The Rocky Road Pact

Chapter 21: Bang Your Head

"Dad, can I borrow your car today?" 

"Why don't you buy your own car, now that you're making all this cash as a summer school tutor?" Dad had his head buried in the paper. "Listen to this: 'Teenaged Vandals Strike Again — A wave of vandalism has hit the town. Gangs of teenagers are roaming the streets, slashing tires, breaking windows and causing all sorts of mayhem.' The paper rattled as he folded it and threw it on the table. "Probably your friends. I'm telling you, kids today are too soft. You all are coddled. If I ever did the likes of that, my old man would beat me to a bloody pulp. And I'd deserve it!"

"Well, my friends aren't out there slashing tires," I said, outraged. "Friday nights, my friends and I are usually at the library." Which was true. We liked to go to the Town library and read fashion magazines on a Friday night. Hardly the roving band of out of control teen gangs. 

"And anyway, that's a terrible article. How do they know the vandals are teenagers if they haven't caught them yet?" I grabbed a triangle of cold toast and took a bite. I held out a cup for mom to fill with coffee and she shook her head at me like I was five  and pointed me to the fridge so I could have milk, like a little baby. 

"Honestly, Cassandra. Who else would it be? A roving gang of seniors?" Mom frowned as she poured her coffee, activating all of the lines in her forehead. She was only 40, but was looking much older lately; something I noticed but would never say of course. I figured the chain smoking didn't help. 

Dad laughed. "Now that's a Monty Python sketch come to life. I'd love to see that!" He slapped his knee and roared. Mom shook her head and lit a cigarette. Breakfast in the Miller house was always a familiar mix of parental sarcasm mixed with a hint of emotional neglect. 

"Gross, Mom. Do you know what smoking does to your health?"

"It's fine," Mom said casually. "Tootsie MacDonnell is 90 years old, she smokes like a chimney and drinks a half pint of rum every day, and she's still kicking. Let's go, I'll drop you at the mall if you want."

I sighed. I wanted the car to my self that Saturday. I had tons of things to do before Creegan's party that night and I was rattled. It was a week after my first 'date' with Tommy and to my disappointment, there was no boy sitting outside the giant oak tree beside my bedroom window that morning. He'd barely looked at me during tutoring that week and missed several sessions altogether. He's sick of me and this stupid pact, I thought. It was a dumb idea to begin with. I feel uncharacteristically melancholy. A kind of grey mood that only a shopping trip to the mall could cure. 

I thought that Tommy's Saturday morning tree visit was going to be a regular thing, so I set my alarm to 7 am that morning, got up, showered and got ready just in case. Now I was all snazzed up for nothing. 

"You know what it is, it's that devil music," Dad said, taking up the familiar rant. "Ozzy Osbourne and the rest of them. Satan worshippers! The kids nowadays are running wild in the streets because of that awful music. 'Black Sabbath' - what kind of a band is that? Twisted Sister? Rock and roll is poisoning the young ones' minds!"

Mom and I rolled our eyes at the same time, I noticed with a kind of admiration. We so seldom agreed on anything. "That's what our parents said about the Beatles," she said.

"Yeah," I chimed in. "And besides, Black Sabbath is named after a movie they liked from the 60s. And if you bothered to listen to the lyrics, Dad, you'd see they are advocating for peace. Like the song 'War Pigs.' That was written about the Vietnam War. And Crazy Train, when you listen to it, is quite pacifist. And a lot of these hard rock drummers are heavily influenced by the jazz you love so much. Cream's Ginger Baker is considered the best rock drummer of all time, and he's totally a jazz drummer who just happens to be in a rock band!"