Rules to Rock By

by Josh Farrar

  Ronaldo Duffy was two years older than me. Like me, he also had one Latin parent and one white one—his mom was Puerto Rican and his dad was Irish. And, also like me, he was a retro freak, except he thought it wasn’t cool enough to just like The Beatles. “Everybody likes them,” he would say. “But have you ever heard The Kinks? The Troggs? The Zombies?”

  Ronaldo had style. The dude really knew how to dress. Plus, I gave him bonus points for pulling it off in Sunset Park. PS 443 was no fancy private school. You could get beaten down for looking different, but Ronaldo didn’t care. All the other boys, even the very poorest ones in a neighborhood where sharing your bedroom with only one brother or sister made you the equivalent of Hilton-rich, had to wear the best brands. Even if it meant wearing the same two outfits over and over again. These guys would strut around, all puffed out, swiveling their chests in every girl’s direction so nobody could miss the label. And by fifth grade, some kids were even starting to sport chains. Fake gold, but still.

  Ronaldo got his style off the backs of his dad’s punk album covers, stealing all those ideas and then mixing in his own until he looked like a cross between Edward Scissorhands and the bassist from The Clash. He angled an old-school white-rimmed Cuban hat on his head, saying, “That Clash guy stole his look from Spanish dudes—I’m just stealing it back.” He wore his jeans so tight it looked like he had to steam them off, then tied a bandanna around one ankle. He laughed it off when the thug wannabes pushed him into the lockers or followed him onto the street, calling him pendejo. Ronaldo was willing to take a beating every once in a while; he was going to keep dressing the way he pleased, to keep being who he wanted to be, and none of the B-boys could stop him.

  One day at the beginning of fifth grade—just like Federal Hill, PS 443 had been a fifth-through-eighth middle school—Ronaldo approached me in the hall. I already knew who he was, of course, and I thought he was the coolest thing ever. I was so surprised, I actually looked behind me, once over each shoulder, before realizing he wanted to talk to me. Egg Mountain, who had already been gigging around town at all-ages clubs, had lost their bassist. He had heard I played, and he wanted to give me a try.

  It didn’t take more than one practice for Ronaldo to see that I knew my way around the bass. I was in the band before I even knew what hit me.

  Ronaldo was an amazing leader. He had stage presence, great taste, and a plan of action from the very beginning. He helped the rest of us pick clothes that looked cool on us and made us look like a real band when we were onstage. He had picked the name Egg Mountain a few months earlier, saying he had heard it in a dream. “I don’t care if the name sounds weird,” he said. “People will remember it.” And they did. By the time I joined, Egg Mountain had already landed gigs at kid-band afternoons in clubs in Brooklyn and Manhattan. A month later, we were opening up for Blitzen Trapper at the Mercury Lounge and headlining our own shows at Pete’s Candy Store, where we packed the house.

  By summertime, we were one of the biggest local acts in the city, kid or adult, and because I was the lead singer of three songs, the bassist, and the only girl in the band, I had tons of fans. But more importantly, I had found somewhere I belonged. My favorite times in the band actually weren’t even in public. I loved practicing and, even more, hanging out during and after practice. Fast Eddie was hilarious and told the most amazing jokes. He and Ronaldo played off each other like pint-sized kings of comedy, and their routine always had Dakota and me doubled over in spastic laughing fits.

  Nobody in the band ever seemed to care about my gender. I wasn’t a girl to them; I was a bandmate. And being a bandmate was the only place outside of my family where I felt like I mattered, where I felt like I belonged. Unlike in school, I could say whatever I wanted and not worry about what people would think. Those three guys took me seriously and cared about what I had to say, from day one. So it wasn’t the roar of the crowd that I missed the most—although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love that, too—so much as just being in the band. I missed that feeling, that incredible sensation of being a part of something bigger than myself, and I wanted it back.

  Rock stars don’t like to be alone.

  Lunch at Federal Hill looked pretty much like lunch at my old school: cardboard burgers, pasty potatoes, an overcooked mystery vegetable. And that wasn’t the only thing that reminded me of school in Brooklyn. Without even trying, I had somehow landed in Loner Land. At least that’s what they would have called this table of loser outcasts at PS 443. I wasn’t looking for friends, it’s true. But I had never been pushed this far to the sidelines in Brooklyn. For the first time, I was seeing Loner Land from the inside out.

