Gabe Johnson Takes Over (6 page)

Yeah, I like the ham part. Cubed ham. Pretty delicious. I like the cheese part and the ranch dressing part too. But the lettuce—

I will choke down the lettuce because I need roughage. Roughage for health. That's what Grandpa says. He has to have half his calories in roughage or he can't take a dump. Disgusting, dude. Like that's what I want to think about while I'm eating dinner. Grandpa's ability to take a crap.

It's better with him here than when it was just Dad and me. That was pretty bad. We were dying in the swamp of despair. Dad went to work. I went to school. We got home, ordered pizza, watched TV until we passed out. I'd wake up with my guts burning at like 3 a.m. and go to bed. At school, I couldn't concentrate because I was so tired. Last half of eighth grade, I slept a lot in class. (Code Red stopped that in high school.) And I got pulled out of the top math group and reading group and I quit swimming and track. (I always sucked anyway—I mean, I liked it, but whatever.) I could only stay awake for band, it seemed like (my savior, band). And Dad never went to bed. He slept on this broken-down recliner for like two years.

He didn't want to sleep in Mom's bed. She picked it out. Giant, king-sized, space-aged foam. Mom bought that bed as part of her freaking-out spending binge, which left us seriously broke.

Yeah. Her online boyfriend's friend showed up in Minnekota on this Saturday morning right before Christmas. The lady took Mom to the airport in the Cities and then Mom went to Japan. Mom had been crying and stuffing crap in a big suitcase for like an hour and Dad was shouting at her. And I stood there in the door—I mean, I had just turned fourteen, sir. I didn't know what the hell was going on. Right before she left, she put her hands on my cheeks, swallowed really hard, and said, “Take care of your father, okay?” She was totally bawling at that point.

I have no idea how she hooked up with a Japanese architect. It's a weird mystery. Sort of. I mean, not that big a mystery. Mom turned into a Zen Buddhist a few years ago and she did yoga and bought all these plants that she snipped at with scissors. And she refused to eat anything but rice and she got a tattoo of some Japanese character on her shoulder. She lost about a million pounds (got down to like a hundred) and then she started closing herself in her office at night while Dad and I watched TV. I'm sure she was Skyping that Mitsunori.

I really don't know how they met in the first place.

Of course, I still like her. She's my mom. I love her because I have to. I just do because I miss her. She used to be really funny and noisy. Dad is the opposite of funny. Her laugh sounded like a goose honk.

Canada goose. The house was noisy until she got Zen.

When I was little, we were alone a lot because Dad was getting his PhD at St. Thomas, so he lived in the Cities part time. I thought it was pretty great. She
was
great. A nice mom. We went to the playground all the time with Kailey and her mom. Even in the winter, we did a bunch of stuff outside. Ice-skating on the lake. She just got excited about fresh air, you know? The fresh air was good for me. I was normal back then at least. I didn't have to buy stretchy pants because regular kid pants fit just fine. Took a couple of years of Dad being around full time (moved up to head of accounting at the school) for Mom to get fat and tired and stupid and sad like the rest of us.

Then she got Zen and she stopped honking like a goose and got skinny. And she got a Japanese boyfriend, who she probably talked to on her computer all night. Good times. Ha-ha.

She doesn't even email me, sir. It's like I no longer exist at all.

Hey. Let me eat my stupid roughage, okay?

Okay. I guess it seemed reasonable. Spunk River Days. June 14, 15, and 16, right? Right there on Wilson Beach. Bunch of rock bands (including Wall of Sound from Minneapolis, which features an MLAHS band alum, which would've been a good tie-in to our fund-raising), softball tournament, a few measly rides run by dudes with no teeth, a bunch of carnival games, and cotton candy and slushies and crap. A tractor pull. Usually lots of bees and mosquitoes too. Takes place before band camp was supposed to start the following week (tomorrow). Seemed like the right time and place to do a fund-raiser for the band. I agreed with Camille on that point.

