My brother took out his frustrations on the baseball
field that
afternoon while I caught the first bus home. I was anxious to get
out
of that crazy school. I’m not one of those kids that likes to
stay
after school every single day. If the law says I have to stay
until
three o’clock, I stay until three o’clock, and that’s it, Jack! I’ve
done my time. I’m out of there!
The bus ride home is hardly ever as crowded as the
ride to school
every morning, due to the fact that most of the kids in my neighborhood
are into sports and stuff. Other busses go to neighborhoods where
the
kids have better things to do with their time, like break into old
abandoned buildings, smoke dope, and impregnate each other. Those
busses are always packed.
I took a seat in the back of the bus. Since it
wasn’t very
crowded, I didn’t have to share my seat with someone who brought home
the remains of dissection experiments or anything gross like
that.
Instead I got to sit by myself and do what it is I do best:
daydream.
Only this time, I didn’t daydream about the bus being attacked by Darth
Vader’s TIE fighter or a Cylon Raider from Battlestar Galactica. This
time I dreamed about...well, you know what I dreamed about!
When I got off the bus I stopped at my mailbox to
check the mail.
While I was standing at the mailbox, I noticed a long, black Cadillac
slowly driving by with completely tinted windows. I watched it
drive
by and wondered who it could be. It seemed out of place.
Then I
figured it must belong to the local funeral parlor and decided to just
forget about it.
I went inside my house and checked for
babysitters. My folks
usually have Mrs. Shemp come over when I’m home all alone.
Mrs.
Shemp is about a hundred years old and lives next door with six million
cats. My folks feel sorry her and hire her to babysit me whenever
they
go out. “It’s not that we don’t trust you, Crystal,” they always
say.
“It’s the rest of the world we don’t trust.” That always conjures
up
pictures in my mind of little old Mrs. Shemp barricading the
doors and
brandishing an M-16 to keep hordes of muggers, rapists, and perverts
out of our house.
Mrs. Shemp wasn’t there, thank God. It
looked like my folks
finally realized that at fifteen years old, I was old enough to take
care of myself. Either that or her cats had eaten her.
I turned on my father’s stereo system on and tuned
it to the local
radio station, WYKD. They usually only play classical music, but
for
some strange reason they let some young guy come on after school and
play rock and roll. I imagine it is quite annoying to all the old
people out there who are enjoying their Mozart and tea when Van Halen
comes blasting out of the speakers.
When I turned it on, the D. J. was talking about the
concert at
school. “That’s right, folks. That was yours truly, A. J.
Stewart, on
keyboards and rhythm guitar. I’m sure I speak for the entire
population of the world when I say that our band is the greatest thing
to happen to music since Elvis Presley realized there was a better way
to get girls than by driving trucks for a living. Eastville is
now the
hotbed of the next craze to sweep America, the Gods of Metal,
KATZENJAMMER!”
I guess it isn’t necessary to be modest on the
radio. A. J. was making the band sound like a cure for death
itself.
“With me on the Afternoon Rock Affair are the other
members of this
extremely talented ensemble of musicians: J. D. Christopher, lead
singer and rhythm guitarist; Jojo McKenna, the drummer; bassist and
soul man Carter ‘Doobie Brother’ Dubois; and last but not least,
the legendary Casey Winslow on lead guitar. Welcome to the
Afternoon Rock Affair, dudes.”
“We were here last week, remember?”
“That’s right! You were my guests on the Heavy Metal
Meltdown! How
quickly I forget things these days. Must be too much
electromagnetic
radiation coming from the tower.”
“Yeah, get that thing fixed.”
“So tell me, guys. What would you rather
do? I could interview
you like I did the Bobby Malone Band, or we could just shoot the bull
and have a good time.”
“Let’s just shoot the bull and have a good
time. The Bobby Malone Band can’t get gigs anymore.”
“Hey, I can’t help it if they wanted to talk about
the kinky stuff
they do with their groupies when the microphone was still on!”
“Yeah, but at least you could have asked them about
their female groupies.”
“They don’t have any female groupies!”
“Just play a song, man. Doobie has something
he wants to ‘discuss’ off the air. Know what I mean?”
“No sweat. Here’s something from the Blizzard of Ozz album by Ozzy
Osbourne, a song called ‘Crazy Train,’ and you’ve got it on Eastville’s
Wicked Rock, WYKD FM!”
