Rocked Up

Sometimes I still feel like that hopeless child, that worthless little fuck I was before Ramsey made me a star. I was nothing, a skinny kid wearing sneakers that were two sizes too big because the Salvation Army didn’t have my size, always wearing that stupid yellow t-shirt that hung over my ripped jean shorts. I can hardly blame my mother for not loving me—when I picture that twelve-year-old loser, it still makes me cringe.

Don’t get me wrong, my mother wasn’t perfect. When I think of her I see her in the corner of our garbage-filled apartment with a nee dle in her arm. Sometimes she had boyfriends that gave her money, and they were always surprised to see me, leaving after an hour or so. I called her by her name, Suzanne, because she said I sounded stupid when I said Mommy.

I was stupid.

Sometimes the police would come and Suzanne would be taken away screaming. She always yelled at me and said it was my fault. It probably was.

A nice lady that spoke to me like I was a puppy would be there and I would leave with her. She knew I wouldn’t leave without my guitar; I left the apartment holding her hand, dragging it to my temporary home.

My father, a musician, gave me that guitar. I didn’t remember him much but as a kid I thought the world of him. I figured when he got out of jail I’d show him the songs I made with that very same guitar, a Gibson. I had to steal it from a pawn shop more than once after Suzanne sold it to that creep that ran it.

That was the reason the police came that last time, so it really was my fault. Suzanne said she needed money for her medicine. She also said I should burn in hell, and that’s the last I heard from her.

The nice lady who treated me like a puppy stopped working at the house where I was living. She never said goodbye, and I always wondered if she hated my guts. Probably. Over the next three years I would move around. I never had friends, except Kevin Robson. He was an old guy that gave me music lessons for free. Mr. Robson, as I would call him, was the closest person to me.

He would always say the same thing when I walked into his recording studio with all the buttons and machines.

“Did they let you out of your cage?”

He sounded mean, but he wasn’t, and I would roll my eyes. He would usually shake my shoulder and say something about me being skinny and not eating enough. Then he would give me a few bucks to get us some burgers at Dilallo across the street. I would leave my Gibson guitar with him when I left – Mr. Robson was the only person I trusted with it. I didn’t have to ask him what he wanted, I knew. It was always the same routine; Mr. Robson would give me ten dollars and make a point of telling me to bring back the change. I always laughed at his jokes even if he wasn’t funny, partly because he was old and I wanted to be respectful. I liked him, I never knew why he was so kind to me. Perhaps he took pity on the pathetic loser that I was.

Mr. Robson worked as the sound man for the old theater where all the popular bands played. We were never allowed to eat our Dilallo burgers near all his fancy machines, so we would sit in the red little seats and look at the stage while we ate. It was a magical place; it looked so different during the day before the people poured in and fake smoke and colored lights filled the stage.

“It should look like a dream,” Mr. Robson would say, referring to the lights and smoke they were testing for that evening’s act.

We would play guitar together after lunch in his sound booth. The first thing he taught me was an E pentatonic scale, and after that, it was history. I would show him songs that I wrote at home, while my mother was out, and for whatever reason he always liked them and would tell the other workers to come and listen.

“You have to make people feel something, kid, that’s all that matters,” he would tell me.

If I finished a song completely, he would set me up on stage and I would play it for the crew while they worked. I liked how my voice sounded grown up coming out of the big speakers and how my acoustic guitar filled the room. Sometimes the lighting guys would turn down the house lights and light me up if they had time.

It felt good at a time when very few things did.

“Use the whole stage, kid. Don’t be shy to scream that last note,” he’d say, giving me courage. It always helped that I sounded great after he fixed up my voice with his recording equipment.

“Who’s playing tonight?” I would ask as if I wasn’t fishing for an invite. I would never show up without him saying it was okay, and he invited me almost every time. Then I would show up early and help set things up.

Looking back, Mr. Robson and that theater were my entire world. Later, I often felt guilty that I was having such a good time while Suzanne sat in jail.

Over the course of those three years, I saw countless bands. Mr. Robson would tell me what the bands did right and what they did wrong at the end of the night while we were cleaning up. There were all kinds of acts—I will never forget the burlesque one-woman show that completely mesmerized the crowd. Her name was Ms. Sugar.

“Now that’s a real performer, kid. She had ‘em in the palm of her hand right to the end,” Mr. Robson said.

She would come by every few months and all the stage workers really liked her, for obvious reasons. I liked her because she was the only one who called me Brad instead of “kid.”

I later found out that Mr. Robson was a loner who never married. I guess it was pretty obvious there was no Mrs. Robson considering he lived on fast food and spent every waking hour in his sound booth. Either way, I’m pretty sure, after a while, he was as close to me as I was to him.

When I turned thirteen, I got my first official birthday present.

“Now this is from everyone, kid, not just me. We all chipped in and got you something.”

Mr. Robson presented me with an electric guitar, a Gibson SG like my acoustic. It looked like it was meant for rock and roll. It was orange-brown near the pick-ups and faded to black around the edges. I remember my throat feeling really small and tight and my eyes watering a little. I didn’t understand why I felt the need to cry, but somehow I kept the tears in. I just stood there like a statue, staring at the perfect guitar, trying to hold it all together.

I think Mr. Robson noticed so he spoke for me.

“This kid is going to be a star,” he said to everyone, and they all applauded in response, the noise overwhelming the small room. “Happy birthday, kid.”

That birthday was probably the best day I’d ever had up until that point. Mr. Robson said I was being silly about feeling guilty for having such nice things while my mother was locked up.