Have Mercy (Have a Life #1) (5 page)

“Your mom left the door open,” Rob said. 

              He stepped between me and Captain Kirby.  I thought to close the door, but instead he went into the house and closed the door behind him.  I was going to get up and follow him, because like
wtf
, when it was like a dam opened.  Kids stampeded across the lawn led by the three Goth girls who’d been the first to arrive. They planted their Doc Martens an inch from my toes and were giving me and Captain Kirby a death stare that said move over bitches until Captain Kirby stood up with her game face on and made them think again.  Other kids were jockeying for position by the curb and clusters of three and four parked themselves in the middle of the lawn and a couple wearing orange and blue leggings so tight fitting that they seemed to be painted on were rehearsing a song in the driveway they were going to burst into to let The Griffin know they were ready for prime time. The afternoon was dry and still and the air was suddenly full of little geodesic floaters of white dandelion seeds that had gone airborne from the trampling and were drifting over the fence to Mr. Henning’s next door who was drinking a beer on his porch scratching his belly and watching, and across the street to the Tudesco’s, neat freaks who owned four runny-nosed Pomeranians and whose lawn looked like Astroturf, and for a minute I forgot about Jane. 

              Here’s the truth: Our lawn was a dandelion patch.  In the early spring you could kid yourself that the yellow flowers were pretty and you could make dandelion salads and dandelion wine if you didn’t have a life.  I mean a lawn tells you a lot about the people in the house behind it, right?  A normal lawn equals a normal family leading a normal existence which we prided ourselves on not leading, and I was thinking that on Monday the Tudescos would call the code enforcers on us and I’d have to mow, but Jane wouldn’t be ashamed of that.  She would see it as evidence that we were a special and talented family who had better things to do than mow a lawn and douse it with herbicide. It was definitely unlike Marjewel’s and Isak’s lawn which looked like it was painted on.  They probably had a fleet of illegals working on it.  Very ordinary.

              Captain Kirby elbowed me in the ribs and jerked her head toward the house.  “Do you want me to throw that asshole out?” she said.

              “Rob?”

              “He’s a bullshiter.”

              “So?”

              “He’s hitting on your mom.”

              “He’s probably asking her to introduce him to The Griffin.  Jane can take care of herself.” Like yeah right, look at our lawn.

              Captain Kirby looked mournfully at the front door.  “He said he graduated from St. Albans.”

              “So?”

              “When I said we beat their field hockey team in the finals, he said yeah.”

              “And?”

              “They don’t even have a field hockey team.  St. Albans was an all-boys school till a couple of years ago and they don’t have eleven girls in the whole school.”

              Captain Kirby had a crush on Jane.  Well, get in line, I thought.  Jane wore a helpless halo like Marilyn Monroe that brought out the Sir Galahad in certain types, and Captain Kirby was one of them.  When I asked The Griffin once if that was what attracted him to her, he laughed and said, “You think she’s
helpless
?  Jesus, no. 
Hell
no. You’re one hundred and eighty degrees wrong.  Your mom’s a wild child.”  Which I put away in a box I call “Figure Out Later.”

              Tim peddled up on his bike.  He had left his guitar in the Trap and he jumped off the bike while it was still moving and trotted it into the Trap to make sure his guitar was secure and then he came out and ran over to me.  “You okay?”

              “Sure I’m okay.  Why not?” 

              “There’s no crowd control here.”

              I was in a really bad mood because I’d been sitting on the steps watching dandelion floaters instead of taking charge.  “It’s not a crowd,” I said.               

              “Fifty people?  I would call that a crowd.”

              “I’ve seen more.”

              Tim jerked me up from the steps and led me into the garage.  He handed me my guitar then he uncased his and turned up the amps and ran up and the down the scales.  He pointed for me to join him and Captain Kirby got behind the Pink Fade and started hitting her sticks.  We sounded good and the kids packed into the driveway and were digging us and we nodded to one another because we were
nailing
it and Tim broke into the riff that opened the song we were going to do for The Griffin when a horn started honking out a deafening version of
Jump Naked
, The Griffin’s song that Judas Priest covered and took into the top fifty.  The Griffin’s black windowless bus made a laborious turn onto Walnut Street like our playing had summoned it and drove slowly towards us like a scary mythological beast.  The Griffin himself was painted on the side, his giant wings spreading up and over the top of the bus, Raymond lurking under one wing wearing a beret looking very French in an iridescent orange tee and sneering a Cheshire Cat grin, his teeth like shiny piano keys higher than the bus tires, and the drummer, Bang, was depicted as a sinister leering man-in-the-moon, his round pocked face filling the front grill.  There was a ghostly outline of another figure on the back.  I didn’t know who that was supposed to be.  A new member?  Anyway, the bus looked like a creature from the underworld come to swallow up the good people of Milltown and Have Mercy was forgotten as the metal head mob made a run for the bus screaming and singing along because the horn had stopped honking and speakers mounted in the grill were blaring out
Hotter Than Hell
, The Griffin’s new release.               
              The bus crawled into the driveway with groupies hanging onto it, moaned as the driver shut off the engine and lowered its air suspension, and the doors opened to reveal The Griffin.

