by Joey Goebel
“And keep that noise down!”
Luster
The only thing I have in common with my brothers is a hard-core Jedi hatred for cops. My brothers hate cops because they interfere with their drug dealing. I hate them because they interfere with my life progress since they are the muscles of The Thoughtless Confederacy. We both refer to cops as “The Man,” but I put much more weight in that term than my Neanderthal brothers do.
As we move our band equipment to the basement of Ember’s house, taking our music subterranean so as not to disturb suburbia, I think about how my brothers’ drugs are floating around in the fine homes above. In fact, my brothers’ marijuana, acid, ecstasy, and now crack helped build some of these fine homes. The prominent businessmen, lawyers, doctors, and real estate agents who occupy these homes not only ingest the drugs themselves but also get these drugs into town in the first place and then profit by selling to dealers like my brothers who go on to sell the stuff to everyone from blacks to whites to foreigners to politicians to the elderly to the unborn to pregnant teenagers to high school principals to playground children to PE teachers to college kids to housewives to meter maids to the poor to the rich to the middle-class to the tired, poor, and huddled, to the Jewish carpenters, the preps, the rednecks, the fags, the hippies, the bold and the beautiful, the shy and the repulsive, widows, orphans, amputees, introverts, extroverts, and all of their mothers, fathers, guidance counselors, mistresses, therapists, and former best friends. The one common strain in the wires attached to their brains is my brothers’ drugs, those chemicals which temporarily make this world more tolerable.
Those prominent upper-class good guys with their cool out-of-state underground connections introduce the drugs to our town and sell them to guys like my brothers even though they would never give my brothers the time of year, or sit at the same burgoo table with them, or let their daughters date a man named Jerome. But money is being made, and everybody is cool with it. Cool, cool, cool. Everyone feels the same when they’re making fabulous moolah and putting weird shit in their bodies. They all feel cool, and that’s the way the giant mechanical brain likes it.
I have nothing against drugs. It’s just the cool I have a problem with.
Our band has now safely evacuated to the basement.
We have a gnarly practice, so rocktageous that it comes across as subversive, almost anarchic. We rock harder than a peanut butter famine. I think after this practice I can honestly say that we are the best power-pop new wave heavy metal punk rock band that this town has ever produced.
“When are we gonna play in front of people?” inquires Aurora.
Soon, for time is our greatest enemy in this retrograde existence. I will be working on setting up a show. But for now, I better get back to the rut I call home.
“Don’t go! Stay the night!” Ember pleads.
“Yeah. Y’all can just start sleeping over here if you want,” agrees Opal. “I’m sure Ember’s parents wouldn’t mind, and who cares if they do?”
We all immediately accept the invitation since our home lives are so lonely and undesirable. I would take any chance to get away from my crackhouse home and the subhumans that live there. Ray’s family has returned to Iraq, leaving him singular. Aurora’s dad is still pissed about his Jesus statue and has really been on her case.
We move in and become the family that none of us ever had, the family that no one has ever had, if only for the few weeks that Ember’s horrible parents have allowed us.
IX. Lonely Aliens
Opal
It’s pretty late when we’re done rockin out, but of course, Ember isn’t ready to go to bed yet. So the five of us make fun of the TV for a while, crackin on the idiots on The Real World, the morons on Blind Date, and the assholes on E!’s Wild On. We also watch Jay Leno for a while just to see how awkward his interviewing will be.
Around two a.m., after making fun of Roadhouse on TBS, Ember makes us play Good Morning, Judge. How the game works is that one person sits in a chair facing opposite everyone else so he can’t see what’s going on. Then, one of the other persons goes up behind him and says, “Good morning, Judge” three times, only you disguise your voice by talking all funny. The person in the chair has to guess who said “Good morning, Judge.”
The problem with us, though, is that each of us has such a unique voice and can’t fake it. So it’s impossible for the person in the chair to guess wrong.
“This game blows it,” says Ray. “No one has guessed it incorrectish all night.”
“I agree with Fuquay,” I say. “It’s bedtime for this booty.”
