The Vinyl Underground

by Rob Rufus

  “Wild Thing” didn’t scream revolution the way “My Generation” did, but it reminded me of Marlon Brando and motorcycle jackets . . . and Hana.

  Hana in black leather—a revolution unto herself.

  I pulled out the two singles, and then the vinyl in the next row caught my eye. It was the B side of “Like a Rolling Stone,” a song called “Gates of Eden.”

  The sight of it made me weak. I was suddenly desperate to talk to my brother and ask him for advice. I shook the sadness off. I took the prom night 45s into my room and sat them on my dresser so I wouldn’t forget ʼem.

  Then, without forethought, I ripped a piece of paper from my notebook, grabbed a pencil, and walked back across the hall to his bedroom. I took the Bob Dylan single off the shelf. I held it to my chest like a familiar heart.

  I flipped his stereo back on. The speakers popped, surprised to be revived. I placed the adapter on the center of the turntable, and then set the speed to 45rpm.

  I took the single out of the sleeve.

  I sat it on the turntable, B side up.

  I dropped the needle, and let it spin.

  The acoustic guitar came strumming in hard. Bobby sang the way Bobby sings, with a weary rage that only otherworldly omnipotents like him find a way to impart. I flattened the piece of notebook paper on the floor.

  I began to write.

  Hana,

  Usually, this is where Bruce would ask, “How’s the weather, Raspy Ronnie?”

  I wish I couldn’t answer the question. I wish I couldn’t walk outside and check. I wish I was too busy doing what I should be doing right now—listening to records with you and Milo and Lewis, geeking out and jiving and vibing and laughing and talking. That’s why I chose the song “Gates of Eden,” because that’s how it felt when we were up there together, safe from the dangers of this terrible bullshit world.

  I wish I knew what to say to you. I’m no good at this. I hate what they did to you. I hate it so, so, so, so much. I hate that I wasn’t there for you again, and that I can’t be there for you now.

  But I understand you not wanting to see anyone. I wouldn’t either, and don’t expect you too. I’m only writing to ask you to open your window on Saturday night at 11 p.m. That’s the night of senior prom, if you didn’t know.

  You see, now that The Vinyl Underground’s fearless leader is MIA, all we know to do is fulfill the battle plan she laid out for us: AKA we’re gonna blow the ears out of every graduating senior at the fucking school! We’re gonna make them all 4-F, and we’re gonna do it just like last time, with a killer song. I can’t choose between “My Generation” and “Wild Thing,” but keep an ear out for one or the other.

  If you hear it, it means we brought your protest vision to fruition. If not . . . well, I just hope I don’t chicken out. That’s one of the reasons I wish I was with you right now; you’re the bravest person I know, your courage fucking radiates off you and seeps into the pores of everyone around you. I sure could use some of that spare bravery right now. You’re gonna have to bottle it for me, because I’m not sure how I’m gonna decide what to do next year without it.

  That’s right, I got into FSU. I still can’t believe it. I haven’t told Milo, or anyone else—I just don’t know if it’s what I want . . . See, I’m not even brave enough to make up my mind without your input! God, respecting your opinion so much is a pain in the ass.

  I miss you a ton. Not just for your brains, or guts. I miss you ’cause you’re Hana, and my world is a drag without you in it. But anyway, enough cheese. Give Bobby a spin, smoke a J if you have one. You aren’t required to think of me while you do, but if you happen to I won’t mind.

  Fuck the draft. Fuck ’em all.

  -Ronnie

  ―

  Hana’s mother opened the door. She smiled.

  “I began to think you wouldn’t come tonight, Ronnie. Though I’m sorry to say that Hana still isn’t—”

  “She’s not up for company, I know. But would you give her this?” I handed her the 45. The red label was partially covered by my letter. She looked down at it, confused.

  “Of course,” she said graciously. “Will there be anything else?”

  “Just tell her the B side’s the sad one, and that the sad ones are the truth.”

  twenty-one

  Toy Soldiers

  Friday I was nothing but nerves. I wanted that stupid school day done with already. I couldn’t walk to class without passing the auditorium, the sight of which made my guts do backflips. To make things more annoying, a dozen or so of the popular kids were on a last-ditch campaign for prom court, so the building was plastered with signs and paper banners.

