And, fuck my life, that same damned reporter popped up from behind a parked car, a camera pointed my way. “Griffin, over here. You lucked out and weren’t sentenced to prison time. How does that make you feel?”
I lowered my head and trudged toward my building’s front door.
“Don’t you want to tell your side of the story? The Bellinghams will be telling theirs.”
No, I really don’t.I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead.Don’t look down— it appears guilty. Don’t look at the camera— they will isolate any expression they choose.Had he filmed my mini-breakdown in my car?
I’d been in front of the media half my life but the rabid, bloodsucking attention of the last few months was a whole different thing. I ignored the camera guy sidling up next to me, lens fixed on my face, as I unlocked the door to the lobby, slipped in, and locked up behind me, the reporter on the outside.
He was still filming through the glass door so I didn’t stop to check my mail. The safety and solitude of my room was all I wanted.
My apartment held a stale scent of fake lemon and bleach. I’d cleaned frantically to fill the hours before the hearing. Everything I owned was tidied and packed up. If the judge had decided on a prison sentence, the bailiffs would have taken me into custody and headed me off then and there. My lawyer would have arranged for the end of my lease and for storage. I’d left this place not knowing if I’d ever come back to it.
Relief hit me so hard my whole body shook. I staggered into the living room and dropped onto the couch.
I’m not going to prison.
I was torn between laughter and tears, choking and snorting, hugging my middle with trembling arms. I thought my head might float off my neck like a balloon. There was only one thing I could do to keep myself together. Pushing to my feet made my head spin, but then I got my balance. My Gibson was my favorite composition guitar, the one I always carried with me,and bringing it on this ill-fated trip had been a lifesaver. I’d left it packed in its case, laid on the coffee table against the wall, well out of the sunlight. I opened the hard lid and lifted the guitar out. The faint hum of the strings as I moved the instrument soothed my soul.
Seated on the couch again, I tuned the strings from the tone down I’d given them for long-term storage. Every touch, every note, made my breath come easier. And for the first time in seven months, words surfaced.
Isn’t it funny
In a cold cruel way
That a life on the fly
As the years roll by
Hits a prison wall
How the smug can fall
In the blink of an eye
Watch the future die
Can’t wish death away
Isn’t it funny?
The lyrics were clunky and rough, but the tune had something, a hook plaintive enough to linger in my mind. I couldn’t do more right now. My head was in the wrong place to dive into composing. Introspection lurked like a deep dark hole I hadn’t let myself peer into since the moment that airbag punched me in the face. I’d grown adept at blocking my thoughts with chanted distraction every time my brain tried to dive.Don’t think, don’t think.Still, I got up and fished a pencil and notebook out of the pocket of the guitar case and jotted those few notes. It never hurt to write the rough start down.
Then I took myself and my guitar back to the couch, propped the pillows behind me just right, and played. My old standards,then covers, songs I played ten years ago, twenty. At first, I ran through the lyrics in my head, not trusting my voice, but on “Water Over the Bridge” I couldn’t help singing. Twenty years ago, I debuted that song in a local venue, when I came home to take care of Mom after she’d had a fall.
The bar had held maybe fifty people and it was crowded, folks coming to see the local boy starting to make good. I’d played a couple of big festivals by then. My first single had made it onto the charts. A smoky haze hung over the crowd, part tobacco but with a hint of pot, the smell echoing eighteen years of trying to break out of the pack with my songs, of a hundred bars and clubs smaller than this one. I’d breathed in deep and leaned toward the mic, said, “I have something new for you folks. I hope you like it.”
In the moment before I sang the first note, I’d spotted a cute guy watching from a table in the front. A redhead, his curly hair a bit long and artfully messy, his round, smooth face and full mouth hitting my hell-yesbutton. I kept my eyes on him as I belted out the first line.The first time I saw Lee.
Twenty years back, that memory would’ve hurt me to the core, but now it felt bittersweet. One more time I’d screwed up, but no one had died. We moved on. I was pretty sure Lee was partnered up by now and living his good life. Sweet man like that, he probably had half a dozen adopted kids and a golden retriever.
Still, it’d been prophetic, perhaps, that the first time our eyes met I’d been singing that song.
Nothing gentle ’bout the water,
Nothing kind about the tide,
Drives my life over the railing,
