Lukey Kid

“You gotta love life.”

That’s what my parents used to tell me.

And they still do it - just not straight to my face. I hear them say it in my dreams, their whispers quietly ushering my weary nerves to sleep. I can see them as angels in the night sky, drifting around the stars to mesmerize me. It’s the phrase I hear every night, and the one I live by.

Yep, you guessed it. My parents are dead.

It happened a long time ago. So long ago, I don’t even remember clearly how it happened, dude. I was barely seven years old when disaster struck. And man, it was some gnarly disaster - good thing for insurance, or I’d be living in a tent on the side of the road.

I remember exactly what I was doing the moment it happened. I sat criss-cross on the couch, watching music videos, totally lost in Dicky Barrett’s melodies. He kept asking if I was ever graced by tragedy, and back then, I simply shook my head no. “Have you ever felt a pain so powerful, so heavy you collapse?” he had asked. But I liked the tune. I’d never heard music like that - horns, great bass, quick beats…ska. My parents always had the TV turned to MH1 or VTV so that my brother and I could listen to music and every so often they’d join in, dancing with us.

Whenever “The Impression That I Get” was shown on TV (which was uncommon, especially at the time, since that song was long gone from the charts), I tuned out everything else and just listened. I guess that was the song that kind of shaped who I was, really. I liked the style, and it led me into the world of ska. I’m not sure what turned me on to it at first, seeing as how it was my first exposure to it, though my parents would always put on the swing tunes when I was younger. Maybe it was a vague familiarity that drew me to it all. I’m not completely sure, but I don’t care too much.

I had brushed some seven-year-old hair out of my curious eyes, which reminded me of how much I hated my curly hair. No matter, though - here came the bridge!

But all of a sudden, an ear-piercing alarm erupted through the house. That was when I noticed the gray clouds of smoke billowing out of the kitchen, into the living room where I sat. Then I realized why I hadn’t heard my mom or dad singing along with the video like they normally would do.

“Might be a coward, I’m afraid of what I might find out!”

Dad shouted and zipped all around the house, panicking, while Mom fanned herself with weary hands. He ran into my two-year-old brother’s room, picked him up out of his bed, and jetted out to shove him in my arms. With careful instruction, he told me to go across the street and stay with our neighbors until further notice.

So I did. I carried Aaron Ragan, my brother, down the driveway, looked both ways, crossed the street, went up my neighbors’ driveway, knocked on the door, sat in their living room, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But neither of our parents came back.

And we didn’t hear from them.

And we couldn’t go back home because our house was now just a smoking pile of ash that had a putrid way of stinking up our New Jersey neighborhood, even long after it was done burning.

A day after the fire took our house, Aaron and I were told that our parents were dead, simple as that. My heart shattered like a bullet through glass, but I swallowed the bullet and kept it in my stomach for all my life, trying not to dwell too much on the sadness. It just didn’t feel right, no matter how much it hurt.

So fast-forward to a month later. I said one last goodbye to Aaron when he was adopted into some other foster home by some guy with a ponytail and his tattooed wife, and the bullet tried to make its way back up my throat. But once again, I swallowed the pain. I hadn’t seen him since then, not even through email or postcards to catch up. For all I knew, he could’ve been in Heaven with Mom and Dad. I’d tried to find him early on, asked my new folks to get in contact, but it was impossible. The orphanage wouldn’t give us the information.

It was almost half a year until my current guardians finally took me in. I had to suffer for nearly a week in a suffocating car ride all the way from New Jersey to this little town in Florida called Claymore. Despite that, I was ecstatic to finally be in a family again.

They were the coolest. They let me keep my last name, and as soon as we got to my new home, they took me shopping for new clothes. Thomas, the dad, loved a good baseball game and was always there when I wanted to play. Sarah, the mom, was soft spoken but understanding. But the thing that they shared the most was a love of God.

Before my parents were killed, yeah, sure, I was a Christian. After it happened, though, I started to question my own faith. However, Thomas and Sarah took me to church the day after I came home and enlightened me. I don’t want to sound like a nutjob, and as far as religion goes I’m pretty gosh darn open-minded, but I became a lot happier. Something about the idea of never being alone got to me.

Thomas was a childhood friend of and worked with this other guy who lived in Claymore. He came over every weekend and brought his son with him, who was my age. Most of the time we’d just sit in the den and he followed me around, kind of like a shadow. Sometimes his older brothers would come too, but he’d just hide since they treated him like poo. Funny thing, too - he’d always cower behind me since I was significantly taller. However, we never really talked until one fateful day.

One day, his brother Joey, out of the blue, came in, gave him a noogie, then walked out.

I said, “That kid’s mean!”

His mouth dropped open. “I know! The other day he melted my Catman action figure!”

Okay. Not the best way to start a friendship. But still, I formed a tight bond with a kid who’d stick by me forever, Brendan Veins.

He was a little less than bright, and his brothers, Joey and David, always seemed to torture him. That was why he rode his bike almost two miles every day to my house. In fifth grade, I took up playing bass guitar because that was when I really got into music. Thanks to the Internet, I came across bands like Streetlight Manifesto and Mustard Plug, and got a never-ending drive to make my own music. I had roots in ska. I couldn’t just let them go.

