“I need to make a stop,” Uncle Vic said as we hit the road again.
I visualized the errands Mom used to drag me on after my Saturday hockey games: grocery store, dry cleaner, post office, bank … It always started at the food court in the mall. We’d replay every goal while I gobbled down something greasy and Mom sipped her second or third coffee of the day. That part was good. But the other stops always took way too long. By the time we reached home, I was bored to death and in desperate need of a shower.
My stomach growled with hunger. Mom would be furious if we weren’t home in time for dinner. “How long?”
“Quick. I have to find my guitar and … I was sure it was at the house.” Uncle Vic talked more to himself than me. “Plus, I have to talk to Sage.”
“Where are we going?”
“This building up here.” Uncle Vic turned a corner, using his knee and one finger to steer. “A couple of the band members share a studio in there.”
“Okay.”
Uncle Vic pulled up to a shabby-looking low-rise. He shut off the engine but left the keys in the ignition. “You wait here.”
“No way,” I said, glancing around at the seedy neighborhood.
Uncle Vic looked irritated as he grabbed the keys. “It’d be faster without you.”
I scrambled out of the car. “I’m not exactly slow.”
With a sigh, Uncle Vic locked the doors.
“And besides, you have ‘nothing to say that the kid can’t hear,’” I added, imitating Uncle Vic’s raspy voice.
Uncle Vic rolled his eyes but didn’t protest as he led the way into the building.
The studio turned out to be an open room with a small, dirty window looking out onto the parking lot. There was a large desk, covered with papers and a couple of ancient-looking desktops, shoved into one corner. An old sofa sat in the middle of the room, with big, ratty cushions scattered around it. The place smelled like the back of the Zamboni shed at the arena — where people (not me) smoked cigarettes and grass (not the lawn variety).
“The rent is cheap,” Uncle Vic said as we stepped into the room.
“Uh-huh,” I said, trying not to stare at a couple of girls — women, I guess, although they looked younger than Uncle Vic — who were trying to hang a poster. A strange guy, with an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth, stood off to one side, supervising.
“Hey, everyone, meet my nephew, Hudson.” Uncle Vic twisted his sunglasses around so they were on the back of his head. “Hudson, this is everyone.” People around the room nodded and waved.
A woman appeared from behind a curtain of beads hanging in a doorway at the far end of the room. “Hi, Hudson,” she said in a soft voice. She was pretty, with long, straight hair and a flowing beaded skirt that swished around her as she moved toward us. “What do you think of the poster? It cost a fortune, but I think it’ll get us lots of publicity.”
Uncle Vic whistled. “I like.”
The poster was blue with white trees in the foreground, and SONIC ENERGY: Change the Way You Think was written across the top in huge, bold letters. The details of an upcoming concert were listed in smaller print below. “What’s the concert for?” I asked.
“We’re raising awareness,” said the strange guy, his cigarette bobbing up and down between his lips. As he turned toward me, I noticed his T-shirt — a marijuana leaf with the words Free Mary Jane below. If Uncle Vic’s friends were into dope, could they also be into something heavier?
“Awareness of what?” I asked Uncle Vic.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he replied.
The possibilities flashed through my mind like advertisements on a Jumbotron. All bad. All illegal.
“Our band believes in sustainability,” said Uncle Vic. “That’s why we’ve gone carbon neutral — hey, that should’ve gone on the poster,” he said to the pretty woman with the beaded skirt who stood next to him.
“Keep the poster simple. That’s what we all agreed. We can talk about the carbon-neutral stuff during the concert,” she replied.
“Right.” Uncle Vic winked. “Sage is always right,” he said before disappearing into a corner of the room, which was stacked with instruments.
“You’re Sage?” I asked awkwardly.
With a smile, she nodded. Her dimple reminded me of Willow’s. “You play any instruments?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“You should jam with us sometime. Try a bongo drum or something.”
“What do you play?”
“Percussion, mainly. A bit of guitar.” Sage ran her fingers through the ends of her hair, making the bangles on her arm jingle against each other. “Mostly I’m the singer.”
