Californium (29 page)

“Put on some shoes,” Packy says. “We're going somewhere.”

.

In the truck, Packy won't say where we're going. We get on the 91 freeway, then the 57 south, so not LA. I'm guessing that if he's about to drop me off at Salt Mining Camp or Saint Bendover's Torture Academy for Boys, he'd look grim or be talking about when he and Mom would come back to visit me. We're not talking, though, and I don't even turn on the radio. Half the time I'm wondering where we're going, and the other half my mind is on that date with Edie and Dylan, trying to solve it so
y
comes out the right way.

Finally, I say, “Will we be home by dinner?”

“I think so.”

“
We
will?” I say. “Both of us?”

Packy looks around like who else do I think is in the truck? “Don't worry about dinner.”

“I'm not worried. It's just, there's a gig tonight and I promised van Doren I'd be there.”

“The kid with the
crap
haircut?”

“
Crop.
”

Packy smiles. “I know. I'm just busting your chops.”

We exit the freeway into traffic that leads us into this huge parking lot, an ocean of asphalt with Anaheim Stadium rising in the middle of it like an island. Cars and vans and trucks and buses are everywhere, and people are funneling in from all directions like the stadium has its own gravitational field.

“We're going to a ball game?”

Packy looks me over. “Yeah. You still like baseball, don't you?”

Out the side of my eye I can see him keeping his head turned
toward me, driving slow in the stadium traffic and glancing forward to spot-check. I keep my eyes on the stadium. “I guess so.”

The Angels are playing Seattle: an okay team versus an awful one. Inside the stadium, there are plenty of guys my own age hanging out, though none of them are with their parents.

We get in line for hot dogs and the guy right in front of us has his arm wrapped around this girl beside him, his hand inside the back pocket of her shorts. She's leaning into him hard, and I don't know how the guy is going to get through nine innings without exploding. Packy's trying to ignore it by talking to me like I'm five, saying I can have anything I want—hot dog, pop, even Cracker Jacks. It's awful.

.

When the game starts, I try getting into it, but I couldn't care less about either of these teams. It might help if the Angels fans would get excited about their team, or razz the other team, but they're just polite about everything—clapping at the good stuff, groaning at the stuff that almost goes right or goes a little wrong, and being quiet the rest of the time.

“It's not the Bronx,” I say.

“No,” Packy says. “It's a nice stadium, though. Clean. Safe.”

He's right. The plastic of the seats isn't faded and scratched. Even the concrete looks like you could go five-second rule if you dropped your peanuts. But it's still not the Bronx. “It's a boring stadium. They don't have any plaques. They don't have a short porch in right or a deep gap in left center. They don't even know how to razz a guy when he comes to the plate.”

Packy smiles, which makes no sense. “You're right.”

We spend most of the game just sitting there, staring at the field and every once in a while saying, “Nice play, huh?” “Yeah. Nice play.” Then this guy Lenny Randle comes to the plate and somebody yells, “You're a bum, Randle!”

It's what Uncle Ryan would have said, especially since Randle used to be a Yankee and he was terrible, but Packy is the one who said it. Some of the Angels fans look back and up at us, but since Randle's playing for Seattle they aren't angry, just confused anyone would yell at some guy who isn't even hitting .200.

“I've seen backstops hit the ball farther than you,” Packy yells out, one of Uncle Ryan's favorites, and the people right next to us laugh.

We spend the rest of the game razzing Seattle players with Uncle Ryan's best digs. And we try to come up with good nicknames for the Angels players: Ron “I Wish I Were Reggie” Jackson, Reggie “I'm Glad I'm Not Ron” Jackson, and Bobby “the Grich Who Stole Second.” They aren't the best, but it's like Uncle Ryan is there with us so it's more about having fun than getting it exactly right.

After the game, we're coming off the last stadium ramp to the parking lot and Packy asks if I want to go find where the players come out. I can see what he's doing, what Uncle Ryan would have done, and it's nice. I'd be tempted, too, if it was the Yankees. “We should go. Mom's probably making dinner right now.”

“Are you sure?” Packy stops walking just outside the main gate. He jiggles the keys in his pocket. “It's up to you.”

