Adios, Nirvana

by Conrad Wesselhoeft

  “Just do what she says,” Kyle says. “Don’t mess with her mind. Do not quote Walt Whitman or do your Yoda thing. Else you’re gonna split us up. You want that?”

  I shake my head. Hold up my fist. “Thicks forever,” I say.

  “Damn right.”

  We bump all around.

  “Well, well, well,” Mr. Maestretti says as I slip into physics. “The prodigal son has returned.”

  I slide into my seat in the back. Peguero leans over: “Dude, you really fall off a bridge?”

  “Flew off,” I say.

  Mr. Maestretti raises his voice. “We’ve been talking about Avogadro’s number, Jonathan. Care to remind us who Mr. Avogadro was and the significance of his number?”

  Fortunately, I skimmed the chapter a few days back. I’m vaguely familiar with Avogadro and his faggy number. I raise my voice. Jam it with fake confidence.

  “Italian physicist,” I say. “Came up with a way of stating the number of molecules in a substance.”

  Mr. Maestretti toggles his hand. “Actually, a mole of a substance. But close enough.”

  Whew! I’ve bought myself some downtime.

  Peguero pats my back. Lotus LeClerc, sitting two rows in front, turns and winks at me.

  In minutes, the sirens of sleep start dancing. They reach up and grab my eyelids. Those little pixies are heavy. I need all of my powers to keep my eyes open. I stretch, wiggle my toes, doodle, even take notes. Somehow, I get through physics.

  Between classes, I duck into the bathroom and soak my head under a faucet, paper-towel it dry. In Spanish III, the sirens tantalize me with glimpses of cleavage and thigh. The boldest puckers her lips. “Tu tienes dos bonitos ojos, Jonathan.”

  Miss Sosa stares at me and twice raps her knuckles on my desk. “What are you grinning about, Jonathan? Wake up!”

  Between second and third periods, I run into Kyle in the hall. “Man, you look like hell.” He drags me over to his locker, opens it, reaches into the toe of an old Dunk High, pulls out an Atomic Fireball.

  “Here, suck on some lava,” he says.

  I pop the little red sphere of candy. Twelve seconds later, my mouth ignites.

  “Hiroshima ain’t got nothin’ on an Atomic Fireball,” Kyle says. “It’ll get you through that French Revolution shit.”

  And it does, barely.

  Now it’s fourth period. Mrs. Scranton takes me back to Gupti’s office. “She’ll be here in a minute, Jonathan. Are you okay?”

  “Phenomenal.”

  She looks doubtful. “I heard about your fall.”

  “Twenty feet,” I say.

  “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “No need. It was only twenty feet.”

  Mrs. Scranton smiles maternally. Shuts the door. Now I’m alone in Gupti’s office.

  I drop onto the couch, which is low and seems to stretch forever. The Atomic Fireball has worn off. I yawn, rub my eyes. Get up, scan the office for candy, caffeine—anything to keep me going. But there’s nothing. Only a little drum from Kashmir.

  I pull back a curtain and peer through a window into the neighboring office.

  Clarence P. Tillmann Jr. is sitting at his desk. The shriveled jazz god. Taft band leader. On the wall behind him is a giant blowup of a magazine cover from long ago. It shows Mr. Tillmann as a young man, leaning back to back against another jazz god, Dizzy Gillespie. They are wailing on their trumpets. The headline reads “Young Men With Horns.”

  Mr. Tillmann glances up, sees me. I fling the curtain closed.

  Flop down onto Gupti’s couch again.

  Here come the dancing sirens. This time they’re wearing Victoria’s Secret lingerie. They do a little pole dance on the inside of my eyelids. Next they lasso me, hogtie me. Giggle all over me. I fight back, but you can’t beat those pixies when you’re down.

  I sink into Gupti’s couch. My face feels born for the cushion.

  Chapter 10

  “Jonathan!”

  Gupti is shaking my shoulder.

  I moan. “Give me a minute.”

  “Can you open your eyes?”

  “The sirens have glued them shut.”

  “Sirens?”

