shifted beneath us, but the four of us hardly noticed; our sights were still fixed on the same North Star—music. The Vinyl Underground regrouped the week Hana’s suspension ended. Our first meeting was a victory lap, a celebration of our hard-earned triumph over the Man. We laughed and danced to “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” on repeat, and everything slid back into place. Our meetings steadied us; the ritual reminded us we were in it together, no matter what. In The Vinyl Underground, the norms of society seemed shrug-worthy at best.

  In fact, the only change I noticed was the slow improvement of my hearing. I yearned for it to come back; being a spectator at a record club was like being drug-free at the Manson Family ranch. While my friends soaked up the music in its sonic glory, I ached to partake! I cursed my ears, perpetually wondering when they’d finally heal. I created timelines and theorized which day my hearing would fully return—but I never would’ve predicted that the first sound I’d hear was a shot.

  SIDE C
>
  “There’s no use being defeatist. Despair is the worst vice for a revolutionary.”

  — Marge Piercy

  sixteen

  Late Reaction is Inaction

  I noticed while I was watching TV. All of a sudden, there was no more ringing, no more humming, no more static. My ears had finally healed. The sound caught me by surprise. I didn’t actually expect to hear the lame-o sitcom dialogue! I was only watching Bewitched because I liked the way Samantha’s nose wiggled.

  My parents were watching with me, so I tried not to let my excitement show. As far as they were concerned, my hearing problems were legit. I stayed calmly fixed on the TV, though my nerves were popping like fireworks. I couldn’t wait until the clock hit 7 p.m. so I could go to Hana’s and listen to records with my friends—to really listen, to hear every subtlety, every secret pressed into the wax.

  Suddenly, ABC News interrupted the show with a breaking news bulletin. Bewitched cut to a gray-haired newsman sitting in front of a black background; he read the breaking news with the emotional sensibility of an alligator.

  “Good evening. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, thirty-nine years old, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the leader of the nonviolent civil rights movement in the United States, was assassinated in Memphis tonight. A sniper’s bullet shot down Dr. King as he stood on a hotel balcony in Memphis. Within an hour, Dr. King was dead. With the nation shocked, President Johnson expressed horror and will postpone his trip to Hawaii until tomorrow—”

  “Good God!” Momma gasped.

  I leaned closer to the screen. I tried to process what I heard.

  Assassinated . . . postpone a trip to Hawaii . . . What?

  “Goddammit,” Dad spat in frustration. “I knew this would happen. I knew it! You can only stick your neck out so far ʼtil they chop it off.”

  “Buford!” Momma yelled.

  “Tell me I’m wrong!” he yelled back, pointing at the screen.

  My parents continued bickering as the end of the world began.

  ―

  A few minutes later, I left for The Vinyl Underground meeting. I was too flustered to remember to bring any records, which would’ve been funny on any other day.

  I found Milo sitting on his front porch. He held his Super 8 in one hand and a Grand Funk album in the other. I could tell he’d been crying.

  “There a riot in Jacksonville,” he mumbled when he saw me. “The radio just said the governor’s initiating a statewide curfew.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Can’t help us now,” Milo said as he stood.

  We crossed the empty street and trudged up Hana’s front steps. Milo knocked on the door. There was no answer. Milo knocked again.

  I leaned over to the window. Through the glass, I saw Hana emerge from the living room, wiping her face with a red bandana. She slid it into her pocket as she opened the door.

  “Hey,” she said. “Sorry, my parents are at dinner. I didn’t hear the door.”

  “You OK?” Milo asked.

  “What the fuck do you think?”

  Neither of us answered. Instead of going upstairs, Hana led us through the kitchen and into her living room. Lewis was already there, sitting hunched toward the TV as Dan Rather gave an up-to-date report.

  “Any new details?” I asked.

  He just nodded at the screen. A newscaster was asking Andrew Young where the civil rights leaders planned on eating dinner . . . then they cut to a Budweiser commercial starring Frank Sinatra as a loveable Civil War soldier.

  “Turn it off,” Hana said flatly.

  Lewis flipped off the tube.

  “What do we do now?” Milo asked.

  She just turned and walked back through the kitchen. I could hear her climbing the stairs. The three of us shared a knowing look—the meeting had begun.

  Hana chose the record—For What It’s Worth by The Staple Singers—and we formed our circle.

  “I can hear again,” I told the others.

  They just nodded, barely registering what I’d said. I didn’t fault them for it; I had a hard time caring, myself. Even though I could hear the music, I couldn’t focus on it. I couldn’t concentrate on anything except the thing.

  My mind drifted to Bruce; how he’d feel if he were here, how I felt because he wasn’t. I tried to resist the pull of the black hole I had inside me. I knew grief was waiting to catch me off guard and drag me back into that nothingness.

  “Do y’all believe in heaven?” Lewis asked, snapping me back to the present.

  “I don’t believe in people living on clouds and stuff,” Milo said, “but I believe there’s another . . . something. Some great beyond, I dunno.”

