Rock Star Read online

  “Jason. Jay. J-man. You shouldn’t have done that.” I’m a little pissed.

  “I know. But it’s all good. I emailed him. I pretended I was you. He said he wants to meet you.”

  I look over at Grant. He’s got one of his rocker friends in a headlock a few tables down. Grant’s laughing like crazy. The girls at the next table are laughing too. Not at him. But laughing like they think Grant’s cool and all.

  “Jesus,” I say.

  For the next five minutes, Jason lists all the reasons why I should walk over and introduce myself. Mostly, it’s all about how I like music and would love to be in a band. It’s true. I’d really, really like to be in a rock band. Plus, you can only play bass guitar in the dorky school orchestra for so long.

  But I feel nervous and just plain scared about walking over to Grant— Mr. Popularity, Mr. Rock and Roll. I hate to say it, but I’m not that popular. I’m pretty shy. I don’t feel cool enough to just walk over.

  It’s a funny thing, but sometimes I feel okay about myself. And sometimes I wonder if I’m some kind of freak. I mean, if you’re a weirdo, you probably don’t realize it, right? Otherwise, why would you act like that? Nobody says to himself, “Hey…I want to be really weird in my day-to-day life.” For weird people, weirdness is normal.

  So what if I’m weird and everyone knows it except me? And it’s the kind of thing no one will explain to you. Like, no one’s going to say, “Hey, Duncan, I don’t know if you realize it, but you are a weirdo and, in fact, some kind of total freak.” You ever feel like that? Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I am a freak.

  Plus, my clothing choice today isn’t so good. In fact, it’s pretty bad. I’m wearing these old jeans that are way too small for me. They’re like flood pants, about two inches too short. And I’m wearing an Oak Bay High T-shirt that seemed like a good idea when I bought it, but turned out to be way too tight after my dad washed it. So basically I look like a dorky little kid in these retarded, miniature clothes.

  “Just walk over,” says Jason. “Come on. Go.”

  I actually want to. I really do. So I make myself get up and walk toward Grant’s table. That’s not like me. It feels like I’m in a dream or something. Like it’s not really me. Like I’m floating.

  About halfway over, I trip, hitting my knees and hands hard. I get up, my face is burning. I can hear people laughing, lots of people. Everything’s in slow motion. All my senses are on red alert. I can smell tuna sandwich and greasy French fries. Someone must have tripped me. I look over, and sure enough there’s this fat dude in a rugby shirt with a big fat face, laughing at me. His leg’s still sticking out. He’s pointing to it, laughing like a hyena.

  I don’t know why—I’ve never done this before—but I swing at the guy. Crazy. I connect too, hitting the side of his jumbo pumpkin noggin. Things are happening fast now. He punches me right in the mouth, then lands another on my forehead. I try to slug the guy again, but just then someone pins my arms behind me. Mr. McGregor. Ow.

  “Break it up, McCann,” he says.

  “But he tripped me!”

  “Break it up. Both of you. I mean it. Or I’ll send you to the principal’s office. Now.”

  The guy in the rugby shirt stops short for a second. Then he shakes his head, laughs and goes back to talking to his buddies. Just like nothing happened.

  For some reason, maybe because I’m already halfway there, I walk the rest of the way to the Grant’s table. Even though I’m embarrassed and feeling weird and beat-up and like a total freak. Everyone at the table is looking at me like something funny’s going on. Which I guess it is.

  “Hey,” I say.

  Nobody says anything.

  “Hey,” I say again, but louder. I feel like I’m on stage.

  Grant looks at me. His face is blank.

  “Hey there, fighter dude. Nice bruise on your forehead. Who’re you?” he says.

  “Um. I’m Duncan. Duncan McCann.”

  Grant says nothing. It’s uncomfortable. One of his buddies snorts, then makes this farting noise.

  “I’m the bass player…who answered the ad.” My voice sounds small and all wimpy. This happens sometimes when I get nervous.

  “Oh yeah?” says Grant.

  “Not McCann. He’s a goof,” says Grant’s buddy. With his crew cut and thick neck, he looks like a weight lifter. He looks like an extra-large bulldog. Kind of like the guy who tripped me, actually.

