Born to Rock

by Gordon Korman

  I had thought that getting into Harvard and competing for a McAllister scholarship was pressure. I didn’t know the meaning of the word.

  On the subway ride down to the SoHo Grand Hotel, those two got talkier, and I sank even deeper into my personal sensory deprivation tank, until I felt like a disembodied brain, floating in formaldehyde.

  Melinda noticed my anxiety. “Leo, are you okay? There’s no color in your lips.” Her voice seemed to be coming from a long distance away.

  Owen beamed triumphantly. “I knew you were going to have a great time!” Like being pale and ill was a barrel of laughs.

  When I saw the hotel ballroom, my heart sank through the soles of my shoes. There must have been eight hundred people in that room, packed bumper-to-bumper. The close-in section was roped off for the press. We squeezed into the back of the peanut gallery with a bizarre mix of neo-punks and middle-aged housewives—black leather and body piercings pressed up against L.L.Bean and minivan keys.

  I was a light-year from the dais. To get King Maggot’s attention from this distance, I’d have to spontaneously combust. How was I going to get closer?

  I shouldn’t have worried. Melinda had no intention of being this far from the bands. As the interviews started, she took our hands and began to ooze us forward through the crush of people until we were right up to the velvet rope that separated the spectators from the press.

  There were nine bands signed on for the Concussed tour—the Stem Cells, Dick Nixon, the Ball Peens, Mark Hatch and the Hatchlings, Skatology, Chemical Ali, Lethal Injection, Citizen Rot, and the immortal Purge.

  Since they were the headliner, Purge was scheduled to go on last. That meant we had to endure three hours of the other groups, a collection of unkempt, nose-picking thugs who didn’t have a word to say that was more than four letters in length. Each was determined to shock by being more rude/outrageous/nasty/obscene/stoned than the others, the net effect being that they all sort of blended together into a mass of generic cave dwellers.

  The crowd had their favorites here and there. Melinda snapped dozens of pictures of the Stem Cells, and Owen went pretty wild when the Ball Peens took their place on the dais. Dick Nixon’s drummer had just gotten out of jail, so he was the object of a lot of media interest. But it was pretty obvious that everybody was waiting for the main event. Like me, they wanted to see the return of the legend.

  We all had to sit tight. After three interminable hours, they declared an intermission, and everyone was served a free eight-ounce bottle of water, and presented with a plastic bag full of premium giveaways—a T-shirt, baseball cap, bumper sticker, pencil, and refrigerator magnet, all embossed with the Concussed logo, in which the O had been turned into a round head that was being bashed in by a sledgehammer. The tongue was hanging out, and the eyes were X’s. A spray of blood splattered the other letters.

  By the time the MC returned to his microphone, we’d all been there for close to four hours. At that point, people would have gone crazy if they’d introduced the four Teletubbies. So when Purge took the stage, there was bedlam.

  The biggest noise came from the forty-somethings we’d left in the back of the room. They were shrieking, howling, and even spitting, which Melinda explained was a sign of deep respect in the ’80s punk scene. Now I understood why they’d given out baseball caps. I put mine on, and so did everybody else.

  After the parade of strutting freaks we had just witnessed in the form of the other eight bands, the sight of Purge—the freakiest of the freaky—was a little surprising. They could have been the freaks’ fathers, or at least their cool uncles. They were a generation older, and not quite so willing to do absolutely anything just to get attention. They were still punks—at least they were trying to be for the tour. But it was obvious they were coming off a long stretch as civilians.

  Max Plank, the drummer, sported a Mohawk that faded into his receding hairline. Zach Ratzenburger, bass, now hid a big paunch beneath his bullet-perforated leather jacket. Neb Nezzer, the guitarist, incorporated a strange limp into his macho strut, and was obviously favoring a bad back.

