Californium (11 page)

“Jeez,” I say. “If you want her life story, ask her yourself.”

“Okay,” he says. “Can we eat lunch with her and her friends?”

“No way,” Treat says. “How are we supposed to talk about band stuff, and guy stuff, in front of women?”

“Women?” I say. “It's just Edie. She's cool.”

The Mohawk bobs a little. Treat looks over at Edie and Cherise. “Maybe. But not every day. And they have to come to the Bog.”

Keith's smiling. “That's cool. Whichever days you say.”

When van Doren gets over to Edie and sits down to hand out flyers, Keith turns his whole body to watch. Edie and Cherise and some other girls laugh and nod with everything van Doren says.

“What's he doing?” Keith says.

Treat leans forward, happy like a kid in front of a birthday cake. “He's nervous. All he heard at school today was
DikNixon, DikNixon, DikNixon.
I'll bet those flyers are for some gig they threw together about an hour ago.”

“Then what are we doing?” Keith says.

Treat sits straight up. “Yeah. We need to keep the momentum.”

.

The ride home is quiet, Keith and Treat staring out the windows and thinking about who knows what, and me wondering why Keith isn't putting the pressure on his dad about the band practicing at their house. The plan worked great on the way, but Mr. Curtis looks like he's happy to have Treat in the car now, like he's just one of the gang.

We pull into Treat's driveway, right behind the Bug, and Mr. Curtis says, “That belong to your family, Treat?”

“It'll be mine in about six months.”

Mr. Curtis pushes down the parking break in a zip of quick metal clicks. “Mind if I have a look?”

Treat leaps out of the car. “Yeah, I'll fire it up for you.”

With us all out on the driveway checking out the Bug, you'd
think Keith would start working on his dad again. He's not, though. He's shuffling around, his eyes on the concrete, rubbing his hand over the car while Mr. Curtis is talking to Treat like they're old buddies. “This a 'sixty-four?”

“'Sixty-five,” Treat says.

“Gosh, she's in great shape.”

“Cherry.”

Mr. Curtis rubs his hands along the door handle. “You mind?”

Treat shakes his head and Mr. Curtis opens the door and sinks down in the seat. “What a classic,” he says. “I had one in college.”

I look at Keith. “Since we've been jamming in the garage, we have to leave the Bug out here.”

Mr. Curtis looks at Treat. “Is that a fact?” Treat nods like it's a damn shame and Mr. Curtis starts tapping his lip with his finger. “We might have to do something about that.”

Keith is blank, so I look at Treat, like,
Do something before he actually invites us to his house!

Treat walks around the front of the Bug and climbs in the passenger seat. “Check this out,” he says. “The radio works whether the keys are in or not.” He turns the knob and drums pound through the speakers until a distorted guitar explodes and some lead singer starts screaming. Treat bobs his head with the music, the Mohawk crashing onto the dashboard every time it goes forward.

Mr. Curtis smiles at Treat and climbs out of the car. “All right, guys, we better get going.” He thanks Treat the way your dad might thank a neighbor. “Real nice meeting you, Treat. You take care of that beauty.”

Treat's out of the Bug and back on the driveway. “You got it, Mr. C.”

On the way home, Mr. Curtis tells us our friend Treat is all right. “A lot of people might not think so because of that hair. I know I wondered at first. Or they might just see a shy kid screaming out for attention. That's what I see. A good kid.” His eyes get squinty in the rearview as he smiles at me. And what can I do but smile back? “Yeah, you guys are a good influence on ol' Treat there.”

R
eece,” my dad says. “Reece?” He's whispering and the sleep on my eyes keeps them closed. “Wake up, son. We've got a project.”

I don't know where he's come from, when he got here, or how close he was until the weight of him lifts off my bed and I open an eye. The light coming through the window is a ghost, barely brighter than the dark of my room. “Throw on some clothes and come downstairs,” my dad says, then walks out the door.