  To my left sat a freckly boy whose index finger seemed to be permanently wedged up his nose. How could he eat his plasticized burger with that finger in the way? Somehow he managed. To my right, a tiny, eyelinered girl dressed head to toe in black, an evil kitty logo on her T-shirt, read aloud from a book perched on her lap. It was David Copperfield. She whispered the dialogue in a foppy British accent.

  I had seen these kids before. Every school had them. Federal Hill might have had new players, but it was the same old game.

  I looked back at the David Copperfield girl, searching for hidden promise. Goths were always super into whatever they were doing. Like me, they were obsessed. The key was, what were they obsessed with? This one might have been adapting the eight-hundred-page book she was reading into a seriously strange rock opera. Or she might have been plotting ways to murder the family cat. With goths, you never knew.

  I took a deep breath and approached her.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Are you addressing me?” I could tell it was a mistake right away. The girl didn’t drop the British accent, even when not reciting from her book.

  “Um … yep.”

  “Forgive me, but I’m in the middle of an especially propulsive chapter. I’d like to continue reading.”

  I stared at her for a second. My mouth was probably hanging half open.

  “It’s Dickens!” Goth Girl cried. “I’m in the middle of a cliff-hanger!”

  “Okay, whatever. Enjoy your reading, I guess.”

  I looked around the massive room. Two tables of cave-dwelling hip-hop thugs; a mixed-gender nerd group in which kids appeared to be quizzing each other from a pre-algebra textbook; one wannabe-exclusive table of giggling, pink-nail-polished glamour girls. And the all-important miscellaneous extreme-loser table—well, I was sitting at it.

  I tried to reassure myself with the thought that if Ronaldo had formed Egg Mountain from the ruins of PS 443, I should be able to pull off the same thing at this dump.

  “So you’re into The Beatles?” a raspy-voiced girl asked, nodding at my hoodie, which, I realized, was responsible for pretty much every social interaction I had had that day.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Totally. George is the best. I like ‘Here Comes the Sun.’ ”

  This girl was wack. She knew who had written “Here Comes the Sun,” which was promising. But she confused me. She had such a deep, scratchy voice, but she was pretty, blond, and very put-together. Her white jeans were spotless. My old school didn’t have kids like this; in Brooklyn, this girl would have been private school all the way. Still, though, even if I was paying attention to her for the wrong reasons, she was into The Beatles! It was worth a shot.

  “So, hey, I’m a musician, and I’m trying to start a band. Do you know any musicians around here I could talk to?”

  “Well, there’s this band Raising Cain. But you don’t want to talk to them. Those guys are animals.”

  “Okay …” Another band? Maybe I was being naive, but I had sort of hoped I’d have the only band at Federal Hill. Egg Mountain had been the only band at PS 443. Still, Raising Cain probably wasn’t any good, even if their name did sound kind of cool.

  “I’m a musician, though.” The girl sounded like she had a cold, or cake crumbs lodged in her throat.

  “
Yeah? What do you play?”

  “I sing.”

  And right then and there, she busted out into song, smack-dab in the middle of the cafeteria. I could immediately see how, despite her prettiness and girly-girl style, this spaz was stranded in Loner Land.

  “And the earth, it was a poem,” she sang. “And the poem made me cry. And maybe die inside, just a little …”

  Oh no, I thought. Musical theater!

  The girl’s singing voice was froglike, too. She coughed a couple of times, but she still sounded like a chain-smoking sixty-two-year-old. On top of that, she couldn’t keep still. She kept clicking a ballpoint pen in her hand, and she walked around in circles while she sang. As the song started to build, she circled faster and faster, moving toward the center of the cafeteria. She seemed close to a literally dizzying climax. Kids with lunch trays had to swerve out of the way to avoid her. She looked like a nut.

  I glanced down at my notebook, hoping the entire cafeteria wasn’t looking over at us yet. See how things work here, my Band Formation Plan said. Hopefully don’t get beaten up or made fun of. Five minutes of this and I would be more than teased—in people’s minds I’d be connected with this crazy girl for the next year.

