by Rob Rufus
“We can’t get justice,” Lewis sighed, “we can’t even get revenge.”
“Poetic justice!” I said suddenly. “Maybe we can at least get that.”
“What do you mean?” Milo asked.
I walked over to him. Ramrod joined me.
“Once,” I said, “Hana told me she wanted to blow the ears out of an entire senior class. If she could disqualify a whole school from the war, she was sure other kids would be inspired to do the same thing.”
“You’re saying we do that?” Lewis asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’d be a double-whammy, man! How many times have you heard Stink talk about goin’ to Vietnam? We wouldn’t just be keeping our classmates safe, we’d be royally screwing those sons-of-bitches!”
“Revolt turned payback by default,” Milo smiled. “That sounds like Hana.”
I sat down on the rock beside him. I put my arm around his small shoulders.
“It’s not revolt,” I said, “not activism or payback. This is Best Friend Shit.”
Ramrod’s shadow covered us. He nodded boldly. “Let’s do it.”
“For The Vinyl Underground.” Milo nodded back.
I squeezed him close to my side.
It was Best Friend Shit, all the way.
SIDE D
“Today’s pig is tomorrow’s bacon!”
—Hunter S. Thompson
nineteen
King Midas in Reverse
Once we agreed on the idea, we had to actually make a plan. For the first time in our lives, we could say that we really did our homework—it was how we stayed connected to Hana, who’d become something of a ghost. She never returned to school. She never returned our calls. Whenever we went over to her house, we were turned away.
Still, we tried our best to stop the circle from breaking. The three of us darkened her door every Thursday night, records in hand. We didn’t expect her to hang out with us, but she needed to know that we tried. Her parents were gracious rejecters—She isn’t up to company yet. Hana needs time to herself. Hana needs to be, wants to be, demands to be left alone—and once we were denied, we would go to my brother’s bedroom and continue working on our plan.
The more we talked about it, the more I liked it—not only would we be saving our classmates from the threat of war, but we’d be throwing a wrench in the lives of Hana’s assailants. It was a big idea though, and big ideas tend to involve tons of small, but important, details.
For instance—there were 132 kids in our senior class, at least half of whom would be caught up in the draft after graduation. But we couldn’t exactly invite them all to the theater, so we had to figure out a way to bring the theater to them. Our school auditorium was the most logical space. There was no seating on the main floor, and there was a balcony we could utilize. So there was plenty of room to fit all the seniors inside, but only one viable opportunity for us to pull it off: senior prom.
The Vinyl Underground
Operative Blueprint
CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRET
LOCATION: Cordelia High School Auditorium, Senior Prom
OBJECTIVE: Blow the ears out of Cordelia High’s Graduating Class of 1968, disqualifying them from the draft, saving their lives, and royally fucking over Stink Wilson, Marty Houston, Bill Margaret, Ernest Thorogood, and Franklin Buckley.
ESSENTIAL MISSION MATERIALS:
- Coach Bingham’s keys to the school
- The Royal Atlantis speaker system
- Transportation for sound equipment
- A prom committee insider informant
- Three baseball bats
- Two bicycle chains
- One record player
- One totally righteous record
MISSION OUTLINE: EVE OF THE SENIOR PROM
1.) Milo will pretend the speaker system in Viewing Room 3 needs repair. The speakers will then be loaded into Mr. Dori’s work van, along with all the speakers in the storage room of the Royal Atlantis. The combined systems emit 170 dB of sound, loud enough to blow the ears out of the students and chaperones.
2.) The day before the prom, Ronnie will steal his father’s work keys and replace them with a dummy set of keys. After their shift at the Royal Atlantis, Milo and Ronnie will drive the speaker system to the cafeteria loading dock, located in the alley behind the school.
3.) The Vinyl Underground will enter through the cafeteria, and then place the speaker systems around the auditorium for maximum impact.
