At the time Liam and I hated each other, but it hadn’t always been that way. When we lived in the city, we spent hours playing together, Liam providing a constant soundtrack. He sang songs from Sesame Street, belted out commercial jingles-“Dial 588–2300, Empiiiiiiiiire!”—like they were opera, and brightened my days with his off-color compositions, like “Don’t Flush an Alligator Down the Toilet, It Will Bite Your Butt.”
Then we moved to Oak Park, I met Stacey, and Liam was relegated to tagalong or worse. Stacey and I enslaved him, made him over into a girl, and ditched him places when we didn’t feeling like “babysitting.” Liam grew tired of the torture by the time he was in fifth grade and started avoiding us. I’d never tried to patch things up. Why bother? I had Stacey; I didn’t need my lame little brother to like me. But then Stacey moved, and despite all the plotting and researching of bus routes, she and I weren’t together as often as planned.
In her quest for a social life, Stacey’d discovered boys. Her first boyfriend was Jim. He was really proud of the weight set in his basement and his facial hair, even though he had scrawny arms with knobby biceps and the fuzz above his lip couldn’t justifiably be called a mustache. Stacey bragged about him because he was a junior and had a car.
While Jim scraped bird crap off the windows of his rusty Pontiac Firebird, Stacey twisted herself around in the front seat and said, “I know we promised to hang out every day, but Jim mentioned he’d like some alone time with me. Maybe if I spent one afternoon a week alone with him…”
And I agreed to it, even though my time with Stacey had already been limited to a couple days a week since she was always “too tired.” When we did hang out, we had fun because Beth had started smoking pot with us-she’d caught Stacey and initiated the cool-parent, “you can only do it with me” rule-but every day I was separated from my best friend I felt miserable. I consoled myself with MTV.
I’m sure Liam’s resentment of me grew when he came home and found me occupying his former territory in front of the television. High school got out earlier than junior high, and by the time Liam rushed through the door, skateboard and backpack in hand, I’d already claimed the cozy living room as my domain. I’d be stretched out on the La-Z-Boy with the remote firmly in my grip, controlling the big, colorful TV stocked with over forty cable channels. Since no one was home to force us to share, Liam was exiled to the sun porch to sit on a poorly stuffed armchair surrounded by boxes of our old toys and our parents’ junk to watch the ancient, black-and-white TV that got only five channels.
By October, the sun porch had grown frigid, the windows that enclosed it rattling with the slightest puff of wind. One day, Liam approached the living room tentatively, a bag of chips in hand, his strawberry blond head bowed. His hair was just growing out of the summer buzz cut he’d gotten at Mom’s insistence. Tufts of it stuck up every which way, and when he questioned, “Tiny Toons?” he looked as childish as his plea for cartoons sounded.
“Music videos,” I replied firmly.
He sighed and sank back against the couch, rolling his green eyes. That attitude reminded me he was nearly a teenager, nearly on my level, and I decided to bring him there by teaching him about rock ‘n’ roll.
“Liam, you’re too old for cartoons. This is really good,” I told him, indicating the scene on the TV: a gymnasium overrun by a mosh pit. “This is Nirvana.”
He shrugged. “I don’t really care about music.”
“You used to,” I objected, pointing at a photo on the mantel above the fireplace: Liam at four, gripping the guitar I’d helped him make out of a potato chip box and some rubber bands. His hair was slicked back and shiny and he wore a black dress shirt, pants, and even a little black tie because he’d idolized Johnny Cash. An odd choice for a preschooler, but I’d loved him for it. He’d dressed like a mini-Man in Black until third grade, when he’d abruptly come home from school one day begging Mom to take him to the mall for “regular clothes.”
My finger swung back to the music video. “Dave Grohl’s a good drummer. You play drums in the school band.”
“Only because Dad made me. This year I quit band.”
“Why’d you quit?” I asked, concerned. When had my brother become such a sour little kid? He’d always been a bit weird and introverted, but he’d seemed happy.
“Being a band geek wasn’t exactly making me popular, Kara. I decided to drop it, start fresh in junior high, and see if I could make some friends.”
