The Anomalies (9 page)

“Ahhh,” our bandmates say. He hops up and faces them. “I was having a private conversation with Ember! And what is with that ‘Ahhh’ shit? This is not an episode of Full House. I am not a fucking Olsen twin. And if I meant for all of you to hear—”

Luster keeps yelling. Then they surround him. They hug him and tell him they love him, too.

He finally shuts up.

A cute guy comes out on stage. I’m just crazy about his outfit! It’s so wild! Pleather pants, shiny shirt, and those piercings and tattoos! Actually, my little stepsister has a tattoo just like one he has! Crazy!

“What’s up, mothah fuckas?” he asks.

Oh. Everybody, even the little kids, is yelling “Woo!” so I join in.

“Woo!”

He continues: “How many of you feel like humans?”

Everyone “woos.”

“And how many of you feel like fucking animals?”

Everyone “woos,” even more than before.

“Later on tonight we got Assficksi8, Hyber Nation, and Spazm. But right now, we got the debut of a brand-new band. Put your hands together for the Anna Mollies!”

Hmm…I like that name. The crowd sort of gives them a hand, and the curtain opens. There’s Opal! I love the matching gold outfits. The spotlights are causing them to shine. Emilio sleeps in a similar outfit. I notice that quite a few of the people around me are laughing and making fun of them. (Their costumes and them as people.)

That black guy is crazy! He won’t stop moving. San Francisco. He keeps running back and forth across the stage with his hands in the air. He should be on Broadway! I can’t keep my eyes off of him, and it’s not because I’m totally gay! Meanwhile, I look at all of my patients, and they are staring in awe at Opal.

I guess if she’s not in a nursing home (which I’m convinced she needs to be after hearing her panty-sniffing story! Gross!) this is the next best place for her to be with all this
craziness!

The first thing I see and hear when I come in is that crazy Johnson boy running around on stage. I said I’d keep an eye on him, and he’s making it easy for me.

“It is Anomalies! The Anomalies!” he screams into the microphone. “I see a lot of good-looking widows, orphans, introverts, extroverts, latchkey kids, amputees, and Jewish carpenters out there tonight! My name is Luster Johnson, and I am doing well! I am not going to ask you all how you are doing, because I am sure you would just reply by yelling, ‘Wooo!’”

A bunch of the audience yells “Woo!” anyway. Ha. I see his brothers are here, too. Must be looking for some customers, and I know about the crack.

“Humanoids, Huey Lewis, I have got news. Tonight we plan to rock you into oblivion! So blow out your candles, and make a death wish! Unzip the name brand epidermis! Let the razor blade sounds of my crazy trachea cut the cord on the back of your necks!”

Listen to all that. And he ain’t on drugs?

Man, if I’ve got something to say, I’ll just come out and say it. I just don’t care.

“Dude, your outfits are fucking gay!” I get a laugh from my buds. I rule. That black dude thinks he’s some kind of rock star or something, so fuck him and his friends. I don’t get this band.
They don’t belong here, and they don’t belong together.

“Fuck you! I made these outfits!” yells the old lady. The crowd cheers for her. Whatever. Shouldn’t she be in a nursing home or something? I give her the middle finger. I don’t care if she is an old lady. I don’t give a fuck. My friends are lovin it. I’m the man.

The black dude looks right at me. “I cannot believe it!” he says. “A punk rock kid giving the middle finger? What next, asshole? Are you going to accuse us of being sell-outs?”

“Sell-outs!” I yell at him.

“Let me tell you, Punky Punkerson, you can make fun of our outfits until the fat ladies come home and the cow sings. Free is the man who does not mind looking stupid!” he says. “But you probably already knew that!”

Before I threaten to kick his ass, the sweet-ass drummer stands up and yells, “Come on, Luster! Let’s play a song!”

Some dude yells, “Show us your tits!” Another dude yells, “That drummer’s fucking hot!” Another dude yells, “So is the bass player!”

The bass player is, like, a little girl. After hearing that, she comes up to the edge of the stage and spits at the audience. That is pretty punk rock. So you know what? She’s all right.

Duuude, maaaan. This black dude’s killing my buzz, man. He keeps, like, fucking with everybody. That’s so not cool, dude. This is all about meeting new people. It’s all about the music, man. Why won’t they play some tunes, man?

