Johnny America

 

Soft as a Feath­er, Light as a Rap-Rock Board

by

Illustration of a person floating

The on­ly time I ever went to Claudia’s house for din­ner, her dad gave me a tour that end­ed in his mancave.

“This is my band,” he said, in­di­cat­ing a se­ries of pho­tographs on the wall, “at Woodstock.”

“Wood­stock ’99,” I clarified.

“Fuck you, Andy,” he said. “Where has your band played?”

“I— ” I said. I was thirteen.

“I’m sor­ry. That was rude. You’re just a child.” He fished change out of his pock­et and dropped it with a suc­ces­sion of mut­ed plinks in­to a swear jar that oc­cu­pied one en­tire cub­by of his book­shelf. “It’s just, everyone’s a crit­ic, you know?” 

“I didn’t know,” I said. I was aware, at thir­teen, of know­ing very lit­tle. I had on­ly known which Wood­stock he’d played be­cause Clau­dia was al­ways ref­er­enc­ing it, em­pha­siz­ing the year with a roll of her eyes: “He thinks he’s so cool be­cause his crap­py band played Wood­stock ’99.” Some­times, she would do a bone­less, dain­ty la­dy wrist, too, when she said it.

“Well, they are. Peo­ple are like that. I’m telling you.”

“Okay.”

He crossed his arms and stared dream­i­ly in­to the frozen wild­ness of a mosh pit as he re­flect­ed, “Was Hen­drix bet­ter than Limp Bizk­it? Was Ja­nis? We can’t know be­cause they didn’t sur­vive their fame. I did, and so did Limp Bizk­it. So, are those guys the leg­ends, or are we?”

“I thought Clau­dia said you were a cop.”

“Ex­act­ly,” her dad said, “I lived long enough to be that — un­like Jim­mie and Ja­nis. That’s what I’m try­ing to tell you.”

I nod­ded even though he wasn’t look­ing at me, even though I on­ly had a dim aware­ness of who Jim­mie or Ja­nis were. “So, you guys were, like, famous?”

Claudia’s dad sniffed and an­i­mat­ed, tak­ing me by the shoul­der and lead­ing me in­to the hall­way. “I think that’s enough of a mem­o­ry tour for now. They’ll think we aren’t com­ing back.”

‘They’ were Clau­dia, of course, her step­mom and her lit­tle half-sis­ter, Evanescence.

Typ­i­cal­ly, when we hung out, Clau­dia came to my house. On her last vis­it, though, she had looked at me and said, “Dude, you’re so lucky that it’s just you and your mom.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean that hav­ing a fam­i­ly sucks. At least, hav­ing my fam­i­ly does. Why do you think I’m al­ways over here? You have it way eas­i­er with just the two of you. None of the drama.”

“There’s dra­ma here.” For some rea­son, I felt attacked.

“Yeah, like what? You two are ba­si­cal­ly the same person.”

Just be­cause I couldn’t think of any­thing right then, she thought I’d proven her right. “We have things, Mom and me,” I as­sured her, “beefs,” and I was cer­tain it was true.

Her smile was tight and smug. “Why don’t you just come to my house next time? You’ll see.”

“What­ev­er,” I’d said, and a few days lat­er, there I was, be­ing led on a tour of her home. 

“There you boys are,” her step­mom said as we passed through the kitchen. She was dress­ing a sal­ad which I hoped she hadn’t made in my hon­or be­cause there was no chance that I was go­ing to eat a salad.

“I was just show­ing Andy around.”

“Did he show you his pho­tos from Wood­stock?” she asked me. 

“’99,” Clau­dia moaned in a drawn-out, qua­ver­ing ghost voice like it had trav­elled to our ears from be­yond the grave. Re­al­ly, it had come from the liv­ing room where she was slouched on the so­fa be­side Evanescence. 

Her dad gave her a look that im­plied that he was on­ly hold­ing his tongue be­cause I tech­ni­cal­ly qual­i­fied as company.

“Yeah, it was cool,” I told the stepmom. 

“It’s very cool,” she agreed. “Our own per­son­al rock star.”

“Rap-rock star,” Evanes­cence said. To me, this qual­i­fi­ca­tion seemed as de­mean­ing as Clau­dia point­ing out that he’d played the worst-re­gard­ed Wood­stock. Her dad must not have seen it that way, though, be­cause he on­ly smiled at her, lovingly.

At din­ner, I most­ly had sal­ad. It turned out to be the main course, a mayonnaise‑y sev­en-lay­er af­fair that was prob­a­bly as many calo­ries as ac­tu­al food. As I picked out ba­con bits and around peas, I longed to share Evanescence’s spe­cial­ty meal of frozen chick­en nuggets topped with torn squares of Amer­i­can cheese. She was cur­rent­ly scrap­ing off the lit­tle hand­ker­chiefs of cheese and chew­ing them out from un­der her fingernails. 