The smell of coffee creeps into my nose as I get to the kitchen. The milk and sugar are sitting by an empty mug. “Make yourself a cup and come out to the garage,” my dad says. I'm only allowed to drink coffee when we get up early and do “man things,” like hauling old beds to the dump or working on the car. He usually gets after me for using too much sugar or any milk at all. “You don't see Mr. Coffee using cream,” he says, because that's Joe DiMaggio in
those commercials and Joltin' Joe and Packy drink their coffee black, or maybe with a little sawdust.

The sky isn't sure what time of day it is—too black to be morning, too blue to be night. It's so cold, even for California, and I have to go back in for my Packy jacket, which is kind of weird since my dad's wearing one too. When I get to the garage, he's pulling out tool chests and setting them on the floor.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“We,” he says and gets this fake grin, “are building a bar.”

This is the kind of thing my dad and Uncle Ryan would do back in Jersey. They'd spend an entire weekend on some project they made up. My job was to get them beers from the fridge every once in a while. Sometimes, if I did it fast enough, they'd let me sink a screw or sand a plank. But now I'm supposed to play Uncle Ryan's part? “Don't you have to work today?”

“Not 'til nine,” he says. “We'll get started today and work on the project tomorrow, too.” He points at the biggest tool chest. “Circular saw.”

I dig around in the chest with one hand, my coffee in the other, not even drinking it yet because that would make the warmth go away. I pull out the circular saw and he asks for the jigsaw. It's in another chest, so it takes me a little longer before I find it. “Got it.”

We used to do equipment checks on the way to Yankee games: “Tickets?” he'd say. “Check.” “Glove,” he'd say, and I'd hold it up. “Check.”

“Do you mean ‘check'?” my dad says.

“Sure,” I say.

“Then say ‘check.'”

“That's stupid.”

He looks at me and says nothing. And here's the thing about my dad: When he doesn't say anything to what you just said, he's mad or on the way to being mad, which is so not fair this time. I didn't drag him out of bed. And it's not my fault he doesn't have Uncle Ryan around for this pointless project.

“Wood putty?” he says.
Check.
“Hammer and nails?”
Check
and
Check.

We put everything in one chest. My dad opens the garage door, saying all we need right now is the tape measure, a pad, and a pencil. Then, instead of getting in the truck, he walks across our driveway to Astrid's house.

“What are you doing?” I say.

He looks at his watch. “Don't worry, Alex is up.”

Alex? I didn't know my dad ever talked to Astrid's dad. Has he been over there talking to Astrid's dad in front of Astrid? Did he bring me up in front of Astrid, like,
Little Reece will help out too on this project, Alex. It'll be cute to let him hammer a nail or two.

My shorts are about a size too small, my shirt ripped and stained. My hair looks like who knows what. My pillow probably. “I can't go in there.”

I start backing into the garage and my dad whisper-yells at me. “Reece!”

“Do this part without me.”

My dad stops at the bricks on Astrid's walkway. “You need to hold the other end of the tape measure.”

He's right. I take a deep breath and say, “Let me run and get a hat.”

My dad takes a deep breath too and looks out at the cul-de-sac. “Hurry up.”

I set my mug down to show him how fast I'll go. And I do. In an instant I've got on a hat, some jeans, and the City of Huntington Beach Water Treatment button-up shirt Treat talked me into that used to belong to a guy named Dat.

Mr. Thompson is at the front door, all smiles and handshakes, calling my dad Pat and saying, “Come in, come in.” He looks me over and smiles at my shirt. Astrid's mom comes gliding out of the kitchen wearing this robe straight out of Japan, silky with weird plant patterns and those letter characters. Her hair is perfect, like she's hosting a dinner party, and you can see where Astrid gets it, you know? She hands my dad a cup of coffee without even asking him. My dad takes a sip and Mrs. Thompson says, “Isn't that nice, Pat? It's hazelnut.”