“I think there are a lot of guys here with small penises but
firm handshakes!” See, there he goes again, man. That’s, like, not cool, man. I’m fucking high. “I have not seen a crowd this raucous since Sherman Hemsley’s Presidential Gala! Maybe you do not deserve our watch-a-macallit rock!”

Dude, man, dude, man, I don’t even give a fuck anymore. Phish. I go up to the front and I’m like, “Dude, man, play some tunes, dude. That’s not cool.”

“Oh, I am sorry. Am I killing your buzz? Well, this will really bring you back down. What you call a counter-culture, I call an excuse to get high and not bathe. In two years you will trade in your sandals for loafers, and I will be hiring you as my accountant.”

So not cool, man. How could the crowd be laughing at him, man? “Dude, man, were you dropped as a baby?!” I say to him. It’s all I could think of, man.

“Whoa! Hold on!” he says. “‘Were you dropped as a baby?’ That cut-down is older than poetry!”

Duuude, the crowd keeps laughing, man.

“What next? Is my mother a snowblower? Dost she wear combat boots?”

Man, fuck this crowd laughing, dude. That punk rock dude is next to me. He’s like, “Man, fuck that dude. He’s a crackhead. Don’t pay any attention to him,” and he pats me on the back, so I say, “Thanks, man. That’s cool.”

The punk rock guy and I are gonna smoke a bowl later. And that’s what it’s all about. Meeting new people and making new friends. And the music.

This is getting ridiculous. I’ll admit it, I am a very impatient person. I wish they’d play. I told my partner I’d be home by eleven. Hey. Kip’s here. I figured he’d be at the bar with Emilio and the gang.

“This song is entitled Honorable Discharge,” announces the African-American. What a sick title. “Two, four, six, eight!”

So they finally begin playing. I have to admit, they’re actually pretty good. Really loud, upbeat, and strong sounding. Intense, yet melodic. Unique.

“Sometimes men and women make mistakes. And nine months later, they develop when the water breaks.” (I think that’s what the African-American is singing.)

Ember looks so cute, even though she’s trying hard not to. She’s staring at the audience like she’s possessed. She’s playing that big guitar really hard, so good for her. You go, girl.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is good for her. She can get rid of some of that frustration on stage. It seems to be healthy.

Man, I hate to say it, but they rock. I mean, I’m almost feeling bad for what I did. Aurora’s still on my mind, but damn, that old girl is looking pretty good, too, as weird as that sounds. She’s up there kicking ass on that guitar with her legs spread apart.

The crowd is getting into it. There’s a good vibe in the air, and I can’t help but bob my head to the music.

I’m so proud of my daughter. I had no idea she could play drums that well. Her hair and arms fly all around her, with her beautiful form in the middle. It is a fast song, but she’s keeping the beat perfectly.

Her band exhibits a delightful spunk in its passionate delivery of hard, thrusting rock. And the crowd is loving it! It’s only taken a minute, and they’ve already been won over. The audience is starting to move around and up and down to the music.

The song ends and the venue unleashes a load of approval in the form of cheers and applause. Some audience members hold their arms erect to display their enthusiasm. I turn to the comely young ladies that stand next to me, old colleagues of my daughter’s.

“That’s my daughter up there!” I yell. “And they’re good!” The young ladies nod in agreement.

“Yes! I can already see some of the brain wires retracting!” enthusiastically yells Luster after the applause finally dies down. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but he’s obviously very happy. He continues:

“As F. Scott Fitzgerald would have said, ‘I am thankful to have an existence at all, if only as a reflection in your wet eyes.’”

Another song commences. I see the crowd moving together with smiles on their faces, and I really do think something positive is going on here tonight. God is really into what they’re doing. Pubes.

I’ll be damned. I don’t know why, but the crowd seems to be enjoying it. Sounds like a bunch of noise to me.

I can see him up there playing that gay-lookin keyboard guitar-like thing, but I’m really not hearing what they’re doing. If Johnson’s the leader, I’m sure it’s a bunch of freaky alternative shit, so screw it. I’m in the zone. I’m able to block out all the noise, just like in the war. Besides, I didn’t come here to listen to no music.