“No!” hollers Ember.
“Yes!” I holler back. “We cannot play Good Morning, Judge all night, honey.”
“I’m not sleepy!” she whines.
“Well, baby, I’m sorry, but we are. I know. What if I told you a bedtime story?”
She reluctantly agrees. We all get ready for bed and get situated in Ember’s big, messy bedroom. Luster, Ray, and Aurora lie in sleeping bags on the floor with all the clutter, and I’m in bed next to Ember.
“What story do you want to hear?” I ask her. “I know ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and the first two seasons of Magnum P. I.”
“Tell me about the night that you and Luster met.”
“You’re too young to hear that!” says Aurora.
“Tell it!” screams Ember.
“Tell it!” screams Luster.
I had told Ember this story once before, and she got a kick out of it, so I’ll tell it again if it’ll make her angry little tush happy.
“It all started one Thursday night a couple years ago when I was—well, I was playing with one of my boyfriends. This was back when I just dated people closer to my own age, and this boyfriend died while we were in the act of…playing.”
“You mean you were doing it,” interrupts Ember.
“Right. So my date died, but the night was still young. I had the ambulance give my tail a ride to Gloria’s, my favorite bar. The driver said he was sorry they couldn’t save him and all that, and I told him to forget it, that it happens all the time.
“So I walked in the bar, and it’s karaoke night, a night I normally avoid. Sean the bartender gave me my usual, which at that time was a Fin du Monde. (They special ordered it for me.) So I was sitting at the bar like I usually did, kind of feeling down after having my playmate croak on me.
“Just when I was starting to feel old again, I heard this gigantic voice scream over the opening chords of ‘Some Guys Have All the Luck’ by Hot Rod, or Rodzilla as I call him. The voice was screaming, ‘I do not even need that smart-ass teleprompter!’ I turned around from the bar, and that was the first time I saw Luster.
“He was lookin handsome in his flea market T-shirt, the one that says ‘Hey now!’ So then he started singing the opening lines. What were they, Luster?”
“Alone in a crowd in a bus after work and I’m dreaming,” says Luster, already half-asleep on the floor.
“That’s it. So he started singing, and his voice was so strong, and he was really gettin into it. He was a showboat even back then in front of a couple dozen skanks at a karaoke bar. He would rub himself all over all sexual and what have you, and he would kind of hop around, and lo and behold, he really didn’t need that teleprompter.
“So I said to Sean, ‘Who’s that youngblood?’ and Sean said, ‘That’s Luster Johnson. He’s a regular here on Thursday nights. Kind of a weirdo.’
“And I said, ‘Yeah, but he’s a hot weirdo,’ and then I got up close to the little stage, and I yelled, ‘Hey! Show us your tits!’ and I think it bothered him. He kept on singing and didn’t show me his tits. But I wasn’t through with his tuchis yet.
“A little later when he was at the bar downing some milk, I went up to him and said, ‘Hey, biggun.’ That’s what I used to call him, ‘biggun.’ I said, ‘Hey, biggun. You kicked rump up there tonight,’ and he said, ‘Thanks be to you.’
“I told him he was really p
laying for keeps, and then he gave me some of that old Luster talk. He said, ‘Keeps? Keeper Sutherland. Trapper Keeper. I always play for keeps’ (or something like that). Then he explained how his karaoke singing was just practice for when he had a rock band one day that would conquer the whole world.
“I told him he didn’t have to tell me about rockin out, ’cause I knew all about it. I lived for rock. Then I offered to buy him a drink.
“Well, he didn’t want me to buy him a drink. He snapped at me and told me to go away, and he said he was liable to bite me just for having fallopian tubes. (Those are some female parts.)
“So I told him I’d take my chances and that my name was Opal Oglesby. Then he noticed my Dead Milkmen T-shirt. He said, ‘I like your shirt, but within it dwells a humanoid of the worst design—woman’. I told him, ‘Boy, you’re about as fun as shopping for school supplies.’