  And then my eyes fell on the fourth member of the group—the lead singer and front man; the father of modern punk, not to mention me. I had sweated out the last four hours, and a ninety-minute train ride before that, my head lost in a whirlwind of figuring the angles of a desperate scheme to salvage the future. Yet the moment I laid eyes on King Maggot, a strange calm came over me.

  This was McMurphy. The McMurphy on my birth certificate, the McMurphy in my veins. Somehow, the fact that I was standing there, looking at the missing piece in the puzzle of who I was, eclipsed Harvard, tuition money, and all my machinations. This was my father, my blood. Although, family resemblancewise, I could see zilch.

  Melinda was in ecstasy. “Look at them! They haven’t changed a bit!”

  Obviously, the eyes of love were blind, and fame was a glow that smoothed over wrinkles and colored gray hairs.

  Of the four, King Maggot was the best preserved, mostly because he was slim and still had a full head of dark hair. But something was missing in his case as well. I startled myself by actually knowing enough about Purge to realize what it was. The white-hot rage wasn’t there. The leader of the angriest band in America looked like, he only wanted to kill two or three people instead of the usual five hundred.

  The ovation lasted ten long minutes. And it wasn’t just us. The press people applauded. The other bands came back out to cheer. You’d think Purge had cured cancer, and not recorded “The Supreme Court Makes Me Barf.”

  When order was finally restored, Max Plank stepped forward to speak for the band. “Nobody panic. We’re not taking hostages this time.”

  It got screams of appreciation, and the questions began.

  “King, what have you been doing for the past sixteen years?”

  His reply was the first words I ever heard from the mouth of my biological sire: “Ask your mother.”

  I felt like he’d just spit in my face. If it had been eighteen years, they could have asked my mother.

  “Zach, what’s the best part of being back together again?”

  “Stupid questions from people like you.”

  “Neb, how did you keep your guitar skills up during the years off?”

  “Picking zits.”

  All the answers were like that, and nobody seemed to mind or think it was unusual. This interview had nothing to do with information. It was to give the band members a chance to be obnoxious in public, almost as if the fact that they could fire off a nasty comeback proved that they really were Purge.

  “King, have you still got your motorcycle and your samurai sword?”

  “Give me your address and I’ll get back to you.”

  In fact, in the entire press conference, there was only one question that got a halfway straight answer. It was this: “Hey, King, the other guys all have families. What’s your story?”

  King Maggot raised his mirrored sunglasses, revealing dark piercing eyes that were, for the moment, devoid of anger, genuine or manufactured. “Nothing to tell,” he replied. “I just never had any kids.”

  And that statement jolted me out of my stupor and galvanized me into action.

  “No!” I said aloud. “That’s not right!”

  Melinda looked at me warningly. “Leo—”

  I ducked under the rope and pushed my way into the crowd of media.

  “Beat it, kid!” a newsman told me. “This is press only.”

  But I was not going to be stopped. This event was already running an hour late. Someone was going to shut it down any minute, and then my chance to reach King Maggot would disappear forever.

  I reached back and yanked the camera out of Melinda’s hand. I put the viewer to my eye and bulled forward, snapping pictures of the back of a lot of reporters’ heads.

  “Hey, quit pushing!”

  When at last the sea of obstructions opened up, and the viewfinder showed a clear path to the band, I hurdled
the front barrier and ran for the dais, shouting, “King! That’s not true! You do have a kid! I’m your son!”

  I got within ten feet of Purge before two large roadies sandwiched me, effectively stopping my progress. I bounced off, reeling, and pulled the letter from my back pocket. I held it out toward King, but he made no move to take it.

  A very large hand closed on my shoulder and spun me around. Frantically, I yanked myself free and Frisbee-ed the envelope in the direction of the band. I saw it bounce off the chest of a startled Max Plank before the roadies—four of them now—each grabbed a limb and carried me to the exit.

  “Read the letter!” I howled. “There’s proof!”