I wanted to hear her sing.
I looked around the room as Sage and I stood there, waiting for Uncle Vic. I’d insisted on coming up to the studio so I could snoop — but I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for. The place certainly didn’t seem like one of those drug dens you see on TV. Instead, it was relaxed and friendly, like the dressing room after a win. There was a potluck sign-up sheet posted on the bulletin board and incense on the windowsill. Maybe the weird smoky smell was actually incense — patchouli, the kind Mom hated.
“Found it!” Uncle Vic’s voice echoed off the low ceiling as he emerged from the corner.
“Your guitar?” Sage’s voice was light and airy in comparison — a bit like Willow’s. “Groovy.”
“I can’t believe it was here the whole time.” Uncle Vic brushed some white powder off the side of the case. “Right next to Jasper’s sax.”
“Groovy,” repeated Sage. For some reason, the word sounded cool coming off her tongue — not dorky like it would if anyone else said it.
Uncle Vic swung the case over his shoulder. “Hey, did any of my suggestions pan out?” he asked Sage. “We definitely need a Dex replacement. We’re in deep.”
Sage shook her head and the beads on her skirt danced. “What about Hudson?”
I suddenly felt light-headed, like I’d just finished two back-to-back shifts on a penalty kill. A side effect of the incense — or something more? Was Uncle Vic using code now, too? Were they looking for a new drug runner or something?
“Hudson?” Uncle Vic frowned. “He’s a jock. It’s not his thing.”
“People don’t fit into those kinds of packages,” said Sage. “You know that, Vic.”
Packages?
“Well —”
Sage raised her hand, cutting him off. “He’s cute, and it could help us attract a younger demographic.”
Cute? Me? I pretty much stopped breathing.
Uncle Vic set his guitar down next to the door. “The kid’s way too tall to sell the cute and innocent routine …”
Whoa, wait a second. Did they want me to sell drugs at school? We’d been warned about that — pushers hiring kids to sell to their friends. But Uncle Vic wasn’t like that. Was he?
“But,” Sage insisted, “we need an extra …”
As Sage and Uncle Vic bantered back and forth, talking about me like I wasn’t even there, I tuned them out. Thoughts crammed into my numb, nonworking brain like cars in a parking lot after a game — all moving slowly in random directions with nowhere to go.
My eyes focused on the white powder on Uncle Vic’s guitar case. Was that cocaine? Was there so much of it in this “studio” that it hung in the air, clogging up my brain? Or was the woozy feeling just a combination of the incense and my empty stomach? I needed some fresh air.
“I’m outta here,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’ll see you in the car.”
Sage looked at me — concerned. Her eyes were brown and deep. The rushing sound of blood thumped through my ears. I looked down at the floor and then happened to glance at Uncle Vic’s guitar case with the white powder on it …
I charged toward the door, and somehow my foot connected with the guitar’s black hard-shell case on my way by. Pain shot through the toe pushing at the end of my high-top.
Everything in the room — the movement, the chatter, the music — ground to a halt.
Sage stood there, scratching her head. “Are you okay?”
I rolled my ankle to make sure it wasn’t sprained. “I think so,” I said, even though I knew I was anything but okay. Only the injury wasn’t physical, it was emotional. It seemed like Uncle Vic and his friends were up to something. And I didn’t like it.
“Good,” said Sage.
Everyone else went back to what they were doing.
Uncle Vic picked up his guitar case and cleared his throat. “Guess we’d better hit the road, eh, kid?”
As Sage kissed Uncle Vic on the cheek, I shuffled out the door as quietly as I could.
A few people called out “Bye, Hudson” behind me. I wondered if one of them was Sage. But having made such a fool of myself, I knew she’d probably never speak to me again. No doubt she was second-guessing the idea of including me in … whatever.
I dragged my fist along the cracked walls and chipped paint that lined the hallway. Pulling on the rickety handrail a lot harder than necessary, I took the stairs two at a time to gain distance from Uncle Vic. But when I got to the car, I had no choice but to wait for him. Standing there in the middle of the parking lot, I tried to sort out whether I was onto something or actually on something.
