Going Bovine (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Which Treats of the Particulars of High School Hallway Etiquette and the Fact that Staci Johnson Is Evil; Also, Unfairly Hot

The pot’s kinda lame, but I’ve got enough of a buzz going to coast through the amount of time required to drop my books in my locker and wait for the end-of-school bell. It’s my misfortune to have a locker on the first-floor main hallway on Park Avenue, so called because it’s where all the popular types congregate to formulate their plans for world domination: planning secret parties, leaking the info that there is a party that most of the student body isn’t cool enough to attend, deciding who’s in or out or in need of torturing that week. It’s a busy schedule, and it requires a lot of hallway. I do my best to accommodate them by being unnoticeable, which, basically, involves my just having mass and occupying space.

My smart and universally adored sister, Jenna, is among the attractive evil cabal. She’s standing beside the water fountain with her dance squad, her dark blond hair pulled up into the requisite ponytail and cascading ribbons. They’ve got their colors on today, the snappy blue-gold combo of our fearless team, the Calhoun Conquistadors of Hidalgo, Texas.

Hola, Calhoun Conquistadors! I admire the use of alliteration, but somehow I doubt the school board really got what the Conquistadors were all about when they chose them for a mascot. Maybe the whole raping, pillaging, looting, suppressing cultures thing just blipped off their social consciousness radar. Whatever. It makes for a nifty T-shirt logo. Who doesn’t love men in metal hats?

Jenna’s seen me but she’s pretending she hasn’t. When you’re pre-majoring in perfection, having a brother who’s a social paramecium is a real drawback. While our tense family situation has forced me further into my shell, it’s made Jenna into a shining example of teen perfection. Perfect hair, perfect grades, perfect social standing. Through her endless pursuit of the perfect, she’s trying to erase us all—the dad who lives through his work, the mom who lives through her children, the scattered way our family communicates through notes left on the fridge and cell phones and no real face time. In a way, I admire her ability to swim against the tide. Me, I’m a drifter—right downstream and over the falls along with the rest of the driftwood.

I should just let it go, this social snub. I should just hang on to what’s left of my high and motor on to Eubie’s, but I can’t help myself. I may suck at football, basketball, tennis, and just about every other sport out there, but I can absolutely letter in cruelty.

“Hey, Jenna. Were those your birth control pills I found in the bathroom this morning?” I say, full of pep.

The other dance teamers gasp. One lets out a giggly “Oh my God.”

Jenna’s a cool customer, though. She’s used to my brotherly hijinks. “No, I think those were the ones Mom meant to take before you were born. Don’t you have a meeting of the Social Outcast Society to attend? If you hurry, you can get a good seat.”

Point Team Jenna.

Everybody laughs, and it would be boffo if I could just fade into the lockers right now. But against the uniform pert tan-blondness that is the dance team, my shaggy dark hair, British-musician-on-the-dole pale skin, and six feet of seriously awkward body stand out like a strip of film negatives plopped down on top of their happy group photo.

One of the Hotness Crew smirks. Staci Johnson. I’m not too proud to tell you that it makes me go a little expansive in my Fruit of the Loins. Staci Johnson is a shallow social climber who would never allow me within a ten-foot radius of her rather magnificent body. I know this. But what can I say? My penis is a traitor.

“You’ve got mustard on your shirt,” Staci points out.

“It was cheeseburger day.”

“Oh my God, you don’t actually eat in the cafeteria every day?”

“I have a thing going with one of the lunch ladies. Bernice. She’s the one with the hairnet and the mustache. But mum’s the word. Wouldn’t want to spoil the big prom surprise.”

Someone whispers, “God, your brother is so weird.”

“Just ignore him,” Jenna says with a sigh. “We do.”

Chet strides up, all six feet of him, and drapes his arms over my sister like a big daddy gorilla. It’s a clear message to the hallway—She’s mine. Chet nods at me in that ages-old macho greeting: I have acknowledged your existence, peon. Do not ask for more.

“What are y’all doing for spring break?” Staci asks, arching her back so that her butt sticks out in a noticeable way.

“I’ve got a mission ski trip with my church,” Chet says. “Trying to get Jenna here to come, too.”

Jenna beams. It would be so tempting right now to say something like, Wait, Jen, don’t you have an abortion scheduled for that week? But Chet would probably kick my ass. Hell, Jenna would probably kick my ass.

