The Half-Life of Planets (20 page)

Mother returns home from work, says hello, and checks her e-mail. She smiles broadly and snaps the laptop closed. I like seeing her smile.

I know what I have to do. And I know how to do it. My phone proves useful after all, and I'm glad I didn't throw it away the other night. I send a new text message to Liana's phone: “Beachfest promises to be interesting.”

By now I'm used to the noises
and smells of my dad's room. He'll be in the ICU for another few days, then the regular ward for another five. Then home to recover for the next couple months.

“No flying for me,” he says, patting the edge of the bed so I'll sit with him.

“Just as well,” I say, and feel my back pocket for my wallet. It presses against me, and I take it out, uncomfortable.

“Because of blood clots?” he asks.

“No,” I tell him directly. “Because then you're home. With us.”

His eyes flutter closed, but he smiles. My mother shoos me out of the room and follows me, eyeing the wallet in my hands. “Do you need any money?” she asks. I shake my head. “That's”—she points to the case—“a bit bulky, don't you think?”

I can see the edges of the note inside. “I guess I'm used to it,” I say, and then wonder if maybe that's her point.

My mother nods to a nurse walking by. “I think I'll try to watch a bit of TV while he rests.
A Star Is Born
. Great film,” she says. “Are you heading home?”

“Not yet. I have to finish up at the lab.” I check my watch.

“I don't suppose you want to stay.”

“For
A Star Is Born
?” I shake my head. “Stars are born from interstellar gas clouds, shine by nuclear fusion, and then die, sometimes in dramatic ways.” We lock eyes and then smile.

“Liana?” My mother pulls something from her purse. “I thought you might want to hang this up at home. In the hallway.”

She hands me the picture of Jenny I found in the basement with Hank. I hold it to my chest and nod. “Sure.” I check my watch again. “I gotta run to the lab—but I'll be back tonight.”

My mother furrows her brows. My stomach clutches when I think she's reconsidering the photo. But when she reaches for me, it's not for Jenny's picture. It's for my face. She touches my cheek, and I don't shrug her off. “Don't come back tonight.”

“But I—you don't want me here?” I've gotten used to it here, to talking with them, to the confines and safety of my father's hospital room.

“You shouldn't be here. You have Beachfest.”

Hearing the word from my mother's lips sounds awkward—like hearing your parents swear or attempt slang. “Beachfest's…” I stumble over words. “Nothing. No big—It's—I'm not going.” I think about Hank in the hospital bathroom. About him in Espresso Love. About him playing there. About him onstage. About him anywhere. “I can't go to Beachfest.”
Beachfest promises to be interesting
. Interesting in that way when you pick a scab: half-fascination, half-wincing dread. Seeing Hank there—or not—will only remind me of my mistakes. Of what could have been.

“Of course you can.”

“But Dad's…”

“Dad's fine.” She pauses and looks me up and down. “It's you that needs help.” She studies my wallet again.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Just go. Have fun. Or try to at least.” I turn to go, and she pivots back into Dad's room. “And, Liana?” I figure she'll tell me not to mess around with anyone. Or not to wind up in the basement with anyone. Or not to do something. But all she says is, “Maybe think about changing? You reek of hospital.”

But I do wind up in the basement. I hand in my report, close up the lab for the rest of the summer, knowing full well I'll be back in there again when school resumes, and head home. To the basement. I trudge down there and haul the turntable back up. This time to my room, and connect the speakers. I take the picture of Jenny from my bag and slide it into a frame and put it up in the hallway right near our other family shots—vacations, moments, times passed that still shine on. I bring an armful of records up with me, the ones Hank pointed out, and I listen as I get ready. I can't put on “Waterloo Sunset” because that will make me upset. I rewind and replay in my mind the text Hank sent, “Beachfest promises to be interesting.”
Beachfest Promises
almost sounds like the title of an album—one with some cheesy sunset and 1970's era couple in luau shirts or something. I shouldn't go. I should stay here.

I put the albums in a stack on my desk and look at The Kinks. I don't play it. But I put on The Band and listen to “Stagefright” and “The Weight,” and the twangy bango reverbs into the pre-fall air, and I think about starting over again like they say in the song, and how that's what everyone has to do every day, and I slide into my comfiest jeans, tug my old Squeeze T-shirt over my tattoo, and slide on flip-flops to combat the sand at Beachfest.