“So, Andy,” Claudia’s dad said, “are you in­to sports?”

Clau­dia snort­ed. “Do you re­al­ly think I’d be friends with a sports guy?”

“Let the man an­swer,” he said. “Andy?”

“Um, no. No sports.”

“See?” She was sit­ting to my right with her dad and step­mom fac­ing us. Evanes­cence oc­cu­pied the seat at the head of the table.

“Yes, dar­ling, you’re very wise. Con­grat­u­la­tions,” her dad said.

“Guys…” sang her step­mom in a gen­tle, scold­ing tone. Then, to me, she said, “You must be in­to the arts then. What kind of mu­sic do you like? Bran­don is in­to ag­gres­sive mu­sic, ob­vi­ous­ly, but I most­ly lis­ten to lighter things — Josh Groban, Michael Bublé.”

“You don’t like dad’s band, Bren­da?” Clau­dia asked. When I looked, her eye­brows were car­toon­ish­ly raised. Her fork was a pen­du­lum, dan­gled above her bowl from her clasped hands. 

“I love them, ob­vi­ous­ly. Trouser Stain was a great band, and their best songs were the ones your dad wrote.” She smiled at him, re­in­forc­ing her loy­al­ty. “I’m just most­ly a soft rock gal.”

“Bublé’s a chode. Groban too,” her dad said. “Trouser Stain was a cult fa­vorite, a cult clas­sic some peo­ple say. But you haven’t an­swered the ques­tion: what kind of mu­sic, Andy?”

“Um, I guess… I’m not that sure. I like the same kind as Claudia.”

“Clau­dia doesn’t re­al­ly lis­ten to anything.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “me too.” I forked a may­on­naise-cov­ered ba­con bit in­to my mouth and winced when it turned out to be an emp­ty pea husk.

“Andy likes TV,” Clau­dia told them. “He watch­es, like, a ton of shows.”

“Is TV the arts?” I asked her stepmom.

She squashed her face, think­ing, and then said, “Sure it is, I suppose.”

There wasn’t much con­ver­sa­tion af­ter that, at least not much that in­clud­ed me. I guess they got used to my be­ing there, and I sort of went in­vis­i­ble to them. That was fine with me be­cause it gave me a chance to ob­serve them, like a na­ture doc­u­men­tary but about a hu­man fam­i­ly that lived on the same street as me. I picked at my sal­ad and lis­tened. They talked about peo­ple from their work and made ref­er­ences that were fa­mil­iar enough to them to dis­cuss in short­hand. It was bor­ing, most­ly, ex­cept that un­der­ly­ing it all I per­ceived a tan­gi­ble un­hap­pi­ness, no dif­fer­ent than if the foun­da­tion of the home had been built with the hard, com­pressed bricks of their un­spo­ken re­sent­ments. Clau­dia ex­pressed it through snark and sass, he dad through snip­ing, and her step­mom through a pho­ny smile that grew larg­er and more un­can­ny when­ev­er the tem­per­a­ture was raised by the oth­er two. On­ly Evanes­cence seemed un­af­fect­ed, per­haps be­cause every­one treat­ed her like a lit­tle princess as far as I could tell. I con­sid­ered if Mom would ever give me that look, raise her voice that way, strug­gle so ob­vi­ous­ly to hold back some mean thing she want­ed to say to me. No, she wouldn’t, and that pissed me off be­cause it meant that Clau­dia had been right — her home­life re­al­ly was worse than mine, and that meant she had won.

When I was younger and asked about my dad, Mom would on­ly ever tell me that he had been a love-bomber, that, ear­ly on, he would smooth her hair and mar­vel out loud about how he had caught an an­gel. Her big, fi­nal line was al­ways, “And I was like an an­gel — as soon as he start­ed in on his non­sense, I up and float­ed away.”

“That was a good meal,” Claudia’s dad said af­ter toss­ing his pa­per nap­kin on­to the ta­ble, balled and bat­tle weary.

I nod­ded agree­ment and fol­lowed Claudia’s lead when she pushed her bowl to­ward the cen­ter of the ta­ble. A peek at it re­vealed that she had eat­en even less than me.

“So, Andy,” her dad said, “do you need to rush off, or can you stick around for a bit?”

“Um,” I said, look­ing to Clau­dia for guidance.

She shrugged. I opened my eyes wider, im­plor­ing her for help, and she said, “He’s ask­ing you if you want to play board games with us.” There was an iron­ic joy in her voice when she asked, “Pret­ty please, can you play board games with us, Andy?”

“I mean, sure, I guess,” I said.

“Board games are dumb,” whined Evanes­cence. There were crum­bles of cheese stuck to her low­er lip. “I want to play light as a feath­er, stiff as a board.”

“She just learned that game at a sleep­over,” the step­mom ex­plained as she cleared the table. 