“You want to talk about what just happened in there?” asked Uncle Vic as he unlocked the car. “You were acting pretty strange.”
“No.” I slumped into my seat, trying to figure out how to deal with my suspicions. Even though the clues were there, did they really add up? It was still hard to believe that Uncle Vic was into drugs. But what else could explain his weird behavior?
As we pulled away, I looked up at the low-rise and thought I saw Sage’s profile in the studio window. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“Sage? No.” Uncle Vic smiled. “No. It’s not like that. The band? We’re like family.”
Jealousy jabbed me like the edge of a stick blade. No wonder he no longer paid much attention to me. “Then why don’t you just go and live with them?” The shot was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“Look, I know I’ve crowded you out since I moved in. But I’ve enjoyed hanging with you, kid …” Uncle Vic rubbed his chin thoughtfully and took his time choosing his words. “I know I haven’t always been the best uncle. Or brother. But I’ve always loved you guys more than anything. Family really is the most important thing …”
“Then how come you’re never around unless you need us?” And how come you’re hiding things from me? I wanted to ask the second question — the more important question — out loud. But I didn’t.
“Well, I guess that’s because I also love to play guitar. Which means I’m on the road a lot. And lately I’ve been really into this sustainability thing. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it affected you so much, Hudson.”
Uncle Vic waited for me to respond. I didn’t. After a few minutes, he turned up the radio. “You have to check out the solo on this track. Pure genius.”
Music filled the car as Uncle Vic hummed and drummed along. I reviewed what had gone down in the studio. What was the deal with all this sustainability stuff? I’d always assumed that his activism was just an angle he used to get publicity. Maybe that was part of the problem — I didn’t know him any better than he knew me.
“Have you always done stuff for the environment?” I asked when the song was over and the station had cut to commercial.
Uncle Vic nodded. “Since college. It started with your mom’s campus greening campaign.”
Another something — and someone — I knew very little about. Suddenly, I saw an opening in the play. Maybe a backdoor pass could get me behind Mom’s rock-solid defense. “Mom was part of a campus greening campaign?”
“Not just part of it; she organized the whole thing. Met with the college administration and convinced them to make a lot of changes: banning pesticides, forcing the cafeterias to stop using disposable dishes and cutlery, setting aside land for community gardens —”
“Mom did all that?”
“Yup. Got me into the campaign when she asked the band to play at a fundraising concert.”
“Scream Soda?”
“How’d you know?”
“You mentioned it to E. O.”
“Oh.” Uncle Vic lowered the sun visor.
“What about my dad?” I hadn’t planned to ask, but before I knew it, the words were out there, and I couldn’t take them back. I knew they’d all met in college.
“Your dad?” Uncle Vic took his eyes off the road to look at me, even though we were driving through the busy section of town, which led to the freeway.
“Was he involved, too?”
Uncle Vic turned his attention back to driving just in time to see the light change ahead of us. He jammed on the brakes. The car came to a skidding stop in front of the red light.
We sat there in silence as a dad pushing a stroller stepped around our front bumper in the crosswalk, glaring at Uncle Vic through the windshield. The light turned green, but Uncle Vic didn’t move. The car behind us honked.
“All right, all right!” Uncle Vic said, shaking his fist in the rearview mirror.
When the car was rolling again, I took a chance and repeated my question. “Was my dad part of the campus greening campaign?”
“Not so much.” Uncle Vic pursed his lips together. “Listen, kid, if you want to know about your dad, you’ll have to talk to your mom.”
“But you know how she is —”
“I know, kid. I’ll try to get her to open up, but it’s going to take patience. She’ll tell you someday. Everything happens in its own time.”
I knew by the set of Uncle Vic’s jaw that there was no point asking any more questions. I banged my head back against the headrest and kept my eyes on the road.
The secrets were piling up faster than a heap of dirty laundry: activist mom, missing dad, criminal uncle … I needed to know more.
Why did nothing seem to happen in my time?