His words struck a nerve, reminding me of Stacey’s comment about trying to get a social life and how I’d lost her in the process. I told Liam what I wished I could tell her: “You shouldn’t change who you are just to get popular, and you definitely shouldn’t give up things that you love.”
“I never loved playing the drums,” Liam retorted. “I wanted guitar lessons, but Dad insisted we pick orchestra instruments. Good for college applications or whatever.”
It was true. There was an oboe in my closet, but I’d quit playing in fifth grade. Dad had gotten too busy to come to my concerts, and the only real enjoyment I’d gotten from them was seeing him cheer me on. Shaking off that memory, I suggested, “How about asking Mom for guitar lessons? You could start a band. When you used to dress up like Johnny Cash it was so cute—”
Liam’s face flushed crimson and he exploded. “You totally don’t get it! I didn’t have any friends ’cause everyone thought I was a huge freak because of the Johnny Cash thing. I thought when I got to junior high things would be different, but I still don’t have any friends. And I have no idea why you think I should take advice from you. Where’s Stacey? She still lives close enough to hang out. Did she ditch you?” he taunted. “Sorry if I’m not sympathetic, but after the way you ditched me when we moved here…”
Sniffing back angry tears, I threw the remote at him. “Here, watch your stupid cartoons.”
I stormed upstairs to my room and forced myself to delve into my homework. Six o’clock passed and then six thirty and Stacey didn’t call and my biology assignment felt increasingly impossible and I needed to ask her about it and I was hungry and wondered why the hell my family wasn’t inviting me down to dinner. Was I being shunned by everyone? Overwhelmed by stress, anger, and self-pity, I grabbed my knife from the drawer of my nightstand; I’d upgraded from the Swiss Army to a sharper X-ACTO blade I’d found in Dad’s toolbox.
Since I’d been cutting a few times a week for the past month, I had a whole routine: I rolled up my sleeve, ran my fingers over the raised pink scars, and then picked at my most recent scabs. Sometimes that slight twinge of pain gave me the adrenaline I needed to conquer a lesser problem like biology homework, but when I was really feeling sorry for myself, I wanted to see blood.
I never cut along veins; I wasn’t suicidal, just in need of stress relief. When the blood bloomed to the surface of my skin, the warmth of it soothed like a hot bath. After I finished cutting, I felt like I’d cleansed myself in the ultimate way, draining all the anger and sadness directly from my veins.
Liam barged into my room while I was still admiring the blood.
“Knock!” I screeched, jerking down my sleeve.
“I did!”
“It doesn’t count if you knock while you’re opening the door.”
“Sorry to interrupt your top secret homework,” he scoffed. “Dad’s finally home. Mom said come down for dinner.”
He slammed the door after himself and I frantically cleaned my arm. I worried throughout dinner that Liam had noticed. I waited for him to bring it up to our parents, mentally rehearsing my retort-Well, he quit band”-so obsessively that I barely paid attention to what was happening at the table. Not that anything new ever happened.
My dad had remodeled the kitchen two years before and it looked like a set for homey supper scenes on a sitcom: the perfectly arranged table with the glossy red plates, shining silverware, and place mats of thatched yellow fabric that matched the cushions of the chairs, a slightly deeper shade than the butter-
colored walls. At dinner, the setting sun shone in through the windows behind the table and blended with the red accents and yellow hues to make the room glow with warmth.
In stark contrast to the setting was our chilly exchange:
Dad kissed Mom on the cheek.
Mom told Dad that he was late.
Dad mumbled something about a grant. Then he asked, under his breath, if this wasn’t the same meal we’d had two days ago.
Mom replied under her breath that he of all people should be familiar with how work consumed so much energy.
Dad ignored Mom and asked me and Liam about school.
Liam said school sucked.
Mom told Liam that she didn’t like that word.
I shrugged in response to Dad’s question and pulled my knees up to my chest, leaning over them to stab at the food on my plate.
Dad studied me with mild irritation and told me not to do that.
I let my feet fall to the floor with a thud and acted angry for the rest of the meal.
Everyone stopped talking until Mom reminded Dad that he needed to help Liam with his algebra. Before Dad could complain about how busy he was and Liam could object that he didn’t want help, Mom disappeared to bed to read.
