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tamela_j~Part Two~
***
That night instead of taking the subway he usually took that returned him back home to his small sublet studio in Harlem, he took the one that would bring him back to the old neighborhood in Brooklyn. The musician that he'd gotten accustomed to hearing as he walked through the tunnels, of course, wasn't there. Instead there was a bunch of extremely tall black men of varied ages playing steel drums. It was melodious and uplifting, but he still missed the other lone guitarist and his chords of melancholic longing.
He didn't know what he expected coming back to the old neighborhood would be like and why he had been avoiding it for so long. His own father had left right after Jake had and so he had no family there, had no reason to come back and risk running into anyone he didn't want to see. When he remembered Mark's outburst, he realized that meant pretty much everyone. He reasoned that he just wanted some proof that Mark was full of shit and that Drew was fine, was working his dead-end job at his dad's hardware store and being a responsible adult like he was born to be.
There were three blocks to walk after he rose up from the subway. He hugged his hoodie tightly around his body, hunching into it for anonymity and to stave off the ghosts that seemed to be following him. The night was itself warm and heavy, but his nerves seemed to chill him as he turned the last corner and saw the store, its windows dark, the closed and out of business signs in big bold block letters. The rest of the block looked dead and long ago deserted as well.
What happened? he repeated over and over as he walked along the way he'd taken almost everyday of his teen years. The route took him from the apartment he had shared with his dad to the store Drew had worked after school and on weekends. Step after step he relived his memories of the life he had ran so far from. In his hurry to go out and become a rock and roll legend, he had completely forgotten that Drew and he had been more than band mates, much more.
When Jake had come to New York, he had been a miserable little bastard who was convinced the world was out to get him, simply because his mother had ran off on them and his father spent weeks and weeks in front of the TV, living through the fates of the White Sox as he drank his Miller High Life and mumbled about ungrateful trollops and irresponsible sons. They had became estranged and in a fit of trying to "fix" things, his dad had got off the couch and got himself transferred so they could "start over" in the "most exciting city in the world."
Jake hadn't been convinced. He'd gotten used to coming and going as he pleased, spending his after school hours with friends in the park, trying to get older kids to buy them smokes and beers. He'd turned to music more and more. It was something he could do on his own, something that soothed him and gave him something to aim for, a goal to accomplish. And when he moved to Brooklyn it brought him to Drew. In the beginning, without the music, they hadn't had anything in common.
Jake lived with his father who was never around. Drew lived with his mother, father, two sisters and they were ALWAYS around. Jake wrote angsty lyrics and wore black and a scowl. Drew had a thirst for life and was curious about everything. He also wore black, but it was the '90s, who didn't?
Jake thought that mankind was heading precariously towards the abyss where only torture and misery would remain, Drew thought he was ridiculous and was determined to show him all that life had to offer.
"Where are we going?" Jake asked as Drew grabbed his hand and dragged him out of his apartment.
"Don't you trust me?" Drew asked, not letting go of Jake's hand, not letting Jake's doubt determine their plans.
Jake didn't answer that. He thought the fact that he hadn't yanked his hand away and stopped following Drew was all the answer that was needed.
Drew opened the door to the staircase of Jake's building and started climbing the stairs.
"Where are we going?" Jake asked again.
"Where do you think? There's not many options, is there?"
"The roof?"
"You ever been?" Drew asked.
"No, have you?"
"Of course. You think you're the first person I knew who lived in this building?"
Jake didn't answer, he just kept following Drew up the stairs, flight after flight. By the time Drew opened the heavy door to the roof Jake was dizzy and panting. Since when did climbing eight flights of stairs wind him? He didn't know, but it concerned him slightly.
"I've got to stop smoking," he wheezed.
Drew laughed and ushered Jake out onto the roof. The neighborhood spread out around them and he stopped in his tracks. His wasn't the tallest building by any means, but he could still see a lot of the skyline and horizon through the gaps and it was a new view. It was exhilarating.
