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Hopper leans back on his swivel chair that squeaks obnoxiously loud. He leisurely blows out the cigarette smoke through his mouth while flicking off the ash on the ashtray that sits atop his desk. He keeps looking at the ajar door of his office; he can hear Flo, Callahan, and Powell chatting in the adjacent room. Letting out a long, dragged sigh, Hopper makes up his mind. He squishes the cigarette butt on the ashtray and peels himself off his old, worn-out leather chair.
Callahan and Powell play cards in the common room, and Flo sits at her small, cluttered desk by the entrance hall of the police station. He lingers by the middle-aged woman's desk wordlessly, just awkwardly looking around. The two police officers momentarily stop playing to look at the Chief, fearing an incoming reprimand for playing cards during work hours. Hopper says nothing; they resume the game.
It's stupid but Jim Hopper is nervous and seems too sheepish to speak. He opens his mouth a few times but no words come out.
"Anything I can help you with, Chief?"
"I, uh –" he leans down slightly, his tall, burly body overshadowing Flo's, "I really don't know how to put this."
The woman speaks in a hushed tone, not wanting to make things awkward. "Is it a lady's question? Something to do with Joyce?"
"No, not that. No help needed in that department, luckily. It's the, uh, kid. Jonathan. His birthday is this weekend. He invited me for dinner at their place but I don't know what to get him."
The woman rolls her eyes so hard they almost roll to the back of her skull. "That's it? You don't know what to get the kid for his birthday?"
Hopper has to recognize that he's making a mountain out of a molehill, but he's genuinely stressed about this. It's not the thought of having to get him a gift itself that is stressing him – well, it also is – but it's the thought of Jonathan wanting him to be there for his big day. When you're a kid, despite all the trials and tribulations, birthdays are a big thing. And he's turning eight. Hopper remembers turning eight; he grew four and a half inches that year, lost his last baby tooth, had his first crush, got a bike and crashed it on the first week, shaved his hair buzzcut in the summer and bawled his eyes out about it all because stupid Hal Lockley had lice and passed it onto everyone else.
Birthdays are important. And Jonathan wants him to be present for his birthday.
Joyce did tell him that Jonathan was the one who decided to invite him for dinner; she didn't impose it on him just because they're sort of dating now. She also assured him that if he didn't want to go, he didn't have to. But Hopper feels like he has to go because apparently he means something to Jonathan, and that scares the living shit out of him. The Byers are making space for him in the family, and that scares the living shit out of him.
Hopper knocks on the front door of the Byers’ home and looks down at his feet, waiting for someone to open the door for him. He stands there, his posture as rigid as the acoustic guitar he’s holding. His knuckles go white, the strings leave an imprint on the fleshy bits of his palm as he tightens his grip around the guitar’s neck. The porch light shines over his head and casts him in a shadow that makes him look twice as taller as he is. He’s suddenly reminded of the warm spring afternoon when Johnny Blake, a Junior, came up from behind him in the school hallway, overshadowing him – Jim Hopper was a chubby, mop-top-haired Freshman then. He nearly dropped his dinged-up trombone case when Johnny draped an arm over his shoulder and pulled him closer against his side.
“Heard you can play the guitar, Trombone Boy.”
“Uh, yeah,” he peered at his older schoolmate through the corner of his eyes, wary of whatever was about to happen next. “Bought a guitar a few months ago. Getting better by the day, I s’ppose.”
Johnny chuckled, two others chuckled along behind them. Hopper looked over his shoulder and saw two other Juniors, Pete McLeod and Finn Greer, trailing behind them. I’m fucked. Before Jim could speed up his pace and get away, the four of them were walking side by side; he felt cornered and knew for sure that he was really, really fucked. He could pull some kicks and punches, but there were three of them and he was only one. And they were older and taller and fitter.
“Rick broke his wrist,” Johnny continued.
“That’s – unfortunate, I guess. I don’t know who –”
Pete patted his shoulder while Finn took the trombone case from Jim’s hand, “Rick is – was our guitarist. We have a concert next week and we can’t find anyone to replace him.”
“Until we heard of you, Trombone Boy,” Johnny practically whispered in his ear. He grimaced and craned his face away from the warm, moisty breath tickling his neck. “We have practice tomorrow after school at Finn’s house. Bring your guitar and show us what you can do.”
Johnny, Pete, and Finn began to walk away.
“I – uh –” the three of them looked back at Jim, ready to beat him to a pulp right there and then, “I don’t have an electric guitar.”
