Thunderbowl (2 page)

Inside The Dungeon, I felt dizzy. The air in the smoky, crowded room behind the stage smelled like dead skunk.

I was thinking that if I could only get my damn guitar in tune, I might be able to play three chords. I still couldn't breathe right. The band on stage sounded good. But when they finished, nobody clapped. It was a tough crowd. It was going to be a tough night.

The Dogs went on stage before us. It took them forever to get set up and finish their sound check. Richie broke a string and Louie couldn't seem to find the beat on the drums. Ike sounded smooth on bass, but you can't carry an alternative band with just a bass guitar. No wonder Stewy was looking for new talent.

But I had the feeling that tonight was just a matter of luck. The Dogs were having a bad night. I think they smoked too much before going on. Still, Richie had a sort of Mick Jagger bad-boy style that the crowd loved. I kept wondering how they would like me. I had no stage presence at all. All I could do was play a few chords, noodle a few riffs.

When the noise of The Mongrel Dogs finally faded, people stood up and cheered. I thought I heard glass breaking. Even when they were lousy, the Dogs knew how to stir up a place.

Then it was our turn. We had twelve minutes to set up. My guitar still didn't
feel right. Al's mike had a bad ground and sounded like a huge mosquito. Drek was popping in plugs and throwing switches like a maniac. And before we were ready, this big light flared up and Stewy jumped up to the microphone.

“You ain't heard these guys before and I ain't heard these guys before. But we're going to hear them now,” he said. Real intelligent. Two, maybe three people in the dark corners of The Dungeon clapped. I wanted to chicken out. Backstage, Drek had guzzled several beers. Al had inhaled a few himself, but I was stone straight and shaking in my shoes.

Then Al started tromping a heavy thud on the bass drum. Drek plowed into the keyboard three levels too loud. I was still wondering if I was ready when I felt my fingers start moving of their own accord. All at once we were making music.

In fact, we weren't just making music; we were making mountains of sound. The Dungeon walls threw it back at us like
cannon fire. Our amps were set way too loud for the place. I think the crowd was amazed. We looked like three rejects from a church choir. But Thunderbowl came on like an atom bomb.

I was so stunned by the power of the sound that I couldn't do a thing but keep on playing. I tweaked the treble up a notch, cut in the phaser, lowered the reverb and let it cook.

It was one of our own tunes called “Ugly Intruder.” No one out there had ever heard it before. I forgot about the crowd. I forgot about the dumb Dogs backstage. There was nothing to think about but me and the band and our avalanche of sound.

We played for ten minutes and drove home every last note. Al sang a barely audible lead and Drek and I tried to do backup vocals, but I don't think our mikes were even on. Toward the end, though, I had a long, crazy riff to play on my guitar. And you know what? It sounded good. It sounded better than I had ever played.

It was like my guitar and my fingers were doing all the work. I just stood there and watched. My fingers danced like fireworks. The lights sent mirror blasts of magic to the four corners of the room. And when I cranked the heat up to the absolute boiling point, we cut the song. Right on cue. Just like in practice.

The audience was stunned by the silence. The place was packed to the rafters and for a moment nobody made a sound. The houselights flicked on and the mob went into hysterics. People kept shouting, “More, more, more.”

I looked at Drek. His jaw was hanging down to his knees. Stewy bounded on-stage and grabbed my arm. He shot it up in the air like I had just won a heavyweight fight.

“Whaddya think?” he croaked into the microphone. The tide of human sound swelled. A legend had been born.

Stewy led us backstage like we were long-lost friends. “I think you guys have
what it takes,” he said to us. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Richie. The guy looked hurt. It was not a look I had expected to see on his face.

“You're all nineteen, right?” Stewy asked.

“Right,” Al and Drek said at the same time.

Somebody had put a bottle of beer in my hand. I didn't have a chance to say a thing.

“Because if you're not nineteen,” Stewy continued, “you can play here, but you gotta go backstage between sets. No hanging out with the customers or drinking. Otherwise I lose my license.”

