Rules to Rock By (20 page)

The doorbell rang again before we were finished.

“Cool riff,” Darren said.

“Thanks.” I walked toward the front door to buzz in Jonny and Christine, who arrived together.

“You written any lyrics for that one yet?” Darren asked.

“Nope,” I replied.

“Has Christine?”

“She doesn’t write songs.”

“Yet.” He laughed, while I thought,
Grrr.

After Jonny and Christine came up, we didn’t talk much before getting down to business.

“What would you guys think about doing two covers and one original at the battle?” I asked.

“Works for me,” said Jonny. “Which of your songs do you wanna do?”

“It’s a new one,” I said. The first genuine, fully fleshed-out result of the Mr. V assignment. School was good for something, after all.

“Okay,” said Crackers, nodding.

“Cool,” said Jonny.

“Fine by me,” said Darren. “If I get a vote yet, that is.” That got a laugh.

“Which covers?” asked Jonny.

“Well, I was thinking we could do ‘A Place in the Sun’ so Christine can belt one out, and then maybe ‘Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back,’ by Deerhoof.”

It’s an amazing song that features Satomi chanting phrases like “B ball, B ball, B ball” and “rebound” and “bunny jump, bunny jump” over and over again against counterrhythms in the guitar and drums. It was easily my favorite track off their last album, and I really wanted to try it with the band.

“That’s a tough song, Annabelle,” said Jonny. “I don’t know.”

“Never heard of it,” said Crackers.

“Well, I know the lyrics and the bass line,” I said.

“I can play that one,” said Darren. So he wasn’t kidding. He did listen to a lot of different stuff.

“Yeah, but … I don’t know how well that one’ll go over in the battle,” Jonny said. “It’s a little out there.”

Again,
Grrr.

“Well, how about we try it out today, and if it’s not working, we can pick something else,” I said.

“Okay,” said Jonny.

We played a couple easy songs, and with Darren even these simple tunes sounded amazing. We sounded like—
A. Rock. Band. And a really good one, too. Then Darren and I started playing the Deerhoof song. Darren sounded great, of course. The beat was solid but always evolving; you couldn’t help but glue your ears to it. But as soon as I came in, singing and playing bass, it was a train wreck.

“Hold on one sec,” I said. “I’ll get it.”

I had practiced this thing pretty much straight for the last three days with my iPod, but even in this low-pressure situation, I gagged. I simply did not have it together.

“Okay, that was a disaster,” I said.

“Let’s play a Strokes song,” said Jonny, always the diplomat.

“Let’s break for a snack,” Crackers said.

“Sweet,” said Darren. “I’m starving.”

We went to the kitchen and made some sandwiches, during which Jonny and Darren started reminiscing about their hellish tenure with Raising Cain. According to Jonny, one of the major issues was that Darren drove Jackson crazy with his constant chatting, blathering on and on about nothing in particular.

“I thought you were the strong, silent type,” I said to Darren.

“Strong, maybe. Silent? Not so much,” Jonny said.

“Jackson used to fine me for talking in rehearsals,” Darren said.

“Seriously?” Crackers said.

“Dude was ultra-serious about music. He kept tabs on everything.”

“Five bucks for every ‘infraction,’ ” Jonny said.

“I owe him a couple hundred bucks!” Darren laughed. “Do I still have to pay him, now that I’m not even in his band?”

And there was no stopping Darren after that. Now that he knew there’d be no financial consequences for his spastic, motormouth conversational approach, he was a new man. Or man-boy, or whatever. He was a true force of nature, offering ideas and opinions, jokes and observations on every subject under the sun. And he somehow did this without getting on my nerves. A miracle. There were other surprising things about Darren, too. Every time we had a snack, he’d get up right after he was done and would clear
and wash
all the dishes before anybody else had a chance. When Darren called my parents Mr. and Mrs. Cabrera, Crackers and I started calling him Boy Scout. He even tried to put a “Mr.” in front of Shaky Jake, before Jake corrected him.

“I’ve never been a mister in my life, and I’m not about to start now,” Jake said.

