Rules to Rock By (13 page)

Jonny was throwing a lot of curve balls my way. Not only did he seem to have some strange connection to Jackson, but he had also offered up his house for practice. I didn’t get it—if he wasn’t really “in the band,” then why was he getting so involved? But it was fine with me. He had an extra amp and keyboard we could use, so all I needed was my bass, and Christine didn’t have to bring a thing. Lately the last place I wanted to be was my own house anyway. The whole apartment was still shaking with the aftershocks of X’s cymbalic violence and my turkey meatball explosion. I was happy for a change of scenery.

And it was a
major
change. Jonny’s neighborhood was across the interstate from Federal Hill, on the East Side. We lived on the East Side, too, but not on College Hill, where Jonny’s family lived. We had to take a different bus to his place. When it pulled up, he and Crackers and I got on. We quickly sped through Federal Hill, then to downtown’s big bank-type buildings.

“If you live all the way up there, why do you go to Federal Hill?” I asked.

Jonny just shrugged.

When we climbed up Memorial Boulevard, the neighborhood changed completely. Unlike the warehouses that packed my non-neighborhood, or the simple homes near school, the giant brick buildings of Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design were classy and pretty. Christine gave me a look, like,
Wow, fancy.
I had been on Thayer Street a bunch of times, which runs right through Brown, but I had never come up the hill from this angle. As the bus turned off Waterman Street, it wound around wide blocks with tall trees that looked like they were hundreds of years old. By the time we got out, we were on what was probably one of the most beautiful streets in Providence.

“This is nice,” Crackers said. “
Really
nice.”

I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but I was thinking the same thing:
Is Jonny rich? Is that why he handed over that big wad of cash to Jackson?

The trees had turned about a week earlier; rust- and orange-colored leaves shimmered in the afternoon light. And the houses were big and beautiful, with porches and front
and
back yards. We didn’t have setups like this in Brooklyn, or even Manhattan. You could be the richest person in all of New York City and still not have a big front yard with perfect grass.

“What do your parents do?” Crackers asked Jonny. Was that rude? I was glad she had asked, though, because I was curious, too.

“My dad’s in the history department at Brown, and my mom’s at RISD. She’s an associate professor of illustration.”

“What’s that?” Crackers asked.

“She teaches drawing, basically.”

“You can live in a neighborhood like this teaching drawing?”

“Yeah, I guess.” He looked down, like he was trying to avoid the subject.

“Are those Ionic, Doric, or Corinthian?” I asked, pointing out the three giant columns on what I figured was Jonny’s front porch.

“I have no idea,” he said.

“Look Doric to me,” I said. I had had to memorize that stuff in fifth grade. Doric were the simple ones, Ionic had small curlicues at the top, and Corinthian were super fancy, over-the-top.

“Definitely Doric,” Crackers said.

“Oh, but that’s not my house. That’s the Havemeyers’ house. They’re our landlords.”

“Oh,” I said.

Jonny led us through the side yard of the fancy house to the backyard. Just to the left stood a little yellow wooden house. It was two floors, but it was barely bigger than our apartment.
So then where did he get all that money?
I wondered.

“This is where the servants used to live back in the day,” Jonny said.

“Yeah, but your parents aren’t servants, they’re professors,” I said.

“
Associate
professors,” Jonny said, turning his key in the front door lock. “Before they give you the keys to the kingdom, they make you sweep the floors. That’s what my mom always says anyway. Come on, let’s go to the practice room,” Jonny said.

He led us to the back of the house, which had a tiny sun porch. There was a Japanese Fender Strat, a keyboard, and a lame Crate amp, which Jonny and I both plugged into. Ugh, Crate amps: the bottom of the barrel.

“Sorry,” Jonny said. “This isn’t exactly the awesome setup we have at your parents’ place.”

“That’s okay,” I said, hoping that he couldn’t read my mind about the Crate amp.

“Your dad has that Vox. And the Dual Showman, and the seventies Marshall combo. Those amps are so sweet!”

“Totally,” I said. “You can play through them anytime. He doesn’t mind.”

“Cool, thanks. The Showman has a tremolo channel, right?” Jonny was getting all excited. There was spit at the corners of his lips, he was talking so fast. Weird. I had thought I was going to be jealous of Jonny’s big house, but instead he was literally drooling over my dad’s gear.

“Yep.”