Staci twirls her hair around one finger. “Well, me and Lisa and Carmen are going to Daytona for the YA! TV Party House.”

“Omigod, you are not!” one of the wannabes squeals. “If you get to meet Parker Day I will be so jealous!”

YA! TV—Youth America! Television—is the barometer of cool for teens everywhere, and Parker Day, with his highlights, vintage rocker clothes, souped-up sneakers, and sly smile, is its most telegenic host. Half the kids in school walk around spouting his trademarked phrase, “You smoked it!”

“Actually, we need a fourth to make it happen,” Staci says. “Jenna, you should come with us.”

“To Florida?”

“It would be fun.”

“Yeah,” Jenna says. “But expensive.”

Staci sticks her butt out just a little farther, which I didn’t think possible, and my penis, the mutinous bastard, fires up again.

“Well, think about it,” Staci says. “It’s gonna be completely mammoth.”

“Yo, Cam,” Chet says. “Nice stunt with the cockroach.”

“What cockroach?” Jenna asks.

“The Cammer here pulled a fast one. He said he saw a cockroach to get out of English class.”

Jenna gives me a look. The look says, You are disappointing Mom and Dad.

“You didn’t miss anything, just more Don Quixote. My pastor thinks we shouldn’t be reading that stuff. Said it can give kids the wrong ideas, make ’em question everything and get all weird. It happened to this one kid he knew, and the parents had to get him straightened out.”

“Oh my God,” Staci says, like this bullshit Chet’s telling her is as sad as some little kid dying of cancer.

“From books? I don’t believe that,” Jenna says, and I feel a glimmer of hope that she will not fall to the forces of evil.

“It’s true!” Chet insists. “Anyway, it’s all good. His folks sent him to this church that’s got everything from a school to a restaurant, so you never have to go outside all that much, and he’s pretty much there all the time, away from negative influences. It’s like what happened to me with my injury.”

Here we go. The girls practically swoon.

“I could’ve questioned stuff. I could have let it change me. But I didn’t.” He grins. “You’ve gotta stay positive. Right, Cam?”

Oh, absolutely. I’m big, big, big on the thumbs-up to the positive. I can’t go a day without wanting to draw a happy face on every surface I see.

“Right,” I say.

“You coming to the game, bro?”

“Can’t. It’s against my religion.”

Chet smirks. I’m pretty sure the Bible says Thou Shalt Not Smirk, but that could be a rumor. “Yeah? What religion’s that?”

“Apathy.”

Jenna looks like she could cheerfully strangle me. Staci Johnson turns to her posse and giggles. “Whatever!”

“See? That’s what I’m talking about,” Chet says to the others like I’m not even there.

And in a way, I guess I’m not.

CHAPTER FOUR

In Which a Brief Sanctuary Is Found, I Fail to Comprehend Jazz, and I Am Forced to Have a Conversation with My Asshole Father

Eubie’s Hot Wax sits one block away from the university, nestled between a head shop disguised as an incense and candle store and an art studio famed for its stained-glass cat selection. It’s a little oasis of sounds sans the attitude of the mega music store in the mall. It’s my favorite place in this dusty Texas town.

At Eubie’s there are no six-foot risers announcing the latest release from a pouty-lipped nymphet with only one name. No college music majors earning extra beer money while snorting out pretentious statements like “Well, sure, I guess the Copenhagen Interpretation’s an okay band, but they wouldn’t have been anything if Pet Sounds hadn’t come out first.” Just bins upon bins of obscure LPs and CDs from newer bands mixed in with jazz and novelty stuff like my personal fave, the Great Tremolo, whose songs about the pain of life were written solely for recorder and ukulele. You have not felt angst till it’s been filtered through Portuguese and nose-thrumming vibration. Plus, he has the highest voice I’ve ever heard in a dude. When he reaches for that one ball-breaking note in every song, I can’t help losing it every time.

I was first introduced to the Great Tremolo via one of those satellite radio shows that exists just to play obscure, freaky shit you could swear the producers made up during the break. As I was lying on my bed with my headphones on—the ones I decorated with space stickers from Tomorrowland—the DJ dropped the needle on the Great Tremolo and a song called “Para Mí He Visto Ángeles,” which, according to the liner notes, translates to something like “For I Have Seen Angels.” I sat straight up, laughing. It’s like the Great Tremolo’s voice is from space, and he’s on the verge of crying while he sings, but like crying with happiness if that makes any sense at all. I mean seriously? How can you not lose your shit over that?

