Janice looked surprised.
“Isn’t it a little early to be making demands?” she asked.
“We need time to play music,” I said. “Jared has a talent. And I don’t think it’s fair to keep people from pursuing what they’re interested in. That’s what my grandmother does. Anything that isn’t part of my ‘comprehensive education’ is useless. I don’t think you want to be that kind of parent, Mrs. Whitcomb. I really don’t.”
I glanced at Jared. His mouth was agape. Janice was biting her bottom lip.
“Studying first,” is all she said.
Two words. Then she left the room and headed down the stairs. We understood the deal. Geometry. Then music. Jared didn’t say anything. Decisions had been made without him, and it was not his manner to sit back and watch that happen. But eventually, he picked up the math book and opened it up to the first page. He scooted over in bed.
“Well,” he said. “Get in here and teach me about these goddamn shapes, Professor Brain-lobes.”
I sat down next to him and he handed me the book. I checked the clock. It was getting close to eleven and Meredith still wasn’t home. I opened the book and flipped to the first chapter. The first night our band was back together, we would spend talking about points, lines, planes, and spaces.
“You see this?” I said. I put my finger below a dot in the book. “This is a point. It has no dimensions. It has no length, breadth, depth at all.”
Jared listened without complaint.
“I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I feel very similar to a point lately.”
“Fuckin’ A,” he said.
26.
Return of The Rash
THERE WERE THREE DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE TALENT show when we composed our second anthem. We didn’t know if Janice would allow us to perform, but we had official practice hours now, so we put them to use. The schedule broke down thus: daytime was study time; the evening was music time. First: the coordinate system. Second: punk rocking. That was the deal I had engineered. And if we adhered to it, our lives would be manageable. We took most of the weekend to get a jump start on the geometry, but by Monday, The Rash was back. Jared was not at full strength by any means, but he was able to play sitting down on the bed with his V-shaped guitar on his lap. I sat across the room on top of my amplifier. We both wore our T-shirts.
“Your backup vocals need work,” said Jared. “I just have to be honest with you at this stage. You sound like a big limp wang every time you open your mouth.”
We had been practicing “Stupid School” for a half hour. My bass playing had improved slightly, but Jared was right, I was still self-conscious about my singing voice.
“It’s not singing so much as just letting it rip,” he said. “Scream like a banshee. Howl like a horny dog.”
“What’s a banshee?”
“I don’t know,” said Jared. “Just act like you have a pair. That’s the point I’m making.”
“I’ll try to improve,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “But let’s take a break first. I’m getting the spins.”
He flipped off his guitar and set it on the bed. He motioned me over, and then reached under his pillow and extracted his songwriting notebook. The two single mattresses had been his home base since he returned from the hospital, and you could tell by their smell. He flipped through pages of doodles and flame-engulfed versions of our band name until he got to a page covered in scrawl.
“I started something in the hospital,” he said.
“A new song?”
“Maybe. Just let me finish.”
“Fine.”
He pressed his finger to the page.
“I was thinking this one could be different,” he said.
“Different how?”
“Well, not really different. But I was just brainstorming, and I thought that even though we’re mostly about hating everything and wanting things to be destroyed and mutilated, I think we might need to write a little something for the ladies.”
I noticed a drawing of a pair of breasts in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
“A song about feminine subjects?”
“What’s wrong with you?” he said. “No. A song about hot chicks.”
“Oh.”
“I mean even the Ramones have that one on their first album. ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.’ ”
I shook my head.
“Hey little gir-irl, I wanna be your boyee-friend,”
Jared sang. “
Swe-eet little gir-irl
. . . Come on! You know it.”
“I don’t think I know it.”
“Anyway, it’s totally for the ladies. No matter how angry you are, you have to get girls involved or you’re not really a band. That’s a rule. You don’t want your concerts to be big sausage parties.”
I decided not to ask any more clarifying questions. These early sessions were the most delicate times for Jared’s self-confidence. He could wilt in minutes.
