Scratch and the Sniffs

by Chris Lynch

  I just have to do the honorable and sensible thing. I don’t have a sword handy, so I’ll just take this cassette player with me into the bathroom, fill the tub, and jump. I have no choice. Steven will have me for lunch the minute the boys go into their thrash routine and I break out with something from Cats.

  The music throbbed on as I stared at the simp in the mirror. God, we had a serious drum attack when you really listened. Maybe I should just go all the way, put on the black horn-rim glasses, slip a pocket protector and some pens in my shirt pocket … listen to those drums.

  Listen to Steven. When did he get so powerful?

  Tom-tom-tom,tom-tom-tom …

  (Wolf-is-a-goof, is-a-goof, is-a-goof….)

  No way. I could beat this. Stare, Wolfgang. Beat this. No way, Steve-o.

  I just had to stop thinking about the therapy. Think antisocial thoughts, think antisocial.

  There was only one way. If I was going to wind up sounding like Wolf, there was only one songwriter I could depend on.

  Wolf.

  9

  Sniffomania

  GUYS LIKE ME HAVE a lot more friends than you probably think. To tell you the truth, it turned out that guys like me have a lot more friends than I myself thought.

  On Friday night, an hour before we were supposed to play, the rec room was packed. Harvey, who had decided to charge four bits a head (“Hey, it’s charity”), was making a killing. He scrambled all over the building collecting gray metal folding chairs to stuff more paying bodies into the room, and when those ran out, he actually upped the price for standing room tickets.

  “Why do I gotta pay seventy-five cents to stand up,” one rough-looking patron asked, “when they get to sit for fifty cents?”

  “Because you can see the stage,” Harvey answered, “and the seats are obstructed view.”

  “Cool,” the guy said.

  “And if you’re standing, you get better leverage when it’s time to throw stuff.”

  “Hey,” I yelled from the stage, where we were setting up.

  “Just a joke,” Harvey said, coming right up onstage with us. He dropped his peppy accordion down in front. “They’re gonna love you guys. They don’t get much pleasure in their lives.”

  “Oh, that’s good to know,” Jerome said nervously. “At least you know these guys, right? I mean, they’re your people, so they won’t act up or anything.”

  “Jerome,” I sighed. “There are eighteen people living in this home. There are about sixty in the audience.”

  “Seventy-three,” Harvey said as he sat on the floor making little stacks of coins.

  “Where’d you get them all?” I asked.

  “Some of them are guests of the residents. But then I got a great idea and called some of my colleagues. We bussed in kids from the really wicked facilities across town. They were starved for entertainment.”

  “Oh my god, oh my god,” Jerome moaned. “We have to escape. We’re surrounded by criminals.”

  “They’re not criminals,” I assured my increasingly worried-looking bandmates. “They’re people with issues, that’s all.”

  “Just like yourself?” asked Steven. He was not trying to be helpful.

  “Yes, exactly,” I said, falling for it.

  They all started packing up again.

  “Stop it now,” I demanded. I looked at King Harvey’s growing money pile. “Four bucks. Double time. Everybody gets four bucks.”

  They stopped packing. Harvey looked up at me and scowled.

  “Ya?” I said to him. “You want us to leave, and let you and your peppy accordion amuse the people with the issues?”

  “Fine,” he said. “But no more raises.”

  “And don’t forget,” I added, as we got set up for good, “it’s four sixty-six if we cut out Lars.”

  “You can’t cut me out; I need this money bad. I’m not working on cars anymore.”

  “That’s how you can tell we’ve made it as musicians,” Scratch joked. “We’re all broke.”

  And it went like that for a while. We got closer, the bunch of us, as a creeping nervousness overtook us. The customers kept pouring in; the sweatiness of the room built. The crowd got edgy. It rumbled. The band got edgy. We joked.

  “Here are some important tips,” I said, addressing the group with my back to the audience. “The first thing is, don’t provoke them.”

  “Oh, I feel better already,” Jerome said.

  “How would we provoke them?” Ling asked from behind the world’s largest pair of rectangular mirrored sunglasses. It looked like he had the John Hancock Building hanging off his face.