It really isn't that late, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know it'd just be easier to do what he wants than to argue the
whole way home, maybe even get grounded for the night. But I can't help it. “I don't want to break my promise to van Doren,” I say, which is true.

“Sure.” Packy takes a couple steps into the parking lot. I'm slow to move, trying to read him and make sure this isn't a test. “Come on, Methuselah.”

I catch up. “Methuselah?”

While we're sitting in the parking lot traffic, Packy gets this grin and asks if he ever told me about the time Uncle Ryan hung out with some of the Yankees.

“No.” I look him over. “Is this a true story?”

Packy nods and says Uncle Ryan used to offer to buy beer and pizza for any player who wanted to meet him after the game at Rocco's in Bayonne. One time, a pitcher named Mike Torrez took him up on the offer and brought a couple other Yankees with him.

Packy's smiling as he tells it, and I can just see Uncle Ryan there, pushing the mugs across the red-checkered tablecloth because he always liked to be the guy who gave you something good.

Uncle Ryan never talked about that day, Packy says, because he'd already had too much to drink at the game and fell asleep at the table right after the players got there. I laugh and so does Packy, and we do again when he gets to the part about the players paying the bill, putting Uncle Ryan in a cab, and paying for that, too. “He had no idea what happened until the next time he went to Rocco's and the owner told him everything.”

Packy keeps smiling, the best smile I've seen on him since I can't remember when.

I smile too, and when he looks over at me I say, “Tell me another Uncle Ryan story, Dad.”

My dad rubs his chin. “Okay. Do you know about the time he got kicked out of Studio 54?”

I don't even know what Studio 54 really is, but I don't care. “Tell me,” I say, and that's how we get home: story after story, Dad looking somewhere over and beyond all the cars on the freeway, feeling his way up the hill to Yorba Linda and that sign that reads
LAND OF GRACIOUS LIVING.

.

Saturday night, I'm still wearing the TSOL shirt, and now I've got on some Dickies work pants van Doren gave me since he's moving on to plaid, and Dad's old Converse. Filibuster's playing a great set, the pit's swirling, Keith's working hard, and to keep from thinking about Edie on that date, I'm going over the Uncle Ryan stories Dad told me today, trying to decide which ones I'll tell the guys later when we go out for a late-night breakfast. But in my head, imagining van Doren's face as I tell the stories, Uncle Ryan isn't coming off so good. He sounds kind of pathetic, acting crazy after drinking or messing up fun times by getting too drunk. I mean, I know Uncle Ryan was a good guy—Dad wouldn't love him the way he does if he wasn't—but he might not sound that way to other people if they hear too much.

At Denny's restaurant, we're in one of those circular booths, passing around the two coffees we ordered to share, and everyone's chattering about the show. Then van Doren gives us some details about playing the Whisky in June and Keith tells a Sascha/Karen story that has the guys laughing and telling him he's
whipped. It's fun, but I'm clammed up, afraid to tell the Uncle Ryan stories and feeling guilty for not telling them. Then Uncle Ryan slides into the booth beside me, looks at the empty coffee cup by my spoon, and signals the waiter. “I think my cup has a hole in it,” I hear myself say. The waiter steps over fast, his face concerned. I grin and hold up the cup. “It's been empty for like five minutes.” The waiter rolls his eyes and tells me to hold my horses. Van Doren laughs. Then Keith and the rest of the guys laugh. And then me and Uncle Ryan do too.

.

As soon as Mr. Tomita drops his chalk on Monday, Edie stands up and says, “Come on.”

We walk out the door together and toward the stairs. She wants to know all about the Filibuster show; she's sorry she missed it. Sorry she missed hearing me introduce them and says it must be a lot of fun.

She says we should get together to study for our next algebra test. “It's been a hard unit,” she says, and I get the grin that makes the whole of me go warm every time I see it now. “You'll need the help.”

“I will,” I say.

She glances at the stairs but doesn't leave.

“Does this mean you solved for
y
?”

She shakes her head, but there's a smile with it. “It's a big one,” she says. “We'll have to take our time and work on it together. Okay?”