4.) A base camp will be set up on the second-floor balcony, overlooking the auditorium. There, they will set up the record player and secure the two largest speakers facing the crowd at an angle by chaining them to the front-row pews.
5.) All speakers will be wired to the record player and camouflaged.
MISSION OUTLINE: NIGHT OF THE SENIOR PROM
1.) Confirm timetable with prom court—currently, prom court crowning ceremonies are expected to take place at 11 p.m.
2.) Ramrod will attend the prom, so not to draw suspicion from the “popular kids.” Milo and Ronnie will again sneak through the cafeteria, and then take the elevator to the second-floor balcony, overlooking the dance.
3.) At approximately 10:45 p.m., Ronnie and Lewis will barricade the exits shut with baseball bats, like they did in Attack of the Brain Eaters, trapping everyone in the auditorium. This way, chaperone/teacher keys will be useless.
4.) At approximately 11 p.m., when they announce the king & queen dance, Milo will drop the needle. The Vinyl Underground will escape down the east stairwell as the senior class is blitzed, assaulted, and saved by rock-n-roll .
We had it all figured out—besides, of course, how we could get away with it. If we got caught we’d be expelled, at the very least. Plus, it wouldn’t take much detective work to realize that I’d dodged the draft the exact same way. A dereliction of duty charge would put me in jail for who the hell knows how long.
I thought it was scary shit, but Milo seemed unfazed. He assured us he had the perfect cover, but he wouldn’t give us any details. The not knowing made me crazy, and the closer we got to the prom the more panic attacks I suffered. If I didn’t have marijuana, I swear I woulda ended up in the loony bin.
But I did, so I didn’t. I just smoked my anxiety out. My nerves stayed even, in a functional sense, but the depression that had eased up after the fire began creeping back, waiting to corner me when I was alone and vulnerable.
Usually it was when I was smoking in my brother’s car, gazing up at Hana’s bedroom window. The blinds were never open, but I imagined her inside. It was then the depression would whisper:
How’s the weather, Raspy Ronnie? Lonely, with a chance of being alone? Remember whose car this is? He’s dead. He’s gone.
Remember whose window that is? She’s gone, too.
But you’re still here. You’re just fucking fine. Are you bad luck, or what? Raspy Ronnie, you’re King Midas in reverse—everything you touch turns to shit! You’re—
I’d turn the radio up until I drowned the voice out. I’d focus on the music and think about the good times we had in that room, the good times I had in that car with Bruce, and I’d tell myself to be brave. I’d tell myself to fight as hard as I could, as hard as I should. I’d turn the music up as loud as I had to and find peace in the fact that soon we’d crank it loud enough to penetrate Hana’s fortress of solitude.
We’d crack the sky.
We’d shake the earth.
We’d rattle and roll it, too.
twenty
Outside the Gates of Eden
Milo took care of almost all the set-up work. My main job was stealing the keys to the school from my dad. I overanalyzed the task, but then again things had finally cooled down with my family, and I wasn’t eager to mess it up by fumbling my part in the mission and getting b
usted snatching my dad’s things.
So every day I shadowed him, and every day he dropped his work keys and his house keys in the Marine Corps ashtray on his bedside table. There were six keys on the work ring, and a rubber shark keychain so he knew which set was which. All I needed to do was pull the old switcheroo—get a set of dummy keys to replace his and slide the shark keychain on them so he couldn’t tell the difference. I’d have the entire weekend to switch them back before he’d need his keys again.
Still, stealing from him made me nervous. And messing up the plan made me nervous. And everything about the whole thing made me nervous, so I double and triple checked every day—and his keys never left the ashtray.
The Monday before prom, I had crept into my parents’ room to see if Dad’s keys were in their place when Momma called to me from the foyer. “Ronnie!”
Her voice made me jump. I rushed out of their room and found her standing at the bottom of the stairs. She was smiling, bobbing eagerly in place.
“What is it, Momma?”