The Great Tremolo made close to twenty albums, and with Eubie’s help, I’ve managed to collect seven of them. I take comfort in the fact that there is someone out there who’s more of a loser than I am, and believe me, the Great Tremolo is a total emo loser, tilting at sonic windmills.

Eubie hears the bells tinkle over the door when I come in and looks up from his perch behind the counter, where he’s playing store DJ. He’s got a big smile for me. “Heeeey, Cam-run., where you been, my man?”

“Nowhere,” I say, stepping up to the counter. Eubie’s growing a little soul patch. It looks good with the dreads and the multicolored T-shirt emblazoned with the face of some famous reggae star.

“Nowhere’s a bad place to be. I been there. How come you got no girlfriend?”

I pick up a copy of the free weekly newspaper I have no intention of reading. “Ahh, you know. The Cam-man is meant to be shared by many, held by none.”

Eubie laughs. He’s got a laugh like a machine gun firing through velvet. “That’s some serious bu’shit, man. Do yourself a favor, friend. Leave my shop and go live a little.”

“I am living. A little. Got any new Tremolo for me?”

“Come on back.” Eubie leads me through the purple curtains at the back of the store that hide the storage area where the employees take their breaks. It’s not much of a room. Couple of chairs. A long counter covered in plastic take-out containers and backpacks. There’s a large cork bulletin board on one wall. It’s loaded with pictures of the employees dressed up for Halloween and Christmas parties. Ticket stubs from concerts and hard-to-read flyers for band members needed poke out at odd angles, overlapping. A torn piece of notebook paper advertises a carload of guys going to the YA! Party House for spring break who are willing to give somebody a ride for cash. Mardi Gras beads hang from a thumbtack beside a picture of Eubie in a feathered mask, whooping it up on Bourbon Street. Down in the right-hand corner is a picture of an old man in a suit, a hat, and black sunglasses. He holds a trumpet in his weathered hands.

“Who’s this guy?”

“Junior Webster. Best horn player in New Orleans.” Eubie sucks in air and shakes his hand like he’s burned it. “That cat is outside, I’m telling you. You ever get to NOLA—and you should—go check out the club he used to play at, the Horn and Ivory.”

“He doesn’t play there anymore?”

“Hard to play when you’re dead. Here, check this out.”

From a black plastic milk crate, Eubie pulls out an LP so old and worn that I can see the outline of the vinyl in a white ring on the cardboard cover, which shows Junior Webster standing in front of a painting of the galaxy. In the center of those stars is a black hole.

“Huh,” I say.

“Huh,” Eubie mocks. “You won’t say ‘huh’ in a minute, son. I’m-a school you.” Eubie eases the record lovingly from its sleeve and places it on his turntable. “‘Cypress Grove Blues.’ If you had on a hat I’d ask you to take it off, ’cause you ’bout to hear some church.”

He drops the needle. A mournful horn blows, high and sharp, like a woman’s wail at a funeral; then the whole thing crashes into a wild jazz ride that has Eubie, eyes closed, head forward, hitting some imaginary cymbals like the drummer I know he is on weekends. I don’t get jazz. It always sounds to me like a bunch of toddlers let loose in a music room. I try to be polite, though. When the song ends, Eubie pulls the needle off and waits for my reaction.

“Pretty cool.”

Eubie arches an eyebrow. “Damn right it’s cool. That all you got to say?”

“Really cool,” I say, hoping it passes for enthusiasm.

“Cam-run,” Eubie says, shaking his head so his dreads wiggle like dancers. “You need help, my man. You hearin’ me?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m tellin’ you, if I had another life to live, I would live it in New Orleans, making music with Junior Webster, makin’ holes in space with a wall of sound. Music has the power to save the world.” Eubie rubs at his soul patch for a second before breaking into a grin. “I tell you what, I’m-a let you borrow this album for the weekend. You listen to the whole thing and see what you have to say then.”

My palms start to sweat. I don’t want to be trusted with Eubie’s favorite album, especially since I know I’ll never listen to it, and I’ll have to come up with some excuse for why I didn’t. I put up my hands, back up a little. “I don’t want to take your best album, Eubie …”

Eubie tries to hand it off, like a baton in a race he’s the only one running. “Go on, it’s okay.”

“I don’t know, Eubie. That’s a big responsibility.”

“No, my man. Child support is a big responsibility. This is a record.”