Five Flavors of Dumb - Antony John [54]
I looked through his window, but there was only a low wall fronting an overgrown plot of land with a large FOR SALE sign.
“Well, let’s find it,” I said encouragingly, but everyone took their time getting out of the car.
Tash sloped toward the wall. “Welcome to Jimi Hendrix’s invisible house,” she deadpanned.
We walked up and down the block, but it was clear that this was where the house misleadingly known as 2010 S Jackson should have been.
Finn waved to get my attention. I’m going to ask someone what’s going on, he signed.
While I was waiting, I jumped over the wall and onto the plot, which was engulfed by tall weeds. If a building had ever been there, it had disappeared years ago. I kicked at the ground in frustration, but then something caught my eye.
I knelt beside a bush at the edge of the plot. It looked like someone had dumped trash under the branches, but I knew it wasn’t trash. The cardboard boxes had been flattened and covered with moth-eaten blankets, torn wrappers from a Happy Meal licked clean and stashed to one side. Everything was sodden from rain, but someone had lived there for a while, in the cold and wet, on ground that Jimi Hendrix may or may not have ever known.
Ed touched my arm, startling me. “I hope they’ve found somewhere warmer now,” he said.
I nodded as I touched the thin blanket. I couldn’t imagine it provided enough warmth to get someone through summer nights, let alone fall.
“Seems symbolic, doesn’t it?” I sighed.
Ed crouched down beside me, touched the blanket too. “How so?”
“Jimi Hendrix grew up in poverty,” I explained, reciting what I’d learned just an hour earlier. “His mom left when he was young. He often had to scrounge food from his neighbors. I guess it’s possible there were days he slept outdoors like this. Same with Kurt Cobain. He got thrown out of so many houses he ended up sleeping in a cardboard box.”
Suddenly I could picture them both with painful clarity: two cold, malnourished boys desperately seeking escape from the harsh reality of their lives, whether through music or drugs. Until a month ago I’d never given either of them any thought, and even if I had, I’d have seen only the fame and wealth, never suspecting that fame and wealth were just a veneer—Band-Aids over gaping psychological wounds.
I’d managed to convince myself that Dumb was about a college fund, a simple business decision. But kneeling among those damp weeds, trying to make sense of everything around me, I realized that it had become so much more than that. My college fund was a veneer too, and everything beneath was slowly bubbling to the surface. There was nothing I could do to stop it. And I wasn’t even sure I wanted to anymore.
“Come on,” said Ed, helping me up. His hand was warmer than mine, and he didn’t let go until we got back to the sidewalk, where Finn addressed us with all the enthusiasm of an undertaker:
“It’s true. Hendrix’s house used to be here, but this isn’t where he grew up. In fact, you’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you.” That really got everyone’s attention. “Jimi Hendrix grew up in a small house a few blocks from here, but that land was sold to a developer to build condominiums. Some fans arranged to save his house, and the city let them move it here. But after a few years, the city wanted to sell this plot, so they told the group to move the house again. Just as the city was about to demolish it, a Hendrix fan picked up the house, stuck it on a truck, and drove it away.”
There was stunned silence while we looked at one another, waiting to see who’d bust out laughing first. It turned out to be Tash.
“You are shitting me,” she said with customary eloquence.
“Tash, I am so not shitting you,” Finn assured her.
“So where is it now?” I asked.
Finn shook his head. “I don’t know exactly, although the guy I spoke to said he thought it was across the road from the Hendrix memorial, which is in Greenwood Memorial Park in Renton.”
“Renton? That’s way the other side of the lake!”