King Dork (42 page)

down, folded up the “killed by Tit?” printout, and placed it in 321

the book between the pages containing this Deep Thought.

That oughta confuse the hell out of them, I thought with in-calculable satisfaction. All we had to do now was wait.

I glanced over at Sam Hellerman, sleeping peacefully in

the corner. Then I got up and went down to the basement

and put the book near the bottom of one of the book boxes, feeling as though I were burying the sixties. Even though I guess I really wasn’t.

G R EAT B O OK, C HANG E D MY LI F E, YOU

KNOW

It’s rather ironic, wouldn’t you say, that things ended up arranging themselves so that I spent a considerable chunk of my sophomore year carrying around a copy of
The Catcher in the
Rye
everywhere I went? In a sense, I suppose you could even say that
The Catcher in the Rye
changed my life, though I’m not about to commemorate that fact by joining a cult or anything.

It set in motion a process by which I learned so much about some stuff that I ended up not knowing anything at all about it. And it indirectly influenced the fact that my rock band accidentally brought down a perverted high school sexploita-

tion empire and freed the little children from the devil-head predations of an evil associate principal. And it happened to coincide with my clumsy venture from pure fantasy to impure reality in the girl arena. Not bad for a sucky book you read only to suck up to teachers holding a gun to your head.

Look, it’s not even that bad of a book. I admit it. I can feel sorry for myself while pretending to be Holden Caulfield. I can. And I can see why the powers that be have decided to

adopt it as their semiofficial alterna-bible. Things were really, really bad in the sixties. You were always getting kicked out 322

of your prep school, or getting into fights at your prep school, or getting marooned on deserted islands on the way to your fancy English boarding school. And when you finally got off the island, your “old man” was always on your “case,” and

Vietnam just drove you crazy, plus you were constantly high on drugs and out of touch with reality and it was sometimes a little more difficult than it should have been to get everyone to admit how much better you were than everybody else.

It was rough. I get it. I really get it. Up with Holden. I’d have probably been the same way.

In the end, though, the attempt to save the world by forc-

ing people to read
The Catcher in the Rye
and dressing casually and supporting public television and putting bumper stickers on Volvos and eating only weird expensive food and separat-ing your cans and bottles and doing tai chi and going to the farmer’s market and pronouncing Spanish words with a

cartoon-character accent and calling actresses actors and

making up your own religion and so forth—well, the world refused to be saved that way. Big surprise. On the other hand, no one could ever mistake Hillmont High School for a prep

school, so at least you accomplished that. I mean, calling it a school involves the kind of generosity of spirit that in other circumstances might get you the Nobel Peace Prize nomina-tion or something. You stuck it to the old man, killed half of your brain cells,
and
dumbed down the educational system: you
are
the greatest generation.

Before all that character arc stuff happened, I might have been able to sing “all we are saying is make high school a little less sadistic” with a little more enthusiasm. Compared to Hillmont High School, Holden Caulfield’s prep school troubles seem like a sort of heaven on earth. But honestly, I’ve got my mind on other things. Girls and rock and roll, I mean.

Everything else is trivia.

323

OUTRO

How we live now:

Christmas break. Band practice. We Have Eaten All the

Cake, me on guitar/vox, Spam L. Ermine on bass and domes-

tic hygiene, Shinefield on drums, first album
Slut Heaven.

Working on: “You Look Good on Drugs.”

Little Big Tom enters, tilts his head to one side, raises one eyebrow, does a quick, shallow knee bend, tilts his head to the other side, raises the phone he is carrying above his head, and brings it down, straightening his arm in one fluid motion, as though it’s a remote and he’s changing the channel. Or a phaser on stun.

“There a rock star in the house?”

I take the phone. “Oh, thank God,” I say, when I realize

it is Celeste “Fiona” Fletcher. Because we’ve started saying that whenever we call each other.

Fake Fiona: “Trombone!”

Amanda: “Get off the phone. Get off the phone. Get off

the phone.”

Mom: just about halfway visible from a certain angle,

seated at the dining room table at the end of the hall in a cloud of cigarette smoke, staring into her drink. Looking sad and beautiful.

Little Big Tom, sighing: “Rock and roll . . .”

Sam Hellerman: staring ahead inscrutably, fingering bass

strings. Saying nothing.

325

bandography

( A U G U S T – D E C E M B E R )

1. Easter Monday

2. Baby Batter

guitar: Guitar Guy

base and scientology: Sam Hellerman

third album:
Odd and Even Number

3. The Plasma Nukes

guitar: Lithium Dan

bass and calligraphy: Little Pink Sambo

vox: The Worm

machine-gun drums: TBA

first album:
Feelin’ Free with the Plasma Nukes

4. Tennis with Guitars

lead axe: Love Love

bass and rat-catching: The Prophet Samuel

vocals, keys, bumping, grinding: Li’l Miss Debbie

drummer: Beat-Beat

first album:
Amphetamine Low

cover: white with the album title in tiny black type on

the back. The band name does not appear anywhere

on the outside packaging.

second album:
Phantasmagoria, Gloria

photo: a police dog licks a broken doll’s face.