  “Shut up,” says Grant to the bulldog. Then he turns back to me. “Can you play?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “McCann doesn’t know how to play bass,” says Bulldog.

  “Hey, didn’t I tell you to shut up?” says Grant. He’s still looking at me, like he’s sizing me up or something.

  “Can you come to our jam tomorrow after school?” he says.

  “Uh, yeah. No problem.”

  “Okay.” Grant writes his address out on a piece of paper. He tells me to be there at 4:00. Then he turns back to his buddies again. I walk back to our table. My face is on fire, like a bad sunburn.

  “So,” says Jason. “I can’t believe that guy who tripped you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened? With Newson, I mean.”

  “I’m gonna try out,” I say. “You know, like an audition.”

  “Cool.”

  “Yeah,” I say. I feel all nervous and jumbled up inside. But happy too. In fact, I’m excited like I haven’t been for a long time. Ever since before Mom died, anyway.

  Chapter Three

  I wake up thinking, Oh man. Not another day of school. Then I remember the rock band audition with Grant Newson. The bottom of my stomach gets all tingly.

  Of course, I’ve got to make sure I don’t forget to bring my bass to school. That would be a disaster. Besides, I need it for my band class. That’s the first class of the day, in fact.

  I’m almost late for school because I have to lug my amp as well as my guitar. Plus I’ve got my usual jumbo backpack of books along for the ride. Band class goes okay, although the dude who plays bass drum is farting like crazy, of course. What does this guy eat for breakfast? Because it’s not working out for him.

  After we play a medley of Disney movie tunes for forty-five minutes—why Disney, for the love of god?—class is over. I see Jennifer, the girl I kind of like. She looks over at me and actually smiles. Wow. So I make myself walk over. Heck, if I can do it with Grant Newson, I can do it with her, right?

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi there. You’re Duncan, right?”

  “Yeah…Hey, I like the way you play clarinet.”

  “You can really hear me?” she says. “From all the way at the back?” She smiles. This Jennifer is a really cool girl.

  “Well, not really. But you, uh…look like you’re having fun playing your horn and all.”

  Jennifer smiles again, almost laughing. Then she closes her clarinet case.

  “Well…,” she says, “see you next band class, I guess.”

  Crap. Having fun playing your horn? Why did I say something so stupid? Is a clarinet even a horn? I don’t know. What an idiot.

  The rest of the day is a drag. Even more than usual. That’s because I’m waiting for 4:00 to roll around. The teachers just drone on and on. History. English. Math. The day takes forever.

  Finally the bell rings. I’ve got to phone a cab to get to Grant’s house, which makes me sort of uptight. Plus I have to drag my bass amp along. But Dad gave me the money for a taxi, so it’s cool. I kill time until 3:30 pm, just sitting on the front lawn of the school, then phone for the cab.

  “Here’s the place,” says the cab driver, pulling up. Man. It’s kind of a dump. I’m not a snob or anything. I mean, our house isn’t exactly a mansion. But this place looks like it needed a new coat of paint in 1971.

  A note on the front door says McCann: Go around to the side of the house. Basement door. Well, at least Grant remembered my name. That’s a good sign.

  Now I can he
ar the guys playing… it’s really loud. I knock and knock and knock. There’s quiet. Birds are chirping. Then Grant opens the door.

  “Hey, man,” he says.

  “Uh…hey,” I say.

  I’m trying to act cool, but I am really nervous. The other guys in the band don’t even say hi or anything. They all have long hair to their shoulders. Some are wearing jean jackets with the names of heavy-metal bands written in ink.

  “That your amp?” says Grant, pointing.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s not gonna work here. Too small. You better plug into that one.”

  The other guys laugh at my tiny amp. So I plug into this huge black monster. It’s all battered, like it’s been on the road with Metallica for twenty years. I’m sort of freaking out, to tell the truth.

  “Okay. You know ‘Death to the Enemy’?” says Grant.

  “Um. No.”

  “Well, just try to follow along.”