  “Well, if we stink, for instance,” I said. “That would probably provoke them.”

  “That’s it, we’re dead,” Jerome said.

  “Why? Why is that?” Cecil wanted to know.

  “Wake up, will you, Hopalong?” said Steven. “We do stink. Everybody knows we stink. We know we stink. That’s part of our charm.”

  “Right,” Lars said. “Like the Pistols.”

  “If he says that one more time …” Ling said, raising a drumstick in a rare outburst of emotion.

  “Layyydies annnnd gentlemen,” Harvey screamed over the crowd noise. They were still coming in as he introduced us. “Have we got a trrrrreat for you now.”

  Like the hardened professionals we were, each one of us froze solid at the sound of the show starting. Except Scratch, who dropped automatically into I’m-so-cool-I-don’t-even-hear-anybody mode. I was off to the side a bit, stage right, so I could wheel in and make a splash at the right time. Ling and Steven clustered in the back the way well-trained drummers are supposed to, and the guitarists stood opposite me on the left wing. Behind me on one side was The Killer, warming up the old washboard, and on the other side, hanging precariously close to the front of the stage, was the King of Ting himself, Jerome.

  Just before Harvey blew the starting gun, a girl came up close. It was not as if it was a real stage that could truly separate (protect?) us from adoring fans. It was only two feet up from the rest of the floor, and was usually used for the monthly speeches we got from the state communicable disease guy (who was always good for a laugh) and the free poetry readings (which were even funnier).

  But it was not just any girl, creeping up closer and closer, going all dewy-eyed and goofy. It was Vanessa, a.k.a. “Ness the Mess” or “Loch Ness,” a nine-year-old, three-foot-tall plug of a stout thing. She was also the only sister of one of our most frightening neighbors here at the home, Von.

  So, Von’s sister, Nessy, shouldered her way to the front, clearly under the spell of the rock-and-roll god. And who could blame her? I was prepared for this. I might as well get used to it if I was going to be in this racket. The trick is to be just charming enough so you don’t hurt their feelings—and so they do continue to spend their money on your music—but not so charming that they start stalking you.

  “Well, hello there, Vanessa,” I said, wheeling right to the edge of the stage. “Are you ready for the big—”

  Her eyes, normally a stunning yellow, had gone almost totally black with the intensity of her passion. She looked like a steroid-pumped sprinter in the starting blocks.

  “Who is he?” she gasped. “I want to know who he is.”

  She was pointing at our little Jerome.

  “You’re joking,” I said.

  “I don’t joke,” Vanessa said in a very serious tone.

  “You’re joking,” Jerome said, in a far more serious one.

  I started laughing right out loud as Jerome scuttled around behind me and Vanessa made like she was going to mount the stage right there. I looked back over my shoulder to see Dr. J holding his tambourine up like a shield.

  “Gonna have to do better than that, Jerome,” I said. “She’s a stocky little thing.”

  “Oh my god, oh my god,” he said. “Wolf, get her away from me. You’re the singer. You’re the He-Man president. Do something.”

  “’Scuse me, missy,
” I said, holding out my hands to ward her off. “But I’m afraid we cannot allow anyone on the stage. Why, if we let every girl who wanted a piece of He-Man Jerome—”

  “Eeeeeeeee!” she screamed when I said his name.

  So I did it again. “After the show, Jerome will—”

  “Eeeeeee!”

  I spun around and shook his hand. “Nothing I can do there, old dog. You got yourself a groupie already.”

  “Oh my god, oh my god.” Nervously, spastically, Jerome started whacking away at his cymbal. The rest of the band took it as a cue, and chopped into a songlike thing.

  Von stepped right up to the stage, put one hand on the shoulder of his sister, and pointed with the other hand at Jerome, who was all of three feet away.

  Have I mentioned that Von is very protective of his sister?

  “I’n gone keel you,” Von said to Jerome in his one-of-a-kind Von dialect.