  When the final bell finally rang, I was the first one out of my calculus class. But my stride was stunted because the election day rush had the hallway more clogged than usual. I was stuck behind a line of swing voters being pandered to by Margret Jones, the frontrunner for prom queen, who was handing out free cookies.

  “Hey! Ronnie!” she called.

  I used it as excuse to push through the line. She smiled when I approached.

  “Just remindin’ you to vote for me,” she said, handing me a cookie. “If you’ve already voted for someone else, there’s still time to change your ballot.”

  “Nah, you’ve got my vote.”

  I bit into the cookie—chocolate chip and raisins—and tried to keep the combo down. Then, suddenly, Stink Wilson shoved through the crowd and wrapped his arm around Margret’s shoulders.

  I took a step back. My mind went whiteout clear. I hadn’t seen Stink since wrestling season ended. I hadn’t seen the bastard since he did what he did.

  “You don’t need to beg losers like him for votes,” he sneered. “You’re a shoe in, babe.”

  Margret blushed. I tossed the cookie onto the ground.

  “What’s wrong,” Stink snickered, “jealous of my date? Don’t worry, I’m sure you and your dweebie little boy-toy Milo will make an adorable couple.”

  A ticker tape of words ran across my mind:

  . . . IF YOU HIT . . . PUNCH . . . KILL HIM . . . IT WILL BE RUINED . . .

  I gritted my teeth and wrung my hands tight enough to draw blood.

  But I didn’t punch him.

  “I want you to remember calling him a dweeb,” I said.

  “What was that, traitor? I couldn’t hear ya.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said louder, “you will.”

  ―

  “I still can’t believe my boy isn’t goin’ to prom,” Dad said again. He steered the car onto our block. My knees twitched—it was almost time to swipe his keys, and I was anxious as hell.

  “I just think it’s dumb.”

  “Well, yeah, of course it’s dumb. But it’s the prom. I’ll never forget my senior prom. I took Bettie Green. Man oh man, was she a looker! She wore a pale blue dress, and we won a dance contest to ʻTexarkana Baby.ʼ I still remember the way that dress matched the back seat of my old—”

  “Ugh. Gross, Dad.”

  He laughed as he pulled up to the house. He killed the engine and nodded toward Hana’s place. “It’s about her, isn’t it?”

  “Nah,” I said, “it’s not about her. It’s about everyone else.”

  ―

  Dad went into his bedroom to take a nap after work. The nap deviated from his normal routine—not much, but enough to get me sweating. I got the dummy keys from my stashbox where I’d stored them. The keys were six random spares from our kitchen junk drawer, but once I slid on Dad’s shark keychain, he’d never know the difference.

  I pressed my ear to the door and waited to hear his gait on the stairs. Five minutes passed. Sweat beaded along my hairline. Twenty minutes passed. I tried to relax, to remind myself that this wasn’t Mission Impossible or anything.

  Dad’s footfalls on the stair
s! Go!

  No. Not yet.

  I forced myself to wait. I counted 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to be sure he’d made it past the foyer. Then, finally, I opened my door and rushed across the hall. I moved into their bedroom with my sights laser-focused on the keys in the ashtray.

  I grabbed them. I slid off the stupid plastic shark and put it on my dummy keychain. I sat the dummy keys in the ashtray. I put Dad’s keys in my back pocket.

  “Ronnie?” Dad said from behind me.

  I jumped like a wet cat on a subway rail. My head and eyes spun out of sync as I whirled around to face him. He was standing in the doorway, totally confused.

  “Uh, hey,” I stammered, “I was just seein’ if Momma left my clean underwear in here. She was supposed to wash ʼem, and, uh—”

  “Your underwear aren’t in here, Ronnie.”

  “Oh.”

  “You have a phone call downstairs. It’s your boss.”

  “Ah, OK. Thanks.”

