The Middle

My forearms tremble like a struck chord while sweat soaks my pits and rolls down my back. I strangle the neck of my Gretsch. Why did I ever think this was a good idea? “You have a real talent,” Samantha said, and I believed her. Idiot

A trumpet screeches from across the curtain. A girl plays “All You Need Is Love”, and fumbles three notes in a five note melody. Keep screeching, sister. Because if you stop, I’m next. Couldn't I do better than her though? Why am I making such a big deal of this?

“Because you’re going to fail.”

Nubi. I haven’t heard his voice in a long time. The little one-foot tall goblin hops up on my lap. “They’re all going to laugh at you,” he says.

“How’d you get out?”

Nubi pats my knee. “I’ll always be with you, Perry.”

I locked Nubi in a cage four years ago when I started practicing guitar. I got tired of his screeches. He’d tell me that I should quit, that my fingers were too short, that I was too fat and worthless to play. Yet when I’d mess up, he’d say it’s because I didn’t practice enough, that I had no discipline. So I locked him in a birdcage and hucked him in the river. I felt guilty, and maybe a little scared about what he would do if he got out, but I couldn’t stand him anymore. I don’t know why he got his kicks in torturing me. Samantha told me that everyone has a goblin but most can only hear them. She says we’re the lucky ones that actually see them. But it doesn’t feel like luck.

I first met Nubi when I was five years old, hiding under a table in my Grandma’s kitchen. He came out of the dishwasher. What he was doing there, no idea, maybe he lived in it, or was having a bath. Anyway, out he came, this tiny guy with a green wrinkly head under a pointy red hat.

“Why the tears? Aren’t you a big boy?” he said.

I don’t remember why I was crying, but I was at my Grandma’s house during my Mom’s third stint in rehab, so I was probably missing her. “No one loves me,” I said.

Nubi hopped up my lap and patted my knee. “Well of course no one loves you. Why would they?”

“What?” I was looking for sympathy and comfort, and this little goblin was smiling like he was thrilled with my misery. I felt defensive. “My Grandma loves me. So does Grandpa.”

“Grampa!” Nubi said. “He won’t even let you ride the quad, or take you to Arcadia, or do anything fun cause he’s always tired. Not like a Dad would. But your Dad is gone too isn’t he? Hah! No, no one loves you, Perry.”

He was getting me mad. My biological Dad took off before I was born, so he wasn’t around. And Nubi was right, Grandpa owned two pizza places and wasn’t home a lot. When I did see him we’d usually watch baseball and he’d be asleep in his recliner by the fourth inning. But on Saturday’s he’d take me to HastyMart and buy me baseball cards and soda and candy bags, so this goblin didn’t know what he was talking about.

“He’s tired cause he works so much,” I said. “And anyway, Grandma loves me. She tells me every night after story time.”

“Bah! She’s only taking care of you because your Mom’s not here, and she can’t let you die, or she’d go to jail. And you know your Grandma is your Mom’s mom, right? So why doesn’t she bring her back? She would if she loved you.”

I cried heavy tears until Grandma found me and gave me a hug. Nubi ran back into the dishwasher and I told her all about him. She laughed at that and sat me down at the table with a big bowl of rainbow ice cream. She said she loved me to the moon, and that everyone did, and I felt better. But still, Nubi had me thinking.

I didn’t see Mom for another month, and when she came home, she brought Samantha. I was more scared of her than Nubi. She had a bright blue mohawk, a ring in her nose, and she wore a t-shirt with a Grim Reaper on it. I think it was a Misfits tour shirt, or maybe Sabbath—stuff that I wear now, but for a five year old kid who just met a goblin, I was sure she was a witch. Turns out I was right.

“I’m a punk rock witch,” Samantha said, when she caught me fighting with Nubi. I was doing my homework and the goblin was telling me I would never understand fractions. I was too stupid, and anyway all the girls in class called me Shrek, and I’m a big ugly ogre who should quit school. I ended up trashing my room in a fit and screaming at him. I didn’t know Samantha was home. She came to live with us about a year after I first met her at Grandma’s. I was sure she had Mom under some spell as they were always giggling and Mom wasn't even getting loaded anymore. But after a few months I started to not care so much because that witch was fun. She’d take me to Arcadia and we’d play Street Fighter and Buckhunter, and in the summer we’d haul her old camper to the lake and fish and shoot off bebe guns while Mom worked on her computer on the shore. Nubi never came around when I was having fun and I was having lots of it then. But that day I trashed my room, I wasn’t having any fun at all.

“Are you yelling at your goblin?” Samantha said.

“How do you know?” I never told Samantha about Nubi. Everyone I told said he was my ‘imaginary friend’ so I stopped talking about him in case they thought I was crazy. “You can see him?”

“No,” she said. “But I can see mine. Her name is Massy”

“Is she mean?”

“Oh, she’s a little bitch.” Samantha laughed, and so did I. “When I was your age, she used to tell me that I was gross and weird. She told me that everyone hates me and thinks I’m disgusting.”

“Same with Nubi!” I said. “Why do they do that?”

“I honestly don’t know. But I did find out how to handle her so that my freakouts aren't so dramatic.” She waved her hand over the mess of papers and the broken lamp on my bedroom floor.

“How?”

“Magic.”

“So you are a witch?” Samantha didn’t look much like a witch by this time. The mohawk was gone, her hair was brown and normal, and she wore pink scrubs for her job at the hospital.

“Oh yeah, I’m a punk rock witch with punk rock magic. I can teach you some spells I learned when I was a kid. Wanna hear em?”

“Kay.”

