After we downed the two frozen pizzas, Joey said it was time for tunes and reflection.
He hadn’t asked why the hell it was my dad had left a message on his answering machine. I didn’t let out that I’d earlier been in a fight and had punched some Badger-clad jackass who tried to jump me for jumping his pal. Joey had, it seemed, noticed that my knuckles were scraped up and that I’d tied a bloody T-shirt around my arm, but he didn’t push me about this odd constellation of details. He waited for me to talk about it.
We sat in the living room of his trailer, an ugly plaid couch and an ugly plaid love seat. I drank root beer like we always did when I visited (Joey kept Potosi Root Beer on tap in a “kegerator”-style refrigerator in the living room). The place was much neater than usual, which I mentioned to him.
“Dude, it’s from you. More inspiration from your green notebook. I’m cleaning up my life!” He put a Getz/Gilberto jazz album on the record player that sat on a wood console. The music was Brazilian, he told me. From 1964. Over fifty years old and it still sounded good.
“You take such good care of your music,” I said. “My dad has old records, but they’re all messed up. They skip. I don’t even know why he keeps them.”
“The covers probably contain memories.”
“He doesn’t take care of his memories.”
“My gramps and my dad did, you know? They were lovers of the actual music on this vinyl. You couldn’t even play one of these suckers without cleaning it before and cleaning it after. They cared about shit more deeply than most people do.”
I let that comment hang in the air for a moment, then got to it.
“Hey. I don’t think you should talk about me as your inspiration, Joey,” I said quietly. “I don’t think I’m worthy of that. I mean, I know I’m not.”
“You mean, that shit you said about going to jail?”
“Yeah. That’s part of it.”
“Did you do something bad?”
“I fought some drunk guys. I beat them up.”
“Oh!” Joey said. “That’s not nearly as bad as I figured. Nice! You can work that shit out with the cops, no problem.”
“I’m in a bad place, though.”
“Dude, I know. Your dad left that message. He was real worried about you because you kicked the shit out of a door and then ran away like a crazy man.”
“He said that?” I asked.
“He said something like that, yeah,” Joey said.
“It’s true.”
“Listen, can I tell you something while we’re getting real about this?”
“Yeah.”
“Before I came to get you at the cemetery, I called up your old man and let him know I was going to pick you up. I told him I’d let you hang out here for a while, but I’d make sure you got home, too.”
I sat up straight. “You did what?” This didn’t feel like Joey. This didn’t seem right. This broke the rules for us. “Why, man? Why would you do that?”
“He was worried, dude.”
“Everybody’s worried. Mom’s worried all the damn time. But this is my life, not his. It’s not hers. It’s mine,” I said.
“Yeah,” Joey said. “But I hate to hear a dad be worried. My dad didn’t get to worry about me and I think he’d want to know I’m okay. Plus, this . . .”
Anger began to boil in my gut.
He went on. “. . . I think my brain recently myelinated, you know what I mean? I feel like my frontal lobe turned adult in the last couple of weeks. That’s one weird-ass feeling, I tell you that. Having your brain suddenly grow?”
I stood up, drained the root beer in my mug. “I have to go.”
Joey placed the record cover he was holding down on the console. He spread out his arms, smiled. “Come on, bro. Just chill. There are some more things I want to tell you.”
“No,” I said.
“Sit down.”
I didn’t.
“That green notebook you’ve been writing in? You know how much that’s meant to me? How much that’s made me think?”
“About how you want to screw me over?” I said, mouth getting dry, skin itching.
“Chill. Come on. You’ve inspired me with your process, man. And it’s good, getting that Isaiah Sadler life in my lungs. That air makes my nut clear as a bell.” He pointed at his head. “I’m new, bro. I’m not just going to be weird Joey the hippie dude in the trailer.”
“That’s too bad. He was the best person I knew.”
