Freaks and Revelations (11 page)

There is absolutely no noise in my brain except their applause.

I get a T-shirt and five grungy twenty dollar bills. I take the piss of a lifetime on the wall outside. Back in Mark’s car, Rosie sits in the back with me and tells my story over and over again. At a liquor store, we pick up ice for my nose and Mark treats me to a six-pack of mixed drinks in a can. Manhattans. I guzzle one, then another. I like the bittersweet taste of the Coke and bourbon, how it backs off the pain and reminds me of Carl. Jack’s girl sits on my other side. I let her hold the ice up to my nose.

“Social Distortion?” Rosie asks. “I think Dougie deserves it.” She snuggles close, takes a sip of my Manhattan.

“Shit, yeah,” Jack says. He’s riding in front. He puts on Fear.

“Let’s have a war—Give guns to the queers!”

I lean back and give over control to the music. Mark speeds across three lanes to take the exit for the 57. I rest on Jack’s girl and she lets me reach up under her shirt. I am sixteen years old and this is the best day of my life.

{3}

Slowly, I open one eye, close it again, and pull the covers up over my head. Way too much light—Mom’s drawn back the drapes and opened one of the sliding windows. I hate mornings. I hate waking up. From outside, Frank Sinatra blasts on somebody’s stereo, birds chirp and twitter, a lawnmower roars away, the Little League baseball brats sing
“Hey, batter batter!”
endlessly in the field behind our house, and some fool is pounding on a huge bass drum.

Except it’s not a drum; it’s my brain. Last night returns in a mass of jumbled images—Social Distortion, the Hells Angels, feeling boobs, Rockabilly. I smile at that part, remembering the glory of standing over him. How completely powerful it was. I touch my nose and gasp. Shit. Feels like a hundred slivers of glass sticking out of the side. I step over last night’s clothes to peer into the mirror on my dresser. Both eyes look bruised. They’ll be black before tomorrow. My nose takes up practically my whole face.

Was it worth it? The hundred vanished into Mark’s pocket. He claimed he spent it all on pot, liquor, and Oki Dogs, mostly for me. Right. By the time we got to Irvine, Rosie copped an attitude and wouldn’t talk to anybody. Jack’s girl acted like I hadn’t been feeling her tits the whole ride down. My face looked like meatloaf and felt like shit and I couldn’t risk downing the rest of the Manhattans—too much campus security. Worst of all, Social Distortion
sucked
. Mike Ness was too wasted to sing or even stand up. He fell into Casey’s drum set.

Wow. How Punk Rock.

“What the hell happened to you?” my father asks, snorting and shaking his head as I come downstairs. He’s in his Saturday morning gardening outfit. Obviously taking a break. He probably worked a whole half hour, and now he’s parked his fat ass in his easy chair, feet up, reading the
Tribune
and sipping a Heineken. The cat’s curled against his leg. I cross through the living room to the kitchen.

“Hey! Asshole. I’m talking to you.”

I stop at the kitchen door and pivot so he can fully take in the face. What’s on the list today? We’ve covered how he hates the Mohawk and the way I dress, right down to the boots he doesn’t even recognize as his. We know he doesn’t work his ass off every day so I can piss away his hard-earned money. (No, Dad, I steal it, along with your cigarettes and booze. Use it in first period to buy Black Beauties from the hippie that sits in front of me.)

What now? I’m all ears, can’t wait.

He stares, whistles, and rolls his eyes, doesn’t even stand up. He shakes his head, snorts again, and goes back to his paper and beer. Smirking. More evidence that he’s been right all along. I’m stupid, like all his kids; we can’t do anything right. But I don’t talk back like Chels or fight like Carl. I’m no fun to pick on. Maybe he knows I’ve gone as far as I will with him. Or maybe he’s just tired out.

“Oh my dear God,” Mom says when I go into the kitchen, her smile fading as she turns to greet me. She wipes floury hands on her apron and reaches up for my face. “What happened, Dougie?” She gently turns my face one way, then the other, and sighs.

“You should see the other guy.”

“You got in a fight?” Her tone changes. She bustles over to the fridge and takes out the ice tray. “I’ve told you no fighting. I will not put up with—”

“No, Mom. No fight. I got smacked with the car door. Leaning down to pick up my wallet.”

