Rules to Rock By

by Josh Farrar

  EggMtnRckr: Like what?

  Bassinyrface: like, Give me my monkey! Or Pujols is slumping! Other stuff like that.

  EggMtnRckr: Ha, nice. Now HE is a Bungle. A kid with a broken wrist saying crazy things like that is definitely a Bungle.

  Bassinyrface: Totally.

  “We should be the ones getting grounded!” my mom said late that night, not knowing I had been on my way to the kitchen for a post-homework snack. “If there’s anybody getting punished around here, it should be us.”

  “What are you talking about?” my dad said, throwing his hands up in frustration. “She agreed to take care of her little brother. She didn’t do it. Simple as that.”

  “Hello, Annabelle,” said my mom, seeing me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Why don’t you come join us, honey?” she said. I sat in a chair at the kitchen table, a few feet from the couch where they were sitting.

  X was asleep when I’d decided to get something to munch on. I had known my parents would probably want to have a big talk if they saw me, but I figured, better to get it over with.

  They’d been having these annoying arguments about “what to do with Annabelle” for the last twenty-four hours. So I figured they must have finally come to an agreement about what kind of punishment I would get. I figured wrong, though. They were disagreeing more than ever.

  “It’s not as simple as you’re making it seem,” Mom said to my dad. “We’ve been putting too much pressure on her—on X, too—for months now. We can’t keep making her—”

  “Can I say something, please?” I actually raised my hand.

  “Yes,” they both said eagerly, glad for the chance to push pause on their deadlocked argument.

  “I ground myself,” I said.

  “What do you mean exactly?” my dad said.

  “I mean, I’m really sorry for what I did, for leaving X like that. I told you I’d take care of him, and I didn’t do it. I ground myself … for a week.”

  My dad raised an eyebrow and looked at my mom. She just shrugged and glanced at the wall.

  “Fair?” I asked. Did I deserve it? Maybe, but I didn’t really care about whether I deserved it or not.

  “Fine,” they both said.

  “No TV, no DVDs, no talking on the phone,” I said. I barely did any of that stuff anyway—I texted, used the laptop to IM people, and listened to my iPod while playing Satomi—but my dad didn’t know that, so I deliberately suggested outlawing stuff I really didn’t care about losing. “I’ll come home after school and do my homework. Then if X needs my help with his, I’ll give it to him.”

  “You’ll come home straight after school, you’ll do your homework, do your chores, and go to bed,” my dad said. He seemed to love piling it on, even though he was just saying what I had said in different words. My mom stayed mostly quiet, throwing a sigh in here and there.

  “Works for me,” I said. “But just one thing … can I still have band practices, as long as they’re here?” That was the one thing I really cared about, so my whole strategy was to sneak it in at the last minute.

  “Yes, Annabelle,” my mom said. “You can practice here.”

  Mission accomplished. One mission, at least.

  “Belle,” my dad said. “Have you given any more thought to whether or not you want to move back to Brooklyn to live with Abuela?”

  “I’m still thinking about it,” I said. “But what would happen to X? Would he come with me?”

  “X would stay with us,” Mom said. “We feel that Abuela might not be able to handle X and you both, especially with the way he’s been acting lately.”

  “But the reason he’s acting so crazy is because you guys moved us here in the first place.”

  “Your abuela is getting older, Belle,” Dad said. “You’re mature enough that you can take care of yourself and don’t need her help as much. X needs his parents.”

  I tried not to laugh. X would be better off all night on a park bench than he would being ignored every day by my dad. At least, that’s how it seemed to me.

  “It would be during the Christmas break,” Mom said, looking like she might explode into tears again. She also looked angry, almost, or frustrated. I couldn’t tell. “We wouldn’t want you to miss any school, so we’d drive you down over the holidays, and you’d stay there.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, getting out of there as quickly as I could. “I have to think about it.”

  Monday morning, Mr. V returned my latest attempt at a “work of art.”