  I roll off the couch and crank some blind pushups. Hup hup hup! After about ten, my heart is pumping. Now I can open my eyes. I do a few more pushups to pump the blood into my brain. This is an important meeting, and I don’t want to miss anything.

  I stand, dust off my knees, and smile at Gupti. She and Mrs. Scranton look worried.

  “Jonathan, are you up to this?” Gupti asks in clipped syllables.

  “Hey,” I say. “It’s fourth period. I’m here. Wide awake.”

  Gupti nods for Mrs. Scranton to leave.

  I deliberately don’t sit on the couch but on a hard chair. Gupti pulls up a matching chair, facing me.

  She takes a deep breath, lets it out. “You saw my letter?”

  “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “And you’re prepared to discuss your strategy for success?”

  I shrug.

  “Jonathan, this is serious. We’re talking about your future. The rest of your life.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “My favorite subject.”

  “Jonathan, you are one of our brightest stars here at Taft, but you will not be promoted to the twelfth grade if you do not take a radically different approach to school.”

  “Radically?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Gupti is wearing a beige pajama outfit, a blue REI down vest, and a ten-foot-long white scarf. She’s also wearing fat snow boots. She’s six two in sandals, but in snow boots she’s six four. She reaches for some papers on her desk.

  “Here is an inventory of your missing assignments. Note that it does not stop on page one. And note that it does not stop on page two—”

  “Let me guess,” I say. “It stops on page three.”

  She flashes the three pages at me, reads a sampling of my most glaring missing assignments, pauses to let it all sink in.

  “Can you do this—make it up?”

  I shake my head.

  “Jonathan, I am not a hardhearted person. I am a compassionate person. I have sympathy for you, perhaps even empathy. Do you know the difference between sympathy and empathy?”

  “It’s subtle,” I say.

  “All right,” she says. “I’m going to make you a deal. Listen carefully.” She exhales. “Jonathan, you must promise to attend every class and do every assignment between now and the end of the year—”

  “Deal!”

  Her face darkens. “Let me finish.”

  She closes her eyes. Finds her vital calming center. Her chi. Opens her eyes.

  Here it comes.

  “And you must pledge to complete the project Dr. Bramwell has proposed.”

  I groan. “You mean write that damn book?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’m I gonna do that?”

  She smiles. It’s a smile that contains all the suffering of India. “How? Through hard work and application, that’s how. The school year ends in four and a half months. If you wish to be promoted, wish to graduate on time with your classmates, and not with your classmates’ younger siblings, you will get to work. You will apply yourself. You will function on all cylinders. It’s called self-actualization, Jonathan. You will actually become the you you are meant to be.”

  A vent opens. A cloud of gloom pours into my mind.

  “But how am I gonna write a book in four and a half months?”

  “Jonathan, just write something meaningful. And truthful. And rare. And wonderful. Like you do in your poems. What’s the title of your poem about Abraham Lincoln—the one you read at the open house last year?”

  “‘Baboonery.’”

  “Yes. ‘Baboonery.’ Can you recite it for me?”

  “Unh-uh,” I say. “I never memorize my poems.”

  Which is true. Memorization is a form of imprisonment. I write the poems, then free them. Poof!

 
Gupti goes over to her filing cabinet, riffles through some papers, finds the poem. She puts on her glasses. Straightens into her poetry-reading posture. Lifts her voice:

  “Baboonery

  The general wrote his wife,

  ‘Darling, our president is the original gorilla.

  A baboon. He knows nothing.

  He shames the nation.

  Blood flows in rivers

  at Shiloh

  and Antietam

  while this baboon

  peels bananas and cackles.’

  Today, I stood at the bus stop

  waiting for the 22.

  Mist rolled down Delridge Avenue.

  A current of history.

  A river of blood

  I shed each day

  on my jagged journey

  to death.

  Before I would follow a general

  into battle, I would follow

  a baboon up a tree

  to sit in the high canopy,

  cackle, and peel bananas. ”

  Gupti takes off her glasses. Squinches her mind.

  “To me, Jonathan, this says something about how we view history. Both the short view and the long. History teaches us that General McClellan was full of brass and bluster, while Lincoln was rough-hewn but wise. As you approach this new project, pour yourself into it, just as you poured yourself into this poem.”

