Blowin' My Mind Like a Summer Breeze, page 21
“You have no idea,” I say.
“Anyway,” she says, brushing some of her perfect hair out of her perfect face, “I’ve never met anyone who I thought was more talented than me. Who might steal my dreams. I know how conceited and bitchy and stupid that sounds, but it’s the truth. And I feel like maybe you’re the one person who can understand that. It made my claws come out.”
“People have been telling me stuff like that my whole life too,” I say.
She nods.
“It fucks with your head after a while,” she says.
“Yep. Big time.”
“Anyway,” she says, sounding like she’s about to say more, but instead just says, “see you around,” and walks away.
• • •
I’m in the kitchen eating some brown sugar Pop Tarts and reading Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, which my English teacher, Ms. Ofalko, recommend to me after I loved Their Eyes Were Watching God in class.
“You’re ready for this,” Ms. Ofalko said, handing it to me after class. “Buckle up.”
Mom is in the living room working on a bluesy chord progression in B-flat. She plays it straight through, then sideways, then backward, looking at all the pieces, working through how she wants to fit them together. Whenever I hear Mom writing music, I always picture a painter who dabs a little paint on the canvas, then stands far away to see the whole canvas better. Then close again, then far. Close, far.
She’s been at the piano a lot lately, and I can see her creative gears starting to slowly turn.
“Rainey baby, come help me with this will you,” she says.
She scoots over and I sit down next to her on the bench. I learned to play piano sitting next to her, just like this. She snatches the Pop Tart out of my hand, takes a bite, and then gives it back with a grin.
“Hey,” I say.
“Gotta be quick,” she says.
She plays me what she’s working on.
“It’s this transition right here that doesn’t quite sit right.” She plays the chords again, emphasizing two of the chords, playing them over and over. “Don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I see what you mean.”
I start playing the progression in the upper register. I try an inversion of the first chord, which frees up some space and makes the dominant chord pop a little brighter. It feels like turning on a light in a dimly lit room. Suddenly you can see a painting on the wall. Books on the shelf. An old woman knitting in a chair.
“What was that?” she asks.
I play it back a few times.
“If you play the second inversion of the d minor,” I say, “then add the sixth in the bass, that F7 will sound a little fuller, I think.”
She plays it a few times and nods to herself.
“Thanks,” she says.
“New song?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Any words yet?”
“Not quite,” she says, tapping her head with her finger. “Still cooking. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”
Track Nineteen
Look Out World
At first it makes me a little sad how much better of a drummer Walden is than Evan. How quickly he gels with River. How easily he elevates my songs. How quickly our band levels up with my brother behind the drum kit.
But making songs sound better is what Walden has been doing his whole life. It’s what he was born to do.
“Holy shit, your brother is insane on drums!” River says to me in English class the day after we play together for the first time. “Why did you even start playing with Evan when your brother can play that good?”
I shrug. “My brother has been in my mom’s band. Plus, I didn’t want him to. He’s kind of bossy and moody. And I don’t know if he even likes my music.”
“Who cares? He’s insane. In-sane!”
“Plus, Evan asked me to play with him, not the other way around. Remember?”
“Have you guys made up yet?”
“I tried,” I say. “He’s really mad.”
“Keep trying. He’ll come around.”
It happened by accident, Walden joining the band. One day River came to our house to jam, and we were playing in my bedroom when Walden came in to get something, listened for a minute, then instead of leaving, he sat down at the stripped-down drum kit he keeps in the corner and slid right into the pocket.
By our fifth rehearsal, we’re starting to sound so good it almost scares me.
In late March, we play at Club 182, then again two weeks later. Both times under my name, which I’m getting used to, even if I still don’t like it. By our third show in mid-April, there’s barely room to stand and there’s a buzz in the air, a sense of electric anticipation you can almost touch. Walden complains that we aren’t getting paid, but I don’t really care. At least not yet.
After the show, the owner, Paul Posen, a local legend who used to be in a band that got signed, and later dropped, by Columbia when their lead singer drowned in Lake Champlain on the Fourth of July, comes up to us. He asks if we want to keep playing throughout the summer as a featured act. Doing a full ninety-minute headlining show instead of the half hour we’ve been doing on a bill with three other bands.
“I haven’t seen an audience this excited about a local band in years,” he says. “Maybe ever. I already had a reporter stop by asking if I knew how to get in touch with you.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Really. I told them they should leave you alone. I hate reporters. So, what do you think?”
I look at Walden, who says, “For free?” unscrewing his ride cymbal and slipping it into a padded bag. “Thanks but no thanks, man. You saw the crowd. No offense but I don’t think they’re coming for the ginger ale.”
I shift uncomfortably, but I love my brother so much right now. I think this is what he’s talking about when he says I need to learn to stand up for myself.
“You’re her older brother?”