“But not a presence button?”

“No, I think those were only on silver-faces. His is a black-face.”

“Right, right.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” Crackers said.

We did a run-through of “Belle’s Metal Riff,” and although it desperately needed drums, at least it sounded tight. Then Jonny showed us a chord progression he had written. I didn’t point out that for someone supposedly not interested in being
in
this band, Jonny now appeared to be positioning himself as a contributing songwriter. Why mention it? He was putting enough of himself into this project that by the time he got the willies and tried to pull out, he’d be in too deep. I’d have him in my clutches soon, so I opted for a mellower approach.

“Cool song,” I said. “Maybe we could do this one in Don Daddio’s battle.”

Jonny didn’t even look up, just kept watching his fingers on the fret board. But I could tell he’d heard every word.

Christine and I joined in on the chords, experimenting with different ideas until something clicked. Jonny even took a pretty good solo, but his slip-sliding glasses kept getting in the way. He’d play a few notes, then have to push the glasses back up his nose. He’d play another little phrase, then push them up again. I couldn’t help but point it out.

“It kind of helps me solo better,” Jonny said. “Like, I have all these different ideas, but I don’t want to cram them in all at once. My glasses help me stretch them out a little bit instead.” So maybe in some ways it helps to have nerdish tendencies when you’re learning how to rock.

“Oops,” he said after hitting a bad note. “Bungle.” I had never heard the expression before.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means I screwed up,” Jonny said.

“Sounded about right to me.”

Next, Crackers showed us a Stevie Wonder song, “A Place in the Sun,” which she played note for note perfectly. Every last Rhodes piano trill was in the right place, and the feeling was so soulful and right on that I could almost picture Little Stevie doing his crazy-happy head-bobbing moves right there in Jonny’s studio. I laid down a tight bass line that worked fine, and Jonny added some
wah-wah
guitar. We played that thing for at least a half hour before calling it quits.

“Let’s make a snack,” Jonny said. It was almost five. “Lunch is a distant memory.”

“Cool. I’m starving,” I said.

Crackers kept tinkering at the keyboard. “You want us to make you something and bring it back?” Jonny asked.

“Sure. Thanks.”

We walked to the kitchen and Jonny opened the fridge.

“Organic,” Jonny said, pulling out a half-eaten roast chicken, Muenster cheese, and mayo. He grabbed a loaf of bread from the countertop and started making sandwiches.

“When do your parents get home?” I asked.

“Um, a quarter to never. The midterm’s almost here. My mom’ll get home by seven probably, and my dad will stroll in at midnight, make himself a chicken sandwich like this, then pass out in bed. Family togetherness. It’s awesome.”

“Your parents sound exactly like mine,” I said. “Hey, watch it with that junk”—I pointed to the mayo in Jonny’s hand before he could contaminate my sandwich with it—“I can’t stand mayo.”

“My parents are total nerds who talk for hours and hours about stuff nobody cares about,” Jonny said. “Yours play rock music and get paid to do it. They must be the coolest parents on the face of the earth.”

“Trust me, they may
look
cool, but as parents they’re probably just as lame as yours. Probably lamer.”

I turned toward the sun porch and yelled, “Christine, you into mayo or mustard?” but didn’t get an answer.

“Let’s bring everything down to the practice room,” Jonny said. “We can bring her both, on the side.”

When we got back, Crackers was still playing the Stevie Wonder song, but the surprising thing was, she was also singing. She had her back turned to us, so she didn’t know we were behind her, and she was really putting her heart into it. At first, she sang quietly, but right away I could tell she was something special. By the second verse, Crackers was in her own spacey world, and she really turned up the volume. She sang that song six ways from Sunday.

Christine,
the
awkward beanpole Christine, the classical music geek from another planet, had a great—no, a
phenomenal
—voice. It was strong, enormous, way bigger than anything you could expect to come out of the mouth of a skinny dork like her. But it also sounded almost like crying—sad, lonely, wise. For such a beautiful thing, it was almost scary.

“Whoa,” said Jonny, in a low-key but also seriously impressed way. Crackers turned around and faced him. “Guess we’ve found the lead singer.”

Huh?
I thought. Christine was obviously
not
going to become the lead singer. Not on my watch. I was as impressed as Jonny was, but I wasn’t about to relinquish my lead singer status to an upstart with crumbs on her shirt.