  They toted me down a fluorescent-lit corridor in the guts of the hotel. I became aware of a sudden cool breeze, and then I was airborne, still hugging Melinda’s camera. A moment later, I found myself in a place most Young Republicans don’t frequent—lying across a pile of green garbage bags in a deserted alley. As indignities go, it didn’t measure up to the cavity search that lay in my future, but it was a respectable, if distant, second.

  I leaped up and started banging on the metal door. But it was locked from the inside. No one answered.

  I prowled the alley, looking for another way in. The doors were all bolted shut. Most of them didn’t even have outside handles. I took stock. Garbage in the alley meant that sanitation people could get in. So I could get out.

  It wasn’t a short trip. The outlet was on the other side of the block. I had to race around two corners before I could even see the marquee of the SoHo Grand. Then I couldn’t get near the front door because of a huge milling crowd.

  “Hey!” A kid about my age was pointing at me. “There’s the guy who tried to attack King!”

  It hit me—these were the people from the ballroom. The press conference was over!

  I looked around. The nucleus of this seething mass was a silver stretch limo parked at the curb. All I saw of the band was a phalanx of roadies and the receding Mohawk of Max Plank as he ducked his head getting into the car.

  I knew this would be my last chance. “King! It’s true! Read the letter!”

  The car door slammed shut, and the limo began to inch away.

  A man twenty years older than me sneered in my face. “Hey, King—I’m the kid’s brother! You’re my father too!”

  “You’re my mother!” piped up another comedian. “You’re my step-cousin twice removed!”

  The smoked glass receded, and I caught a glimpse into the limo. King sat surrounded by his bandmates, looking in my direction. But behind those mirrored glasses, it was impossible to tell what his eyes were fixed on. If anything.

  I took one more stab at it. “Mr. McMurphy—”

  But at that moment, the stretch broke out of the crowd and disappeared down the SoHo street.

  I hope I never again experience the despair I felt standing there, watching it go.

  I hung around the dispersing throng, looking for Melinda and Owen, but they were nowhere to be found. After half an hour, I gave up and hopped on the subway to Grand Central.

  Maybe it was for the best. I wasn’t in the mood to have to talk to Melinda about what I said to King Maggot, and mostly, why I said it.

  I made the train by the skin of my teeth, and passed between cars, looking for an empty seat. Sure enough, there were my travel companions. I took the bench across from them, and handed over Melinda’s camera.

  She snatched it from me. “Go away.”

  “Let me explain—”

  “I don’t want to hear your explanation,” she snarled. “If you hate my music, you could have just said so. You didn’t have to bust up Purge’s first press conference in sixteen years.”

  I stared at her. “Is that what you think happened today?”

  “Music is important to me, Leo! Every bit as important as being an Ivy Leaguer is to you!”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said in there?” I cried angrily.

  “The whole world heard what you said,” she snapped back. “Really smart. Stuff like that may be a big hoot with you Republicans, but in the rock and roll business, paternity is not something you joke about.”

  “I wasn’t joking! That guy is my father!”

  “Oh, sure,” she said sarcastically. “Then who’s the bald man with the white Taurus who sleeps at your house?”

  “That’s my dad. But he’s not my biological dad. He met my mother when I was a baby. They told me!”

  “They’re lying,” she said, tight-lipped.

  “Why would they lie about something like this? It doesn’t exactly make my mother look good. The letter—the envelope I tried to give King. It had a copy of my birth certificate. And the name under father is Marion X. McMurphy!”

  In answer, she got up and stomped away to sit in another car. I waited for Owen, her shadow, to scamper off after her. He just sat there grinning at me.

  “Thanks for the support,” I told him.

  He shrugged. “I believe you.”

  This was the last thing I expected, and from the last person. “Yeah? How come?”

  “Because you look just like him.”

  I stared at him dumbly.

  After a moment, he said, “Mel believes you too, you know.”

  “She’s got a nice way of showing it.”

  “You know what?” he offered cheerfully. “I think she’s going to come around.”

