Gabe Johnson Takes Over Read online

“She’s not a man,” I said.

  “Then I’m asking you.”

  “Chunk isn’t a man either,” Camille said.

  “This isn’t your business,” Shaver said.

  “Oh, my God. It’s true,” Camille said. “How could they do that? How could they just take our money?”

  Shaver’s face went slack. He leaned back in the chair. “Kaus is a lady from hell,” he said.

  “What?” Camille asked.

  “Please leave.”

  “You said Kaus!” I shouted.

  “You try standing up to that school board.”

  “You have to stand up,” Camille said.

  “No.”

  “Can we raise the money?” I asked. “For the camp?”

  “Good luck to you,” Shaver said.

  “Don’t be a wimp!” Camille shouted. “You have to stand up!”

  “Time for you to leave, Ms. Buzzkill. Right now,” Shaver said. “I’ll call the cops.”

  “We are gone,” Camille hissed.

  She blew out the door. I followed behind her. We climbed in her truck. Camille pulled out fast.

  “See?” I said. “Told you.”

  “Oh, my God. We have to do something. We have to raise money and get our camp back,” Camille said. “For Shaver and for us.”

  “For Shaver?”

  “He’s losing it. Did you see…He used to be so…so—”

  “Great.”

  “Yeah.” Camille blinked.

  She took a left and pulled around by the lake. We drove past the Wilson Beach parking lot. There was a silver Honda Civic in the lot. Justin’s car, I’m sure. Luckily, Camille didn’t see it.

  “Listen. I already talked to Dante. He’ll sponsor us if we have a bake sale or something, an event of some kind.”

  “Really?” Camille asked. “You did something?”

  “Why is that surprising?”

  “We need something big, Chunk. We need it fast. Camp is in a week. Would Dante give us a lot of money?”

  “No,” I said. “Definitely not. He’ll give us some donuts.”

  “Uh-huh,” Camille said. She drove way too slow through town. Cars honked at us, but she didn’t pay any attention. “We need to make a big event.”

  “A very big event,” I said and nodded. “Huge.”

  “Like a dance or a…a bachelor auction or art auction or we could go door-to-door and sell donuts?” Camille said.

  “We are a band,” I said. “How about a concert?”

  “Oh, that’s…that’s pretty good,” Camille said, nodding. She pulled the truck over to the side of the road. Some dude in a Pontiac shouted at us, I assume about how slow we were going. Camille took in a deep breath and nodded more. “Yeah. Totally. We’re a band and we can play our instruments!”

  We stared at each other with our mouths hanging open like fools, sir, like we’d just heard a message from God. Then we tried to high-five but totally missed. People like Camille should never high-five.

  I can high-five. I’m good like that. With the right person.

  It wasn’t a great idea really. We had no time to organize the thing. Camille became obsessed with this concert though. She stayed obsessed with it even after it was way too late.

  I don’t know, sir. I guess I let Camille take charge at first because my leadership bone was in poor condition. I really didn’t think anyone would listen to me anyway.

  When she dropped me off at home, she said, “I’ll come up with a poster for the concert!”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Great.” I’d already begun thinking of all the problems and our lack of time. I couldn’t see how we’d do it without Justin either. Justin is so good at organizing stuff.

  Inside, I texted him, What are you doing? Where are you? Need your help on this. Camille organizing concert. Me too.

  He wrote back, At Wilson Beach with Sellers, Emily, and Janessa. Come down?

  It was a hard slap in the face. I blinked. My eyes watered. I almost fell over, sir. Seth Sellers, Emily Yu, and Janessa Rogers? I stared at that text. My heart beat hard in my chest. My mouth got dry. Janessa?

  It just didn’t seem possible. I read and reread the text. Then I got mad.

  I didn’t want Justin to show Seth, Emily, and Janessa a crazy upset text from a psycho blimp. (Janessa sometimes called me a psycho blimp.) So I didn’t send one until later. Even though I worked early in the morning, I stayed up until 1 a.m., burning up, man. Then I thumbed the shit in.

  Way to drop your friends at first sign of popularity, man. Rude to Camille? Hanging with douche Janessa and Sellers? Don’t give a shit that band got screwed? Good going!