Drew walked over to the ledge of the building; it came to his knees, and he easily swung his legs over and sat on the edge, as if were the most normal thing in the world. Jake swallowed and attempted to do the same. He couldn't dangle his feet over the side of a twelve story building though; he turned so his back was to the ledge and his feet were safely on the roof. Drew smiled, but didn't call Jake on his cowardice.
"You see stars?" Drew asked, looking up.
Jake did likewise and studied the sky for a very long time.
"No," he finally answered, feeling as if he was missing something right in front of his eyes.
"Of course you don't. The sky isn't dark enough, there is too much down there," Drew pointed to the lights of the street below. "It drowns out the light up there."
"You sound heartbroken," Jake said, not sure if he should laugh. He waited to follow Drew's cues. When Drew smiled, Jake did too.
"I am. The things that man can do. I mean, that we can fade stars and hide heavenly wonders for neon announcements, blinding illumination and directions of red, yellow, green."
"Deep."
"You think you're the only one who can be all lyrical and shit?" Drew asked, nudging against Jake lightly.
Jake felt that bit of electricity he sometimes felt when alone with Drew. He couldn't really put his finger on what exactly the shock of sensation meant, or what he should do about it, but he did really like when it happened. Made him feel alive.
"But there's one star that man doesn't diminish, that man helps shine."
"Yeah, Bob? What's that?"
"Rock star," Jake whispered reverently.
Drew laughed. "One day you will be the brightest light on this street. You will illuminate us all. Tell the world the story."
"We will."
"Yeah."
Walking around the ghostly streets, Jake realized that he should have known that Drew was never going to get out of this neighborhood, should have listened when Drew tried to tell him that he really never wanted to. Not really.
All the things they had in common, and all their differences; music was the thing they shared and their dreams were the things that would divide them in the end. Jake couldn't understand the nuances of it, the tiny fluctuations between what Drew tried to explain to Jake and what Jake shouted at every opportunity. He'd never understand how Drew didn't want to be a famous rock star and if not that, then what?
Either the walk down memory lane and the thoughts of a time when music had been everything, or his feelings of listlessness in the small apartment that would never feel his, but Jake suddenly had nowhere he wanted to go, no one he wanted to see. He supposed that was why it felt almost inevitable that he landed in the familiar tunnel with the haunting strumming. The musician was playing the same tune Jake felt he knew better than those songs they played on the radio that he had written and recorded himself somewhere in a past life.
He sat on a bench, far away from the man and the guitar. He leaned back, closed his eyes and just listened. Teenage girls laughed, nervous mothers whispered and boisterously curious children passed him with a wide berth as if he were a slumbering transient just waiting to go into a rampage if awoken.
Jake was almost amused by that and was about to smile, but then the song changed and he choked on a confused sadness. Had it just been today that he had heard the news? Just today he was told that Drew was probably dead? He felt oddly betrayed by his senses. He thought he was attuned enough in his mind and body that he should have been able to sense if there was something missing, something wrong. Like a tune that sounded vaguely familiar, yet to an emotion that he hadn't felt yet, he doesn't understand how he didn't know that a part of the life he once had was gone forever.
He thought about the last few weeks and about how much he had been thinking about Drew and reasoned, or at least consoled himself, it must have been his mind's way of telling him that Drew was gone; that the part of Jake that was whole only when with his friend, was gone.
He tried to block out the thoughts and memories and focus on the music instead. But the emotion, the memories and the music were just so closely interconnected that there was no way to separate them. He remembered all those nightly rehearsals and how, after they were over, Jake would tentatively share lyrics with Drew. Lyrics that were becoming more and more connected in Jake’s mind with his tramped down feelings about Drew, hoping that his secret would remain secret at the same time that he wished that Drew would see through the metaphor and pronoun and see what he was truly saying.
He remembered the catch in his breath the night that Drew looked up with a nervous grin, his lower lip between his teeth and his eyes shining and Jake knew that Drew got it, that he understood. The look was the first confirmation, followed by the times where their fingers lingered on forearms as they led each other through the halls to avoid crowds, as they found their arms around each other more and more, and the times one would rest his head on the others shoulder as they slumped on the couch, exhausted from playing and too nervous to take it further than a lazy resting on each other.
