I feel like a jerk, because I know that more than anything, my grandma wants to help me.
Luis calls again.
I still don’t talk to him.
I think about my life too much.
And I wonder if I’ll ever do anything worth anything.
THE NEXT DAY
BILL TRIES.
He opens the door a crack.
I tell him I’m gonna get up in a little while. I tell him no, I don’t need to go to the doctor.
He says he and Ginny love me.
Him saying that makes me feel so small.
I can’t say anything back and that makes me feel even smaller.
“You rest, Sam. You do what you need to do. But let us know if there’s any way we can help.”
“Okay.”
He closes the door.
I pull the covers up. Close my eyes. Try to think if there’s any way they can help. I can’t come up with anything because I don’t even know why I’m lying here.
The door opens again.
“I’m coming in, Sam.”
Bill walks into the dark. He sits on my bed and reaches around till he’s holding my hand. He puts a metal ball in and closes my fingers around it.
“Sam,” he says, “I had this friend Alvin Johnson. An old-time Boeing test pilot. Everyone called him Tex. Tex was one of the first to fly the 707 prototype. Summer of 1955, it’s his job to pilot the flyover for industry hotshots and all the folks at the hydro races at Seafair. Thousands of people. So he’s got the big new jet over Lake Washington and he thinks, Let’s barrel roll this baby. A full three hundred and sixty degrees. It’s an insane idea, Sam. The 707 is too big for tricks. It was built to carry passengers. To make sure they get places safe and keep ’em real comfortable while they eat a baked potato and steak and drink a glass of wine. It’s the farthest thing from a stunt jet. The thing about Tex Johnson: he’s crazy. He doesn’t care what that jet was built for. He wants to have some fun. So he goes for it. He risks his life and his job. But, Sam, he nails that three sixty. He rolls that plane in the sky above Lake Washington like it was no big deal. Like that 707 was born to roll. Then, for good measure, you know what he does, Sam? That lunatic rolls it again.”
Bill stands and walks to the door.
“Word gets out about Tex’s roll and people are thinking two things. They’re thinking Tex Johnson is the craziest sonofabitch that ever climbed into a cockpit. And they’re thinking about that jet. They’re thinking if that big old 707 can do a three-sixty barrel roll, it’ll probably do just fine flying upright to San Francisco.”
He waits for me to say something. I don’t know what to say about his story.
I feel the metal ball in my hand. “What is this?”
“A control knob off that 707. Tex gave it to me when your great-grandpa Charlie passed. I was real upset about losing my dad, and Tex wasn’t much for talking to people about that kind of thing. Never knew what to say to me. So he gave me that knob.”
He opens the door.
“I’ll get out of your hair, Sam. But please let us know if you need something.”
“Okay.”
He closes the door and immediately Ginny’s talking. I get up and open the door a crack.
“What do we do?” Ginny asks.
“I don’t know.” Bill sounds different than he did telling me the story. “I don’t have any idea what to do, Gin.”
“He deserves better.”
“That’s for damned sure.”
“Why did Anne do this to him?”
“I don’t know, Gin.”
“What kind of a person would—”
“The girl we raised,” Bill says. He sounds like he’s holding back a sob. “Our daughter.”
“We didn’t raise her to walk out on her boy.”
“We got to make it right.”
“How, Bill? What do we do?”
“I don’t know, Gin. I don’t know.”
I hear footsteps walking away.
“Bill?” she says.
“I don’t know, Gin.”
“Bill, we’ve got to—”
The front door slams. He starts up the car and drives away.
I close the door.
Crawl back into bed.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
PHONE CALL
I WAKE UP TO PEE. Stumble out of my room. Look in the bathroom mirror.
There’s a photo stuck to my face, glued there by my spit. I must have rolled onto it in bed. I peel it off my cheek. It’s that photo of Rupe and Dave shoving cake in my face.
I think about all the stuff I had going for me back then.
And I think about the fact that right now, I got nothing.
I gotta do something. Talk to someone.
So I’m gonna call Dave and invite him to my sixteenth birthday party.
Ginny and Bill said I could do anything and invite anyone. I figure we could go out to Aberdeen and pick up Dave and go to the Lighthouse Drive-In for fish and chips. Then some bowling or something. That’s what we used to do on Friday nights.
I go to my room and pick up my phone. I still got his number in my fingers.
“Hi. Does Dave still live here?”
“Hey,” he says. Even though his voice is lower than last time I saw him in Aberdeen a couple years ago, I know it’s Dave. I know how Dave says hey.
It’s my turn to say something. But nothing comes out.
“Who is this?”
Nothing comes out again.
I’m really getting tired of nothing coming out.
“Hanging up in three, two, one—”
“Dave?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s Sam.”
“Sam? The Sam?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Sam-bam frying pam! What the hell you up to?”
“Not much.”
“I’m glad I picked up quick. I don’t think my pop heard, ’cuz if he did he’d be kicking my ass for taking a call at one thirty in the morning.”
Fuck, I had no idea what time it was.
“M. Night Samalam, you drunk dialing me?”