I found an aluminum tennis racket in the closet and
pretended to
play guitar to the song. It great having the whole house to
myself. I
could do anything I wanted. Anything!
I thought about having a party. That would’ve
been a good idea if
it weren’t for the fact that I didn’t have anybody to invite other than
Gina Kenickie. The heck with that!
I strutted around the house like a total nutjob,
imitating a heavy
metal guitarist and doing a lip-sync of the vocals. It didn’t
matter
that it was a guy singing, I was having a blast pretending I was a rock
star. I even climbed up on top of the dining room table for the
solo!
I was jamming so hard I barely heard the doorbell
ring. I turned
the stereo down and went to see who it was. When I opened the
door I
found myself staring at a teenaged girl wearing florescent green new
wave sunglasses, white leg warmers, blue spandex pants, a silver
jacket, florescent pink headphones, and a black T-shirt that read, ALL
THIS AND BRAINS, TOO!
“Hi. I’m the new babysitter.”
“What?”
“I’m the new babysitter. Sorry I’m late.
My boyfriend forgot to
pick me up. I hope you’ve got a little sister, boys drive me
absolutely bonkers!”
I couldn’t believe what was happening. I stood
there, stunned,
while Miss Teen U.S.A. walked by me and up the stairs to the
living
room. She tossed her book bag on the couch and proceeded to walk
around the house. I stood there in the doorway trying to
comprehend
what was going on.
“Before you go, could you show me where you keep
stuff?”
“Are you sure you have the right house?”
“This is 314 Twilight Drive, isn’t it?”
“It used to be. They might have changed it.”
“I’m at the right house. I recognize your
father in the family portrait on the wall. Do you have any diet
soda?”
“That’s just a stand-in. My father couldn’t
make it to the photo
session.” I was lying through my teeth, of course, because I
couldn’t
accept the fact that my folks had hired a babysitter after all!
“Your father’s name is Carl or something, right?”
“Cal...”
“Don’t worry, kid. I’m cool. Just show
me the little kid and you
can go skipping off to your boyfriend’s house or whatever. I
won’t
tell.”
“Look, whatever my parents offered you, I’ll double
it.”
“What about the kid? You weren’t just going to
leave it here, were you?”
I got mad. “She can take care of herself! She
doesn’t need a babysitter anymore!”
“Double it, huh?” The girl looked up at the
ceiling and did some
mental figuring. “Gee, that would come up to two hundred
bucks. I was
hired to stay here all week.”
“Two hundred bucks? No problem. I can
get the money to you by Wednesday. I’m a drug dealer.”
“You deal drugs?”
“Sure. I supply drugs for that rock band,
Katzenjammer. Ever hear of them?”
“Yeah. You’re their connection?”
“Yeah. I like to keep a low profile, if you
know what I mean. So do we have a deal, or what?”
“I heard about you adolescent drug dealers on Donahue a few weeks ago.
Heavy stuff. Who would ever suspect a Smurf like you would be
dealing drugs? Good cover, kid.”
“So do we have a deal, or what?”
“Only if you pay me in coke, and only if its good
stuff.”
(Yikes! Now what?)
“Okay, whatever you want. Just get out of
here. I’m expecting some customers any minute, and they don’t
like strangers.”
“Knock off the Miami
Vice trip, kid. I know you’re not a drug dealer.”
“You still can’t stay. I’m watching the damn
kid!”
“Your father got me fired from my job at the Dairy
Queen. I’m Sylvia Norris.
That name rang a bell. “So you’re the one who
spilled the strawberry milkshake in his briefcase!”
“It was an accident. I tripped over his
foot. He complained and I got fired.”
“Well, I should hope so! Do you know what he has in
that briefcase?”
“Look, kid. He told me to show up here.
So why don’t you stop
giving me a hard time and let me earn my pay? I’m getting paid to
babysit, not argue with you.”
“Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay!” I
stormed down the
hallway and disappeared into my bedroom, making sure to slam the door
shut as I went in.
“Wait a minute,” I heard her shout. “You
didn’t tell me your name!”
“Crystal, dammit!”
“Okay, Crystal Dammit, what’s your sister’s name?”
I had to think about that one. “Tiffany!”
“Tiffany? They named you Tiffany and Crystal?”
“My folks are weird! Leave me alone!”
I sat down at my desk turned on my ghetto
blaster. A. J. was talking.