They didn't talk about it. Never. And when it happened, when one night while slumped on the couch they just happened to both turn their heads at the same time, when Jake's mouth happened to skim Drew's chin and Drew's hand happened to find itself on Jake's throat, his thumb stroking Jake's jaw as he leaned closer, well they definitely didn't talk about that. They just happened to find themselves alone in the garage more and more, closer and closer, until lips on lips, tongues entwined and fingers groping under t-shirts was the most natural thing in the world. And there was nothing to say; not in words, and not to each other alone in those tight spaces of skin on skin. They spoke in lyrics and they spoke in chords and they spoke on their knees with upturned eyes and needy fingers.
Until one day Drew talked about it. Talked about how he didn't want what Jake wanted, didn't want the fame, the glory; didn't want Jake. Or at least that was what Jake heard at the time.
He didn't know how long he sat on that bench but at one point he realized that the music had became a part of him and then without warning it was gone. He sat up, alert. The tunnel was empty. No trains, no passengers and no musician with his stool, his guitar case full of coins and bills and his beat up instrument. All that was left, all that Jake had left to hold onto was the tune. He stood up humming it and when the train finally came and he finally got back home it was still there in his head accompanied by words on his lips. Without thought of anything else, he threw his bag in a corner, reached for his notebook and started scribbling down the words. Once he had them all down, he went to the corner and opened his guitar case. He was expecting it to be dusty and full of cobwebs; it had seemed a lifetime ago that he had packed it up. But it was perfect. It glimmered with a high shine just like the last time he held it.
The last leg of the tour had not gone well for Jake. In the beginning it had been new and exciting and everything was adventure, everything was like a dream come true. He had gotten into a groove, knew when to party and when to hole himself away and work on his writing. He wanted desperately to prove himself; to bring something to the band that would be invaluable so that they would accept him into their inner sanctum and so that he would be irreplaceable. He had the nervous energy of a man who knew he had been their third guitarist in as many years and that there were others out there chomping at the bit. He put in the time and he contributed in ways that were unexpected and appreciated. He wrote three songs for the new album they wanted to take to the studio on their break from the tour.
But, sometime between when they recorded and when the album came out, everything had turned to shit. He became impatient with the wait for his songs to be released to the world and didn't understand why they couldn't start playing them at shows. He started getting lethargic about writing anything new. Then he started getting short with the rest of the band. He had thought recording with them, contributing to the album with songs of his own would finally make him one of them legitimately. It didn't seem to do anything though. He was still the new guy.
Then, there was suddenly another guy on the bus with them. He was some sort of friend of the band and the day he whipped out a guitar, Jake knew his days were numbered. He had been polishing his guitar when the announcement came officially. As they sat him down, as they tried to be delicate as they told him he was no longer needed, as they told him he'd be getting off at the next stop and not getting back on. He sat and stared at the shine of his guitar and just kept rubbing it, as if it were the lifeline to keeping him steady, keep him from breaking down right there in front of them all.
All of that seemed a lifetime ago though. In fact, his adolescence seemed closer to him now than that time on the road as a rock star. As he grabbed the guitar again, felt the electricity of it zinging through his veins, he didn't think about fame and glory, he thought of Drew and what music used to mean. He thought about how music used to be so tied into being alive and wondered when it had became more about what it could give him and not about what he gave to it.
Sitting down on the edge of his chair, he placed the curve of the guitar gingerly on his knee, running his hand slowly and lovingly along the body, his other hand stroking the neck, his fingers itching to press down on the strings, create a sound that would be melodious and wonderful. He knew the instrument would be horribly out of tune though, so he didn't touch them, not until he was ready for the illusion and dream to be dashed back to the reality of foul discord. He was expecting it to be cumbersome and awkward, but it was natural and he sensed his whole body sighing, as if it had been holding its breath waiting for this moment of happy peace once more. Looking down at the words sprawled on the page he began to see the chords and his fingers ghosted the frets that would be needed.