The bottom line is that I have an opportunity that no man ever gets. My enemy, the man who took me out of action (and a fucking towelhead no less), has presented himself to me on a goddamn silver platter. I’m doing what any red-blooded American male would do if he had the chance. Like they say, payback’s a bitch.

Shit. I gotta say, my little brother rules, you know whum sayin. So this is what he’s been doin in our room, writing songs in those notebooks and shit. It’s fuckin hype shit, too, you know whum sayin. I mean, it ain’t, like, what I’d bump up to in my ride, know whum sayin, but it’s still straight though. Bling bling. He’s up there dancin all silly and shit, all over the shit. I love it. Has a straight, loud voice, too. Crowd feels it, you know whum sayin. I’m all about love, know whum sayin. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Yeah. Shit. Mothah fuckin redneck pulling a gun out. Shoots that foreign dude’s keyboard. Music stops. Shoots him again. Foreign dude’s down. Everybody screaming. I get mine out. Jerome gets his. We cap the redneck’s ass just in case, you know whum sayin. Everybody’s running out screamin and shit. The show’s over.

What is a happening? I don’t understand. Noises not good. Sounded like war. Bleeding so freely. Ceiling tiles, black sky. Ambulance. I bleed freely.

My testicles. He got my area. It was him. I saw him. It was Joe. He didn’t forgive it after all.

The end of the story flashes in my brain. The Germans and the British. Both their commanders threatened the peace with treason. The fighting resumed. And that’s an order.

Luster up above.

“Tell the wife and kid I love them. Tell them I’m sorry I stayed behind here. Sorry ’bout this. Good-bye.”

“Do not talk like that, Ray. You were shot in the nuts. You will get through this, and we are going with you,” he mouths.

“Oh no you’re not, mother fucker!” speaks a man voice somewhere. “No one except the foreigner is going anywhere.” Luster leaves cursing.

The foreigner is taken away.

So at least I got one Johnson where I want him, the crazy one. I still don’t believe that his brothers were totally innocent with what went on earlier, even if the witnesses claimed that Joe shot first. Still, I’ll get to the bottom of this and book them soon enough. But for right now, I got this one to deal with.

“What the fuck is this all about, cop in a doughnut shop?” asks Johnson.

“We have reason to believe that your band is in possession
of an illegal substance.”

“What?”

“We know you got the drugs.”

“False!”

“Give it up, Johnson. One of your buddies ratted on you. You’re finished. Now gimme the drugs!”

“Sweet shit! I do not have any drugs!”

“Oh, come on, Johnson. We get a call saying you guys have a bag of crack. Then a foreigner gets shot. The two go together. It’s a textbook example of a drug-related crime. Your brothers were even here to have your back. Now hand over the drugs, mother fucker!”

“Battleship sunk!” he yells. “Have you ever seen a man’s dreams dissipate in five minutes? It is one thing to get shot at, but then to be accused of this malarkey. Our injury has been insulted.”

Poor ol’ Joe. They’re rolling him past us. He was a good man, a man’s man, and a damn hard worker. I don’t know why in the world he would get caught up in a mess with these heathens. Somebody’s gonna pay for it.

The girls and I are still in shock. Ember’s on my lap, crying for the first time since I’ve known her. Being the oldest, I feel like I should say something.

“I think the show was going really well ’til Ray got shot.”

“Totally,” says Aurora sadly.

The cop and Luster walk over.

“If you ain’t talkin, I’ll just find the stuff myself,” says that
cop who interrupted our practice, that one with the mustache and buzz cut. “All of you stay right there. Don’t even think about going anywhere.” He walks off toward the stage.

“How’s Ray?” Aurora asks Luster.

“If this were a movie, you would just say, ‘Is he…?’ and not finish your sentence, and then I would interrupt you, as if the audience should be sheltered from the word ‘dead.’”

“Come on, Luster. Now’s not the time for that crap,” I say.

Luster looks embarrassed, which is rare for him.

“He should be okay,” he says. “He was shot in the scrotum, but he is still conscious. Right now, we have another problem on our hands with that cop.”

“What’s going on?” asks Aurora.

“He thinks we have drugs. He thinks that is what the shooting was over. He says someone called and ratted on us.”

Oh, shit. Ember looks up at me, probably thinking the same thing—oh, shit.

