My pessimistic and constantly frowning doctor said, “Any ability to hear will take months to return, and only if the grafts hold.” A forced smile. “So don’t hit your head on anything.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“But even if you wear a helmet for the next year, you can only expect at best about a 10 percent return. For all intents and purposes, you’ll be deaf save certain low-end frequencies. There was just too much damage . . .”
I tuned him out. What kind of a guy goes into medicine who only knows how to give bad news? I mean, there has to be some good news around here somewhere. I started wondering if he actually enjoyed it.
Given the risk of infection, they kept me in the burn unit, which gave me a good bit of solitary time to think. The truth was painful but clear. I couldn’t sing. Couldn’t play. Couldn’t talk. My throat felt like someone had cut out my vocal cords. And while all this was settling in my foggy brain, my doctor returned with more bad news. He sat on a stool with wheels and scooted over next to the bed. “I have your labs.”
I heard the words he spoke, but they didn’t really sink in.
“So when you hear your heart pounding like Niagara in your ears, or cough and find both blood and what looks like coffee grounds . . .”
I whispered, “Until then?”
“Live your life.”
“Like an inmate on death row.”
He tilted his head side to side. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
“How would you look at it . . . if you were lying here?”
He didn’t answer.
I stared out the window, across a brilliant blue Nashville skyline, and rasped, “How much time do I have?”
He wouldn’t commit. “That’s anybody’s guess.”
I stayed quiet for a moment, lost in the view, until he tapped me on the knee. “You still here, Cooper?”
I turned toward him. My voice had grown hoarser. “You should probably call me Coop.”
He nodded, realizing that he knew more about my physical person than anyone on the planet. He folded his hands. “I keep wishing I could walk in here with good news, but—”
“Me too.” There was little good and we both knew it.
“You’ve got some visitors waiting to come in, but I wanted a chance to talk with you first.”
My voice had checked out so I reached for the pad by my bed and scribbled, showing how my left hand moved more slowly than my brain. They know any of this?
“No.”
I’d like to keep it that way.
“Understood.”
He patted me on the foot and walked out, and a few minutes later Daley and Sam walked in. She’d been crying, and when she sat she kept a safe distance—which struck me as odd. Sam stood at the end of my bed, a smug look on his face.
Finally Daley spoke. “Cooper, why?”
She called me Cooper. Why’d she call me Cooper?
I looked from her to Sam and back to Daley. I didn’t like where this was going. I turned the pad to a new piece of paper and scrawled, Why what?
She blew her nose. A lot was coming at me fast, but it was here I noticed she wasn’t wearing the ring I gave her. She said, “Why’d you do it?”
My eyes were still staring at her naked hand. I forced a whisper. “Do what?”
“Sam is willing to brush it under the rug. Keep it between us. But just give it back.”
I tried to shake off the fog. More Sanskrit. Give what back?
She looked at Sam, pleading, Let me try and talk some sense into him?
Ever forgiving, he smiled in soft understanding and patted her shoulder.
“All the stuff you and your friend took out of the safe?”
So that was how he was going to play this.
That’s what he told you? I wrote.
“You deny it?”
You believe him?
She pointed to his head. “Explain that.” She pointed to me. “Explain any of this.”
I tried to write faster. What’d he tell you I took?
She looked to Sam and then back at me. “The eighty thousand cash. And Bernadette’s jewelry.”
I’d never been a poker player. Didn’t really like cards. But lying in bed with tubes running out of me, I realized I was playing poker with Sam whether I liked it or not, and he was only seconds from running the table. I scribbled angrily in block letters and held up the paper to Sam. YOU TELL HER THIS?!
He played the empathetic and forgiving uncle. “Coop, we’ve got a lot of good things on the horizon. In a couple of months you’ll be making some healthy royalties.” He acted like he was doing his best to take it easy on me, be understanding, let bygones be bygones. “Some of that jewelry belonged to Bernadette’s grandmother. They got it out of Germany before the war.”