  If he was wise to what I’d done, he didn’t show it. So I followed him downstairs, my core vibrating with cautious optimism. I picked the phone off the kitchen counter.

  “Hello?”

  “Ronnie,” Mr. Dori said, “can you come in early tonight? The sound system in Viewing Room 3 blew again, and the speakers need to go in for repairs. I’d have Milo deal with it, but his arm—”

  “Of course, Mr. Dori. Let me throw on my uniform and I’ll head down.”

  “Good man, Ronnie, good man.”

  I hung up the phone. In my mind, I heard the sound of gears shifting.

  Now we’re rolling!

  “Bang! Bang!” Roy yelled from the living room.

  I turned and followed the noise. Roy had six toy soldiers spread across the killing fields of our shag carpet. Four of them lay on their side or back—obviously dead. Roy held the other two, and was impaling one with the extended bayonet of the other.

  I got down on the floor beside him.

  “Aren’t they on the same side?” I asked.

  “Bang!” he squealed again, tossing the impaled soldier onto his back.

  “Guess not.”

  “Bye-bye,” Roy giggled, as he smashed the surviving soldier onto the fresh corpse of the other. “Bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye!”

  Then Roy slid the little green soldier around and around in circles. He was trying to say something through his laughter, but it was hard to make out. I thought he was asking me to get him something to drink.

  “You want your juicey?” I asked.

  “Boosey!” he cried, frustrated, “Boosey! Boosey!”

  It hit me like a hammer to the throat—Boosey. Brucie. Bruce. That was what he used to call Bruce. I hadn’t been sure he remembered Bruce anymore, let alone the military fatigues he wore in the photos he sent home.

  “That’s right, buddy!” I said. I touched the top of the army man’s helmet. “Bruce was a soldier, just like this guy!”

  “Wa Boosey,” he said, staring up at me with his big little-kid eyes. I wasn’t sure if he was saying where, or want, or, well, who knows. Both amounted to the same disappointing response.

  I cleared my throat. “You know Bruce—Boosey—he isn’t here anymore, buddy. But he’s—”

  Suddenly, Roy threw the toy soldier across the room. It slid beneath the television. He began laughing all over again.

  “Bye-bye, Boosey!” He giggled. “Bye-bye-bye-bye Boosey! Bye-bye!”

  ―

  Viewing Room 3 had a sign taped on the door—Closed for Repairs. I ducked inside, holding two vinyls in one hand and a bike chain in the other. The overhead lights were on, and every inch of the room looked sticky. Milo was up front, trying to unlatch the compartment beneath the stage. I sat my things down and pulled Dad’s keys from my pocket.

  I held them behind his left ear and started jingling.

  He whirled around fast as a carnival ride.

  “You got ʼem!”

  “Oh yeah,” I nodded, “I got ʼem.”

  He patted me on the shoulder proudly, and then stepped aside so I could pull the speaker compartment open. It took me four hard pulls, but the grating finally gave, screeching as a cloud of dust rose around us.

  “Jesus,” I gagged, “when’s the last time this was cleaned?”

  “A week before never,” he coughed.

  Milo crawled beneath the stage and disconnected the wiring. He shimmied out the way he’d gone in, and then brushed his dirty hands on his pants. His glasses looked like they’d been tinted with chimney soot.

  “All right,” he said, clearing his throat, “pull her out.”

  “By myself? It’s huge!”

  “I’d help ya, but I’m supervising.” He lifted his cast for effect.

  I rolled my eyes, and then worked the speaker out from under the stage.

  “God,” I wheezed, “this is the biggest speaker I’ve ever seen.”

  “Wait until you see the ones behind the screen! Now come on, let’s load her up. Mr. Dori has the work van parked behind the fire exit.”

  I lugged the speaker across the carpet and into the side-stage foyer. Milo held the doors open, and I dragged it onto the sidewalk. The Econoline van sat waiting, white and windowless, covered in dead bugs and bird shit.

  “This thing must weigh a ton,” I panted, leaning on the speaker.

  “Just 120 pounds. But the bigger ones weigh 370 pounds each.”