Perfect timing, too. Brendan found a drum set on the street and took up the drums. He was into bands like Clutch, Metallica and AC/DC, so his playing style was a little heavier than mine, but when boredom showed itself, we’d jam out and come up with tunes that would get stuck in my head for the rest of my life. Mostly jazzy stuff, since that was kind of our common ground. When he was little his mom got him into Motown, R&B type stuff.

Brendan and I went to different elementary schools. I went to Claymore Elementary, and he was stuck in this tiny school called Fireside. But when seventh grade turned the corner, we united and went to Claymore Middle together.

The only kids I knew from previous years were Brendan, and this really shy kid Ren Hawker. I’d known him since second grade but he never talked to me. Actually, he never talked to anyone. He was even muter since Claymore Elementary students were only a drop in the bucket in this giant junior high.

I can’t say I was different than him those first few days, though – middle school was monstrous; a ton of kids from every elementary school united here, so he was the only one I could really say I grew up with in this town. For that reason, I just hung around him for a couple of weeks and eventually we became pretty close friends, instead of just a pair of kids who knew each other prior to that year.

One thing was a little weird though. In first period, there was this girl who he kept throwing glances at like there was a connection. Second period came and went, and in third period, Ren and the girl were chatting it up. It threw me off since he never just went up to someone and went, “Hi! I’m Ren!”

And over time, he and the girl - Soria Atkinson - hung out more and more. I couldn’t help but smile at the gravitation pulling them together. And I couldn’t help but smile at that ever-growing crush I grew to have on her, despite that gravitation. It was a silly little thing that I really don’t wanna talk about.

Then I got word of them having some kind of band thing. Apparently, Soria played the guitar while Ren sang. I politely asked to be their bassist, and we were a trio…!

Soria wrote songs for the band. She had major talent with a pen and had a gazillion ideas, sharing almost all of them. I say, “Almost,” since she too was shy like Ren. Well, not nearly as quiet, but it took work to get her to trust someone.

But alas, we had no drummer. So one day out of nowhere (well, not really since we were holding tryouts), Brendan came to Ren’s house and tried out. Even if he was using one of Ren’s dad’s drum sets, he still rocked, and – yep - he was in the band.

We got sick of calling ourselves “The Band,” though, and Brendan knew that name was already taken. We were playing Frisbee one day while discussing names, and one of us tossed it up too high, so it got stuck in a tree. Soria ended up with a broken wrist trying to get it, and thus the name she came up with - Plaster Caster - stuck.

Eventually, my New Year’s resolution was to ask Soria out. I told Ren. And I think he told Brendan, too, since it all came out during a game of truth or dare. I asked her out and we dated for a couple of weeks. But my teammates on the football team, along with the cheerleaders that seemed to have a thing for me, didn’t like her. She wasn’t from around here. They talked crap about her and I had enough. I had to break up with her to protect her from getting hurt anymore.

And that crush died down. Man, when we were together, we argued a lot. Over stupid things, like whether or not Gwen Stefani was an s-l-u-t. It was the thoughts like that that made me okay with what eventually happened between Ren and Soria.

Near the end of seventh grade we won over the crowd at the Claymore Middle talent show, playing the original song Soria wrote - “Anonymous.” I never get tired of that tune.

But in the summer before eighth grade, her dad pulled her back to her hometown, Santa Monica. We nearly died of boredom without our guitarist and songwriter. I think Ren was the most bummed out, though.

However, all wasn’t lost, since she came back around Thanksgiving because of her dad retiring, just before the dance we were scheduled to play at. Brendan and I were certain that there was something more than just “friendship” between the two since the first day she came back.

We saw them kiss in the foyer of her house.

I hate to say it, but it was fun taunting them. I didn’t have a problem with them dating and neither did Brendan, since we all knew they’d never let a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship spoil their bond. They were basically born for each other.

Alright, that was cheesy, but…you get my point.

Well, things were going steadily until late January of the next year. We were performing as the closer for the next talent show, and Brendan got a ride home with his brother David. I wasn’t given too many details, but he got out of the car before David crashed under the influence.

He was broken for a long time. I could see it in everything he did, and I knew that feeling. It sucks to lose family, especially a brother. But his other brother Joey turned around and offered to become Plaster Caster’s manager. So after two crap gigs and a gnarly one that almost got us arrested, Brendan got ticked off and ran away, demanding that Joey be fired.

But I talked some sense into him, and things were chill again. Joey helped gain us a following in the Southeast, taking care of t-shirts and stickers and all that good stuff. Even still, we had nothing to record our music with. The closest things we had were live videos we put on our FlySpace so we’d have something to brag about.

Joey was a little misguided, though. I know he was bipolar (though for how long, I don’t know –he could’ve been born that way, which I was pretty sure he was) and there was always that ambiguity about his sexual orientation. That didn’t matter. He needed a friend. So since Brendan was still awkward around him, I stepped up. I never regretted it, either.

Still, with school, Plaster Caster acted like there was no pressure. 75% of us got good grades. Brendan squeaked by with C’s even before we formed, so it wasn’t like it made a difference.

Speaking of school, the last day of middle school was epic. Kickback - the talent show winners after us - played us out with their signature song…which they never said had a name. The final night as an eighth grader was something I’d remember clearly for the rest of my life.

So, my life in a word?

Crazy.