Big Bumble Bee on the Butterfly Bush

Long Island – Summer of 1994

Rick rolled off the mattress and onto the floor, she watches as he gropes around in the early morning light, searching for his boxer briefs on the floor. He doesn’t realize she’s awake or he’s pretending that he doesn’t. She’s starring at him; his long dark brown hair has come out of its pony tail and is cascading down his bare back. He grabs up his jeans and seeing that his underwear is still inside them, slides them both on, grunting slightly; he begins his new search, this time looking for his faded Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt.

Lisa smiles to herself, allowing herself to be happy, to not be worried about whether or not he thinks she’s cool, or whether she really is the rebound that Jen just keeps insisting that she is. No, he likes her, she knew it ever since he told her she had pretty eyes that first day of driver’s ed last year. “Come on Lisa, be serious, he’s in a fucking band named after his ex-girlfriend that dumped him right after her prom, like a month before ours. If he was over her, he would have changed the name.” She can still hear Jen’s voice echoing as if she was lying in bed next to her instead of on the phone with her last week.

He finds his shirt crumpled under her desk and snatches it up, pulling it over his head, and seeing his socks & Doc Marten boots were hiding beneath it he begins to put them on as well. She props herself up on her elbow, pulling the sheets up over her chest, but not too far, she doesn’t want to look too prudish. “Hey” she wants to say, let’s go to the beach or let’s grab breakfast at the diner, but she’s too worried about coming off desperate, too much in her own head, so she goes with “you heading out?” He turns slowly, glancing at her over his shoulder, “Shit, did I wake you? Yeah, I uh, I have to take care of some stuff.”

He looks down at his boots, lacing & tying them as quickly as he can. Was I grinning like a goofy idiot? Uh, she’s so fucking pretty, I just don’t even know how I got here. I wish I could just say, listen my Dad is going to torch me for staying out all night without calling, but I really want to spend all day with you. Can I just go home and check in and come right back, or bring you with me? But I can’t because she’s Lisa Santini with the amazing wavy blonde hair and ridiculously blue eyes. I need to play this cool.

“That’s cool, I was thinking of maybe going to the beach with Jen later…” again, desperately wanting to add, you should come or why don’t WE just go the two of us instead, but she just trails off. Fuck, I want to go to the beach with her, if she’s going with Jen, maybe I can get Jim to go with us. He’s visiting his Mom this week & he always had a thing for her. “Hey, you remember Jimmy Mac right? He’s in town visiting his Mom.” She looks at him, waiting hoping he’ll ask if he & Jim can meet them at the beach…shit…say something Lisa…he asked if you remember Jimmy. “Yeah, we were in 7th grade together, he’s a nice guy, I didn’t know you guys still hung out.” Yes, you did you idiot, you saw him and Jim at the diner last week and you know Jim’s mom lives around the corner from him! “Yeah, his Mom lives around the corner from me, I’ll probably check in to see what he has going on.” Real smooth shit head.

He walks slowly to the bed and putting one knee down leans towards her, all the while his heart is beating like a trip hammer in his chest, should I be doing this, are we like at this place where we do this, but she leans forward and meets him and they kiss, it’s short, but deep and good. As they break they both can’t help but smile in spite of themselves. His cheeks slightly flush, he’s adorable, he really is, he’s not like, sexy, but just so cute, she thinks. Goddamn, what am I doing here, this shit doesn’t happen to me.

“I’ll call you later?” trying desperately to sound cool “Oh yeah, sure.” Trying to not sound desperate. He grabs his keys off her desk and disappears from her bedroom and she can hear him leave out the side door. What a great weekend for her parents to be visiting her brother at school.

She reaches down to the floor and grabs her old metal lunch box that she keeps her tapes in. She pops it open and there it is right at the top, Corrupting Emily - Big bumble Bee on the Butterfly Bush, HIS tape. He sings and plays guitar, they’re not the best of the local bands, but they’re certainly not the worst. “They didn’t change the name because it’s fucking cool and people knew them by it and they were already putting this tape out!” Was her response to Jen last week on the phone, she slams the tape into her boom box and hits play.

Distorted guitar erupts from the speakers; “a weird mix of grunge and Pink Floyd and like the Cure” was how their drummer’s girlfriend described the band. She looks at the liner for the millionth time; Rick Caccavale – vox & gtr, Matty B – gtr & backing vox, Sick Steve – Bass, Mr. DeRocca – percussion. She liked that Rick just wanted his name, not some dopey nick name. She also really likes the lyrics to this one, Nonsense, especially when he says “I don’t express myself well, address the world like a bat outta hell, it’s over, it has been for years.”

Rick slides into the driver’s side of his 79 Cutlas, shit, Dad is going to fuck up my world, I should have found a way to call. He starts the car and searches for a cassette in the bag of tapes on the floor, yes, this is perfect, he slips the Temple of the Dog cassette in the deck and pulls away from the curb. Every dog has his day Rick, every dog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6Jp-rbZxd0