Rules to Rock By (23 page)

“Just breathe, Annabelle,” someone said from behind me. It was Darren. “Three deep breaths. There you go.”

I did what he said. One breath, then two more. I looked into those brown eyes of his, and they made me relax. Darren calmed me down the way Ronaldo used to. He made me feel like there was nothing but music—music and us.

“So let’s tear the roof off this place,” Darren said.

“We’re outside,” I said, looking up. “This place doesn’t have a roof.”

“True,” Darren smiled. “You cool?”

“Yep,” I said, turning to look at him. “Thanks, Darren.”

“No prob. We’re gonna knock ’em dead.”

I looked out at the sound guy. “Can you put a little more bass in my monitor? Thanks.”

Then I moved back a foot, and the new angle made it easier to see the audience and my bandmates, too. Crackers did the same, and nodded in my direction. All four of us met eyes, and Darren counted off “Is This It.”

“One, two,” he shouted, clicking his sticks in time. “One, two, three, four.”

Crackers and I came in with vocals right away, trading verses, and we were each off-kilter at first—I could barely hear my own voice through the monitors, and Crackers looked a little confused herself—but by the time the first chorus came, we were locked in. A few people in the front started to clap along.

“Sing it, Belle!” I heard Jake yell at the top of his lungs.

By the time we got to the bridge, where Crackers really got to sing out, the whole audience was standing for the first time since the Raising Cain set. Darren was pounding out a clean, clear beat, Jonny was slashing away at the rising chord progression, and Crackers and I sang out confidently. We cruised through the final verse and finished with a bang. The audience clapped enthusiastically. It might not have been the total madness that greeted Jackson and his thug-buddies, but it was respectable.

“Thanks, everybody,” I said to the audience. “This is our first gig as a full band, and we’re really glad to be playing for you tonight. It’s a long story, but it almost didn’t happen.” The Mohawk sound guy, manning the console way in the back, gave me a thumbs-up. At that moment, he seemed cool, and I thought,
We can still win this.
But Jackson stood just in front of the soundboard, preening.

I brought out the new-and-improved lyrics I had scrawled on paper only a few minutes earlier. I had changed the title from “Where Do I Go (From Here)?” to “Not Goin’ Anywhere.” I might not have ever performed it before, but I considered it the first full-fledged song I’d ever written. I started, as planned, completely alone. I made sure to look up, using a trick my mom had once taught me: look directly at the last row. Those people are far enough away that it’s not scary to look right at them, but the fact that you
are
focusing on the audience makes a huge difference. It makes you look strong, passionate, and intense. And that was exactly how I felt, like there was nowhere else in the world that I’d rather be.

It wasn’t my choice

To come to this town

It started off ugly

But I’m turning it around

I’m not goin’ anywhere

I came here with shorts on

But now I’m wearing sweaters

Some days are bad

But other days are better

I’m not goin’ anywhere

After eight bars, Darren kept time quietly on the high hat. After another eight, Jonny came in and Darren switched to the snare drum.

I came here desperate

To take back what I’d lost

But there wasn’t a line

I wasn’t willing to cross

I wasn’t goin’ anywhere

The series of verses—that’s right, Mr. V, no chorus!—started its build toward a U2-style climax. Crackers played a synth line and we all locked in, building tension as we went.

But now I’m back

And I know what I need

I’m not the best singer

But I’m learning how to lead

I’m not goin’ anywhere

But suddenly, I couldn’t hear my voice. I couldn’t hear the Beatle bass or my own vocals, either. All I could hear was Darren’s popping snare. I checked my cord, and it was fine. But when I looked at my amp, the power light was out. There was no electricity onstage! We were still playing, but to the audience it must have looked like I had lost my voice in the middle of the song! I tried not to freak out. I stepped away from the mic that wasn’t even working and belted out the last verse with all the power I could muster.

I still don’t know

How this story’ll end

I might be pushed, might be punched,

Might be picked up by friends

But now at least

I’ve got some things to defend

And I’m not goin’ anywhere

I drew my finger across my throat, giving the band the kill sign, and just like that, the first performance of a song I had written all by myself puttered to a halt, in like a lion and out like a mouse. I looked at the crowd, and people—not just the back row, either!—were looking up at us in complete confusion. A few started giggling, and, worse, others clapped mockingly.

“Nice one, Cabrera!” someone cried out.

“That’s why they call ’em The Bungles!” said somebody else, to a chorus of laughter.

Don was making wild gestures to the sound guy, trying to figure out what was up. Mohawk put on an Oscar-worthy performance, flailing about, switching cords around and generally doing everything he could to mask what I now knew—that Jackson had bribed him into sabotaging our performance. (He had the money, after all!) The audience just got louder, talking, laughing, and enjoying the huge joke that The Bungles had become. Don couldn’t even use the mic to tell the audience what was going on and that it wasn’t
our
fault that everything had gotten busted halfway into our set. I made eye contact with him, and all he could do was give me a helpless look.

I tapped on a distortion pedal nervously with the toe of my yellow Chuck, and an embarrassing squawk of feedback burst out. Gliding my hand along the neck of the Beatle bass, I suddenly wished I had Satomi. And for a second, I wished I were on Central Park SummerStage being cheered by thousands, rather than booed by a bunch of tweenage goons in Nowheresville, Rhode Island. But as I looked up and gazed out powerlessly at the sea of people in front of me, I saw a face I recognized—a face that I instantly realized could turn The Bungles into the band to beat again. I knew exactly what to do. I put my bass down and headed into the crowd.

“Belle, where do you think you’re going?” Jonny asked. “What is going on
now
!?”

“Hey, Angelo!” I called out, plunging into the audience. I had to fight my way to the middle of the crowd, and it took a lot of pushing and shoving, a lot of
sorry
s and
excuse me
s to make it to the boy with the bumblebee shoes.