“Is there a title?” I asked.
“A working title,” he said.
“What is it?”
“ ‘I Wanna Fondle Your Chests,’ ” he said.
I didn’t say anything.
“I was going to just say ‘breasts’ or ‘hooters’ or something regular. But we might get kicked off the stage for foul language at Immanuel. ‘Chests’ could mean anything. It could mean that part below the neck that’s not really the boobs yet. The pre-boob region.”
I looked at the notebook. I could see now that the word “ta-tas” was crossed out.
“I don’t know, Jared.”
“Oh, God, what?”
“I think it’s a bit disrespectful.”
“To who?” he yelled.
“Women.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Well, yeah,” he said.
“So you don’t care about that?”
“Listen,” he said. “Guys in bands are supposed to be disrespectful to women. That’s part of our charm. If the ladies wanted someone respectful they’d go see the ballet or something. Instead they come see us to rock and take off their shirts.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Fine,” he said. “Then we don’t have a second song. Way to go, you spoiled everything.”
“Don’t you have a tune?” I asked. “Didn’t you write some music?”
“Maybe.”
“Play it, Jared. It’s only the title I’m questioning.”
“You’ve already taken a steaming dump all over my dream.”
“Just play it. We’re a songwriting team.”
“Don’t call us that.”
He sat back and closed his eyes a minute. He removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He released a dramatic sigh. He opened his eyes and examined the open notebook in front of him. The pen tip circled the words of the title. He drew a line under it and wrote a question mark at the end. “I wasn’t sure about the word ‘fondle’ anyway,” he said. “It’s kind of a sissy word.”
He clicked the toggle switch at the base of his guitar and the sound of his tuning filled the room. He barely touched a string with his fingertip, and a shrill harmonic escaped. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Turn up the distortion and reverb.”
I leaned down and adjusted the knobs on his amplifier. A slight growl of distortion came out of the speaker. He took a breath, then began playing a high-pitched pealing guitar part. The notes were hacked apart in a style similar to that of our first song, but there was a more agreeable rhythm this time. I could already hear the beginning of a bass line in my head. Something simple. Just a descending scale. I wanted to pick up my bass and give it a try, but I decided to give Jared time to play the song through.
“Saw you on the sidewalk . . . lookin’ pretty cute,”
he started.
His voice spilled out again, grimy but perfectly clear. His hand worked feverishly over the frets of his guitar. He didn’t look down at his hands once.
“How I wish you were . . . in your birthday suit!”
He picked up the pace and played a fuller-sounding version of the guitar part. His lyrics were so fast:
“If I had a machine that zapped off clothes. I would use it on you from head to toes! Oh yes I would. I would. I would. I’d zap off your shirt. Oh. I’d zap off your skirt!”
He stopped a moment. “This is the chorus right here,” he said. The guitar slowed down a little and the tune changed to something slightly more melodious. The strumming was less palsied.
“Oh, it would be cooler if you were naked. Yes indeed. It would be cooler if you were naked. Here with me. ’Cause I’m going mad up in my room!”
He added a flourish or two with his guitar then repeated himself.
“ ’Cause I’m going mad. I’m going madddd. I’m going madddd up in my room!”
He stopped and held the guitar for a minute. He closed his eyes and let the last note slowly fade away. Then he turned down the volume and looked at me.
“So,” he said. “What do you say?”
“What does the title have to do with that?” I asked.
“It’s the same girl on the sidewalk. I want to fondle her chests. After I’ve zapped her clothes off. The title is a flash-forward at things to come. I’m experimenting with time.”
“Hmm.”
“Stop with the suspense. Just tell me if it’s a horrid piece of crap and we’ll move on.”
“I think . . .”
He rolled his eyes.
“I think I like the song,” I said. “It’s sad actually.”
“What do you mean it’s sad? It’s about forcibly removing someone’s clothes. It’s awesome.”
