Long Way Gone (24 page)

I got close enough to overhear you two talking about cutting a record at your producer's studio, fellow by the name of Sam something-
or-other. I figured I'd let you two enjoy your dinner and we'd meet up another night. I wanted to do something nice before I left, so I paid for your dinner and asked the maître d' to bring champagne and roses. I'm hopeful he did.

It wasn't tough to track down Sam's house, so I waited until Friday night when I knew you'd be finished working. I was hoping to catch you alone. Give you and me a chance to talk. If you were still angry, I wanted to be able to leave quietly without causing a scene. I saw my chance when you disappeared into that building out back.

Then I heard the explosion.

When I got to you, you were covered in blood, your clothes were on fire, and you were pinned beneath one of the rafters. I didn't think we were going to make it out. Only words coming out of your mouth were, “Dad, I'm so sorry . . .” That's when I knew I should've come to Nashville long ago.

Son, there's nothing to forgive. Not one single thing. I forgave you the moment you drove out the drive. You can't hit me hard enough to make me hate you. Truth is, I'm the one should be sorry.

I know I can be overbearing and imposing. I know I cast a long shadow. If I made you feel like I was holding you under my thumb, holding you back from your dreams—I'm sorry. Really. Forgive me. That's not my heart for you. Maybe my way of protecting you and
pulling for you wasn't the best way. Maybe I could've done better. Maybe I should've done things differently.

If Big-Big has given you this letter, then something has happened in your life to cause him to think that what I've just told you, despite the pain of it, might help you in some way. You should know that I asked him to keep the knowledge of my sickness and cause of my death a secret. Made him give me his word. If this makes you angry, blame me. I was trying to protect you from thinking you were somehow responsible for me. You're not. And before you start arguing with me, no power on earth could stop me from running through fire for you. Not now. Not ever.

Now that you know, let me tell you what I'd have told you two at dinner that night. I know—I've always known—that what you have—the gift that is in you—is special. Unlike anything I've ever heard. Most of my favorite memories center around you playing and singing. Starting with the night of the storm. The sound that comes out of you is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Something about it is not of this earth. And while music may take you from BV, the Falls is and always will be your musical home. I know it may be tough, but don't let whatever you're wrestling with keep you from that. Sometimes we have to sing through the scars. Sometimes a song is the only thing that heals the broken places in us. Only thing that breaks the chains on the heart. Jimmy taught me that after your mom died. Take care of him.

If you have found yourself in a storm where the sky is black and lightning has set fire to the world around you, if you are afraid, hurting, or maybe your hope is sucked dry, then remember that fearless kid who emptied himself on the piano bench and . . . let it out. Don't let the fear of what might be rob you of the promise of what can.

I love you. Always have. No gone is too far gone.

Love,

Dad

Taped to the bottom of the letter was my oak ring.

I
could not believe Dad had found my ring. How long had he looked? Is that what Big-Big was talking about? Three days? Where did he find it? When I threw that thing off the stage, I threw it with some anger, and when it disappeared out into the night sky, I knew it was gone forever. I slid it on my finger now, and what I felt was not guilt, or shame, or hurt, or pain, but ownership. Identity. Belonging. Holding Dad's letter in one hand and wearing the ring on the other, I felt something I'd not felt in a long, long time.

I remembered that dinner. The candlelight. Laughter. It was one of our happiest moments, but I'd always thought Sam had sent the champagne and roses. I felt guilty for giving Sam credit for my father's kindness.

Daley walked up onto the stage beneath the spotlight. She was so comfortable before an audience. She wore faded blue jeans and a white button-down. Comfortable in her own skin. No pretension.
Take me or leave me, but either way I'm here to give you the best I have.

She'd hurt awhile, but she'd be okay. She was strong.

She stepped up to the microphone. “I want to introduce you to the most talented singer-songwriter I know. He wrote every one of my songs that is any good. You might have heard him twenty years ago when I debuted at the Ryman. But to introduce him, I want to ask a man that knows him better than anyone. Mr. Ivory ‘Big-Big' Johnson.”

Big-Big walked up the steps, and his presence alone commanded a
hush. Five thousand people fell pin-drop quiet as a six-foot-six, broad-shouldered giant of a man with ebony skin, piercing eyes, snow-white hair, and a wide and gentle smile stood in front of the microphone.

Big-Big wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and then cleared his throat. As he began speaking, a cameraman appeared to my left and a live shot of my face appeared on a huge screen behind him. I was looking at Big-Big onstage, who was looking at me at the far end of the audience. When he pointed and began speaking, most every head turned toward me.

“I remember when that boy were young. I do. He was only three. Maybe four. Little towhead with hair falling down over the greenest eyes I ever seen. Quiet. Curious. Tender. But don't confuse tender with weak, 'cause one day when he was a little older, I seen a bigger kid shove him and take his ice cream. Take his lunch money. He didn't take to that. He jumped up, wiped the tears out of his eyes, and come unglued. Got his lunch money back. I remember laughing. Apple don't fall far. He see black and white. Ain't no gray. Even then he had thick shoulders. Stocky kid. Square jaw. Came 'bout to my waist. Big hands. Remind me of a puppy with big paws.

