“Agent Orange ain’t got nothin’ on you, boy.”
His tail flapped back and forth lazily, like a paper flag in the breeze.
Milo was waiting outside. He stood between our front yards, beyond the glow of the porch lights. He wore a black T-shirt, and he’d brushed his hair down instead of back, letting the bangs hover over his glasses in uneven edges.
My side-parted hair and untucked button-down felt stifling all of a sudden.
“What’d ya bring?” I asked as I approached.
“A James Carr single and a full-length by my man Donovan.”
“Of course,” I nodded.
Butterflies or wasps flew around in my gut as I followed him across the street. I’d never noticed the peculiar amount of windows Hana’s house had. As we crossed through her yard, I could see into the kitchen—empty—and the dining room—empty—and I could even make out a TV flickering in one of the back rooms. I stepped over a pile of cigarette butts strewn loosely across the grass.
“Oh,” Milo said as we climbed the porch, “take off your shoes when we get inside. It’s a Japanese thing.”
“OK. Should we, like, bow?” I asked seriously.
“Jesus, Ronnie,” he scoffed, “just act normal.”
He knocked on the door. Through the window, we saw a woman emerge from the back. I assumed she was Hana’s mother, though she could’ve passed for an older sister—a pretty older sister. She wore white slacks and a tight, gray sweater. Her hair was dark, like Hana’s, but cut in a much more fashionable bob.
Milo and I shared a sideways glance.
“Yoko O-YES,” he said, bouncing his eyebrows up and down.
The front door opened, and I swallowed my chuckles.
“May I help you?” she asked. I heard zero tinge of Midwest or Far East in her voice. Her eyes were Hana’s eyes, dark symbols of infinity.
“I’m Milo, from across the street.”
“Ah yes,” she smiled, “and you must be Ronnie. Please, please, come in.”
We walked into the foyer. Milo and I slid off our shoes. Hana’s mother didn’t comment.
“Hana-chan,” she sang up the stairs, “your callers are here.”
A door upstairs opened and slammed. Hana appeared at the top of the staircase, wearing patched jeans and an oversized green flannel.
“Come on up.”
I followed Milo up the stairs, and Hana led us to the room at the end of the hall. There was a poster on the door of Uncle Sam wrapped in bloody bandages. Instead of the standard I WANT YOU, this Uncle Sam implored I WANT OUT.
“Welcome to Basecamp Zero,” Hana said sarcastically. Then she opened the door, and I walked into a room unlike any other.
The first thing that struck me was her record collection; she had almost as many as Bruce! Otis Blue played low on her high-end turntable. He sang about respect. Two lamps were draped in red silk kerchiefs to mellow the mood. All four walls were covered in posters and concert flyers that read like pure fantasy.
Feb. 15—The Doors,Chicago Auditorium Theater, $7.50
Chicago Tribune—134 Seized in Draft Protest
November 26—Bob Dylan,Arie Crown Theater, Chicago, IL
Black Panthers—MOVE ON OVER OR WE’LL MOVE ON OVER YOU!
But out of all those posters, the one that struck me the most was pinned on the wall behind her unmade bed. It featured a young guy burning his draft card, and read simply—FUCK THE DRAFT!
“Cool room,” I gulped. “Subtle décor.”
She laughed her gentle laugh.
“Can ya imagine what your dad would say if you hung that poster on your wall?” Milo asked.
“He’d put me through the wall,” I said.
“Mine doesn’t give a fuck,” Hana shrugged, “but controversy doesn’t faze him. If you marry a Japanese girl on the heels of World War II, you sorta have to be comfortable with other people’s discomfort.”
“I guess controversial parents have controversial kids,” I smiled.
She smiled back.
“Did they meet in the war?” Milo asked.
“Nah, my father fought in Europe, not the Pacific. They met when he was in Nagoya, evaluating a company that makes toilet plungers.”
“No shit?” Milo said.
All three of us laughed.
“Let’s spin some records,” she said. “Who wants to kick this show-n-tell off?”
“First things first,” Milo said ceremoniously. “All members of the record club are present, so let’s vote on a club name. A club’s gotta have a name!”
“Any ideas?” I asked.
“Music Geeks Anonymous?” he joked.
“Uh, or, like, maybe The Rock-n-Roll . . . uh, Rebels?” I said, trailing off and scoffing at my own dumb suggestion.
“The Vinyl Underground,” Hana said. She grinned.
“Eh,” Milo shrugged, “that sounds more like a gang name.”
“No shit, man. It’s the name,” she insisted. “The Vinyl Underground.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I can get behind that.”
“Then a gang it is,” Milo nodded. He picked up his LP. “Let’s spin this one first. It’s one of my favorites, ‘Fairytale’ by Donovan. This is the Hickory Records pressing, so it has a completely different track list than the mass-produced version.”
“Trippy!” Hana said.
“Yeah,” he nodded, “this first song isn’t even on the original pressing.”
Hana took the record from him and looked over the packaging. Then she slid the vinyl out of the dust sleeve and sat Donovan on the turntable.
She put the needle on the record and let it spin.
The speakers gave a warm crackle as the needle found the groove. She handed me Otis Blue just as Donovan’s soft warble eased over an acoustic guitar.
“Put this up for me, would ya?”
I nodded, and went to her shelf. Donovan sang “Universal Soldier,” and his exhausted disgust came through clearly. Milo nodded to the music.
I slid Otis back with the Rs. I glanced down at the table beside her bed—it was stacked with newspapers, and a paperback copy of Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up to Me.
When I turned back, Hana and Milo were sitting on the floor. She was hunched forward, examining the liner notes. Her black hair hung in her face, and the lamplight cascaded across it like a stoplight on wet blacktop.