  About ten minutes later, a text came back. 1. Janessa is my girlfriend. I wanted to tell you about what was going on last week, but you were flipping out. Please don’t call her names ever again. 2. Stop being a drama queen. It’s band camp, not the Holocaust. Talk tomorrow.

  Oh, man, sir. Oh, crap. This can’t be real. This is a joke. I tried to thumb up a response, but I couldn’t do it. Janessa Rogers. Eventually, I threw my phone on the floor.

  Yeah, that’s right. Mystery texts? Buzz on the Interweb? Justin “Clark Kent” Cornell, my dork friend, scored the biggest shit-face girl ever to exist in our grade.

  She’s like a beach volleyball player on TV. What do you think he finds interesting about her? She wears tight pants and she looks super fine. She’s part of Minnekota Lake’s evil Charlie’s Angels (with Kailey and Emily). Justin likes to win. He wins at everything. Debate. Swim team. Hot girls. He certainly isn’t hanging with Janessa Rogers because she’s sweet and wonderful because she’s the exact opposite. She’s terrible and mean. But she’s hot and she doesn’t dress weird like Camille.

  Makes me sick.

  Seriously terrible.

  Screw it.

  Just screw it.

  Do we get lunch, Mr. Rodriguez? I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.

  Gross. I’ll take the salad.

  CHAPTER 9

  Yeah, I like the ham part. Cubed ham. Pretty delicious. I like the cheese part and the ranch dressing part too. But the lettuce—

  I will choke down the lettuce because I need roughage. Roughage for health. That’s what Grandpa says. He has to have half his calories in roughage or he can’t take a dump. Disgusting, dude. Like that’s what I want to think about while I’m eating dinner. Grandpa’s ability to take a crap.

  It’s better with him here than when it was just Dad and me. That was pretty bad. We were dying in the swamp of despair. Dad went to work. I went to school. We got home, ordered pizza, watched TV until we passed out. I’d wake up with my guts burning at like 3 a.m. and go to bed. At school, I couldn’t concentrate because I was so tired. Last half of eighth grade, I slept a lot in class. (Code Red stopped that in high school.) And I got pulled out of the top math group and reading group and I quit swimming and track. (I always sucked anyway—I mean, I liked it, but whatever.) I could only stay awake for band, it seemed like (my savior, band). And Dad never went to bed. He slept on this broken-down recliner for like two years.

  He didn’t want to sleep in Mom’s bed. She picked it out. Giant, king-sized, space-aged foam. Mom bought that bed as part of her freaking-out spending binge, which left us seriously broke.

  Yeah. Her online boyfriend’s friend showed up in Minnekota on this Saturday morning right before Christmas. The lady took Mom to the airport in the Cities and then Mom went to Japan. Mom had been crying and stuffing crap in a big suitcase for like an hour and Dad was shouting at her. And I stood there in the door—I mean, I had just turned fourteen, sir. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Right before she left, she put her hands on my cheeks, swallowed really hard, and said, “Take care of your father, okay?” She was totally bawling at that point.

  I have no ide
a how she hooked up with a Japanese architect. It’s a weird mystery. Sort of. I mean, not that big a mystery. Mom turned into a Zen Buddhist a few years ago and she did yoga and bought all these plants that she snipped at with scissors. And she refused to eat anything but rice and she got a tattoo of some Japanese character on her shoulder. She lost about a million pounds (got down to like a hundred) and then she started closing herself in her office at night while Dad and I watched TV. I’m sure she was Skyping that Mitsunori.

  I really don’t know how they met in the first place.

  Of course, I still like her. She’s my mom. I love her because I have to. I just do because I miss her. She used to be really funny and noisy. Dad is the opposite of funny. Her laugh sounded like a goose honk.

  Canada goose. The house was noisy until she got Zen.