“Nah. Sorry about that.”
“No sweat. It’s great to hear from you! You call anytime. Hear me on that?”
“Yeah.”
“How’s life in the big city? How are the geezers? They treatin’ you okay?”
“It’s fine. They’re fine.”
“Good, man. That’s good. You in school still?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s all good as can be expected out here in lovely Aberspleen. I wish I was out your way. A little closer to the city. Get out and hear some music. Find some trouble to get into. Figure some life shit out. It’s boring as hell, man.… Sam, it’s great to hear you! You still writing those songs? Remember our talks back then? About starting a band? About all that shit?”
“Yeah.”
“You doing it?”
“Nah. You?”
“I’m starting to, so shit’s not totally boring. I got a couple guys and we’ve learned some songs pretty good. We played at this one asshole football dude’s party. We rocked it pretty good. Then the scene turned hostile and some stuff got broke. We’ve moved on. The cool thing now is we’re headlining the grand opening of my uncle Vic’s new barbershop—guess what he’s gonna call it?”
“Floyd’s?”
“That’s right! Hey, we’re trying to learn ‘Set Me Straight.’ You remember that song?”
“From Houdini, right?”
“The Melvins! Yeah! That album still rocks. Man, thanks for calling.”
This is the spot where I wanna ask him to hang out for my birthday.
But the words don’t come.
“Sam?”
Nothing.
“You there?”
Nothing.
“Sam, you okay, buddy?”
“Yeah. It’s all good.” I know I sound lik
e I don’t give a rat’s ass about this conversation. But that’s the farthest thing from the truth.
“Well … jeez, it’s been a long time,” he says. “Hey, I better hang up. The natives are getting restless in the next room. You know, you should call Rupe up. I hear he ain’t doin’ so hot. Yeah, give that dude’s ass a call. He’d appreciate it, man. You know he lives up by you now? Up in Renton. That’s not too far, right?”
“Not too far,” I say.
He gives me the number. We say good-bye and I know I’m not gonna call Rupe.
I’ll probably never talk to Dave again.
Because I got nothing to say.
I go back to bed.
With no plans to leave my room.
BOXED SET
NEXT MORNING.
Ginny’s yelling. “All right, hobo!”
I roll over and wrap the pillow over my head.
So she ups the volume. It’s not a pretty sound.
“For the love of God, it’s past noon and this is past funny. I’m coming in there if I have to break this door down!”
We are both fully aware there’s no lock on the door.
“Make this easy on an old lady. This shoulder is not the battering ram it used to be back in the days when I used to batter rams!”
What?
“So open up or I’m calling in the Coast Guard!”
I get up and open the door. A brown paper package slaps my belly. It’s tied up with string.
“That’s for you.”
I look up at her, but no words come out.
“It was a birthday present. Now it’s an I don’t know what else to do for my miserable grandbaby present. Open it.”
I tug the string off and pull back the paper. It’s Nirvana’s With the Lights Out boxed CD set.
I can’t believe she just gave me this. How would she know?
I look up at her. “This is cool.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“Who?”
“My people. I got people who tell me things.”
“Thanks, Grandma.”
“You’re not going to slip away without kissing my cheek, young man.”
She presents one cheek.
I do my duty.
She offers the other cheek.
I repeat.
Ginny grabs both cheeks in her hands, pulls my head down toward hers and looks me straight in the eye. Then, because it’s her second favorite movie, she whips out her horrible Godfather impression and says, “Be grateful, my son.” She playfully slaps my cheek the way Don Corleone would. Then she playfully slaps it again. Harder. “Be grateful.”
“I am grateful, Godfather.”
She marches toward the kitchen, thrusting a finger high in the air. “Thai potpie!” she shouts with commanding authority. “The egg timer tells me you’re joining me for lunch in seven minutes!”
I can’t wait till after lunch. I rip the plastic off the box and check out the CDs. The truth is I have most of these songs. But this collection has crazy garage versions and tracks Kurt Cobain laid down all by himself on a crappy tape recorder. If you really wanna get Nirvana, you gotta know this stuff.
There’s also a DVD I need to watch immediately.
I go to the living room and shove the disc in the player.
Somewhere in the first few images, I see the craziest thing. I can’t believe my eyes, but it’s right there on TV.
I don’t think it’d be a big deal to anyone else.
But it’s a huge deal to me.
It’s Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and one of Nirvana’s first drummers, Aaron Burckhard, I think. They’re rehearsing in that little old house in Aberdeen. Or maybe it’s after Kurt moved to Olympia. It’s hard to tell. But they’re rocking away, cramped in the back of a tiny room. Kurt Cobain is out in front of them, up against the wall. He has his microphone set up inches from the fake wood paneling and he’s singing nose to the wall. His eyes are looking right into it.
Kurt Cobain is singing to the wall.
Is it because the room is too small?
Maybe.
But my first thought is he’s singing into that wall because he doesn’t want to be distracted by anyone. Doesn’t want anyone looking at him. He’s doing it because he wants to focus on the words. He’s doing it because he’s trying to not think about what anyone else is thinking. That’s why Kurt Cobain is singing into a wall.