If I could have climbed out of bed and ripped his smirking lips off his face, I would have.
The thing that Sam understood, far better than I, was this: all he had to do was appeal to the fragile place in Daley that had been wounded by her dad. If he played the I-am-the-one-person-on-the-planet-you-can-trust card, then she’d turn on me. Her experience with men would convince her that she couldn’t trust me when it mattered most. Aside from his strategy being as painful as the physical torment my body had suffered, it was brilliant.
I sat there, letting story number two sink in. Sam had played both hands perfectly. He’d told the media one story, which made him look like the loving Daddy Warbucks and in turn helped sell millions of records. Behind closed doors, he’d told Daley story number two. Both stories endeared her to him and separated her from me.
I stared out the window. What defense do I have? What can I possibly say? The pain in my side registered. And even if I could convince her that Sam is lying, what future does she have with me? Finally my brain cleared and I asked myself, What’s best for Daley?
I did not like the answer.
Sam helped Daley stand and then tapped me on the foot. “Bernadette would be grateful if you’d return everything. All is forgiven. Water under the bridge.” Then he waved his hand across the hospital room. “All this is on me. We’ve got the best doctors. No need for you to worry about paying any of it back.” He tugged on Daley’s arm and said, “Come on, Dee.”
He’d even started calling her by my nickname for her. She patted his hand, holding his one hand in both of hers and looking up at him. “Can I have a minute with him?”
“Sure, baby. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
I’d known hardship in my life. Nothing like this. I wanted to puke.
He left, and Daley stood at the foot of my bed. Tears falling down. Arms crossed. The same cold wind. A safe distance. Finally she shook her head and palmed her face. Smearing the tears more than wiping them. Her face spoke betrayal and pain. The truth was simple. I’d lost.
She managed, “How—?” Her voice cracked and her throat choked off the words. “After all he’s done . . .” She reached into her pocket, slowly set the engagement ring on the bed, and walked out.
The smell of Coco Chanel was still wafting across me when Sam walked back in.
He stood next to the bed. Towering. Finally he leaned toward me and his mouth took on a smile, but there was no good in it.
“I heard you play when you were seventeen and traveling with your dad’s ridiculous tent circus, and I knew I’d never really heard anyone play like you. We courted you, tried to record you, even sent you a Fender with your name on it, but your dad would have none of it. Eighteen months pass, and I walk out of a bar where one of my acts is being upstaged by a punk on the street corner. People were actually leaving the bar to hear the kid on the street. I thought, Let me take a look. And there you were. Playing the guitar your father made famous. The one you’d stolen. You looked so happy, so in tune with ‘Jimmy,’ that I was all too happy to pay someone to take him from you.” He chuckled and his eyes darted to the corner. “One of my favorite trophies.”
He tapped himself in the ch
est and I smelled whiskey in his whisper. “I choose who makes it in this business. Not you. Not your talent. Not your dream. Not the gift in your fingers.” He laughed again. “Did you actually think I would let you have Daley?”
I wanted to respond, but the world was coming at me too fast.
“Leave a forwarding address so we’ll know where to send the wedding announcement.” He stood and ran his fingers along the inside of his belt. “Oh, and—” He pointed a thumb at Jimmy. “You can keep the souvenir.”
His words shot through me, doing more damage than his bullet. He didn’t just want Daley’s music. He wanted Daley.
That was the last time I saw Sam Casey.
Six weeks later I walked out of the hospital and limped to the mailbox. I had written the letter left-handed, which took some time and made it difficult to read.
Music washes us from the inside out. It heals what nothing else can. It’s the miracle we call song. May the song you sing forever heal the hurt you feel.
I love you. Me.
I stuck my thumb in the air and made my way west. I stopped when I hit the Pacific.