I also couldn’t help but notice that Darren had nice chestnut eyes and forearms that were strong and tight from all that drumming, and I thought,
Oh no you don’t. He might be cute, but he’s a Bungle now, not just some random eighth grader. Hands off. Mind off. Everything off.

THREE GOOD WEEKS

On Monday, I handed in my song to the V Man.

Mr. V,

Okay, this is getting there!

Where Do I Go (From Here)?

by Annabelle Cabrera

It wasn’t my choice

To come to this town

It started off ugly

And it got me so down

Where do I go from here?

I came here with shorts on

But now I’m wearing sweaters

Some days are bad

But other days are better

Where do I go from here?

I want to break out,

I want to be free,

I want you to be you,

And me to be me

But where do I go from here?

Some people don’t seem to know anything

Don’t want me to rock, don’t want me to sing

So where do I go from here?

P.S. Actually, not all songs have to have a chorus. I know you said you’d die a happy man if you never have to hear “Hey Jude” again, but I happen to think “Hey Jude” is pretty great—I think you’d find a lot of people who agree with me on this—and it doesn’t have a chorus.

Wednesday, eight a.m., precisely three weeks before the battle. While I eavesdropped from my personal area, my parents were in the kitchen arguing. Again.

“Because I’m not sure if I
want
to tour behind this record,” my mom said.

This was rare. The fighting between my parents had been getting worse and worse since X’s accident, but usually they kept up appearances in front of us. The family meeting, the one where they’d fought about grounding me, was the first time I’d seen them openly argue in front of me. But that had only been preparation for battle. Now they were in a flat-out war.

“We
have
to tour if we want to sell more than three copies of this thing,” countered my dad.

“Yeah? Who’s going to take care of the kids?”

“I’ve said this a dozen times already,” he said with obvious impatience. “We’ll send them
both
down to Brooklyn. Then, when the tour’s over, we’ll bring X back here.”

Ha!
That was just not going to happen. My dad was grasping at straws.

“There is no way we can just rip him out of school like that. We are being terrible parents! Can’t you see it?”

Whoa. She had never said anything like
that
before. This was serious.

“Okay, okay, take it easy,” my dad said. He knew she had him. I could almost see him holding up his hands in defeat. “We’ll work it out.”

After that argument, though, for the two weeks leading up to the battle, the gloves were off. They argued about anything and everything: laundry, food, practice schedules, album art. There was no subject, large or small, that went without comment. Where before Mom would let Dad take the lead on everything, whether he was right or wrong, now she wouldn’t let him get away with anything. She had him backed into a corner, and I had never seen him so off his game. When he tried to help her cut up some carrots for X’s lunch—he had probably never made lunch for X or me in our entire lives—I thought she was going to chop his finger off.

On the other hand, my mom, X, and I were getting along great. Since X’s accident, she and I had had to help him with a whole mess of super-basic tasks, anything from writing out his homework to getting dressed. For the first two weeks, there actually wasn’t much he
could
do by himself. The kid couldn’t even tie his own shoelaces.

“It’s like he’s a doll and we’re playing dress-up,” I said one morning as I was buttoning his shirt.

“I am
not
a doll,” X said, but I could tell he didn’t mind. He loved being fussed over.

“We could tie his shoelaces together, and there’s not a thing in the world he could do about it,” my mom said.

“Better not!” said X, laughing and pulling his feet away.

Maybe breaking his wrist had been a stroke of genius. He had been screaming for attention, and now he was getting more of it than he knew what to do with. The three of us were spending more time together than ever before; even in Brooklyn, I had never hung out with my mom this much. My dad would stay up in the loft, reading or listening to music, while Mom, X, and I felt like an actual family.

For the first time in a while, just about everything was going well for me. X and I were getting along, my band was an actual band, and I couldn’t wait for the battle. It was the best three weeks I’d had since we’d moved to Providence.

THE BASS GODDESS
AND THE BULLY

One week before the battle. It was Friday the thirteenth. Spooky.

Mr. V motioned me over to his desk as soon as I walked into his classroom.