I cram down my potpie. Without thinking about it, I give Ginny a hug and a quick kiss as I sprint back into my room.
“You make a lady feel like a million bucks, then you run away from her like a bat out of hell? Ain’t that the story of my life!”
UP AGAINST IT
I WALK RIGHT UP TO MY BEDROOM WALL. I cup my hands around my face and shield out everything.
I feel potpie breath bouncing back at me.
I feel like an idiot. But it worked for Kurt Cobain, so …
I start saying the poem but can’t go on because this is so stupid I can’t stop laughing.
This is my life.
This is what it’s about right now.
Trying to read a poem into a wall.
Eventually I stop laughing. I get up and say my poem to the wall. I do it again and again. If Luis wants me to do this so badly, he’ll have to get used to the fact that I’m talking to the wall. That’s just the way it is.
Period.
End of story.
MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY
I WALK UP TO THE DOOR OF LUIS’S APARTMENT.
I think about turning back. But before I can run, he opens up.
“Listen, Luis. I’m gonna do this, but I’m doing it my way. Up against a wall. If you think it’s funny, then it’s over.”
He doesn’t say anything.
I step inside, slam the door, and march into Luis’s room. I walk up to the wall and cup my hands around my forehead and eyes. I breathe a couple deep breaths.
I deliver my poem line by line. Just me, my words and the wall. I finish it off and turn to Luis. “There!”
“That worked. Where’d you get that idea?”
“Kurt Cobain,” I say, still facing the wall.
“Cool. Stay right there and let’s do the whole poem.”
But instead of starting the poem, Luis walks smack up to the wall and stands by me.
He cups his hands around his face just like I’ve got mine.
And he starts singing way down low, going dom, dom, dom, right into the wall. I can’t figure out what the hell he’s doing. Then it becomes perfectly clear: He’s singing a Krist Novoselic bass line.
I join in with the doms because, of course, I know the song.
Then without a word or nod between us, we bust out our best Kurt together.
Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be.
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy.
Take your time, hurry up, choice is yours, don’t be late.
Take a rest, as a friend, as an old memoria.
Luis has it memorized.
So we sing the whole damn thing.
We blast that song at the top of our lungs!
Then we say our poem.
Complete with solos.
Right into the wall.
STEP BACK
THE END OF FEBRUARY TURNS INTO THE BEGINNING OF MARCH. We’re back to our schedule with a week to go till the slam. Luis acts like the whole running-off thing never happened. He’s only thinking about the here and now.
“I got an idea,” he says. “Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m totally digging the wall strategy. But there’s not gonna be a wall in front of your face in Cassidy’s class.”
“I know that.”
“So maybe you could try stepping back a few inches each time we do the poem. Step back and pretend you’re taking the wall with you.”
We go through it a few times. Pretty soon I’m a couple feet away from the wall and I start to get nervous. I put my hand in my pocket. Tex Johnson’s knob is in the
re. I put it in my fist and hold it while I’m saying the poem.
“What’s in your hand?”
“A knob.”
I tell him Bill’s story.
“That’s fucking cool.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re holding a piece of history.”
“Yeah.”
As we practice the next few nights, I hold the knob tighter with each step I take from the wall.
When I head off for home after practices, Luis is like, “Read and reread that third stanza” or “Practice those lines so you can say ’em like you mean ’em.”
It seems so important to Luis. So when I get home, I charge through the front door, ignore Gilbert’s “greeting,” head into my room and work my butt off … farther and farther away from the wall.
When I need a break or I can’t sleep, I go to work on Gilbert.
I put my face right up to his and try my hardest to sound pleasant. Hello, Sam. Hello, Sam. Hello, Sam.
Then I go back to my room and Gilbert screeches, “GOOD-BYE, SAM!”
I don’t care.
It feels good to try.
ON A TEAM
IT’S MONDAY, MARCH 4TH. I open Puget’s front door. I get nervous thinking that in a few days when I open this door, it’ll mean I’m headed to Cassidy’s to perform with Luis.
I start working my way through all those rich Briar Park kids and I see this popular kid—Derek Hendrickson—putting on a show, walking like he’s got a stick up his ass. He grabs his friend’s glasses and puts them on his face. He raises his hand in the air. Waves it like he’s drowning. “Ooh-oo-oo!” he shouts. “I know the answer! I know the answer!” It’s obvious who he’s making fun of. The kids all crack up. Derek stops walking and takes a big bow. The whole group gives him a round of applause.
I catch a glimpse of someone running away from the crowd. It’s Julisa Mendez. She looks back as she runs down the hall. Tears are rolling down her face.
I feel myself burning up. I got my fists in a ball. My head’s on fire. I swear to God, I’m gonna take Derek apart. I wanna destroy him. I wanna put on a show for all his friends so they can see what a weak-ass prick their buddy is.
But before I can get to Derek, I hesitate. The bell rings and he’s swallowed by the crowd.
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