True Rock

Tom Beckett had one final badge to obtain before finally getting promoted to the rank of Panther in Firescout Troupe #472 of Alameda, California. He didn’t think it would be at all difficult to pull off. He was thirteen years old, and he believed he could do anything – as most thirteen year olds do – but in Tom’s case, however, this solid sense of self-confidence was deserved: all his life, he had literally, figuratively, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally done every single thing he had set out to do. 

There was the time he had been the only one able to climb Mrs. Merten’s nectarine tree to retrieve a kite that had flown into the highest branches at the hands of Mrs. Merten’s little daughter, Maya. For years, that tree had been known as the tallest in the neighborhood, and everyone thought that this was odd.

“Nectarine trees aren’t supposed to grow that high, are they?” the people in the neighborhood would ask one another. 

No one could climb to the top of that tree, not even Mr. Mertens, who was, incidentally, an award-winning firefighter in their town. The seemingly simple conundrum must have embarrassed him a great bit, even though when you really stop to think about it, whoever said the prerequisite of being a firefighter was being able to climb any tree where and wherever you wanted in the first place? 

Regardless, it didn’t take long for the kids of the neighborhood to hear about the crisis occurring in the tallest nectarine tree in Alameda, and before long, a crowd of children, followed by adults, surrounded the tree in the front yard of the Merten household, the kids daring one another to climb the tree. Some said they could do it, but none of them made a move towards actually grabbing the lower branches and trying, and soon the entire scene devolved into a cloud of sarcastic jabs, one person daring the other to climb the tree, along with a lot of “If you’re so brave, you do it!” and “I’d do it, but my parents don’t like me taking unnecessary risks” going around. 

Tom Beckett – who was only ten at the time – had arrived at the scene on his bike. It didn’t take long for him to figure out exactly what was happening. He cut through the bickering crowd, past the crying Maya Merten and even past firefighter Mr. Merten, who was scratching his head and staring up at the tree, trying to figure out the exact best way to approach the problem. Tom ascended the tree like a monkey, as though he had climbed it every day of his life and could do it in his sleep if he wanted. He reached the top in what everyone would later agree simply had to be “record time” before plucking the red kite from the tip-top and breezing back down. The crowd fell to a hushed silence and the men began yelling that Tom should “be careful” and “what do you think you’re doing, you’ll break your neck!” But by then it was too late: Tom had already shown them up and the problem had been thoroughly licked. 

He handed the kite to Maya Merten, who had instantly stopped crying when she saw his hand reach out and grasp onto it at the top of the tree, and wordlessly strode back in the direction he had come from, jumped on his bike, and continued down the street. That was the thing about Tom Beckett: when he had a clear picture in his mind of what he wanted to do, there was nothing that could stop him. And he didn’t wait around to think about how he would do it. He just did it. 

“Geez,” said another boy in the crowd as he and nearly the entire neighborhood watched Tom Beckett speed down Puddingstone Street on his red ten-speed. “That boy can do anything.” 

It was only about a month later during a routine checkup and a routine blood screen that Tom was diagnosed with the strange and rare blood disease – a kind of hepatitis. It was the kind of illness that could, according to his doctor, either come to kill him in time (“time” being roughly two to three years), or – by the intervention of some miracle as well as steadfast adherence to a health regime on the part of both Tom and his family – could possibly be cured forever. Part of that regime was rest, and lots of it. He was to come home from school every day and rest for at least an hour. And then at night, he was to attempt to get nine hours of sleep. There were other elements of this regime, but the resting was the part of it that Tom would, as an adult, recall most vividly…ironically, because it had been so incredibly boring for him. 

Although Tom didn’t feel physically sick, he knew the illness was there, and he knew it didn’t plan to go away. For the first two years, when Tom was ten and eleven, he would spend these afternoons lying on top of his bed, thinking about his disease, imagining that the little cells that were tormenting his body were power pellets and that an imaginary Pac Man was chomping them up as he moved up, down, and side to side along the black screen in his mind. 

But all that had changed with the Walkman. 

He had obtained the Walkman in an unusual way. When Tom Beckett turned twelve, a neighbor around his same age named Flora invited him to come along with her family to church one Sunday. 

“You should go,” Tom’s mother urged. The Becketts weren’t religious in any traditional sense, particularly not Mrs. Beckett’s, who had actually identified as a card-carrying atheist for six months in college, but then reneged to a more agnostic identity. Yet her nerves were terribly wrung with concerns about the long-term health of her boy, whom she loved of course, and she figured he could use all of the help he could get. 