Taking a deep breath, he ran his right thumb gently along the strings, cringing at the sound that barely came out of the instrument. He spent all day tuning guitars in the back room of the music store, but this sound, this screeching, he took personally. It was his punishment for abandoning it for so long. An angry friend, a dissatisfied lover admonishing him for his neglect.
He hummed slow and sweet as he gently coaxed the strings tighter, twisting until he felt a slight resistance before plucking the string again and tweaking a slight bit more each time. Each string got its own attentions, its own apology before he moved on to the next.
By the time he had finished tuning his guitar, he had already worked out the chords and tempo for the lyrics he had written. He felt almost effervescent. He wondered when he had stopped feeling this way and how he had lived without it.
"That's brilliant," Drew had said. He plopped down next to Jake and picked up his notebook. "How do you do that?"
"Do what?" Jake asked, not looking up from his guitar.
Drew shook the notebook towards Jake. "This, Bob. How do you do this? Like how does it come to you?"
Jake shrugged. "It just does."
"Like the guitar just came to you? Like the bass is just coming to you?" Drew asked, and there was a note of jealousy, a taste of bitterness in his voice.
Jake had almost shrugged again, but stopped himself. He knew that Drew struggled to pick up things that just seemed to work out for Jake without much effort, without much thought. Jake didn't think he was a prodigy or anything, he just thought his mind was always working things out on a subconscious level, so that when he sat down to try something most of it had been sorted out already and it seemed easier than it was in actuality. He couldn't explain it to Drew, like he couldn't explain that he too was jealous of Drew, how invested he got, how determined. There seemed to be a deeper meaning to almost everything for Drew because of the work he put into it. Jake had never felt that he could reach that level, could never devote that much of his life to mastering something that was that much of a challenge.
"We all have our things. This is my thing."
"What is my thing?"
Jake knew he was going to ask that. How could he tell him that besides the fact that he had more heart than anyone Jake had ever met, could do anything he put his mind to, eventually; it was the kind of person he was that would get him whatever he wanted?
"Your thing? Your thing is everything."
Drew smiled and put his head down on Jake's knee, like it was the most natural thing in the world, to be like that out in the open. Jake wiped his palm that had just begun to moisten along the grass and reached for the notebook.
"So, you like it?"
"The song? Yeah, of course. It has a cleanness to it, you know? Free of minutia and hypersensitivity?"
"Yeah? Cool." He liked that Drew put into words what he could write but couldn't say. It was another of the ways they just worked.
The next morning he carried the sheet music in one hand as he clutched the bar of the train in the other. His heart was beating so loud it drowned out the noises all around him. He hadn't felt this alive in a very long time and he wanted to do it before he lost his nerve. Why he wanted to do it he didn't know. He figured it was something to do with releasing something he created out in the world, but not in a I'm going to be a rock star way. Not like it had been, what he had turned it into before, but in the pure way it was in the beginning. He felt like he was coming out of a haze he had put himself into a long time ago, even before he had been kicked out of the band, even before he had joined the band if he thought about it. He tried not to think that he hadn't felt this pure, wholesome adoration for music since he had shared it with Drew.
He knew that was ridiculous. He didn't fall in love with music because of Drew and it wasn't because of him that he lost the love, but somewhere in his mind the thoughts about the two things were intertwined in a way he couldn't separate.
When the train stopped he took a deep breath. Part of him wished the musician wouldn't be there, then he could wuss out and it wouldn't be his fault, it wouldn't be his weakness. But when the doors opened and the first thing he heard was the sound of the chords of a song that had now become as familiar as the ones he had first learned. He sighed and walked towards the man. He didn't know why he was going to give this away; what made him think this man would even want it, would even need it? He'd never heard the man sing, what made him think he would?
It was just a hunch.
The crowd around the man was just as thick as always and he made his way through the crowd this time, he thought about the clubs he had played when he first moved to the city and how there were so many nights where he would have killed for a crowd half this size. Was that when music started to be about how much others appreciated it? He didn't know. But somewhere between his time in high school and his time on the road, it had changed, had become a commodity.