I put my plate in the dishwasher and went to my room to listen to music with my headphones on because I’d been reprimanded by Dad for being too loud too many times. Every time, I’d hoped that when I turned the music down, he’d stay and talk with me, but he always rushed off.
Dad and Liam remained at the dinner table, struggling with algebra until they both got frustrated with each other.
That was our routine.
My forcing Liam to watch MTV instead of cartoons after school became routine, too. He sat there with his arms crossed for the first week, but didn’t ask me to change the channel or try to provoke me into leaving the room. By the middle of the next week, he was quietly singing along to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” when the video came on.
I turned to him and declared triumphantly, “You like it, don’t you!”
“Yeah,” he admitted with a shrug, “I guess.”
But then he flashed me a smile and I grinned back.
4.
“GOD!” LIAM GAGGED AS HE HIT mute on Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” video. “They call this crap one of the greatest ballads of all time?” he asked, mocking the VJ’s introduction. “Have they ever heard a Johnny Cash song? Ballads aren’t all sappy love songs. The truly good ones tell a story about real life.”
I vigorously nodded my head in agreement. My brother had become quite the music critic in six months’ time. I definitely preferred discovering new bands and bashing crappy ones with him to talking boys with Stacey. She was preparing to break up with boyfriend number five. Luke, I think. All of them had monosyllabic names that would easily fit on the McDonald’s name badges they were destined to wear. Stacey’d invited me to go to the mall that day, but I’d declined. Hanging with Liam was a lot more enjoyable than watching Stacey strut around in a short skirt and too much makeup in pursuit of Neanderthals.
“Switch it back to MTV,” I told my brother. He did, but since it was spring break, we were assaulted with images of overbaked sorority girls in skimpy bikinis dancing like fools for the camera. I rolled my eyes. “Put it back to Whitney on mute.”
Liam did as instructed, but he also smirked at me. “You’re just jealous.”
“Of a bunch of airhead bimbos on a beach? I don’t think so.”
“Seriously, you wouldn’t rather be in Florida with a ton of friends than in our living room?” Liam asked without a trace of his usual flippant sarcasm. “I’d rather be anywhere in the world than here. Admit it, our home life sucks.”
He said those words with such intensity, implying that our house was an awful place. Our parents were busy, sure, but we were a happy family, goddammit. And why was he talking about this? I thought we had an unspoken rule: lighthearted music-video banter only.
“Our lives aren’t that bad. Look at everything we have,” I objected, rubbing my slashed-up arm through my ratty blue cardigan, as I’d taken to doing when uncomfortable.
Liam’s eyes drilled into me in such a way that my gaze drifted to my blanketed feet. Then he slowly looked around the room. It had been redone the year before when Dad had gotten sick of “living in a pigsty.” The creamy walls had been repainted to conceal the smudged handprints near the light switch. The wooden floors were kept neatly swept, and the area rugs were no longer stained by Kool-Aid and muddy shoes. All the furniture actually matched (spring green) and so did the vases (earth tones) and the picture frames that lined the mantel (silver).
Liam focused on the center photo, my parents’ wedding picture, and said coldly, “Dad redecorated this house so he can pretend he has the life he wants. He’s miserable. Mom’s miserable. It’s only a matter of time before the whole thing falls apart. I bet they’ll be divorced within a year.”
My jaw dropped so low my internal organs could have tumbled from my mouth. “You’re fucking crazy! Where would you get an idea like that?”
Liam glared at me. “I pay attention. They’ve been fighting in silence for two years now, ever since Mom said she wouldn’t consider moving us to Texas for that job Dad wanted to take. She tried to make it up to him by going back to work to finance this home-makeover crap, but they haven’t been happy since. They hardly talk or touch each other. It’s so obvious.”
As much as Liam wanted to convince, I wanted to deny. I didn’t want to think about the dinners we’d had since the kitchen had been remodeled, how we barely spoke, Dad’s graying head bowed, Mom’s jade eyes focused on some invisible yet incredibly absorbing thing outside the kitchen window…
“Mom and Dad are fine! Everything’s fine!” I insisted, tugging the blanket up to my chin like I could hide behind it the way I did when watching scary movies.