She stares like she can tell if I’m being honest. Nods. “Okay. Sit down. Let’s get some ice on it.” She hands me a couple of cubes wrapped in a dishtowel. She goes to touch it and I jerk away.

“Stop wiggling.” She peers closer. “You need an X-ray.” She sighs, glances toward the living room. “Your father will not be happy.”

“So what else is new?” I ask.

She ignores me and chatters on. “Are you hungry? I have casserole, or I could fix you some eggs. What time did you get in?”

Blah blah blah. Dad belches and his chair creaks. The back screen door slams and the lawn edger starts up. I wonder where Rosie is. Why Social Distortion sucked so bad last night. What life means. If I have any pot left in my backpack. I try a bite of the cheesy chicken thing my mom puts in front of me, but the best I can manage is to let it melt down in my mouth. Chewing hurts. I need a cigarette, glance at the carton of Pall Malls shoved into the corner on the dish counter. Does Mom have any Darvon? The room gets still and I look up. Mom’s glaring, eyebrows raised.

“Sorry. What did you say?” I ask.

She speaks like I can’t understand English. “Home-work. Did-you-do-your-home-work?”

“Oh. Yeah. All done.” Right.

“Chores?”

“When I get back, okay? I got rehearsal.”

*   *   *

“Well, bust a bitch, what the hell happened to you?” Anne says when she opens the door, sees my face. She loves our music and lets us practice in the backyard. I smile; I love to hear her talk. With her leftover Texas accent,
hell
sounds like two syllables.

“Got in a fight,” I say, coming through the door.

“You should see the other guy,” Rosie pipes up, coming in from the living room. Craig’s outside on the drum set, practicing. Anne takes out a cigarette, offers me the pack and some matches. I light hers, then mine.

“Well, sing it for me,” she says. “That new one you been working on.” Rosie smiles. I get the beat going and we find a pitch. The lyrics are still messy, but the point is clear—hippies got to go, the day belongs to Punks. Anne claps when we’re done. Roy and Glenn show up a few minutes later, do the whole “what the hell happened to you” thing, then we sit down to plan the next weekend. Craig knows a guy that’s having a yard party and wants us to play.

“It’s out in Montclair,” he says. Rosie and I look at each other and bust out laughing. The guys look at us strange. We laugh more, out of control. It’s so weird how I have one life with school and the band, and a whole other one with Mark and Jack and the older Punks I know. Rosie crosses through both. Skinny little Rosie, with her big brown eyes. Sweet kitten girl except when you piss her off. She’ll pee on the side of the road with the guys. Cry in my arms like a baby.

“What?” Glenn asks, looking at us both, still laughing.

“Montclair sucks, man,” Rosie explains.

This is the best. Craig behind me, pounding out the tempo, Glenn on bass, Roy on guitar (such as it is—he still only knows a few chords—but at least he’s not an asshole anymore); me and Rosie rocking out the new songs, doing our covers, sometimes just fooling around and making shit up. It doesn’t take long to drop into that space, where the power coming up from inside is enough to float me across the whole damn world. My brain fuses, joins itself, exists in one whole piece, not fractured or darting about stupidly in some random order. I get it. I get it all. My heart races to match the beat and my whole body joins the dance. No pain, none at all, only rhythm and words, life and death, this sacred moment of
being right here
.

We play until Anne comes out with both hands held palms up.

“Guess who?” she says. It’s the cops, of course. They show up every week, usually the same ones.

“I don’t know how y’all ’spect the younger generation to find their voice in this world when y’all won’t even let them play their music.” She says this every week. When she’s had a few, her accent gets stronger.

“Sorry, Mrs. Harris,” he says. “Your neighbors—”

“Oh, I know about my frickin’ neighbors! Don’t you tell me about my neighbors! They got one helluva lot of nerve. Y’all come by some time when they’re going at it—”

“We’d be glad to, you just call us.”

“Y’all can bet your sweet patooties…”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Craig says. “We were about done anyway.”

The cops leave. Anne goes to the refrigerator and brings back a six-pack. Sets it down on the coffee table near where we’re all lounging.

“Help yourself.”

