Danny steps down off the bus, takes three steps forward and drops to his knees, puking on some unlucky jerk's lawn. Jay steps down after him and watches as the bus pulls away from the curb. Kev is still onboard, riding a few more stops closer to home.
Danny pukes and spits, coughs, dry-heaves and spits again, panting for air. Jay lights a cigarette, waiting for his younger brother to get the poison out. He looks around, hoping no one notices what's going on. The lights in the house where Danny is puking stay turned off.
Eventually Danny straightens up and the boys walk the few blocks home. Jay walks with his arm around his brother's shoulders, keeping him moving in a straight line.
They come around the block, and as they approach their house Jay sees a light on in the living room window. "Oh, god," he says. "Someone is actually home." When they get to the house Jay flicks his cigarette butt into the shrubs and unlocks the front door.
In the living room Jeff Warren, the boys' father, is sitting reading a newspaper by lamplight. He takes one look at Danny as the boys step inside. "What the hell is wrong with him?" he asks.
Jay responds with a question of his own: "Do you still live here?"
"Don't be a smart-ass," answers his father. "I asked what's wrong with him."
Danny slumps drunkenly against Jay, and Jay props him up. "He had some beers," Jay says, slipping off his shoes.
"He's not old enough to drink," says Jeff Warren.
"Yeah," Jay says. "So seriously, do you still live here?"
Jeff Warren folds up the newspaper. "Yes, I still goddamn live here. And you should watch your mouth."
Jay moves Danny through the living room, ignoring his father. He gets Danny down the hall and into his bedroom, depositing the drunk and stoned kid on the bed. Danny is asleep before Jay even gets the door closed.
Jeff Warren is there in the hallway, blocking the way to Jay's room. "Are you taking him out drinking now?"
"He's okay," Jay says.
"He doesn't look okay." Jeff Warren is an inch shorter than his son, but he's solidly built with a square jaw and a crew cut. "He looks pretty messed up."
Jay wants to say, well, where the hell are you to take care of him, but he knows better. "He's fine. It was just a couple beers. He can't drink, that's all." He squeezes past his father, heading into his room.
"He's not supposed to drink!" his father shouts after him.
* * *
At eleven o'clock in the morning Jay gets up, dresses and wanders out into the kitchen. His mother Cheryl is there, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee. Last night's newspaper is folded in front of her.
"Good morning," she says with a hint of sarcasm. "How do you feel?"
"Fine," Jay says, pouring himself a coffee from the pot on the stove. "Why?"
"Your father said you two showed up looking a little worse for wear last night."
"Yeah? Where's Dad now?"
"He's gone out."
"I'm shocked." Jay adds some milk and sits down. "I took Danny out with me last night. I let him have some beer, but he went too fast and got a little wasted. So it's my fault. I should have slowed him down."
"Or maybe you shouldn't be giving him beer at all."
Jay sips his coffee. "You think a high school senior isn't going to drink beer? You're lucky he's got me to make sure he gets home."
"Just make sure you aren't the one getting him into trouble."
Jay shakes his head and pulls out a section of the newspaper. Cheryl Warren sits with her coffee. Her bleached hair is pulled back into a ponytail and she has bags under her eyes. Although she's pretty for her age, she looks run-down, which is to be expected considering she works double shifts all week to avoid coming home.
She gets up and puts her cup in the sink. "I’m going to work. I'll leave you guys money for pizza tonight, all right?"
"If you want."
She leaves Jay alone in the kitchen. He has some toast, finishes his coffee and wanders downstairs. His Ibanez is waiting in its case. He takes it out and slings the strap over his shoulder. He switches the amp on and turns up the volume, appreciating the hum it makes. He selects a pick, holds it poised over the strings while he counts in a song. The rapid-fire opening riff to "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" from The Who screeches out, and he plays the song through, singing as well as he can remember.
He plays through a variety of old songs, hitting Floyd, Bowie, The Stones, CCR, The Animals and The Kinks, jamming through a dozen good cover tunes. Cover band standards, really. He thinks it's sick; he could probably make more money touring the little hotels and bars around the state playing those old songs then he'll ever make in Hellakill. And he knows that Hellakill is good.
Next up is Nirvana, Green Day and The White Stripes. Jay finishes up an abortive "Seven Nation Army" when he sees Danny stumbling down the stairs holding the rail. Jay holds his fingers across the strings and silences the instrument.
"Hey stud," he says. "How's your head?"
"Not bad. My stomach feels a bit shitty. Sorry I got so wasted."
"Yeah. You're just lucky the other guys from Hellakill weren't there. They would have laughed their asses off. Six beers, man! You're a lightweight."
Danny leans against the wall. "It was because I mixed it with pot."
