“No, I can’t.”
“You can. You can do this. You can do anything. You’re amazing.”
Ed wrapped his hand behind my head and pulled me toward him, kissed me with a passion that bordered on madness. I kissed him back with interest, and it wasn’t until I was standing beside his drum set onstage that I was again fully conscious of what was going on.
My heart was busting out of my chest. I felt like there wasn’t enough air left in the building. And worst of all there was a guitar in my hands, and I couldn’t even remember how it had gotten there.
In my borderline hallucinatory state, I even thought I saw Josh leap onto the stage and wrestle the microphone stand from Kallie.
CHAPTER 53
The crowd continued to cheer like this was part of the show—a reenactment of Tuesday’s meltdown, perhaps—but everyone onstage had frozen. Kallie stared longingly at the microphone.
Josh turned toward us, careful to cover the microphone with his hand. Spotlights gave him a demonic silhouette, and when he opened his mouth I struggled to lip-read because his face was in shadow. “Didn’t really . . . gone . . . right?” I worked out the gist of what he was saying, but no one responded. “Wait . . . what’s Kallie . . . vocals . . . kidding!”
Will stepped forward, and I just knew he was going to tell Kallie to leave the stage, or to retrieve her guitar from me. I hated feeling so completely unable to stop what was happening. But in the glare of the spotlights I read his lips perfectly: “Leave the stage, Josh. You’re done.”
Josh was undeterred. “I am . . . band.”
As he pulled back his hair, the look on Will’s face was one I’d never seen before. It was the look of someone beginning to discover his own power. “No, Josh. You were the band. And if you don’t give Kallie that microphone, we’ll tell the bouncers to remove you from the stage.”
Josh just laughed. He removed his hand from the microphone, filling the air with the whine of feedback, then turned to the crowd. “Kallie . . . joke . . . unplugged . . . amp . . . useless,” I heard over the loudspeakers, but it was even harder to follow him now than before. He paused to glance behind him, like he expected us to be applauding. And then he spotted me. “Piper?” He did a double take, whipped around to share the joke with the audience: “. . . manager . . . guitar . . . deaf!”
I felt the weight of a thousand pairs of eyes. I didn’t need to hear his words to know what he’d just said. He was Josh, and I was an obstacle—there were no other variables in this equation.
I could have left the stage then and never looked back—no one would have blamed me—but I didn’t. And it wasn’t because I belonged there, or because I had pink hair. It was because I no longer carried the gene necessary to back down. In two months I’d faced more crap than Josh Cooke could begin to imagine, and someone as worthless as him was simply incapable of bringing me down. And because I needed him to know that, I told him in the only way I knew how.
I pity you, I signed, hoping that even if only two people understood me, the message would spread like wildfire.
Josh snorted contemptuously, but he was forcing it. He hated not knowing what I’d said, being out of the loop like that. He hadn’t looked at the audience in ages, and it dawned on me this had nothing to do with reclaiming his former role anymore, or even stating his case to the crowd. It was about bringing us all down with him.
The crowd was booing now. I could feel the persistent hum growing more intense by the second. And I saw with frightening clarity the angry looks of a thousand-strong mob exposed to too many childish antics for one night.
“See!” Josh shouted at me with evident satisfaction. “No one . . . understands . . . saying!”
A stick flew across my field of vision and hit Josh squarely in the chest. The hum died down. I spun around and saw Ed towering over his drum set, a look of pure hatred in his eyes.
“She said she pities you!” he screamed. He shifted his attention to me, wanting to be sure I was okay with him standing up for me. But all I could think was that he had understood me when I needed it most.
I was on the verge of tears when I saw the stick making its return flight, but it crashed against a cymbal and clattered to the ground harmlessly. Ed picked it up and taunted Josh by spinning it around in his fingers.
The Showbox bouncers began sweeping toward the stage. They obviously knew about Dumb’s reputation for in-group violence, and didn’t seem eager to have our party piece reprised for the musically literate patrons of their historic venue. A burly guy in a black T-shirt almost knocked over a middle-aged couple clinging to each other for dear life—my parents. As our eyes met, I saw in their expressions the sad realization that their faith in me and in Dumb had yet again been misplaced. It was utterly soul-destroying, as crushing as the sight of Kallie and Josh wrestling for control of the microphone, or the bouncers launching themselves onto the stage at the very moment an ear-splitting shriek filled the air.
At first I assumed it was more feedback from the microphone, or maybe an alarm. It was high-pitched and piercing, and even though I didn’t know where it was coming from, my immediate response was to press my hands against my ears to make it stop. Everyone else on stage was doing the same thing too—all except Kallie, whose body resembled a coiled spring, face twisted in anger. In her hand she clutched the microphone, shoved so far into her mouth it looked like she was making up for skipping dinner.
That sound was Kallie?
Beside her, Josh had frozen to the spot, but Kallie wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at Tash, her eyes a blistering command to play, to stop the madness, to make music.
With steely determination, Tash thrashed out the opening riff of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” A moment later, Ed brought down his sticks like crashes of thunder, his face alive with maniacal delight.
