“What time are you getting here?” the text read. “Ryan’s here and we’re all set up.”
I looked at the time the message was sent. 2:00 pm.
I checked the time on my phone.
It read 3:35 pm.
Crap.
Part 1.
This is a story about a journey, one both literal and figurative – one of enlightenment, of discovering your purpose, of being wronged – and realizing that you were wrong yourself, of communication, of forgiveness, of healing, of honesty, of clarity, of friendship, brotherhood, and rock and roll, of acceptance, and of letting go.
All of this is true.
All of this really happened.
Thursday, July 14, 2017.
My eyes opened up.
I honestly can’t remember if they opened up on their own, or if it was the frequent chirping of my smart phone notifying me that I had texts roused me. I sat up. I dragged myself up out of bed, staggered over to my phone at its charging station. I had moved that attention-seeking son of a bitch as far away from my bedside as I could since my Major Depression diagnosis nearly three years ago.
It was Marce.
“What time are you getting here?” the text read. “Ryan’s here and we’re all set up.”
I looked at the time the message was sent. 2:00 pm.
I checked the time on my phone.
It read 3:35 pm.
Crap.
Marce was in Austin.
I was in Laredo.
I had told him I’d leave by 8:00 am – 12:00 pm, latest.
That’s a three hour drive, easy – if there were no cops, light traffic, and no construction work. I had a late night the night before. I stood there staring at the phone foggy-headed for a minute feeling like an idiot. I ran the mental checklist of things I still had to do before I left Laredo:
– go to the bank.
– stop by guitar center to see if they more carrying cases for my drums.
– break down my drum set.
– pack them in their cases.
– load them up.
Screw it, I thought. I texted him back, “I just woke up but I’ll get there as soon as I can.” It would be a day wasted. Wasted where I could have been jamming in Austin with my friends who I first started playing with from high school – Marcelino, who we just call Marce, and Ryan.
I had seen Marce recently. We jammed around three years ago. I was able to persuade him to come down once I had convinced the owner of AJs – a friend of mine – to book us a gig. Marce came down twice in one year. We had a blast. We did two impromptu gigs playing his original tunes at my favorite neighborhood bar along with the blues-garage-grunge-rock band I play drums for.
I really wanted to see Ryan. I hadn’t seen him since high school. He was always really chill, with a nice, dry, weird sense of humor. But damn could shred on the axe. I honestly think he was the best of us – and still is. And he’s a technological wizard.
A few weeks before, Marce calls me up. It’s one of those conversations that stretches over a couple of days, switching from text to phone call to Facebook Messenger in some mashup technological blur. For some reason, Marce really wanted to Messenger video chat me or some such techno-babble. That came out terribly, but often I’ve realized modern tech brings out my Cranky Old Man side. Marce tells me he’s going to be in Austin for some time. He’ll be renting a house, Ryan will be coming over, they’ll be taking their instruments over, some basic recording equipment, set up shop, and we’d have three days to simply jam, create, and make music.
I paused, ready to mechanically spout out one of my many excuses as to why I couldn’t go:
– my girlfriend.
– we had to watch her girls.
– I had to watch the house the times my parents would go to visit my sister and her family in Arkansas.
– my father …
But now, for the first time in five years I realized that I had none.
My girlfriend, Lindsey broke up with me due to my behavior a year before, during, and after, the passing of my father ( Major Depression is a bitch), so that freed me up from her and girls. Mom was up in Arkansas with my sister. And my father – well, my father passed away a year ago last April. My brother Tom moved back into the house with his partner. And the day that I could head up was the day after payday. I realized I could. I had nothing holding me back – nothing to lose and everything to gain.
There was only one tiny problem.
The last time I talked to Marce I had told him off.
Really bad.
Twice.
That and I had gotten so pissed, so enraged at him, I had cut off all contact with him since May of last year. But really it began the day after my father passed away from complications due to gall bladder cancer that spread to his liver. My father passed on April 26, 2016.
How did that happen?
Well, that’s a whole other blog in itself.
Next week: The Music House Part Two – Three messages, some backstory, and the competitive conflict that breeds genuine artistic creativity.
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