Californium by R. Dean Johnson

Mr. Dumovitch can have a ponytail, because smart people always have freaky hair. When you think about it, Albert Einstein looks as punk rock as Johnny Rotten. And the only difference between Adam Ant’s hair and Thomas Jefferson’s is the color of the ribbon they put around their ponytails.
    Mr. D is fine with us practicing in the garage as long as we stack all the boxes along the two walls that are connected to the house. I’m thinking it’s to keep us from breaking something. Treat says it’s to soundproof the room.
    Treat opens the door to the Bug and says, “I’ll get this out of the way.”
    â€œYou can drive it?” I say.
    â€œI’ve got my permit,” he says.
    Keith looks in the passenger-side window, then up at Treat. “How old are you?”
    â€œOld enough to know.”
    â€œKnow what?”
    Treat leans on the roof of the car to get closer to Keith. “Know where to hide your body if you ask too many questions.” He smiles and Keith does this chin-scratching, squinty-eyed nod, like,
Yes, that’s exactly what I thought.
    I run my hand along the curvy back fender. It’s so smooth and waxy the metal feels soft. “Where’d you get it?”
    â€œMy dad’s had it since college,” Treat says and climbs in. “It’s still pretty cherry because as soon as he got a good job he stopped driving it.”
    â€œWhy’d he keep it?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Treat says. “Sentimental shit, I guess.” He fires up the engine and it sounds like a baseball card when you strap it to your bike so the spokes hit it—loud and trilling and sputtery. “Somebody get the garage door.”
    With Keith backing away from the car and heading over to the door to the house, I walk to the garage door. Just as I’m about to start pushing it open, the door moves on its own and I almost fall over. With the car’s engine zinging and the springs on the door creaking and popping, I’m as confused as a rookie in an all-star game. Then I look back at Keith standing by the door to the house, his finger on some little box on the wall and laughing at me like he’s the Great Oz.
    Once we start stacking boxes along the two walls, we get this rhythm going where I hand Treat a box, he spins and places it onthe wall, then turns around and Keith’s handing him the next box. Treat’s twisting and placing so fast the shaved parts of his head start beading up and the Mohawk sags a little. He climbs up on the wall, four feet high now, and says, “You guys got any band names yet?”
    â€œHow about the Tix?” Keith says. “With an
X.
Or Fluff Knuckle?”
    â€œYeah,” Treat says without turning around from the box he’s slamming into place. “If we wanted to tour with the Village People.”
    I hand a box up. “Sometimes girls like stuff like that. Like if we were called Innocents but we spelled the last part with a cent sign?”
    Treat slaps my box up against another one. “No.”
    â€œWait,” I say. “Do you get it? We don’t spell it out all the way—”
    â€œI get it,” he says. He starts walking along the box wall he’s built, rubbing the shaved parts of his head, getting his hand right up to the base of the Mohawk before sliding it back down to his neck. “Punk is about going against that candy store shit. Punk walks right up to the cops, knocks the doughnut out of their hands, and says, ‘Oh, and one more thing, Officer Swine. Fuck the po-lice.’”
    Treat walks back to the middle, stops, and stares down at us. He’s already half a foot taller than me and I’ve got a couple inches on Keith, and with four feet of boxes beneath him and the Mohawk reaching up to the rafters, I’m not sure if we’re supposed to bow or clap or what.
    Before I talk, I put my hands in my back pockets and pull my head back. I think