A big grin took over Johnny’s face, a grin so big that made him look a little eerie. “I’ll lend you my Fender. But if you break it, even the tiniest bit –”
“You’ll break my face.”
“I like him already,” Pete laughed.
Jim Hopper became, at the age of fourteen, the rhythmic guitarist of Johnny Blake and the Hawkers. They then went on to simply be known as The Hawkers a few months later when Johnny, the founder, lead guitarist and lead singer, abandoned the band; Trombone Boy had made incredible progresses in a matter of months and involuntarily snatched the position of lead guitarist from Johnny. Their drum player, Finn, enlisted in the Army, was deployed to Vietnam, and would return home two years later in a casket. Finn was substituted by Manny Munson, who walked out on them after only a dozen of concerts – he was too good, and they were too average. Charlie Dye replaced him, and The Hawkers, now known as The Golden Hoosiers, went on to have a solid but very Hawkins-based three-year career. At the age of eighteen, Jim received a letter from the Army and went on to serve in Vietnam –
“Jeez, Hop,” Hopper snorts as he snaps back to reality, Joyce smacking him in the chest and shouting his name in his face. “You looked like you were in a trance. Where were you?”
“Far away from here, apparently.”
Joyce glances down at the guitar he’s holding. She recognizes it – Rider, Hopper’s beloved Yamaha FG800, the one he bought when he was thirteen with the money he collected mowing lawns and raking leaves. It’s Rider, she knows it is because it’s missing its pickguard, one of the tuning pegs is different than all the other silver ones, and the headstock is chipped. She used to go to Hopper’s gigs, to support him, yes, but mostly because she wanted to have a good time, to down some beers and smoke a whole lot. She also wanted to laugh at the groupie girls who’d follow them around. And they had a lot. When Hopper hit puberty, he hit jackpot. Every girl around wanted to “hop on Hop”; Joyce would sometimes laugh herself to tears, watching pathetic girls throw themselves at Hopper and the other guys in the band for a quickie in the back of their van or in the nearest bathroom stall.
The thought of “hopping on Hop” never crossed her mind, except for that one time. She imagined how it’d feel like to have him holding her thighs in a claw-like grip as she rolled on top of him, how it’d feel like to grab his hair in a fistful and make him dip his head back, writhing and moaning, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his throat. She imagined it so vividly that she lost six minutes of her life, and when she came to herself, she was lying in her bed, panting, the bed sheets crumped at her feet and a layer of sweat coating her body. Joyce doesn’t think she’ll ever tell Hopper about the night she masturbated to the thought of him when she was sixteen; it’d feed into his ego, and his ego doesn’t need any more feeding.
“Where were you, Joyce?” he mocks.
She clears her throat. “Is it for Jonathan?”
“Yeah,” Hopper says with a slight nod, looking down at the guitar. “You said he likes music.” A beat. “Right?”
The fleeting memory of Jonathan, earlier that morning, opening the gift his maternal grandparents sent him pops up in her head. She can still vividly see his halfhearted smile as he opened up the card box and pulled out a birthday card with a very generic message written on it (‘Happy Birthday, Love Grandma and Grandpa’), and a soccer ball. Jonathan and Will kicked it around in the backyard for a while after school, but it has now come to rest on the hall’s closet where Joyce suspects it will be for a long time, slowly deflating. Joyce feels her throat suddenly closing up and fears that she won’t be able to speak properly, so she resorts to nodding – Hopper knows her children better than their own family members.
Hopper walks in, gently places the guitar down on the couch, and instinctively follows Joyce to the kitchen. Will is standing on a chair that has been pushed against the kitchen counter, mashing potatoes with all his might.
“The potatoes are mashed enough, baby,” Joyce says, taking the masher from Will’s hands and tossing it into the sink.
“Wanna help more,” he babbles, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Don’t do that,” Hopper warns, both hands hovering around Will’s little body.
Will swirls on his heels and quite literally throws himself into Hopper’s arms. The man only has time to wrap his arms around the four-year-old and hug him back. “We’re makin’ beef and mashed potatoes. I masheded the potatoes. And Mom said we can have Coke today.”
Hopper lowers Will onto the chair again. “Sounds great. You know, I’m so hungry I could just eat a horse.”
Will giggles. “It’s not horse. It’s jus’ beef.” He looks at his mother, “Pig beef, Mom?”
“Cow’s.”
He moos in return which makes both Joyce and Hopper hold back a chuckle.