“It turns out he was all pissy because this girl named Tonsillectomy Tina had stood his crupper up that night. He said he guessed she just didn’t take their plans as seriously as he did, and that he guessed you can’t go around acting like an alien without people treating you like one.
“I said, ‘I think aliens are sexy,’ and he could tell right then and there that I was just as big of a strange-butt as he was. I told him I was sorry about his getting stood up, and that I’d had a lousy night, too.
“He said, ‘Nothing feels worse than being stood up,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s bad, but what about havin your date die on you while you’re bonin?’
“He said, ‘You win,’ and then he let me buy him a drink after all. So that was the beginning. After that, we ended up dating for almost a year.”
I check down on the floor. Luster is sound asleep, already drooling.
“And then I dumped his cheeks. The end.”
Ember is still awake, but she allows me to turn out the light, only if I’ll stay in the bed with her. I think how you gotta be careful nowadays with things like this just because some sickos have ruined it for everyone else. Anyhow, she’d never admit it, but I think Ember is scared of the dark, so I agree to stay in bed with her. It’s more than her grandmas would ever do for her. Her grandmas are in their late forties/early fifties and are bigger sluts than I am.
After I take Ember to school the next morning, I have to go in for another fucking group therapy session. I promised my nieces that I’d go to the stupid things because they’re the only relatives I’ve got. All the others are dead.
I’m kinda looking forward to today’s session ’cause I’d like to see how Carl’s doing. We slept together one day last week.
He comes in smiling for a change. I’m guessing he’s not hoping he’ll die now, thanks to my sexual healing. Beats the hell out of getting enemas all day, I’ll tell you that much. He winks at me, but we don’t let on like we’ve been banging each other.
Kip the faggot skips in and begins the session. He takes roll and doesn’t mention the fact that one of us has had a stroke since the last meeting. Then he pulls out some papers and says “take one and pass it over” like he always does.
“Okay, group. First off, this handout has a list of ways you can improve your time management skills,” he lisps. “So you can take those home and read them over yourselves. Okay. So now what I’d like to do is have what I call a ‘happiness exercise.’ I want you to think back to a time when you were completely happy. For instance, for me, my happy memory is when I cashed my high school graduation checks and went on a shopping spree at my favorite antique mall.”
I’m sure Kip means well like everybody, but I just don’t care for him. The guy makes no effort to get outside the picture we already have of him. We all know him just by looking at him or hearing his voice, and I think there oughtta be more to somebody than that, dammit. I think he just caught me rolling my eyes at him.
“So, Opal, would you like to start the group off and tell us a happy memory?”
“Shit. What the hell,” I say. Better than listening to him talk about his antiques and his shoes. “The first thing that comes to mind is this thing I used to do with my ex-boyfriend Manny. This was about a month ago. I’d have Manny wear the same pair of underwear for two weeks straight, right?”
“Uh-huh,” says Kip.
“And then, when the two weeks were up, I’d have him take off his drawers and hide ’em real good somewhere in my house. Then—now this is the happiness part—then, I’d sniff around my house all day until I found ’em.”
I get a big laugh out of the group for that one. But Kip looks uncomfortable, acting like a prude even though he’ll probably go home tonight and do the same thing with his Hispanic boyfriend. He looks at me like he either feels sorry for me or wants to hit me. Or I guess he’d be more likely to bitch-slap me.
“Oh, Opal. Oh.” He jots something down on his little notepad. I know he’s gonna tell my underwear story to my nieces, and they’ll all be rarin to put me in a home once and for all to end my foolishness. But I’ve got a news bulletin for them: The foolishness is just beginning. The band’s gonna practice every night at Ember’s, and we’re taking off soon whether they like it or not.
“Let’s move on to Trixie,” Kip continues. “And maybe we should just forget about the happiness thing. Just tell me what’s been going on in your life.”
“Well, I had a talk with my friend about him taking my medication like you told me to,” says Trixie.
“Oh good. With Jesus, you mean?”
“Yes. And when I was talking to him, I got to thinking about some of the things Opal said, and well, long story short, we ended up sleeping with one another.”
