The Black Household
9am
34 Winship St
Great Britain
“OK, little dude, I think we’re ready!”
The shiny side doors of the VW Samba slammed shut, completing the excellent, multi-coloured mural of flowers, planets and peace symbols on its teal body.
Standing beside the gleaming hippie wagon was a black cat, naked except for a pair of white jeans, who was also sporting a teased mass of jet-black hair, sprayed almost solid to keep it in place.
Maxxie Black looked in through the sliding half-window of the driver’s-side door at the speaker, another black cat.
Ziggy Black leaned out of the window of the bus and peered over his round, red-lensed glasses at his son.
“So, my little man,” he said smiling kindly out of the van at Maxxie. “We’ll be away until Sunday afternoon.”
“Tchyeah, I know.” said the black cat, moving forward to the front of the garage that he and the VW were in. He went to the side of the big red door of the garage, where, on the wall, there was a switch that operated the electric garage door. He clicked the ‘UP’ button, and the red door slid up and backwards, until it was flat against the ceiling.
The sun flooded into the garage as the door opened. It was an excellent English summer morning, with the golden sun haloed against a smooth sky of azure, with nary a cloud present to stray across that wild blue expanse.
Maxxie smiled. Being from California, this was the kind of weather he had grown up with.
“It looks awesome out there!” he enthused, blinking at the sudden brightness as he turned to look at his parents in the Samba.
In response, Ziggy fired up the old bus’s engine.
As pristine and well-kept as the body of the bus was, the same couldn’t quite be said of the engine. It coughed into life, and gave an almost violent roar as the accelerator pedal was pressed. To Maxxie, it sounded like an enormous old lion trying to emulate the roars it had once made when it was in its prime.
Maxxie crossed over to the driver’s side window of the bus and to his father.
“Now, little dude!” he shouted, voice raised to be heard over the tumble-dryer full of spanners that was his engine. “Don’t be a square when we’re away, and I expect to find the house in the same state it’s in now, K?”
The van, vibrating loudly, rumbled out of the garage and into the daylight outside. The rumbles of the Samba’s engine echoed off of the buildings in the cul-de-sac as it hit the tarmac of the road. With its white roof, it looked like a soap dish with the soap in, as it went down the road to the cul-de-sac entrance, with many beeps of its squeaky horn.
It stopped, turned right, and was gone.
It hadn’t been out of sight for even 10 seconds before Maxxie vacated the garage and rushed into his now-empty house, grabbing the house telephone and dialling in a number as fast as he could before waiting for someone to pick up on the other end.
It didn’t take long.
“Hallo?”
The answering voice was the soft, Scottish voice of the mother of two of his friends, Agnes Hamilton.
“Yo Mrs. Hamilton, are the dudes around?”
“Oh hullo, Maxxie! No bother, I’ll away and get them for ye.”
“Muchas gracious!”
Maxxie then heard Agnes calling down Ricky and Rusty, and there were a few moment’s silence before heavy approaching footsteps and the deep Scottish rumble of Rusty Hamilton.
“Aye?”
“Okay, they're gone, you can totally come over now!”
---------------------------------------
Bvvvvvvvv
The garage door opened slowly, rising up to press flat against the ceiling, letting the light of day into the garage once more.
Maxxie and Ricky both bounded into the garage straight away, whereas Geiger and Rusty were slower in their entrance, taking their time and looking around the room.
The boys had all been in Maxxie’s garage before, but now they were looking at it with fresh eyes.
“Right, how do we turn this place into a gig station?” said Rusty, folding his arms and looking around.
“Stripper poles, blackjack and hookers, for a start!” Ricky grinned, sitting down on a half-empty box of Minute Maid. Maxxie laughed, and Ricky grinned appreciatively at that.
“For fuck-”
“Lighting, soundproofing and rugs on the floor, I should think.” Geiger cut off Rusty’s outburst. The other three lads nodded; the blue cyborg, as usual, was the only one talking sense out of the four of them.
“Hmm, I think our old rugs are in the attic,” Maxxie mused, as Geiger stooped and reached into an old cardboard box, plucking out a roll of Christmas lights.
“I believe I’ve found our lighting source.”