“Here.” She pulled an iPod out of her pocket and gave me one of the buds.

“Black Flag,” she said. She started up Rise Above, and belted out the chorus like a cheerleader: “We are tired of your abuse. Try to stop us, it's no use”

“Well, what did ya think?” she said when the song finished.

I shrugged. “It’s just a song. It’s kinda dumb to call it magic.”

“Dumb!? Oh no, music sends Massy running, especially loud punk. I think there’s something about it, you know. It’s not perfect but it’s still good. She hates that. She hates when I’m feeling brave. I think what those goblins want more than anything is attention so they poke where it’s sore and try to get us scared and down, and they’ll keep poking until we break and freak out. And I freaked out a lot. So did your mom actually, so you come by it honestly, hah! It’s actually how we met. Two freaks trying to fix up what we broke.”

“Did you fix it?”

Samantha smiled. “Kinda, yeah.”

“How? Can you show me?”

“Well, I don’t know how to fix this for you. Music helps me, but every goblin is different. You keep talking to Miami and you tell him the truth, okay. No matter how embarrassing it is. He can help.”

Miami was our family therapist. His name is Doctor Harrison, but Samantha said he looked like Sonny Crockett from Miami Vice and the name stuck. Mom got me seeing him after I kicked a hole in my bedroom door and screamed at Nubi to “fuck off!” I think it was the first time she heard me say it and it shocked her. I didn’t tell Miami about Nubi because I was scared he’d put me in a straight jacket.

“Wait. You were old when you met mom,” I said.

“Old!?” Samantha feigned a gasping shock. “I’m not that old. And so what anyway?”

“So you still had freakouts after you found out about punk rock. It doesn’t work.”

“Ah, well,” Samantha said. “I wasn’t strong enough back then. Sometimes goblins get trickier, especially when they get chatting with other people's goblins. It becomes one big pity party and they can get tough.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “Hey, promise me something. If he ever starts telling you to hurt yourself, you lock him in a cage and throw him far away and then you come talk to me okay?”

“Kay.”

“Promise it.”

“Promise…hey If I lock Nubi in a cage. Won’t he die?”

“Huh. You’re special Perry.”

I wasn’t trying to be special. I was curious.

“I don’t think he’ll die,” Samantha said. “And he probably won’t stay locked up forever. But he'd been gone for a while and by the time he's back, you’d be stronger.”

“How do I get stronger?”

"I told you already, punk rock magic!"

"For real."

“The best thing is what you’re doing now, talking to someone. And when you figure stuff out, you can find something that makes you happy and helps people. If you find that, it'll make you strong. It’s gotta be something kinda hard, though. That’s how you get tougher.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno, you’re a kid still, you’ll figure it out.” She pressed play. Rancid got loud and my questions got quiet. “Destination unknown. Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby Soho.”

After that day, music became a ritual for us. Samantha would come home from the night shift at the hospital at five in the morning, and I’d be up, and we’d sit around and eat cereal and listen to tunes and watch music videos. For my tenth birthday she bought me a Stratocaster and taught me power chords. I practiced as much as I could and play her the stuff I’d learned. By my twelfth birthday I was bored with punk, so I printed rock and metal tabs and tried out solos. The song I was struggling with when I finally put Nubi in the cage was The Middle, by Jimmy Eat World. It took about a month after I sent Nubi sailing to learn it. Halfway through playing it for Samantha, before I even got to the solo, she started crying. I’d never seen her cry before.

I stopped playing. “Is it Massy?”

“No, it’s the opposite of her. Can you sing it?”

“No.”

“Do you know the words?”

“Yeah.”

“Then sing it for me, Perry. Just try.”

“Ughh, alright fine. From the top?”

“Please.”

“Hey, don’t write yourself off yet.” I was completely off key. I sounded like a whispering donkey, but Samantha was sobbing and smiling and clapping, and I felt good.

“You have a real talent,” she said. “That solo was a banger.”

“It was super hard.” I didn’t tell her about locking Nubi away. I don’t know why. As silly as it sounds, sometimes I’d wonder if he was okay.

“I bet. But you’re stronger now hey?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

***

“Hey Perry. You ready?”

Julie, the coordinator for the city-wide talent show, rushes past me, clipboard in hand.

“No.”

I tune my guitar to drop D for the song I planned to play: One by Ed Sheeran. I do a few tongue trills to warm up.

“You’re gonna sing?” Nubi says. “Hah! Those singing lessons were a waste of money. Now it’s like you're trying to sound good and it’s pathetic.”

“Perry! Are you still going on?” Julie says.

We are tired of your abuse. Try to stop us, it's no use. I tune back up to E. I take a breath. “Yeah,” I say. “I'm going”

“Nothing worse than delusions of talent. It's so cringe. You want to get booed? That song is too hard—”

I flick Nubi off my knee and walk through the curtain. I can still hear him but his screeches are muffled. A row of judges stare at me and behind them there’s hundreds of faces packed into the theatre. I get dizzy. I spot Mom. She’s crying already and Samantha’s beaming beside her. Nubi was kinda right, One isn’t the song for today. I plug in my guitar and start the chords for The Middle. As I go I hear cheers. Jessy and Heather—two of the girls that used to call me an ogre—are wooing. So there is magic in music. I mess up the solo, but no one notices except me. I’m in control. The shakes are gone. I let the last chord ring out and Mom and Samantha stand up and clap and holler, followed by hundreds more, and even one of the judges. Samatha’s sobbing now too. It's not very punk-rock-witch of her. I wave to her and mom and take a bow. And I leave the stage, feeling strong.