“What if Andy doesn’t want to play that, ba­by?” Claudia’s dad asked the lit­tle girl. “What if his fam­i­ly is deeply re­li­gious and he thinks we’re black mag­ic heathens?”

“We’re not re­li­gious,” I said like I was de­fend­ing against an as­sault on Mom’s char­ac­ter. “I don’t know how to do it, but I’ll try.”

Evanes­cence shot up from her chair. “I can teach you. It’s very mag­i­cal.” She padded in­to the liv­ing room in socked feet, leav­ing us with the im­plic­it un­der­stand­ing that we should fol­low her.

“Are we re­al­ly do­ing this?” Clau­dia asked.

“You don’t want to? It seems like just the kind of witchy thing you would be in­to,” her dad said. This, I as­sumed, was a dig at the jet-black she had died her hair over spring break. She re­spond­ed with a sneer that be­gat an­gry eyes from her dad and a con­cerned smile from her stepmom.

“Are you guys com­ing?” Evanes­cence called from the liv­ing room.

“Just a minute, sweets,” her moth­er said. “I need to fin­ish clear­ing the table.”

“No, now!” The girl shouted.

“Save that for lat­er, hon­ey, would you?” Claudia’s dad said as he rose from the ta­ble. I wait­ed for Clau­dia to get up be­fore I pushed out my own chair.

Evanes­cence was al­ready ly­ing on her back on the liv­ing room car­pet, her legs straight and to­geth­er, her arms at her sides. “I’m the board,” she an­nounced and closed her eyes.

We’re the bored,” Clau­dia said.

“Nu-uh,” Evanes­cence said, not get­ting it.

We all got to our knees, some of us more eas­i­ly than oth­ers. I end­ed up kneel­ing be­side the lit­tle girl’s right shoul­der, an ac­ci­dent that I was hap­py about when I re­al­ized that we had to put one flat­tened hand un­der her body. Let her par­ents touch her legs or butt or what­ev­er. Clau­dia was across from me, prob­a­bly hav­ing had the same thought.

“I haven’t done this since I was a girl,” the step­mom said. “Do we need any­thing else to play?”

“Just your hands,” the girl said. “And your con­cen­tra­tion. And mu­sic. Spooky music.”

The step­mom pulled the phone from her back pock­et. “Hmm. I don’t think I have any spooky mu­sic on my playlist. How about this one? It’s more sad than spooky.” Pi­ano chords blos­somed from her phone fol­lowed by the plead­ings of a schlocky male singer.

“Manilow?” Claudia’s dad asked. “She said spooky mu­sic, not shit­ty music.”

“That’s a quar­ter for the swear jar, mis­ter,” the step­mom told him. “As soon as we’re done here.”

“This mu­sic is per­fect,” Evanes­cence said, even though it wasn’t at all spooky. She clasped her eye­lids tighter, a lit­tle smile in­di­cat­ing her thrill at be­ing the cen­ter of attention.

In re­sponse to the mu­sic, Claudia’s dad di­rect­ed a tongue-out ex­pres­sion at me like one you might in­vol­un­tar­i­ly make while be­ing pun­ished for a crime with a hangman’s noose. 

“Now, you all chant ‘light as a feath­er, stiff as a board’ and try to lift me.”

When we reached un­der­neath her, she gig­gled. Her shoul­der felt warm and bony on my palm. She smelled faint­ly of processed cheese.

Slop­pi­ly at first, and then more suc­cess­ful­ly as a cho­rus, we be­gan to chant. There was a sax­o­phone so­lo. The song re­al­ly was trash.

My arm shook in small, re­strained con­vul­sions as I tried to lift her. With­in a minute or so, the girl’s butt, propped by our group’s two strongest hands, rose a few inch­es off the ground. Her shoul­ders, with on­ly my and Claudia’s spaghet­ti arms to sup­port them, bare­ly rose at all.

“I’m do­ing it! I’m do­ing it!” Evanes­cence squealed. 

“Yeah,” Clau­dia said, with­draw­ing her hand and caus­ing the whole ma­chine to fail, send­ing the lit­tle girl heav­i­ly back on­to the car­pet, “Dad and Bren­da lift­ed you three inch­es. You weigh, like, six­ty-five pounds. Big whoop.”

“At least I don’t weigh five hun­dred pounds.” She scoot­ed out of the cen­ter of the cir­cle, in­dig­nant that her mir­a­cle had gone un­ap­pre­ci­at­ed. Clau­dia did not weigh five hun­dred pounds, nowhere near, but no one cor­rect­ed her.

“So, we’re done?” her dad asked.

“No!” the lit­tle girl said. “Every­one goes, then who­ev­er ris­es high­est wins be­cause they’re the purest of heart.”

“I may as well not even try, then,” said Claudia.

“Bren­da, get in there,” her dad said.