  This from a person who thought Fleming Norwood of the Westport Norwoods had a gay side. I wasn’t holding my breath.

  Anyway, the real mess today had nothing to do with any self-styled goth-punk. It was about me, and how I’d tried to reach out to my biological father.

  And failed.

  The future of my friendship with KafkaDreams was irrelevant. I had no future, period.

  It rang a bitterly ironic bell. According to “Poets of Rage,” “No Future” had been the original title of the Sex Pistols’ classic “God Save the Queen.” Melinda called it the second most powerful punk refrain of all time, after “Bomb Mars Now.”

  I felt its power then, that was for sure.

  When I finally straggled up the driveway, physically and emotionally drained, Dad was waiting for me at the door.

  “Listen, Leo, before you come in, there’s something you should know. You made the six o’clock news.”

  “Oh, God! Did Mom watch it?”

  Behind him, I could already see the answer. From our living room carpet rose the upended stern of the sinking Titanic. It was the biggest puzzle my mother owned, a 3-D tour de force of 6,000 pieces, too large to fit on any table in the house.

  “How bad was it?” I asked. “What did they show?”

  “Not much,” he assured me. “Just a few seconds on how Purge still has what it takes to get people riled up. Then you came busting through the crowd and made a run at the band.”

  My heart sank. “Could you hear what I was saying?”

  “There was no audio. But your mom reads lips. Anyway, we didn’t figure you were at that press conference for the fine music and genteel company. So? Did you meet him?”

  I shook my head. “A bunch of roadies picked me up and threw me in the garbage. I guess they cut to the weather before that part.” I studied my sneakers. “Dad, I made a total idiot out of myself.”

  He put a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “Let me buy you a drink.” We went into the kitchen, and he poured a couple of Cokes. “I understand why you went. In your place, I probably would have done the same thing. He’s your father, after all.”

  “You’re my father,” I retorted. I hadn’t planned on making a confession, but once it began, the floodgates opened, and the words came tumbling out. “I didn’t go to New York looking for my roots. I went looking for forty thousand dollars.”

  Dad stared in shock. “Leo!”

  “He can afford it! Mom never asked him for any child support over the years. This is the least he can do!”

  He had no further comment. But I had onl
y to glance at him to put the finishing touches on this perfect day. It was plain to see by his sorrowful expression that I had disappointed the only father who mattered.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I mumbled.

  “I won’t stop you,” he told me sadly, “because there’s no way I can lay my hands on that kind of money. I talked to a mortgage broker, and he said the most we could squeeze out of the house was another twenty. We can come up with the rest, but not in time for September. Maybe not even by next September.” He took a deep breath. “It doesn’t exactly feel great for me, either. To know that I can’t provide for my son, so he has to go chasing after a total stranger—”

  “Dad!” I was horrified. “Nobody blames you! How many people could pull forty grand out of a hat?”

  He made no reply, but the answer, though unspoken, hovered in the air between us: Wall Street guys could. This Harvard thing had Dad questioning his decision to quit his high-stress job and buy the hardware store. And rock stars—they had piles of money.

  I realized that the shadow of Marion X. McMurphy hung over Dad’s life just as much as my own. Maybe even more so, considering the circumstances. To have me suddenly pursuing my biological father now, sixteen years after Purge had left the spotlight, had to hurt. I’d just poured salt in that wound.

  “Well, you’ve got nothing to worry about.” It was all the comfort I could offer. “They wouldn’t even let me talk to him.”

  But that wasn’t the point, and we both knew it.

  [9]

  THE DEFINITION OF “GET A LIFE”: Fleming Norwood phoning me six days before the end of school to officially blackball me from the Young Republicans.

  “Hasn’t a Yale man got more important things to worry about?” I asked irritably.

  Gates had already given me a heads-up that this was coming, so I wasn’t exactly shocked. He’d even volunteered to quit in sympathy with me, but what for?