So, here’s how it all went down… 

One Thursday evening in early spring, the year after the whole mess with Derek Bodley and the spray paint, my buddy X and I were throwing down some jams in my garage. We were sounding good, working through a new arrangement of some B.B. King blues tunes that our band, the People Movers, was going to play at our very first live gig.  

The gig was a dance at Redford Union High School, where we were all sophomores, and it was coming up fast. That Saturday, in fact, April 22nd, only two days away. The band consisted of X (whose real name was Xavier Maplethorpe) on vocals, me on lead guitar, Kenji Omura on bass, and Yusuf Karout on drums.  

Kenji and Yusuf were due to show up soon. It was warm, really warm for April in southeast Michigan, and the trees were just starting to leaf out and the sun was shining. All in all, a good day to practice. 

Yeah, things were looking good and feeling even better that Thursday night. 

Until… 

Who comes sauntering down the sidewalk but Derek Bodley himself, in the flesh, skinny as ever, strolling along with his narrow face staring down at the concrete. He had on scuffed blue jeans and a KISS T-shirt so faded you could barely make out the band’s logo. On his head was his trademark red baseball cap with the tired old political slogan on it. The cap, once bright crimson, was now stained and faded.  

Come to think of it, that cap was a perfect symbol for what was left of the political career of the man who’d gotten elected by that stupid, empty slogan. He was now under all kinds of indictments, investigations, the works. He spent most of his time tweeting from his bedroom in the White House while his aides actually ran things, sort of. I’d heard that he hadn’t come out of the bedroom in three months. Some people said it was six. 

Bodley had a cigarette hanging out of one corner of his mouth, smoke drifting up in a gray coil. I could see him blinking as the smoke got in his eyes.  

I didn’t know when he’d started smoking, but it really didn’t do anything to improve his image. He probably thought it made him look tough, but he just looked like a skinny dude trying to look cool. Personally, I think looking cool is overrated. People are at their best when they’re just being themselves and not trying to impress anyone. Just my two cents. 

Bodley stopped at the end of my driveway. He stared at us; at least, he turned his skinny face in our general direction. He actually seemed to be staring at a point in space above us and to the left. Bodley never looked you right in the eye. He was always sidling, looking this way and that like he was searching for an escape route or something. 

X stopped wailing out his version of “How Blue Can You Get,” and I stopped just before hitting a power E chord on my Fender Strat. The music echoed off the houses across the street and died out, leaving nothing but the birds twittering to break the silence. 

Finally, X spoke up. “What do you want, Bodley?” 

Bodley didn’t say anything, but he took the cigarette from his mouth and held it between his fingers. He pointed at X with the cigarette. 

“You. Yeah, you. Skinny chump with the big, dumb hair. You thought you got me, didn’t you? Last summer. Yeah, thought you were so clever, right? You ain’t clever. You ain’t smart.”  

His cigarette jittered in his hand, puffing off smoke like a chimney as he continued pointing at X.  

“You know what my dad did when the cops told him what happened? Huh? You wanna know what he did to me? He put me in the hospital, that’s what! Yeah, the hospital! Two broken ribs, two black eyes, and a broken arm. When he got done beating on me, he sent me to live with his brother in Florida for eight months. I was there all winter. Just got back last week. Never thought I’d be glad to back in this dump of a city.” 

“Well, Florida for the winter doesn’t sound so bad,” I said. 

“The hell it doesn’t! My uncle’s a drunk. Lives in the black mangrove swamps near Saint Pete. Hellhole full of mosquitoes. My dad sent me there as an extra punishment. And you wanna know what my uncle did? Look at this!” 

Bodley lifted his T-shirt up high enough to expose most of the left side of his ribcage. It was covered with about a dozen whitish, circular scars. 

“Wanna know what these are? Cigarette burns, you scumbags. Courtesy of Uncle Ronnie.” 

X and I stared in shock at the old wounds on Bodley’s pale skin. Neither of us had any love for the guy, but we sure didn’t like thinking about his dad, Vince Bodley, and his uncle abusing him because of what went down last summer. But Vince Bodley was the kind of man who would do it. He was meaner than a rabid dog. And it didn’t surprise me one bit to learn that Vince’s brother wasn’t any better. 

“This is your fault, Maplethorpe,” said Bodley, pointing at his side. “You might as well have done it yourself.” 

X shook his head, making his huge Afro sway back and forth like tall grass in a windy field. “Look, bro, for real, me and Carlos are sorry your pops and your uncle did you like this. But it ain’t on us, man. Can you dig that? We had to do the right thing.” 