“You’re really good,” I said, with some effort.

“Thanks,” Christine said.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Jonny said.

“In church, I guess. But the choir’s so big, I can barely hear myself.” Her eyes widened. “Oooh, is that roast chicken?”

“This girl has some serious lungs,” Jonny said.

“Slow down, Jonny,” I said. “You’re not even in this band, remember?” I strapped on Satomi, walked over to the Showman, and turned it up a notch. What I lacked in talent, I could make up for in sheer volume.

OPEN MIC

The following Wednesday, Ronaldo pinged me.

EggMtnRckr:
So, JONNY thought her voice was sweet … what’d YOU think?!?

Bassinyrface:
I dont know, pretty good, I guess.

EggMtnRckr:
Well, that rules, then. She can be the J Lennon to your P McCartney.

Bassinyrface:
yeah, maybe.

EggMtnRckr:
Listen, the more good people you have,
the better yr band’s gonna be.

Bassinyrface:
I guess.

EggMtnRckr:
And Jonny’s playing well?

Bassinyrface:
Yeah, but he’s not even really IN the band. Blech.

EggMtnRckr:
I think youre just mad because he went off about how great Crackers voice is.

Bassinyrface:
meh.

EggMtnRckr:
seriously you should be PSYCHED that you found an amazing singer.

Bassinyrface:
that’s easy for you to say, you get to be the singer.

EggMtnRckr:
she can sing some sings, YOU can sing some songs. Dont forget, youre still the leader as long as youre writing songs.

I didn’t tell EggMtnRckr that I still wasn’t exactly writing songs. Fragments? Sure. Snippets? Maybe. But not full-blown songs. Not yet.

As I walked into the kitchen to make a snack, I heard my mom’s voice. She was talking on the phone in a tense, quiet voice in front of the sink, so I stayed in my room and tried to listen in.

“No, I guess I didn’t realize how bad it was for them … No, I understand,” she said in a shaky voice. “But do you really think we should even
consider
that?”

She didn’t speak for a few seconds. I couldn’t figure out who she was talking to. Someone from my school, or X’s? Some social worker, butting in and making problems?

“It’s true, X is having some real issues lately. He seems to be regressing. He’s acting very childish and it’s hard to know how to give him what he needs.” She paused to listen. “And Belle is dealing with a lot of anger right now. She’s mad at us for bringing her up here, for taking her away from her friends and her band, and she’s not adjusting to her new school very well.”

If you don’t think I have self-control, guess again, because it took every ounce of restraint for me not to run into the kitchen and flip out at this totally incorrect statement.

“Yes, Marielis, I know you are putting their best interests first. I know how much you love them.”

Marielis—it was Abuela! What was she talking about? I mean, I was glad that she seemed to be telling my mom off, but what were they “considering”? And why weren’t X and I a part of the discussion?

“I will discuss it with them, Marielis, and we’ll come up with a game plan, okay? Thank you so much for your concern … Okay, then … Bye-bye.”

I walked over to Jonny’s locker on Friday, hoping to catch him between classes, and found a note taped there. It was folded in half and said “BEWARE” in big Gothic letters. There was a very well-drawn skull and crossbones on it. I tried to put myself in Jonny’s shoes. If he just happened to find a potential death threat taped to my locker five minutes before I did, would I mind if he ripped it off and looked at it? After all, he could warn me before I stepped on a booby trap. He could shove me to the ground if .
2
2 caliber bullets were about to whiz by my head. It was my duty to read this note.

“I hear you’ve picked up your guitar again,” it read in blunt Magic Marker black. “Do us both a favor and put it back down. Forever.”

It wasn’t signed. Had to be Jackson, though, right? But why? Why would he care if Jonny was playing with us?

“What’s up, Belle?” It was Jonny. I turned around, not too fast, holding the note at my side like it was nothing.

“Not much. Just wanted to say what’s up.” There was no way he saw me take it down, I figured, so unless I panicked I wouldn’t get caught in this obvious error in judgment. I’d just circle back after the bell rang and tape it back up, and he’d see it after next period. No big deal.

“You see Of Montreal on
Late Night
last night?” Jonny asked.

“Nope. I was in bed by eleven,” I said.

“They were sweet.”

“I believe it.”

“Practice at yours this weekend?”

“Yep.”

“Let’s record that Crackers song! The Stevie Wonder one.”