“Hey, Annabelle,” he said, and I whispered in his ear. At first, he looked totally mystified, but as I went on he started to nod slowly. By the time I left him and started fighting my way back to the stage, he was sporting a sneaky smile.

“Tell all your friends,” I said.

Angelo turned to a couple of friends and whispered the news to them. Soon he was moving through the crowd, and so were his friends, each finding someone new to share the secret with.

By the time I got back to the stage, a big chunk of the audience—maybe twenty or twenty-five kids—was whispering to each other. It was like a massive game of telephone. I looked out and I could actually see a wave of turning heads. A kid would get the message, turn to pass it on to whoever was standing on the other side of him, and then start walking toward the front of the crowd. They eventually formed a line and snaked their way up to the stage to join us. It was stage invasion by an army of the littlest and most picked-on kids at Federal Hill. They were our reinforcements in the war on Raising Cain.

“What’s going on?” Jonny asked.

“Oh, just an idea in the we’ve-got-nothing-to-lose category, I guess. Hey, help those guys get up here, will ya?”

“Some of these kids aren’t exactly my biggest fans,” he whispered.

“Well, now’s your chance to start making up for it.”

Jonny and I both moved to the edge of the stage and reached our hands down to pull up the kids. Others scurried on from the stairs at stage right, where Crackers and Darren greeted them.

Angelo tugged at my sleeve. “I’m into the idea, but I don’t know about
him
,” he said, pointing to Jonny. “Or
him
,” pointing to Darren.

“They’re done with that, I promise,” I said. Jonny gave him a hesitant wave and kept his distance. Darren just slunk away, staring intently at his drumsticks.

“Hey, Bass Goddess.” X jumped on the stage, armed with his clapping monkey and a pair of mini-maracas. “Can I join in?”

“Sure thing, X. Just make a lot of noise, okay?”

“Done.”

“Okay, all you guys, gather over here.” I directed the kids to the space between the drum kit and the back of the stage and started singing the chorus to “A Place in the Sun.” “So Christine here is going to sing all the verses, okay? She’s the only one with a voice big enough to sing on her own. But when we get to the chorus, I want you guys to sing out as loud as you can. Sing it right to you-know-who, okay?” They nodded.

I walked to the front of the stage and started waving my hands, trying to get the audience’s attention. The crowd was still murmuring, so I had to really yell to be heard.

“Well, as you can see, we’re having some technical difficulties, but we’ve been practicing too long and hard to quit now,” I said. “So we’re going to try a little sing-along and see how it goes.”

Jonny pulled out his acoustic guitar and Darren got ready on the drum set—these were the only two instruments that didn’t rely on power at all—and started playing the opening chords to the song. I motioned to the kids to clap along with me on beats two and four, and Crackers started in on the first verse as loudly as she could.

She sang it with more feeling than ever before, and when the crowd got a taste of what she could do, they started to quiet down. Her clear, urgent voice rang through the air, and it worked its effect on the audience. I looked around at the motley crew of bullied kids in front of her and made sure they were ready to sing the chorus. Twenty-five eager nods. All set.

Those Stevie Wonder lyrics definitely fit the moment perfectly. They’re all about how there’s a place under the sun for everyone and how no one should feel left out and how bullies are lame. Stevie said it a little differently, but that’s the idea. When the little dudes joined us, their voices easily carried out into the audience. We sounded like more than a band; it was now a full-on rock ’n’ roll choir—the acoustic instruments, plus twenty-five children’s voices rising up in song. It might not have equaled the honed metallic attack of Raising Cain, but The Bungles had given birth, again, to something new and different.

I looked out at the crowd and saw that most of the audience was now swaying in rhythm and singing along. My mom was smiling from ear to ear. A few people were waving lighters or cell phones in the air. Don Daddio and Shaky Jake had their arms around each other’s shoulders, rocking back and forth and joining in with The Bungles Children’s Choir.

Suddenly, I got a wave of inspiration. “Darren, Jonny, keep going, okay?” I said, climbing up on one of the monitor speakers. I’m not 100 percent sure of this, but I think Darren winked at me, super quickly. I chose to pretend that he didn’t—I refused to have a maybe-crush on a winker.

“We’ve got a dedication of our own to make,” I yelled out. “This one is for our good buddy Jackson Royer, and it’s brought to him directly by the kids whose hard-earned cash he’s been stealing every day.”

Eight or ten kids in the crowd gasped “Oooooh” in unison. Others looked around, still not getting it.

“Yep. Jackson plays a mean guitar and sings for the best band in town, but that doesn’t mean he has the right to mess with me and my friends over here.” I walked around the stage, looking out across the tightly packed audience. “And it doesn’t mean he has the right to pull the plug on our performance.”

Jonny couldn’t stop smiling. He raised his acoustic up in the air and strummed skyward.

The band continued the slow, insistent groove behind me, underscoring each word. Suddenly Don appeared onstage, handing me a second acoustic guitar.

“Hey, Jackson, you’re right,” I said, strapping it on and strumming the chords along with Jonny. “It’s a humbling thing to have friends. That is, when you actually do have some. You should try it sometime.”

The audience started making noise, and some started chanting, “Bungles, Bungles!”

“We’ve had enough of your strutting around, Jackson,” I said, to cheers.

“And enough of your lame jokes,” Darren yelled.

“And enough of your bad breath,” screamed Jonny.

A few audience members walked toward Jackson and his bandmates. Within seconds, Raising Cain was surrounded. I never thought I’d see Jackson look even so much as slightly off his game, but he looked truly intimidated. He was a smart kid, though, and motioned for the rest of the band to follow him out of the lot before things got out of hand.