“Well,” I said, “I guess I’m thinking of that part at the end about going crazy up here in your room. That’s the entire point of the song, isn’t it? You’re up here just imagining things because you can’t really go out and accomplish them. It’s the same thing I used to do in the dome.”
“You imagined girls without their bras on up there?”
“Not really, but I imagined conversing with people who walked by. Girls, too, I guess. I felt like I had no real experiences. I was just frustrated in my room.”
“Great,” said Jared.
“What?”
“I try to write a song about hooters and it turns out sad. I might as well grow a ponytail.”
“It’s a good song,” I said. “But we’re changing the title.”
“To what?”
“ ‘Up in My Room,’ ” I said.
“ ‘Up in My Room,’ ” he repeated. “It’s too obvious.”
“Trust me this time,” I said.
“What about ‘I Wanna Massage Your Buttocks’?”
I walked back to my seat on the amplifier and picked up my bass. I adjusted the strap on my back.
“All right, fine,” he said. “But we’re losing our edge. I hope you realize that.”
We spent the rest of our allotted time practicing the new song. It took me longer than I thought to come up with an adequate bass line. Jared made everything appear much easier than it actually was. And this time, his chord changes were harder to follow. By the end of the hour, though, I was starting to get it down: a simple back and forth between the A string and the E string.
Dum-Dum-Dum-mmm-Bah-Bah-Bah.
But the part was faster than anything I’d ever played. I knew I was going to have to practice intensely in order to have it down by Thursday night.
At eleven-fifteen, we called it a night and I went downstairs to brush my teeth and wash my face. Jared had to have a check-in with Janice about his condition. The hospital had given them a list of questions to discuss, and a nightly conference was required now. So I headed downstairs, thinking about the song. It felt like it still needed something, and I wondered if the problem was mine, if my bass playing wasn’t holding up, even in a punk song. I wished I had started learning earlier.
I was in the bathroom with my shirt off, and soap all over my face, when Meredith showed up in the doorway. I had just splashed the first handful of water over my face when I opened my eyes and saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror. I squinted to keep the trickles of soapy water out of my eyes. Meredith was wearing pants this time, and a baggy sweatshirt. Her hair was down and just touching her thin shoulders.
“I have an idea for your next poster,” she said.
I finished rinsing my face and dried it off with a plush wash-cloth.
“I don’t have the money for the first ones yet.”
“I know,” she said. “How would you? You don’t do anything.”
I turned around and covered my skinny chest with crossed arms.
“I think Jared wants to come up with the next idea. He was upset I did the last one by myself. But thanks.”
I faced the mirror again and started squeezing toothpaste on my brush. In the dome, I had used natural paste made of herbal oils and extracts. The Whitcombs’ brand was tricolored and it always surprised me when it came out of the tube. Bright green, white, and blue. Like a pureed flag.
“I see,” said Meredith.
I started brushing, making little circles around my gums the way Nana had taught me. I wondered now if this was the way everyone else cleaned their teeth.
“Well, maybe we could brainstorm some ideas, and then you could let Jared make some additions. You have to learn how to manipulate him. If he thinks something is his idea, he’ll go with it.”
She laughed a little and continued to watch me. I wanted so badly to smile when she did, but I knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let her think everything was fine. The sting of the night before was still there.
“Okay then,” she said. “If you don’t want to chat.”
Her reflection drew closer in the glass until she was standing beside me. She took a bright pink toothbrush from the metal holder. She coated the bristles and started to brush the same way I did. Little circles. The swish of our combined brushing hit different timbres. It was like a conversation.
Scritch. Scritch. Scratch. Scritch. Scratch.
Finally I got to the point where I needed to spit. But I didn’t want to perform this action in front of her. I tried to hold it in. Meredith didn’t pay any attention. I tentatively swallowed a little bit of paste, but the overpowering mint burned my throat.
“Are you okay?” Meredith stopped brushing.