“Let’s talk about the band. Wasn’t the name of
the song, ‘Gods of Metal,’ the original name
of the band?”
“You should know, man. You were the one who
suggested we change it, remember?”
“I know. Pretend I don’t already know this
stuff. Act like I’m not in the band.”
“Okay,” said Casey. “Gods of Metal was what I
wanted to name the
band until our wimpy keyboard player complained that it sounded too
tough and made us come up with a new one.”
“Yeah,” said Jeremy. “We’re trying to get rid
of that guy. He sucks!”
“Very funny. We’re going to hear from one of
ours sponsors now, so
don’t touch that dial! Well, you can touch it all you want, but don’t
change the station! This is WYKD and the Afternoon Rock Affair!”
Sylvia knocked on my bedroom door. I turned my
radio down and she came in.
“I’ve been looking all over. Is this your
little sister’s room?”
I looked at all of the sci-fi posters on the wall,
the model kits
on the shelves, and the action figures strewn about on the floor.
“Yeah.”
“Where is she?”
“She must be out riding her bike somewhere.
I’ll go look for her if you want.”
“No, that’s okay.”
I let out a sigh of relief when she left the room,
even though I
knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep up the lie much longer. “I
can’t believe they hired a babysitter!” I said under my
breath. I
decided to start cleaning up the action figures on my floor.
A moment later, Sylvia came back in. I didn’t
look at her.
“There’s no little sister, is there?”
I shrugged my shoulders and didn’t say a word.
“I didn’t see a little kid in that family portrait.”
“Nothing gets by you.”
I noticed Sylvia glancing around my room.
“Boy, you’ve got some
collection here. Who needs drugs when you’ve got all this
stuff?” She
looked at me. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen?”
“Yeah. Wanna make something of it?” I
gave her a mean look out of
the corner of my eye, hoping it would be enough to scare her off.
I
didn’t really want to fight. This chick could probably rip my
head off
with her fingernails if she wanted to.
“Why do you still need a babysitter?”
“I don’t still need a babysitter! That’s why I was
trying to get rid of you!”
Sylvia sat down on my bed. “There’s no need to
yell.”
I took a deep breath to calm down. “It’s just
that my parents are
a little over-protective. They haven’t gotten used to the fact
that
I’m a teenager yet.”
Sylvia nodded. “Some parents are like
that. I’ve got a friend who
hasn’t even had a date yet, and she’s seventeen. Her folks are
really
strict. I think they’re Mormons or something.”
I thought about my parents. They weren’t
strict or religious at
all, just a little flaky. I guess it had something to do with the
fact
that they grew up in the equivalent of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.
They’re so All-American you’d swear any minute they’re going to whip
out a can of carpet spray and do a commercial right there in our living
room.
Sylvia gave me a comforting look. “Look, we
don’t even have to
call it babysitting. We can just say I’m hanging out here as a
friend,
okay?”
“Fine, if you don’t mind being a friendship
prostitute, because that’s what you would be.”
“A friendship prostitute? There’s no such
thing.”
“Not yet. You’d be a pioneer in the field.”
“Can’t we just be friends?”
I ignored her.
“Crystal? It could get pretty lonely here this
week without your
family here. Wouldn’t you rather have someone around to talk to?”
“I guess...”
“It won’t be so bad.”
“I know.”
“I’m seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in
June. If you ever need anyone
to talk to, for advice or whatever, you can always come to me. I
know
how rough it is being your age. It’s almost as rough as being my
age!”
I smiled for the first time. Sylvia was
turning out to be an okay
person. Why give her a hard time? She didn’t tease me about
the
sci-fi junk like I thought she would. Maybe I could learn stuff
from
her. She was a lot smarter than I expected her to be. Her
florescent
sunglasses just didn’t do her justice.
We spent a half hour just sitting around
talking. I told her
about the
creation of each of my spaceship models and all of the space junk I had
on my shelves. She seemed really interested in what I told
her. She
would swing her reddish brown hair around and squint her eyes at
everything, then smile with approval.
I knew what she was thinking: This kid’s weird!
“You think all of this stuff is childish, don’t
you? You can tell me.”
“No, I don’t! Honest, I don’t!” Sylvia’s face
lit up with alarm.
“I think it’s kinda neat. Everybody should have a hobby.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that, are
you?”
“No. I mean it.”
I smiled. Sylvia smiled back. “So, it
looks like we might be friends after all.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