  Where Do I Go (From Here)?

  by Annabelle Cabrera

  It wasn’t my choice

  To come to this town

  It started off ugly

  And it got me so down

  Where do I go from here?

  I came here with shorts on

  But now I’m wearing sweaters

  Some days are bad

  But other days are better

  Where do I go from here?

  Ms. Cabrera,

  Now we are getting somewhere! This is what I’ve been hoping to see from you. You are clearly writing from your own experience, but in a way that is communicating something to others, in a way that lets us in …

  Still, this is a song, yes? Don’t most songs have more than two verses? And where is the chorus?

  Mr. V

  P.S. And it’s a little depressing, this sentiment. Perhaps you should look to Jon Bon Jovi for an example of a more uplifting and inspiring message.

  Wow, suddenly Mr. V fancied himself a big-shot record producer! Uplifting? Inspiring? Come on, Mr. V! Real rock songs might make you feel great when you’re listening to them, but they’re usually not about feeling great; a lot of times they’re about feeling mad, or sad, or just … wound up and crazy! Still, he had a point—these lyrics were just lyrics, not a song. Not yet.

  The following Wednesday, exactly one month before the battle, was D-Day. As in, Darren Day, the first day that a full-fledged, recent member of Raising Cain and Jackson’s mini-mafia would enter my apartment, step on my floors, and play music with my band. It had been only seven weeks earlier that Curly Burly had knocked into me in the hall and told me not to make eye contact with him. Now, as the rhythm section of The Bungles, we were going to have to make eye contact, and plenty of it, for the band to sound halfway decent.

  Darren was the first one to ring the doorbell that day. I had asked Jonny to try to make it to my place a few minutes early, just so I could avoid having to hang out with Darren alone, but Jonny was always at least ten minutes late to practice, and today wasn’t any different.

  “Hey, Annabelle,” he said after I buzzed him up. “What’s up?”

  “You left your Darius the Hilarious disguise at home this time, huh?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “That I did.” We wandered into the studio part of the apartment. He pointed to the drums and said, “So … is that Shaky Jake’s kit?”

  “Uh, yeah.” It was just part of the furniture to me.

  “I can’t believe I get to play Shaky Jake’s drums. He’s amazing.”

  I threw a suspicious look his way. “I thought you were a metalhead,” I said.

  “My Benny and Joon T-shirt wouldn’t have fit my tough-guy image. I like all kinds of music, though,” he said. “You want to play a little before the others get here?”

  “Okay.” I still wasn’t entirely sure about him. He seemed cool, nice, normal. But was this the real Darren? Or would the real Darren rather have been strutting around the halls, displaying the latest in heavy metal T-shirt fashion and beating kids up?

  I plugged in my bass and started playing my White Stripes–ish riff, and Darren came in right away on drums. About eight bars into it, while I repeated the riff, he turned the beat around very cleverly, single-handedly creating a second section of the song where only one had existed before. A truly great drummer can do that kind of thing, actually take part in writing a song by doing
smart things with the beat. I stopped thinking about the real Darren, distracted by the fact that we were making some real music. I didn’t have to give him any suggestions; he knew exactly where I was going, predicting when I would get louder, when I would go from the verse to the chorus, when the song was about to hit its climax. It was all second nature to him. With this guy on drums, The Bungles were going to be amazing.

  The doorbell rang again before we were finished.

  “Cool riff,” Darren said.

  “Thanks.” I walked toward the front door to buzz in Jonny and Christine, who arrived together.

  “You written any lyrics for that one yet?” Darren asked.

  “Nope,” I replied.

  “Has Christine?”

  “She doesn’t write songs.”

  “Yet.” He laughed, while I thought, Grrr.

  After Jonny and Christine came up, we didn’t talk much before getting down to business.

  “What would you guys think about doing two covers and one original at the battle?” I asked.

  “Works for me,” said Jonny. “Which of your songs do you wanna do?”