It's not the answer I want, but at least there's something to build on, you know? And did I really expect her to just break up
with Dylan? Maybe, but not really, now that I think about it. Who wants to be with a girl who would do that? “Okay,” I say.

I know what she's going to say next, and I say it with her. “Now is the time to go.” She bursts out laughing and I get a little glance back from her as she goes.

.

At lunch, I tell Keith about all of that and he says we should get together after school to start planning my next move. It's not a bad idea, I say, but we'll have to put it off until the next day. I've got somewhere to be today, somewhere Keith can't come with me. He's dying to know, but I won't say.

As soon as the bell rings in sixth period, I'm out the door. I don't even go to my locker. I want to run to Treat's house as fast as I can, and I do.

Mrs. D answers the door, smiling when she recognizes me. “I'm sorry, Reece,” she says, “Treat's not home from school yet.”

“That's okay,” I say, and I'm pretty sure it sounds happier than it should. “I'm just wondering if my jacket is still here.”

She steps back and opens the front door all the way to let me in. “Goodness, I'm not sure—”

“It's probably in the . . .” and I want to say “studio,” because that's what it was, but I just point at the door to the garage. “You know, probably out there where we practiced.”

She walks me to the door and opens it for me. “You can have a look around.”

Treat's Bug is right in the middle now with the car cover over it, the >I< logo stretched across the roof, not a bit faded. The
amps are stacked in a corner with the instruments. The chairs are folded up, leaning in another corner with the rolled-up carpet, and the computer boxes are stacked against only one wall now. It's weird, you know? It's all the same elements that made it a studio, but it feels totally different and hits me hard, like a little version of losing Uncle Ryan.

I'm thinking maybe I'll just go, but then I see this one computer monitor out, sitting on top of its box, and there's my Packy jacket in a pile behind it like a little car cover that slipped off. I pick it up and dust it off, and the weight of it is a handshake from someone coming off the plane, that person you haven't seen in forever, and everything's okay now because he's here.

Mrs. Dumovitch walks me to the front door, saying she's happy I found my jacket and that she thinks Cherise is a wonderful girl but misses seeing me and Keith. We're invited over anytime, she says, and you can tell she means that the way she lingers at the door as I cross the driveway.

It's warm now but I don't care. I slide my arms through the jacket, feel it tug around my shoulders and prop up my back. The patches are all here, stitched tight like they've always belonged, like they're supposed to be right alongside the Packy patch.

I head up the hill, thinking about tomorrow in the Bog when I tell Keith we're starting a band. He'll get excited and say DikNixon is back, but I'll tell him no. DikNixon is dead, and we're not going to be Dixon or the Pardon or Ford spelled
Fjord
so it looks like we're from Europe. We're moving on to the next thing. Our own
thing.

I could not be a writer without the encouragement and support, early on and still, of my parents, Kathleen and Robert, and my wife's parents, Joy and Mike Hensley. And I wouldn't be the writer I am without my wife, Julie Hensley, who not only told me early on that this was a book, but also what it was really about and what the title should be.

I'm so fortunate to have had early readers for this project, many of whom could see its potential before I could and pushed me forward: Lex Williford, Jewel Parker Rhodes, Bert Bender, Ron Carlson, and especially Mike McNally, whose influence is all over this book even if there's still some baseball in it.

Thanks to the Hall Farm Center for Arts & Education in Townsend, Vermont, for the time and beautiful space to write many of these chapters (and for the blueberries and beer). Thanks, too, to Kristen and Kara of Purdy's Coffee Company in Richmond, Kentucky, for providing ambience and lattes so conducive to writing.

Thanks to my agent, Mackenzie Brady Watson, whose editorial eye and enthusiasm have made this a better book. And thanks to everyone at Plume for their hard work, with special thanks to my editors, Matthew Daddona and Kate Napolitano, for their insight, their encouragement, and their ability to make the good, hard work of revision a joy (really).

And for various reasons, thanks to Bernice, Boyd the elder, both Daves, Derek, Jay, Jennifer, Jim, Kenny, Nancy, Toan, Wes, and Young.

Last of all, a sweeping, general thanks to all those bands (punk and otherwise) who hit the height of their fame in some backyard long ago, yet continue to inspire.