“Up yours, Mister Russell!”
He threw one of my cigarettes over his shoulder. “What?”
“You frickin’ told me that my kinda smokes would give me a hairy bum, and I trusted you, and I gave you my pack and now you’re smoking them, and I’m stuck with your Big Chief smokes and it’s all just frickin’ B.S!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You frickin’ lied to me. You’re smoking my smokes.”
“Clarence, it’s too late for me. Who cares if I have a hairy ass? I’m lookin’ out for you.”
“Wha! As if.”
“Look: what is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t blame this all on me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why are you so upset? What’s on your mind? Just spit it out. I can tell.”
I didn’t want to ugly-cry but it I couldn’t stop it. “Well, it’s frickin’ B.S. You know. You always say that if we know the rock beat that you’ll let us play for the whole frickin’ Band class, and I frickin’ practise. Like, my dad used to be a drummer and he showed me, and I frickin’ show him every night, and he’s like, ‘That’s the frickin’ rock beat.’ And I show it to you and you keep picking the triplets and all the hot girls, and I think you just like watching their jugs bounce when they frickin’ play.”
“Okay. Did you just say ‘Jugs!?’” He was trying not to laugh. “That’s—that’s it? That’s all you got? That’s the only thing that’s upsetting you?”
“Yeah, and another thing is, like, we can tell that you party all weekend. Like you got the frickin’ good guitars and frickin’ really deadly primo drum kit that no one’s allowed to touch, and all we frickin’ do is sing and we never get to frickin’ play. Like we frickin’ sing stuff from the ’80s, like “Come on, Eileen” and “Africa” by Toto and you type out the lyrics and you don’t even know that the lyrics say that it’s Serengeti.”
“What?”
“You put dash-dash-dash-question mark ’cause you don’t know what he’s saying. It’s frickin’ Serengeti. Even my mom knew that.”
“It’s Serengeti?”
“Yeah.”
“Take it easy. You know I’ve listen to that Toto song thirty years now and I thought it was Ferengeti.”
“Well, it’s Serengeti.”
“Hunh. Go figure. So that’s it? That’s all you got.”
I wiped my eyes. “Yeah.”
“Look, man. I been married twice. I’m payin’ alimony, and I saw you with your smokes that I’ve always wanted to try and, okay, maybe they don’t give you a hairy bum—but they could, you know. Do you really want a hairy ass your whole life?”
“No.”
“Well, there you go. So you’re telling me you got the rock beat?”
“Yeah. I had the rock beat for three years.”
“Well, then show me, baby. Let’s see what you got.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. If you can frickin’ nail it, I’ll give you an A plus, and you can do the rock beat on Monday.”
“Are you really being serious?”
“Yeah, let’s see what you got, baby!”
Boom Boom Tsh. Boom Boom Tsh. Boom Boom Tsh.
So I started doing it. I started doing the rock beat. I frickin’ nailed it, man. I frickin’ nailed it. I been practising in my jammies, my gonchies and my long johns. I did the rock beat until I became the rock beat. Next thing I knew Mr. Russell was doing the rock beat with me, and we were swaying and smiling and he was grinning and he’s, like, “Frick, man. Frick. You got it, Clarence. You got it!”
I’m like, “Yeah, I frickin’ got it. I had it for years.”
He goes, “Yeah, you said it. There you go.”