“That’s right.”
“I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh? I used to go see your parents play when I was younger. They were unreal back in the day. Almost as good as you two.”
Walden waits, so I wait. River is putting his guitar pedals into a bag, casually listening.
“I’ll tell you what. I occasionally do ticketed shows here for bigger acts that come through. From now on, when you play, I’ll charge five bucks a head, and you guys take half. This room holds two hundred. If you fill it, that’s five hundred bucks to you, five hundred to me. Sound fair?”
“To start,” Walden says.
“What do you think?” Posen says, turning to me.
“Okay,” I say, then turn to River, who’s standing there casually listening.
“Works for me, man,” he says.
“If you guys really want to start making money, though,” Posen said. “You should sell copies of your demo. Or have some stickers made or something. I think about every kid here would buy one.”
“You think so?” I ask.
“I know so. Just be careful when the A&R reps start showing up and making you offers you can’t refuse. Everything they say is a lie.”
“And you’re different?”
“Yeah,” Posen says. “I am.” He starts walking away, then turns back to me. “How old are you?”
I turn to Walden, who shrugs, as if to say, why not?
“Almost sixteen,” I say. For some reason, sixteen sounds way older than fifteen.
Posen whistles through his teeth. “Look out world,” he says.
Track Twenty
This Probably Sounds Really Stupid
Gradually, and without really trying, River and I become better friends than I ever thought we would be when we first met. The high school rumor mill immediately brands us a couple, of course. High school really is a ridiculous place. Nobody believes anything. Everybody’s always looking over their shoulder and hunting for secret meanings and cracks in the sidewalk that aren’t even there.
The Pena twins pepper me constantly with questions and accusations, certain I’m hiding something.
“He is totally hot, and you better tell us everything right now!” Rachel says, dipping fries in salty ketchup as usual.
“We’re just friends, you guys. Seriously.”
“Whatever!” Clara says.
“Yeah, whatever,” Rachel says. “I saw you two lying on the grass in the courtyard the other day like an old married couple.”
I shrug.
“That doesn’t mean we’re together.”
“Um, yes it does! That’s exactly what it means.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what it means.”
I become a regular fixture around River’s dinner table and get to know his mom, Pam, who’s always alone with River’s little sister, Myra, because River’s dad left the family five years ago.
“He took off with this other woman one day and never came back,” River tells me. “He sends me a birthday present every year and I throw it right in the trash without even opening it.”
“That’s crazy,” I say, “there could be money in there.”
“I don’t want anything from him. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a father.”
I think that’s part of the reason River is sort of aloof and casual. He doesn’t want to get too close to people. It’s a way of protecting himself.
With River, somehow, things never get weird, the way things did with Evan. He never gives me that long look like he wants to kiss me. I occasionally catch him staring at my chest, but whatever, all boys do that.
River treats me more like a sister. He teases me about all the black I wear. “Are you allergic to bright colors?” He casually makes fun of my love of country music and is completely unmoved when I play him my favorite Hank Williams and Dolly Parton songs.
“Yeah, still nothing,” he says. “Sorry, doc, but we don’t have a pulse.”
It’s easy, that’s what it is. And easy is nice for a change. I deserve easy.
One night, we watch The Shining at River’s house, and I’m a little freaked out when the credits start rolling. I keep seeing those horrible little girls in the blue dresses in my head, asking me to come and play with them.
“Why did we watch that?” I ask. “I’m going to have nightmares for a month.”
“Here’s Johnny!” River says and lunges at me with a fake axe.
We go out on his back porch to get some air. River brings out a joint to smoke, which he does sometimes. I take a little puff once in a while, but tonight I take a big one and hold the smoke in for a long time, then cough it out in a dense, swirling cloud of blue. River laughs. I don’t count an occasional hit on a joint as breaking my pact not to smoke, by the way. I mean, of course you’re putting smoke in your lungs. But there’s no nicotine. It’s not addictive.
We lay down on his deck on our backs and look up at the stars. It’s a clear April night, and though the weather is getting warmer, it’s cool and when I start shivering, River gives me his sweatshirt.
“I want to tell you something,” I say.
“Go for it,” he says.
“But you can’t tell anyone.”
“Okay.”
“Do you promise?”
“I guess.”
“River! You have to swear. I mean it.”
He makes an X across his chest. “Cross my heart,” he says.
“I like girls,” I say. “I mean, I’m attracted to girls. More than boys. I’m not, not attracted to boys, but mostly I’m not. I don’t know. It’s weird. But mostly I like girls. Sorry, this probably sounds really stupid. Forget it.”
River listens patiently as I ramble on, doubling back, contradicting myself, then finally repeating my central theme once again.
“I kind of figured,” he says.
“You did?”
“Rainey, half the guys in school want to go out with you, and you barely even notice.”