It was all I needed. I began moving my right hand up and down with each of his cannon-like drum beats, even furrowed my brow and plucked a few strings deliberately like I knew what the heck I was doing. While Josh was being dragged from the stage, I looked up at the crowd, afforded myself a glimpse of what fame must feel like. But nobody was looking at me. Every eye was glued to Kallie, and it had nothing to do with the body or the face or the hair. It was all about the way she was singing, or shouting, or whatever her mouth was doing while her body contorted as if she were possessed by Kurt Cobain himself. She drove toward the chorus, moaning like she was in the final throes of death, and then suddenly her head was pounding and she was full-on screaming, and if I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn that she was in need of a swift, sharp exorcism.
I glanced back at Ed, tried to stay cool when I saw the look of enchantment on his face. His sticks hammered away at the speed of light, but he smiled straight at me like this was our song—the one with the magical power to turn geeks into rock stars. And as I surveyed the chaos of a thousand thrashing bodies on the dance floor below, I knew that’s exactly what we were.
With a final deep breath I leaped in the air and began throwing my body back and forth, my right hand yanking the strings of my silent guitar like I needed my fingers to bleed. And when I closed my eyes, it wasn’t out of fear. It was because what I was feeling right there on that stage consumed me. I felt every part of that animal music, felt it eat me up and spit me out, and what emerged was a me a thousand times more powerful than Piper Vaughan. I was Piper Vaughan, guitar hero—spiritual descendant of Jimi Hendrix and proponent of pure anarchy.
And I ROCKED.
COOL·NESS [KOOL-NIS] -noun
CATCHING your mom gazing at the crazy crowd like she finally gets it
WATCHING your dad head-banging like he’s Finn’s twin brother
LEARNING that your new friends Tash and Kallie are a thousand times more complicated than you realized, and loving them for it
FEELING every one of your boyfriend’s pounding drumbeats, and thinking it’s the most romantic music ever written
REALIZING you’re completely uni
que . . . even in a crowd
CHAPTER 54
The roar that greeted us as we gave our instruments a well-earned break at the end of the song was as loud as the music had been. The crowd surged like a tidal wave, bodies crammed together, a single entity amped up on Dumb. And drawing them onward was the awesome magnetism of Kallie Sims, her soft-focus beauty suddenly transformed into something harder-edged, almost fearsome. As she stood at the front of the stage, her jaw set and eyes searing through the crowd, she radiated the otherworldly presence of a sorceress. And I swear that even if I’d never heard of rock music before that moment, I’d still have recognized its immensity.
Dumb had died. Dumb had been born again. Dumb was unstoppable, a force of nature. And the world had just turned on its axis.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Ed sitting back, relaxed and confident, so in control, he could take my insanity and paranoia and melt them away. He smiled peacefully, lowered his drumsticks, and signed, You rock my world. I blew him a kiss, and for a few seconds we simply gazed at each other, until I felt a tap on my shoulder.
It was Finn, his face a mixture of unbridled enthusiasm and amazement. Grace is with Mom and Dad in the greenroom, he signed feverishly.
I pulled the guitar strap off my shoulder and handed the instrument to him, then clasped his head between my hands and kissed him. Blow them away, I told him, and I could tell he had every intention of doing just that.
As I left the stage, I felt a dozen hands grabbing my shirt like I had messianic powers. I wanted to ask them if they’d missed the bit about me being deaf, or the fact that I hadn’t played a single note. Only I knew the answer to both questions, which is how I also knew that in some indefinable way I was partially responsible for what was happening. Maybe my moment of air guitar glory was over, but I was still the mover and shaker, the one who made it all happen. I was Dumb’s manager, and I was freaking good at it too.
I passed GBH on the way to the greenroom, all four members standing in the doorway, as transfixed as the fans on the floor. They looked as unlikely to commit grievous bodily harm as any quartet in history. Joby, the lead singer, stepped forward, but before I could apologize for what had happened with Josh he stretched out his arms and bowed down before me. I was speechless, although he probably wouldn’t have been able to hear me even if I had known what to say. And then they were all grinning, thumbs raised in wholehearted approval of Dumb’s performance. I had to take a deep breath to keep from crying.
I turned the corner and found Mom and Dad, looking much more comfortable in the gritty surroundings of the greenroom than I figured they would. They’d even let Grace sit on the floor beside them, where she played with a bottle of water, rolling it back and forth.
Is Kallie usually like that? asked Mom.
I shook my head. Mom looked somewhat reassured.
It’s loud, signed Dad deliberately, and I could tell he approved of this particular quality of Dumb’s performance.
I noticed Grace peering up, evidently less enamored by the Showbox than the rest of us. When she had our attention she cupped her right hand and drew it down her chest.
I guess she’s hungry, I signed.
Mom laughed. No. She just finished nursing. She just wants attention.
I laughed too, admiring Grace’s cunning. And then I felt my stomach flip. She signed. I watched Grace reprise her party trick. She signed “hungry.”