Well, there were other points that should've been addressed before Camille started spreading the word, like where would we have this concert if the Wilson Beach band shell has already been booked for a year? How would we get word out to the town? How would we actually make any money? Pass a hat or charge admission and how do you charge admission if you're outside? Also, how would we practice? What songs? Who would actually show up to blow their horns? Who would direct if Mr. Shaver drowned himself in booze and cigarettes and then took off in his car?

Camille came into Dante's around ten o'clock the next morning. She walked in and stopped in her tracks. She and Gore stared at each other. I had failed to mention to Camille the night before that Gore was now my coworker.

“What are you looking at?” Gore asked.

Gore scares people, sir. Some people. What's weird is she's great at the counter. Really chatty and nice. Customers from the Twin Cities clearly like her because they don't understand her history. Camille knows though, so she was scared.

Camille looked over at me. I shrugged. Then she held up a flier for the concert.

“Nice butterfly,” Gore said.

“Thanks?” Camille responded.

Gore was right. Nice butterfly. Camille had drawn a sweet-looking butterfly floating over the shore of Minnekota Lake. She'd written underneath it, “MLAHS Marching Band Spunk River Fund-raiser!” She'd written, “Sponsored by Dante's Donuts.” She had a slot for date, time, place, and price but hadn't filled any of that in.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“Pretty good!” I said.

“It's stupid,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“I'm a child,” she said.

“What?” I didn't get it, sir. It was a nice butterfly.

“I'm just drawing pictures like a little kid, not getting anything done. I mean, where are we going to play?” she asked.

“And when?” I asked.

“Why?” Gore asked, as if she were a part of the conversation.

“Why what?” Camille asked.

“Why are you having a fund-raiser for the band?” Gore asked.

“Cheerleaders are using all the money from the pop machine,” Camille said.

“What?” Gore whispered. “What?” she said again.

“Cheerleaders?” Camille said.

“I heard you,” Gore whispered. Then she spoke so quietly Camille and I had to lean in to hear. “That's false advertising for consumers, you know? Because I only bought pop out of that machine because the sign said it went to the band. I wouldn't have given those girls my money. Not for any reason. I'm very angry about this.”

“I'm sorry?” Camille said.

“It's not your fault,” Gore whispered.

Dante came out from in back. He nodded at Camille. He pointed at Gore and me and said, “Get ready for the church rush, you two.” Then he looked at the flier in Camille's hand. He blinked. He turned a little red. “I'm sponsoring what?” he said.

“Spunk River Band Fund-raiser?” Camille said.

“Chunk,” Dante said, “I'd like a word.” He turned and stomped into the back.

“Why'd you put that on the poster?” I whispered to Camille.

“But you said…I don't know—It's just a draft!”

“You are just playing. You are a little kid,” I hissed.

I turned and walked in back.

Dante gave me the business. Squawked at me about pulling the wool over his eyes and crap like that. I calmed him down, told him it was just a draft. Dante's a little explosive, I've figured out. Drama queen, right?

No. We're cool. We're pals.

What wasn't cool is I totally offended Camille by calling her a kid. She's so damn sensitive. When I came back out from talking to Dante, she was gone.

“You made your girlfriend cry,” Gore whispered.

“She's not my girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Gore said.

“Crap,” I said.

Poor Camille didn't even know the Janessa/Justin news and there I was insulting her, you know? Felt bad.

“Can I help?” Gore asked.

“With what?”

“Plan your concert so I can
not
get too mad about spending all my lemonade money on girls who have made my life a living hell forever,” Gore said.

“Oh. Well. I. Hm. Maybe?”

Oh, that's just what we need, the murderer helping out. That will attract the crowds!

“Okay,” Gore said. She smiled at me. She has a pretty smile. She's not an odd outsider sad sack because she's hard on the eyes. She's a sad sack because she threatened to murder kids.

After my shift, I texted Camille that I was sorry. She texted,
Whatever
.
Sorry!!!!!

Call me later
, she wrote.

This is your first summer in town, right, Mr. Rodriguez?