  Milo unlocked and opened the back doors of the van. “Now you just gotta lift it in,” he said.

  I let out an exhausted laugh. He patted me on the back. I felt his finger splints tip-tap-tip-tap-tip-tap on my spine.

  “Hup-two, soldier. We’ve got seven more speakers to go.”

  ―

  Everything seemed different in the shadows. I crept the halls of Cordelia High, fascinated by the alien vibe the building had in the dark. It felt strange being inside the school at night, but the sense of unease was also thrilling.

  It was well past midnight, and we were waiting on Lewis to show. I’d gotten all the speakers into the van by myself, but now I was sore and exhausted. I’d need his help to unload them and get them where they needed to go.

  We’d been waiting for over an hour.

  When I first pulled the van to the loading bay, part of me wasn’t sure Dad’s keys would work. But both locks on the aluminum door clicked open, and I coasted the van into the cafeteria stockroom. It was that easy to get inside the school.

  Milo and I handled the small jobs that needed doing. I unlocked every door on our route to the auditorium—out the kitchen, through the cafeteria, into the hallway, and into the auditorium—and to the balcony—through the kitchen, up the service elevator, down the second-floor hall, through the concourse, onto the balcony—while Milo went to get three baseball bats from the gym storage room.

  As I headed back to the stockroom to meet him, I stopped at one of the many trophy cases that lined the halls. Here was a photo of my brother and my dad, standing together. Bruce was in his wrestling singlet, holding a trophy. Dad stood beside him, smiling proudly. It was taken just after he won county finals.

  “I wish I woulda done this sooner,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, man.”

  But his eyes had no trace of regret or resignation.

  His eyes said he made his own fate.

  I touched the glass, then went back to the stockroom to wait for Lewis. Milo was already there. I found him digging through a storage fridge. When he came up for air, he was holding two cartons of chocolate milk.

  “Hey,” he said, tossing me one, “what do ya think Hana’s doin’ right now?”

  “Beats me,” I shrugged.

  The tab of the milk carton was stuck, and I had to rip it open with my teeth.

  “When you were workin’ on your movie,” I asked, “did she ever sa
y anything about wanting to go to Vietnam herself? Like, to report on the war?”

  “Not to me.”

  I nodded. I drank down the entire carton.

  “What gives?” he asked.

  I figured I might as well tell him. “When you guys were in the hospital, I talked to Hana’s dad. He told me she’s up for an internship at the Chicago Tribune. She’d be working with the foreign correspondents. When we’re at war, ‘foreign correspondent’ means war correspondent. Those reporters go to ʼNam, man.”

  “Holy shit,” Milo muttered.

  “Do you really think she’d do that? You think she’d go to Vietnam after everything that’s happened? Just for her writing career?”

  “I doubt it. She’s wild, but she’s not crazy . . . well, actually—”

  “She can’t!” I stammered. “I—we—can’t let her go there, man.”

  “I agree,” he nodded, “but how do we talk her outta somethin’ if she won’t speak to us? We’ve gotta give her space. And when she does wanna talk, let her be the one to bring this stuff up. She’s been through hell, and she doesn’t need us on her case about anything, even Vietnam. You dig what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah,” I groaned, “I dig.”

  Suddenly, Milo froze. “Do you hear something?” he whispered.

  I concentrated. The hum of the industrial freezer made it almost impossible to hear the pounding on the hallway door that led outside.

  “That must be Lewis, right?” I mumbled.

  “Has to be,” he nodded.

  The knock came again, louder.

  “Totally definitely must be,” Milo said. “Let’s go check.”

  We each picked up a Louisville Slugger before we moved into the hall. A figure loomed beyond the thin pane of glass on the door. I gripped the bat tighter. We crept forward.

  Lewis smiled at us through the glass.

  Milo and I both sighed. I unlocked the door and let him in.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  “It’s cool,” Milo said. “Not like we’re doin’ a bunch of illegal shit. No rush.”

  Ramrod chuckled. I locked the door and we headed back to the cafeteria.

  “You think this is really illegal?” I asked.