Crime Plus Music by Jim Fusilli Read Free Book Online

Drive ends at Eve Court. The developer who built every one of these ticky-tacky houses named the streets after his daughters and sisters and mother and, when those names ran out, about a zillion cousins. When I pull into the driveway, the sprinklers are whirling away. But the garage is empty.
    Perfect!
    In my room, I turn up the sound on my KLH to blast. Then lie prone on the shag carpet and shut my eyes. I forget where I am, my pretty-in-pink bedroom in the middle of what used to be a desert. My perfect home in a perfect town filled with perfect people and their perfectly tedious and predictable lives. I’m where she is. Where she lives. I picture New York City, which is hard since I’ve never actually been there. It’s more of theoretical construct, an amalgamation of images that I’ve seen in movies and photographs.
    I’ve listened to the record three times through by the time my mom yells, “Julie!” I leap up and turn down the sound and can hear her asking herself her favorite rhetorical question: “How can anyone call that din music?”
    T HURSDAY FINDS ME HEADING SOUTH . My mom thinks I’m with Stacy. Stacy thinks I have a hot date and am two-timing Josh. I slide my tape of Horses into the eight-track and chant along, slamming the palm of my hand against the steering wheel in time to the beat.
    When I get there, my heart sinks. The address is for a garage, smack in the middle of two working auto body shops. The joke is clearly on me. I look around surreptitiously, wondering if it’s some humiliating version of Candid Camera . But I see no one filming, so I force myself to get out and walk up to the door. Sure enough, there’s his name next to the buzzer. Johnny O.
    What does the “O” stand for anyhow, I wonder? I hesitate, but I’ve come all this way, so I force myself to ring. The lock is released. When I pull the door open, I see a dark hallway. What comes to my mind is that quote, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Still, I walk inside and the door shuts behind me with a harsh click.
    â€œWe’re down here, luv,” a voice calls out.
    W HEN I GET TO THE end, I find a rehearsal space. In it, there’s a piano and a drum kit and a bunch of mics. And on the far side, I see an actual office. It’s not high class, but it looks legit.
    â€œPut your name down,” Johnny O says to me, handing me a piece of paper. “We’ll get started in about fifteen, ladies,” and he saunters away into the office and shuts the door.
    There are a bunch of other girls there. Thank God!
    I’ve lugged in my Guild in its sad cardboard case. Some of the other girls have theirs out, tuning up. I sit down on a folding metal chair and do the same. What I wonder is if he approached all of them on line at Tower, but then a girl says to me, “I was sure no one else would come,” and shows me the ad. He put a notice in the LA Free Press . Do You Have What It Takes to become Rock and Roll Royalty? It says whoever passes the audition is going to be a member of a brand new, all-girl band. He’s even picked out our name for us.
    We’re going to be called The Misfits.
    Just then he emerges and says, “Shall we get started then?”
    J OHNNY AUDITIONS THE DRUMMERS FIRST . The rest of us sit and watch and wait. It’s no contest, there’s one girl who’s far and away the best. He says, “Thank you for coming,” to the rest and then uses that girl to keep the beat. He chooses two of us to play together with her, one plays lead, the other bass, and he puts up sheet music in case we don’t know the songs. I can read chords, but not the notes.
    I start to really panic. I think about leaving. But that would be humiliating too. Lethargy sets in, and so, I stay.
    Johnny O looks even more dubious than he did two days ago. He’s thin and twitchy and a cigarette perches perilously in the corner of his mouth. Yet