----------------------------------------
“Okay dudes, here they are,” said Maxxie, putting the cardboard box full of spray cans onto the table in his kitchen with a metallic rattle. He placed them in front of the tall, blue human who sat at the table, before looking through them. “We got teal, indigo, yellow, like, all kinds of stuff!”
This done, the black feline turned his attention towards the small stack of A4 paper that Ricky and Rusty were looking at.
Geiger merely looked down at the box of cans for a minute, his blue face unreadable. Then, slowly, his metal arm extended forward and took ahold of three of the cans in the box, withdrawing them and placing them on the table, revealing their colours: Sunshine Yellow, Tangerine and Salsa Red. Wordlessly, the blue cyborg then stood up from the table and headed through the Black house towards the front door, with the rest of Whyte Knuckle in tow.
“Right, how long will ye be takin’ wi’ this?” said Rusty, all business. “Me an’ Bill and Ted here are gonnae be away intae town t’get yer posters out.”
“Give me 45 minutes,” was the deep reply from Geiger, as they reached the front of the garage.
“Right then. ‘Mon you two!”
Rusty, with Ricky and Maxxie close behind, set off down the cul-de-sac entrance and out of sight. But Geiger was standing still, looking at the red garage door that was to be his artistic canvas.
Out of the left pocket of his black trousers, he fished a piece of paper, and held it up with his human arm. On it was his self-made design for the garage door.
At the same time, he shook the Salsa Red spray can. The metal pea inside clattered and rattled against the sides. He liked that metallic percussive noise.
Alone in the cul-de-sac, Geiger’s dark blue lips curled slightly at the side. He always did like painting.
----------------------------------------
“Can’t believe you didn’t let me put the posters up on the telephone poles,” huffed Ricky, as he, his brother and Maxxie walked back up the street of the cul-de-sac towards Maxxie’s house.
“That’s because I widnae trust ye with anything sharper than a biro, man.” Replied the big fox casually.
True to what the rattlesnake had said, Rusty had taken on the job of stapling their gig posters to whatever surface would take staples into them. He had left the rest to Ricky and Maxxie, and they had decided to use glue instead. Speaking of which…
“How the hell did you manage to glue your own hands together, again?”
Ricky broke down laughing as he looked over at his best friend. The palms of the black cat’s hands had indeed been fused together by the sticky substance, and subsequent attempts to separate them had proved to be quite painful.
“I need some hot tap before this makes a bogus situation on my fingers, bros.” Maxxie moaned, walking up the road to his house beside the serpent and the vulpine. He lifted his hands up to eye level to observe the damage the glue had inflicted and Ricky barely stifled a giggle. It looked like he was praying.
“I could get ‘em apart for ye!” Rusty grinned. He turned suddenly and grabbed Maxxie’s forearms with his enormous, bear-like red hands and motioned to forcefully rip his hands apart.
“Dude, nooooo, get off!” the cat squealed, wriggling and shaking in the larger foxes grip, and Ricky broke down again in helpless laughter. Maxxie broke out of Rusty’s grip and promptly ran into Ricky, who had stopped in the middle of the drive in front of Maxxie’s house.
“Well squeeze my cock and call me Nancy…” Rusty muttered, and, as Ricky helped Maxxie up, they all stared at Maxxie’s garage, and what their drummer had done to it.
The garage door, which had been a uniform red before, was now adorned with flames of yellow, orange and dark red which started around the bottom of the door and reached up to lick at the black-outlined, yellow letters of WHYTE KNUCKLE taking up most of the metal surface.
Geiger himself was standing beside the garage, arms folded, staring at them with his imperceptibly blank face.
“Good?” he asked shortly.
“Fuckin’ amazing, mate.” Rusty muttered in reply.
“Good.”
And with that, the blue cyborg turned and headed back into the house.
----------------------------------------
“On this episode of America Cooks With Potatoes, we’ll be looking at…”
Click
“HI I’M BARRY SCOTT!...”
Click
“This lovely, semi-detached, 3-bedroom house with... ”
Click
“Bogus, there's nothing on TV...” Maxxie sighed, letting his arm drape down off of the sofa where he was currently lying. The black cat was sprawled idly across the couch, his only movements being the rising and falling of his back, and the occasional languid flick of his thin black tail.