Tom only went to church and Sunday Youth Group with Flora a few times, but a few things still stand out to him years later: the way that Flora’s, white patent leather shoes gleamed in the sun in the mornings before her parents drove them all to the United Methodist Church of Alameda, waving dried palm leaves around the room with the other kids like giant Egyptian fans on Palm Sunday (even as an adult, he couldn’t really tell you what Palm Sunday was really about), and finally, the Sunday Youth Group’s monthly tradition of getting to go out for pizza once at a small, dimly lit pizzeria on University Avenue in Berkeley. He remembered this last part the most vividly, which made sense, as many of the best memories seem to be pizza-related in some way or another. A woman named Victoria Yin was the leader of the group, and would drive them all to pizza once a month as well. For some reason, Tom could never remember Victoria Yin’s face unless she was standing directly in front of him. He did remember, however, that she was kind and easy to talk to, and also that her son’s name was Matthew Yin. He and Tom were in the same grade (sixth, at the time), but attended different middle schools in Alameda. The other thing he recalled most vividly about Victoria Yin was one time during a Youth Group meeting when she spoke about a conversation she’d had with God after having become angry with her son for accidentally spilling milk all over the kitchen floor. 

Victoria said to the group: “After I yelled at Matthew and sent him to his room, I asked God if I had done the right thing. And he said that I hadn’t, and that I should apologize to Matthew, because spilling the milk had been an accident, and we’re all capable of making mistakes.”

Years later, this story would still have an impact on Tom Beckett, because he did not live in a world where adults ever admitted their mistakes…not to themselves, not to God if you believed in God, and especially not to their children. And years and years later, when he would remember this story, he would think of it as the one really important thing he did take away from those few times of going to church with his neighbor. To have a philosophy for being an adult that so few actually had, which was the willingness to admit a mistake. This was what he aspired to. It was the one thing he would really take away from it all.

That, and the Sony Walkman. 

Somehow, word had gotten to the Yins about Tom’s ongoing battle with the strange and rare blood disease. One Saturday afternoon, Matthew unexpectedly stopped by Tom’s house. Tom was incredibly surprised to see Matthew at the door, as he was not at all accustomed to seeing him outside of the church. Matthew displayed impeccable manners and respectfulness to Mr. and Mrs. Beckett throughout his visit, and asked that Tom’s parents be present as he spoke to Tom in the living room. There they were, the four of them poised on the large sofa and the two-seater loveseat. 

“I heard about how you’ve been sick,” Matthew said to Tom. “And I spoke to God about it, and God said something to me about it. That’s why I’m here.” 

“Really?” Tom Beckett asked, mystified. He had been experimenting with praying a little bit here and there since attending church for the first time, but so far, all he had heard during these sessions was the sound of his own voice. He began to think that perhaps he had been doing something wrong, and that maybe Matthew and Victoria knew something he didn’t. 

“What did God’s voice sound like?” Tom asked Matthew.

Matthew blinked. “Like a man’s voice,” he replied after a long pause. 

“Like a thundering man’s voice?” Tom asked. “With an echo, like on TV?”

“No,” Matthew said, “A normal man’s voice. Like a man standing in the same room as you. In fact, He kind of sounded like my baseball coach, Mr. Lombardi.”

“What did he say?” asked Mrs. Beckett.

“Oh,” Matthew said, getting his mind back on track. “I think he wants me to give Tom my Walkman.” 

“What!” Tom Beckett’s parents exploded. 

“A Walkman!” exclaimed Mrs. Beckett. “But it’s so expensive.” 

“We can’t accept a Walkman from you, Matthew,” said Mr. Beckett, “We hardly even know you.”

“But it’s what I’m supposed to do,” Matthew insisted.  “I’m supposed to give it to Tom so he can listen to music and not be so lonely while he’s sick.” He smiled confidently at Mr. and Mrs. Beckett. “It’s totally the right thing to do.” 

“But Matthew,” Mrs. Beckett cleared her throat. “What will you listen to music on?” 

“I listen to most of my music on my parents’ stereo,” he explained. “Besides, I still have a record player I can use.” 

It took several more minutes of convincing for the Becketts to be convinced, and even when they were “convinced,” they weren’t entirely convinced ; it was the kind of thing that made them feel very uncomfortable and awkward, and it didn’t help that Matthew was so calmly persistent throughout it all. They tried asking him if he was sure it wasn’t a dream instead of the actual voice of God telling him to do this. He nodded that he was sure it was God.