  “Then the eagles flew to me, and in their cries I heard a wisdom,” she sang. “And they kept my love alive.”

  Speaking of eagles, a few kids started to point, as if they had just spotted a rare form of wildlife right here at Federal Hill. The “audition” was obviously about as done as the lifeless burgers on our plates. It was damage-control time now. I had to get this drama queen out of the caff before this became the most talked-about incident of the first month of school.

  “Hey, could we maybe do this somewhere quieter?” I tried to interrupt. But she was so wrapped up in what she was doing, she couldn’t even hear me. Meanwhile, about eight boys had gathered around us, pointing and laughing, while this nut continued to sing her god-awful lyrics. Three of them even started to dance in a circle around us, pretending to be inspired by the cheesy soundtrack she sang out.

  Finally, the girl realized what was happening. And she totally snapped. “Oh my God, will no one ever understand me at this school?” she said, her lower lip shaking in anger. I had to keep myself from looking around for video cameras, because these tantrum antics couldn’t have been real; there had to be a live studio audience somewhere. “Am I not even good enough to make a new girl’s stupid band? Ridiculous!” She turned abruptly and walked away.

  “Umm, nice to meet you!” I called out after her. What a weirdo.

  I opened the door to the hall. A couple of kids pointed and chuckled. “Nice song,” one said.

  I was totally embarrassed, but I tried not to show it.

  Rock stars don’t blush.

  A HOMECOMING, SORT OF

  I turned my key in the lock.

  “Hey, guys, I’m home!” I called out.

  No answer.

  “From my first day of school. In a new city!”

  Still nothing.

  “I got home fine on the bus …”

  My parents were definitely in here somewhere—I could smell half-burnt popcorn. They probably had headphones on.

  I closed the door and looked out at the “studio,” which was basically the entire center of our huge, messy loft apartment. My parents had moved us here so they could record and live on the cheap, and I had to hand it to them—they were doing what they said they would. My brother, Xavier, and I were miserable about our new hometown, but my parents’ album was almost done.

  Yep, there was my mom in the isolation booth, eyes closed and concentrating on recording a vocal part. I looked to the right, where my dad squinted at the computer in a makeshift control room. Dad was always the engineer, twiddling knobs and squinting into a computer monitor. I didn’t see Xavier anywhere. Maybe Shaky Jake, my parents’ drummer, was picking him up at school.

  “Well, don’t all come rushing to welcome me home. I’ll just make myself a little snack.” Still, no response.

  I walked across the studio floor, and my mom finally noticed me. She gave me a wave and a smile but kept on singing. My dad gave me a thumbs-up sign without turning in my direction.

  In the kitchen, I stood on my tiptoes to grab a package of wasabi rice crackers from the top of the fridge. Then I poured myself a big glass of grapefruit juice, grabbed the laptop we all shared, and headed to my “room,” which was nothing more than a little square in the far left corner of the apartment, separated from my brother’s “room” by a couple of flimsy Japanese screens. I’d be stretching it if I described this wimpy collection of screens as a “wall,” too. They didn’t reach more than halfway to the ceiling, so at night I could hear Xavier’s every move. If his little nine-year-old body tossed and turned, I knew it. The soundtrack of my dreams was written by a snoring fourth grader.

  I stepped into my personal area, bit into a rice cracker, and hit the space bar on the laptop. I figured I’d see if Ronaldo was on IM. He wasn’t. But when I went to check out Egg Mountain’s MySpace page for the three hundredth time in the last forty-eight hours, I saw the pleasing glow of the orange and green “online now” sign, and my heart leapt. I hadn’t talked to Ronaldo in almost three days.

  “Dude, get on IM. Hurry!!!!!” I typed in a MySpace message. I scanned the page. The band had 105,691 friends now, and “Climbing the Egg” had been played 597 times that day alone!

  I scrolled down to check out the posts.

  “Thanks for the add!” read one from SckBoy. “GOOD GOOD GOOD!!! Besos desde Buenos Aires!”

  “Go crazy kids!!!” read a note from Mizayaki1121 in Japan.

  “You rock! Hope to see you soon in France!” said JolieRidicule.