“Then come an’ be useful, lazytits!” came the booming voice of Rusty from the living room door. “Yer garage is in a right state!”
Maxxie only gave another flick of his tail as acknowledgement of the fox's words, still staring at the TV, where a terrible, overly-dramatic soap-opera was playing.
Rusty strode into the room towards the TV set, reached behind it and pulled the plug, shutting the whole thing off.
“Come on,” he said, turning to the black cat, who had raised his head up, looking annoyed. “That shite’s for housewives an’ the unemployed!”
“Aw come on, man!” Maxxie whined. “I was watching that!”
“No ye weren’t,” Rusty dismissed, shaking his head. “Now out to the garage with ye, or are ye no’ wantin’ to play the night?”
Giving another melodramatic sigh, the black cat heaved himself up into a seated position on the couch.
“Yeah, I guess…”
Maxxie gave a great yawn and stretched out on the sofa once more, before finally getting up off of it and moving towards the living room door.
----------------------------------------
The next day, the entirety of the morning and afternoon was dedicated to practicing their setlist inside Maxxie’s garage, as the boys ran through every song that they thought should make an appearance in their setlist. One by one, they discarded any song that they deemed to be unnecessary, over-complicated or that just didn’t sound right through their equipment.
Many songs, such as Deep Purple’s classic “Smoke On The Water” and the Scorpions’ “No One Like You” were dismissed because they were missing key instruments such as keyboards or rhythm guitars. White Lion’s version of “Radar Love” was also removed, due to the fact that Rusty’s guitar didn’t have a tremolo (and they didn’t have a loud motorbike to drive around the cul-de-sac).
The amplification of their present sound system wasn’t quite good enough to give a decent rendition of Van Halen’s cover of “You Really Got Me”, and they didn’t want to try their luck forcing Maxxie’s bass amp to try “Ace of Spades”.
But, quickly enough, the boys had formulated a shortlist of songs that they were sure would split open the heads and kick the asses of all the attendees that night.
9pm came, slowly but surely.
Inside the garage, there was a cold tension all around. The boys were all in their positions; Geiger at the back behind his drumset, getting into a comfortable position on his seat; Maxxie to the left clutching his bass guitar, an Olympic White Squier Affinity Precision, to his chest; Rusty, clad in his leather jacket, had his red Encore slung low down and his arms folded, glaring at the garage door; Ricky was front and centre, the microphone ready in his right hand and the cable wrapped around his wrist.
“Hooooooo, fuck.” Ricky’s voice came out a little bit shaky, although the reason for this was debatable – could have been nerves, could have been the rapid bouncing on his feet that he was currently doing. He raised his left hand up to where the controls to the garage door sat on the wall.
“Right, lads!” he said aloud. “We ready?”
“Yeah.”
“OK.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Alright, fellas,” Ricky said, satisfied with the answers of his compatriots. “Let’s go!”
And with that, the rattlesnake pressed the button and raised the garage door.
The light from the Christmas illuminations spread into the cul-de-sac, and Ricky was pleased to see that their advertisements had managed to pull in at least twenty or so people!
But he had no time to study the type of people they had pulled in, as the boys had elected to waste no time in applying their rock.
Geiger thumped on his snare, and they were off, jumping straight into a heavy metal classic.
There I was completely wasting, out of work and down
All inside it's so frustrating as I drift from town to town
Feel as though nobody cares if I live or die
So I might as well begin to put some action in my life!
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
So much for the golden future, I can't even start
I've had every promise broken, there's anger in my heart
You don't know what it's like, you don't have a clue
If you did you'd find yourselves doing the same thing too
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
You don't know what it's liiiiiiike!!
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law!
As the song crashed to an end, there were a few seconds of silence as the noise of Whyte Knuckle echoed around the cul-de-sac… and then the crowd outside the garage erupted in appreciative and loud applause.
“Yeah!” “Alright!” “Woo!” “YEAAAAAH!”