She does this every rehearsal. Says she’d rather have us drinking here, where she can keep an eye on us. Good for her. She plops in her chair and picks up her own drink. “Y’all are good kids, you hear me? You are good kids.”

“Thanks, Anne,” Rosie says.

“I mean that. Y’all do some good playing too.”

“Mom—”

“I’m not done, Craig.” She sips her screwdriver. “You kids are artists so there’s something you better know. It’s not an easy life. Not at all. The world does not understand artists.” She peers at each of us, one at a time, ending with me. “You ’specially, Doug, you got something.” She wiggles her cigarette at me. “You’re going to go far, young man. You are going to go
far
.”

{4}

“Freaks.”

This from a butt-ugly fat guy in a suit. Belly bulging over his pants. Standing with his bald shithook buddy outside Long’s. Jack sighs, shrugs. We’re not bothering anybody; we need cigarettes. Long’s happens to be the only store open. The two creeps stare like they own the place, like they got the right to judge. We slow up and stare right back. Jack hawks a good one into his hand, holds it up to his nose, and snorts it in. The bald guy gags and heads out into the parking lot. The fat one waddles behind him, muttering and shaking his head.

Inside, Jack goes to the counter to pick up the smokes. I head down the liquor aisle, snatch a fifth of JD and slip it in my coat pocket, smooth like, without slowing a step. I grab a Coke from the cold section and join Jack at the counter to pay for it. We head back to the street, our long gray trench coats flapping out. Mine’s got
FEAR
spray-painted down the left and across the back. We’re wearing peg-leg Levis, tucked into engineer’s boots. Thrift store shirts. Choke-chain dog collars wrapped under and around the boots, with a lock. Rags too, red—mine’s tied on my boots like a cowboy does his kerchief, Jack’s is wrapped higher up around his leg. His hair’s spiked now. I’ve got a buzz cut with a bleached-in W and Y—for Wasted Youth. I like how I look. I like walking with Jack. I like the feeling that we know who we are and aren’t scared to say it.

We pile into Mark’s old Chevy with Rosie and a shitload of other people, all Punk: flattops, tiny Mohawks, one of the girls with the cat-Mohawk combed straight back, the other girl with red spiked hair. Jack hands out smokes and Mark pulls away from the curb. We’re going to Hollywood; clubs are half-priced on Tuesdays. I glance at the clock: just after ten.

“You feeling anything?” Rosie asks. I shake my head no. I down half my Coke and fill up the can with Jack Daniels.

“Shitty mushrooms, huh?” she sighs. “Shoulda known. You never get anything good for free.”

The girl with the cat lights up a joint. She passes it around. Mark shoves Black Flag into the tape deck.

“I’m going to explode!

I’ve had it!”

“You okay?” I ask Rosie quietly. She leans over on me, speaks softly so only I hear, cuts her eyes towards Mark.

“My stepdad’s home.”

“Shit, sorry.”

“Yeah.” She never tells Mark what the asshole tries when he’s there and her mom’s at work. He’d go and kill the guy.

“Want me to come over?”

She nods and slips her hand into mine.

Just past eleven, we pull onto Sunset and go west. We stop at a light. The car next to us is one of those Baja Bugs with the big stinger thing in the back and the tail pipe that goes up. Stuffed with hippies. The driver revs his motor.

“What you looking at, asshole?” I say out my window.

“UP YOURS, weirdo,” the passenger replies.

They’re playing Devo—“Are We Not Men?” Mark sticks his finger in his mouth and pretends to puke. One of the hippies leans out the backseat passenger side and yells, “Punk sucks and disco swallows!” just as the light changes. They gun the car and zoom on ahead, laughing like the stupid shits they are. We catch up at the next red light.

“Don’t, man, you’ll get us in trouble,” the girl with the cat says as we open all four car doors.

“Shut up,” Rosie tells her. “We don’t take shit, okay?”

The hippies try like hell to roll up their windows, but we’re too quick. I grab the driver’s side window when it’s halfway up and press my whole weight on it, which hurts my hands but breaks the window. I kick the door and then punch out the creep inside. The Punks in the cars behind us are going crazy, cheering out their windows and honking. Rosie and cat girl are yelling too.