Libba Bray Read online

  I was first introduced to the Great Tremolo via one of those satellite radio shows that exists just to play obscure, freaky shit you could swear the producers made up during the break. As I was lying on my bed with my headphones on—the ones I decorated with space stickers from Tomorrowland—the DJ dropped the needle on the Great Tremolo and a song called “Para Mí He Visto Ángeles,” which, according to the liner notes, translates to something like “For I Have Seen Angels.” I sat straight up, laughing. It’s like the Great Tremolo’s voice is from space, and he’s on the verge of crying while he sings, but like crying with happiness if that makes any sense at all. I mean seriously? How can you not lose your shit over that?

  The Great Tremolo made close to twenty albums, and with Eubie’s help, I’ve managed to collect seven of them. I take comfort in the fact that there is someone out there who’s more of a loser than I am, and believe me, the Great Tremolo is a total emo loser, tilting at sonic windmills.

  Eubie hears the bells tinkle over the door when I come in and looks up from his perch behind the counter, where he’s playing store DJ. He’s got a big smile for me. “Heeeey, Cam-run., where you been, my man?”

  “Nowhere,” I say, stepping up to the counter. Eubie’s growing a little soul patch. It looks good with the dreads and the multicolored T-shirt emblazoned with the face of some famous reggae star.

  “Nowhere’s a bad place to be. I been there. How come you got no girlfriend?”

  I pick up a copy of the free weekly newspaper I have no intention of reading. “Ahh, you know. The Cam-man is meant to be shared by many, held by none.”

  Eubie laughs. He’s got a laugh like a machine gun firing through velvet. “That’s some serious bu’shit, man. Do yourself a favor, friend. Leave my shop and go live a little.”

  “I am living. A little. Got any new Tremolo for me?”

  “Come on back.” Eubie leads me through the purple curtains at the back of the store that hide the storage area where the employees take their breaks. It’s not much of a room. Couple of chairs. A long counter covered in plastic take-out containers and backpacks. There’s a large cork bulletin board on one wall. It’s loaded with pictures of the employees dressed up for Halloween and Christmas parties. Ticket stubs from concerts and hard-to-read flyers for band members needed poke out at odd angles, overlapping. A torn piece of notebook paper advertises a carload of guys going to the YA! Party House for spring break who are willing to give somebody a ride for cash. Mardi Gras beads hang from a thumbtack beside a picture of Eubie in a feathered mask, whooping it up on Bourbon Street. Down in the right-hand corner is a picture of an old man in a suit, a hat, and black sunglasses. He holds a trumpet in his weathered hands.

  “Who’s this guy?”

  “Junior Webster. Best horn player in New Orleans.” Eubie sucks in air and shakes his hand like he’s burned it. “That cat is outside, I’m telling you. You ever get to NOLA—and you should—go check out the club he used to play at, the Horn and Ivory.”

  “He doesn’t play there anymore?”

  “Hard to play when you’re dead. Here, check this out.”

  From a black plastic milk crate, Eubie pulls out an LP so old and worn that I can see the outline of the vinyl in a white ring on the cardboard cover, which shows Junior Webster standing in front of a painting of the galaxy. In the center of those stars is a black hole.

  “Huh,” I say.

  “Huh,” Eubie mocks. “You won’t say ‘huh’ in a minute, son. I’m-a school you.” Eubie eases the record lovingly from its sleeve and places it on his turntable. “‘Cypress Grove Blues.’ If you had on a hat I’d ask you to take it off, ’cause you ’bout to hear some church.”

  He drops the needle. A mournful horn blows, high and sharp, like a woman’s wail at a funeral; then the whole thing crashes into a wild jazz ride that has Eubie, eyes closed, head forward, hitting some imaginary cymbals like the drummer I know he is on weekends. I don’t get jazz. It always sounds to me like a bunch of toddlers let loose in a music room. I try to be polite, though. When the song ends, Eubie pulls the needle off and waits for my reaction.

  “Pretty cool.”

  Eubie arches an eyebrow. “Damn right it’s cool. That all you got to say?”

  “Really cool,” I say, hoping it passes for enthusiasm.