“Ms. Cabrera, come here for a moment, please,” he said. When I approached his desk, and he held his hand out to me formally, as if we were meeting for the first time, I cracked up. “I want to congratulate you on your work of art.”

I stopped my giggling. “My … what do you mean? My song?”

“I very much enjoyed ‘Where Do I Go (From Here)?’ I think it’s remarkable work and I’d like to read it aloud in today’s class. Do you mind?”

“Umm, I don’t know. I …” The bell rang.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, and before I could think better of it he was standing in front of the class with my song in his hand.

“Students, I have been trying to make writers of you this year,” he said. “I started with a cheap ploy, really, letting the great Bon Jovi do my work for me. Who wouldn’t have been inspired?” A chuckle from McNamara, that clown in the back row. “Many of you have risen to the task. You have used the songs to delve into memories; you have described events in your life with a keen eye. But few of you have managed to crack the shell of your emotional lives”—at this, I sank in my chair—“to
reveal
something of yourselves in your work.

“The following song—it also succeeds very much as a freestanding poem—does just that. Please listen.”

Then he recited my song from start to finish. I could feel Crackers’s eyes on me—we had been practicing this one for the last three weeks, so of course she recognized it from the first line. She gave me a quick smile, but I just looked down and squeezed the top of my desk with both hands, praying for him to get to the end without my identity being revealed. I
hated
hearing my song read aloud. The lyrics sounded terrible without music—so personal and cheesy! So
un
rock! I felt like he was reading my diary to the entire class, without any loud guitars and drums to bury the lyrics. But the class listened in respectful silence, and I was starting to think I would survive.

Mr. V surveyed the class. “Well, any comments on this work?”

“I thought it was great,” said Christine. “The words are good, and the feelings are real.” Whew. She had obviously figured out from my body language that I wanted to stay anonymous.

“Yeah,” another kid said. “It was cool.”

But then McNamara piped in. “Nice work, Annabelle,” he said sarcastically. “That was totally … moving.” His goon buddies cracked up.

“Mr. McNamara, do you have anything sincere to add to this conversation?” Mr. V said, silencing everyone. “Because if you want, I could read your essay on your grandmother. The one in which you compare her clear blue eyes to a lovely summer sky?” Silence. “Good choice. It needs work.

“Well, I hadn’t intended on revealing the author,” he continued. “But now that you know, I think Ms. Cabrera has done a wonderful job here. The writing is concise and direct. The emotions are tangible and real. My compliments.” He handed the sheet back to me, with a massive A written at the top in blue ink. “Oh, and good luck to you and Christine at the battle of the bands.”

I should have skipped all the way back to my locker, high on my second A in a row, but something bothered me: I didn’t think the song was any good. Even if Mr. V thought it was “emotionally revealing” or whatever, it just felt off to me. And there was no way I could perform it in public if the words didn’t feel right. I’d have to keep working on it.

Darren found me at my locker.

“Yo, Belle,” he said.

“What’s up?” I turned around to find him wearing a sling on his right arm.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. The battle was a week away.

“I wish I was,” he said. “I broke my elbow.”

“What happened?”

“Jackson happened.”

“Jackson broke your elbow?”

“Well, not exactly. But the guy who did it was definitely, um … employed by Jackson.”

“Okay …”

“He introduced himself as Raising Cain’s new drummer. He looked about thirty years old. And he was huge. Two hundred pounds of pure muscle.”

“What’d he do?”

“He sucker-punched me as I was walking home yesterday. Then he pushed me over, and I guess I must have broken my fall with my elbow.”

“Ouch.”

“You’re telling me. It kills.”

“Darren, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay. I can still play.”

“Are you crazy? That’s your right hand. You’re a
right-handed
drummer. There’s no way you can play.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of Def Leppard? That drummer lost, like, three limbs in a drunken car accident, and he can still rock out.”

“I wasn’t aware of that.”

“Seriously, I need to do this. For me. To show Jackson that he and his goons can’t keep me down. He’ll have to break both legs to keep me off that stage.”

“Shh,” I said. I didn’t point out that only three weeks ago he had been one of those goons. “Don’t give him any ideas.”

