I sat down across from them.
“Were you really at this?” Milo asked Hana.
He pointed to a newspaper clipping on the wall.
Thousands Join Spring MOBE Protests in NYC and SF
Hundreds of Draft Cards Burned as Youth Take to the Streets
“Oh yeah,” she said proudly, “last April. We marched all the way to the United Nations. Everyone was there, Martin Luther King even gave a speech!”
“Woah,” I gasped, “what was that like?”
“Transcendent, man.”
“What does MOBE mean?” Milo asked.
“Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam.”
“Were people really burning their draft cards?”
“Hundreds,” she said. “My guy, Phillip, burned his before the march started.”
“Your guy?” Milo cooed. “Aw, Hana’s got a boyfriend—”
“Boyfriends and girlfriends are for boys and girls,” she snapped. “All that’s nothing but a distraction. Boyfriends, girlfriends, glee club, the debate team, they’re traps the Man uses to monopolize the minds and time of the youth.”
“And I thought I was cynical!” I laughed. “You win.”
“You’d be cynical too, if you weren’t tucked away from the real world.”
“The real world found me easy enough,” I said, harsher than I’d intended.
Instead of responding, she got up and grabbed a 45rpm from her shelf.
“Have you heard of ’em?” she asked. “They’re from Detroit.”
She handed it to me.
AMG RECORDS
MC5
I CAN ONLY GIVE YOU EVERYTHING
(T. Scott—P. Coulter)
Time: 2:36
“I don’t see a band listed,” I said.
“It’s right there—”
“MC5?”
She nodded.
“Is this a Van Morrison cover? From when he was in THEM?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t sound like him or like THEM, or like anything.”
She pulled the single from my hands and stood up. She took Donovan off the turntable, changed the speed, and put the single on.
“What’s it sound like?” Milo asked.
“Like a revolution,” she said, and cranked up the volume.
Suddenly, the song’s riff blared from the speakers, thick and distorted and nearly unrecognizable. Two bars in, the singer screamed over the music like a maniac. The volume of the recording pushed it beyond any chance of coherence.
“This is wild!” I yelled above the music.
“I know!” she said excitedly. “They’re the most epic protest band ever! Word is they’re gonna play outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago!”
“You goin’?” Milo asked.
“Oh yeah, I’ll be front and fuckin’ center!”
The song ended as quickly as it began. My ears rang slightly. She stood back up, and chose one of her many full-length records. It was the new Bob Dylan album, John Wesley Harding.
“Have you guys heard this?”
“Not yet,” Milo said.
She smiled, and put the record on. Bobby came right outta the gate with the title track. His voice meandered as the song unwound itself at a soothing tempo.
“So, Ronnie,” Hana said, settling back down on the floor, “was your brother drafted, or did he enlist?”
“He was drafted. All he wanted to do was play records. Right before his number came up he’d been offered a job at a radio station in Sacramento. I was gonna meet him out there after I graduated and work as his sidekick.”
“You guys must’ve been crushed,” she said.
The song changed to a harder tune with a backbeat.
“I was. But honestly, it didn’t faze Bruce. He figured he’d be back home by the time I graduated, and the two of us could go out west together. He acted like it was all a gas, one last adventure before his real life started.”
Bob Dylan said life was a joke, and I shivered.
“What’s wrong?” Milo asked.
“Just listen,” she whispered.
We sat in silence until “All Along the Watchtower” ended.
Hana pointed to the records I’d brought. “Are those your brother’s records?”
I nodded.
“Would you play me one?”
I’d been planning to play the Blues Magoos LP first—I wanted to tell her that it was the first album to ever use the word “psychedelic” in the title. But when I got up and went to the bed, the vinyl I grabbed was the 45.
The cover featured a photo of Roy Orbison wearing glasses, not shades. He looked almost like Milo, except Roy’s hair was still quaffed back.
Below the photo read the title—“Blue Bayou.”
“Man,” Hana smiled, “I haven’t heard that in forever.”
“It was one of Bruce’s favorites,” I told her, handing it over.
She took the Dylan LP off the turntable, and set the speed back. But as she pulled the Orbison single from the sleeve, the envelope with Bruce’s letter fell out.
I dove for the letter dumbly, sprawling across the floor before anyone else could pick it up.
“What’s that?” Hana asked, as I grabbed it.
“Nothing,” I mumbled, shoving the letter into my back pocket.
“Don’t be a freakazoid,” Milo scoffed. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I said, more forcefully. “Look, I gotta go.”
I stood, and went to collect my other record.
“Fine,” Hana said, “then you’re outta the gang.”
I hesitated. I looked back at her.
“Gangs keep secrets from the world,” she said, “not from each other.”
“Yeah, man,” Milo said, “what gives?”
I sighed.
Part of me wanted to run out the door and shut down the conversation. Grief is a selfish thing, and it screamed inside my head, demanded solitude and secrecy. But another voice—a soft, lonesome voice—urged me to trust my friends.
I cleared my throat.