He stood before the musician and like he had done the day he dropped the string into his guitar case, he tried to be nonchalant as he dropped the piece of sheet music into it. He thought he had gotten away unnoticed and was making his way back towards the stairs when he heard in a loud whisper.
"Thanks, Bob."
Jake was already to the stairs when it registered that the man had said anything, that he had acknowledged him, that he had acknowledged him with that name. Chills stopped him mid-step and he turned back to look at the man, but the crowd obscured him and he was playing a different song.
He mentally smacked himself, feeling ridiculous to have thought anything of it. The man probably called everyone who gave him something that name. It was pretty common. Shaking his head, he continued to the store to start his day, his boring, run of the mill day.
He tried to push the song and the musician out of his mind. For once the fates were on his side and Mike was not working with him that day and not all the customers that came in were idiots or assholes. In fact, he sold one teenage boy his first guitar and smiled instead of scowled when the boy recognized him. When the kid asked him if he ever gave lessons, he actually found himself answering maybe.
By the end of his shift, he was convinced that his first good day in a long time had something to do with the song. So, when he walked down the stairs of the train and there was no music, no guitar, no song, he was crushed. This made him feel even more ridiculous as he rode uptown to his apartment. To wash away the feeling of rejection, he picked up his guitar, refusing to accept that his feeling good again had anything to do with that stranger and his music. Even while admitting that it was seeing this man's devotion to something that obviously was a passion and barely a living at all, that had perhaps sparked it all. And in all of this, was the Thanks, Bob.
The next day he didn't even contemplate that the musician wouldn't be there, of course he would. He'd never missed a morning and evening before, even when he was working with a busted string. This time though, the man was not there. In his place were the steel drums Jake had heard in a different tunnel. Instead of wondering about the man, he wondered about the system of subway musicians. Did they somehow communicate with each other, did the guy call in sick and get the drums to fill in for him?
It was something to think about that didn't have anything to do with the paranoid feeling he had about whether giving the man the sheet music had anything to do with why he wasn't there anymore. When Jake returned that night to catch the train home and the tunnel was silent, his paranoia intensified. Had he crossed some line? Spooked the man somehow?
That night he came home and picked up his guitar without a thought. It felt natural and right again to have it in his hands to soothe him, to speak for him. He played the song he had wrote, just to make sure that he hadn't made a terrible mistake and shared a horrendously bad song with a complete stranger. No, he still liked it, still thought it had great lines and the chords went well with the note of longing that seeped in the chorus. After that he played the songs he had last written, the ones on the album, the ones currently being played in stadiums around the world by others. He couldn't believe that it had been over a year since he had written those. What had he been doing with his life? How much could a man wallow and still have any self respect left? He hoped he had made it just under the wire.
He still liked those songs too, but they no longer brought him the satisfaction that the new one did. He wondered if they ever did. He couldn't even remember what had inspired those songs, other than proving something to his band mates and the world. Was that a worthy reason to write? Probably not. Still, it was nice to know that he could produce under that sort of pressure for those sorts of reasons. But it was nicer to know that he could recapture the real reason to write: because he couldn't not; because the words haunted him and the story demanded to be told.
The next day he wasn't even surprised that the musician wasn't there. After a few days he even stopped taking it personally. Each day it was a new entertainer. Maybe that's just how it worked. Funny he never really thought before about how much music and how many performers were out there on the streets everywhere he turned in this town. He noticed them now. He also couldn't help notice that while most of them were really good, none of them were anywhere near as good as the guitarist he had first noticed.
By the time the weekend came around, he had almost convinced himself that he had dreamed the man into existence and almost thought the song he had written had been an illusion as well. By then though, it didn't matter. He took to carrying his notebook around with him wherever he went, jotting down ideas and snippets of scenes he'd like to play with. He'd take his lunch break at Washington Square Park and watch young lovers share a moment on picnic blankets, watch couples walk by hand in hand laughing or exchanging meaningful glances. When he wasn't thinking about Drew, the only person in his life that he'd ever imagined any sort of future with, he was jotting down notes, sketching out theme, playing with metaphor.