  I stare at her. Speechless.

  “Jonathan, if anybody can do this, you can. Do we have a deal?”

  I shake my head.

  Gupti glares. The monsoons of India darken her eyes.

  Nick echoes in my mind—“Just say yes to everything.” My head goes from shake to parabola. Then from parabola to nod. I know I’m gonna regret this. But I don’t want to lose a whole year, either.

  Thickness rules.

  “Yeah, sure. Deal. I’ll do it.”

  The storm blows away. The sun bursts over Calcutta. Hare Krishna!

  “One last thing,” Gupti says.

  Uh-oh.

  “I’ll look with special favor upon your situation, Jonathan, if . . .”

  She leans close. Her perfume is a drop of Ganges River, a whiff of buttered popcorn. I stare at the red tilak mark on her forehead.

  Gupti smiles a secret smile. “I’m a huge Pinky Toe fan.”

  “A what?”

  “Pinky Toe—the band. You know, named after . . .” She points to the toe of her snowbooted foot.

  I’m blanking.

  “Graduation is Friday, June first,” Gupti says. “I’d like you to do a Pinky Toe number for us.”

  “Do a . . . number? You mean—?”

  “I mean sing and play your guitar.”

  “In front of the whole school?”

  “The whole school community, Jonathan.”

  “Whoa!” I say. “Hold up! I don’t do that. I’m no rock star.”

  “Oh, nonsense.”

  I shake my head. “You got me mixed up with my brother. He was the frontman. I’m the shadow man.”

  Gupti smiles. “Well, Jonathan, it’s time you stepped out of your brother’s shadow. Besides, I’ve heard you read your poems in front of hundreds of people. You seem very much in command.”

  “Hey, there’s a big difference. That’s poetry. That’s trance.”

  “Music is also trance, Jonathan. And I’ve heard you play the guitar and sing.”

  “No you haven’t. You’ve heard Telly play guitar and sing. People confuse us all the time. It’s okay. I forgive you.”

  Gupti says, “Do you remember the last day of school before Christmas break? A Friday. It was dark—raining hard. Somehow, after the final bell, you and Kyle got into the music room. Broke in, I should say. That’s a major violation, Jonathan. A serious breach. I could have punished you both, but I didn’t.”

  “Whoa! You heard that?”

  She raises a brow. “I understand, Jonathan. It’s all about that guitar, isn’t it?”

  “That guitar” happens to be a custom-built cherry red Rickenbacker 360-6, made with bubinga wood imported from Africa. The Vedder—Eddie the Great, that is—signed and donated it to Taft in honor of Telemachus. He also donated two of his other guitars: a Martin dreadnought; and an Alvarez Yairi acoustic, with a country-gentleman cutaway.

  But the “Ric”—oh my god! It’s easily the most valuable instrument in the entire Seattle school district. Maybe in the entire country. Nick checked online. Normally, a custom-built Ric 360-6 runs about five grand. But because The Vedder signed it—and had that little brass plate screwed on—it gained instant immortality. It’s gotta be worth ten times that much. He smacked it with fame. Slapped it with legend. You could auction it on eBay for a fortune.

  I kid you not.

  Gupti’s little guitar comment has started a train. I hop aboard. Chug back to that rainy afternoon before Christmas. I’m not missing anything because all Gupti’s talking about is ethics and integrity.

  So I pull quietly out of the station.

  Clickety-clack.

  What’s the use of a great guitar if nobody plays it? And by order of the Music Department, nobody can play the Ric 360-6. It’s too damn sacred.

  But I wanna touch base with Telemachus. It’s my first Christmas without him.

  Kyle lifts the keys that Mr. Takakawa keeps on a screw behind the fuse box. Unlocks the door to the music room. Then he unlocks the inner sanctum—the door to the instrument room. Now we are standing in a dark jungle of giant basses and hanging bassoons. Saxes and kettledrums. The stringed instruments are stacked in hard black cases.

  In the back is a tall, narrow closet. Padlock the size of a coffee mug. Kyle tries all the keys. Gets out his pocketknife. In a minute—voilà!