  “Cam-run,” Eubie says, shaking his head so his dreads wiggle like dancers. “You need help, my man. You hearin’ me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m tellin’ you, if I had another life to live, I would live it in New Orleans, making music with Junior Webster, makin’ holes in space with a wall of sound. Music has the power to save the world.” Eubie rubs at his soul patch for a second before breaking into a grin. “I tell you what, I’m-a let you borrow this album for the weekend. You listen to the whole thing and see what you have to say then.”

  My palms start to sweat. I don’t want to be trusted with Eubie’s favorite album, especially since I know I’ll never listen to it, and I’ll have to come up with some excuse for why I didn’t. I put up my hands, back up a little. “I don’t want to take your best album, Eubie …”

  Eubie tries to hand it off, like a baton in a race he’s the only one running. “Go on, it’s okay.”

  “I don’t know, Eubie. That’s a big responsibility.”

  “No, my man. Child support is a big responsibility. This is a record.”

  I shake my head. “What if it gets broken?”

  “I’ll kill you.” He winks. “But it won’t get broken. You’ll treat it like a baby girl.”

  I know Eubie. He is anal about his LPs. The fact that he is offering it to me is a Big Deal. But I’m not comfortable with the Big Deal. I just want to keep things as they are—no expectations equals no failed expectations equals no hurt feelings equals everything’s cool.

  I put my hands in my pockets and rock on my heels. “You know, things are kinda busy at school this week, and I’m working an extra shift at Buddha Burger and stuff, so … you know. But thanks anyway.” I give a half-assed smile. “So … did you get that new Tremolo I ordered?”

  Eubie’s disappointed. I can see it in the way he puts the LP back and sighs, and I feel kind of crappy about it. I’m used to disappointing everyone else, but not Eubie.

  He shimmies an album out from under a stack on his desk. The cover is a picture of cheesy perfection: two wineglasses, soft candlelight, and a feather. Viver É Amar, Amar É Viver. There’s a little asterisk after the title along with the English translation, To Live Is to Love, to Love Is to Live.

  “What is it about this guy?” Eubie asks.

  “I have a secret thing for the recorder.” When Eubie doesn’t laugh, I explain, “Have you ever listened to this guy? He’s a joke.”

  “So you buy it to mock him.” Eubie plops his long frame down in one of the folding chairs and bites into a health-food bar he’s had in his shirt pocket.

  “No. Not really. Sort of. Well, yes.”

  “To him that shit’s sacred, you feel me? He’s writing about pain, about the loss of love, the injustice of life. About hope. I’m not gonna sell you this if you’re just gonna make fun of it. That’s not what music’s about, my man.” He gives me a disapproving look.

  “Well,” I say, swallowing hard. “He does play a mean recorder.”

  Eubie shakes his head. He polishes off the last of the health-food bar and pushes me out through the curtains and toward the cash register with my new Tremolo record. “Here. Take the damn album. And get yourself a girlfriend.”

  It’s warm and sunny when I step out on Mambrino Street. Across the four lanes of traffic sits the university where my dad works. My dad is a physicist. He works with people who deal in all kinds of weird cosmic shit. String theory. Parallel universes. The viability of time travel. It’s not going to build you a better toaster, but it is trippy stuff that makes you spend all day trying to figure it out.

  Actually, what I should say is that my dad works against the cosmic. He�
��s a semifamous debunker of anything that isn’t old-school physics. He calls all the new theories “The Emperor’s New Clothes of Science.” I’m not kidding. He actually submitted that as a paper for Scientific Masturbation Quarterly. Okay, so it’s not really called that, but trust me when I tell you that it is filled with articles of solo pleasure. The rest of us are bored shitless. “They can’t prove any of that, Cameron,” he always says. “And until there’s proof, it’s not science to me.” That’s my dad for you.

  Since I’m so close, I could stop in. A quick cost analysis lists the pros and cons of this move. Pro: I might be able to finagle use of the car for a few hours. Con: I would have to have contact with Dad. It’s a real toss-up, but my jones for the car wins out. It’s one of those amazing early spring days you get in Texas sometimes, the kind with a hint of summer to it, a preview of coming attractions, and driving around with the windows down would be mighty fine.