Jake had sat on the roof waiting for Drew. Something in the look he gave him earlier in the day at practice told him Drew needed him. When they needed to talk, needed to be with each other with no one else knowing, they meet on Jake's roof, or Drew's garage. It had never really been about hiding what they were doing, or what they were. At least it didn't feel that way. It was just something that they clung to when all the other bits of their lives were crumbling around them. When Jake's dad started bringing random women home and Jake started realizing how thin the walls in the apartment were or when Drew started to feel like his father was never going to think he was good enough for anything, even as he and Drew's mother demanded more and more from him.
Their band didn't seem to notice, or care about what Drew and Jake did when they weren't playing music and no one else really knew them as anything other than musicians. After playing their first high school party, they of course started collecting followers, most of them girls, but it was understood pretty early on that Drew and Jake were only interested in music. If there were whispers, rumors or even sly looks behind their backs, they were never affected by them.
Because most of the time it really was all about the music.
"Hey Bob," Drew said as way of greeting.
"Whats up?" Jake asked, hiding his smile. He didn't want Drew to ever know that the nickname had finally became comfortable and something he actually liked. He didn't have to hide the smile though as Drew, instead of coming and sitting next to Jake, just stood at the edge of the roof, looking out at the dark horizon.
Drew shrugged. Then, after a few minutes. "So, where do you see yourself in 10 years?"
Jake laughed. It was a joke among the seniors at their school. So many of their classmates were stressing and plotting their college applications and the future was on every one's mind.
"We'll be far away from here. Touring with our latest Grammy winning gold record."
"Sounds good. We haven't sold out, have we?" Drew asked.
"Not even close. In fact, we'll be setting the trends, saying what is rock and roll."
"Awesome. How do we get there from here?"
"Well, first thing we do is get away from this neighborhood as fast as we can."
Drew didn't answer, just kept looking out into the darkening sky. There was a shiver though and Jake stood up and stood behind him, slowly wrapping his arms around Drew, pulling him tight to him.
"What was it this time?" he asked. He knew this silence; knew it was something to do with his father.
Drew put his head back onto Jake's shoulder. After a long moment where Jake just listened to Drew's breathing, felt the rise and fall of Drew's chest against his arms, Drew answered in a whisper, "Three guesses, first two don't count."
"You're not going to be able to go to rehearsal this weekend."
Drew slumped even more bonelessly into Jake's arms. "It was either that or miss the gig."
"Doesn't he know how important it is?" Jake asked.
"He doesn't know anything. Not about me."
Jake put his mouth to Drew's ear to whisper softly, "He doesn't matter. No one does. Nothing does. Just you, me and the music."
Drew chuckled and Jake felt it reverberate throughout him. "That's what I see in ten years. I don't see the where, or the how, but I see me and I see you and I hear the music."
It had been days since he'd seen the musician and Jake stopped thinking it had anything to do with him. He found himself wondering more about the street performers code worked, but this time it was because he found himself once again with an itch to play, and itch to share his music and thought maybe it would feel better, cleaner to do it without expecting anything in return. That morning he had brought his guitar to work and after work he planned to come down to the tunnel and if no one was playing, he would take it upon himself. If someone was there, he told himself he would work up the nerve to approach them, ask them to join them, or perhaps, ask how it worked, maybe he had to join some club, some union?
But at the end of the day, when he made his way down the stairs, he stopped half way, hair standing up on his arms and a tingle worked its way about the base of his spine. His song.
It wasn't the song though that stopped him like a electric charge grounding him to the spot. It was the voice. It zinged through his synapses, calling to every fiber of him. He knew that voice, knew it better than his own. But it couldn't be. It wasn't possible.
Part of him wanted to bound down the stairs to see for himself. The other half though, that part didn't want to know, didn't want to be disappointed. Of course the first half won, and he almost broke his neck pressing himself through the crowd.