  Argentina, France, and Japan. Egg Mountain could launch an international tour whenever it wanted. With a total dork named Anthony Delaney playing my bass parts. Fantastic. I kept scrolling.

  “New bassist looks like a good fit,” said LightningBoltBoy. “But where’s Annabelle?”

  On the other end of the world, I wanted to answer. All alone. Just lonesome little Annabelle and Satomi, the loyal bass who is her only companion. I pictured the two of us thumbing a ride on the side of the highway, trying to hitchhike our way to rock ’n’ roll stardom. Or at least away from obscurity and invisibility and toward … I don’t know, if not Brooklyn, then at least somewhere where somebody knew my name.

  “It’s okay, Satomi. We’ll get back in the game,” I said, picking her up and plucking out the intro to “Climbing the Egg.” I stood up and made some rock star poses in the full-length mirror in the corner of my room. This was something I did more often than I ever would have admitted, but how else could I know how other people saw me? And as long as I didn’t get busted (X had caught me a couple times, but that doesn’t count), it was fun.

  I played “The Perfect Me” by Deerhoof and stared at my own reflection. Did I look like somebody who should be onstage? I pointed the neck of the bass up toward the ceiling and snarled. Thick, dark brown hair like my dad’s, blue eyes like my mom’s, but nothing special, nothing different about my face. I balanced the bass’s body on my hip and stuck out my tongue. I wore rocker clothes: skinny jeans, a black-and-white checkered T-shirt, and my cherry red Converses. But there was nothing especially rock ’n’ roll about me. I definitely didn’t look as cool as either of my parents. My dad looked like a rock musician from the moment he woke up bleary-eyed till the moment he put his head on the pillow. And my mom was so pretty, with her black turtlenecks and dirty blond bangs. I was still only four foot ten! That officially made me a midget, not the offspring of indie-rock royalty. I would have to make up for it with attitude. I shook my hair out and tried a punky sneer. Did I look ridiculous? Maybe.

  My laptop beeped. Ronaldo!

  EggMtnRckr: Wassup belle?!?

  Bassinyrface: nuuuuthin.

  EggMtnRckr: total boredom?

  Bassinyrface: First day of school. Blah …

  EggMtnRck
r: Heh, tell me about it. you got a new band yet?

  Bassinyrface: It’s only been 1 day, R.

  EggMtnRckr: they dont know how to rawk in Pvidence?

  Bassinyrface:?

  EggMtnRckr: I’m jk. see Liars on TV last night? Insane.

  Bassinyrface: you know i’m not that into them.

  EggMtnRckr: they are genius.

  Bassinyrface: meh

  EggMtnRckr: How bout yr parents. Album done?

  Bassinyrface: nope. Endless.

  EggMtnRckr: btw, what kind of mic does yr dad use for yr mom’s vocals?

  Bassinyrface: i dont know! stop kissing his butt all the time.

  EggMtnRckr: i’m not kissing his butt!

  Bassinyrface: meh.

  EggMtnRckr: but the man IS genius.

  Bassinyrface: you go visit my grandmother like you said?

  EggMtnRckr: Of course I saw Abuela! Got me some home cooking.

  Bassinyrface: how’s she seem?

  EggMtnRckr: good.

  Bassinyrface: details please?

  EggMtnRckr: good, I dunno. Sad. She just kind of sat around.

  Bassinyrface: she ask about me and X?

  EggMtnRckr: on and on about you and X, yeah. Hey, Belle, sorry but I gotta go.

  Bassinyrface: ok.

  EggMtnRckr: Shooting video for Climbing …

  Bassinyrface: ok, good luck. but it wont be the same without me!

  EggMtnRckr: too true. but be happy for us, ok? we’ll both have bands soon, and we’ll tour the world as a double bill. Cool?

  Bassinyrface: yup.

  EggMtnRckr: And next time, lets talk about YOUR band.

  Bassinyrface: But I dont HAVE a band.

  EggMtnRckr: Not yet. But you will soon. If you follow the rules.

  Bassinyrface: rules?

  EggMtnRckr: yeah, the Rules to Rock By.

  Bassinyrface: umm, WHAT rules to rock by?

  EggMtnRckr: mine, that’s what. More later, Belle. Talk soon!