My hair is short,
so I'm wearing a wig. My face is covered in makeup. I am wearing a skintight black body suit with silver accents and silver platform boots.

Al, stuffed like a sausage into his Gene Simmons costume, is breathing deeply and pacing around backstage in his giant, toothsome platform boots. “Wow. I mean. Wow. I had no idea I'd be this nervous. I mean, this crowd is mostly teenagers, right? The cruelest, most brutal people on earth. No offense, Hank.”

“None taken,” I say. “Your remark is wholly consistent with my own experience.”

Al smiles at me, and I decide to make a joke. Al likes it when I make jokes at his expense. “I was wondering,” I say, “if the mirrored codpiece is as uncomfortable as the rest of your costume, or if you have more room in that area.”

“The mirrored—”

“Codpiece. The piece which covers your—”

“Shortcomings!” Stan chimes in.

Al reaches down to his crotch, adjusts the mirrored codpiece, and says, “No. This thing is killing Al Junior. First time in my life I wish I was more like Stan.”

Stan smiles through his Paul Stanley makeup.

Onstage, two white boys in baggy basketball jerseys, baseball caps, puffy basketball shoes, and large gold necklaces prance around the stage to pre-recorded music and nearly swallow their mikes as they boast of their rhyming prowess and instruct the crowd to throw their hands in the air.

“Hank, you're young. Does this suck as much as I think it does?” Stan asks, pointing a thumb at the stage.

“Well, their rhyming prowess is far below the level of their boasting, but, on the other hand, the beat they are rapping over samples the bass intro from Cream's ‘Badge,' combined with the horn break from an Otis Redding song I'm having a hard time identifying, so they at least have a talented producer.”

The other members of Music from the Elders stare at me briefly, then go back to their preperformance rituals. I have no ritual. I do not feel nervous, at least not about the Music from the Elders part.

The white rappers leave the stage and strut around the backstage area, making ambiguous hand signals and screaming, “Yeah! What? What?”

The MC, a bikini-clad college student, takes the mike, ignores the insistent calls from the crowd to remove her top, and says, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, give a big Beachfest welcome to…Music from the Elders!”

“Ready for a surprise?” Mike says from behind his Peter Criss makeup as we take the stage.

“What? What did you do?” Stan and Al gibber at him.

“No time to talk. It's time to rock!” Mike says, grinning.

He sits behind the drum kit, and the rest of us clomp to the front of the stage. I am relieved that I don't fall. Walking in six-inch platform boots is actually quite challenging. I plug in my Les Paul and survey the crowd—a sweaty, cheering, at least partially drunk sea of humanity with no idea who I am. I'm anonymous and very, very tall.

“Here we go,” Mike says, and clicks his sticks together four times.

Simultaneously, Stan, Mike, and I rip into the intro to “Detroit Rock City.” The intro to this particular song repeats, and just before the repetition of the intro, flash pots on either side of the stage give off a loud BOOM and send up fire and smoke. I can hear Al laughing at Mike's surprise, and he steps to the mike and begins to sing.

The crowd goes insane. And, ultimately, why wouldn't they? Our band sounds great and looks—well, if not great, at least visually interesting. And we have pyrotechnics. We have come to slay them with the power of our rock, and they thank us for it.

“Detroit Rock City” ends, and I grab the acoustic guitar to play the intro to “Black Diamond.”

When Al shouts out “Hit it!” signaling the song's transition from acoustic to electric, the flash pots go again, and we all send glances of affectionate annoyance at Mike, who is lost in his drumming.

“Black Diamond” segues directly into the thumping tom-tom intro to “Rock and Roll All Nite.” During the no-guitar part of the song, I do what people in my position do during such passages. I step to the front of the stage and clap my hands over my head, and the crowd follows suit as if playing a colossal game of Simon Says in which I'm Simon.

I take a moment to scan the crowd for familiar faces, which is to say I look for Liana. I spot Mother and Chase, both smiling and clapping, and then, at the far edge of the crowd, I see the person who isn't clapping over her head, but rather, nodding her head slightly. It's Liana.

Now I'm nervous.

Fortunately, the rest of the band had decided that what “Rock and Roll All Nite” really needed was a guitar solo. I argued unsuccessfully against this in rehearsal, pointing out that the song's lack of a solo is part of its magic, and furthermore, that it prefigured punk rock, and so it would be not only inaccurate but perhaps historically misleading to insert a solo into the song.

