herself again.
In the Mab’s graffiti-splattered bathroom we eavesdrop: Ricky Sleeper fell off the stage at a gig, Joe Rees of Target Video is making an entire movie of punk rock, two sisters we always see at the club have started turning tricks to pay for heroin. Knowing all this makes us one step closer to being real, but not completely. When does a fake Mohawk become a real Mohawk? Who decides? How do you know if it’s happened?
During the shows we slam-dance in front of the stage. We tussle and push and get knocked down and pulled back up until our sweat is mixed up with real punks’ sweat and our skin has touched their skin. Bennie does less of this. I think he actually listens to the music.
One thing I’ve noticed: no punk rockers have freckles. They don’t exist.
One night, Jocelyn answers her phone and it’s Lou going, Hello beautiful. He’s been calling for days and days, he goes, but the phone just rings. Why not try calling at night? I ask when Jocelyn repeats this.
That Saturday, after rehearsal, she goes out with Lou instead of us. We go to the Mab, then back to Alice’s house. By now we treat the place like we own it: we eat the yogurts her mom makes in glass cups on a warming machine, we lie on the living room couch with our sock feet on the armrests. One night her mom made us hot chocolate and brought it into the living room on a gold tray. She had big tired eyes and tendons moving in her neck. Jocelyn whispered in my ear, Rich people like to hostess, so they can show off their nice stuff.
Tonight, without Jocelyn here, I ask Alice if she still has those school uniforms she mentioned long ago. She looks surprised. Yeah, she goes. I do.
I follow her up the fluffy stairs to her actual room, which I’ve never seen. It’s smaller than her sisters’ room, with blue shag carpeting and crisscross wallpaper in blue and white. Her bed is under a mountain of stuffed animals, which all turn out to be frogs: bright green, light green, Day-Glo green, some with stuffed flies attached to their tongues. Her bedside lamp is shaped like a frog, plus her pillow.
I go, I didn’t know you were into frogs, and Alice goes, How would you?
I haven’t really been alone with Alice before. She seems not as nice as when Jocelyn is around.
She opens her closet, stands on a chair, and pulls down a box with some uniforms inside: a green plaid one-piece from when she was little, a sailor suit two-piece from later on. I go, Which did you like better?
Neither, she goes. Who wants to wear a uniform?
I go, I would.
Is that a joke?
What kind of joke would it be?
The kind where you and Jocelyn laugh about how you made a joke and I didn’t get it.
My throat turns very dry. I go, I won’t. Laugh with Jocelyn.
Alice shrugs. Ask me if I care, she goes.
We sit on her rug, the uniforms across our knees. Alice wears ripped jeans and drippy black eye makeup, but her hair is long and gold. She isn’t a real punk, either.
After a while I go, Why do your parents let us come here?
They’re not my parents. They’re my mother and stepfather.
Okay.
They want to keep an eye on you, I guess.
The foghorns are extra loud in Sea Cliff, like we’re alone on a ship sailing through the thickest fog. I hug my knees, wishing so much that Jocelyn was with us.
Are they right now? I go, softly. Keeping an eye?
Alice takes a huge breath and lets it back out. No, she goes. They’re asleep.
Marty the violinist isn’t even in high school—he’s a sophomore at SF State, where Jocelyn and I and Scotty (if he passes Algebra II) are headed next year. Jocelyn goes to Bennie, The shit will hit the fan if you put that dork onstage.
I guess we’ll find out, Bennie goes, and he looks at his watch like he’s thinking. In two weeks and four days and six hours and I’m-not-sure-how-many-minutes.
We stare at him, not comprehending. Then he tells us: Dirk Dirksen from the Mab gave him a call. Jocelyn and I shriek and hug onto Bennie, which
In the Mab’s graffiti-splattered bathroom we eavesdrop: Ricky Sleeper fell off the stage at a gig, Joe Rees of Target Video is making an entire movie of punk rock, two sisters we always see at the club have started turning tricks to pay for heroin. Knowing all this makes us one step closer to being real, but not completely. When does a fake Mohawk become a real Mohawk? Who decides? How do you know if it’s happened?
During the shows we slam-dance in front of the stage. We tussle and push and get knocked down and pulled back up until our sweat is mixed up with real punks’ sweat and our skin has touched their skin. Bennie does less of this. I think he actually listens to the music.
One thing I’ve noticed: no punk rockers have freckles. They don’t exist.
One night, Jocelyn answers her phone and it’s Lou going, Hello beautiful. He’s been calling for days and days, he goes, but the phone just rings. Why not try calling at night? I ask when Jocelyn repeats this.
That Saturday, after rehearsal, she goes out with Lou instead of us. We go to the Mab, then back to Alice’s house. By now we treat the place like we own it: we eat the yogurts her mom makes in glass cups on a warming machine, we lie on the living room couch with our sock feet on the armrests. One night her mom made us hot chocolate and brought it into the living room on a gold tray. She had big tired eyes and tendons moving in her neck. Jocelyn whispered in my ear, Rich people like to hostess, so they can show off their nice stuff.
Tonight, without Jocelyn here, I ask Alice if she still has those school uniforms she mentioned long ago. She looks surprised. Yeah, she goes. I do.
I follow her up the fluffy stairs to her actual room, which I’ve never seen. It’s smaller than her sisters’ room, with blue shag carpeting and crisscross wallpaper in blue and white. Her bed is under a mountain of stuffed animals, which all turn out to be frogs: bright green, light green, Day-Glo green, some with stuffed flies attached to their tongues. Her bedside lamp is shaped like a frog, plus her pillow.
I go, I didn’t know you were into frogs, and Alice goes, How would you?
I haven’t really been alone with Alice before. She seems not as nice as when Jocelyn is around.
She opens her closet, stands on a chair, and pulls down a box with some uniforms inside: a green plaid one-piece from when she was little, a sailor suit two-piece from later on. I go, Which did you like better?
Neither, she goes. Who wants to wear a uniform?
I go, I would.
Is that a joke?
What kind of joke would it be?
The kind where you and Jocelyn laugh about how you made a joke and I didn’t get it.
My throat turns very dry. I go, I won’t. Laugh with Jocelyn.
Alice shrugs. Ask me if I care, she goes.
We sit on her rug, the uniforms across our knees. Alice wears ripped jeans and drippy black eye makeup, but her hair is long and gold. She isn’t a real punk, either.
After a while I go, Why do your parents let us come here?
They’re not my parents. They’re my mother and stepfather.
Okay.
They want to keep an eye on you, I guess.
The foghorns are extra loud in Sea Cliff, like we’re alone on a ship sailing through the thickest fog. I hug my knees, wishing so much that Jocelyn was with us.
Are they right now? I go, softly. Keeping an eye?
Alice takes a huge breath and lets it back out. No, she goes. They’re asleep.
Marty the violinist isn’t even in high school—he’s a sophomore at SF State, where Jocelyn and I and Scotty (if he passes Algebra II) are headed next year. Jocelyn goes to Bennie, The shit will hit the fan if you put that dork onstage.
I guess we’ll find out, Bennie goes, and he looks at his watch like he’s thinking. In two weeks and four days and six hours and I’m-not-sure-how-many-minutes.
We stare at him, not comprehending. Then he tells us: Dirk Dirksen from the Mab gave him a call. Jocelyn and I shriek and hug onto Bennie, which
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