  “It’s a new one,” I said. The first genuine, fully fleshed-out result of the Mr. V assignment. School was good for something, after all.

  “Okay,” said Crackers, nodding.

  “Cool,” said Jonny.

  “Fine by me,” said Darren. “If I get a vote yet, that is.” That got a laugh.

  “Which covers?” asked Jonny.

  “Well, I was thinking we could do ‘A Place in the Sun’ so Christine can belt one out, and then maybe ‘Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back,’ by Deerhoof.”

  It’s an amazing song that features Satomi chanting phrases like “B ball, B ball, B ball” and “rebound” and “bunny jump, bunny jump” over and over again against counterrhythms in the guitar and drums. It was easily my favorite track off their last album, and I really wanted to try it with the band.

  “That’s a tough song, Annabelle,” said Jonny. “I don’t know.”

  “Never heard of it,” said Crackers.

  “Well, I know the lyrics and the bass line,” I said.

  “I can play that one,” said Darren. So he wasn’t kidding. He did listen to a lot of different stuff.

  “Yeah, but … I don’t know how well that one’ll go over in the battle,” Jonny said. “It’s a little out there.”

  Again, Grrr.

  “Well, how about we try it out today, and if it’s not working, we can pick something else,” I said.

  “Okay,” said Jonny.

  We played a couple easy songs, and with Darren even these simple tunes sounded amazing. We sounded like—

  A. Rock. Band. And a really good one, too. Then Darren and I started playing the Deerhoof song. Darren sounded great, of course. The beat was solid but always evolving; you couldn’t help but glue your ears to it. But as soon as I came in, singing and playing bass, it was a train wreck.

  “Hold on one sec,” I said. “I’ll get it.”

  I had practiced this thing pretty much straight for the last three days with my iPod, but even in this low-pressure situation, I gagged. I simply did not have it together.

  “Okay, that was a disaster,” I said.

  “Let’s play a Strokes song,” said Jonny, always the diplomat.

  “Let’s break for a snack,” Crackers said.

  “Sweet,” said Darren. “I’m starving.”

  We went to the kitchen and made some sandwiches, during which Jonny and Darren started reminiscing about their hellish tenure with Raising Cain. According to Jonny, one of the major issues was that Darren drove Jackson crazy with his constant chatting, blathering on and on about nothing in particular.

  “I thought you were the strong, silent type,” I said to Darren.

  “Strong, maybe. Silent? Not so much,” Jonny said.

  “Jackson used to fine me for talking in rehearsals,” Darren said.

  “Seriously?” Crackers said.

  “Dude was ultra-serious about music. He kept tabs on everything.”

  “Five bucks for every ‘infraction,’ ” Jonny said.

  “I owe him a couple hundred bucks!” Darren laughed. “Do I still have to pay him, now that I’m not even in his band?”

  And there was no stopping Darren after that. Now that he knew there’d be no financial consequences for his spastic, motormouth conversational approach, he was a new man. Or man-boy, or whatever. He was a true force of nature, offering ideas and opinions, jokes and observations on every subject under the sun. And he somehow did this without getting on my nerves. A miracle. There were other surprising things about Darren, too. Every time we had a snack, he’d get up right after he was done and would clear and wash all the dishes before anybody else had a chance. When Darren called my parents Mr. and Mrs. Cabrera, Crackers and I started calling him Boy Scout. He even tried to put a “Mr.” in front of Shaky Jake, before Jake corrected him.

  “I’ve never been a mister in my life, and I’m not about to start now,” Jake said.

  I also couldn’t help but notice that Darren had nice chestnut eyes and forearms that were strong and tight from all that drumming, and I thought, Oh no you don’t. He might be cute, but he’s a Bungle now, not just some random eighth grader. Hands off. Mind off. Everything off.

  THREE GOOD WEEKS

  On Monday, I handed in my song to the V Man.

  Mr. V,

  Okay, this is getting there!