  Jerome couldn’t even manage to say “oh my god.” He bit his lips and banged nervously away on his instruments as Von folded his arms and planted himself, and Nessy mooned over Jerome.

  “… So now give us some big noise clapping for … Scratch and the Sniffs!”

  10

  Gotta Be Me

  YOU COULDN’T TELL FROM the sound of us that we hadn’t really rehearsed the whole week before the show. Then again, you couldn’t tell if we had, either. The band was simply on fire right from the start, with Scratch in particular bouncing unbelievable, pointless riffs off the walls, the percussionists matching him, and the whole mishmash meeting in the middle of the room where the crowd made a spontaneous mosh pit.

  “More!” somebody screamed from the front row. What was that supposed to mean? Shouldn’t you wait till the band stops before you demand more?

  “Louder!” came another scream, then another. The guys gave them louder.

  “Louder!” they screamed.

  “More!”

  Fortunately, Sniffomaniacs are not very complicated or demanding creatures.

  “Louder, we can give,” Steven called out, beating the tom-tom and laughing.

  “And more,” Ling said. He scanned the room, his glasses reflecting every gold tooth and silver skull pinkie ring. “We can manage ‘more.’”

  “Ya,” I said. “Let’s just hope nobody calls for ‘better.’”

  I noticed that our friends were enjoying themselves immensely. Almost enjoying themselves too much, you might say.

  Was that a punch?

  No, my mistake. They’re dancing.

  Hey, should they really be holding her up that high, especially as she appears not to like it so much?

  Oo, a little blood there. Somebody caught a stray elbow, that’s all. Boys will be—

  “Hey,” I said, “let go. Ya, you down there. Let go. Let go of that wheel, I said. Stop it.”

  “Yo, Wolfie, we just figured as long as you’re gonna sit there like a spectator, you might as well be down here like one.”

  “Good point!” yelled Steven.

  “Hey,” I yelled. “I got a job here.”

  “You sellin’ popcorn?”

  “I’m the singer,” I said with great authority.

  “If you’re the singer, then how come you don’t sing?”

  This was getting tight.

  Steven the Johnny Rotten Chesthair troublemaker raised his arms high above his head, and started smacking his drumsticks together, inciting the very incitable crowd. “Wolf-gang! Wolf-gang! Wolf-gang! Wolf-gang!”

  Everybody in the room picked up the chant. Almost.

  “Jeroooome!” squealed Vanessa.

  “I’n gone keel you,” added Von.

  “Shaddup, all of ya,” I screamed over the microphone. Harvey had allowed us to use the official Division of Social Services speaker system, so I sounded like authority. “I’ll sing when I feel like it. If I even feel like it at all.”

  “Booo!” they said. “Boooo!” But I think it was more like the way people in other countries whistle when they don’t like a performance. This booing didn’t mean they weren’t having a good time. These people liked to boo.

  “Boo to you too,” I snarled. “I ain’t singing. So go on home, ya criminal slobs.”

  I know these types. You have to show them who’s boss. If you don’t, they’ll walk all over you.

  Or they’ll pick you up by your wheelchair and carry you all around the room.

  “Put me down!” I hollered. “I mean it. Don’t you make me come down out of this chair and give you a whipping.”

  You’d have thought I was a comic rather than a singer the way they all shrieked at me.

  “All right then, you asked for it.” I stuck two fingers in my mouth and blew until my ears popped, whistling loud enough to bring St. Bernards down from the Alps. “Yo, He-Men, come on down here and help me out. Show these chumps …”

  Scratch, working on an especially indecipherable guitar figure, called, “Be with you in a minute, man.” The original, charter-member He-Men? Nothing.

  The Killer, though, was his true-blue self. Cecil threw both his jug and his washboard over his shoulder, narrowly missing Ling-Ling, and charged into the hostile crowd.

  But he might as well have been one of those oversize beach balls they pass around the bleachers at baseball games. Poor Cecil was airborne practically before he’d even left the stage. He looked so confused by all this.

  “What does this mean?” he asked as we passed each other, traveling in opposite directions at the rear of the room. “Is it that they like us, or they don’t?”