Instinctively, Ricky raised his arms in triumph. For the infinitesimal amount of time in which the crowd had stayed silent, the dreadful thought of the crowd turning on them and even booing them invaded the rattlesnake’s mind. But the adoration of the crowd came and washed over him, and he basked in their adulation as though it were beams of golden sunshine. He had to have more.
Fistpumps and fistbumps were shared among all four of the Whyte Knuckle boys in the garage at the success of their first song. It had got their collective blood pumping, and had worked a treat in regards to getting the crowd warmed up.
Eager for more, Ricky looked to his bandmates for permission. His brother, seeing this, turned to Geiger and said a few words to the cyborg that the serpent did not hear over the crowd. A couple of seconds later, they turned to him and both nodded their approval.
Grinning wide with glee, Ricky turned to the crowd.
“Well,” Ricky called to them. “If you liked that, you’ll love this one!”
----------------------------------------
Unfortunately, not everyone in the cul-de-sac of Winship Street was enjoying the incredible noise made by the boys from Whyte Knuckle.
Across the road from the Black garage was a house, completely identical to all of the others in the cul-de-sac, apart from one little detail: the bedroom light had just flicked on.
From the double bed in the sparsely-decorated bedroom rose a grey goat, clad in blue paisley pyjamas, stomping his cloven hooves on his way to the window
Alfred Mainwaring, or, as he was more locally known, “Moany Mainwaring”, threw open the window to find out who could possibly making such a shocking racket at this time of the night!
“Who in blue blazes...?”
But that was as far as Mainwaring got before his ears were assaulted by a noise that he would later describe as “wholly inappropriate”:
“And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night!
And he's watchin' us all with the eyyyyyyyye... of the tiger!”
“Are you hearing this, Deirdre?” he expostulated from underneath his wire-brush moustache, turning to the face the bed he had just leapt up from, where his wife was still rubbing her eyes, which had been dazzled by her husband suddenly throwing the lights on.
“Mwuuh?” she groaned, still half-asleep. In response, her husband gesticulated out of the window for her to listen to the sounds coming from outside.
“Oh, Alfred,” Deirdre sighed, laying her head back on her pillow. “It’s just some kids playing some music, I’m sure it won’t last too much longer…”
“Oh, you can bet it won’t!” Alfred snorted, as he slammed the window shut. He turned and stalked past the bed, opened the door and was gone from the room. “I’ll see to that!”
----------------------------------------
You really got me!
You really got me, oh!
You really got me
Oh! Oh! Oh!
A quick flurry of guitar and snare, and the lads finished their rendition of Van Halen’s rendition of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” to general applause and enthusiasm from their audience. Soaking up their cheers once again, Ricky turned to his brother to see what songs they had left to do, only to find him hunched over in front of his amplifier.
“Och, get in tune, ye fuckin’ thing,” Rusty growled, angrily twisting the tuners of his guitar.
“Trouble with your G string, big chap?” Ricky said slyly, approaching him.
“Ha ha ha,” Rusty deadpanned at him, continuing his attempts to tune the guitar. “This sodding thing’s got something wrong wi’ it. Think the bridge is a bit shite or somethin’.”
“Well, you’ve hardly treated it like a princess, have you?” Ricky said, observing the myriad scratches and dents that his burly brother had inflicted on the guitar’s body over the years.
“Och, it’s a cheap piece of shite!” Rusty grunted dismissively. “See when we get famous, I’m gonnae get, like, a Flying V or a Randy Rhoads with EMGs and a Floyd Rose and that!”
“Well, so long as you do it quick, like,” Ricky said, stretching to the side. “I reckon I’ve got a couple left in me. I think we should do Dream-”
“Poliiiiiiice!!”
The four boys’ heads flicked towards the garage door where the call had come from, and through the Christmas lights, they could all clearly see the crowd looking towards the entrance of the cul-de-sac. Maxxie, who was nearest the door at the time, poked his head out to see if it was true.
“Cripes dudes, it's the fuzz!”
Rusty, Ricky and even Geiger exited the garage and saw the blue flashing police lights reflecting off of the sides of the houses round about them, as the patrol car slowly made its way up the cul-de-sac towards the crowd outside the garage, effectively trapping the crowd in. It parked quite close to the garage, making the crowd back away uneasily.