I should have said something right then. But there was a beer in my hand and this nice-looking girl was giving me the once over. I sure didn't feel like a kid.

“Okay. You got the job. You work Monday through Thursday nights. Set up by eight-thirty. Start at nine. Play three sets and shut down at one. Weekends we
bring in big names. And, oh yeah, you start tomorrow.” Then he walked away. It wasn't his style to get into long conversations.

“One o'clock in the morning?” I asked Al. I was just starting to get an idea of how complicated my life was about to become.

“What's the matter, Germ? Past your bedtime?” Al grabbed the beer from me and slugged it back.

What the hell had I got myself into? How was I going to make it to school the next day? What would my parents say?

“What if Stewy finds out I'm only sixteen?” I asked.

“Then we're screwed, that's what,” Drek said. He leaned over me and made it sound like a threat.

Al grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him back to the wall. “Lay off, buzzbrain. Germ here is the key to our success. This kid has million-dollar fingers. Without him we have no gig. So be nice.”

“Okay, okay. I was just goofing. I'm sorry,” Drek apologized. I knew he wasn't threatening me anyway.

Just then the girl came up and started talking to me. “I liked your music,” she said. “I think you blew them all away.” She had long brown hair and a funny crooked smile. She said her name was Suzanne. “Can I buy you a beer?”

I didn't want a beer. I wasn't used to drinking. I wanted to go home. I was tired. But it had been so long since a girl, any girl, had been interested in me that I couldn't just walk away.

“Be a gentleman,” Drek urged, pushing a ten-dollar bill into my hand. “Buy the lady a beer.”

So I left the guys and sat down at a table and bought her a beer. And then she bought me one. That's how it started. We had this incredibly dumb conversation about different guys she had gone out with. They all sounded like slobs or jerks. She said she had even gone out once with
Richie Gregg. Now she hated his guts. Who didn't?

When I got around to looking at my watch, it said one-fifteen. I was thinking about my parents. I was thinking about the homework I should have finished for tomorrow. I felt a little polluted from the beer. And scared. I'm not sure why. Things were moving too fast.

The music had made me a lot higher than the beer. I didn't want to come down. I looked at Suzanne. I looked around at the crowd thinning out of The Dungeon. And I looked again at my watch. I knew that this whole scene was going to be my downfall.

And I couldn't wait to get started.

I was still dreaming that I was up on stage when my old man stormed into my bedroom. He walked over to the window and snapped the shade so it flipped up to the top. Sunlight poured in like someone had just turned on a spotlight.

“Jeremy, get up! Where were you last night?” He was walking back and forth in front of me.

“Yeah, well… it's just that… well, the band… we were playing and—”

“Don't start telling me Thunderbolt—”

“Thunderbowl, Dad.”

“Whatever. We didn't raise you to be a… a guitar player.” His voice was getting louder and louder.

“Dad, you don't understand. Something happens when I'm playing music—”

“Yeah, I'll say something happens. You start forgetting about real life. I should never have bought you that guitar. I'm going to put my foot down. You have to get home at a sensible hour or quit the band.”

He was still pacing back and forth, ranting and raving. I stumbled out of bed and picked my clothes up off the floor. I didn't want to hear another word. All I wanted was to get out of there. Forget the socks. I put on my shoes and walked out. So I was a few minutes late for home-room. You'd have thought I had just set off World War Three.

When I got home for dinner, Dad had cooled down. His company had landed a big fat contract, and as far as he was concerned all was right with the world. He had had his talk with me and now he figured I would do the right thing.

“Well, Jeremy? Have you given some thought to what we talked about this morning?” he said as we sat down around the dinner table.

“Dad, I can't quit the band until they find another guitar player.” I was just stalling. No way was I giving up Thunderbowl.

“But you are going to quit?” he asked.

I stared off into space and played with my food.

“We're just worried that you might be getting into some bad habits,” my mother said.

“And you are staying out way too late,” my father added. “When I was your age, I had to be in bed by ten o'clock.”