I walked down to meet her. She kept smiling. She handed me a white manila envelope.
I flipped it over. UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA popped out at me in blue letters. I tore the top of the envelope and pulled out the first thing I touched. It was a letter printed on thick stock paper. A cartoon alligator grinned up at me. I heard Momma’s breath catch.
“Dear Mr. Bingham,” I read aloud, “congratulations on your athletic scholarship to the University of Florida for the Fall 1968 term.”
Then she hugged me, smashing the acceptance letter between us. I felt lightheaded and overwhelmed. Momma let me go. She took the envelope from me and pulled out a school brochure with a class catalog.
“Accounting! Agriculture! Anatomy! Art!” she read aloud, punctuating each one like she was shocked the subject was offered. “Biology! Civics! Civil Engineering!”
While Momma scanned the schedule, depression whispered in my mind: Disc Jockeying, West Coast Wandering, Dead Sibling Dream Fulfillment—see any of those in your fancy college schedule, Raspy Ronnie?
Momma let the paperwork fall to her side. She was out of breath.
“There’s so many choices!” she said, chest heaving. “It’s overwhelming.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” I sighed.
―
I was high above the stars, looking down on them all. The prom committee spent Thursday afternoon hammering, cutting, stringing, and toiling away. I saw veins pop out of a boy’s forehead when he hoisted the giant moon over the corner of the stage. I watched sweat trickle down a girl’s brow as she cut out symmetrical stars.
I was on the balcony of the auditorium with Milo.
I leaned on the railing and watched them decorate for the dance. The theme of the evening was A Night Beneath the Stars, and dozens of cardboard constellations had been wrapped in aluminum foil and hung from the ceiling with fishing wire. Silver, blue, and white streamers were taped along the walls and around the doors. The large, silver moon floated above the DJ booth.
Milo paced the center row of the balcony. He rubbed his chin with his free hand, like a beat-to-shit version of The Thinker. After nine or ten laps, he stopped—he nodded to himself, seemingly satisfied with whatever he’d just thought up.
“OK,” he said, as he came to the railing, “here’s what I’m thinking. We’ll put the turntable and the receiver here, and we’ll set the two main speakers here. Our bicycle chains should be strong enough to secure ʼem to the back of this bleacher.”
He patted the top of the very first bench. I gave him a thumbs-up.
“We’ll hide the bass amps there,” he said, pointing under the stage, “behind the grating, facing this direction. We’ll run the other speakers there, there, there, and there, right down the sides of the room. That’ll make a wall of sound loud enough to blow Phil Spector’s fuckin’ wig off.”
Suddenly, the balcony doorknob gave an amplified click—both Milo and I jumped. I spun around instinctively, expecting to see a teacher or, even worse, my dad, but it was only Lewis. He eased the door shut behind him.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said.
“It’s all right,” Milo told him. “We’re talkin’ about speaker positioning.”
“I wanna hear all about it, but first, I’ve got news.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Bethill Baptist offered me one of their scholarships, man! I can’t believe it, I really can’t—it’s enough to cover two semesters at Gulf Coast State in PCB!”
“Lewis,” Milo smiled, “that’s amazing!”
“I know! And I’m so relieved I don’t gotta blow out my ears. If I messed up my hearing permanently, I’d be worthless on the field. But now, if I get my grades up, I can walk onto the team, maybe even get a second scholarship to play ball.”
I didn’t mention my own scholarship offer. If I decided to go to college, Milo would no longer have a West Coast traveling companion. So I needed to make up my mind before I laid any of it on him.
“I’m so happy for you, man,” I told Lewis. “You really deserve it.”
“Thanks, Ronnie.”
“Hold up,” Milo said, “if we get busted for this, you might lose your scholarship. Maybe you should sit it out, Lewis.”
I gulped cartoonishly. He was right.
Ramrod stood silent for a moment, considering this.
“Well,” he finally said, “we’re not gonna get busted, are we?”