The right door opened, and out stepped the policeman, clad in a black police uniform and a high-visibility vest, which reflected brightly against the light emanating from the garage.
“Right, what’s going on ‘ere, then?”
The voice had come from Constable Smythe, a tall, lean doberman who was part of the local constabulary. Although the Constable was quite well-liked throughout the town for being a fair and reasonable man, the boys had a bit of a nagging feeling that they may have gone too far tonight.
“Constable Smythe!” shouted Ricky and the doberman cop walked up to the garage, surveying the scene and taking in everything, from the fairy light-filled garage to the tens of spectators all watching him with bated breath.
“Alright lads,” he said, tucking his thumbs into belt as he looked at the four boys. “We’ve ‘ad a call down at the station, someone complaining of an ‘unacceptable noise level’. I take it that’d be you lot?”
“What?!” Rusty exploded, his face forming into a scowl, outraged that someone would give out about their music being called ‘unacceptable’. “Who the fuck…?”
“Ahem…” Constable Smythe cleared his throat loudly, and gave a tiny little nod of his head, silently asking the boys to look over his left shoulder. The boys did so, and they noticed, across the street, a horned man leaning out of the second-story window of his house. He was, unmistakably…
“Moany Mainwaring!” the four of them groaned.
“Mmm-hmm,” Constable Smythe nodded again.
“Why doesn't he just like, get some earmuffs? Gawd.” Maxxie huffed. Rusty folding his big arms beside him as he glared up at Mainwaring's house.
“Look, lads,” Constable Smythe sighed, taking off his policeman’s cap, running a hand over his scalp and replacing it again. “You’re not technically breaking the law, since noise restrictions don’t start till 10 around ‘ere. But I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask youse to ‘move it along’, as it were. I don’t think I can stand ‘earing that old goat’s voice twice in one night…”
“Ugh, whaaaaaat?” Ricky threw up his arms in annoyance, before letting them fall limply to his side. “But we’ve just gotten started!”
The crowd behind the policeman, having cottoned on to what was going on, joined in, with calls of “Come on, man!” and “Let ‘em keep going!”
Despite this, there was a period of silence from Constable Smythe as he considered all of the factors in the situation before him, trying to think of the best course of action.
As the crowd looked on, the constable came to his decision, and made a fist at the Whyte Knuckle boys with his index finger pointing straight up.
“One more, then I’ll have to insist youse stop.”
“Yes!!” The boys exclaimed, exchanging high-fives all around as Constable Smythe smiled.
“I’ll be at the car if youse need me, lads.” The doberman winked, before departing towards his patrol car.
“One more!!” Ricky all but screamed into his microphone, and the crowd erupted, glad that the show was not yet over. In the midst of the joyous crowd noise, the rattlesnake turned to his compatriots and mouth a word:
“Shout?”
And the three boys agreed:
“Shout.”
Wordlessly, they all sprang into action.
Geiger set up a moderate beat with his bass drum and cymbal, while at the same time Maxxie and Rusty fired up their guitars.
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout! Shout! Shout!
As this was going on, Ricky exited the garage, turned and, to the surprise of everybody present, performed an impressive vertical leap straight upwards and grabbed the edge of the garage roof, hauling himself into a standing position and turning, just in time to scream:
Well, you shout at the devil!
The resulting cry of surprise from the crowd at Ricky’s stunt quickly turned into an approving shout of appreciation that mixed in with the wailing guitar work from the leather and denim-clad fox below, whose face wore a clear expression of ‘What the shit is he doing?’
He's the wolf screaming lonely in the night
He's the blood stain on the sta-aa-age
He's the tear in your eye
Been tempted by his lie
He's the knife in your back, he's rage
He's the razor to the knife
Oh lonely is our lives
My heads spinnin' round and round
But in seasons of wither
We'll stand and deliver
Be strong, and laugh and
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the devil!
Shout! Shout! Shout!
He'll be the love in your eyes
He'll be the blood between your thighs
And then have you cry for more
He'll put your strength to the test
He'll put the thrill back in bed
Sure you've heard it all before
He'll be the risk in the kiss
Might be anger on your lips
Might run scared for the door
But in seasons of wither
We'll stand and deliver
Be strong, and laugh and
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the devil!