“Meh. I don’t know if my parents’ mics are still up. We’ll see.”

After we parted ways, I made sure he was good and gone and taped the note back up. If he needed help, if he needed all the protection my midget-sized frame could offer, he would ask.

The Soundtrack of My Life
,
by Annabelle Cabrera

Opening Credits: “The Perfect Me,” Deerhoof

Receiving a Gift: “Strawberry Fields Forever,” The Beatles

Treasured Memory: “Kooks,” David Bowie

Disagreement: “Misery Is a Butterfly,” Blonde Redhead

Making Up: “Seven Seas,” Echo and the Bunnymen

Moment of Regret: “Waitin’ for a Superman,” The Flaming Lips

The Happy Dance: “Wrong Time Capsule,” Deerhoof

Loneliness: “Nowhere Man,” The Beatles

The Final Battle: “Declare Independence,” Björk

Closing Credits: “Crimson and Clover,” Joan Jett

I came to class with my final list—told you I was retro. I had slaved on it for about two hours, going through my iPod over and over in search of the ten songs that express everything that is Annabelle Cabrera. But Mr. V didn’t even want to see it.

“Okay, students, now for part two,” he said. “I want you to write journal entries.” McNamara groaned super loudly and Mr. V raised an eyebrow in his direction. “This will be a sort of song journal, an explanation of at least one paragraph—that’s three sentences or more, Mr. McNamara—in which you justify your choice of each particular song. Think of it as something you might one day give to your own child as a way of explaining who you were in sixth grade. Unless your soundtrack includes classics like Bon Jovi, these young people of the future will have little idea of the musicians you admired so long ago. So don’t bother explaining the music. Just get to the feelings they evoke. Use the songs to paint a
portrait of yourself
in these, the ancient days in which you live.”

I glanced at Crackers’s soundtrack as we filed out of class. She had “A Place in the Sun” for her final battle and “Hey Jude” for her moment of regret. I didn’t recognize any of the other songs. Three of them had Jesus in the title, so they must have been from church.

Our confusingly nonofficial band had practice at my place on Sunday afternoon.

“Let’s run through ‘A Place in the Sun,’ ” Jonny said as he plugged in, having no idea that this was Christine’s battle song.

I didn’t respond. It was annoying that he was so into Christine’s voice. She had a great one, but big deal. One nice voice and three cover songs do not make a band great. We had written only one real song so far, and it barely even had a chorus. What was the point of screwing around recording Crackers when we didn’t even have original material yet?

“Earth to Annabelle Cabrera. Let’s run through it, okay?” Jonny repeated. Crackers just stood there, playing chords with her headphones on, completely oblivious to the tension in the room.

“Let’s play ‘Metal Riff’ first. I want to try some new lyrics,” I said.

“Okay.”

We played “Metal Riff.” And that’s exactly what it sounded like. A riff. Not a song, just a riff.

“This sucks,” I said.

“What? I like it,” said Jonny.

Crackers didn’t say anything.

“I need to keep working on the lyrics.”

“Okay. Whatever. Let’s play the Christine song. I want to try an acoustic guitar part on it.”
The Christine song?
Ugh. Jonny picked up my dad’s acoustic and tuned it.

Crackers played the opening chords to “A Place in the Sun,” and Jonny joined in on guitar. I came in on bass, and we sounded good. A little boring, a little old-fashioned, but tight. Crackers started to sing.

I heard keys in the front door. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my dad enter the apartment and take an immediate right up the loft stairs. But after a few steps, he came back down again. He leaned around my amp and began to spy on our practice. Christine started the second verse. Her eyes closed as she wrapped her booming, velvety voice around the song.

I admit it. She sounded amazing. My dad came out from behind the amp. Shaky Jake and my mom were at his side. Great. Crackers’s voice was clear as a bell as she reached the climax of the song. She had a way of sliding up into the notes that could make goose bumps appear all over your body. She sang the words like she really meant them. At one point, Jake gave out a hearty “Yeah!” But when the song was over, the room went quiet. I expected cheers, applause …
something
.

Nobody said a word. Then, finally, Mom spoke.

“Honey, you have the most amazing voice!” she said, looking right at Christine.
Honey?

“Nice job, seriously!” said Shaky Jake.

“I can’t believe a twelve-year-old can sing with that much soul,” added my dad.

“Actually, I’m eleven,” Christine said.