  The Bohr Physics Complex is a dingy prewar building on the outskirts of campus featuring neat, ordered rows of classrooms and offices. A huge bulletin board in the center hall is littered with invites for intramural soccer, projects on alternative fuel sources, and buttloads of discussion groups: “Which Way to Higgs Field: Does the God Particle Exist?” “Feel our vibration! Meet in room 101 to discuss the latest in string theory, multiverse theory, and the theory of everything!” “Hail, Putopia!” “Exploring the unexplored—the mysteries of dark energy. Dulcinea Hall. 7 p.m. There will be a keg, so come early and get your strangelet on.”

  Dad’s office is behind the last door of a long corridor that hasn’t seen a paint job since Einstein was alive. The door is open a crack. I hear voices, so I peek through. One of Dad’s TAs is in with him. She’s been to the house before. Her name is Rachel or Raylie, some “R” name. She’s sitting in a chair across from my dad, leaning forward, laughing at something he’s just said. My dad doesn’t seem like my dad. He doesn’t sound angry or annoyed like the dad at home who does the yard work, pays the bills, rotates the tires, and looks like he hates every minute of it. He’s actually smiling, which is just weird. I knock on the half-opened door, and Dad stands up quick.

  “Hey there, Cam. What a surprise. You remember Raina, my teaching assistant?”

  Raina. She gives a little wave. “Hi.”

  “So what brings you over here at four-thirty on a Friday afternoon?”

  “I was at Eubie’s. Thought I’d drop by.”

  “Great,” Dad says, smiling like he wants to sell me a used car. “Uh, Raina, if you could have those papers ready by Wednesday morning.”

  “Sure, Frank.”

  Frank? She calls him Frank? What’s wrong with Dr. Smith? Raina and I brush each other on my way in. She has big brown eyes and her hair smells like oranges. For a split second I imagine her naked. But then I think that maybe my dad has done the same thing or even seen her naked and I’m wishing I had a big doobie to take that thought right out of my head.

  Dad offers me a seat. “Well, this sure is a surprise.”

  “So you said.” I plop down into the no-frills chair on the other side of the desk, the place where his students sit. This is how they see him: Tall, fit guy in a starched white button-down and khaki pants. Big desk. Big chair. Big diplomas on the wall behind his graying-around-the-temples head, making him look like one of those religious icon paintings. A black box with an angel snow globe Jenna and I gave him for Christmas one year. The base broke off a while back, and now the angel leans against the glass with both hands like she’s trying to get out. One of those metal pin sculptures that molds to your hand and holds the shape. Two neat stacks of papers—graded and yet-to-be-graded. Lamp on one side, phone on the other. Order. Symmetry. Authority.

  “Raina is a really smart woman. Great physicist. Those freshmen don’t know what they’re up against. She could have gone to MIT if she wanted to.”

  “Cool. Hey, can I borrow the car?”

  Dad’s smile sags and now he looks familiar—like a birthday balloon four days after the party.

  “Is that the only reason you stopped by?”

  I press my face against the metal pin sculpture. When I pull it away, my expression is caught in a scream. “Well, it’s not like you’re using it right now.”

  “When your grades improve, we can talk about the car.” Dad shakes the sculpture out, erasing me. “Hey, you’ll probably like these.”

  From a desk drawer, he removes a stack of photos and shoves them into my hands. They’re vacation pics—a couple of guys in Gold Coast University Tshirts backpacking in the mountains. A trio of girls at some mega bowling alley. A crew of rowdy college kids on the beach during spring break. I don’t know any of these people. “Some of my students have this project. They stole a yard gnome from somebody’s lawn and have taken him on vacation all over the world. They pass him off to whoever’s going on a trip next.”

  Now I can see the little guy peeking out in each picture, all fat red cheeks, white beard, and twinkling eyes. Well, if he could twinkle. He looks like he wants to. He also looks like he could cheerfully beat the crap out of his smug kidnappers. Or maybe he likes to travel. Maybe he sends postcards to the other yard gnomes: Having a great time. No sprinklers here.

  “Funny,” I say, throwing them back on his desk, where they fan out in a photographic arch.

  “You didn’t even look at them.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  Dad sighs. “You know, Cameron, you might at least pretend to be interested in my life.”

  “Dad, I looked at them.”

  He tidies them up and puts a rubber band around them so they’re contained, like him. That’s my dad. Never yell when you can simmer. Never scream when you can cut somebody with a look. Never go ahead and have that fight when you can feel righteous about walking away and giving them your back. I’ve seen a lot of my dad’s back.