Yeah, Spunk River Days is one sick name, but that's the river that goes into Minnekota Lake, so what are you going to do? All the high school kids make disgusting jokes about Spunk River Days.

I'm sure you can imagine what they say.

Always cracks me up when I think about a pioneer coming across the little river and saying, “We shall call this waterway Spunk!”

Grandpa and I jumped rope for a half hour in the afternoon. I was so sore from the day before, but I didn't cry.

That's progress. Go team!

Not pretty. I was downstairs lying on the floor of my room, scribbling some dumb poetry about food into my ideas notebook. (
I
would
kill
for
a
soft
bed
of
bread
and
a
slice
of
ham
spread
across
me.
Crap like that.) I was listening to music, so I didn't even hear her ring the doorbell or Grandpa let her in.

I was shirtless. Camille came down the stairs and walked around the corner into my bedroom and I jumped, hit my head on the underside of my bed (a foldout couch), and then tried to roll under it so she wouldn't see me. I got lodged under there pretty good. I haven't had my shirt off in front of the opposite sex, you know…since Mom and the poundage. I sure didn't want anyone seeing my business, okay?

And no girl had ever been in my room! (I mean, other than Mom.) (Oh…and Doris.)

It's pretty gross. The room was a rec room for the family that built the place in the 70s. When Mom decided she needed an office a few years ago (probably for illicit Skyping purposes), down I went. It's this shiny wood paneling and some rugs on the tile floor and this old foldout couch. (My bed was too small, so we didn't move it. It was a little boy bed.) Other than the wood, the walls are pretty bare, except a poster of Grandpa in his bodybuilding prime (which I realize is a little weird because he's pretty much naked) and a picture of me that Dad took while I played a trombone solo at the spring jazz concert. Me and my naked Grandpa. My room doesn't exactly flatter, you know?

I don't know how she reacted. I was under the bed!

“What are you doing, Gabe?” Camille asked.

“Looking for…a sock. Socks. You scared me.”

“Do you need help?” she asked.

“No. Could you leave for a second? I'm not decent, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure. Sorry. I should've knocked. I didn't even think to—”

“Just go,” I shouted from under the bed. A spring was digging into my shoulder pretty bad.

Camille disappeared into the laundry room and I unglued my body from under the bed (big bump on my head and a scratch on my shoulder blade). I pulled on my giant Nirvana T-shirt and tried to shake out the cobwebs in my brain. I'd made it through two days of not eating donuts at work, but I'll tell you this—donuts didn't just disappear. They were on my mind. Like
in
my mind. So were sandwiches. Lots of them. Lodged in my head. I just kept thinking about the sweet relief of eating filled donuts or sipping down some pop. That's why I wrote the poetry.

Diet is not pop. Diet tastes like rat poison, so no, I didn't drink any of that.

I called Camille back in and she was weird. At first, I thought it was because she'd seen my semi-naked body and that had grossed her out, which made me feel bad. But it soon became evident that she'd talked to Justin.

Because I didn't want her in my room, we climbed the stairs and went out to the patio in the backyard. Grandpa eyeballed us as we passed. He knew I had a friend that was a girl, but Camille hadn't ever spent time at the house since he'd been there. He nodded at me and winked.

No, there's nothing between me and Camille Gardener. Don't ask again.

After we sat down, Camille took in a deep breath and said, “Justin isn't going to participate.”

“In what?” I asked.

“The concert.”

I shook my head. (I mean, I already sort of knew he wouldn't do it.) “Wow. Are you kidding?” Actually, Justin was one of the big problems with the concert I'd already begun to consider. He's first chair trumpet. He wins trumpet like he wins everything. Trumpets are important to a band. We'd sound like crap without him. “Why?” I asked. (I knew why.)

“He says he doesn't have the time.”

“But he barely works.”

“He doesn't work. He doesn't start teaching swim lessons until June 24,” Camille cried.

I mean, she cried, sir. As in crying.

“Did he tell you?” I asked.

“Tell me what? That he broke up with me? That he has someone new?”