“But how do you know it was him?” they asked Matthew. 

“When you know, you just know,” he said. 

They turned to Tom. 

“What do you have to say?” they asked him.

“Gee, Matthew,” Tom said. “I’ve never owned a Walkman before.”

Matthew smiled serenely. “Good,” he said. “Let me show you how to use it before I go.” 

They went to Tom’s room, where the official handover took place. Matthew also presented Tom with a shoebox filled with cassette tapes. Tom had never heard of any of the bands before. 

“Queen?” he asked. “New York Dolls? The Clash?”

“What kind of music do you like to listen to?” Matthew asked him. 

“I don’t really listen to anything,” Tom said. He paused. “I’m surprised that you like this. Isn’t it rock and roll?”

“Yeah,” Matthew said. “What’s so surprising about that?” 

“I don’t know,” Tom said, wondering why and failing to come up with an answer himself. “I guess I thought you’d just listen to something else…being Christian and all.”

“Like the original cast recording of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat?” Matthew smiled wryly. He shrugged. “My family encourages me and my sister to listen to whatever kind of music we like. My mother likes the Carpenters, my dad likes Jimi Hendrix.”

“What about your sister?” asked Tom.

“Right now she pretty much likes Barney and New Kids on the Block,” he said “But we imagine she’s going to grow out of that soon.”

When Matthew left the house that afternoon with nothing but a serene smile on his face and two empty hands, Mr. and Mrs. Beckett became extremely leery, asking a lot of suspicious questions about Matthew and the whole Sunday Youth Group…but the truth of the matter was, they could not win an argument against such a generous, selfless gift, particularly one that asked for absolutely nothing in return, as so many so-called gifts claim to do.

Tom had been puzzled at Matthew’s persistent willingness and generosity, but moreover, he realized how envious he was of the fact that Matthew and his mother seemed to have this innate gift of speaking to God and having God speak back. Having that, he imagined, would be worth more than any Walkman. But it was not the kind of thing a person could just give over to another person. He knew that. 

The months passed. As exciting as it was to receive the Walkman, Tom found himself strangely reluctant to actually use it, as if using it would, in some way, be using it up , depleting it. He didn’t want that. He continued his longstanding routine of lying on his bed after school, focusing intently on the image of Pac Man chewing up the sick cells in his body, focused on killing the part of him that was unwanted, the part of him that did not belong. In fact, Tom Beckett had become so focused on his illness that the idea of a disease-free life had become almost foreign to him. 

Mr. Beckett was growing antsy. He did not believe that forcing his young son to rest every afternoon after school while he should have been out doing normal kid stuff was, in the long run, healthy. After all, Tom had still not gotten better and it had been nearly two and a half years since his initial diagnosis. Mrs. Beckett, however, did not agree. She had a tendency to look at the negative, and to worry about the small, even miniscule chances of bad things happening. One afternoon, Tom Beckett lay on his bed, trying to focus on Pac Man, but was finding it impossible not to eavesdrop on his mother and father arguing in the next room. 

 “You’re going to turn that boy into an introverted, nervous mess, just like you,” Mr. Beckett snapped at his wife. 

“He’s not going to be a mess,” she said. “He’s going to be alive. And one day, you’ll understand why I had to do this to him. And a touch of introversion is actually healthy for a child,” she added, “especially a boy.” 

Mr. Beckett grumbled. He did not think that it paid off for boys to be shy and keep to themselves, even just a little bit. He believed in the outgoing boy, the boy he had aspired to be like when he was growing up in Alameda in the early 1960s. The boy on the cover of Boys Life magazine with a huge cotton candy grin (one might refer to such a grin in this day and age as “shit-eating”), a tackle box in one hand, and a string of freshly-caught trout hanging from the other. He thought it would do Tom, the Becketts’ only child, a world of good to have more cotton candy, excitement, and trout in his life. Trout and cotton candy, certainly, but excitement was most definitely the real priority. In fact, he wanted Tom to join the local Firescout troupe, and had been trying to convince Mrs. Beckett that it was a safe and healthy after-school activity for months. He himself had been a Firescout and felt that it had somehow allowed him to become a more well-rounded and capable person.