The day before the battle.

“Belle, sweetheart, I need to talk to you about something,” my mom said as I was making my lunch in the kitchen.

“What?” I looked around. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, sweetie. Everything’s fine.” She nervously tapped her fingers on the countertop.

“Mom, what’s wrong? Is X okay? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, yes.” She nervously brushed back her hair. “It’s just that … Well, Belle, you know how your dad and I, we need to perform to keep bread on the table …”

“Okay …” As if I hadn’t heard this speech a million times.

“See, Benny and Joon got a great offer to play in Boston, and it’s … Well, it’s tomorrow.”

“The night of the battle? You’re not going to make it to the battle?” I took the knife I was using to spread peanut butter and threw it in the sink. Then I started pacing around the room. I admit that I probably looked fairly crazy at this moment in time. But I was mad.

“Belle, I know. Believe me, I know. But just listen. We’ll be playing at the Somerville Theatre. It’s a pretty big venue. And we’ll open for PJ Harvey. You know how much this means to your dad. She’s one of his favorite—”

I stopped pacing and gave my mom a look that stopped her in her tracks.

“I get it, Mom. It’s back to the way things were.”

“Don’t, Belle—”

“I know how things work in this family. Dad comes first. He always has and he always will.”

Then I marched into the bathroom. Remember, that was the only slammable door in the place.

“Belle, that’s not fair.” Mom followed me. “Come on, open up.”

I vowed to never open up. Not in a million years. Or at least not until I could escape from the house without having to talk to my mom again.

While my temples pounded with rage, I thought again about what Mr. V had said about how craziness is defined as doing the same thing or seeing the same thing again and again and expecting something different to happen. But I think the definition of craziness is living with my mom. I mean, for my whole life
she
had done the same thing over and over again, which was to side with my dad. On literally everything. And then, starting at the hospital, she seemed to start siding with X and me. She had seen how my dad’s way of doing things wasn’t working, so she was moving away from him and toward us. But how did that explain her ditching me on the most important night of my life for a PJ Harvey opening slot that hadn’t even existed twenty-four hours ago? Who was crazy: my mom, or me?

“Belle,” Mom said, still outside the door. “Please open up, sweetie. Come on.”

“I’m fine, Mom,” I said. “I’m just going to take a shower. I’m not mad anymore.” Ha, what a lie.

I did get in the shower and think things over. Logically, it shouldn’t have been that annoying to me for my mom not to come to the battle. She hadn’t been to the open mic, and that had gone fine. She hadn’t seen me play in Central Park—they’d had a gig in some rock toilet in Philadelphia the same night—and that had been
amazing
. She hadn’t even come to my fifth-grade graduation—Abuela had. Why should the last three weeks have made a difference? My mom wasn’t going to change. She would always put Benny and Joon ahead of me. She would always put my dad in front of the rest of the family, so it was stupid to expect anything different.

After I dried off, I waited to make sure my mom wasn’t by the door anymore and got dressed as quickly as I could. I walked to the front door and carefully unlatched the lock.

That’s when I felt two quick taps on my shoulder. I turned around and saw X.

“Belle, I—”

“X, I can’t hang out with you right now. I’ve gotta go to school.”

“Belle, I got something for you,” X whispered.

“What?”

“It’s for good luck,” he said. “At the battle.”

He held out a little plastic bag filled with guitar picks, the kind of big, wide picks that I liked.

“You bought me picks?”

“Special picks.”

I opened up the bag and spilled a few out into my hand. On one side, they said “Annabelle Cabrera” in big letters. On the other, they said, “Bass Goddess!”

“X, where’d you get these?” I asked. “How’d you pay for them?”

“Don ordered them for me. He said I can work them off, once my arm gets better.”

I leaned down on one knee and gave X a hug, careful not to mess with his bad arm.

“Thanks, X,” I said, although other than that I was speechless. What can you say when the little brother whose arm you basically broke in two turned around and gave you one hundred customized guitar picks? I gave him a peck on the cheek, then bolted.

Rock stars aren’t half as cool as little brothers.