  “I’m not sure I believe in anything,” I admitted.

  “Reincarnation,” Hana said. “That’s what happens when we die.”

  “Is that a Japanese thing?” Milo asked.

  “It’s a vision-of-death-I-had-during-an-acid-trip thing,” she said seriously.

  Milo’s chuckle fell flat. The circle grew silent again.

  Pops Staples grooved into the next song, “Father, Let Me Ride.”

  “Man,” I sighed, “I still can’t wrap my head around it.”

  “Why?” Hana asked. “Memphis can’t be that different from Florida, both are full of racist assholes. You Southern boys shouldn’t be surprised by any of this.”

  “Are you sayin’ we’re racist assholes?” Milo asked. His glasses magnified the hurt in his eyes.

  “Are you saying you’re not?”

  “Come on,” I chimed in. “I know you’re upset, but that’s not cool. Growin’ up Southern doesn’t automatically make us racist.”

  Her scoff was cold and firm. It shut the three of us up quick. We could see Hana needed a punching bag, and no one planned to volunteer.

  “There’s a quote in Bartlett’s that reminds me of this place,” she said. “‘All that’s necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’”

  She shot me a look.

  “Are you still pissed about the pep rally?” I asked. “I told you I was sorry. I should’ve done more, I should’ve done something, but you caught me off guard.”

  “How can any of this catch you off guard? It’s all around you! The segregated school, the Confederate flags. I know you see it, and I know you know it’s wrong, but you still sit quietly until things come to a head! So I don’t want to listen to you whine about Dr. King or the pep rally! You didn’t have the balls to speak out before shit boiled over, so no one should have to listen to you bitch about it now. Late reaction is inaction and not a damn thing more.”

  Tears stung at my eyes—tears of anger, tears of shame, tears of regret.

  “That’s . . . that’s so unfair,” I mumbled.

  “Is it? If you spoke out against the war while your brother was alive, would he have gone to Vietnam? If you would’ve told him how you really felt, if you would’ve made a stand when it mattered—”

  “Fuck you, Hana!” I screamed, scrambling to my feet.

  I tripped, but caught myself on the edge of her bed. I felt dizzy, sick. Her words had injected a hot shot of what-if into my bloodstream, and I was overdosing on the possibilities. I needed air. Fresh air. Fresh air now.

  I moved clumsily from her bedroom and slammed the door behind me. I somehow got down the stairs. I grabbed my shoes without breaking stride. I stumbled off her porch and ran barefoot across the jagged gravel street toward home.

  I pushed through the door. Most of the lights in the house were off, but the TV was still playing. I walked slowly into the living room. Dad was still watching the news reports, though the volume was turned low. He acknowledged me with a nod and a grunt, and then took another sip of beer.

  I sat down beside him on the couch, still dazed by Hana’s words. Moments pass
ed. Commercial break, news, commercial break. The TV looked out of focus, and all the world was a bad dream full of bad answers to bad questions that I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Hey, Dad?” I said, in my shaky dream voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “How come you let Bruce join the marines if you didn’t think he could hack it? Why didn’t you try to talk him out of it, or anything?”

  Dad sighed. He took a long chug of beer, killing the bottle. He sat it on the side table, and the glass rang hollow. Then he reached out and grabbed my shoulder, squeezing it with the pressure of love.

  “Nothin’ I coulda said to change his mind,” he mumbled. “Besides, if he was man enough to go to war and I stopped him, what the hell kinda man would I be?”

  ―

  My watch said it was two o’clock in the morning. I couldn’t sleep. Only a sociopath could’ve slept on a night like that. Our entire national trajectory had just been thrown off, and I was afraid my friendship with Hana had been, too.

  I wished I’d kept my cool. I wish I hadn’t screamed. Because it wasn’t her words that set me off—it was the truth they contained. She’d been annoyingly right—about me, about the town, about all of us.

  I should’ve spoken up about the war when I had the chance. Maybe I could’ve saved my brother. Maybe the grief inside me wasn’t grief at all. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

  All I knew for sure was that it was two o’clock and I was still awake.

  Rolling a joint of mind-erasing proportions seemed my only recourse. If it didn’t knock me out, then sleep was hopeless. So I got my stashbox from the ceiling and rolled myself the fattest, most promising doobie I could manage.

  Then I crept down to the garage.

  I pushed the garage door up gently. I looked at the sky.

  No stars. Not that night.

  I turned around and slid into the front seat of the Bel Air. I turned the battery on and sat the joint on the dashboard. The news bulletins were finally over, and records were spinning again—“I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” by The Bee Gees. As I waited for the lighter to heat up, I wondered if King was the only Nobel Peace Prize winner to be murdered by a stranger in a redneck town. I wondered how much it hurt to be shot, if he was conscious after the fall, re-asking all the questions I’d once asked about my brother’s death. All that death, all from the slightest pressure applied to the slightest sliver of metal. It was amazing that something as small as a bullet could leave a hole so goddamn big.