Casey Barnes Eponymous (12 page)

Mrs. Edwards sighed and walked away.
 
Sukh spoke in a low voice.
 
“Primary sources, my…well I will not say
what I was going to say.
 
At any
rate I am very glad not to be working with that windup toy.”

Casey nodded.
 
“Amen.”

Sukh whipped out his copy of
Beowulf.
“Okay
so it is I think unavoidable that the plot of this drek will at the very least
need to be addressed in our project, yes?”

She shrugged.
 
“Can’t
argue with you there.”
 

He started writing out the main plot points of
Beowulf
.
 
“As
long as we acknowledge this she cannot give us too low of a grade.”
 
He grinned.
 
“And then we add Elvis in as…as the
icing, yes?”
 

“Absolutely.
 
But
also Sukh I’m wondering something.”
 

“Yes?”
 

“After school can you come over to my house?” Casey began, “This
guy Ben from my Spanish class will be there too.”

“But what exactly will he be there for?”

“For band practice.”
 
She sat up straighter in her chair.
 
“We, my friend, are going to start the most guitar-slaying,
album-selling, hotel-room-trashing rock band of all time.”
 

16

Sukh and Ben were also sophomores so none of them had their
license yet.
 
Since Yull had an
Amnesty club meeting that day, the newly formed power trio took the bus to
Casey’s house after school.
 

Thankfully all the three-seaters were taken.
 
The three of them cramming into one of
those would have been too unrock for words.
 
Casey sat in front of Ben and Sukh.
 
She took paper and pen out of her bag
and turned to face them.
 
“What are
your influences?”
 

“Let me consider,” Sukh said.
 

Casey looked at Ben.
 
“Drummer?”

“Is that how you’re going to address me from now on?”

“Possibly,” she said.
 

“Why do you need to know my influences?” he asked.

“For when we write our band bio.
 
They always state influences in band
bios.”

“I see.”
 

On one corner of the paper Casey scribbled
A good
bandleader knows how to keep her musicians on task.
 
She threw her hand over it so
Sukh and Ben could not see.
 
Ben might
have seen though.
 
Or perhaps he was
just raising his eyebrow because he had an itch.
 
“Influences, please,” she pressed.

“The punks,” Sukh said.
 

She brought her pen to paper and nodded.
 
“Interesting.”
 

Sukh nodded.
 
“Yes,
they have most definitely influenced me.”
 

“Which punk bands in particular?” she asked.
 

“Nirvana,” he said.
 
She wrote it down.
 
“Mudhoney,” Sukh continued.

“Separating yourself from the pack here,” she murmured.

Ben looked out the window.
 
Casey frowned and made another note at the bottom of the paper.
 
While attitude on the part
of drummers is to be expected, it is still imperative for band leaders to
communicate a sense of limitation to said drummers when they get too
lippy.
 
Aka, threaten to fire him
from time to time.

 
“And I like the
hard punk bands like Fugazi and Minor Threat,” Sukh concluded.

“Sukh man,” Casey said, “even though I generally view D.C.
scenesters as kids in hammer and sickle T-shirts with degrees from elite
schools, these are impressive contributions.”

Ben’s eyes remained glued outside.
 
“Ever listen to Jawbox?”

“No but I can.” Sukh grinned.
 
“This bus ride is more educational than
an entire day at Walton!”

“This is only the beginning of your rockucation.” Casey turned
to Ben.
 
“Your turn.”
 

“Did you just say ‘rockucation’?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.
 

“Do you have any food at your house?”

“All rider requests must be made in writing,” she said.
 
Riders are food and dressing room
requirements made by musicians while on tour.
 
Ben just stared.
 
“We might have Oreos and frozen pizza,”
she added.

 
“Blue-eyed soul,
psychedelic, Spencer Davis, Traffic,” Ben said.
 

She cocked her head to one side. “I didn’t know they still made
Winwood fans.”

“They
do.
 
Your go.”

“PJ
Harvey, My Morning Glory, Cat Stevens, Andrew Bird, Moby, and the Gorillaz.”

“You are
an impresario of influences,” Sukh said.
 

“That I
am,” Casey said.
 
Ben looked back
out the window.

After
cleaning out the kitchen of all forms of junk food life, Casey, Ben and Sukh
went to the basement.
 
Ben had a
drumming pad and Sukh had an acoustic bass they borrowed from the music room.
 
Casey strapped her guitar on.

And then
she kind of panicked.
 
What if they
did not like her songs?
 
But they
were watching and she had junk food pumping through her veins.
 
She launched into the song about her biology
teacher being reincarnated as a tapeworm.
 