Tom absolutely hated the sound of his parents fighting. He thought back to the day – it now seemed so long ago, even though it really wasn’t – when he had rescued Maya Merten’s kite from that tree. 

“Gee,” the little boy had said in awe. “That boy can do anything.”

Tom had pretended not to hear the little boy in that moment, but the truth was that he had, and it had made his heart sing. He really did believe he could do anything, that God, or whatever power that did or did not exist on earth, had made him this way. If this was the case, then why was he still sick? he wondered. Why couldn’t he simply will himself to get better?

For almost a year, the Walkman and the shoebox of Matthew’s rock and roll tapes had gathered dust beneath Tom’s bed. He had not spoken to Matthew or his mother since the day Matthew had given him the gift. But that afternoon, amidst the muffled sounds of arguing from the next room, Tom realized that something in his body wanted to explode, to scream, to wring its flesh and buzz and jump and stretch and holler in a way that it had been deemed too fragile to do before. 

He bent himself over the edge of the bed like it was a trapeze bar, and dug his hands underneath, grasping for the feel of the shoebox and the Walkman. When his fingers did touch the plastic of the tape machine, it did feel a great deal dustier than he imagined it would. He pulled them out, making a slight scraping sound against the hardwood floor, and cringed. His mother had ears like an elephant…r a mouse…whatever animal they said had the best hearing. He didn’t want to be yelled at, but what did he care if he got yelled at? He was Tom Beckett. The invincible Tom Beckett. “The boy who could do anything.” Perhaps there was really no such thing as being invincible, but it was still worth something to feel that way, wasn’t it?

He blew the dust off the shoebox first and a flood of names inundated his eyes: The Cure, The Smiths, Queen, David Bowie, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, The New York Dolls, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Clash, Talking Heads, The Velvet Underground. Popping the Eject button on the Walkman, he pulled out the tape that had been sitting in there all this time. It was Queen’s The Miracle album. He decided to listen to that one first. 

One month later, Matthew Yin was sitting in his room with the door closed. It was four in the afternoon, and he had just gotten back from baseball practice. Facing the mirror, he began to paint black glitter eyeliner onto his eyelids and secured a curly wig the color of cotton candy on steroids onto his head. He did not at all resemble the Matthew Yin of Sunday Youth Group, or even school for that matter, but anyone could see that he was still the same person if they looked at his face. Victoria Yin knocked on the door and came inside. 

“Hey,” he said, glancing up from the mirror. 

“I finished fixing your shoes,” Victoria said. She held up a pair of silver platform shoes. Matthew smiled. He had worn them once to school once and they had, quite surprisingly, created an instant uproar among parents and students alike. Matthew didn’t see what the big deal was - they were only shoes. But when the administration banned him from wearing them again, Matthew’s mother sat him down. 

“You have to understand that out there, people are expecting you to be a certain way,” she said. “But you are who you are and no one should ever ask you to hide or sacrifice that. Unfortunately, being who you are is going to make some people uncomfortable, and you can’t change that.”

Matthew nodded. Like Tom, he too had been through that phase of thinking he was invincible, that he could simply be whoever he wanted to be. Getting in trouble at school for dressing like the New York Dolls – who had, in the past year, had transitioned from being merely one of the bands he enjoyed listening to being, in his ears, “one of the greatest bands of all time” – would prove to be one of the major turning points in his young adult life. 

“As long as you’re my son, you can be whoever you want around me,” his mother reassured him. 

He smiled at the memory. He was still the Matthew known to everyone before. Still the nice boy who attended church every Sunday with his mother, still the star shortstop on the local boys’ baseball league, and still the selfless and eloquent friend that both Tom Beckett and his mother and father remembered. The only difference was that within minutes after he arrived home from school or church or baseball practice, he would release the outward shell of himself. The white and blue striped baseball uniform, the polo t-shirts and khakis or jeans and Converse tennis shoes…he would transform from an average, unassuming thirteen-year-old boy to Matthew, the Matthew he felt and knew he really was on the inside. If anyone from the outer world stopped by the Yin household after the hour of five pm and Matthew answered the door, they would probably assume that it was another child they were speaking to, a child who belonged to another family…unless they actually bothered to look closely. Then they would catch a glimpse of the real him. 

Matthew had just finished lacing up his boots when the telephone rang. 

“Matthew!” the voice of his little sister, Rachel, bellowed through the hallway. She was nine years old now and beginning to cultivate her own musical tastes. Matthew couldn’t say much for Madonna or Cyndi Lauper himself, but he was at least grateful that she had moved past the Barney playground-songs stage. He walked into the kitchen and picked up the cordless phone on the wall. 

