Amy Brashear - The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction

“Do you have any other friends?” Dennis asked.

Mom whacked him on the arm. “Dear, she has friends.”

“I have friends. I have friends,” I said.

“Of course you do, Laura. I didn’t mean it how it came out,” Dennis said, apologizing.

The truth was, I didn’t have a lot of friends. I had a lot of adversaries—but those certainly didn’t count as friends.

“Well, take someone who won’t overshadow you. Who will let you have your day in the spotlight.”

“And that certainly wouldn’t be Dana,” Mom said, clearly giving her opinion on Dana.

And I got it. Dana was annoying.

Terrence scooped himself a third helping of casserole while trying not to laugh. No one ever gave him hell for his friends. Dim-witted as they might have been.

“What about Terrence?” Dennis asked.

“Dad, don’t,” he said, shaking his head.

“Everyone wants you to pick them. Just like in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory , [19] It’s a movie that came out in 1971 and starred Gene Wilder. It’s also a book but has a slightly different title, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . That’s by Roald Dahl and was published in 1964. everyone is going to want your Golden Ticket. It might as well be Terrence.”

“Yeah, honey, don’t pressure her,” Mom said, patting his hand.

“No pressuring, just thought this would be an awesome bonding time for them.”

“Laura, you don’t have to,” Terrence said, getting up to grab another Coke for himself. “Want another Tab?”

I nodded as sirens blared in the distance. Wooooooweeeeewooooo. The crew was testing the sirens for the fifth night in a row.

Terrence’s grandmother, whom I called Grandma Jennings (she wanted me to call her that), left a tin of homemade fudge on the back steps. Dennis took a handful, melted them, and poured it all over some homemade vanilla ice cream (homemade—it said so right on the label). I grabbed a bowl and a spoon and headed to the enclosed porch to eat in peace, but Terrence was already out there, reading the liner notes to Purple Rain . [20] Prince and the Revolution, Warner Bros, 1984. He collected tapes like I collected comic books. (Those selection sheets from Columbia House [21] It’s a mail-order music club. were always filled out. Eight tapes for a penny. I called it a scam. He said it wasn’t. But he was also known as Terry with a Y and Terri with an I on those forms. So who was scamming whom?) I sat down with Alpha Flight, volume one, issue sixteen. It wasn’t out until Friday, but Dewayne Smith, owner of the local bookstore, liked to hook me up early with my favorites, which included X-Men, the Flash, and Firestorm. Especially Firestorm.

“Who do you think would win in a fight, Batman or Superman?” Terrence asked me, picking up another tape from his overflowing tape deck.

“Superman—wait—Batman—wait—Christopher Reeve or Adam West—or are we going by comic and—”

“Wow. You are a geek.”

“Geeks will inherit the earth,” I said with a mouth full of fudge ice cream.

“Yeah, they will,” he said, placing Run-DMC’s [22] Hip-hop group from Queens, New York, consisting of Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, and Jason Mizell. self-titled album in the tape player and then pressing play. (They’re a lot more aggressive with their rhymes than the Sugarhill Gang [23] Hip-hop group from New Jersey consisting of Michael “Wonder Mike” Wright, Henry “Big Bank Hank” Jackson, and Guy “Master Gee” O’Brien. They are known for their 1979 hit “Rapper’s Delight , ” which is one of my favorites. or Kurtis Blow [24] Hip-hop artist from Harlem, New York. or Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. [25] Hip-hop group consisting of DJ Grandmaster Flash and five rappers, Melle Mel, the Kidd Creole, Keith Cowboy, Mr. Ness/Scorpio, and Rahiem. )

“Hard Times” [26] A song by Run-DMC. It was released in 1983 as a cassette single under Profile records. It was originally recorded by Kurtis Blow in 1980 for his self-titled debut album. started, and he nodded and tapped his foot to the beat. “I finally got it,” he said, handing me a cassette tape.

“No way,” I said. “It was your white whale.”

“I know. It came on the radio, and—boom—it was mine,” he said, taking the cassette tape back and replacing the Run-DMC in the boom box. Somehow he’d pressed the record button just at the right time, praying to the radio gods that the DJ didn’t talk just as the song started. It was a lot of work to record a song off the radio.

He turned the volume to full blast and looked at me and smiled.

Not many would admit that Joni Mitchell was one of your favorites. But Terrence wasn’t like most people. His musical faves were eclectic. They ranged from Johnny Cash to Billy Joel.

I wasn’t exactly a connoisseur when it came to music. Whatever MTV deemed to be in the top twenty, I listened to—and Madonna. But when Terrence was at his mom’s, I’d been known to come in here and listen to his music. He had cassettes full of different musical stylings. CCR, The Band, Queen, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, even a little John Denver, seriously…

When I was done, I tried to put everything back in the order Terrence left them. Though he hadn’t explicitly come out and said it, I didn’t think he wanted me touching his things.

I’d never had a brother and he’d never had a sister—we were only children in our broken homes—so boundaries had been set, though never really explained.

Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” ended, and he sorted through his collection of mass chaos on the floor in between picking up and putting down cassette tape after cassette tape.

He stopped, took the cassette out of the case, slid it into the boom box slot, and pressed play.

The sound of a bass filled the room.

Terrence didn’t say anything as “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang filled the room.

My left foot tapped against the floor, keeping the beat, and my head nodded, and I started talking real fast and in rhymes. I liked hip-hop. No one knew that. I tried to keep up with the song, but mouthing the lyrics was hard. Especially when they rhymed.

I could feel Terrence’s eyes on me. I stopped mouthing the words and froze.

He knocked his shoulder into me, smiled, and we both as a duet finished the rap. “Say what?”

The song ended and Terrence went searching for a new one. He had dozens of tapes with only a couple of songs recorded on them. The outside was written with the title of whatever he’d crudely recorded off the radio.

While he was distracted, I tried to think how to approach the subject. Maybe Mom and Dennis were right. Maybe I did need to give Terrence a chance. He was not going anywhere unless the bomb dropped.

“So,” I started.

“So what?” he asked, knocking over a stack of tapes.

“I was thinking about the movie—”

“How awesome it’s going to be? Yeah, you’re going to be hanging out with Astrid Ogilvie, Freddy White, Peony Roth, and Owen Douglas. Pretty damn cool.”

“Pretty damn cool,” I repeated.

“I just hope Dana won’t ruin it for you.”

“I’m not going to take Dana,” I said.

“Really? Well, that’s good.”

“Yeah?”

“But you know she won’t be happy,” he said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Just so you know.”

I nodded. “But I don’t think I can take it. I have a line, and she’ll probably weasel her way into saying it.”

“You know that’s right.”