Burning September (33 page)

“I’d rather heckle.”

“You and me both.”  He slurped his coffee noisily, peering at me over the rim of the mug.  “I missed you too, kid.”  

My throat got hot as it closed up. I felt my eyes well with tears that I was thankfully able to blink back.  But I didn’t know if I’d hidden it as well as I thought, when I looked up and found a muscle in his stubbled jaw tensing. 

“Why would you want to come see an old man on a Wednesday night?  Young thing like you should have loads of better things to do.”

I pressed my lips together as I shook my head, staring over his shoulder at those girls my age in their red lipstick and come-hither heels.  I wished I could borrow some of the confidence oozing out of their pores.  “Nope.  Nothing to do.  Nothing at all.”

Something in my tone must have tipped him off that all was not well, but I’d come to find he really wasn’t the prying type.  Sure, he’d ask a few questions, take the emotional temperature, but that would be the extent of it.  He’d wait until I came to him, he’d let me open up all on my own. 

He cleared his throat and the air, nodding back at the stage.  “You should come next week.  That’s when the harmonica man will show up.  Prime heckling material.”

“I’m in.”  I pushed my coffee aside, rested both elbows on the table as I leaned in closer.  “What’s the deal with the kid you were playing with?”

Professor Lawlis rolled his eyes heavenward.  “He’s obsessed with Nirvana.  Told me all about it when we were setting up.  Kurt Cobain is his idol.  ’Nuff said.”  

***

August slipped past slowly, which was just as well, because September could wait forever, as far as I was concerned.  I made a weekly pilgrimage to the coffee shop every Wednesday, and it had rapidly turned into the only bright spot in my life.  Sometimes Professor Lawlis would bring a flask and sneak slugs of scotch between sets, which made his running commentary during breaks even funnier. 

He started bringing his dog along with him, and I suspected it was because he didn’t want to have a reason to go home immediately after his shows had concluded.  It made me feel simultaneously pathetic and loved, that he’d go to such lengths to give me a few more hours a week with him.  I figured the owners of the coffee shop had let the no animals rule slide because of the whole missing leg thing.  When I asked Professor Lawlis about it, his smirk had been enormous.

“That’s the only good thing about being a cripple,” he said.  “Most people are so embarrassed to acknowledge it.  Don’t know how to react to me, so they tend to let me do whatever I want.”

Jax rested his hairy head against my knee, oblivious to the music as always, and I stroked his ears the way he liked.  He rolled his big brown eyeball up at me, tongue slipping out the side of his mouth, drool bleeding through my jeans.  He’d stay with me through every set until he’d throw me over for Professor Lawlis the second he limped over. 

Jax abruptly stopped looking at me adoringly when he heard the familiar
step-clunk
of Professor Lawlis’s walk.

“Traitor,” I said as he settled at his master’s feet. 

“Take comfort in the knowledge that you’ll always be second best.” He unscrewed the cap of his flask and poured a stream of amber liquid into his coffee mug.  “When are you going to bring your guitar, join me onstage?”

“Quarter to never.”

He squawked like an asthmatic chicken.  Jax stared up at him, cocking his head. 

“I’ve got no shame admitting I’m a chicken.”

“Hmm.”  He took another sip of his spiked coffee.  “And yet, you were able to do press conferences, speak during impromptu media attacks, Karen Stone interviews.”

“Those were different.”

“How so?”  I didn’t answer, and he let the silence hang suspended between us for a few moments.  I could tell he was trying to figure out how to word exactly what he wanted to say.  And I knew what he would say, he’d been following my lead by ignoring and skirting the subject, but it had been three weeks since he’d begun seeing me regularly.  Maybe he’d grown impatient waiting for the topic to come up organically. 

“Was it because Kyle was there those other times?”

“He wasn’t there every time.”

“Well, fine, once you were surprised by the reporters, but every other time, he was there.”

“Talking is much different than sitting onstage, playing the guitar atrociously.”

“You’re not atrocious.”

I wished Jax would come back, then I’d have something to do with my hands during my non-response. 

“I think I deserve a medal, or something,” Professor Lawlis said after heaving a huge sigh.  “I’ve gone three weeks without coming right out and asking bluntly.  But I’m really not all that good at beating around the bush, kid.”

“I think you’re great at it.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

I pushed back from the table, shaking my head.  “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“You have to talk about hard things.  That’s the only way to deal with them.”

I almost laughed.  That was rich, coming from the man who’d been so ashamed by his PTSD that he let it chase his wife away.  He’d lost his whole life because he avoided talking about things.  What right did he have lecturing me about the wonders of conversation?

“Professor Lawlis—”

“You’ve got to start calling me Greg.  We’re not in school anymore.”

“You’re always going to be Professor Lawlis to me,” I said, latching onto the subject switch like it were a life vest.  “Especially since I’m taking your class in the fall.  How many students are in that class?”

“If you’re not going to spit it out, I’ll have to make my own assumptions.  I think something happened, maybe he decided things wouldn’t work out because of your age difference.  Or maybe his bosses found out about the two of you, something in that vein.”

I belted my arms across my chest and looked away.  “Nope.”

“Something to do with your sister, then?”

“No.”

“The subject’s already been broached, kid.  Out with it.”

I felt a familiar stinging in my corneas as I exhaled a shuddering sigh.  And after a few beats, I gave him what he wanted, the whole sad story, even the bits about my father and Caroline.  He wouldn’t tell anyone.  I wasn’t worried about him calling up the prosecutor. 

“And I just feel so stupid, after all this.  There was a damn good reason Caroline had all her rules.  I should have listened to them.  Or at least learned from her mistakes.  Isn’t that what smart people do, learn from other people’s mistakes?  I guess that means I’m a fucking moron.  Even after seeing her during her breakup with Brian, I told myself I’d never let that happen to me.  How stupid am I?”

