Gimme Everything You Got

by Iva-Marie Palmer

  Before I landed on the right question, Joe chucked me lightly on the shoulder. “Nice! I promise you’ll learn something useful today.”

  He gestured for me to follow him through the house, which I did, surveying the trigonometry textbook open on the kitchen table and the notebook next to it filled with Joe’s scrawl. His work looked neat and orderly, but a page he’d ripped out was covered in doodles of his band’s name.

  We went out a screen door to his backyard, where the grass was more trampled than in front. I saw why right away, as Joe bounded in front of a practice goal set up in front of the fence that separated his yard from the alley behind it.

  “So, what’s this lesson plan you have?” I asked. I hadn’t expected him to start practice at his house with the same efficiency as at the park. But what did I want, a tea party first?

  “You’re gonna learn headers,” he said. Then he looked up at the second-story window where Rachel was sitting, flipping through a magazine. “Ramones!”

  “Again?” Rachel said.

  “Where’s your mom?” I asked. I kicked the ball to him.

  “Both my folks work, so work,” Joe said, kicking the ball back to me. Besides Tina, whose mom owned a salon, I didn’t have many friends with two working parents, especially if they were still married. “They both do sourcing at the Merchandise Mart downtown. They commute together and everything.”

  I heard faint music from upstairs, bouncy and energetic. “Volume,” Joe hollered, and Rachel turned it up. I liked whatever it was.

  “So you’re . . . babysitting?”

  “Nah, Rachel can take care of herself. I just thought if you really want to learn the good stuff, you need music, and she knows how to flip a record.”

  “I’m doing it for Laverne and Shirley,” she called.

  Joe toed the soccer ball and flicked it to me, and I stopped it with my foot, then kicked it back toward the goal. He stretched an arm out to stop it and smirked. “Nice try.”

  I laughed. “What did you say I’m learning? Headers? What’s that?”

  Joe widened his mouth in an exaggerated shocked face. “What? Coach Hot Pants hasn’t even mentioned headers?”

  “Coach McMann,” I corrected him, toeing the grass. “Maybe he doesn’t think they’re that important.”

  “Maybe not. They might even be idiotic, but they’re fun.” He tossed the ball high in the air and then, as it came down, jumped in the air and hit it using his forehead. He sent it straight at me.

  I jumped out of the way.

  Joe chuckled. “A natural reaction.” He jogged over to the ball and picked it up, holding it under one arm. He explained that if I wanted to do a header, I needed to use the exact right part of my head. Then he came over and, like before, said “May I?” and gestured toward my forehead.

  I nodded.

  “I never touch anyone’s hair without permission. I know how it feels,” Joe explained, massaging his spikes with his free hand as he looked right into my eyes. Then he gently traced an oval that encompassed the middle of my forehead to not quite the very top of my head. I drew in a breath. My scalp tingled under his fingertips, and I remembered how much I used to love when the school nurses came around to do lice tests, flipping up sections of hair with a pencil, the featherlight touch so relaxing and thrilling at the same time. I never told anyone about that.

  “This is header territory,” he continued. “Face the direction you want, keep your shoulders straight, and bash the ball with this part of your skull.”

  He stepped away, but I could still feel where he’d drawn the oval. “Okay, how do we practice them, though?”

  I barely had the words out when Joe hurled the ball toward my head. I jumped out of the way again.

  “Good reflexes, bad header,” he said.

  “I don’t get why anyone wouldn’t dodge,” I said.

  “Because some of the best stuff in sports is doing something kind of stupid and pointless and feeling really cool that you know how,” Joe said. “I mean, baseball’s great, but who thought, ‘Someone should throw this ball at one chick really fast and that chick can whack it with a stick as hard as she can’?”

  He’d chosen women for his example, even if he called them “chicks.” I buried a little smile as I thought about what a good teacher he was. He was different than Bobby, who gave motivating speeches to make us see the best in ourselves. But Joe’s way of teaching—with all its rough edges—was no less inspirational. It would be both ridiculous and cool to learn a header.