I felt a sud­den pan­ic. The step­mom? Bra straps and side boob and the se­duc­tive smells of un­fa­mil­iar mom lo­tions and pow­ders. A hor­ror show of my poor­ly un­der­stood longing.

The step­mom felt it too. She stut­tered about how she didn’t need to take a turn. She tried not to look at me so I wouldn’t think that my grub­by fin­gers were the is­sue, but I knew that, had she been wear­ing a bathrobe in­stead of reg­u­lar day clothes, she would have clasped it at her neck to stop me imag­in­ing her body. 

“Fine,” Claudia’s dad said. “But if you for­feit your turn, you lose mu­sic rights. Turn it off, babe.”

When she did, and the room went silent, he let out a sigh as if the sap­py mu­sic had caused a pres­sure dif­fer­en­tial that had made it im­pos­si­ble for him to breath. “Andy, you’re up, bro. Girls, switch placed with us, and get him un­der the an­kles. On­ly touch his an­kles,” he re­it­er­at­ed, nar­row­ing his eyes at Clau­dia as if she had mas­ter­mind­ed this whole evening for the chance to get a fist­ful of my bony ass.

I looked at each of them plead­ing­ly, but no one spoke up to get me out of it, so I crawled for­ward and laid down on my back. 

“We won’t be able to lift him from his an­kles,” Clau­dia protested.

“You will if he goes light as a feath­er and stiff as a board,” her dad said. “Now, for some re­al mu­sic.” He looked de­light­ed as he brought it up on his phone.

“Dad, not Trouser Stain,” Clau­dia said.

“Andy needs to hear it,” he said. “It’s a guy thing. Our au­di­ence was al­ways most­ly men. Don’t rob him of this ex­pe­ri­ence just be­cause you don’t get it. Don’t be that kind of woman.”

“And what’s that sup­posed to mean?” the step­mom asked.

“Any­thing is fine,” I said to the ceil­ing. “I don’t think we re­al­ly need music.”

“We do,” he told me. “We ab­solute­ly do. We need this mu­sic.” A rack­et of chunky gui­tars and bass and dri­ving drums filled the room. Some­one start­ed rap­ping. Claudia’s dad, I pre­sumed, from back be­fore he was her dad. It was a hor­ror show of a dif­fer­ent type.

I felt his thick hand go un­der my shoul­der. Oth­er hands fol­lowed, re­luc­tant hands, I was sure. In all my life, I had nev­er felt more like a stranger then when those un­fa­mil­iar hands were touch­ing me.

“Andy,” he said. I turned my head to­ward him. “This song is called, ‘Benji’s Dog.’ It was our sin­gle. I wrote it about this dog that my neigh­bor, Ben­ji, had when I was grow­ing up. Al­so, it’s about how we all kind of want­ed to bang Benji’s mom.”

“Bran­don!”

He winked at me like, you get it.

I smiled po­lite­ly and then squeezed my eyes tight like this game was se­ri­ous busi­ness to me and I couldn’t tol­er­ate fur­ther in­ter­rup­tion. I re­solved to keep them closed un­til the in­dig­ni­ty had ended.

The chant be­gan, led by Evanes­cence. It seemed qui­eter than be­fore, com­pet­ing, as it was, with Trouser Stain. The lyrics were filthy, and the rap­ping was bad. At one point, Claudia’s dad quit the chant and be­gan to sing along to him­self, a heresy that broke the oth­ers out of the chant too.

“Dad­dy!” Evanes­cence cried.

“Turn this off, Dad,” Clau­dia said, “For the love of all that’s holy, I’m beg­ging you.”

“Maybe now’s not the time, Bran­don,” the step­mom said.

He ig­nored them all, rap­ping along even loud­er than before.

This caused an­oth­er round of com­plaints, an over­lap­ping burst-dam of re­pressed emo­tion. It was grat­ing to hear them fight and yet some­how the per­fect ac­com­pa­ni­ment to the ag­gres­sive and an­gry back­ing track. 

“Lis­ten to this, Andy,” he said at one point, try­ing to make us a team, he and I.

I was al­ready gone, though, en­tranced by my de­sire for es­cape. My thoughts were on my bed­room and home, on Mom and the Hot Pock­ets she would have made me for din­ner. As they con­tin­ued to fight, their hands dis­ap­peared from be­neath me. Maybe they pulled them out from un­der me, or maybe I just got numb to the sen­sa­tion of them. I had gone in­vis­i­ble to them again, and they were scream­ing. Prop­er­ly ver­bal­ly spar­ring. I kept my eyes closed, the purest de­sire of my heart to be any­where else but in that liv­ing room. They called each oth­er names, said hor­ri­ble things, but on­ly dis­tant­ly, from some­where far away. I was an an­gel. I was above it all. 

I float­ed.

Filed under Fiction on October 25th, 2024

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