I give Trixie a big thumbs up. The rest of the group applauds her. Kip looks like he’s gonna cry, or do something, I don’t know what. I’m suddenly glad I’ve been coming to these things, just to show these old people that they don’t have to be what they’re supposed to. I wish Kip could pick up on that, but he’s always too busy changing the subject.
“Okay. Maybe we should move on to Carl. Carl, you seem much happier this week. Why is that?”
X. Talk to Strangers
Ray
I can’t get it understood. I once left my family to go to war. Now they have left me when I went for peace. Missing Aymon and Milkah, this last week has been better for my head. Since it’s like familiness in the home here at Ember’s.
Luster and I get home from the work near the same times. Aurora and Opal stay at home except for Opal taking and picking Ember up from school. Sometimes the females have dance routines to Footloose soundtrack figured out for us when we come in.
Once we have togetherness, we eat dinner. Every night. Sometimes going out to a place like Ponderosa. But usually ordering pizza or eating Opal’s cook-out food. We listen to good music as we eat food and then when we digest it. We like records of those such as Swingin Utters, Pixies, Big Audio Dynamite, Vindictives, Billy Ocean, Boris the Sprinkler, and Go-Go’s when we eat. We like Pogues, Trash Brats, Crash Test Dummies, Mullets, Andrew W.K., Cars, and Rezillos as we digest. Then we are prepared to rock out for the hours of night.
We enjoy not putting our equipment up. Then we make fun of the people on television or play something. We like the board game Guess Who? You have to figure out what person the other player has on a card by asking, “Does your person have blonde hairs?” or “Does your person wear a hat?” or such.
But Aurora changed the rules. When we play, you can’t ask anything about how the way the person looks. Instead, you ask about the person’s life. Like “Did your person date a baseball player in high school?” or “Does your person cheat on his or her spouse?” It is much more fun to play it this way. But also much harder. Luster plays the best. “Is your person Bernard?” “Yes!” “He’s a pedophile!”
We go to bed when we are sleepy, crawling into sleeping bags on a childhood floor. Ember the little one needs a story to sleep to every night. Tonight I want to tell her it. I miss fathering. My own son so far away in Iraq.
> Ember doesn’t want to hear my stories of magic sitars and vagabond trickster tales, seahorses coming of age. She doesn’t like fake stories for liking real ones. So I tell her about the way I met her.
“We met in kung fu class. It was my 1th night there. You had kung fued there many times before. The class was all ages and skills. Mainly children. I felt out of place in life as usual. But you sat next to my body and didn’t laugh at me like others.
“I was there to learn to defend my body. I was tired of my body getting the whoop from the men whoms thought I was checking them out when I tried to figure out if I shot them in war.
“Pat was the teacher’s name. He used his kung fu to get free Cokes out of soft-drink machines. That 1th night he chose you and me out when it was time to spar. He warned me that you could be dangerous. I told him I learned no moves yet and didn’t want to fight a small girl. I didn’t understand.
“I still didn’t understand when he yelled ‘fight.’ You kicked me in my crotch. It hurt painfully, you kicked it some more. I fell down to the mat, you kicked it some more. You kicked me all over as I hurt on the floor. It was the biggest beat-up I had received up to that point. And kept getting worse! The other students yelled such as ‘Yeah!’ and ‘Woo!’ People love ‘Woo!’ in this country.
“Meantime, you yelled things such as ‘Burn you up!’ and ‘Die!’ I was scared and didn’t understand while this child kept kicking my area. The teacher told me I was doing good because I blocked my privates, the focus of your attack. But then after he said that, you tried pulling my hands away from it, and the teacher said that wasn’t right.
“You gave him the bad finger and proceeded kicking on my face and stomach. By this time, the crowd hush-hushed. The teacher tried pulling you off but had trouble. You yelled things such as ‘I hate you!’ and ‘Kill ’em all!’
“The instructor finally got you off me. I was bruises and blood. You told me later you were taking kung fu because you wanted to learn how to hurt people better. You learned a lot on me that night, I think.