“Where’s your brother?”
It’s Joyce who answers. “In his bedroom. I got him some records and he’s been listening to them ever since we got home.”
Hopper simply motions with his head to the door, letting her know that he’s going to meet Jonathan in his bedroom. As he gets closer and closer to Jonathan’s bedroom, he can hear the singing voice of Bruce Springsteen. He knocks on the door and pushes it open just enough to peek into the bedroom. Jonathan, lying face up in bed, immediately bolts up into a sitting position, staring in absolute disbelief at Hopper.
“Can I come in?”
Jonathan nods, and moves from a sitting position to a kneeling one, sitting back on his heels. Hopper notices a small collection of records scattered over his bed – Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here and Dark Side Of The Moon, Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run, Queen's A Night At The Opera, The Who's Who's Next, The Beatles' Let It Be. Hopper doesn’t know how to approach Jonathan – he doesn’t want to simply blurt out an awkward happy birthday, so he points at the records,
“You chose these?”
Jonathan nods, gaze transfixed on Hopper. He’s completely caught off guard when Jonathan leaps up to his feet, wraps his arms around his neck, and hugs him tight. Real tight. He hugs Hopper with as much strength and might as a drowning man holds onto a lifebuoy. Hopper feels the way Jonathan’s chest violently raises and drops in an abnormal way as he heaves a long, heavy sigh, one that seems to be too big for his little body to handle, as if someone had just punched the air out of his lungs.
“You alright, kid?” Hopper asks, concerned, holding Jonathan by the shoulders, attentively studying his face.
Jonathan nods again but this time lets his head hang low. He fiercely rubs his eyes and heaves another big sigh. When he looks up at Hopper, his eyes are glistening with unshed tears. Hopper feels a pang in his chest. It feels like a bullet through the heart.
“Mom took me to the record store after school,” Jonathan begins, orienting the albums into a single stack, clearly meaning to not acknowledge what had just happened.
Hopper sits on the edge of the bed, going through the records one by one, “Let me see what you got.”
He doesn’t want to acknowledge what had just happened either. Hopper knows that showing up on his birthday is what nearly drove Jonathan to tears but he tells himself that Jonathan was about to cry because this poor kid’s standards are so low that having someone at his birthday, other than his mother and brother, is something great. He convinces himself that he’s not worthy of any of their love and affection, convinces himself that he’s unimportant to them and that they can and will find someone who’ll shower them with all the love and happiness they deserve. He convinces himself that he doesn’t fit in, that there's no space for him in their little family.
“I left your gift in the living room,” Hopper blurts out, fearing that the silence between them will soon be too awkward to bear.
One of Jonathan’s feet dangles off the side of the bed, he seems poised to get up and go check it out but… “Can – can I go see it?”
“It’s yours, kid. You don’t need to ask me permission.” He speaks just as Jonathan is almost out the door, “It’s just, uh, it’s not a toy.”
Jonathan shrugs, his nose crinkling up the same as Joyce’s when she’s, very rarely, shy. “It’s fine. Mom got me the vinyls, and Adidas sneakers – those are not –”
Hopper chuckles, “That’s what I meant.” He gets up to his feet and rests a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “Let’s just check it out?”
The look on Jonathan’s face can only be described as unbridled joy, awe in its rawest form. He stares at the guitar, incredulous, lips parted, a trembling hand slowly reaching out to touch it. He strums the strings with his thumb, his eyes get as big as saucers, marveling at its sound. And then he looks at Hopper as if he had hung the stars and the moon in the night sky.
“Is it for me?” he asks, voice tiny and shaky.
“Do you like it?” Jonathan can only nod; his brain is empty of any words. “Like I said, it’s not a toy,” he grabs the guitar and gestures at Jonathan to take a seat on the couch. He places it on the kid’s lap, lets him figure out on his own how to hold it. “Take good care of Rider for me.” He taps the chipped headstock – he hit it on the side of an amp after having downed one too many beers, “I wasn’t always so gentle with it.”
“The guitar was yours?” the boy asks, looking up at Hopper, suddenly seeing him in a different light. The man replies with a small nod. “Can you teach me how to play?”
Hopper lets out a snort-like laugh. “It’s been a long time since I last played, kid.” But he grabs Jonathan’s left hand anyways and instructs as he places the kid’s fingers on the right strings. “Index finger on the first fret, G string, middle finger on the second fret, A string, and ring finger on the second fret too but on the D string. There,” he strums the strings with his thumb, the sound comes out muffled because Jonathan still lacks the correct fingers posture, “E major. One of the most important chords because all shit starts in E.”