  The drummer counts it off, and then the band starts playing this really fast song. Loud? It’s like being at an airport when a jet takes off. Grant is singing— actually, it’s more like screaming—and playing guitar.

  For the first verse I don’t know what I’m doing. Just faking it. For starters, it’s so loud it kind of throws me off. It’s like someone’s hitting my head with a baseball bat. Then after a while I start to figure it out, just like I work out the Beatles songs on Mom’s old record player. There’s a pattern to follow that keeps coming around.

  The drummer does a big, flashy ending, hitting practically every drum and cymbal on his kit. And it’s a honking big kit.

  “That was okay,” says Grant. “Seems like you caught on after a while.”

  “Yeah, after a while,” says the drummer. He’s a really tall guy, unshaven. He looks about twenty. I can tell he’s not my biggest fan.

  The audition lasts an hour. Basically, Grant calls out tunes, the drummer counts in and we blast it out. Or at least, they do. I’m just trying to catch up, like a water-skier trying not to fall.

  Then it’s over. Everybody’s packing up. No one says anything to me, so I figure I was pretty horrible and will now slink off in total disgrace. I’m surprised that when I leave, Grant follows me outside.

  “We practice once a week. Every Wednesday at four. The band’s called Primal Thunk, by the way.”

  “Huh? You mean…I’m in?”

  “Oh yeah. Guess so. You’re not the greatest bass player, McCann. But then again, you’re the only one who answered the ad,” says Grant. He’s grinning though.

  “Wow. Thanks!”

  “But you’re gonna have to grow out your hair. You don’t look metal enough.”

  “Okay.”

  “And buy some better clothes,” he says. “Jean jacket, or leather or something. You sort of look like a dork in that outfit.”

  I don’t even mind that Grant called me a dork, although that’s usually the kind of comment that makes me mad. I’m so happy, I don’t even phone a cab to get home. It’s not that far, anyway. I can walk—you know, burn off my energy. And I have lots of energy now. I’m in a heavy-metal band! Unbelievable. How cool is that? Pri-mal Thunk, Pri-mal Thunk. And on bass…Duncan McCann! Yeah! Welcome to my life as a rock star. I’m grinning from ear to ear, no doubt looking like a total goob as I walk along lugging my bass in one hand and my weeny amp in the other.

  At home Dad asks me how it went. I tell him it was good, even give him a hug (he looks surprised), then run upstairs to my room. I get a call from Jason.

  “How’d it go?” he says right off.

  “Good, man,” I say.

  “Well?”

  “I’m in the band. It’s called Primal Thunk.”

  “Hey, that’s so cool!” Jason says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe if you guys record your music, we can use it for the movie.”

  I don’t say anything for a second. Jason’s talking about this thing we’ve been working on since grade seven. It’s kind of embarrassing. I don’t talk about it. It’s our version of Raiders of the Lost Ark. We’re doing it ourselves, with an old video camera Jason’s mom gave him.

  Jason plays Indiana Jones, wearing a fedora hat and all. I play all the other characters because I’m good at doing different voices and stuff. The problem is, we’re three years older now than at the beginning of the movie. So at the start it looks like Harrison Ford’s a little kid. It’s a stupid movie. But Jason’s really stoked on doing it, and I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve lost interest.

  “Duncan?”

  “Yeah. I’m still here. I don’t know, Jason. We’ll have to see. I mean, I just joined the band.”

  “Sure, sure. No problem. Keep it in mind though.”

  After dinner, I pull out a mix CD that Grant has given me and shove it in my player. It has all the songs that the band does. About nine in all. The music is pretty hard. It’s so fast, and it changes all the time. After about half an hour, I get discouraged. I unplug my guitar and just lie back on my bed. It’s been a pretty long day. But all in all, one of my better ones, I’ve got to admit.

  Chapter Four

  The next day everything goes wrong. First of all, I’m still ignoring my homework, and I’m catching hell in every one of my classes.

  Biology. Forgot to do my homework. Mrs. Meyers bawls me out in front of the whole class. Then math. Pop quiz. I know I blew that one. Then English. Another test that I forgot to study for. Man, I didn’t even read the book it was all about. Probably lost it, in fact.