The Griffin was in full mufti: eagle head, tan suede chaps and a lion’s tail.  He pawed the bus steps, the crowd went berserk, so he did it again.  He turned around so we could see the cool lion’s tail, which seemed to have a life of its own, curling around his neck then between his legs then patting his ass, then faced around again, came down a step and allowed people to shove things at him to sign. 

              “There’s plenty of room, plenty of room, love, don’t shove,” he commanded.  He stepped down into the ecstatic horde and the other band members came out after him. 

              “Ray
mon
!” a girl screamed as if she saw an apparition.  There are girls who think Raymond is the coolest—it’s that disdainful French thing—but I am not one of them.  He ignores them in any event, going after girls who think he’s a jerk.  He saw me and came over.  Case in point.

              “
Cheri
, you’ve gotten….”  I braced myself.  “Taller, much
much
taller.  Can it be
vrai?
”

              “Really?  You think so?”

              “
Non, non, non
, I was wrong.  It was just the angle.  You are still the little shrimp.”

              Why I couldn’t stand Raymond. 

              “Hey, man,” Tim was right behind me sticking out his paw to Raymond.  “Love your work.”

              “Of course you do.” 

              Tim slipped his hand around my waist. 

              “He is your lover?”

              “No!” I blushed, “He’s not my
lover
.  I swear.”

              “I know,” Raymond said, “You are waiting for a mature man with technique.  Ah, but
quell dommage
, it cannot be.  You are your papa’s little bo peep.”

              Okay, so I was a virgin.

              “We want to show you a couple of things,” Tim said, ignoring that Raymond was putting the moves on the girl he felt comfortable kissing on the lips. 

              “There will be plenty of time for that later,
ami,
” Raymond said, patting Tim on the shoulder.  “We have to drink to cement our friendship.  But first we must pee.”

              Raymond wandered into the house.

              Tim said, “Did he say we must pee?”

              “That’s what he said.”

              “Man, that is so cool.”

              Bang, the drummer, came up to me en route to the house.  “You get prettier every

time I see you,” he said. He kissed the top of my head. 

              Jane had told me that Bang’s round moon face was a result of prednisone.  He had wicked asthma and he used the steroid to control it but because steroids give you a physical bang, Bang upped his dosage until his doctor refused to write him prescriptions.  Now, Jane said, he was getting his prednisone on-line from Bangladesh.  Captain Kirby intercepted him and put her arm through his and they walked arm in arm into the house.

              Which left, of course, The Griffin.  The crowd parted as The Griffin made his way toward me.  Everyone was looking at me and my heart was ready to burst out of my chest.  What could go wrong with The Griffin around?  For god’s sake, he was a superhero right out of a legend.  When I was eight years old, The Griffin stayed with us for a whole month while he was trying to get sober.  He rode his Harley all the way from Detroit, where he had grown up and my grandfather still lived, and every day he would arrive on his Harley to pick me up at school.  He didn’t wear his costume, it was just him in jeans and a leather jacket, and he was so handsome, smiling as if something very cool was on his mind, and all the girls would ask me, “Is that your
father
?”  I would put my plaid book bag in the studded leather pouch behind his leg and wrap my arms around my dad and when we rode away, the other kids looking with their jaws down to their knees, I was so happy I thought I would have to pick bugs out of my teeth when we got home.

              And now The Griffin strode across our dandelion carpet, and when he spotted me he opened his wings and what could I do but run into them and allow myself to sink into a world where nothing bad could happen to me because The Griffin lived there. 

              “How’s my favorite girl?” he whispered into my hair and when I looked up smiling, “Is that a tear?  Cut it out!” he said, and “Where’s your mum?  Why isn’t she out here?”

              Those five seconds were the only time I would have alone with The Griffin, of course.  As soon as he opened his wings to release me, a gazillion groupies and wannabes descended on him, some pushing CDs on him, which he accepted, handing the overflow to me and promising to listen later. 

              “It’s so great to be here in
Milltown
,” he shouted, and at first my heart sang, but then I realized it was what bands shout from whatever stage they’re on.  “It’s so great to be here in Detroit! In Dallas! In Dumbledorf! In whatever the name of this freakin’ place is.”

              I tugged on his wing.  “I have to talk to you soon,” I said.  “Before the party starts.”

              “Sure, sure,” he said and was immediately waylaid by a pretty Goth girl who didn’t look much older than me.

              “I mean this is serious,” I said, which, as soon as I said it I realized it was exactly the wrong thing to say.  Nothing would put off The Griffin in his homecoming mode more than a serious discussion.  But I needed his signature to drop out of school and a little cash to put my plan in motion and that’s all there was to it. 

              “Of course!  That’s what I’m here for.  To take care of business.”

              The pretty Goth girl slipped him a piece of paper which he opened, read the message and put his head back and roared.  “Don’t go too far,” he told her.   

