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again. “But it will make you tough. Don’t you feel tougher already?” he shouted as our cage spun upside down again.
    No, I did not feel tougher, and all I could do was continue to scream. Chase screamed too, only it was a scream of exhilaration. Then all I could think about was how I was stuck in a cage swooping a hundred feet in the air with a maniac who thought it was fun while I was sure I was going to die. I did learn one thing from the experience, and that was never again to listen to my brother, at least not to the point where I put my life in his hands.
    When we finally got off and my feet were on the ground again, Chase held me by the shoulders while I tried to get my bearings. “There, now just think, you can tell your friends. I bet Jack hasn’t been on the Zipper. I bet he’s not as tough as you.”
    No, Jack had not been on the Zipper. But he also didn’t have an older brother to force him into doing things when no one else was around. I never went on that ride again, but I have kept the ticket stub all these years.
    If there has been one positive thing in my life over the past two years, it’s that my bass playing has really improved.During that first year Chase was a junkie, I’d drown out the squabbling between Mom and Dad by cranking up my amplifier. I’d practice for hours at a time. Jack had talked me into buying a secondhand bass. He was already playing with Bobby Yee and Steve Goertz off and on. They needed a bass player and they asked me to join the band.
    We call ourselves The Pogos. We do a mixture of stuff, nothing much original, although Jack has come up with a few decent songs. So far, we’ve had only one gig and that was at a junior high dance. We are gearing up to play in the battle of the high school bands in August.
    On the Saturday morning following Chase’s arrest, Jack and I head to Griffin’s Music where I am picking up my new Fender Precision bass. I’d bought it a month earlier and was having it adjusted.
    â€œI hear Harris Reed got his hand broken,” Jack tells me as we walk down the sidewalk. “Every knuckle in his hand was smashed.”
    â€œHow did he do that?”
    â€œHe didn’t do it. His dealers did. I guess he owed them and he couldn’t pay.”
    I get a creepy feeling in my stomach. The image of messing someone up intentionally is like a scene from
The Sopranos,
not something that happens in my own neighborhood.
    We pass a toy store where a small white unicorn in the window catches my eye. “I’ll only be a minute. I’ll meet up with you,” I tell Jack.
    He shrugs and continues toward the music store.
    When I buy the toy I ask the clerk for a double bag so that you can’t see through it. When I meet up with Jack again he asks me what I bought. “Something for Jade’s little sister. It’s her birthday.”
    I’m not all that good at lying, not like some people in my family. But Jack is busy inspecting another bass, much like the one I recently bought. “I think I like yours better,” he says. “The vintage sunburst. It’s more traditional.”
    The owner of the store appears with my new guitar. I lift it from the case and feel the weight in my hands, discovering all over again why I bought it in the first place. Jack and I had searched the music stores for months before I found this one. The first time I held it I couldn’t believe how naturally it fit against me. When I played it, I was blown away by the tone. It was a little more than I wanted to pay, but it had everything I’d been looking for. Now I return it to the case, stuffing the bag from the toy store alongside it. I am on a high when we leave the store.
    â€œI can’t decide which guitar I want,” Jack says. “I mean, once I’ve saved the money. But first I need a job that pays a lot more than ripping tickets at the theater,”he moans. “I need one