Oh, man. Dating? Crazy Camille. “You guys were dating?” I asked. “I didn't know.”

“Weren't we?” Camille asked. “What does dating mean? We went to movies and prom and out for coffee and we did homework together. Isn't that dating?”

“Other than prom, I was with you for all of that.”

“We weren't dating?” Camille shouted.

I mean, she shouted, sir. Seriously.

“I don't know,” I said, shrugging. “I mean, if you two were dating, then I was dating you too, right?”

“Who is she?” Camille shouted. “Who is he dating?”

“Oh? Who?” I asked. I figured Justin had confessed about Janessa.

“Is there someone else?” she cried.

Grandpa came out and said, “You're waking the dead. Keep it down.”

“Sorry,” Camille said.

He grumbled something and eyeballed me in a way that said
Get
rid
of
the
psycho
hippie
and then he shut himself back inside.

No, I couldn't tell her, Mr. Rodriguez. It was at the tip of my tongue, you know? I wanted to get the news out there into the world because I was pretty upset about it too. But I couldn't say the words, “Justin Cornell is dating Janessa Rogers.” Especially not with Camille so crazy and loud already.

What did I say? Something like, “He'll rue the day, Camille. He'll be sorry about all this.” Judging from last night, I think he does rue the day. Maybe.

“We can do this without him,” Camille whispered. “You and me.”

Before she took off, we posted to the band's Facebook page.

Something like
, MLAHS Peppers and Marchers, would you like to participate in a Spunk River Days fund-raising concert? Let's raise money and save marching camp!

In an hour, there were about thirty comments. They all said something like,
Money?
Why money? Whose money? What money? Is this money for you, Camille?
(Camille did the post.) Austin Bates, who's this 90s gangster rapper wannabe, posted,
Y'all are stupid bitches.

We seriously failed to communicate the money situation, sir. I did. It was my job because I was the one who had figured out that something had gone amiss, right?

Yeah, Shaver knew too. He should've been doing something. Last year, when the school board tried to get rid of the fall play, Ms. Feagan organized a letter-writing campaign. The
Minnekota
Lake
Journal
was filled with letters of support for the drama program. And when the school board met, like three hundred people showed up and it didn't go through. Fall play is going strong. Ms. Feagan is meritorious, as I've said.

No, I don't believe there were public meetings. Not real ones. I've looked back through weeks of newspapers and there weren't any postings about upcoming school board meetings. All the crap that went down about the band was hidden.

That's illegal, right?

No, Shaver sure didn't handle this stuff very well, maybe because he, like Dad, couldn't handle the breakup of his own family?

That's just guessing. I'm trying to figure out why Shaver, a totally great teacher, shot out into the outer limits like he did.

At like two in the morning, in response to Camille's Facebook concert thing, he posted,
Don't you bother!

I'm assuming Shaver made that post before his arrest. You should ask the cops what time they pulled him over. Teachers getting drunk-driving tickets? That's not good. Maybe a teacher could fly under the radar up in the Cities. But in Minnekota, you get your butt pulled over for being a dangerous idiot and the whole town knows about it within a few hours. On the radio, in the paper, bubbling out of every convenience store clerk's piehole, right?

That's probably just what's happening to me right now. Everybody chattering about the fat boy breaking and entering. Glad I'm locked in here instead of being out there in the cruel world.

RC III and Gore were scheduled at Dante's for the morning, so I wasn't in. In fact, I was sleeping like a big gourd in the garden when my phone buzzed.

Gore had heard first thing because Dante rocks out to the local station and they were broadcasting it every ten minutes.
Minnekota Lake
Area
High
School
band
teacher
Barry
Shaver
was
arrested
this
morning
for
driving
under
the
influence.
She doesn't carry a cell, which is weird, but she's weird. She called from the store's number.

When I saw it was from Dante's, I freaked a little. Answered, “Oh, crap, am I supposed to be in?”

“Gabe?” a very quiet girl voice said.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“You're not supposed to be at work.”

“Good. Who is this?”