Mom nodded. Dad says she’s a natural. Best in the class.
Ed’s words came back with the subtlety of a thunderclap. You mean ... she’s been going to the classes as well?
Dad was having trouble following the conversation, but he obviously got the gist of it because he turned away self-consciously. Mom wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him close.
We thought it would be unfair if Grace was the only person in the family who couldn’t sign. She leaned forward and wiped the tear from my eye. No one should feel ignored, right?
I was about to start bawling, and I think Dad knew it too. And whatever else had passed between us recently, that was something he didn’t want to stick around for.
“Do you, uh, mind if we go watch Dumb?” he asked hopefully.
Although I couldn’t hear a word, I read his lips just fine. “Actually, I’d like that very much!” I shouted. “That’s my band out there.”
Mom pushed her lips together in a thin smile and regarded me from the corner of her eye. I got the feeling she was deciding what she most wanted to say, like this was one of those moments when parents tell their kid they’re proud, or disappointed, or confused. But Dad was pulling her away.
“You’re one tough cookie, you know that?” she said as she was dragged through the door. Although I felt anything but tough at that moment, I knew exactly what she meant.
And then it was just Grace and me, the unstoppable Vaughan sisters, alone in a dark room with industrial carpet and vinyl furniture. It wasn’t the right place to pull her close and rub noses and shower her in kisses and say over and over that I was sorry, but I did anyway, because I didn’t want to waste another precious moment with my baby sister.
When I was done making up with her, Grace stared at me intently like she’d just noticed how different I was too. Maybe it was the pink hair, but as I held her close and we twirled in time with the thump thump thump of Ed’s muffled drumbeats next door, I chose to believe that she was loving our shared gift of madness and movement.
I closed my eyes and felt time stand still, locked in the dizzying perfection of the moment.
Author’s note
If you retrace Piper’s steps across Seattle, you’ll discover that one of the landmarks she visits is missing. In the months between the completion of this book and its publication, Jimi Hendrix’s boyhood home was demolished. The house was, admittedly, in very bad shape when I visited—a far cry from his gaudy monument in the memorial park across the street—but it was a poignant reminder that the world’s greatest rock guitarist grew up in extreme poverty. For Tash the house was “a holy relic.” Thankfully, nothing can destroy Hendrix’s music.
Acknowledgments
In roughly chronological order, I’d like to thank:
Stephen Carleston—my high school music teacher—for introducing me to Jimi Hendrix; and Nick Green—best man—for unleashing Kurt Cobain on me. You both have a lot to answer for. As does my brother, Mark John, who continues to view my rock music education as a personal crusade.
Gavin and Tamsin, who visited every Hendrix and Cobain site in Seattle without a word of complaint. And sometimes posed for pictures.
Before I started writing, I read the excellent biographies of Hendrix and Cobain written by Seattle native Charles R. Cross: Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain and Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix. These books shaped Five Flavors of Dumb in countless ways. I highly recommend them.
The librarians at the St. Louis Public Library (especially the Schlafly Branch) for getting me everything I need, and for supporting YA in the best way; Louise Thommen, and the entire cast of the Coffee Crew, for allowing me to feature them in a cameo role; and the folks at Kayak’s (especially Robin), for giving me a place to write.
The many professionals who volunteered to help out along the way (any textual inaccuracies are mine alone): Gabe Archer at Showbox at the Market (for the guided tour, and for answering numerous follow-up questions); Jacob McMurray at Experience Music Project (for info on Jimi Hendrix); Kara Simmons and Ella Eakins at Concordia Seminary (for allowing me to sit in on an ASL class); Kristina Shilts at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital Department of Audiology (for the hearing aid tutorial); Steven Malawer (for an early critique of my accounts of deafness); Stephanie Zoller, Senior Producer for KSDK-TV (for the station tour); Heather Navarro (for legal advice on rock music contracts); Ouida Wymer at Lemon Spalon (for sharing hair dye swatches); the staff at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis; and the Gallaudet University Financial Aid Office.
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Tadd Simmons and Valerie Bu, who not only shared their experiences of growing up deaf, but read and critiqued the manuscript as well—I’m indebted to you both; my wife, Audrey, and sister-in-law, Clare, who read early, middle, and late drafts of the book, and always had insightful comments; and everyone at Emma’s Book Club for taking me seriously when I said I wanted criticism.
The whole team at Dial Books: Kristin Smith (for the world’s best cover); Jasmin Rubero (for the exquisite interior design); Heather Alexander (for the great comments and hair advice); Regina Castillo (for the spot-on copyediting); Kathy Dawson (for those last-minute improvements); and Lauri Hornik (for welcoming me to the Dial family in the first place).
Last, but not least, the two people who made it all happen: my agent, Ted Malawer, the most down-to-earth genius I know—you are practically perfect in every way; and my editor, Liz Waniewski, for loving the book when it was just an idea, and sharpening and polishing it until it was so much more—you’ve made every moment of this journey pure joy. I can’t thank you enough.
Antony John, Five Flavors of Dumb
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