Bitter Farewell (2 page)

People clapped and laughed.

“I’m serious,” Johnnie said. He looked at Chris. “Isn’t this overtime?”

“Maybe we should ask Peter,” Chris teased.

The small crowed laughed some more and when everyone tried to find Peter as he stood at the side of the stage, a spotlight hit his sweaty bald head.  He pointed a finger at Johnnie and laughed.

Danny looked at Rick, backing away from the front of the stage.

“You look in pain,” Danny said.

“So do you,” Rick threw back.

“Maybe we both are idiots for doing this show then.”

Rick stepped from the drum kit and punched Danny in the arm. “No way. We do it because it’s what we love.”

“Yeah.”

“I need to go relax my arm for a minute... and have a shot of whiskey.”

“Whiskey... sounds nice right now,” Danny said.

“Careful, man. When there’s demons floating around, whiskey won’t do you any good.”

“Does it kill the pain?” Danny asked.

“No. Nothing kills the pain. Except... time. And a good woman.”

Rick laughed and left the stage.

Eddie looked at Danny and shrugged his shoulders. Danny shook his head and that’s all they needed to do to converse about Rick. Danny walked to the front of the stage to his normal spot with Chasing Cross. He looked at his brother, marveling at how Johnnie could be composed, calm, and emotionally attached to the moment at hand.

He thought about what Rick said...
a good woman
...

He looked to the side of the stage and saw a good woman.

Jess.

What Jess and Johnnie had was like a dream come true.

And of course, what about Davey?

Danny looked to his fellow guitarist and Davey smiled and nodded. That was the signal to get ready. Time to kick it up, rock the crowd, enjoy the life on stage.

Danny knew Anna would have been there with them, but she had something to do at school. She taught art and music and somehow fell in love with a rockstar.

Even the craziest dreams came true... in time.

Johnnie called out the next song and right on cue, without thinking about it, Danny started playing. His entire soul was so attached to Chasing Cross, he didn’t need to worry about missing a note. The notes made him who he was. They were like having extra limbs, extra bones, extra feelings. He’d never let one slip away.

At the start of the fourth song, Rick came back on stage, holding a guitar. The crowd cheered and Rick waved.

“Rick insisted on playing tonight, against doctors orders,” Johnnie said. “He can’t do much other than pluck a few strings, but it works.”

“I’ve never listened to anyone in my life,” Rick said, sharing the mic with Johnnie. “And I turned out just fine...”

The crowd applauded Rick’s bad rockstar attitude and the band went into an acoustic set. They stayed close together, taking their turns singing with Johnnie when they felt like it. Danny, as much as he hated to admit it, didn’t care about the crowd at all.  He just stared at the band, his true brothers in life. Johnnie was blood, but the rest were relaxed in music. And sometimes music felt as important as blood. Danny couldn’t live without it...

He felt a surge kick in and spent the rest of show playing as hard as he could. He was covered in sweat as he moved everywhere on the small stage that he could, and he reveled each and every second with Chasing Cross.  Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew the death of their father was going to be the most significant moment of his life.

How and why, he didn’t quite know.

Maybe going back home and putting his father to rest would patch up the holes in his heart. Maybe it would remind him of where he came from. Maybe it would give him a stern lesson in time, life, and love. Whatever it was, Danny knew it was coming and he wasn’t afraid to confess, to himself, that he was afraid.

The show ended with Rick working his way back to the drums and hitting some more cymbals for the last song. It made Danny nervous but he understood it... it was Rick’s life, Rick’s arm, even if it was, in so many ways, the rest of the band’s career. When it was all said and done, Rick survived and so did Danny. Instead of leaving the stage like normal, the band jumped from the front of the stage to the floor to greet the lucky fans waiting. They did it without planning it, just knowing the right thing to do for the benefit and for the people who were suffering from cancer and because of cancer.

Rick signed his drumsticks and gave them away.

Johnnie took pictures until he looked at Danny and looked ready to fall over from all the flashes.

Chris, Davey, and Danny all signed the bass and guitars they used for the show and handed them out. Danny found a man in a wheelchair wearing a faded Chasing Cross t-shirt and stood the guitar up next to the chair and smiled at him.

“You play?” Danny asked.

“I used to,” the man said. “Before... all this...”

“Well, you can hang it on your wall then.”

“Are you serious...?”

“It’s yours,” Danny said.

“Oh, I can’t take your guitar.”

“I have plenty,” Danny said. “This is your guitar now.”

The man shook his head and his lips quivered. A woman stepped up behind the wheelchair, her eyes full of emotion too.

“Thank you,” she said. “You guys... Chasing Cross... kept my husband alive.”

“I listened to you guys,” the man said, “when I went for treatments. I never stopped believing...”

Danny coughed and wiped his eyes. He did not want to breakdown in front of fans. Here was a good, honest man, suffering from cancer, and yet his own father... was nothing for his entire life...

“Keep believing,” Danny said. “And tell you what, get in touch with Peter... when you get a little more comfortable, let’s jam out. You and me.”

“Jam out?” the man said. He looked back at his wife. “Jam out with Danny from Chasing Cross...”

“Good,” the woman said. “Now you have no excuse. You have to get out of that damn chair.”

They both laughed and Danny touched the man’s hand. “Have a good night. And thank you for being so strong.”

“Thank you for playing,” the man said.

And it all made sense to Danny. That was why he played guitar. That’s why he spent hours with that first guitar with the rusted strings. That’s why he suffered through the tips of his fingers being torn open day after day until calluses formed. That’s why he put up with not being able to plug the amp in. And that’s why he never gave up and never stopped believing...