  But every time Joe tossed the ball toward my face, I lost my nerve and ducked or jumped or evaded it somehow. “The music’s not helping.”

  “You need to let it infect you,” he said as the record ended. We stood there, looking at the window, waiting for Rachel to turn it over.

  “New album, Ramones, Road to Ruin, B side,” Joe shouted at the window. No response. “Rachelllllll!”

  “I was reading!” Rachel leaned out the window, holding the page in her book with a finger.

  “I’ll take you to McDonald’s if you shut up.”

  “Oh, is McDonald’s punk rock now?” I asked.

  “I like her,” Rachel shouted. I warmed as a blush crossed over my face. Did Rachel think I was Joe’s girlfriend? Hadn’t she met Lizzy? Or the girl before Lizzy?

  Rachel put on the new record, and soon the words “I wanna be sedated . . .” leaked through the window. I’d heard the song before.

  As Joe lobbed another ball toward my head, I bit my lip and went for it, but only managed to swipe the ball with a piece of my hair. “Is this song meant to be about me after I have a concussion?”

  “You’re close, I can feel it,” he said.

  “Why do I even need to know this?” I said. “Am I ever going to use it?”

  “It’s not calculus. It’s knocking a ball as hard as you can with your head. Much more useful.”

  Rachel leaned out the window. “You’re only saying that because you can’t do calculus.” She grinned at me. “He did too many headers.”

  I liked his sister. I liked his music. I liked all of it. How easy it was, to just exist there. It felt homey, like Candace’s.

  But I didn’t think I was going to get a header to work for me.

  After a while Joe suggested a break and took three bottles of pop from the fridge, which we drank on his back steps with Rachel. The record had stopped, and we sipped in comfortable silence.

  “Can I pick some music?” I asked him. “When we start again?”

  “It depends on what it is. Is it a punk song?”

  “Whatever. You were listening to ‘All My Love’ in your room two nights ago.” Rachel said, and turned to me. “He learned about punk music last year from our cousin in New York and now he thinks he’s better than everyone.”

  Joe blushed and nudged her with his elbow. “That’s not true. I knew some stuff before Artie told me about it,” he said. “I had to escape ‘Hotel California’ somehow.”

  “This again?” Rachel peered around him at me. “Do you want to hear my brother’s thoughts on ‘Hotel California’? Because he’s going to share them whether you want him to or not.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Does anyone think that much about ‘Hotel California’ anymore?”

  “Joe does,” Rachel said.

  “Look,” Joe said. “That song was supposed to be about how gross the music industry is and, like, okay, that message is kind of punk. But then they paid off like every radio station in the world to play it a million times a day.”

  “Change the station,” I said.

  “Ha!” Rachel snorted.

  “I get the feeling whatever song I ask for you’re just going to shoot down,” I said.

  “No, I’ll replace it with a better song. You need enlightenment,” Joe said. “Punk enlightenment.”

  “You’re acting like some lame authority figure on music who claims to hate authority figures?” I teased.

  Joe’s lips smiled around the t
op of his soda bottle. “You’ve been listening,” he said out the side of his mouth. “I’m getting you riled up. Perfect for headers.” He put down the bottle and turned so we were facing each other. “Fine,” he said. “Sell me on a song. What’s going to be the soundtrack for your first header?”

  I thought for a second. “‘Gimme Shelter,’” I said, naming a Rolling Stones song I liked.

  “Okay, but if I’m going to tell Rachel to put it on, you have to convince me. I’m missing WKRP for this.”

  He had an eager look in his eye, and I’m not going to lie, it excited me. Was this what people meant when they said someone was a good listener? “That opening part. It makes me, like, imagine I’m high up someplace, looking down on my life, and suddenly I’m some kind of god who can command everything and wipe all the dumb shit away.” I’d never thought that hard about the song before, but as I explained myself, it felt accurate and true. More important, I realized I didn’t care if Joe thought I sounded stupid.

  He studied me then, and I wondered if I was wrong and I should have worried about sounding stupid.