It wasn't until the bottom of the stairs that he forced himself to pay attention to the actual song. His song. It had been tweaked, he noticed. Some light had been added to the dismal darkness; some depth had been given to the shallower bits.
Jake almost laughed as all the pieces came together. Of course it was Drew. It always had been; even when he hadn't taken the time to see the man, he had heard him and his music. His subconscious telling the story, reliving the memories that his conscious mind had been too self absorbed to put together. That was why Drew had been on his mind so much, not because he had died and was trying to reach him from the netherworld.
He slithered and swayed his way through the crowd and was standing right before Drew by the time the song had ended. He played the last chord and looked up, right to where Jake was standing, as if he knew that he would be there. They smiled at each other and just like that, Jake's whole world made sense again; past, present and future all blended and smoothed around him. It was the simplest thing as he walked to Drew, who had stood up and placed his guitar on his seat. They hugged.
It was like they'd never been apart.
"Where've you been?" Jake asked after they pulled away from each other. "I gave that song to you almost a week ago?"
"I've always been a slow learner. You know that."
"I thought you were dead."
"It's only been a week."
"No, before. Mark told me you had died."
"Yeah? Was it a valiant death?"
"Probably, you were always the hero."
"And were you always my damsel?"
Jake wasn't ready for this conversation to fall into the familiar routine of humor, metaphor and double entendre because it had skirted the line of seriousness. He needed answers, he needed to know what he had missed, and more importantly, if he had a chance of getting any of it back.
"Why does Mark think you're dead?" he asked.
"Because Mark's a douche. You know that." When he saw that wasn’t a good enough answer for Jake, Drew continued. "A few years ago. There was a fire at the shop. It moved to the apartments above where we had moved after losing the house. My dad, mom and Stephanie were killed. He must have half listened to the news and put me in the fire as well. But, as you can see, I'm very much alive."
"Jesus, that fuckin' sucks," Jake said, feeling very foolish and inadequate. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"It's alright. I try not to think about it too much. Me and Marcy just try to get by as best we can."
Jake remembered Marcy as a thirteen year old brace-face who was always spying on her brother and him.
"But you still got your music," Jake said, moving the conversation away from the horror for awhile. They'd have time for that later, he reasoned.
"Yep. Looks like you do too," Drew said, pointing to Jake's guitar still strapped to his back. "You want to play a bit? Or are rock stars like you too good for the likes of the NYC subway system?"
"Oh please. Don't be one of those guys," Jake said as he slung off his guitar. "And yes, I'd be honored, just as long as we don't..."
"Cover Bon Jovi?" Drew finished for him. They both laughed. "Such a snob."
Jake strummed a note and Drew followed it and they played song after song; ones that Jake hadn't played for years, ones that he thought he had forgotten. As he played he remembered what Drew had said about what he saw their future being.
"I don't see the where, or the how, but I see me and I see you and I hear the music."
He smiled and strummed on, glancing from time to time to Drew. Jake had lived his future, had seen the dream come true and had seen it crumble all around him. For now, for here, he'd just like to live Drew's for a while. See where it led.
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Date: 2010-10-15 10:16 pm (UTC)I adored Jake and Drew's friendship, the way they slip back into place after all those years and it's still all good.
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Date: 2010-10-16 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-16 02:52 pm (UTC)And jeez, Mark was an ass. I'm glad we only had one scene with him.
Overall, good job. I'd totally read more if it existed.
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Date: 2010-10-16 10:49 pm (UTC)Yes. Thank goodness Mark was only in that one scene. If I had to tell a whole story about him, I would have joined Jake on that bridge. :((
Thanks again. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
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Date: 2010-10-16 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-16 11:30 pm (UTC)♥ Now show me your stories!!
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Date: 2010-10-16 09:42 pm (UTC)Of course it was Drew. It always had been; even when he hadn't taken the time to see the man, he had heard him and his music. His subconscious telling the story, reliving the memories that his conscious mind had been too self absorbed to put together.
Beautiful story!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-16 11:31 pm (UTC)♥