“Yeah, X isn’t lying,” I chimed in. “You trying to frame our man Yusuf like that? That was most uncool, Derek.” 

“I ain’t talkin’ to you, you beaner,” Bodley snarled, glaring at me.

I put my hands up as if to say, Sure, man, whatever you say. 

“Hey, it’s the man himself!” said X, a big grin breaking out on his face. 

Coming down the street on a brand-new Schwinn ten-speed was our drummer. 

Let me explain a little bit about Yusuf. First of all, he’s the most butt-kicking drummer you ever heard. I mean, he could give Neil Peart from Rush a run for his money. (Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But not by much.)  

Last summer, our band put out an ad looking for a drummer, and Yusuf was the first person to respond. We learned that, aside from being a great skins man and all-around good dude, he and his family were refugees from Syria who’d settled in our town of Redford, Michigan, just west of Detroit. It was just Yusuf and his folks (who are also trés cool, by the way), but he’d had a little sister who died trying to get out of their home country.  

Pretty soon after he joined our band, everyone’s favorite knucklehead, Derek Bodley, tried to frame Yusuf for some nasty graffiti spray-painted on the Bodley garage. The rest of the band did some investigating and found proof of Bodley doing the deed himself.  

Thus, the cigarette burns and everything else his dad inflicted on him. And I was dead serious when I said I was sorry about what Derek’s dad did to him. I know X was, too. 

Anyway, there was our skins man, pedaling his new bike, dressed in one of his usual crazy outfits. This time he had on really tight black leather pants, a bright orange Abercrombie and Fitch polo shirt, knee-length white socks that looked like they’d be at home on some NBA player, and huge neon-yellow running shoes. And, of course, he had his trademark straw cowboy hat with the American flag bandanna wrapped around it perched on his head. 

There was a girl with him, riding her own bike. Tall, with dark, curly hair, skin that was a shade or two darker than Yusuf’s own mocha tones, and a big smile. She and Yusuf were racing, and she was winning. Not too surprising, considering Yusuf’s only about five-foot-three and this girl probably had at least four inches on him. 

They screeched to a stop in my driveway, both of them panting and smiling. The way they were looking at each other told me there was something more than just biking going on with them. The girl held her phone up to take a quick selfie with Yusuf. They both grinned into the camera and then at each other. 

“Hey, you guys!” said Yusuf, setting his bike down on the driveway. He barely glanced at Bodley, who was busy giving the girl the hairy eyeball. “This is Tania. Tania Yates. She lives in my building.” 

“Hey, how you doin’, Tania?” said X. 

“What’s up?” I said. 

“Hi,” she said. “So this is your band?” 

“Yeah,” said Yusuf. “We’re awesome. Just wait.” To X and me he said, “Where’s Kenji?” 

“He’s on his way,” said X. “He’ll be here in a few.” 

Yusuf and Tania came into the garage, and Tania set her phone down carefully on a stack of old milk crates that served as shelves for some of my dad’s tools.  

Bodley was still outside on the driveway, and he was really glowering at Tania now. I didn’t like it. Nobody else seemed to have noticed. They had all forgotten about Derek. 

“Let me show you some beats!” said Yusuf to Tania, taking a seat on the stool behind his old Ludwig kit and picking up his sticks. (He’d painted them a funny shade of orange, called Cactus Crimson, last summer. That paint figured into the whole Bodley drama, but that’s another story.)  

Tania moved to join him. She took a seat on the old leather sofa next to his kit. 

Just then, Derek stepped into the garage. Actually, he sidled in, like he always did. He never walked straight, just like he never looked straight at you. Yeah, he sidled on in, past the milk crates and my dad’s workbench, past X and his microphone, and up to Yusuf’s kit. 

“Man, go on outta here, jet!” said X. 

“Yeah, Bodley, what he said,” I told him. “We have a practice to do.” 

Bodley put a pained expression on his long, narrow face. “You guys, I just want to hear you play!” he said, raising his hands in an “I’m innocent” gesture. “I like your music, for real.” He snorted phlegm. “It’s good! Come on, Yusuf, play me some drums, bro.” 

Yusuf stared at him. “I’m not your bro, Bodley. Why don’t you leave now, like X and Carlos asked you to?”  

As always, Yusuf’s tone was calm and polite. I don’t think the dude could get mad if he tried. I guess that’s what happens when your sister gets killed and your family goes through hell. It puts life’s problems in perspective. 

Bodley looked even more aggrieved. He now looked like the world’s tallest four-year-old who wasn’t getting a lollipop. He sat down defiantly on the leather sofa next to Tania, who promptly got up and stepped away from him. 