  When I was little, we were alone a lot because Dad was getting his PhD at St. Thomas, so he lived in the Cities part time. I thought it was pretty great. She was great. A nice mom. We went to the playground all the time with Kailey and her mom. Even in the winter, we did a bunch of stuff outside. Ice-skating on the lake. She just got excited about fresh air, you know? The fresh air was good for me. I was normal back then at least. I didn’t have to buy stretchy pants because regular kid pants fit just fine. Took a couple of years of Dad being around full time (moved up to head of accounting at the school) for Mom to get fat and tired and stupid and sad like the rest of us.

  Then she got Zen and she stopped honking like a goose and got skinny. And she got a Japanese boyfriend, who she probably talked to on her computer all night. Good times. Ha-ha.

  She doesn’t even email me, sir. It’s like I no longer exist at all.

  Hey. Let me eat my stupid roughage, okay?

  CHAPTER 10

  Okay. I guess it seemed reasonable. Spunk River Days. June 14, 15, and 16, right? Right there on Wilson Beach. Bunch of rock bands (including Wall of Sound from Minneapolis, which features an MLAHS band alum, which would’ve been a good tie-in to our fund-raising), softball tournament, a few measly rides run by dudes with no teeth, a bunch of carnival games, and cotton candy and slushies and crap. A tractor pull. Usually lots of bees and mosquitoes too. Takes place before band camp was supposed to start the following week (tomorrow). Seemed like the right time and place to do a fund-raiser for the band. I agreed with Camille on that point.

  Well, there were other points that should’ve been addressed before Camille started spreading the word, like where would we have this concert if the Wilson Beach band shell has already been booked for a year? How would we get word out to the town? How would we actually make any money? Pass a hat or charge admission and how do you charge admission if you’re outside? Also, how would we practice? What songs? Who would actually show up to blow their horns? Who would direct if Mr. Shaver drowned himself in booze and cigarettes and then took off in his car?

  Camille came into Dante’s around ten o’clock the next morning. She walked in and stopped in her tracks. She and Gore stared at each other. I had failed to mention to Camille the night before that Gore was now my coworker.

  “What are you looking at?” Gore asked.

  Gore scares people, sir. Some people. What’s weird is she’s great at the counter. Really chatty and nice. Customers from the Twin Cities clearly like her because they don’t understand her history. Camille knows though, so she was scared.

  Camille looked over at me. I shrugged. Then she held up a flier for the concert.

  “Nice butterfly,” Gore said.

  “Thanks?” Camille responded.

  Gore was right. Nice butterfly. Camille had drawn a sweet-looking butterfly floating over the shore of Minnekota Lake. She’d written underneath it, “MLAHS Marching Band Spunk River Fund-raiser!” She’d written, “Sponsored by Dante’s Donuts.” She had a slot for date, time, place, and price but hadn’t filled any of that in.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “Pretty good!” I said.

  “It’s stupid,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I’m a child,” she said.

  “What?” I didn’t get it, sir. It was a nice butterfly.

  “I’m just drawing pictures like a little kid, not getting anything done. I mean, where are we going to play?” she asked.

  “And when?” I asked.

  “Why?” Gore asked, as if she were a part of the conversation.

  “Why what?” Camille asked.

  “Why are you having a fund-raiser for the band?” Gore asked.

  “Cheerleaders are using all the money from the pop machine,” Camille said.

  “What?” Gore whispered. “What?” she said again.

  “Cheerleaders?” Camille said.

  “I heard you,” Gore whispered. Then she spoke so quietly Camille and I had to lean in to hear. “That’s false advertising for consumers, you know? Because I only bought pop out of that machine because the sign said it went to the band. I wouldn’t have given those girls my money. Not for any reason. I’m very angry about this.”

  “I’m sorry?” Camille said.

  “It’s not your fault,” Gore whispered.

  Dante came out from in back. He nodded at Camille. He pointed at Gore and me and said, “Get ready for the church rush, you two.” Then he looked at the flier in Camille’s hand. He blinked. He turned a little red. “I’m sponsoring what?” he said.

  “Spunk River Band Fund-raiser?” Camille said.

  “Chunk,” Dante said, “I’d like a word.” He turned and stomped into the back.

  “Why’d you put that on the poster?” I whispered to Camille.

  “But you said…I don’t know—It’s just a draft!”

