Where’s the DJ?
Simon Homer Ongsioco
Short Story # 2
The school bell rings, teenagers flood out of the buildings. Cliques of students high fiving and hugging each other looking forward to seeing each other next week. Skaters get yelled at by faculty, security drives by in their golf carts, and the fat lumberjack principle stands on the curb ready to take the call from his little black walkie talkie. As the chaos of students disperse, the high school parking lot is lined up with parents in their SUVs and sedans ready to take off when their passengers arrive, eventually. One car stands out of the formation, a green convertible with a woman and a Levi’s shopping bag labeled “Happy Birthday” in the passenger side. The woman pushes her thick sunglasses to her forehead, and applies lipstick using the rear view mirror. While she the tiny makeup kit away in her blazer, her son enters the car. The son looks at his mom with a big smile and she smiles back too. He takes off his massively thick plastic headphones around his neck as well as wearing a “Class of 2003” sweater. Out of the bag he pulls a gleaming white denim jacket. The two give each other a big hug while the row of cars are honking at them to the point the principle has to waddle on down.
As they pull out of the main parking lot to the main road, the son realizes he dropped an envelope. At the moment his mom was not paying attention to him, he hides in his blue sweater and stuffs it in his bag as fast as possible. While on the road, the mom hands over some pamphlets to her son. The pamphlets had labels that read “UCI,” “UC BERKELEY,” and “UCLA.” The mom talks and moves her hand like a general in the army. She even points at him to make sure the mission goes according to plan. The son smiles and nods repetitively. Looking to the side mirror of the car, his eyes wander to the floor and the smile he has disappears. He looks at his bag and pulls out a book titled “Life of the Party” and a CD with “90s Hip Hop mix” written in sharpie. The best treasure of all was a pink post-it sticky note with a phone number and a time with hearts drawn over it. He clutches that piece of paper like it was nailed to him.
When the two arrive home, the son kicks his sneakers off at the front door and books it upstairs to his room. Meanwhile the mom puts her bag and mail, she picked up from outside, on the kitchen table. She hangs her uniform from work and makes herself a cup of tea. She sifts through the small stack of mail. Some magazines and banking statements. There was one envelope from the school, with her son’s name on it. She opens the envelope and reads what seems to be a report card.
The mom slams her cup of tea on the table and splotches of little puddles start to form. She yells for her son to come down. No response from upstairs. She yells again. No response again. She yells again. No response. The only response however was echoing vocals and vibrations of basses. Mom stomps her way up stairs and charges into her son’s room. The minute she opens his room, colorful party lights start to flash and a wave of loud music starts to split mom like the red sea.
He’s on turntables, practicing scratching, changing records on time and hyping out his imaginary crowd. He sandwiches half his headphone between his right ear and shoulder. He sees his mom standing at the door frame with her arms crossed and immediately is delighted to see her. But he notices that she is holding a report card covered with wet tea stains. The music and the lights stop.
The mom furiously lashes out to her son. Her hands flail as her eyes burn in anger. She throws the report card on her son’s turntables. Reprimanding her son, the son sighs, looking at the ceiling and then out the bedroom window. The son tries to fight back with his mom by pulling out his materials for his mission. The music books, CDs, and a studio business card. Mom looks at him with disgust and disappointment. Her arms were still crossed but the hands over her sleeves created ripples. The son tries to reason with her one more time. He hands her a flyer from his backpack. A party invitation with today’s date and his name as the Emcee and DJ. He looks at his mom with hope and smiles with reason. As she reads the flyer, she shakes her head again in sorrow crumpling the party flyer and throwing in the trash.
In disarray, the son puts his DJ equipment in his backpack and crates. The wires are put away so hastily that a black loofa forms on top of the turntables and records. He puts on his new birthday present and walks out of his room while staring his mom in the eye. While they lock eyes, the fire is extinguished by each of each other’s tears. He runs straight downstairs as fast as possible.
The mom looks around at her son’s room. She tries to hold back the tears and manages to suck them back into their ducts. The room is covered with dirty cloths, CD wrappers with faded stickers, and a bed that still was not made. She picks up the dirty clothes and tidy up the room as best as possible. Looking through the pockets of her son’s clothes, she stumbles across the sweater her son changed out of earlier. She reaches in the fuzzy blue pocket and finds an envelope. She opens the envelope and immediately drops everything and rushes downstairs. She races to the stairs, the sound of the front door slams shut and sounds of a loud muffler fades into the distance. The mom makes it to the driveway and sees black skid marks on her driveway. She looks down the road where rows of houses become smaller and smaller. With dismay she comes back into the house and picks up the letter from her son's room. In big red letters the top says “ACCEPTED.”