We all looked at each other. X shrugged. “I dunno, fellas, guess he ain’t hurting anything,” he said. “Way I see it, though, it’s your call, Carlos, seeing as it’s your garage and all.” X nodded at his own words as if they were the sagest advice he’d ever heard. 

“I guess it’s okay by me,” I said, thinking about Derek’s cigarette burns and feeling some sympathy for the guy. 

Looking back on it later, I realized all the trouble that went down over the next few days could have been avoided if I’d remembered one simple rule: the Derek Bodleys of the world will take advantage of your sympathy and use it against you. I’ve never believed there are very many people like him, but when you run across one, you need to watch out. They bite. 

“That’s cool,” said Derek. “And you know what? Just to be nice, I’ll get off the couch so your girlfriend can sit here. Pretty obvious she doesn’t like me.” 

He got up off the sofa and sidled over to the milk crates and leaned against them. He crossed his arms and surveyed the rest of us expectantly.  

Tania sat back down on the cracked brown leather. She nodded at Derek but looked cautious. “Thanks, man.” 

Bodley tipped her a wink. I rolled my eyes. What a piece of work. 

“Right on!” said X. “And look who’s boogying up the driveway as we speak!” 

It was Kenji, wearing one of his signature Hawaiian shirts and carrying the big, black case that contained his Fender Jazz bass. 

“Hey, you guys!” said Kenji with a grin. “What’s up? You ready to—“ He stopped in mid-sentence when he registered Derek Bodley’s presence. Kenji looked confused. 

“What’s he doing here?” Kenji asked me, but Derek answered. 

“Just hanging with you guys, waiting for the jams to start,” he said. 

Kenji gave him a weird look. 

“It’s cool, bro,” said X. “Carlos and Yusuf already gave it the OK. It’s all good, baby.” 

Kenji didn’t look convinced, but he said nothing. He started unpacking his guitar. 

“When you guys gonna start playing?” said Bodley in a nasally whine. He slouched against the stack of milk crates, making them wobble a bit. 

“Hey, Bodley, watch it!” I said, pointing behind him. “Don’t knock that stuff over, man.” 

Bodley glowered at me but straightened up, taking his weight off the stack. “That better?” 

I just nodded and started tuning up my guitar, an old Fender Stratocaster my dad had given me when I turned ten years old. I’d been playing it ever since. 

“Hey, you got some new stuff on that axe?” said X, pointing at the body of my Fender. “Looks like it.” 

I nodded. “Yeah, I finally got the ones for Zimbabwe and Uruguay.” 

For the last two months I’d been collecting decals of country flags and sticking them on the guitar. At this point, they covered almost every square inch of it, front and back. I had almost every country in the world, now that I’d gotten Zimbabwe and Uruguay from eBay. 

I pointed to the milk crates behind Derek. “Got a few more over there I haven’t put on yet.” 

Kenji squinted through his glasses. “I don’t see ‘em,” he said. 

I checked it out, and saw that Kenji was right — they weren’t where I’d left them. I’d put them on top of a pile of old Popular Mechanics magazines on the second shelf, and there was nothing there now. A quick scan of the floor told me they hadn’t fallen off, either. 

“I just put those things there this morning!” I said, looking at my bandmates. “Hey, X, didn’t you see them there when you got here?” 

“Right on, my brother,” he replied. “For sure.” 

“Then what—“ 

I stopped and turned to stare at Bodley. He was still smirking at me, and slowly backing out of the garage. He raised his hands to show they were empty. 

“What?” he said. “What?” He tried to sound innocent, but the irritating grin on his face told another story. 

“Bodley, you moron!” I said, taking off my guitar and leaning it against a wall. “You grabbed them, didn’t you?” I stepped toward him. X and Kenji did the same. Yusuf and Tania watched from the back of the garage. 

“You idiots are blinder than…” He trailed off, struggling for a metaphor. “…than a blind guy!” he finished. 

“Say what, fool?” said X, laughing. “Man, Carlos has you dead right. You swiped those decals. You know it, I know it, Carlos knows it, and soon everybody here is gonna know it.” 

Bodley’s sneering grin faltered for a moment, probably because X sounded so confident. And if X sounded confident about something, he was nearly always right about it. In fact, I couldn’t remember him ever being wrong about anything once he’d thought it through. 

Here’s the deal on X: His full name was Xavier Montgomery Maplethorpe, and he was a genius. That’s not an exaggeration, either. He’d somehow gotten Sherlock Holmes’s brain transplanted under his giant Afro. The dude could figure things out like a boss! And now he had that tone in his voice that told me he knew Bodley had my flag stickers, and that’s all I needed to hear. 