  The Ric has been sleeping in a glimmering silver case on the upper shelf. I lift it down, carry it out to the music room. Pop the snaps. Lift Ricky out of his plush black bed where he’s been sleeping in silk pajamas, like a prince. Smooth my fingers over the little brass plate:

  “For Telemachus: RIP and keep in touch. Eddie Vedder.”

  Not a nick or a scratch. Virginal.

  Just like me.

  Ah, Eddie, thanks. You crazy skater-rocker-superstar dude. Even though you’re world famous, you’re just Eddie. Shaggy skater in flapping flannel. Millionaire in scuffed Doc Martens.

  Telly and I first met the great Eddie Vedder at Easy Street Records in the West Seattle Junction. To stay sane between tours, he works the counter. He’s got this voice—deeeeeeeeeep. And he carries a song-writing journal, a little spiral notebook, in his shirt pocket. When he’s not busy helping customers, he fades to the end of the counter, makes himself invisible, and jots in his journal. Like a poet.

  Just watching him, I knew I needed a little spiral notebook, too. And a nubby pencil. That’s when I started carrying them everywhere, after seeing Eddie catching all these ideas and jotting them down before they got away.

  Advice to fledgling poets: Always carry a little notebook. And a pencil or pen.

  Jot habitually, compulsively—and legibly.

  Eddie called us the “Chiaroscuro Twins.” Chiaroscuro is an Italian word meaning “light and dark.” He meant hair and eye color, and maybe, subconsciously, something more.

  He lives in a castlelike house banked up against a forest of poison oak and alders, overlooking Puget Sound. Two Halloweens ago, Telly got it in mind to pay him a visit.

  Our strategy: sneak past the security guards, go over the wall, knock on the door.

  Then—and most important—say the code word:

  “Guitar.”

  Guess who opened the door? Unbuttoned flannel shirt and all.

  But The Vedder wasn’t happy to see us.

  He grumbled about security, especially because of his sleeping kids upstairs.

  “Hey, Eddie,” Telly said. “Trick or treat.”

  “Go home,” Eddie said.

  “We’re here on business,” Telly said.

  Eddie looked ready to slam
the door. But then Telly says the code word:

  “Guitar . . . business.”

  Telly starts his patter. “Hey, I’m lookin’ for a new one. So many to choose from . . . We figured, why not ask the greatest guitar player we know. And so here we are.”

  Eddie grinds his teeth. Then he waves us in “for one minute—one frickin’ minute.” We tiptoe upstairs, past the bedrooms of his sleeping kids, to his third-floor music studio. It’s all bright light, blond furniture, hanging guitars. A giant framed poster of Bob Dylan. A huge control board. A deep couch. Hard chairs. Music stands.

  It’s like walking into the private sanctum of a grunge-rock Einstein. His own personal music lab. A place of man comfort and dishevelment.

  Eddie points to a wall of guitars.

  “My first,” he says, lifting down a scratched-up Washburn acoustic.

  By now, Telly’s eyes are popping. He’s drooling. He’s seen the gleaming cherry red Rickenbacker 360-6.

  “Just arrived yesterday,” Eddie says. “Custom-built. I designed the F holes myself.”

  Telly reaches out. Smoothes his hand over the lacquered body. Runs his fingers up the neck. Lingers on the inlaid pearl markers.

  “Go ahead,” Eddie says. “You’ll be the first. I haven’t gotten around to playing it yet.”

  It’s like an invitation to dance with Cinderella, and Telly’s suddenly bashful. So he shakes his head, grabs a plainer girl, an Alvarez Yairi acoustic. Eddie swaps the Washburn for a Martin D-28 dreadnought. There’s a fishbowl full of picks on the coffee table and capos scattered about.

  They sit on stools, tune up, and start to noodle. I sit on the couch. Guitarless. Unworthy.

  In every way, Telly is a better player than me. And a better singer. If I ever had doubts, I know it now. He knows ten times as many chords, and he can pick a lot better. My style is slower, bendier. I’m a sloppy, jacked-down small-town guitar player, a moron’s version of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Maybe that’s because I don’t have Telly’s long fingers or technical flash. I hide behind simplicity.