327

5. Helmet Boy

guitar: Moe

bass and procrastination: Sambiguity

first album:
Helmet Boy II

6. Liquid Malice

7. The Underpants Machine

guitar: Super-Moe

bass and bottle rockets: Sam Sam the Piper’s Son

first album:
We Will Bury You

8. The Stoned Marmadukes

guitar: Moe “Fingers” Henderson

bass and paleontology: Mr. Sam Hellerman

first album:
Right Lane Must Exit

9. Ray Bradbury’s Love-Camel

guitar: Moe-Moe

bass and calisthenics: Scammy Sammy

first album:
Prepare to Die

10. Silent Nightmare

guitar: The Lord of Electricity

bass and gynecology: Samson

first album:
Feel Me Fall

11. The Medieval Ages

guitar: St. Moe

bass and bodywork: Samber Waves of Grain

first album:
That Stupid Pope

328

12. The Sadly Mistaken

guitar: Moe Vittles

bass and landscaping: Sam “Noxious” Fumes

first album:
Kill the Boy Wonder

13. Oxford English

guitar: Moe Bilalabama

bass and lollygagging: Sam “the Cat” Hellerman

first album:
What Part of Suck Don’t You Understand?

14. Some Delicious Sky, aka SDS

treble and vocals: Squealie

thick bottom and industrial arts:

Sambidextrous

first album:
Taste My Juice

15. Arab Charger

guitar: me

bass and preventive dentistry: The Fiend in

Human Shape

first album:
Blank Me

16. Occult Blood

guitar and vox: Mopey Mo

bass and teleology: Hell-man

percussion instruments: Todd Panchowski

first album:
Pentagrampa

17. The Mordor Apes

guitar: Mithril-hound

bass and necrology: Li’l Sauron

percussion and stupefaction: Dim Todd

first album:
Elven Tail

329

18. The Nancy Wheelers

guitar: Pseudo-Moe

bass and ouija board: Sam Hellerman

first album:
Margaret? It’s God. Please Shut Up.

19. Green Sabbath

guitar: Monsignor Eco-druid

bass and industrial sabotage: The Grim

Recycler

drums, percussion, acoustic and semi-

acoustic drums, cymbals, tambourines,

cowbells, chimes, gongs, toms, shaker

eggs, bongos, stick clicks, wood blocks,

percussion, percussion and more

percussion: Todd “Percussion” Panchowski

first album:
Our Drummer Is Kind of Full of Himself

20. Balls Deep

guitar: Comrade Gal-hammer

bass and embroidery: Our Dear Leader

real fancy and important percussion: the

Lonely Dissident

first album:
We Control the Horizontal

21. Super Mega Plus

guitar/vox: Moelle

bass, prevarication, and procuring young

girls under false pretenses: Sam Hell

irregular timekeeping: Brain-dead Panchowski

first album:
A Woman Knows

330

22. The Chi-Mos!

guitar: the Reverend Chi-Mo

bass and being aware of his own mortality:

Assistant Principal Chi-Mo

percussion and counting to four:

Chi-Mo Panchowski

first album:
Balls Deep

23. The Elephants of Style

guitar: Mot Juste

bass and animal husbandry: Sam Enchanted

Evening

first album:
Devil Warship

24. Sentient Beard

guitar/vox: Mot Nosredneh

bass and upholstery: Samerica the Beautiful

first album:
Off the Charts—Way Off

25. We Have Eaten All the Cake

guitar/vox: Tomcat

bass and domestic hygiene Spam L. Ermine

:

drums: Shinefield

first album
Slut Heaven

:

331

glossary

AC/DC
(ACK-dack): the fourth-greatest rock and roll band of all time.

Advanced French
(a-VALST flalsh): a form of the French language in which only the present tense is used. Primarily employed for telling time and for describing the activities of this one guy named Jean and this other guy named Claude.

Advanced Placement
(ud-VANT-udgd po-LEES-munt):

classes that are far easier than regular classes and for which students receive inflated grades. Rumor has it that “work” done in some AP classes can even count as college credit, though it is doubtful that the sort of college that would accept such credit is the sort of college you’d ever want to put on a resume.

anglophile
(an-GLOF-eh-lay): someone who is under the mistaken impression that there is something cool or impressive about trying to speak in a fake English accent.

ankh
(ANK-ul): the ancient Egyptian symbol of life, often worn as a pendant or tattoo, or emblazoned on drug paraphernalia.

atheism
(AUT-iz-im): a religion for people who figure they probably already know everything there is to know about

everything.

The Bad Seed
(dee BUD sayd): the charming story of a typical American childhood. The second-greatest movie ever

made.

Bayeux Tapestry
(bay-OOKS tap-ESS-tree): a long strip of material embroidered in the Middle Ages that illustrates

333

the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England.

Starring the Pope, William the Conqueror, a guy named

King Cnut [sic], and a lot of guys with swords dressed up

as chess pieces.

The Beatles
(the RUTT-ulz): four mop-topped lads from Liverpool who set the toes of the world a-tapping. Then

they turned into hippies.

be-in
(BE-ing): back in the sixties, hippies used to have these, where everybody took drugs and tried to feel important. I

think it’s pretty much the same as a “happening.”

bête noire
(bait nwah-RAY): “black beast” in nonadvanced French. It’s slightly worse than a pet peeve, though not as bad as a bane, as far as I can tell.

The Bible
(the bibble): a big creepy book, the contents of which have influenced and formed the basis for much of

the history and culture of Western civilization for thou-

sands and thousands of years. Mention of this book is for-

bidden in public schools and in progressive right-thinking households, thus ensuring that substantial chunks of history and literature and the culture at large will be virtually incomprehensible to a sizeable minority of the country’s

population. Highly prized by religious and other wrong-

thinking people for these and other reasons.

The Big Chill
(tha BEEG cheel): a nauseating movie about everybody’s parents. If anyone has ever tried to make you