Now, X was standing right in front of Derek with his long, brown arms crossed, smiling down at the shorter kid from his six-foot altitude. Bodley looked sidelong at X, his head turned to one side. 

“Come on, hand them over,” I said. “We know you got ‘em.” 

Bodley stood for a moment, just staring off over X’s shoulder somewhere, maybe trying to decide whether my decals were worth the trouble. Finally he shrugged and dug into the right back pocket of his beat-up, greasy jeans. 

“Whatever, here,” he snorted, dropping a handful of slim clear plastic envelopes on the ground. I recognized the flags of Liechtenstein, Mongolia, and Palau on three of them. There were two more that landed face down, but I knew they were Grenada and Lesotho. “Happy now? Stickers are for little kids, anyway, you losers.” 

I bent down and picked them up. “Guess you aren’t staying for practice after all, huh?” I said. “I’m heartbroken.” 

Bodley laughed. “Hell, no. You guys suck royally. I’m gone.” And he was. 

“Hey, where’s my phone?” 

This came from Tania, who was standing in front of the stack of milk crates, hands on hips, staring down at the spot where she’d put her cell phone when she and Yusuf had arrived. 

Practice was over, and we were packing up our gear. X was practicing a few James Brown moves he’d learned on YouTube — he wanted to show them off at our gig. He stopped mid-gyration and looked over at Tania. 

“Aw, you ain’t saying—“ 

“It’s gone, yeah,” finished Tania. “I set it down right here before you guys started.” 

“That’s where Derek was standing,” said Yusuf, getting out from behind his kit and coming over to Tania.   

She nodded. “He creeps me out. He’s the one who almost got your family deported last year? He looks like Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings.” 

“He’s the one,” said Yusuf. “I think he stole your phone somehow.” 

“How could he have taken it?” she said. “We were all right here the whole time. He a magician or something?” 

“No,” said Yusuf. “But he’s… devious. Is that the word? Yeah, devious.” Yusuf had been in the States for over a year now, and his English was really good, but he occasionally still had some trouble finding just the right word. 

“It was the decals, peeps,” said X. “When he threw Carlos’s decals all over the ground. It was a distraction.  That’s when he swiped the phone.” He looked angry.  “I shoulda noticed that before he took off.” 

We all knew X was right. Bodley must have grabbed Tania’s phone while everyone else was watching me pick up my decals. Yusuf was right. Devious. 

“Your phone have a passcode?” I asked. 

“Yes,” Tania said.  

“So your stuff’s safe, at least. I don’t think Bodley’s exactly hacker material. He’ll never get into it.” 

Tania didn’t look very comforted. “I guess so,” she said. “Does he live around here?” 

“Sadly, yes,” said Kenji, zipping his bass into its black gig bag and hefting the bag onto one shoulder. 

“Just a few blocks from here. He goes to our school, too.” 

“Yusuf, can I use your phone?” asked Tania. “I’m going to call the police.” 

“No problem,” he replied, grinning from ear to ear and pulling his cell from his back pocket. He handed it over. He continued smiling at Tania after she took the phone. 

“What’re you grinning at, man?” Tania asked, smiling a little herself in spite of how upset she was.  “Stop it, you’re gonna make me blush.” 

“Hold up, sister,” said X. Tania looked at him questioningly. “The Redford P.D. probably can’t jump right on this. They ain’t got enough cops to go around, and most of ‘em are usually working bigger stuff. Could be a while before they get your phone back.” 

Tania frowned.  Her skin, normally a shade or two darker than X’s own, flushed an even deeper coffee color, and her dark brown eyes flashed with anger.   

“Then what do you suggest, X?” she said, her voice tight. “I’d love to hear whatever it is you have in mind.” 

X, unperturbed by Tania’s sarcasm, said, “Already got it figured out. Gotta jet and talk to my pops to get things rolling.” X’s dad, Monty Maplethorpe, was a semi-retired Redford police detective who helped us out once in a while. “Promise me you won’t make that call until you hear back from me. Can you dig it?” 

Without waiting for an answer, X took off, loping away down the street toward his house on his stork-like legs. Kenji left a minute later. Tania and Yusuf and I stood in the garage, staring at the spot where her cell phone had been. She was still upset. 

“X better know what he’s doing,” she said. “I need my phone back. I don’t need it hacked into or sold online or something.” She shook her head, and her brown curls bounced.  

“You can trust X,” I said. “Remember, he’s the one who saved Yusuf and his family.”