  What he said, though, was, “What dumb shit are you trying to wipe away?”

  I couldn’t say Coach McMann, and how I’d joined the team for him and how I still had dirty daydreams about him and wanted him to like me best. I didn’t want to talk about Candace having a boyfriend, and how it had only added to her acting like she was a relationship expert and I was a dunce. I could have said something about the divorce and my dad’s wedding, and Polly and my mom being friends, but while I think I might have actually trusted Joe to understand, I couldn’t explain what I felt about it all because I didn’t know. I couldn’t even say that the song’s effect on me was a lot like when I orgasmed, temporarily lifting the discomfort of being in my body, being a girl, being seventeen. I definitely couldn’t say that.

  “I dunno,” I said, my grin a camouflage for my confusion. “Like, maybe what’s the point of learning headers?”

  Joe raised his eyebrows. “Well, okay then. Rachel! Cue up ‘Gimme Shelter.’ It’s on Let It Bleed.”

  Rachel grabbed the soda bottles and went back inside with a smirk on her face, and Joe grabbed the ball and headed for the goal. I followed him, wondering if I should have told him what I’d meant by “dumb shit,” and wondering why he hadn’t pressed for details, either.

  The opening strains of my song drifted out from the window.

  I listened, satisfied as the music did drain away the stupid shit. Most of it. The tempo quickened, and out of nowhere, Joe tossed the ball at me. Without thinking, I jerked my head forward, giving the ball a meaty thwack and sending it right over his shoulder.

  And somehow, improbably, into the goal.

  Joe peeked down at the ball behind him, and then back at me as a wide grin took over his face. “Well, fuck, look at you, Pelé.”

  I touched my forehead, which vibrated with a pleasant sting. When I smiled, it felt like something I hadn’t done in forever.

  “Now do you get the point of headers? Ridiculous, and satisfying.” He chucked me on the shoulder. “By the way, I love this song. And I get what you meant.”

  “Thanks,” I said, believing that he did.

  “That was my lesson plan. You passed. Are you hungry?”

  I realized I was starving. “I could eat.”

  Sixteen

  We decided on Jr’s, because a hot dog special and a milkshake were calling my name. After I ordered, Joe said to the cashier, “I’ve got hers, too.” He passed over a ten.

  “I’ve got money,” I said.

  “You need money for your Wisconsin trip,” he said. “Plus, you nailed a header. This is my way of telling you good job.”

  I’d never had a boy pay for anything for me. “Um, thank you?” I said.

  “No biggie.” He waved me off. He was definitely not trying to make a big deal out of taking me for a hot dog. This was how friends paid for hot dogs, and I was making it weird because Joe was a guy.

  “How do you even make money?” I asked as we waited for our number to be called.

  “Nosy, aren’t you?” Joe said, but grinned. “Sometimes the band gets paid to play a party, but mostly I make cash helping out my dad on weekends—he paints houses sometimes—or at St. Mark’s.”

  “You’re not an altar boy, are you?” I said, not remotely able to picture it.

  “Ha, no way,” he said. “But there are a couple of nice nuns who pay me to do some odd jobs around the place.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Nuns have money?”

  “They don’t have priest money,” Joe said. “But a lot of them are good at poker.”

  “Hmm, you’re full of surprises,” I said. It was strange how much he was not what I’d first pegged him as, but also exactly how I expected him to be.

  Joe shrugged as he went to the counter to get our order in its greasy paper sack. My stomach growled when I saw the bulging bag. “Eh, nuns have good stories,” he said. “I like people with good stories.” He handed me my milkshake and I took a long sip.

  “Well, next time it’s my treat,” I said. “But thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome again, and deal.” He nodded at me. “So how do you make your money?”

  I told him about Kevin, and Randy the Terrible. “If you know any kids who wouldn’t make me certain I never, ever want to have any, please let me know.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” Joe said.

  Jr’s was mostly carry-out, and the few tables it had were tiny and also occupied. “Do you want to eat alfresco?” Joe asked.

  “Who’s Al Fresco?”