“Chandra Wettlinger,” Gore said.

“Why are you calling me?” I demanded. I blinked. My eyes burned from sleep.

“Your band teacher was arrested. I thought you'd want to know. The news keeps playing on the radio.”

“Oh, man.” It felt like a hot poker pierced my chest. “Oh, crap.” I couldn't breathe. “Is he okay?”

“I think so. I don't know. He might have a bad headache,” Gore whispered.

“Did he get in a fight or something?”

“Driving drunk,” Gore said.

“Oh, no.”

“Yeah, it's not good news,” Gore whispered. “I'd better get to the counter. It's busy.”

We paused, both of us.

“Hello?” she said.

“Thanks for calling, Gore,” I said.

Then she sort of laughed. “I don't think you're supposed to call me that to my face.”

“Sorry.”

“Bye, Gabe,” she said.

What an idiot, huh? Turns out Gore likes the nickname Gore. But really, that's just a stroke of luck. It's like if she got off the phone by saying, “Thanks for calling, lard ass.” How would I feel about that? I'm as bad as the rest, man.

I used to be anyway.

Even though it was only like seven in the morning, I texted Camille. She'd just heard. She called back instead of texting, which I normally wouldn't appreciate, as I don't really like talking on the phone. But this was pretty huge. “Did you see what Shaver posted to Facebook?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. “I'm just getting up.”

“Check it out. I'm beginning to worry we're going to lose band completely. What if they fire him?”

“Lose band?” I whispered.

“Shaver's a criminal now,” Camille said.

“I can't lose band!” I shouted.

“What's with all the shouting?” Grandpa shouted from upstairs.

I pulled the phone from my ear. “Shut up,” I shouted at him.

“What's going on?” Camille shouted from the phone.

I put the phone back to my ear. “I have to go,” I said to Camille.

Here's the deal, Mr. Rodriguez. Band has been my life, right? I mean, Jesus. Who would I even be? Nobody. My horn playing is the only consistent claim to any kind of excellence and love I've got. I really don't do anything else.

“No,” I whispered. “No—”

On Friday, I'd made this declaration of war, but I didn't really know what I was fighting for. I was just super pissed. Down there in the basement at that moment, I realized I was fighting for my life.

I opened up my laptop and got on the band's Facebook page. I read through the comments, including Shaver's early morning
Don't you bother
! I became enraged. These lazy bandmate jerks were giving Camille lip? Giving me lip? (No, they didn't know I was with her when she posted—but still.) Mr. Shaver said not to bother? Were we the only ones who cared? I got jacked up as hell and then I wrote. I figured everyone would just make crap of me, but I didn't care.

Go ahead, sir, pull up the post. It's public.

Gabe Johnson, June 10 at 7:25 a.m. near Minnekota, MN.

You fools, listen up. First, we are all seriously fools! Why? Because second, the cheer squad dance team—or whatever the hell they are—has been given all the money from the pop machine. I don't know who did this, but I assume it's Deevers and the Kaus family. We don't have marching band because the school district is clearly, silently taking potshots at our program. Now our idiot teacher is getting arrested. (Oh, don't you bother, Shaver, you jerk!) That plays right into their hands, okay? They could easily get rid of Shaver altogether and take the band from us. Who needs music at the basketball games and football games if there's a bunch of girls in skirts jumping around? Get your heads out of your asses. If you care about band at MLAHS at all, you'd better message me today. Got it? You freaking Geekers are pissing me off.

I slammed my computer shut and screamed up at Grandpa, “Is Dad home?”

“More shouting, huh?” he shouted.

“Is Dad home?” I shouted again.

“Left for work.”

“Let's work out right now!”

A couple minutes later, Grandpa came down the stairs in his compaction shorts. “You are one noisy son of a bitch lately,” he said.

I nodded. “So?” I said.

“I'm just saying,” he said. Then he put me through a hellacious kettlebell workout.

Not only didn't I cry, but I rocked it, man. Grandpa's right. Using anger to fuel a workout is killer, Mr. Rodriguez.