At least I had Lamar with me, to be my good conscience.
After a couple of drinks, he drove me home and deposited me in my studio. He left me there with my guitars. I picked one up and started playing.
And that was where Angeline found me, sometime later. The same way she so often found me: playing “Long Train Runnin’,” over and fucking over.
“When did you get home?”
I looked up to find her leaning against the door frame. At least she didn’t startle the hell out of me this time. I was used to her being around now.
“I don’t know. What time is it?”
“It’s six. Are you hungry for dinner?”
“No.” I probably was. I felt mildly sick from the vodka and tequila I’d drank at the bar. But I just kept playing the song.
She watched my fingers on the guitar for a moment. “I know you’re sad,” she said sadly, when our eyes met again. “I always know you’re sad when you play that song.”
“I’m not sad.”
“Johnny, something is upsetting you. And whatever it is, I know you’re not talking to me about it.”
“You want me to talk?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I thought about how to put it. It was fucking strange as hell, trying to put things into words that I’d never talked to a woman about before. “I don’t feel sad. I feel numb. I always feel numb when I play this song.”
“What song is it, Johnny?” She stepped into the room, hugging herself as she drifted toward me.
“It’s called ‘Long Train Runnin’.’ Would you believe there was a time I couldn’t stand this song?”
“Really?”
“I couldn’t stand to hear it. It used to trigger something terrible in me. Something… helpless.” I felt that helplessness, like a ghost, lingering in the cobwebs of my subconscious. Like something foreign to me. An intruder. “Then I learned to play it on guitar. I played it until my fingers bled, literally, just trying to purge it out of my system. So maybe I’d stop hearing it in my dreams.”
Angeline’s soft eyes filled with tears as she listened.
“I played it until I could get numb when I heard it, instead of my stomach dropping out and my anxiety spiking through the roof. This song… it used to make me shake so hard. Out of nowhere, boom, I’m in some restaurant and this song comes on, and I fucking freak out. Shake, sweat, go throw up in the bathroom. But now… nothing.”
Angeline was watching me carefully. “I don’t know what that’s like,” she said gently, because being her, she was trying to understand. To empathize. Something she did easily and well. But on this… I wasn’t surprised that she was out of her depth. Regular people didn’t usually throw up just hearing some random song. “But I guess it must be a relief to be able to play it now?”
“Relief…” I turned that word over in my head. “Maybe. I never thought of it that way. It’s more like… a curse. A vice. Something I’ll never be rid of but I have to learn to live with. And something I can’t live without. So. I played it over and over until I was desensitized, detached from it completely.”
“So, now it’s just a song? And you can enjoy it?”
“I don’t enjoy it. It is just a song. It’s a good song. But for me it’s like a painkiller or something. It nullifies whatever I’m feeling. Playing it over and over, focusing so hard on purging its power, saved me from having to face feelings. I’d just focus on the song and play until whatever I was starting to feel was gone. But that’s terrible, right?”
“I don’t think it’s terrible,” Angeline said carefully. “It sounds like a coping mechanism.”
“It’s a crutch.” I put the guitar aside. I was still playing the song, without even thinking about it… the chorus, over and over, and when I realized it, I saw how it made Angeline uneasy.
She watched me, but stood in front of me with her arms wrapped around herself.
“It was the song that was playing when that man got in the car,” I told her.
I didn’t say,when I shot him. She knew the rest.
Her eyes looked pink and I knew she was trying not to cry. I knew that was hard for her, fighting back her feelings. I knew she was doing it for me.