30
A year passed. Then a second. I had no destination in mind. Wandered a lot. Rented a shack on the coast in Oregon. Watched the tide roll in and out. Wasted the better part of a year there. My voice returned enough to whisper and even groan out a hoarse moan. Finally it returned enough to make me sound like a five-packs-a-day smoker. My hand healed somewhat, and feeling replaced numbness. To force my fingers to move, I made myself brush my teeth and write. Anything to tax the muscles and nerves. Writing was the tough part. Initially I wrote block letters. Then cursive. Followed by single short words. Just a few letters at a time.
Playing any kind of instrument was out of the question. Not that I wanted to.
My hearing returned slowly. At first my ear just itched. Then I could hear the ocean. Months later, the waves on the rocks. Finally, seagulls in the distance.
Provided I existed at a subsistence level, I had enough money to survive a few years, but eventually I’d have to get a job. I hired myself out for weeks at a time. Until I got bored or just couldn’t take it any longer. I worked for a tree surgeon hauling limbs in northern California. Bused tables near the Canadian line. Washed dishes in Wyoming. Worked custodial at a Nevada motel where I vacuumed the halls and cleaned rooms. Worked the grape harvest in the Columbia River Valley of Oregon. After almost three years I’d gained enough strength and coordination in my hand to do a few pull-ups and even floss my teeth. The guy at the motel sold me an old Jeep that burned oil but got me from place A to place B. I drove it up the coast, through Washington, and then south. Eight years, six months, and three days after I’d left, and nearly three years since Sam shot me, I found myself sitting at the stoplight in Buena Vista. My house sat eight miles to the right.
My hair had grown down past my shoulders, I’d not shaved in a few years, scars covered my neck and shoulders, my skin was tanned, my eyes were harder, my movements slower and more deliberate, and my hands calloused from running chainsaws. I’d come back different. Patched up. Pieced together. Very much broken.
When I crested the hill and pulled into the drive, I found the cabin dingy and in disrepair. Weeds had grown up under what I guessed was my dad’s truck. The bus sat off to the side of the garage. One tire flat. I cut the engine and climbed up on the porch. I smelled coffee through the open front door. I knocked and, to my surprise, Big-Big appeared out of the shadows. His hair had turned white as wool. His feet shuffled. He saw me, his face lit, and he spread his big arms, wrapping me in them. My cocoon against the world.
I stood there and let that man hug me a long time. Finally he stood me up straight and looked at me square. “Coop—” His lips tightened. Half a breath escaped. He’d been holding this. Even now, it was tough to let out. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Coop . . . your daddy? He dead.”
Big-Big and I spent the day on the porch. He told me that Dad had not tried to continue without me. He knew better. Not that he couldn’t. But that his heart wasn’t in it. He’d be lying to people. Sold everything but the bus. He knew it had been me when I called. That gave him hope that I was alive and at least thinking of him.
I asked, “Big-Big?”
He didn’t look at me. “Yeah, boy.”
“What’d he die from?”
Big-Big stood from my dad’s rocker, poured out the rest of his coffee over the porch railing, sucked between his teeth, and wiped the tears soaking his face. “His heart just quit working. That’s all.”
I had a feeling there was more, but I wasn’t sure I could bear it.
“Where is he now?”
His eyes turned up the mountain. Then he pointed back at the road that led up to the cabin. “The procession be three mile long. Folk come from five states. Busloads.” He shook his head. “Beautiful day. I said what I could, but he always better with words. Never had no problem knowing what to say.” The wind cut across us and lifted up through the aspens. The leaves smacking each other.
“I go up and talk to him most every day. Carry my coffee.” He waved his hand across me. “I miss him mo’ now than befo’.”
“Does he ever talk back?”
He studied me, then reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a letter. My name was written on the front. A lump appeared in my throat at the sight of my father’s handwriting. Big-Big handed it to me and then motioned toward the mountain. “He left you this. Now, go on up and let him speak to you.”