  Where Do I Go (From Here)?

  by Annabelle Cabrera

  It wasn’t my choice

  To come to this town

  It started off ugly

  And it got me so down

  Where do I go from here?

  I came here with shorts on

  But now I’m wearing sweaters

  Some days are bad

  But other days are better

  Where do I go from here?

  I want to break out,

  I want to be free,

  I want you to be you,

  And me to be me

  But where do I go from here?

  Some people don’t seem to know anything

  Don’t want me to rock, don’t want me to sing

  So where do I go from here?

  P.S. Actually, not all songs have to have a chorus. I know you said you’d die a happy man if you never have to hear “Hey Jude” again, but I happen to think “Hey Jude” is pretty great—I think you’d find a lot of people who agree with me on this—and it doesn’t have a chorus.

  Wednesday, eight a.m., precisely three weeks before the battle. While I eavesdropped from my personal area, my parents were in the kitchen arguing. Again.

  “Because I’m not sure if I want to tour behind this record,” my mom said.

  This was rare. The fighting between my parents had been getting worse and worse since X’s accident, but usually they kept up appearances in front of us. The family meeting, the one where they’d fought about grounding me, was the first time I’d seen them openly argue in front of me. But that had only been preparation for battle. Now they were in a flat-out war.

  “We have to tour if we want to sell more than three copies of this thing,” countered my dad.

  “Yeah? Who’s going to take care of the kids?”

  “I’ve said this a dozen times already,” he said with obvious impatience. “We’ll send them both down to Brooklyn. Then, when the tour’s over, we’ll bring X back here.”

  Ha! That was just not going to happen. My dad was grasping at straws.

  “There is no way we can just rip him out of school like that. We are being terrible parents! Can’t you see it?”

  Whoa. She had never said anything like that before. This was serious.

  “Okay, okay, take it easy,” my dad said. He knew she had him. I could almost see him holding up his hands in defeat. “We’ll work it out.”

  After that argument, though, for the two weeks leading up to the battle, the gloves were
off. They argued about anything and everything: laundry, food, practice schedules, album art. There was no subject, large or small, that went without comment. Where before Mom would let Dad take the lead on everything, whether he was right or wrong, now she wouldn’t let him get away with anything. She had him backed into a corner, and I had never seen him so off his game. When he tried to help her cut up some carrots for X’s lunch—he had probably never made lunch for X or me in our entire lives—I thought she was going to chop his finger off.

  On the other hand, my mom, X, and I were getting along great. Since X’s accident, she and I had had to help him with a whole mess of super-basic tasks, anything from writing out his homework to getting dressed. For the first two weeks, there actually wasn’t much he could do by himself. The kid couldn’t even tie his own shoelaces.

  “It’s like he’s a doll and we’re playing dress-up,” I said one morning as I was buttoning his shirt.

  “I am not a doll,” X said, but I could tell he didn’t mind. He loved being fussed over.

  “We could tie his shoelaces together, and there’s not a thing in the world he could do about it,” my mom said.

  “Better not!” said X, laughing and pulling his feet away.

  Maybe breaking his wrist had been a stroke of genius. He had been screaming for attention, and now he was getting more of it than he knew what to do with. The three of us were spending more time together than ever before; even in Brooklyn, I had never hung out with my mom this much. My dad would stay up in the loft, reading or listening to music, while Mom, X, and I felt like an actual family.

  For the first time in a while, just about everything was going well for me. X and I were getting along, my band was an actual band, and I couldn’t wait for the battle. It was the best three weeks I’d had since we’d moved to Providence.

  THE BASS GODDESS

  AND THE BULLY

  One week before the battle. It was Friday the thirteenth. Spooky.

  Mr. V motioned me over to his desk as soon as I walked into his classroom.

  “Ms. Cabrera, come here for a moment, please,” he said. When I approached his desk, and he held his hand out to me formally, as if we were meeting for the first time, I cracked up. “I want to congratulate you on your work of art.”