Evening starts to set, the mom pops the cork off a bottle of wine for another glass. She presses her hands against her face trying to massage the sides of her temple and slowly tracing down to her cheeks, ending with her hands together as if she is ready to pray. She moves to the sofa and turns on the tv. She goes channel surfing, flipping through to past the time without landing on an actual show to watch. When she finally settles in, she bottoms up the glass of wine to the point drops of red streamed down her white dress shirt. She wipes her lips using the back of her hand. She reclines all the way back and stares at different parts of the house. A little altar of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. A framed picture of her son playing basketball when he was twelve with a little dusty blue ribbon in the corner hanging by a thread. The photo of the family all together: herself, her son, and her husband. Her baggy eyes start to close like an old retro tv turning off.
The doorbell rings over and over and over again! It is so repetitive to the point it became a fire alarm. The mom lifts her upper body up on the sofa and reassesses herself of where the sound was coming from. Her hair is a bundle of webs and streaks of red lipstick trails down to the bottom of her chinny chin chin. She looks at the clock on the kitchen stove. It is 2 o'clock in the morning. The doorbell is still ringing nonstop. She gets up and books it to the door. As she gets to the door, she wipes away the drool on her cheeks and puts the residue on her pants. She opens the door furiously and yells at her son through the metal gate. Except it is not her son. It’s the dad of one of her son’s friends. He is shivering outside with his car left running in front of the street. The mom bows in sincerity and opens the outer door. The dad is not phased by it but meanwhile is still shaking and stammers his words. Mom asks why if he is okay and why she is at her house. The dad shakes his head and exchanges news with the mom. The mom’s mouth drops and covers her mouth. She shakes her head in denial. The dad points to his car and the two bolt to it and speed out the driveway. The car was speeding so fast that the sound of the muffler echoed throughout the neighborhood and lights from the windows from different houses started turning on like an airport runway.
The mom and the dad pull up to the street. One house down the street is surrounded by flashing lights of red and blue. Squad cars, firetrucks and an ambulance are all disorganized in chaos to the point they were on other people’s freshly cut lawns. People living by the nearby houses are outside their doorsteps either in their bathrobes and pajamas, barefoot on the cold pavement trying to see the commotion.
The two of them are unable to get closer to the house so they park in front of a random house and jump out of the car running towards the flashing lights. As they get closer and closer, the anonymous figures become high schoolers. One was frantically on their cell phone trying to call their parents. One was being interviewed by a cop. One was crying into somebody else’s arm. One was sitting on the ground trying to finish a can of soda while their hands were shaking.
The mom and dad ran under the yellow caution tape and the two of them split off into the sea of teenagers. The mom starts asking the different cliques and huddles where her son is. Some were still shell shocked. Some didn’t know where he was. Some didn’t even know him. The loud music was still echoing as the party lights were still flashing. During the mom’s search, the dad yells over to the mom. When the mom gets to the dad, he is with his daughter sitting on the end of an ambulance being tended to. Her right shoulder is bandaged with pink gauze and streaks of blood start to crack as it dries. The paramedic tending her wipes the blood off her hands as best he can but is unable to get under her fingernails due to trying to multitask the daughter’s assessment.
The mom asks where her son is. The daughter without a word looks towards the street and points with her face towards the garage. On the street are yellow plastic triangles with numbers on them. One with three black tire marks that fade down the street. The other was some shotgun shells sprinkled with diamonds of shattered glass from a nearby car. The mom goes inside the garage. In the garage was the source of flashing party light and loud music. There was a DJ set up in the back with the turntables still spinning to the same song over and over again. The DJ was nowhere to be found. The turntables belonged to her son. Behind the DJ table was another little plastic triangle. What it was next to was a white denim jacket. The jacket was soaked with blood in the neck and chest area. Red hand prints in the middle of where the metal buttons and rivets would have connected. A bullet hole straight through the back of the collar, which is where the darkest color of red is. She falls to her knees. She crawls over to pick up the jacket. She embraces it. She cries for her son.