"Obviously. Go get your guitar. I'm going to teach you the ultimate hangover cure."
Danny shuffles back up the stairs and returns a few minutes later with the acoustic. He sits down with the guitar on his lap, hunching over to see where his fingers go on the frets.
"Hang on," Jay says. "You'll get a sore neck and back if you play that way. Straighten up." He puts his hands on his brother's lower back and shoulders, adjusting Danny's posture until he's sitting straight. "Look with your eyes, not your whole head," Jay tells him. "Seriously, you'll end up like Quasimodo if you hunch over like that. Okay, best hangover cure in the world. Scales."
"Scales?"
"Seriously. Check this out. You start here, and you go up and back down. La-la-la-la-la-la-la. E-F-G-A-G-F-E."
"How does this cure a hangover?"
"You haven't even tried it yet. Come on, we've got work to do."
* * *
"Do you know what rock and roll needs?" says Steve, chewing on a bite of takeout sandwich. "It needs another show like Beavis and Butthead. Something really simple that appeals to the lowest common denominator, but tells people what rocks and what sucks."
Most of the band is sitting in Peter's kitchen, and Danny is there with them. They eat and chat while they wait for Tyson to arrive.
"Beavis and Butthead ran its course," Peter says. "You couldn't bring it back. It would be too dated."
"Especially after the movie," adds Jay. "That was terrible. Who did they have, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore doing the voices?"
"Yeah, but I don't mean actually bringing back the same show. You need a new show that brings people in with a simple gimmick, and then also have the show become an arbiter of taste. Beavis and Butthead's approval helped good bands make it. But if they said a band sucked, that was it. Career over."
"Like who?" Peter asks.
"Bands like Prong. Prong got huge from Beavis and Butthead. That 'Snap You Fingers, Snap Your Neck' song was on MTV all the time. And on the other side you have Winger, who just got destroyed. You know, they dressed the nerd kid in a Winger t-shirt, and a few months later Kip Winger is playing to empty houses.
"See, the problem with rock today," he continues, "is that people can't tell the good from the bad. If bad music gets enough promotion money they go to the top, even though they suck. So rock and roll needs a taste-maker. It needs someone to promote the good bands and clear out the crap so the good stuff can rise to the top. Then maybe rock can be as big as hip hop again."
Jay laughs. "So all we need is to get Mike Judge to quit that King of The Hill show and get him to work on something involving crotch jokes."
Danny watches the older boys talk. He thinks about how it must feel to have your career destroyed because some cartoon characters didn't like your video, but he keeps it to himself.
Peter shakes his blond head. "A TV show won't save rock and roll. These things all go in cycles. For rock and roll back to get on top again, it needs to go underground and have black kids rediscover it."
Steve and Jay look at each other. "Um, what?"
"Look," Peter explains, "rock and roll started out as black music, right? Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, Little Richard, all those guys. White kids listened, caught on and brought it to a mass audience. White people ran the show for the next what? Forty or fifty years. They took it as far as they could, and now it's sliding into irrelevance. Meanwhile, you have hip hop, which was invented by black people. Eminem breaks hip hop to a white audience, and now that's all people listen to. Rock is definitely lower on the food chain. So if you want rock to get back on top you need black kids to discover it and take it underground. They'll innovate and make it cool again. Then you reintroduce it to the mass market. That's how you get rock back on top."
Steve nods. "Right. So instead of suburban white kids all talking like 50 Cent, we go back to kids like Keith Richards who pretend they're old black blues men. Is that your plan?"
Peter shrugs. "It's not really my plan. It's just an observation."
"Good," Jay says, "because it would put us out a work."
"Hmm. It's true though," Steve says. "There aren't many black rock stars anymore. Prince. Lenny Kravitz. That's all that leaps to mind."
"That's because white kids made rock nerdy," Peter says. "I blame the eighties."
There's a knock followed by the sound of the door opening. "Hello?" calls Tyson.
"We're in here," Peter calls back.
Hellakill's lead singer walks in. He has on a wool cap and a brown corduroy jacket. "Shit, it's getting cold, isn't it? Oh, hey Danny," he says, spotting Jay's brother. "Are you Slash already?"
Danny looks at Jay. Jay looks at Tyson. "He's just here to watch," Jay says. "That's all right, isn't it?"
"Sure."
Everyone heads into the basement and the band gets its equipment ready. Danny approaches Tyson. "Thanks for letting me use your guitar," he says.
"No problem. Can you play anything yet?"
Danny looks at his brother, but Jay isn't paying attention. "A couple songs," Danny says.
"Good for you," Tyson replies. He sounds friendly, but Danny gets the idea Tyson doesn't have much faith in him. He slinks away and sits in the corner to watch the band rehearse.
2007 © Nolan Whyte
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