Page 3 of Caught in a Storm
“Did you think about kissing her?” Caleb asks. “Like, with tongue?”
As a father, you can love your son madly but still fantasize about throwing pizza crust at his face. “Will you stop talking for ten seconds and listen?”
A Rolling Stone cover appears. The band is lined up behind the lead singer, Nikki Kixx, who’s wearing a bedazzled crop top.
“Wow,” says Caleb.
Margot Hammer stands behind her three bandmates, drumsticks in her hands. “Here to Burn It All Down,” the headline reads. Billy has a copy of this exact magazine in a box in his closet. This is a fact he decides to keep to himself.
The announcer guy again. “After an infamous meltdown at the MTV Video Music Awards, Burnt Flowers was officially no more. Where are they now, you ask? Well, bassist Anna Gunn caught on in the bluegrass scene. Guitarist Jenny Switch has band-hopped for years. Margot Hammer, though—the quiet Flower, if you will? Well, she walked away from all of it and has become something of a rock-and-roll recluse. Nowadays she’s best known as the ex-wife of Oscar-nominated actor Lawson Daniels.”
“She was married to Lawson Daniels?” asks Caleb.
“A lot happened before you were born,” Billy says. “Wars, famines, celebrity weddings.”
They see a red-carpet picture of Margot Hammer and the actor. Lawson Daniels—handsome in a tux—carries Margot Hammer over his shoulder.
“I mean, how cool is that dude?” says Caleb.
Lawson Daniels was cool. He still is. He’s one of the most famous actors in the world. Billy is focused on Margot Hammer, though. She’s wearing a blue dress. One of her shoes has fallen off. She virtually never smiled, but there she is, beaming, and for a few weeks some twenty years ago you couldn’t leave the house without seeing this iconic photo.
Nikki Kixx reappears in a leather outfit. She’s jumping up and down as she sings.
“And as we all know, Nikki Kixx went solo,” says the announcer. “Although the singer has never quite achieved Burnt Flowers–level success on her own, she’s still at it.”
“You know, if I was picking rock chicks to be in love with,” says Caleb, “I think I would’ve gone with her.”
“Don’t say chicks,” says Billy. “You sound like a jerk. Also, you’re wrong. Margot Hammer was the most talented musician in the band, by a mile.”
Caleb points to the TV. It’s a video clip from one of Nikki Kixx’s solo songs. The singer has inexplicably been doused with water. “Yeah, but…look.”
“Stop it,” says Billy.
Caleb raises his palms, surrendering. “Don’t hate the player, Dad, hate the—”
“All right, that’s it, you Neanderthal.” Billy grabs the remote and turns off the TV. “It’s time for a lesson.”
Caleb’s shoulders sink. “Oh crap,” he says. “Seriously?”
* * *
—
Billy’s “Lessons in Art and Manhood” started when Caleb was just a toddler. They mostly covered the basics back then, like how you shouldn’t stick forks into electrical outlets or eat things you find on the ground. Billy taught Caleb how to play the theme music to Jaws when the boy was seven, and at ten, Caleb learned that he should never, under any circumstances, be a bully. The lessons turned increasingly more complex around the time Caleb’s voice changed, because Billy has always taken his responsibility as a Boy Dad seriously. His job, as he sees it, is to ensure that Caleb becomes one of the good ones—a decent young man. Tonight’s lesson starts with a record.
“Oh gee, great,” says Caleb. “Vinyl has entered the chat.”
Billy sets the turntable needle down on Burnt Flowers’s first album, Short Not Sweet. He isn’t a vinyl fanatic, but he prefers the format for albums that he considers classics. There’s that glorious two seconds of scratchiness, then track one starts, a slow burner called “I’m Not Your Girl.”
“Boom boom, pshhh, boom boom, pshhh,” Billy says.
“Dad, stop, you’re beatboxing.”
Fifteen seconds in, Margot Hammer’s drums erupt. Billy turns the volume up and pitches his voice over the noise. “Looks have always been part of the music business. Fine. But female artists are expected to be models and musicians. Total double standard.”
“I believe this is called mansplaining,” says Caleb. “Not a super-great look, Dad.”
Caleb talks smack during Lessons in Art and Manhood; that’s part of it. But when “I’m Not Your Girl” fades out and the next song, “Power Pink,” starts, Caleb’s expression turns thoughtful. “This is the one from the documentary, right?”