I can’t just not say anything.

“Uhh, I should probably tell y’all something,” I whisper.

“What?” asks Luster.

“I just remembered I have a big bag of crack in the back of my amp.”

“What?” hoots Aurora. Luster stares at me.

“I’m just kind of hiding it from the person that stole it,” I say.

“Who stole it?” Aurora asks.

“Well, uh…” Ember looks up at me, then at the others, her face still red and moist from crying. She slowly raises her hand. Sorry, Mom and Dad. I’ve failed as a babysitter. Guess I wouldn’t have made that great of a parent after all, dammit.

Dude, I guess I wasn’t the only one that had it out for that band. It’s been a rough night for ’em. But you know, they shouldn’t have fucked with me, ’cause that’s something you just don’t do. Aurora’s got a sweet ass and a band that rocks, but you just don’t treat me like that and get away with it, stealing my calendars and then shutting me down like that…I’ll be cool to you as long as you’re cool to me, you know whum sayin, and she was not cool to me.

I see my cop bud looking around on stage, so I sneak around backstage.

“Pssst. What’s up, Officer?”

“Hey. What’s up, David?”

“Just chillin’. Haven’t seen you ’round my Ken’s Fried Chicken for a while.”

“Yeah. Been busy. What you doing here?”

“Actually, I’m the one who called. I’ll show you where I found their stash.”

I knew we should’ve been keeping a closer eye on Ember. I guess we were all caught up in our own stupid problems with the “humanoids,” like me with that David prick. I should never have let my guard down for someone like him, someone so average.

“Ember, how could you?” I ask.

“Luster’s brothers were being mean to all of us that one night. No one was looking. So I took a bag.”

Oh. I remember. Luster’s brothers were too busy hitting
on me to notice their precious crack was being stolen by an eight-year-old. And I was too busy being hit on.

“She didn’t even know what she was stealing,” says Opal.

“Yes I did!”

“She showed it to me, and I took it from her,” says Opal. “I know I should’ve thrown it away.”

“Why didn’t you?” I ask.

“Well, you know how I am. I’ll try anything once. I was saving it in case I ever felt the urge. I never felt it, though. Shit. I’m sorry.”

“But who would call the police on us?” I ask. Nobody knows. I always felt everybody was out to get us. I guess I was right.

The cop returns with a large Ziploc bag full of what I presume to be crack cocaine. It’s yellowish white.

“I’m only going to ask you all once. Whose is it?”

For once, we are silent.

I cried sad tears for Ray. They needed out. But now I’m mad again. I hate cops. Especially this one.

“Come on, Johnson! Am I going to have to arrest all four of you?”

He can’t do this to Luster. I’m the one that ruined everything. I hop off Opal’s lap and scream at the cop.

“Don’t blame Luster! It’s my crack! I stole it. Luster had nothing to do with it!”

The cop looks down at me and smiles. Like adults always do. Now Opal stands.

“Hush, Ember. It’s mine, officer. I didn’t smoke any of it, but it was in the back of my amp.”

The cop laughs at her.

“Ma’am, little girl, that’s really sweet of y’all, but who are you kidding? What would you two want with a bag of crack? Meanwhile, not only was Johnson acting high as a kite on stage, but his family has a history of being arrested for selling drugs. Give it up, Johnson. Y’all can’t fool me.”

“The policeman is right,” says Luster. He sounds soft and calm. “Whom are we kidding? He has to have it his way. He has to make things right. He has the way things are in his head, and he has the uniform to make them be. So, yes, that is my crack. Arrest my ass, if that is the way it has to be. Take me away.” He holds out his hands to the cop.

“Luster!” we all scream. Luster looks at me and smiles like a little kid. The cop is already cuffing him. I cling onto Luster’s leg.

“He’s lying, officer! Don’t you dare arrest him!” yells Opal.

“Ladies, please. I’m just doing my job. Now stand back.”

The cop pushes me away. He leads Luster off by the arm. Opal, Aurora, and I stare helplessly. We miss our men.

Luster turns around and smiles. He tries to wave good-bye but has cuffs on. So he kind of wiggles his fingers at us. He turns back around. We hear him yell at his all-time loudest, “Just doing his job! Paying his bills! Nothing personal!”

He had always hated it when people said things like that.