It was the old pressure.
In my mind, I glimpsed the reflection of my ten-year-old self standing alone in a window.
I threw the patch on the floor, hooked a finger under the hair ties around my wrist, stretched them out, and snapped them back against my skin. The familiar sting eased the pressure, but the cramps in my belly and the jackhammering pain in my head quickly returned.
I pulled the hair ties back as far as I could to try again, but before I could let go, Angela’s band started to play. The distant rumble washed over me and with it a different memory arose.
Chuey had invited me over after a library session. I’d shown up with a face full of bruises—got in a lot of fights back then, and frankly didn’t care. He led me down into his moldy basement, where his family’s wet laundry hung from crisscrossing clotheslines. We’d sat there with three other guys listening to Judas Priest, Pantera, and countless other bands. I’d never met any of the other kids, but from that first moment, as we struggled to explain the raw power of the music to each other, we became friends. I grew to love the smell of wet laundry. And the music somehow relieved the pressure that had begun when Mama left.
It worked better when the music was live, better still when I was performing songs of my own. But when I couldn’t get some music in my ears, I had the hair ties. Both were miracles compared to what I’d done to cope in those first few years after she was gone. I didn’t like to think about that time in my life. But damned if Chuey hadn’t saved me from all that, too.
Just then, the door opened and Henry slipped in, a grace in his step that belied his seventy-plus years. With Angela’s music in my head, the pressure began to recede, and I eased the elastic ties back down.
Henry draped his rag over his shoulder. “I had a feeling you’d get through to her. Thank you, Jack.”
I gestured at the photos on the wall. “Nothing you haven’t done a thousand times.”
Henry came and sat down beside me on the grimy old couch and gently placed his hand on the cluster of hair ties on my wrist. “Well, the pair of you have something more in common, don’t you?”
His big, steady hands were always a comfort.
He smiled. “Make any progress on your third verse?”
He was talking about “They Always Go Away.” How many variations had I tried? It’s hard to sum up your runaway mother in a few lines. I’d finished a version the Hounds could play live—the version everyone knew. But it wasn’t right. The third verse was missing . . . something.
“A little,” I answered.
“Let’s have it, then.” Henry gently squeezed my wrist and let go, sitting back to listen.
I let out with the first few verses—my father pushing me away, the death of my brother Dan—those hadn’t changed in years. Then I skipped
the chorus and hesitantly started the third verse. The one about Mama leaving. About watching from the front-room window as the sound of her car engine faded down the street, the house suddenly becoming so damned quiet.
Halfway through I stopped, the anger still churning inside me. “Words aren’t there yet.”
Henry nodded. “If you don’t mind my saying, the melody sounds a bit too nostalgic. Almost as if you’re not going deep enough.”
I stared at the ceiling for a minute while Henry’s words bounced around in my head. He’d nailed it. Other than Chuey, Henry was the only one I’d told this story, but neither of them knew everything. And nostalgia was definitely not the right sound for it.
“Such an important song, Jack,” he added. “Important songs can hurt.
But don’t you give up on it.”
Angela’s music was thrumming through the walls now, rattling the pictures, and easing the last of the pressure behind my eyes.
Henry pointed at one of the jouncing photos. “What a great night that was.” The picture was of the Hounds’ first gig at the Iron Horse. It’d been taken from the stage with the audience behind us. There were only a dozen people in the crowd, but Henry mugged for the camera like he’d just discovered the Who.
Seeing the guys felt like four divorces all at once. “That’s over now.” “They give you a reason?”
“Said I was always putting other things ahead of the band.”
Henry scrubbed his chin. “What would make you do such a thing?”
I shrugged. “Anyway, they’ve hired a management company to ‘get things back on track.’ Turns out the company has a singer already under contract.”
Henry sighed. “So, they wanted to make the change before the Hounds open at the festival next week.”
No Sabbath story for me. “A few labels are gonna be there to check them out.” I scanned the countless band photos on the wall. “I’ve been at this for almost twenty years, Henry. This was my shot . . . Some people are doctors, others build things with their hands. But me? This is all I’ve ever wanted. It’s all I know.”