The rest of the band insisted, and now I am glad for it as I stride to the front of the stage and pour all my fear and hope and love into the Les Paul, and what comes out is a solo I hope Ace Frehley would be proud of.

The song ends with the third and final burst of the now-spent flash pots, and we all stand and bow. The other members of Music from the Elders exit the stage, and Stan, my accomplice, throws me two towels from the wings. I walk to the mike at the front of the stage, as terrified now as I was confident just a moment ago. My instinct is to run, to just revel in my moment of triumph before I undoubtedly humiliate myself. But I've planned out some rock-and-roll showmanship, and I am going to stick to the plan.

“As you all know, the real members of KISS wore makeup not only for purposes of showmanship, but also to conceal the fact that they are very ugly men.” The crowd gives a few confused cheers.

“Fortunately, I have no such problem.” I take off my wig and throw it into the crowd. I grab the towel with cold cream on it and vigorously rub my face. I grab the plain towel and wipe the residue off my face. I'm sure my face is still streaked with makeup, but I'm also pretty sure it's now clear who I am. I look into the crowd and find Liana. She's grinning. Yes. It is clear that it's me.

“Another difference between us is that KISS wrote songs for money. I wrote this one for love,” I say. The crowd cheers, and the rest of the band, still in KISS makeup, returns to the stage. Stan carries his Paul Stanley Washburn and a Fender Jazzmaster, which he places in my hands, but not before pointing out the modification on the neck.

Mike clicks his sticks together, and I play my intro, step to the mike, and say, “This song's called ‘Planet of Love.'” Then I begin singing the song I wrote for Liana. It goes a little something like this:

By this point, a few interesting things have happened. For one, Liana and I locked eyes at the beginning of the song, and neither of us has looked anywhere else since. It is rather strange and, frankly, arousing, to be having this intimate moment in the midst of thousands of other people. I am relieved to have a guitar covering my spandex-clad crotch. Also, this is the point in the song at which I insert a blistering solo. Though the song is, musically speaking, a Cheap Trick pastiche, my solo is not really in the style of Rick Nielsen. The crowd doesn't seem to mind. In fact, they cheer rather loudly. Then they cheer even louder when I trigger Mike's amateur pyrotechnics and sparks begin shooting out from the tube he's attached to the back of the neck. I see Liana laughing, and for a second I really wish I could silence the band and the crowd and everything but the sound of her laughing.

But I have one more verse and three repetitions of the chorus to get through. Which I do, I think. All I can think of is Liana.

The crowd cheers. They apparently don't mind the fact that the song doesn't have a bridge.

Liana cheers. She apparently doesn't mind the fact that the song casts her as a wayward interstellar traveler, when I was the one who kicked her out of the house and didn't answer her messages.

I can't stand being separated from her any longer. I assess the situation. I could probably stage dive and be passed over the heads of the crowd back to where Liana is standing, but I am frankly quite uncomfortable with that many people touching me, especially when I'm wearing skintight spandex.

I gingerly hop from the stage and find myself immersed in an appreciative crowd and unable to see Liana. Many people are touching me, but at least this is confined to the top half of my body.

A few people hug me as I make my way through the crowd, and then suddenly, someone is hugging me hard enough to make it difficult to breathe. My assailant releases me, and I realize it's Chase.

“Dude,” he says. “You rock!”

I can't help smiling. Especially since the last thing he said to me was something to the effect that I am mentally ill. Remembering that I owe my existence to forgiveness, I look at him and say, “Thank you. I suppose, under the right circumstances, I do.”

“Listen. I'm sorry. I was a total dick, and I—”

“Chase. I forgive you.”

“Thank you, Hank. I do…I mean, I know I'm an idiot sometimes, but I really do, you know, love you.”

“And I recognize that I may occasionally be difficult to live with, and I love you as well. And I am sorry for punching your testicles. But now I must seek out the girl I love. You understand.”

“The funny thing is, I kind of don't. I mean, for all the girls I've…I mean, yeah, there have been a lot of girls, but as far as love, I mean, well, I guess I don't really—”

“Chase, this line of conversation sounds intriguing, but I really must go.”

“Oh, yeah. Go. I'll catch you later.”

Well, now I'm the one dismissing Chase for babbling, and I'm going to find a girl while he stands there alone. The world has truly turned upside down. Or it will, as soon as I find her.