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the devil!
He's the wolf screaming lonely in the night
He's the blood stain the sta-aa-aage
He's the tear in your eye
Been tempted by his lie
He's the knife in your back, he's rage
He's the razor to the knife
Oh lonely is our lives
My heads spinnin' round and round
But in seasons of wither
We'll stand and deliver
Be strong and laugh and
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the devil!
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the devil!
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the devil!
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the devil!
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the devil!
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the devil!
As the song finally ended, the crowd cheered their loudest yet, jumping up and down and clapping like lunatics. In the garage, Rusty and Maxxie took a bow (Geiger just raised his human in recognition from behind his drumkit), while on the roof of the garage, Ricky raised both of his arms in triumph and victory.
“Thank you!” he called through his microphone at the crowd. “Thank you! You all have a good night, now, and don’t get in any trouble!”
As this happened, Officer Smythe reappeared, getting behind the still-baying crowd and chivying them out of the cul-de-sac and off down the street.
“Right, come on, then, you lot!” he shouted, escorting the shuffling, happy mob away, as though he was a sheepdog trying to escort a large flock of unruly sheep into a pen. The crowd slowly made their way down to the cul-de-sac entrance and gradually dispersed out.
Ricky dropped down from the roof of Maxxie’s garage and turned around, expecting a big cheer from his bandmates and congratulations...
Whump.
...and walked straight into the big chest of his brother.
“What the fuck was THAT?” the big fox growled at his little brother. “How fucking dangerous was that, you nutty bastard?”
“What’re you on about?” the rattlesnake countered, still high off the success of the whole gig. “I was perfectly fine!”
“Yeah!” enthused Maxxie, appearing beside Ricky. “That was awesome!”
“I’ll agree on that!” came a voice from outside the garage, causing the argument inside to stop as the lads turned to look at the speaker.
Standing just in front of the garage, all on his own, was one man, clapping his hands. He was a black bull, quite leathery looking, wearing a leather vest and shades (at night). He had a long beard, which had been fully black in the past but was quickly going grey, twisted into a braid that rested halfway down his broad chest. At first glance, the bull looked like a roadie for ZZ Top.
The rings and bracelets on the black bovine’s hands and wrists clanked and clattered like a plumbers workbag while he clapped, walking towards the boys in the garage.
“Hm-hm-hm,” he chuckled deeply, smiling widely. “That was a great showing there, boys!”
“Um… cheers?” Rusty said slowly, caught unawares by the appearance of this man, much like the rest of the boys. “Er, who are you, again?”
“Ah yeah, shoulda introduced myself,” The bull rumbled, reaching into his leather vest and withdrawing a small white card, holding it out. “I’m Frankie Austin!”
Ricky reached for the card, but Rusty got there first, holding it up to eye level.
The card read:
FRANKIE’S FREAK PITT
Bar & Club
FRANKIE
Owner
The fox passed the card to his younger brother, and the bull continued:
“Now, I’m always on the lookout for opening acts to play at my club, and I gotta say, you guys really got my attention! Now, I’ve got a slot on Friday night in two weeks and I’d like you to perform for me there. You’ll get paid, and free beer, too! ”
“Yes.” said Ricky immediately. “We’ll do it, won’t we lads?”
“Aye, I can go for that.”
“Dude, sounds like fun!”
“I would not be opposed to the idea!”
“Hm-hm-hm!” Frankie chuckled. “It’s settled, then! Two weeks on Friday, I’ll see you all then!”
He then moved to walk off, but stopped when his foot hit an empty can of beer, causing him to look down.
“Maaan,” the bull laughed, kicking the empty beer can with his foot. “I’d hate to have to clear this mess up!”
He turned and started down the road, calling back over his shoulder:
“Two weeks, y’hear?”
Whyte Knuckle was left in silence. As Geiger handled Frankie’s card, Ricky and Rusty looked out over the crisp packets, sweet wrappers and empty bottles, both plastic and glass, that now littered the area in front of the garage where the crowd had been.
The brothers looked at each other, realising they’d all have to clean this small landfill up if they didn’t want Maxxie’s parents to find out:
“Ah, Jesus…”