“Whatever! I’ve been stuck in this house with them while you had Stacey. I can’t ignore it like you do by sitting in your bedroom with your headphones on, slicing your wrists or whatever!”
My skin went cold. He knew. The little sneak had noticed. Feelings of betrayal replaced the concern I had about my parents’ marriage. This was worse than Stacey ditching me for boys. Liam had violated my most private act. And I’d been treating him like an equal, like a friend.
“Fuck you.” I flung the afghan to the floor.
I didn’t even make it out of the living room before Liam shouted, “No, fuck you! You’re gonna face it. You’re not gonna abandon me like you did when we moved.”
I felt a slight twinge of guilt, but then the remote hit me in the shoulder blade. I whipped around in a blind rage, found the remote, and hurled it back at Liam. It would have cracked him in the cheek if he hadn’t caught it.
The La-Z-Boy rocked violently as he leapt up and lunged across the room, trying to slap me with the remote. I knocked it out of his hand and it skidded across the floor, bouncing off the metal grate in front of the fireplace. His hands flew for my throat and I attempted to knee him in the groin. He deflected my knee with his own, but it threw us both off balance and we went tumbling to the floor.
We wrestled like we had as kids arguing over the same toy. Well, it was kind of like that. We didn’t actually want what the other had. We hated our silent house, our empty, friendless lives, and the reflection of that we saw in each other’s eyes. We slapped and scratched those feelings out. Liam’s long legs-he was taller than me now, I realized midbattle-sent the coffee table careening into the La-Z-Boy, spilling my Coke onto a book of National Geographic photos. My flailing arms upset an end table, ejecting a lamp onto the couch. We rolled dangerously close to the fireplace and Liam’s shoulder slammed into the wall, shaking the mantel.
Picture frames crashed to the floor, glass shattering around us. I instinctually covered my brother’s body with mine as if a bomb had gone off. My elbow hit the remote and a roar erupted from the TV: the Nirvana video was on for th
e millionth time. I almost screamed, but ended up joining Liam in an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
He sputtered, hiccupping and trying to regain control of himself. I turned down the volume on the TV as he sifted through broken glass to retrieve a posed family photo that had been taken at Sears the Christmas before we moved to Oak Park. He smirked, handing it to me. “Maybe someone will actually yell tonight. Wouldn’t that be a relief?”
I nodded, staring at another photo-one of my father with a wild beard and hair that hadn’t yet grayed, grinning as he stood in front of a tent, squeezing Liam and me on either side of him. I reached for the picture, but Liam blocked me.
“Don’t cut yourself,” he said gruffly, frowning again. His eyes drifted away like our mother’s always did nowadays. I followed his gaze to the TV, to the mosh pit in the music video I’d used to educate him. We’d seen it so many times, but it still managed to strike inspiration in me.
“We should see some of these bands live,” I proposed. “You know, after we’re done being grounded for this mess.”
“Pffft, grounded.” I expected another rant, but apparently my suggestion-or our wrestling match-had diffused some of Liam’s bitterness. He wandered back to his chair, remote in hand, turning up the volume as the Red Hot Chili Peppers came on. “I wonder who’s touring,” he mused, smiling. “You come up with good ideas sometimes, sis.”
5.
LIAM AND I SNUCK OUT TO concerts on a weekly basis. We went to the Metro, the Aragon, the Riv, anything on an “L” line because we didn’t want to deal with getting permission and rides from our parents-though we did help ourselves to their wallets when allowance money ran out. We saw famous bands, local bands, whoever happened to be playing an all-ages show whenever we happened to need to get the hell out of the house. That was the ballad of suburbia: give me loud to drown out the silence.
The summer after my freshman year, we saw our biggest show of all: Lollapalooza. We had to tell our parents about that one because we needed a ride; the venue was way out in the southern suburbs. Dad tried to say no. He was still frustrated at Liam for having to retake algebra in summer school and at me because I’d announced I wouldn’t be taking any more honors-level science or math classes. Mom overruled him.
Ballads of Suburbia Page 4