  When I get home, I slam the wooden screen door. All I want to do is go to my room and practice my Primal Thunk tunes. But then Dad calls me.

  “Duncan? Can you come in here for a minute?”

  So I walk into the living room. Dad’s sitting on the couch with Terry.

  “Duncan, I have to run out now. I forgot something at the office. So can you keep Terry company? I should only be an hour.”

  Dad leaves. This all seems a little fishy to me. An hour? Jesus. I plop myself into the easy chair across from Terry. What a day. First I’m screwing up at school. Now this.

  “So, how were your classes today, Duncan?” says Terry.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  I don’t feel like talking. Especially to Terry. She’s trying hard, all cheerful, asking about school and what kind of movies I like. I’m giving two-word answers. I’m being kind of a dork, I guess. But why did Dad leave me with his stupid girlfriend anyhow?

  The radio’s on in the kitchen. It’s the CBC, which is Dad’s favorite. I never listen to it because it’s so boring. But then this really cool song comes on. There’s no singing or anything. It has this really great keyboard riff. Really grungy sounding. Grinding, you know? And at the end of each riff, an electric guitar snaps, really hard, like a whip.

  Terry’s talking about something, but I’m not listening. I’m tuned into that song on the radio.

  “That’s ‘Green Onions,’ ” she says.

  “What?” I’d almost forgotten about Terry. It was like I was dreaming.

  “The song on the radio. That’s what it is.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Sorry. I was… distracted.”

  “That’s okay,” said Terry. She smiles. “You sure like music a lot, huh?”

  “Yeah. I guess. That’s a good song.”

  “It’s by Booker T. and the MG’s.”

  Man, you could have knocked me over with a PEZ dispenser. I didn’t know Terry knew anything about music. I mean, Dad knows zip. Even Mom didn’t know that much, aside from liking the Beatles. Maybe Terry is cooler than I thought.

  “Really?” I say. “That one crunchy riff they play? I really like that.”

  “You mean the organ? That’s a Hammond B-3 organ. That’s what Booker T. plays.”

  “An organ? You mean like a church organ?”

  “Well, yeah. They used them in churches,” says Terry. “But all the old soul bands used Hammond organs too. They’re the best.”
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  “Sounds great. All raspy.”

  “That’s because the organ’s overdriving the speaker. Those speakers have tubes in them. Too much input, and they get that great grinding sound.”

  I thought about that for a second.

  “Soul music? What’s that?”

  “It’s like rhythm-and-blues music,” says Terry. “You know—Otis Redding, James Brown, Aretha Franklin. All soul singers.”

  “Soul singers. Hey, how come you know all this stuff?”

  Terry laughs. When she smiles, the corners of her eyes go all crinkly.

  “My brother, Houston. He’s a professional musician. Or was. He’s a Hammond B-3 player.”

  Holy crap. This Terry is way cooler than I thought. The sister of a real musician. How about that? Then she starts asking me about my music, about playing the bass. Unbelievable. Dad never asks me about that stuff. Never. I tell her what kind of music I like and all about the heavy-metal band. I’m talking way more than normal, like I do when I get excited about something. I tell her about walking over to Grant Newson in the cafeteria and the fight. I even told her about Mom and the Beatles records.

  Then Terry starts talking about her brother, Houston. He used to be in a lot of soul bands. One of them, The Amazing Rhythm Kings, used to play clubs all the time and even got their music played on the radio. They opened a few times for some big bands at the Royal Theatre, which is a famous theatre in Victoria.

  “Hey, maybe I can go see his band sometime?” I say.

  “Well…no. He’s not playing in a band anymore,” says Terry.

  “How come?”

  “Well…Houston has some problems. I think the stress got to him. He used to run everything. You know, booking the band, producing their CDS, running the rehearsals, driving the van. It got to be too much.”

  Terry looks away for a second. I think maybe she’s choked up or something. But I can’t tell, not knowing her that well. Plus, with older people I never know what’s going on.

  “Oh. That’s too bad,” I say.