Jax creeped over as my pitch climbed decibels.  Petting him almost made the tears trembling on my lashes spill over. 

“He’s sensitive,” Professor Lawlis said, a small smile beneath his mustache.  “He doesn’t like to see people upset.”  He sat back in his chair, crossed his arms over his paunch.  “Look, have you even talked to him at all?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should.  Aren’t women always harping about closure?”

“I don’t need closure.  I need a lobotomy.  I’m an idiot.”

“Maybe you’d be surprised by what he has to say.  What’s the worst that could happen?”

The worst that could happen would be to slice into the wounds that had only begun to heal.  The ragged flaps of skin had barely started knitting, they were still feeble, puckered and pink, raw at the edges, threatening necrosis. 

“Just talking to him would be the worst that could happen.  Best friend’s wife, my ass.  He couldn’t even bother coming up with a decent excuse. I don’t want to see him ever again.  I wish I’d never met him.  Then I wouldn’t feel so awful.”

“It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”

“Don’t quote that bullshit at me.”

He nodded over his mug.  “Look, I don’t know what to tell you.  A heart’s like any other muscle, you know?  If you don’t use it, it’ll atrophy.  For the sake of your overall health, you shouldn’t let that happen.  And I know it sounds clichéd, but time will help.”

“It didn’t help you,” I said, more to Jax than to him.  “That’s a lie.  I can tell you miss her.”

I regretted saying it as soon as the words had escaped.  I kept my eyes on Jax so I wouldn’t have to see a hurt expression cross his face. 

“I do miss her,” he finally said.  “This is where your learning from the mistakes of others thing comes into play.  Who am I, just some old man who fucked up his marriage, and all over something I could have fixed by just opening my mouth.  You don’t want to go the road I did.  It’s lonely.  You’ll have to get a dog just for company, and his hair’s gonna get all over everything you own.  You’ll have to live with a lot of regrets,
what if’s
and
I wonder’s
.  And then one day you’ll wake up and realize what a fool you’ve been all this time.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t at all convinced. 

***

I didn’t like the impish quality of Professor Lawlis’s expression when I walked into the coffee shop the following Wednesday, fifteen minutes prior to his show. 

Narrowing my eyes, I took a few more hesitant steps and stopped before the stage, letting Jax lick my hand in greeting. 

“What are you smiling about?”

“I’m just happy to see you.”

“You’re never that happy to see me.”

He tugged a microphone stand into place.  “Hey, you want to see Jax’s new trick?”  He pulled a dog treat from his pocket, and Jax’s tail whipped my shin as he scurried into place, sitting at attention beneath the Milkbone Professor Lawlis held aloft. 

“Spin,” he said, and Jax turned in an exuberant circle, tail thrashing wildly.  He caught the treat in midair, crunching in that self-satisfied way dogs always did.

“Very impressive.  You need any help setting up?”

“Sure.  I brought something for you.”

I felt my eyes bulge round as saucers when I saw what he’d turned to reach for.  “No.”

“Oh, come on.”

“No, no, no.  I’m not doing that.”  I backed away from the guitar he tried to press on me, hands raised.  “No.”

“Don’t make me pull out the
you owe me
card.”

“I don’t owe you
that
.  I’ll wash your car, clean your house.  Walk your dog.  Not that.”  

“How am I supposed to take any pride in my teaching abilities when you won’t even showcase what I’ve taught you?”  He tried on a pitiful expression that I didn’t buy for a second. 

“You can’t guilt trip me, old man.”

“I bet I can.”  He wagged the guitar threateningly.  “Look, there’s hardly anybody here.”

“There’s enough people.”

“Yeah, and they’re all glued to their phones.  Your ideal audience.  Not even the barista is paying attention.”

“No.”

“You’re aware that I won’t let up on this.  Better to agree now, before I get the audience involved, make them all try to convince you to get up there.  That’d be embarrassing.  More embarrassing than one old man begging you to join him.”

“No.”

“I made a list of songs we can play.  All songs you know how to play, all songs you yourself claimed to love.  You’re going to make all that time I spent go to waste?”

I sighed, feeling my body deflate as I looked around at the admittedly lackluster crowd, if it could even be classed as such.  There were only four people, all engrossed in whatever their phones were telling them.  Chances were good that nobody would notice or care that I was up there making a fool of myself. 

“One song,” I finally said, turning back to Professor Lawlis.  “One.  That’s all.  Take it or leave it.”

“Done. But I get to choose which one.”

“Fine.  And wipe that smile off your face.”

“No can do.”

Jax as he smiled up at me, tongue lolling, tail bouncing.  “Et tu, Brutus?”  

I told myself it was no big deal as I helped Professor Lawlis set up.  As far as public appearances went, this one was nothing, couldn’t compare to Karen Stone interviews or press conferences.  The whole of Southern California wouldn’t be gawking at me this time.  But none of that made my heart beat any less fast.

Who even had a hankering for coffee at nine o’clock at night?  I asked myself, pulling the speakers into place as Professor Lawlis did a sound check.  So I’d face the critical eye of a few hipsters.  So what.  They had no room to judge, what with their beanies and funny glasses half of them didn’t even need.

But nine p.m. came and went, and the normally punctual Professor Lawlis didn’t seem to mind, fiddling with chords, serenading Jax, whose snout followed the bass guitar his master swayed.  I couldn’t help smiling at it all, how ridiculous yet unbearably sweet watching this gruff grump sing to a collie was. I would have been content to watch it forever, because it meant I wouldn’t have to sit in the stool beside him, but at fifteen minutes’ past, he abandoned his own phone, straightened up, and motioned me over.