“Look,” I said, “at night is the only time we can get together to practice. Drek and
Al don't get off work until six-thirty. And we've come so far together. You may not believe it, but we are getting really good. I can't let them down now.”

There was no way I could tell them the news about our gig at The Dungeon. “But I promise I'll spend more time on my homework. I'll bring my grades up in everything. Even math.” I made it sound like I had it all figured out.

My parents looked at each other. Some unspoken message passed between them. “We'll give it a try,” my mother said. My dad looked like he had heartburn.

“Great. Thanks.” We were just one big happy family again. For now.

I juggled the late nights, the band and school pretty well for the first week. Then the homework and a looming math test got me unglued.

I mean, I never really liked school. I was terrible at math. English was totally boring. French was as much fun as throwing up.
And then there was Modern World Problems. Oh yeah, like we were really going to learn to solve it all. So there I was at midnight, sitting at a table in The Dungeon, hunched over my homework.

“What are you doing?” Suzanne asked.

“Unreal numbers,” I answered.

She looked at me like I had just arrived from outer space. “Huh?”

“It's a hobby of mine.” I wasn't going to admit I was still in high school.

Suzanne smiled her kind-of-cute, kind-of-goofy smile. “Yeah,” she said, “me too.”

I had a math test second period and I was trying to figure out what an unreal number was. But it was awful hard with her looking at me like that.

“You really are… different,” Suzanne said.

I thought she really meant I was a bit of a nerd. She was hooked on the Germ who played guitar on stage. And she didn't
know what to make of the Jeremy who studied unreal numbers.

I really liked Suzanne, even though she was older than I was. And I was flattered that she was coming on to me.

The break was over. As I headed back onto the stage, Suzanne blew me a kiss. I picked up my guitar and threw my math book into my guitar case. Then I flicked on the amp and in a flash we were blasting into “Traction.” It was a loud metal song.

“Kick it!” Drek yelled at me above the roar. He meant for me to get a little mean, a little crazy.

So I got a little mean. I got a little crazy. I gritted my teeth and scratched at the strings. I kicked on the flanger pedal and bent the strings to make them cry. The music was all about something very powerful. I didn't know what. But I was good at playing like I was a wild man. Up on stage I could act any way I wanted. And it felt great just to cut loose.

And then there was Richie Gregg. After the big discussion with my parents, Richie showed up to give me some advice too. I was outside the bar, trying to find the strength to heft my amp into Al's van. Drek and Al were inside wrapping up wires.

“Come here, jerk,” I heard a voice from behind me.

I didn't have to turn around to know who it was. Maybe if I blinked he would vanish back into the shadows.

Fat chance of that. A bony hand grabbed my collar and twirled me around. I tried to keep the amp from cracking onto the sidewalk.

Richie pulled me close. He was right in my face and he spat as he talked. “Twerp, you are about to quit your pissy little band,” he said. It was some sort of threat. Richie had this crazed look in his eye. I wouldn't have been surprised if he was on something.

I set the amplifier down hard on his foot and he backed off. “You can't make me quit,” I told him.

Richie smiled a perfect scumbag smile. “You quit or I'll bust your face.”

I was tired, really tired. Everything was such a major hassle. School. My soft-hearted parents. All I wanted to do was go home and go to sleep. Now this.

Richie was baring his teeth, like the
mongrel dog that he was. What could I say to Richie Gregg to get him off my case?

“Man, you can't solve anything with violence,” I said out of the blue. I sounded like a saint.

Richie looked at me like I had just spoken to him in Swahili. I picked up the amp and tried to ignore him.

Instead, Richie spun me around and planted a fist in my mouth. It was the first time in my life anyone had ever done that to me.

He knocked out my front tooth, the jerk. It flew to the back of my mouth and down my throat. I choked on it for a second, then swallowed it. All the while I was falling backward into the bumper of the van. But it was like slow motion.

At first there was this satisfied look on Richie's face. Then he seemed kind of worried. Not scared, just worried. He inched away backward as I closed my eyes and tasted the sweet sticky flavor of my own blood.