  “It means eat outside,” he said. He was already pushing through the glass door to the street.

  “Did you learn that from the nuns?” I asked as I followed him.

  “Actually, I did.” He opened the passenger-side door for me and jogged to his side. “Plus, like, forty ways to cheat at cards.”

  We got in and he gave me the bag to hold. The aroma of the food was killing me.

  “I have this weird thing where I love to hold a hot pizza box on my lap,” I said. “And especially when it’s cold out. It’s better than a blanket.”

  “Well, yeah, it’s pizza,” Joe said. “Pizza is better than most things. But you’re right, it’s comforting and exciting to have something that warms you up but you can’t wait to shove in your face.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  It was a warm night, and Joe drove us to Oak Meadows, our soccer park. He pulled a blanket from his trunk and brought it to the middle of the field.

  “You have a blanket in your car?” I asked. I imagined Joe taking girls for spur-of-the-moment picnics, or maybe he used it for back-seat makeout sessions on cold nights.

  “I put it over my amp,” he said.

  “Ah. I never asked what instrument you play.”

  “‘Play’ is a strong word, but I sometimes hold a guitar and use it to make noise while I scream into a microphone.”

  “You’re probably better than you think,” I said.

  “No,” Joe said. “But what the Watergate Tapes lack in quality, we make up for in enthusiasm.”

  He laid out the food and we sat across from one another. Once the foil and waxed paper wrapper were off my first hot dog, I demolished it in seconds. Thankfully, we’d both ordered the special, which came with two. I ate the second hot dog slower, savoring every bite.

  When we finished, Joe flopped onto the blanket. “Whoa, why are hot dogs so good?”

  I settled down on my half of the blanket. “I don’t know if all hot dogs are that good,” I said. “Jr’s is definitely better than when my mom used to cut up an Oscar Mayer and serve it to me in baked beans.”

  Joe sat up and looked down at me, his face stricken. “You don’t like that? I loved it as a kid.”

  “I’d rather just have the hot dog, not, like, chunks floating in bean juices.”

  “When you put it that way, it does sound unappetizing,” he s
aid. “But I’d still eat it.”

  He lay back down and we stared at the sky a bit.

  “Do you like Powell Park High?” Joe asked.

  It was hard to shrug lying down. “‘Like’ is pushing it,” I said. “I don’t want to burn it down or anything. Do you like St. Mark’s?”

  Joe laughed. “The weird thing is, I think I do? Or I guess I like knowing it will be over someday, so I try to pay attention to it now, while it’s going on.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. “Like, I sometimes think about how I just want to be an adult already, but I don’t know if the adults I know are having fun, so maybe I should make the most of high school?”

  “Yeah, and making the most of it might be barely enduring all the assholes but being amused and appreciating that they’re assholes we go to school with, and not assholes we have to work with yet?”

  “You’re a senior, right? Do you know what you’re going to do when you graduate?”

  “I’ve kind of been thinking about colleges,” Joe said. He turned his head toward me, so I tilted mine toward his. His dark eyes caught some of the light from the lamps over the field. “I never used to, but it’s going to be 1980, you know? It feels like the future or something, and it seems like if I can keep learning stuff, it’s maybe better than getting some job that might just disappear in a year.”

  He seemed shy then, like he was waiting for me to tell him he wasn’t nuts. “I’m not sure things will be any different in a year,” I said.

  “Maybe not,” he said, and he was looking at my face carefully. I stared back at him. It was odd, how exciting it felt to give yourself a minute to really look at someone’s face and notice all the pieces of it separately and in ways you can’t when you look at the whole thing at once. Joe had a little scar on one eyebrow, a slice of white through the dark hairs. He had a small freckle just beneath his nose, and his lips curved up on one side like they were ready to grin.

  “Do you think you’ll go to college?” he said softly, still looking at me.

  “I never thought about it either,” I said. “I guess I can’t see myself there. Wherever ‘there’ is.”

  “I can,” he said. “I can totally picture you standing up and giving some cool speech about ‘Gimme Shelter’ or something.”