I clutched the letter, weaved through the aspens, and sat down in the grass between my mom and dad.
Dear Son,
You left tonight. Drove out of the Falls. I stood on the stage and watched the truck’s red taillights get smaller and smaller. I’m sitting here wondering whether I should’ve let you go. Wondering if I should’ve gone about all this the way I did. Maybe I was wrong. I don’t know. I know my heart hurts. I imagine yours does too . . .
I don’t know what kind of dad I’ve been. I know you’ve grown up without a female influence, and I wish you had known different. I wish you’d known your mom. You might be better prepared when you get where you’re going. She was better at a lot of things. Teaching you tenderness was one of them.
I don’t know when you’ll get this, if ever. But if and when you do, I want you to know that some of the happiest I’ve ever been has been watching you play your guitar. When you play, you come alive. Music is the language of your heart, and you speak it as well as anyone I’ve ever known.
Maybe I’ve been overly protective. Maybe I should’ve let that scumbag keep the tapes you made in the gas station. Maybe I should’ve done a lot of things differently. But then I think about your gift and I want to protect it, and not let it fall into the wrong hands. What you have is special, more special than you know, and when you think back on me, I hope you see that I was trying to protect you from the folks who just wanted to profit off you.
That night, the night of the storm, you were afraid to get up because you saw Blondie sitting on the piano. I believed you, not because I could see him, but because I could hear him. Hear them. Son, I’ve been hearing them for years. Every time you play, I hear angels. I don’t know if you can hear them, but there’s an entire chorus attached to your fingers. And they make the most beautiful sound. The only two times I haven’t heard them were the night in Pedro’s and when that snake-oil salesman recorded you. It may take you awhile to realize this, but the purpose of your gift is not to make you the focus. It’s to point those within earshot. Direct them. To reflect, not absorb. Anybody can stand on a stage and demand another’s affection. It’s the nature of the spotlight. But few will choose to deflect it. When you see people with their hands raised, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Rightly or wrongly, I want you to spend your life making music where the angels sing along. Being a reflection. I think that’d be a life well spent. I failed to say that before now, and for that I’m sorry. If I
may offer one excuse—I’ve never raised a son before. Please allow a few mistakes. I’m figuring this out as we go.
After last night I had a feeling that you would leave in anger. And I was guessing you’d take whatever we had, so I gave you all I had. Think of it as my investment in your career. So is Jimmy. Take care of him. You make him sound better than I do by a long shot, and your mother would have liked that.
I’m asking you to hear me when I say this: I know you’re angry right now, but please let these words break through that hardened outer shell. Let them filter down and come to rest on your heart. This is the truth about you and me as much as I’m able to know it. And when it comes to the truth, people have a right to know it. Always. No matter how much you think it might hurt, the truth is the only thing that both cuts us free and holds us tight. When you think back to us, remember this—the memories I hold of you are good and tender. All of them. Even tonight.
When you think back to the stage tonight, to our last words and your leaving, don’t let the picture in your mind be the angry one. I’m not angry. Never have been. Never will be. You can’t hit me hard enough to cause me to close my arms to you. Period.
Being eighteen isn’t easy. Neither is finding your own way in this world—especially when your dad casts a big shadow.
One last thing. When you get where you’re going, chances are good you will hear a lie that is real popular these days. It goes something like this: If you don’t make it, if you don’t succeed, if everything you set your hand to doesn’t prove to me that you were right and that you can make it on your own, then you have lost your right to come back. Your only ticket back into my good graces is some certificate of success. As if the world will give you one, when you’ve proved to everyone that you’ve made it on your own. That’s a lie from the pit of hell. Always has been. But it’s the end of the lie that’s the worst part. The end of the lie says that there is a place that’s too far to come back from. That somewhere in the distant future, there is something you could do or someplace you could go or some hole you could fall into that would disqualify you from ever coming home. And once you’ve stepped over that line, there’s no coming back.