“Hazelnut?” my dad says and takes another sip like he's thinking it over. “That is a nice surprise, Ashley.” Then he looks at me, like,
Not a word.

“Would you like some orange juice, Reece?” My chest goes warm like it's hugging her, because how does she know my name? Did Astrid tell her?

The living room and dining room are a snowdrift—white carpet, white leather couch, white curtains, and white pillows everywhere. It's so pure it makes the ivory-and-glass coffee table, the ivory-and-glass dining room table, and the ivory vases (with white flowers in, and etched on, them) look almost dirty.

“No, thanks,” I say to the orange juice. Who needs that pressure?

Their family room is the same size as ours. Only, instead of an old couch with a new cover on it and a stereo cabinet with an eight-track player, Mr. Thompson has these cushioned red chairs with a little table between them. The little couch in the room is actually a little beaten up, but there's a pool table too. It's the nonwhite room.

Mr. Thompson asks if we can get a “complementary” wood. “White oak,” my dad says and taps me to write it down on the pad. They talk about where the bar will go and how big it should be. We take measurements, and I've never been so perfect, doing everything my dad asks and doing it right the first time. I just want to get out of here before Astrid comes downstairs, silk robe and soft footsteps, messy hair and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. It's what you'd want to wake up to every morning. But I don't want her to see me here, the official measuring-tape holder and Berlin Wall champion. The first time we're in that family room together, I need to be holding a guitar, or maybe a corsage.

We get out of there before anything goes wrong. My dad says he'll pick up everything we need after work. “We can get started building the bar tonight,” he says, like it's some treat; then he leaves for work.

.

Keith wasn't up when I knocked, so I told his mom I'd be at Treat's. It's earlier than we said, but Treat's happy to see me. He's got some ideas for my Packy jacket and shows me how to line safety pins up along the shoulder, like I'm a general in some punk army. We're totally into it, sitting on the floor with our backs against Treat's bed, putting the last pins on, when we hear the
front door. Me and Treat grin at each other like it's Christmas morning.

Keith comes in the room and tosses a brown sack onto the floor.

“What is that?” I say.

Treat pulls something flat out of the bag.

“It's a car cover,” Keith says. He sits down on the floor across from me, his back against the wall. “It's a gift for when the Bug's parked outside because my dad thinks you're a ‘fine young man.'”

Treat stands up. “Yeah, right.”

“You blew it,” Keith says.

“
I
blew it? You didn't say dick after the game last night.”

I wad up the sack and toss it at Keith. “He's right.”

“What? I wasn't the one saying how cool Japanese cars are and going, ‘Hey, check out my Bug.'”

“Look,” Treat says. “Being an atheist should be enough.”

Keith picks up the paper sack. “Not if you're an atheist with a cool car.” He throws the sack at me but misses. Treat falls onto the bed, his whole upper body keeling over.

“Are you really an atheist?” I say.

“I'm punk rock.”

“So punkers are atheists?”

Keith stands up. “I'm not an atheist.”

“You don't have to be atheist,” Treat says. “It's more of an anti-religion thing.”

“Atheist,” Keith says.

“No.” Treat sits up. “You don't have to have religion to believe in God.”

Keith sits back down. “Okay, I guess I'm still in the band.”

I hit Keith with the sack again. “The one-instrument band.”

“We'll get instruments,” Treat says. “We'll just have to do something else while we figure that out.” He reaches onto his nightstand and tosses a pencil and a pad of paper onto the bed. “Let's write some songs.”

Keith picks up the pad. “That might be good.”

We're in the room over an hour, mostly tossing the sack back and forth at each other because none of us really know how to write a song. Treat finally says we can go off later and each write some songs alone the way the Beatles did.

So we go from writing songs to deciding the kinds of songs we want to write. Treat wants anti-religion songs. Me and Keith say okay as long as they're not anti-God. We also figure we should have an anarchy song like “Anarchy in the U.K.,” but it can't be “Anarchy in the USA,” since in the grand scheme of things we don't really want that. “Maybe ‘Anarchy in Arkansas,'” Keith says, and we agree since none of us have ever been there.

