dragging the ashtray toward him,
tapping once,
then pointed the cherry right at me,
smoke curling around his face,
his eyes locked.
“Sonny, look at me. This is important…
“You ever loan somebody cash? Treat it as a gift.
“Or you’re just askin’ to get pissed off.”
“Once it leaves your hands, kid, it’s gone. Don’t sit around waitin’ for a thank you or payback. If you can’t afford to lose it, don’t hand it over. Distance, lies, sex, and money—those four’ll ruin damn near anything.”
He said it as if it bled straight from scars.
I glance at the photo on my bookshelf.
Dad’s arm is swung around Eli,
both frozen mid-laugh,
both legends in their own heads.
Eli couldn’t have been more than eighteen.
Baby face. Big hands. Bigger voice.
Dad flew all the way to Jacksonville after one blurry-ass video of Eli in an overgrown yard with a car backfiring in the over the music.
“Kid’s got it,” he told the whole damn board.
Trash Romance.
Rock. Heart. Tears-on-the-mic kind of shit.
Music that makes you want to throw a chair, then write a poem about it.
Music that tears through your chest,
then leaves the wound like an open grave, all slashed and torn.
“Writing pain with a pulse,”Dad said.
Eli grew up in bad home that could be mistaken for hell.
A kid who had worse odds,
but still clawed himself out.
After Dad found him,
it took Eli five years to drop his first album.
And when it hit, it hitbig.