“Matthew? It’s Tom,” said the voice. 

“Um…”

“Tom,” the voice repeated more insistently. “Tom Beckett.”

“Uh…” Matthew hated to be rude, but the name did not strike a single chord in his memory. “How do we know each other?”

“We went to church together,” Tom said. 

“Oh…” Matthew still didn’t know who it was. He was trying to sound convincing. It had reached the point in the conversation when a person simply falls back on pretending to know who the other person is, and the entire exchange becomes less of a conversation and more of a performance. Tom was highly tuned in to these kinds of nuances, however, and saw right through Matthew’s unconvincing “oh.” 

“You gave me your Walkman,” he said at last. If Matthew didn’t remember that, Tom thought to himself, he probably had the wrong Matthew to begin with. 

“ Oo -oh,” Matthew said. There it was. That was the difference between real and fake recognition. 

“How are you, Tom?” Matthew said. “It’s been awhile.” With the cordless phone still pressed to his ear, he walked back into his bedroom and sat back down in front of the mirror. 

“I know, I know,” Tom said. “I’m doing well. I’m not sick anymore.”

“Are you serious?” Matthew said. “You’re all better?”

It was true. At his most recent doctor appointment two days earlier, Tom had undergone a routine test for the illness in order to examine its progression. When the results came back, the doctor had called Tom and Mr. and Mrs. Beckett into the office to share the startling news. 

“The disease appears to have evaporated from his body,” he told Tom’s parents. Even the doctor seemed amazed. He had been more cynical about the disease’s prognosis than he had actually let on when Tom had first been diagnosed. 

“Yep,” Tom said to Matthew over the phone. “I know it sounds crazy, but they say I’m all better.” For some reason, he felt that the conversation was now beginning to feel awkward. He had not called to explain to Matthew the miracle of his recovery. In fact, Tom thought to himself, Matthew probably already understood everything there was to know about miracles and cures and all that. 

“Congratulations,” Matthew said warmly. “That’s great. I’m really happy to hear it.” 

“Well,” Tom began, “I’m calling to thank you again for giving me your Walkman and your tapes so long ago.”

Matthew gave a small laugh. “You don’t have to thank me for that,” he said. 

“It’s just that…” Tom trailed off. He had practiced so many times in his head what he was going to say to Matthew about the music, and yet now when it was time to actually spit the words out, he had completely forgotten how to do it. 

“The music…the thing is, I started listening to it about a month ago. “And it’s amazing. It’s completely not the kind of stuff that I grew up on. In fact, I don’t know what I grew up on…if I grew up on anything. My parents aren’t into music at all. I mean, they aren’t anti-music, but they just don’t have a clue. And I guess that me being their son I never had a clue either. I wish it was different. I’ve realized over the past week or so that I was raised in a music-less household. Can you imagine something like that? So I never came to appreciate anything except silence. It’s like when you grow up with parents who, say, only eat raw vegetables. Nothing but raw carrots and celery and chard and eggplant day in and day out. And the next thing you know, that’s all you, their child, like to eat too. And when someone presents you with a plate of sirloin steak or even filet mignon…or even buffalo wings, you think of course you won’t like it and who would? But then you finally get yourself to try it and you realize it’s the only thing worth eating. The thing you had been missing all along. And well, man,” Tom finally stopped to take his first breath throughout the course of this entire speech, “it’s the one thing that makes life worth living.” 

There was a long silence on Matthew’s end of the phone. 

“You waited a year to listen to the Walkman I gave you?” he asked incredulously. 

“It’s like I said,” Tom protested, “I didn’t have any taste for music. I only started listening recently. I know this is gonna sound crazy , but I think it may have cured me. Either way, I know for sure it’s the reason why I’m still alive.” 

“What!”

“I’m serious,” Tom said, his voice softening a little bit. “The reason I’m calling you after all this time is because I’m completely obsessed. Obsessed . And I knew that you were the only person who could possibly understand what that feels like. I mean, what’s the point of loving something that much if you can’t love it with someone else who feels the same way?” He paused. “Unless,” he stopped hesitantly, “You’re not into that kind of music anymore.” 

“Believe me,“ Matthew said, looking up from his fixed gaze on the ground to glance at his own reflection in the mirror. “I’m still into it.”