When Joyce comes to meet in the living room, meaning to tell them that dinner’s ready, she finds the two of them sitting on the floor around the small coffee table with a paper sheet before them. Hopper is scribbling things down on the paper and Jonathan, so adorably tiny next to him, looks between the piece of paper and guitar. Hopper is writing down the basic major and minor chords in staff notation and Jonathan is doing his best to replicate on the fretboard what he sees on the paper.
“Ow,” Jonathan moans, inspecting the tip of his fingers, reddened and sore, string indents already visible on the pad of his fingers.
“It will eventually stop hurting,” Hopper promises, holding Jonathan’s little hand in his.
“Did you play in a band?”
“I did. From when I was thirteen until I was eighteen-ish, when I joined the Army.”
“Did you have lots of girlfriends?” Jonathan’s cheeks get warmer and redder. “All rock stars have lots of girlfriends.”
Hopper laughs with gusto, which inadvertently makes Jonathan blush even more. “I went out with lots of girls, yeah. Never stayed with one long enough to call her my girlfriend. The one girl I had a sort of crush on wasn’t really into me at the time.”
“Do you still like that girl?” Jonathan asks, sotto voce, somewhat apprehensive of what his answer will turn out to be. If he still likes that girl where does that leave his mother?
Hopper’s eyes come to find Joyce leaning on the living room’s archway, hands crossed over her chest, looking at the two of them. “Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
Joyce inhales sharply and clears her throat, looking at everything but Hopper. “Dinner’s ready, boys.”
Jonathan loosens up and talks in a way Joyce has never seen him do before, words coming out of his mouth like water pouring from an open faucet. He becomes more and more excited as he tells Hopper what he has received for his birthday in a clear order of preference – his grandparents sent him a birthday card and a soccer ball, one of his schoolmates, Nancy Wheeler, wished him happy birthday and offer him the cupcake she had brought as her after-lunch snack, Will made him a drawing that is now hanging on his bedroom’s wall, secured with Scotch tape, Mom got him a winter jacket, Adidas sneakers, and a stack of vinyl records, and Hopper got him a guitar. Joyce is not at all bothered with the fact that, for the first time in eight years, her son prefers someone else’s gift over hers. His happiness makes her happy.
Jonathan blows out the candles and wishes for all nights to be like tonight. Joyce gives him a big, noisy kiss on the cheek that has him wiggling in his seat, feigning disgust and claiming that he’s not a little kid anymore for her to be kissing him like that. With his mother’s help, Jonathan cuts unevenly sized slices of cake – two regular-sized ones for himself and Joyce, a slightly smaller one for Will, a huge one for Hopper. After dinner, Jonathan grabs the guitar and the scribbled on paper sheets and takes them both to the front porch. Will, who hadn’t yet seen the guitar, tails after his big brother, utterly curious about it.
Hopper helps Joyce clear up the table, dirty dishes and cutlery piling up in the sink. She had thought of doing the dishes later, having planned on giving Jonathan (and Will and Hopper) her undivided attention, but since both her kids decided to do something else, she starts scrubbing and rinsing the dirty dishware. Hopper leans against the kitchen counter, dish towel thrown over the shoulder, watching the droplets of water dripping down the dishes. Memories of their teenage years cross his mind at a hallucinating speed. The world seems to be moving in slow motion before his eyes which is funny because his heart is beating at the pace of a galloping horse.
I love you. I’ve always loved you.
But the words don’t make it past his lips; they feel thick in his mouth like peanut butter.
“Do you think we’d still be together if we had dated in high school?” she asks.
I love you. I’ve always loved you.
He leans forward, pecks her lips, pulls away just enough to see the way she shyly smiles. As he inches a little closer, the tips of their noses brush ever so lightly; Joyce’s smile grows bigger, her stomach churns, she feels like a goddamn teenager again. It’s Joyce who pulls him for a deeper kiss, a hand running up his chest until it reaches his face and cups his cheek. In Hopper’s turn, one of his hands wanders down her back, rests on her hip, presses their bodies together even closer. The sound of the front door being opened and the running steps of the two boys make Hopper and Joyce break away and take a step back. They erupt into a laugh when their eyes meet.
“Let’s do the dishes first before doing each –”
Joyce smirks and splashes some soapy water in his face before he gets to finish his sentence. Jonathan and Will laugh, having witnessed the scene.