  “About the car. I was thinking I could just use it to run a few errands and then I could come back for you, you know, whenever you’re done.” I throw him a father-son-bonding bone at the last minute. “Maybe we could get some pizza.”

  “What errands?”

  “You know,” I say, shrugging.

  “No, I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”

  “Just some errands. For school.”

  “What do you need for school?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Cameron. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I just need to borrow the car. To get some stuff. No big deal.”

  “Stuff,” Dad says, playing with his pen. “Books? Clothes? Sports equipment?”

  Dad would cream himself if I said sports equipment. “I was kind of thinking of going out for lacrosse this year. Might look good on the college apps.”

  “A solid GPA would look better,” Dad shoots back. He and Mom can’t figure out how two professors ended up with such a C+ average of a kid.

  “So can I borrow the car?”

  “No. I’m working late tonight.”

  Working late. With Raina, no doubt. His T and A.

  “Fine,” I growl. “Can I at least borrow your ID card so I can get a discount at the campus bookstore? I need to pick up a copy of Don Quixote for English class,” I lie.

  “No problemo.” Dad smiles and hands me his ID card. To the untrained eye, it looks like he’s happy to help me out. But I know he’s only happy that he’s won. I take the card and pocket it.

  “You’re welcome,” Dad says.

  “Great. So I’ll see you later.”

  “Would it kill you to say thanks?”

  “Possibly. And since I could end up dead, it seems like an extreme test. Don’t you think?” Who’s winning now, Dad?

  “Only the one book.” He turns around to face his computer screen. Hello, Dad’s back. I’ve missed you. What took you so long?

  The arrival of the Back means it’s officially time to go, but my foot has fallen asleep. It’s all pins and needles and I can’t quite feel it under me when I stand
on it. I try to stop myself from falling by bringing my hand down hard on the desk. The snow globe topples over and shatters, soaking the yard gnome pictures.

  “Cameron!” Dad shouts, pushing his chair back and away from his wet desk. A little hits his pants in a bad spot.

  “I tripped, okay? My foot was asleep! Wasn’t my fault.”

  “Nothing ever is.” Dad opens his desk drawer and pulls out his collection of convenience-store napkins. He’s dabbing furiously at the pictures, assessing the damage. “It’s okay,” he says.

  I don’t know if he means the pictures or me.

  *

  I pick up a copy of the Don Quixote Fake It! Notes and a bottle opener with a padded handle that reads SCREW ME just to piss Dad off. It’s a long bus ride out to our subdivision, so I thumb through the free weekly rag I picked up at Eubie’s.

  Strange Fires Sighted in Several States. “The world is ending for sure,” says Reverend Iggy Norant.

  Roadrunner Bus Company: Just Follow the Feather to Your Next Adventure.

  Missing Scientist May be Time Traveler to Other Worlds.

  Troubled Teens? For everlasting satisfaction, send them to our church.

  Did you suffer adverse effects from Human Growth Hormone? If so, you could join our class action suit today.

  Secret Super Collider Could be Breakthrough—or Swallow Our Planet in Black Hole!

  X Marks the Spot, Says Top Disease Dr.: “I’ve cheated death, and so can you!”

  Ragnarok On! Learn ancient Norse in the comfort of your own home: call now and get bonus rune pendant absolutely free!

  Need a Job? Exciting opportunities exist with United Snow Globe Wholesalers: Freezing life behind glass. Call 1-800-555-1212.

  I finish the paper. There are still a few miles to go, though, so I read the first few chapters of Don Quixote. The Fake It! Notes tell me that Cervantes is satirizing the culture of idealism. The only thing I know about Don Quixote is that he and his sidekick go off and have imaginary adventures, battling windmills disguised as giants and that sort of thing. No windmills outside the bus window. Just rows and rows of houses that all look pretty much the same. Sure, some are two stories; some are ranches. A few even have that big round turret for a garage like some kind of ridiculous suburban castle. But they’re the same house spaced out every five houses or so by other houses that have matches throughout the neighborhood. When I was a kid I was always afraid I’d wander into the wrong house and the wrong life by mistake. Now that sounds pretty good.