“That’s not true!”
“It’s true enough. And the stuff with Evan. Maybe nobody else sees it, but it makes sense to me.”
He passes me the joint and I inhale another small drag. I feel like I’m hovering slightly off the ground. The wind whispers through my hair.
“My older sister is gay,” he says.
Hearing the casual way he says the word gay, which I hear used as an insult all day long in the lunch line and between bathroom stalls, as if it has no more significance than the words “blue” or “loafer,” fills me with relief. I’ve fantasized so many times about this moment of confession, about how it would feel to share my deep secret truth.
How does it feel? It feels really good.
“I remember when my sister was in high school,” River says, “my mom was always saying that to her, ‘Boys call here all the time, and you don’t give them the time of day. You never go on dates. Blah blah blah.’” I turn to River. His long blond locks are dancing in the breeze, the tips shiny with silver moonlight. Even in shorts and a tank top, he seems unfazed by the cool temperature.
“I know other people freak out about it, but it’s really no big deal to me.”
“I’ve wanted to tell somebody for so long.”
“You’ve never told anyone before?”
“No.”
“Not even Walden?”
I shake my head. I start crying. I hate crying, but I can’t help it.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he assures me.
I sit up and so does River. He puts his arms around me.
“You’re all right, Rainey,” he says. “It’s going to be all right.”
And you know what? I actually agree for once.
A while later we’re in the kitchen eating everything in sight—cookies, chips, candy, giggling like idiots—when he says, “I think it’s cool you could tell me, but have you thought about telling Evan?”
“He wouldn’t understand. He’s too mad at me.”
“I think you might be surprised,” he says.
Track Twenty-One
He Has His Moments
Press the fast forward button. Right there. Stop.
An early Saturday morning in May, and I’m helping Mom load the car, which is stuffed with her Gibson Super Jumbo, her white Stratocaster, a Fender tube amp, a keyboard, a big suitcase full of clothes, another full of shoes and boots, and her cosmetic bag.
Mom’s going on an adventure.
She’s driving to Detroit to stay with her friend Shay, who’s a musician and arranger, and given herself two weeks to turn her new batch of song scraps into finished songs for a new album. Then in June, she’s taking a new band out on the road, this time under the name Tracy Cobb, and this time without my brother behind the drum kit or my dad on guitar.
After twenty years tethered to Luce Cobb, and another five to the Cobb Family Band, Tracy Cobb is officially going solo.
She keeps looking at a AAA map of The Great Lakes Region, talking aloud to herself about the fastest way to get to Detroit.
“Call me right away if Dad starts acting weird,” she tells me. “You know what to look for?”
“It’s going to be fine,” I tell her. “He’s getting better.”
“You really think so? Some days I’m sure he is, and some days I’m not so sure.”
“I’m sure.”
She looks around.
“You believe it was a year ago we were packing up to leave for tour?” she says.
“That feels like way more than a year ago,” I say.
“It sure does. I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime since then.”
“Me too.”
“I guess we both have,” she says.
She wraps me up in a huge hug.
“I love you Rainey,” she says.
“I love you too.”
“No matter what.”
“No matter what.”
Dad comes out and we wave as Mom pulls out of the driveway, already blasting Otis Redding from the tape deck. After she’s gone, we stand there in silence for half a minute, then grab our rods and the tackle box and walk to the pond.
“So, you’re officially retired from music?” I ask him, baiting a worm and casting out into the pond. My lure hits the water and sends out ripples that chase each other across the glassy green surface.
“Just from playing live, Rain Man. I’ll never retire from music. I don’t know how to do anything else.”
Instead of casting out, Dad likes to drop his lure right over the side of the canoe. He brought a couple beers for himself and some Cokes for me. We sit drinking in the early afternoon stillness, the sun beginning to warm the top of my head.
“What are you gonna do?”
“You mean other than sit around and feel sorry for myself?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know,” he says. “That’s my guilt talking. I can’t help it. I haven’t been much of a father to you kids lately and it hurts to let down the people you love the most.”
I feel a bite on my line, but I reel in too hard and lose it.
“To answer your question, though,” Dad says, “I’m going to produce, engineer, that kind of stuff. I’ve already got a few projects lined up. Some bands that want to rent out the studio and have me help them out behind the board. It’s not going to make us rich, but it beats making bird houses. And you know how much I love pushing buttons.”
He’s not kidding, either. He loves it so much it’s freaky.
“And Murph thinks I should release my Christmas album.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You gonna be okay with Mom gone?”
“Sure,” he says. Then adds, “I’ve got you,” and winks at me.
“Pretty sure you’re supposed to be taking care of me.”
“Right, right. I always forget that part.”
“Just no weeklong mac and cheese binges this time,” I say. “Last time I almost died. That stuff’s loaded with sodium.”