“Well, I’m still him, but more. Because I’m not going to be just anything, okay? I’m going to be Joey Derossi the king of all goddamn hippie trailer dudes in the whole world. That is my path forward with this barn project. I have you to thank for that. You’re a quiet leader, Isaiah Sadler. You lead by example. I’m just following your lead, okay?”
Just then, a set of headlights pulled up the drive outside Joey’s trailer. We both turned and looked out the window.
“Who’s that?” Joey asked.
“Is it my dad?” I asked.
Suddenly the trailer filled with flashing blue and red light.
“Whoa,” Joey said. “Wasn’t expecting that. Cop cruiser. Your dad must’ve told the cops where you were!”
“No. No. This can’t be happening,” I said.
Joey held up his hands in that universal signal to chill the hell out. “It’s cool. It’s going to be fine, okay?” Joey said.
Someone pounded on the door with a heavy object.
“Don’t let them in,” I said, shaking. “I don’t want to do this again. Please, man.”
Joey laughed. “You fought with some drunks, bro. No big deal. Happens every night down at the bars.”
The pounding came again.
Maybe I should’ve welcomed speaking to the cops. I could tell them that I tried to stop a drunk driver but was attacked by another guy and only defended myself from that attack. Yeah, it was a stupid move on my part, but that was the truth. I was trying to save people. And I could tell them Grace just drove me, had nothing to do with it. I could tell them I was sorry. I could apologize to the guy I punched. . . .
But no. Maybe I have some form of PTSD? Instead of facing the cop, I freaked out like when I was a little kid.
I ran to the back of the trailer, Joey Derossi’s bedroom.
Joey shouted, “Just stop that shit.”
The windows in this bedroom were the size only a cat could wriggle through. I ran to the bathroom. I’d helped Joey install a wall full of glass bricks in there. No way out. I cut back into the living room, where the cop now stood.
“Isaiah,” the cop said.
“No,” I replied.
“No?” the cop asked. “You’re not Isaiah?”
“No. I won’t go,” I said.
“That’s not an option,” the cop said.
“You can’t arrest me,” I said.
“Nobody said anything about arresting anybody,” the cop said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
I still had the heavy root beer mug in my hand. Like a wild idiot on a reality TV cop show, I lifted it above my head. “No!” I shouted. “I won’t go.”
“Bro,” Joey said. “What in the hell are you doing?”
I threw the glass mug at the floor with as much force as I could. I don’t know what I was thinking. If I wanted to hit the cop, I’d have thrown it at the cop. If I wanted to shatter it, to create a diversion so I could run out the door, I’d have thrown it at the wall. But I flung it at the floor? At the carpet?
It bounced left off the floor and crashed into the console stereo’s right speaker, breaking the delicate woven wood lattice, cracking the wicker speaker grille behind, causing whatever mechanism the grille protected to pop and then let out a loud, continuous hiss.
“Oh shit!” Joey cried. “You killed Grandpa’s stereo!”
“I’m not leaving,” I yelled at the cop.
“The hell you aren’t, dude,” Joey shouted. “Get out of here. Go with the cop, man!” Joey knelt next to the speaker. He pushed his fingers into the hole I’d made, pulled out a piece of broken wood. “Look what you did.”
I’d never seen Joey sad. Not once. When Joey talked about his dead father or grandfather, he was always happy. He told good stories about their lives. When he talked about his mom, who left town with a truck driver and now waitressed at a Norwegian troll-themed restaurant in Mount Horeb, he got a glint of joy in his eyes. “She wears an elf hat, dude!” When Joey talked about Hannah and Ray Gatos, it was always about a memory that made Joey laugh, not about death, not about sadness.
Now he blinked at me, brokenhearted, tears in his eyes. It took getting involved with a disaster like me to find out the meaning of unhappiness. I couldn’t take it. That was enough.
I held out my hands to the cop and said quietly, “Cuff me. Okay? I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
“Come outside and get in the car, you fool.” The cop turned, without cuffing me.
“I’m sorry, man,” I whispered to Joey.
“Get out, dude,” he said.
I followed the cop out, leaving Joey and his cracked stereo behind.