When she got to the end she realized she had been staring at the ground
the whole time.
 
She looked up and
saw that Sukh and Ben seemed a bit uncomfortable.

“Casey,
maybe the next time you could sing a little bit louder?” Sukh said.

“Let’s
hear another one,” Ben said.

Casey
launched into her second song.
 
But
she was even more nervous that time and kept flubbing chords.
 
She stopped halfway through. “Sorry, I
really can play guitar.
 
I just,
um…” She shook her head and started again.
 
When she got to the end of that one, Ben and Sukh did not say much
either.
 
Then she launched into a
third.
 
That time she at least did
not flub any chords and her voice was more audible.
 
When she finished she got a nod from
Sukh and what might have been a slight head movement from Ben.
 

“Got any
more?” Ben asked.
 
She nodded.
 
When she was midway through that one Ben
sat on the couch and began to tap out a rhythm.
 
Sukh picked up his bass and
strummed.
 
If pressed, Casey would
have described it as the sonic equivalent of that color kids got to in
elementary school when they lost control of finger painting.
 
But the three of them were, technically,
playing music together.
 
Which made
it a real live band practice.
 
After
that song they told each other it sounded good, even though it had not.
 

“Maybe now
we work on a
Beowulf
song,” Sukh said.

“A what?”
Ben asked.
 

“
Beowulf
as Elvis,” Sukh said, “It is a project we do for
English class.
 
We’re telling the story
of
Beowulf
in modern day Graceland as a
rock opera.”

Ben looked
from Sukh to Casey.
 
“There might be
hope for this band yet.”

The rest
of band practice consisted of googling and transposing Elvis songs and then
changing the lyrics to be either quotes from or statements about
Beowulf.
 
Ben was
considerably more excited about the
Beowulf
/Elvis
songs than he was about Casey’s.
 
He
even said he could skip gym class the day they were presenting and accompany
them.
 

Casey
folded her arms over her chest. “I’m not sure if I want truants in my rock
band.”

“Somehow I
don’t quite believe you on that one,” Ben said.

“Come now
Casey, it is only gym,” Sukh said.

“Gym to
you, physical education to me.”

A couple
of songs later Sukh announced he had to depart in order to go home and
study.
 
His sister was coming to
pick him up and she could also give Ben a ride.
 
As soon as they were gone Casey went
upstairs and did an internet search on great rock bands that had less than
stellar first rehearsals.
 
Her
search yielded no results.
 
There
was, however, little time for despair.
 
That was because, at that moment, Leigh called.
 

“I need
you to come over.”

“What
happened?”

“Just
please come.
 
I’m not even supposed
to be talking on the phone right now.”

“Is it--?”

“Armageddon,”
Leigh said, “Please come.
 
Now.”

17

Before
they got off the phone, Leigh had instructed Casey to enter the house through
the sliding glass door that led to her basement.
 
And that was because Leigh was in the
same state she had been in since she walked in the door from school that day.

Grounded.
 
And not like the Pavement album
either.
 
Rather she was plain,
old-fashioned, mon cherie
you
ain’t
seeing the light of day until you’re thirty-five, grounded.
 

Leigh’s
mom found the roach clip.
 
She was
also the one who found the Arcade Fire ticket.
 
They were both in a pair of jeans Leigh gave
to her several weeks back to get the knee sewed.
 

“How could
you not remember they were the ones you wore to the show?” Casey asked.

They were
sitting on top of the dryer in her laundry room.
 
Leigh’s mom was upstairs noisily moving
pots and pans around in the kitchen.
 
“I just forgot, okay,” Leigh grumbled.
 
Leigh’s mom moved one pot with a
particularly loud clang.
 

“So why’d
she put the ticket but not the roach clip in your room when she’d found both of
them?” Casey asked.

“I think
she was trying to get me to fess up or something.
 
Either that or she had to look online
and find out what a roach clip was.”

Casey
thought about Leigh’s mom’s candle shop and how she had scented candles
organized by season.
 
“She totally
had to look online and see what a roach clip was.”

Leigh put
her head in her hands.
 

“How long
are you grounded for?” Casey continued.

“She
didn’t say.
 
She just said there’s
gonna be more but she won’t know until my Dad comes home from work tonight.”
 

“But did
you try denying the whole thing?
 
Saying it was Eva’s ticket and roach clip?”

“Yeah but
she didn’t buy it.
 
Eva even called
and offered that story up.
 
But my
Mom said it was implausible that the roach clip and ticket ended up in my pants
when Eva was the one who went to the show.
 
And then she said she doubted Eva would’ve gone to an Arcade Fire show.”