Because Danny knew, first hand, that music could save lives.

(3)

Liv listened to the coffeepot hiss as she looked out the kitchen window above the sink. The sun started to spread its rays along the massive backyard of her property. On some mornings, like this one, the sun hit the tips of the grass and it shined like a million diamonds thanks to the fresh dew.

When the coffee was finally done percolating she grabbed a black coffee mug and poured the first cup of the day. Of course, this cup didn’t belong to her. It belonged to her father, the ever aging Charlie Cryers. At the age of eighty-three he moved like he was a hundred but had the spirit of a twenty-five year old, ready to take charge and conquer the world. That meant a lot of talking and little action. But Liv never blamed her father for a second. After the strokes and Parkinson's, not to mention the start of Alzheimer’s, the best thing for the old man was to rest and talk about his life, things he wanted to do, and things he had done.

Liv poured just a little cream into the coffee, leaving it mostly black. She knew her father may want more, but recently he wanted it more black, so she knew she could add creamer but couldn’t take any out. The whole
I want my coffee dark thing
started just last month, along with a lot of other little things that popped up. It was the Alzheimer’s and his mind slipping away.

She walked the coffee into the living room, to the chair that was once a rich blue color but now was faded and ripped. Charlie refused to buy a new chair and Liv didn’t argue. She loved the way it smelled. Sometimes at night, she sat in the chair. She’d close her eyes and inhale the smell, thinking of the old days. The good times, when her mother was alive and her brothers and sisters cared enough to come around. Somewhere between then and now, enough cracks formed in the family foundation that it all came toppling down. The last straw was when Charlie lost his house. Years of ignoring his taxes and struggling with the management of money. Thanks to his mind slipping away forced the bank to take the house. Liv stepped in and tried to get her two brothers and one sister to chip in and save the house but they refused (and it was too late by then). They wanted to put Charlie in a home and liquidate all they could, letting him live his
last few years
(as they put it) so the kids could enjoy his savings and pension. This enraged Liv and she packed her father up and moved him into her house. Somedays it got to Charlie and he would stand in the front window and compare the house to his, wanting it back. Other days, he thought Liv’s house was his house, sometimes getting angry at her for changing things around.

Liv put the coffee on a small stand next to her father’s chair. She opened the morning paper and left it ready for him. The smallest of routines sometimes helped the day go by without a hitch. Other times, it didn’t matter. His mind did what it wanted and Liv was at the mercy of it. But no matter what, it was so much better having him around than the alternative. She loved her father with all her heart.

The steps creaked and Liv rushed to the bottom and pretended to mess with the lock on the front door. In reality, she waited to make sure her father didn’t stumble or fall down the steps. If she dared to ask him if he needed help he’d yell at her.

“Morning, Dad,” she said. “Paper and coffee is there for you.”

“Morning, Lisa,” her father said.

The name thing just came with the territory. It didn’t bother her so much anymore.

“I’m Liv,” she said. She hugged her father as he stood at the landing of the steps. “Who’s Lisa?”

“Lisa who?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Did you get the paper?”

“It’s right over there,” Liv said.

She walked with her father and when he looked at the coffee he shook his head. “Liv, can I get a little more cream in that?”

“Of course,” Liv said. “I’ll be right back. Sit down. Start reading the paper.”

Her father made a series of groans as he settled into his chair. Liv took the coffee back into the kitchen and added more cream to it. She had to smile as she did so because some mornings if she didn’t smile she would cry. And her father hated to see her cry. When she did, he would tell Liv that he wanted to move out to stop burdening her.

“Olivia! Come here!”

Liv lost her thought and rushed as quick as she could with a full cup of coffee. She saw her father sitting with the front page folded as he read it, shaking his head.

“What’s wrong?”

“Did you know Big John died?”

Liv felt her heart twist each time her father asked the question. “Yes, Dad. He died two days ago.”

“His wake is tomorrow, funeral too.”

“I know. I heard about it.”

“Damn shame, isn’t it?”

Liv looked at her father and smiled. She forced herself to nod. She had nothing good to say or think when it came to Big John, but that was a history best left in the past.

“You know, he and I used to go fishing,” Charlie said. He tapped the paper on the table. “We fished Ricker’s Creek. Every damn weekend. I’d bring the worms, he’d bring the beer.”

“He liked to drink,” Liv said.

Her father waved a hand at Liv. “You can’t pick on people for that. Life isn’t easy, Liv. Not at all.”

Liv smiled again, bigger this time. She knew damn well how hard life could be. She watched the love of her life leave town and then had to hear him on every radio station for years. Then there were her family problems... the barrage of nonsense leading to her father moving in.

“I’d like to go,” Charlie said. “Pay respects.”

Liv stiffened and her heart skipped a beat. “Go... to the wake?”

“Sure,” Charlie said. “Out of respect. Maybe I’ll stick a worm in the coffin.”

Charlie laughed.

“Dad, that’s gross.”

“Oh, stop now,” Charlie said. “You know I’m just kidding.”

“I never liked that man,” Liv said. “He was mean.”

 “Of course he was mean. We all were... still are. That’s just how life was back then. It wasn’t easy like now.”

Charlie shook his head and looked straight ahead. He continued to shake his head and Liv stood up. She took the paper and walked back into the kitchen. She couldn’t stand to hear her father talk about life being easy. She promised herself that she would never resent him and would never get too frustrated. Without much help, it became harder each day, but somehow, someway Liv believed her deeds wouldn’t go unnoticed.