  “You are just playing. You are a little kid,” I hissed.

  I turned and walked in back.

  Dante gave me the business. Squawked at me about pulling the wool over his eyes and crap like that. I calmed him down, told him it was just a draft. Dante’s a little explosive, I’ve figured out. Drama queen, right?

  No. We’re cool. We’re pals.

  What wasn’t cool is I totally offended Camille by calling her a kid. She’s so damn sensitive. When I came back out from talking to Dante, she was gone.

  “You made your girlfriend cry,” Gore whispered.

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Oh,” Gore said.

  “Crap,” I said.

  Poor Camille didn’t even know the Janessa/Justin news and there I was insulting her, you know? Felt bad.

  “Can I help?” Gore asked.

  “With what?”

  “Plan your concert so I can not get too mad about spending all my lemonade money on girls who have made my life a living hell forever,” Gore said.

  “Oh. Well. I. Hm. Maybe?”

  Oh, that’s just what we need, the murderer helping out. That will attract the crowds!

  “Okay,” Gore said. She smiled at me. She has a pretty smile. She’s not an odd outsider sad sack because she’s hard on the eyes. She’s a sad sack because she threatened to murder kids.

  After my shift, I texted Camille that I was sorry. She texted, Whatever. Sorry!!!!!

  Call me later, she wrote.

  This is your first summer in town, right, Mr. Rodriguez?

  Yeah, Spunk River Days is one sick name, but that’s the river that goes into Minnekota Lake, so what are you going to do? All the high school kids make disgusting jokes about Spunk River Days.

  I’m sure you can imagine what they say.

  Always cracks me up when I think about a pioneer coming across the little river and saying, “We shall call this waterway Spunk!”

  CHAPTER 11

  Grandpa and I jumped rope for a half hour in the afternoon. I was so sore from the day before, but I didn’t cry.

  That’s progress. G
o team!

  Not pretty. I was downstairs lying on the floor of my room, scribbling some dumb poetry about food into my ideas notebook. (I would kill for a soft bed of bread and a slice of ham spread across me. Crap like that.) I was listening to music, so I didn’t even hear her ring the doorbell or Grandpa let her in.

  I was shirtless. Camille came down the stairs and walked around the corner into my bedroom and I jumped, hit my head on the underside of my bed (a foldout couch), and then tried to roll under it so she wouldn’t see me. I got lodged under there pretty good. I haven’t had my shirt off in front of the opposite sex, you know…since Mom and the poundage. I sure didn’t want anyone seeing my business, okay?

  And no girl had ever been in my room! (I mean, other than Mom.) (Oh…and Doris.)

  It’s pretty gross. The room was a rec room for the family that built the place in the 70s. When Mom decided she needed an office a few years ago (probably for illicit Skyping purposes), down I went. It’s this shiny wood paneling and some rugs on the tile floor and this old foldout couch. (My bed was too small, so we didn’t move it. It was a little boy bed.) Other than the wood, the walls are pretty bare, except a poster of Grandpa in his bodybuilding prime (which I realize is a little weird because he’s pretty much naked) and a picture of me that Dad took while I played a trombone solo at the spring jazz concert. Me and my naked Grandpa. My room doesn’t exactly flatter, you know?

  I don’t know how she reacted. I was under the bed!

  “What are you doing, Gabe?” Camille asked.

  “Looking for…a sock. Socks. You scared me.”

  “Do you need help?” she asked.

  “No. Could you leave for a second? I’m not decent, okay?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Sorry. I should’ve knocked. I didn’t even think to—”

  “Just go,” I shouted from under the bed. A spring was digging into my shoulder pretty bad.

  Camille disappeared into the laundry room and I unglued my body from under the bed (big bump on my head and a scratch on my shoulder blade). I pulled on my giant Nirvana T-shirt and tried to shake out the cobwebs in my brain. I’d made it through two days of not eating donuts at work, but I’ll tell you this—donuts didn’t just disappear. They were on my mind. Like in my mind. So were sandwiches. Lots of them. Lodged in my head. I just kept thinking about the sweet relief of eating filled donuts or sipping down some pop. That’s why I wrote the poetry.