“No,” Milo said confidently.
“Cool.” He shrugged. “Then catch me up on the plan.”
You can be brave if he’s being brave, I assured myself. I almost meant it.
“The plan’s the same,” Milo said, “unless there was a change on your end.”
“Nope,” Lewis said. “I asked Beth again the other day, and she told me the crowning ceremony will be at 11 p.m. If the head of the prom committee don’t know, then we’ll be doin’ guesswork either way.”
“Let’s assume Beth knows,” Milo nodded. “Those two doors there lead to the hallway, and that door there is the emergency exit, which opens onto the veranda. You and Ronnie barricade them during the prom court announcements, and then we meet back up here. If everything goes accordingly, we should be able to start the music and get the hell outta here before anyone grasps what happened.”
“But even if we make a clean getaway,” I said, “all the equipment will still be here. How are we gonna explain that?”
“I told you not to sweat it,” Milo groaned. “I’ll worry about all that.”
I scoffed.
“Trust me,” he urged. “I got it covered like a towel around Brigitte Bardot. It’s just better if y’all don’t know the details yet, that’s all.”
He sounded more confident than Lewis and I, so we both went along.
“OK,” I sighed. “Then is there anything else we should go over?”
“Just my camera placement. I think I’ll hide it near the back exit, where the wrestling mats are stored. That way, everyone will be running toward the lens—”
“Wait,” Lewis said, “you’re not really filming it?”
“Of course I’m filming it. I need it for my movie.”
“Woah, woah, man, I—”
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna document what actually happens. I just wanna show the important part, that a freak rock-n-roll occurrence kept an entire school out of the war.”
“Freak rock-n-roll occurrence.” Lewis grinned.
“I do like the sound of that,” I admitted.
“Good,” Milo said. “That reminds me, did either of you choose a song?”
“I figured we’d use the same one as last time,” Lewis shrugged.
“I’m still thinking about it,” I said, “I’ll come up with somethin’ righteous.”
“Just pick one a
lready,” Milo huffed. “The prom’s on Saturday!”
“We know,” I groaned, “we know, we know.”
“If you know, then get it figured it out! And make sure the jam’s rockin’ enough to bring the fuckin’ house down.”
―
Thursday night. 7 p.m.
Be there, or be squarer than square.
It was 7:17. It was the first Thursday that the three of us hadn’t shown up on Hana’s porch. Our weekly statement of solidarity felt pointless that night. The prom was forty-eight dwindling hours away—we’d be making our real statement soon enough.
So instead of the record club meeting, I sat in my bedroom and toiled over my Profiles in Courage term paper. It wasn’t going well. I couldn’t concentrate.
I finally gave up on working, and started to look at the brochures that came with my college acceptance letter. They stressed me out instantly, and it was too early to get stoned, so I put them away before my anxiety kicked into gear.
I stood up and stretched. Then I looked out my window—at her window—and wondered if she wondered why I hadn’t darkened her door. I wondered if she ever got that internship with the Chicago Tribune. I wondered if she would really go to Vietnam as a correspondent.
She hadn’t mentioned it to Milo. Lewis didn’t know jack, either.
“Like that means anything,” I scoffed at myself.
Then I walked across the hall to Bruce’s bedroom to look for a song we could use at the prom. I hadn’t spent much time in there since the fire. The weight of the room remained, as did the significance of everything in it, but the seal had been broken on that horrible night, and now it wasn’t the same.
Oh well, I thought, as I ran my hand over his 45s, at least there’s still magic in the songs. I flipped through his singles, sticking to the rock-n-roll section. I knew genre didn’t matter as long as the volume was dialed in, but it didn’t seem right to blow out eardrums to Peter, Paul, and Mary. So I flipped through the vinyls until I narrowed it down to two options—“My Generation” by The Who, or “Wild Thing” by The Troggs. Milo and Lewis could choose between them.