Amped Up: Why Is My Name Jason?

Things were not turning out very well. Over the next week, I found myself spending much more time at Uncle Nick’s or Uncle Joe’s so they could teach me how to play the guitar (the mandolin is a similar instrument so I was going to end up learning both). Aunt Lizz wanted this to remain a secret from my father which was why we did it at their house. No one aside from me, them, and Aunt Lizz would know what I was doing. Not even Uncle Frankie knew. No, there were only four people in the world who would know that Lovebug was going to be played by the end of the year. My father’s band was to be performing at the end of this year; when it came time for them to do so, I would take my father’s place and play Lovebug along with my uncles. Upon doing so, I would force my father to play the song that my mother seemed to love so much. If by midnight, it wasn’t played both, Aunt Lizz and I would lose all contact with my mother; I didn’t want that to happen.

No matter how much I really didn’t want to do this for my mother, I basically had no choice in the matter. If I wanted to see my mother’s ghost at any point next year, I needed to convince my father that he needed to play that song. Mom wanted to see Dad, but wasn’t able to do so because he was being so stubborn about all of this. So, I became the link between my parents. It was going to remain this way until I forced my father to play the song. I groaned as I was sitting at Uncle Joe’s house with a guitar in hand; this was getting on my nerves. “Uncle Joe, how can we even be sure of the fact that this is going to work? My father has been adamant about the fact that he won’t play the song. I mean, I didn’t even hear the song until my birthday because he’s been so stubborn about this.”

“Your father believes that if he doesn’t play Panda’s favorite song, he won’t have to worry about thinking about her. He doesn’t realize that the key to seeing her ghost is Lovebug,” he said.

I looked at my uncle in confusion. “That sounds like that’s about right. It also doesn’t sound like something you would say. Who are you and what have you done with Uncle Joe?”

My uncle shook his head. “No one in the world seems to think that I can provide good advice. Even when your father, uncle, and I started the band, I was never taken seriously. Now, after twenty years, I’m still not taken seriously,” Uncle Joe said with a heavy sigh.

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t really help when you act like you’re the same age as Ella,” I reminded him. “Quinn and I have always been close and I came to realize that you act like you’re Ella’s age. Maybe if you didn’t do that all the time, people would take you seriously more than they have. I’ve grown up around you and, for as long as I can remember, you’ve been acting like you were a child. And, my guess is that Quinn feels really weird about the fact that he acts older than his father. In fact, I’m sure that he does.”

“You might be right about that,” Uncle Joe shrugged.

“Oh I’m definitely right,” I told my uncle with absolute certainty. If even I wanted to look away from what my uncle was doing, I’m sure Quinn did too. Uncle Joe is kind of embarrassing; he makes up for it by being funny though. One of these days, of course, Uncle Joe is going to have to grow up. How are his children supposed to take him seriously if Uncle Joe acts like a child? I can’t do it and I’m sure that Uncle Nick and Dad couldn’t either.

“Whatever,” Uncle Joe muttered. “Now, you really do need to learn this song, JJ. If you want to see your mother’s ghost for longer than two months, you’re going to have to learn how to play this song. We don’t have very much time until the end of the year for this to happen. Although, if your father was able to teach himself how to play guitar when he was a teenager, it shouldn’t be that hard for you to accomplish.” He chuckled lightly. “You know, I think you’re actually the only one of the Jonas offspring that wants to focus on music the way that we do. Despite the fact that this is a family band and we hoped that our kids would share our love for music, there is only one of the eight Jonas kids that wants to pursue music. Then, if you include Lizard’s kids, that’s only one of twelve kids interested in going into the music business like we did. None of them seemed to be interested in the music business, despite the fact that every one of us works in music: me, Nick, your father, Lizard, Teddy, Kyra, and Selena. Why, even Frankie has his own band.”

I shrugged. “That’s life.”

“True,” he said.

With that, Uncle Joe and I continued the lesson so that I would be able to play my mother’s favorite song. We both knew that this had to work; if it didn’t, I’d lose the link I had to my mother. So would Aunt Lizz. I couldn’t let that happen. So, no matter how much I truly didn’t think that I should be doing this for my father, I was. I was doing this for myself. This was all getting down so I could communicate with my mother about everything that was going on in my life. With my father ignoring me, she was the only one I could really talk to (other than Aunt Lizz) about what was going on. So, I needed to do this, no matter how much my father didn’t deserve what I was doing for him as well as myself.

After a few minutes, I saw that Uncle Nick came in. I was glad that it wasn’t my father; if it was, he would come to realize that my aunt and uncles were attempting to teach me the one song he didn’t want me to learn. My father wouldn’t care if I learned every other song, however, this one was different; he’d never let me learn Lovebug if he knew what was really going on. “Uncle Nick, what’s going on?” I asked looking up at him.

“Your father’s coming,” he said.

Crap! I thought as I hid the mandolin and sheet music for Lovebug. If my father kept coming in here, I knew that there was absolutely no way for me to learn this song. Somehow there had to be a way for my father to be kept busy while I learned this song for all of my father’s fans. Anyone who wanted to hear that song would have to wait until I learned how to play it. Since I was the son of Kevin Jonas, it probably wouldn’t matter that I was the one playing the song; it would with my mother, but that was beside the point. My father walked in the room a few minutes later. “What do you want, Dad?” I asked.

“I came to see what you were doing,” he said.

“What do you care, Kevin?” Uncle Nick asked. “After all, you’ve spent seventeen long years ignoring your second son merely because of what Manda had to do with Jason; the three of us and Beth are the only ones who know the truth about what she had to do with Jason. Of course, it has never been mentioned in front of Jason; Beth said that it was never to be mentioned in front of him. Now, what’s the reason for barging in here?”

“I have my reasons,” my father replied.

“And what would that be?” I yelled at him angrily. My father had ignored me for seventeen long years and I was not about to let him all of a sudden come back into my life. If he wanted to get back into my life, he was going to have to prove that he was serious about this. I was not about to let my father back into my life when there was a chance of him going back to his old ways and ignoring me to hang out along with Garrett and Madison.

“You should know that,” he reminded me.

I did know. Of course, the fact was that I didn’t believe him. I never did. Something always seemed to happen that caused me to not be able to spend any time with my father. What was it going to be this time? What was going to pull my father away from spending time with me this time just as it had done so many times prior to today’s events?