  “Just lie back and enjoy the ride.” I sighed. Then I looked back to the stage, where Jerome was mouthing “Help me,” while Vanessa played with his shoelaces.

  “That’s it,” I commanded from my throne high above the demented rabble. “You want me to sing, you betcha I’ll sing. I’m gonna mop the joint with you slugs. Take me to the stage.” I pointed the way, looking like George Washington crossing the Delaware. “I’m gonna sing, and boy are you going to be sorry.”

  That was all they needed. They couldn’t ferry me back to the stage fast enough then. Once there, I sat, glaring out over them. Cecil was still traveling the room like a cloud. “And I need him back here,” I demanded. “I can’t sing without my jug player.”

  Cecil, being without a wheelchair, was delivered to the stage much more quickly than I was. In fact, he flew the last ten feet when they tossed him in a mighty heave right up at my feet.

  “Thanks for makin’ ’em put me back,” Cecil said from his position flat out on the floor.

  We were all in position, a tight unit once more. I felt stronger now, knowing all my boys were behind me.

  “Well, if you’re not gonna sing, maybe you should try dancing,” Steven yelled.

  Okay, some of my boys were behind me. Anyway, they were very loud, which was what mattered most.

  Okay, Wolf, this is your moment. Remember, just be you, just be you. Don’t be the geek. Just be yourself, and it’ll all work. Ready … Set … Be yourself.

  “‘Whether I’m right …’”

  Oh, cripes no, not this.

  “‘Or whether I’m wrong …’”

  That’s it, my life is over. The Wolf is dead. Long live Mister Velvet.

  “‘Whether I find my place in this world, or just never belong …

  “‘I gotta be meeeeeee …

  “‘I’ve just gotta be me …’”

  I closed my eyes as my stupid mouth went on singing. I think I even did that goofy swinging the microphone by the handle move that all the blow-dry singers do.

  Even as my body went on acting the fool without my consent, I sat there and waited for merciful death to come. But with the band wailing behind me, sounding like a circus calliope being run over by a tractor-trailer, I couldn’t hear the audience response.

  I sure could feel it, though.

  Something hit me, which was not surprising. I opened my eyes to find it was a pair of underwear. They were Calvi
n Kleins, so I couldn’t tell if they were guys’ or girls’, but because the faces in front of me were smiling, the hands were waving, and the bodies were dancing, I figured it was a friendly pair of underwear either way.

  They loved us.

  “Can you believe this?” Cecil said, screaming in my ear. He was also blowing into his jug between words and beating himself on the head with his washboard. Our drummers had caught such a fever they sounded like the whole Navajo nation. Scratch had jumped down into the crowd and was letting anyone who wanted to have a whack at the strings, and it didn’t change his sound in the slightest.

  As I saw Harvey cheering, clapping, and approaching the stage, I reached behind me and lifted the accordion. I held it high like a sacrifice I was going to heave into a volcano, and I handed it to the crowd.

  “Good-bye, peppy accordion,” I said as the instrument rode the wave over the crowd and then was swallowed. Harvey was likewise swallowed as he chased it.

  I looked off to my left and there was Vanessa, pointing at herself, then at Jerome, then herself, then Jerome. You get the picture.

  Then Von started. Pointed at himself, then at Jerome, then himself, then Jerome.

  Every one of our players was playing his heart out, and the assembled sound was …

  Hideous.

  We made the most obnoxious noise in the history of ears, and people worshipped us for it. They gave us money. They threw underwear at us. It was like poking someone in the eye over and over and having them pay you and ask for more.

  I felt so dirty about the whole thing.

  Heh-heh.

  “You like that one?” I screamed, my confidence growing now like some fiendish evil green lab experiment run amok. “Well, then, suck on this one.”

  And into the mix I flew, sounding just as out of place with the thrash and grind of the Sniffs as I could.

  “‘I write the songs that make the whole world sing.…’”

  Delirium. I didn’t know how long I could hold this group together. They were slamming into each other pretty good down there on the dance floor.

  “‘If you get caught between the moon and New York City …’”