              A Papa John’s Delivery truck pulled up, the driver and a helper carrying stacked boxes of pizza into the house, then a House of Han van pulled up and the driver made a couple of round trips carrying shopping bags of take-out in both hands, tiny containers of duck sauce and mustard spilling onto the lawn that I would find all over the house in the morning.  The party had officially begun and it was exactly like it always was.  I don’t know why I felt disappointed.  And I can’t explain why I felt that something really really bad was going to happen.

Tim was leaning against the kitchen sink, discussing the peculiarities of bass playing with Raymond, an empty pizza box between them and a plastic cup filled with what I assumed was Jim Beam in his hand.  Raymond was swigging from the bottle.

              “You’re not old enough,” I told Tim. 

              “He is under my supervision,” Raymond said.  They laughed. 

              Whatever.  Last year, for the first time—our neighborhood isn’t exactly upscale—the cops came, sirens wailing, bubble lights twirling, but somehow all the underage kids disappeared into the bus and it turned out that the police chief was a metal head and the only penalty The Griffin had to pay was a bus stop at the chief’s house on his way out of town.

              “Have you seen Jane?” I asked.

              Raymond jerked a thumb and I followed its direction into the living room where Jane was nose to nose on the sofa with St. Alban’s non-graduate Rob. 

              “Don’t you have a date tonight?” I asked her, interrupting Rob’s fascinating philosophical monologue about whatever. 

              Her face got red.  “What?”

              “The prom?  Aren’t they expecting you?”

              “Oh,” she said.  “I don’t have to be there for another hour.  I do have to change those ridiculous decorations on the stage, so I should go now, you’re right.  Where’s The Griffin?”

              He was, in fact, right behind me and he said, plaintively, “You’re making me come to you, now, love?  I’ve always loved your sadism.”  They laughed hysterically.    

              Here’s the thing about my parents: I have no idea what’s going on between them.  I mean obviously they did it once to get me, but I haven’t seen any evidence since that they’re in love or anything.  The only time The Griffin ever stays here longer than a few days is when he needs to dry out—which  has actually been three times that I can remember—but no one acts regular then.  I mean, Jane doesn’t invite the neighbors for potluck and The Griffin doesn’t mow the lawn.  He spends a lot of time sitting in the dandelion patch in a yoga position humming.  Maybe this is how he composes or something, because, he told me, the regular thing that alcoholics in recovery are supposed do—go to church to talk to Jesus—he just can’t bring himself to do.  One time I caught him blowing on the white dandelions heads, laughing as the seeds floated out over the neighborhood like he just didn’t give a damn that me and Jane had to live here the rest of the time and listen to the neighbors bitch about our yard.               

              “You look good, babe,” The Griffin said.

              “You too.  Look, I have to go to the prom…” and before she finished saying what she wanted to say, he said, “I’m too old to be your prom date, honey, you should have asked me sooner,” and they started laughing hysterically again.

              The Griffin squeezed in next to her on the sofa, carefully rearranging his tail.  He didn’t seem a bit phased that Rob was pressed against her other side.  “Are you going to tell me again all the things I stopped you from doing?”

              “I never said
you
stopped me from doing anything, I only said….” And then I guess she remembered I was there and what she was going to say, so she shut up.  “I promised that I would chaperone.  You should have given us notice.” 

              The pretty Goth girl had come up behind the sofa and was digging her black fingernails into The Griffin’s neck.  She’d unzipped her studded jacket to make clear that she had something The Griffin would probably want to see.  The Griffin looked back at her and smiled. “Don’t worry about us,” he said.  “We know where everything is.” 

                “I guess you do,” Jane said.  She took Rob’s hand and got up from the sofa.  “Why don’t you come help me redecorate the gym?”

              The Goth girl bent and whispered something in The Griffin’s ear.  Rob looked at The Griffin, obviously weighing what the chances were if he left that he would get to show The Griffin how he could make a guitar talk.  “Sure, sure,” he said to Jane, running his hand through his hair.

              “Do you have a car?”  Jane asked. 

              “I rode my bike.” 

              Jane laughed and glared at the pretty Goth girl.  For a moment Jane looked really sad and I wanted to punch the Goth, but then Jane shook herself and smiled.  “This younger generation.  And there’s always a younger one, isn’t there, Grif?  They ride bikes instead of cars.  We’ll take my car.  It’s a present from The Griffin,” she said directly to the Goth girl.

              Rob kind of bowed to The Griffin.  “You’ll be here later, right?”

              I was stuffing what was happening into my Figure Out Later box as fast as I could because a lot was going on that needed figuring out when Captain Kirby pounded me on the back.  “Oh, my god!  Wait till you see the trick Bang showed me on the drums.  I’m a thousand per cent better already.  Come on!  Everyone’s in the Trap.  We’re waiting for you.”

              And everyone
was
in the Trap and the place exploded with applause when The Griffin tugging the Goth girl behind him and I came down the stairs.  Kids were texting like mad about
us
and I felt famous and I know fame is shallow and fleeting and everything, but the great thing about fame that people who
aren’t
famous can’t know is this: you can actually
feel
adoration pouring all over you from people who don’t even
know
you and I don’t care who you are, having a crowd of people pour love all over you is the most delicious feeling in the world.