“See,” Treat says, “we're in good shape. We've got a guitar, an amp, a bullhorn, and some songs on the way.”

I pick up the car cover. “And this, to hide all our equipment under.”

“No.” Treat snatches it from me. “It's better than that. I asked and Lyle won't let us draw our logo on the boxes, so we'll draw it on this instead.”

“That'd be bitchin',” Keith says. “We can take it with us to gigs, too.”

Treat's eyes are getting big and he hands one end of the cover to Keith so they can stretch it out and get a good look. “It'll take
some time to get the logo on there,” he says. “We're going to have to get together tomorrow, too.”

Keith says he's in even though it's a Sunday, and how can I say no to that, a two-thirds majority? “Me too,” I say.

.

In the garage Saturday night, my dad does most of the cutting, leaving the boring stuff for me: measuring the wood, marking where the cuts should go, stacking the cut wood, and cleaning up sawdust.

When it's just support beams left to be cut, things no one will see, my dad sets me up with the wood already clamped to a vise and propped up on scrap pieces so the saw blade won't cut the worktable. The goggles are scratched all over and milky in the corners. It's amazing how once they're on they don't seem all that bad. For the millionth time my dad shows me how to use the circular saw, two hands and look ahead of your cut so you see where you're going and not where you've been. He's over my shoulder, saying, “Be careful,” when I squeeze the trigger and drown him out with the whir of the saw.

The cut will only be about two inches long, but the beams are thick. The blade spits out a line of sawdust and the wood heats up, making the whole garage smell like a campfire.

We get going pretty good, me cutting and stacking the beams, my dad tossing the scrap and putting the next beam in the vise. We only need six but it goes even faster than you might think because our system is perfect.

“These look great,” my dad says. “We'll get everything sanded tomorrow after church and then treat the wood.”

“I can't,” I say. “I'm supposed to go study with Keith.”

My dad unplugs the circular saw, winding its cord around itself. “You can study on your own tomorrow night.”

“But I need to study with Keith. We have flash cards and everything.”

He unplugs the extension cord and starts winding it. “You have a test Monday?”

“Maybe,” I say and look my dad straight in the face since I'm not lying. “Mr. Krueger gives surprise quizzes on the periodic table, and then there'll be a surprise test. We have to be ready for it at any time.”

He nods and puts the cord away. “So you're not going to the arcade?”

“What arcade?” I say.

My dad starts sweeping the floor. “Your mother's making her corned beef for dinner tomorrow.” This is his way of saying it's okay for me to be gone on a Sunday, just as long as I'm back in time for dinner.

.

On Sundays back in Paterson, sometimes Uncle Ryan and Aunt Mary would come over after church. Uncle Ryan would walk across the front lawn with a bottle of wine in his hand, and he'd yell, “Happy Sunday,” to the first person he saw. We'd watch baseball or have a catch, and my mom and Aunt Mary would cook a bunch of food. If me and Brendan had a game or a puzzle going, Uncle Ryan would say, “Mare, I'm going to join these gentlemen in their recreation. Tell Packy his presence and two glasses of wine are required.”

When we went places, it was usually some restaurant my mom wanted to try. And if the weather was nice, we'd go all the way down to Seaside Heights. Aunt Mary and Mom would find a bench on the boardwalk, happy just to talk and stay out of the sand. Dad and Uncle Ryan would take all us kids down to the beach for Wiffle ball. You never knew how long we'd be down there, but you'd know it was time to go when Uncle Ryan said, “Who thinks they can beat me at air hockey?” He was usually good for a game or two before my dad gave out a handful of quarters and said, “Half an hour. And keep an eye on your sister.”

On the way to dinner, Mom would send me into whichever bar Dad and Uncle Ryan had snuck into so I could tell them where to meet us.