Chapter Ten

You could tell that Bobby had won over my mom by the fact that she had waved her "peace and quiet" requirement. She had never much minded my noise for some reason - maybe because I did try and keep it from bothering her. I would use headphones as much as I could but with Bobby that didn't work out. Even with headphones his singing was loud and to tell you the truth kind of grating. He could carry a tune well enough, and I'm sure it would have been fine for most people, but something about it started driving me crazy. It probably wasn't the voice by itself but the building resentment I had to this pest who was infesting my space and polluting my air with his breath. Okay, that sounds kind of harsh, I admit.

Other than the noise he was the typical stray. He contributed nothing, and took and took and took. He ate and he drank and didn't do dishes. He didn't clean up or offer to cook. He didn't do anything, really, but sit there and wait for me to come home, and then pester me to play music with him. My mom, like I said, she had the idea that this was the thing, both for him and for me, and when she heard about Mario Flambeau, well, there was no stopping mom and no stopping Bobby. My dad was curious too. The Flaming Pigs were naturally "vintage" and he wanted to see for himself. We made a family expedition out of it one late afternoon, when Laura had "made some arrangements", which is how my mom put it. What it turned out to be was something straight out of a movie, and by that I mean zombies.

We piled into the bug and drove over to St Catherine's, dad driving with mom up front, and in the back there was me next to Bobby. Bobby was talking so much that dad turned on the radio, KKAS, and blasted it as loud as he could. You see, up to this point dad had pretty much avoided the scene. He never liked strays anyway, and especially fast talking mutts. He had figured out when it was safe to be home, which was when we were down in my room after dinner. This way he didn't have to listen to the babbling rambling perpetually emerging from Bobby. It just so happened they were playing a Triple Shot of Flaming Pigs, which got Bobby singing along at the top of his lungs, never noticing the looks that we gave him. You can just see us, the three way-too-nice guys, trapped in a small car with Asshole Supreme.

"I wanted you forever", he screeched in that Johnny Bricks way, a goofy falsetto mixed up with rasping, "but you couldn't hold a candle to my lo-o-o-o-o-v-e".

We got there eventually, and we were relieved to get out of the car. Bobby had raced on ahead to the church after mom had pointed it out. I followed along slowly, me and my dad, while my mom strode ahead to make contact with Laura. We found her downstairs in the basement. There are two ways to go into the church. Up the wide steps to the main place that everyone goes, or down to the side to the cellar. The wide steps were marble and clean. The side steps were concrete and chipped. The church was a nice one, all shiny and wood, with plenty of stained glass and polish. It had all the stations of the cross and all the various trimmings that go with the Catholics. The Jesus had a sad look on his face, but wasn't too bloody. I went up there first with my dad because, well, we just wanted to see. When we go on outings, me and my dad tend to wander away from the main destination. We tend to save it for later, like with ice cream. If we get a chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream sandwich, we'll go for the strawberry first, and then the vanilla, saving the best part, the chocolate, for last.

We spent a few minutes examining the various idols. My dad is especially partial to graven images. I liked the stained glass. After awhile, though, we crossed paths in the middle and with a look we agreed it was time to go down. We went back outside and down the bad steps, where we entered the poor people's place. Remember I said the church could do more? Well, that's what I meant, from the look of this place. Compared to upstairs was like heaven and hell. Up there was beautiful, quiet and glowing. Downstairs was cramped and dirty and stank. It was full of odd people, rushing around. Several old ladies dressed in grocery bags were passing out baskets of prunes. Some old men were scratching the lice in their heads as they shuffled along from one side of the room to another. Chairs were placed here and there, strategically to make an adventure of moving about. I saw some young people grabbing styrofoam cups and hiding them furtively in heavy wool coats. I saw a thin girl in a tight fitting skirt turn around and she could have been seventy instead of seventeen, so messed up from drugs you couldn't tell.

I am not easily spooked. I've been around town and I've seen what I've seen. I know about bad things in life, but I was not at all ready for this. I looked at my dad and saw that he too was shocked and surprised. He was eying the exit like me, but then my mom showed up and shouted

"This way", and gestured for us to follow her. She led us to a side room, down a wet corridor, around a corner or two. In the room were four people, not counting us. There was a short greasy man wearing duct taped glasses who was sitting inside of a drum set, smashing away at the snare with a stick that was held together with tape in two places. There was an old woman who seemed to be making a pot of coffee way back in the corner. It turned out later to be a doll tea set and she was the Queen of the Netherlands. There was a lovely young woman wearing jeans and a jacket, who was sitting on the floor beside a bent over old man, and that old man was holding a battered old red electric guitar. He was Mario Flambeau. He was no one.

Bobby had already attempted to talk with Mario, but that had gone nowhere, and now he was pacing around in the room. Without me being there he was talking real loud to the drummer, who was too busy making a racket to hear him.

"Count it out", Bobby said, "on a one and a two", but the drummer was counting it out to a different numerical sequence. It was difficult to tell what he thought he was doing. He seemed to know something about playing the drums, but it was merely a pestilent noise he was making. Suddenly the room got even louder as Mario started to play and his amp was turned up way too high. He was still just as hunched, sitting there on the naked concrete, the guitar on his lap and the look on his face was just frozen. His fingers were moving but nothing else was. Combined with the drums it was scary. That is the word. terrifying.

And then Bobby started to sing. I told you how he liked to make up songs to my jamming, and how those songs never worked. Same thing here.

"Pop-corn kool-aid in the sun-shine", he wailed, "rest rooms for customers only".

Bobby was back to twitching and dancing and doing his rock and roll superstar thing. His right hand was clenched in a fist and help up like he was carrying a microphone. The Queen of the Netherlands rushed over and started clapping in time to some rhythm or other. Laura turned toward me and smiled. That was the moment I lost my heart, forever. Then the drummer's stick broke and he started wailing, and Laura rushed over to fix it again. As soon as she had it taped up he continued. Mario and Bobby hadn't stopped for even a moment.

My dad had less patience than me. After I broke out of the hypnotic stupor which was caused by my falling in love, I noticed he was gone. My mom was also turning to leave. I followed. The three of us regrouped up stairs on the sidewalk. For a minute, nobody so much as gestured. We looked at each other in stupification. Finally my dad said he wanted to go up to the church for awhile. We went with him. My mom was nominally Catholic, but she hadn't practiced in years. In fact, I couldn't remember the last time she even said anything about church. We were atheists, mainly, because we didn't have any reason to be anything else. My dad had his store and his music. My mom had her good work to do. I had my life which was pretty much all I could ask for. 'What more could you want?' I would say to myself. Religion always seemed kind of greedy to me, as if this incredible world wasn't enough. It was more than enough for me.

We sat down, the three of us, all in a row in a pew, and I think my mom prayed. My dad and myself were enjoying the vibe. We always liked churches when they were empty.

"Well, that was a sight", my mom said as we left some time later. My dad agreed with a snort. We met Bobby outside on the sidewalk. He was grinning.

"Fucking awesome", he said, "Oh man, that was great!".

All the way home in the car he was raving. Mario Flambeau was incredible, amazing, stupendous, mind-blowing, a genius, a star, he was excellent. The rest of us knew he was out of his mind, but Bobby saw nothing of that. All I could think was I hoped I would never have to be in that basement again.