“When I got out of prison, his daddy, the man who built this place, invited me to breakfast, where he fed both my stomach and my heart. Then he offered to put me to work. Only man who ever took a chance on me, and given my history I didn't deserve a chance. This is back at the camp meetings. In the heyday. When the fireflies lit the fields. Before most of you were born. This boy would stand beside me beneath the big top, offstage, in the shadows. At first it made me uncomfortable. I'd think to myself,
Can't this white boy see the color of my skin? Don't he know where I been? Don't he know what I did?

“If he did, he didn't care. He just stood there, one hand hanging on my pants pocket, bracing for the impact, staring onto the stage where his daddy was speaking. Bible in one hand. Sweat in the other. Speaking 'bout setting captives free. 'Bout making all things new. 'Bout finding what was lost. Sometimes when his daddy voice get loud
and booming, that boy would grab my hand. I'd look down and think,
God must be good
, 'cause what I held in my hand was the goodest thing I ever knowed. And while everybody be focused on his daddy, that boy seem distracted. Like he listening to something ain't none of the rest of us can hear. Like with one ear he be listening to this world, but with the other, he be listening to some other.

“Then the boy get older. And pretty soon I be sitting at the piano and I look out in the crowd, down below the lights, and thousands done come. They camp out in the rain. Pack the tent. People standing outside in the dark. They come to hear the man. His daddy, he had a gif '. Ain't never seen nothing like it. I remember the very first night we gathered in this very spot. On this ground. Pastor be talking 'bout the war in heaven. How the dragon done been cast down like lightning. How he at war with the woman. He in a great big fury. And then outside the tent, it got evil dark. Clouds done block out the moon. Can't see my hand befo' my face. And then high up in the sky, out of nowhere, the lightning crack. And hit the tent. That boy and me, we jump fo' feet in the air and he wrap his arms 'round my leg. And he be shaking like a leaf. And me too. The hair on my arms stood porcupine straight. Smoke filled the tent 'cause that lightning done struck the canvas. Split it down the middle. Heaven open wide. E'rybody got saved then. Them that weren't was, and them that was got it again. But that boy, he just stood behind me. Peeking 'round me. Eyeing the piano. And when that smoke filled that tent, and people be screaming and calling on the Lord, that boy hide beneath the bench. Ball up. Then his daddy crawl over next to him. Reach in with one arm, pull him out. Set him on the bench. Whisper in that boy's ear. So that boy, while the world be on fire and falling down, while people be screaming and fighting and hating one another, he stretch out his arms and he touch those keys. Run his fingers across the ivory like he reading what they had to say. Like they be having a conversation but ain't nobody else can hear it.

“Then I look up and the tent be on fire above the boy where the lightning hit, but the boy, he don't care. He still talking to the keys.
People be running out. Screaming. Tripping over chairs. Trampling one another. Chaos. I'm thinking his daddy be right and we're be watching the end of the world. But not that boy.

“See it now like it was yestuh'day. See it clear as a picture. That wide-eyed boy look up at his daddy. His daddy be staring down, smiling. Waiting. Whole world coming down 'round him and he be smiling down. It be the end time. Armageddon. He closed his book, pull the handkerchief from his back pocket, and wipe his forehead. Firelight flickering off his cheek. Smoke billowing. Then he refold it and tuck it in his pocket. He nodded and whispered, ‘Go ahead.' He glanced at the keys. He say, ‘Let it out.'

“That boy didn't move. He shouted above the roar of the storm, ‘How you know it's in there?'

“His daddy never hesitated. ‘I saw Him put it there.' That boy be shaking, so his daddy he say, ‘Son . . . let it out.'

“You believe what you want. You call me crazy. Call me a liar. But I was there. A few feet away. Seen it with my own eyes. Don't know where he got it, don't know how it happened, don't know nothing 'bout nothing. What I do know is that boy, he look out at those people, then back at those keys, and he done what his daddy done told him. He opened his mouth and fingers and he let it out.

“And when he did . . . that when the thunder done come.

“That be the night when the thunder come.”

The night of the storm replayed in my mind. For a split second I felt stinging rain on my cheek, smelled a pungent earthiness that only comes after the rain, sensed the song in my fingers. A growing tickle crowded my throat, forcing me to cough into my handkerchief. The blood was darker, and mixed with what looked like coffee grounds.

Daley had miked both me and her McPherson with wireless mikes. Making me untethered, allowing me to wander. While I waited for my
entrance, a man appeared to my left. Broad-shouldered, dark jacket, he took a seat in the back row. Shoulder-length, sun-bleached blond hair. Something familiar struck me about his posture. The way his broad shoulders hung relaxed. The look of his hands.

He was reading a book, and I circled him from a few feet away, trying not to stare, but he noticed me and looked up. His skin was tanned, face chiseled but gentle, and his eyes were a piercing emerald green. I looked closer in disbelief. It'd been two decades since I'd seen him. He'd not aged at all.

I circled him and tapped his shoulder, then backed up. “Hey.”

He said nothing. Just nodded.

I said, “It's good to see you. I've missed you.”

“You've been missed.” When he spoke, I remembered his voice.

“I looked for you in Nashville.”

“I know.”

I leaned in closer. He smelled of rosemary and something else I couldn't place. Maybe tea tree oil. “What made you come back?”

He closed the book and stood, staring down on me. “What makes you think I ever left?”

“You've been here this entire time?”

“Not exactly.”

I coughed. More blood and coffee grounds. He saw it too. One of his eyebrows rose slightly. I wiped my mouth, refolded the handkerchief, and stared at the stage. I asked, “You think I'll make it through this?”

He didn't hesitate. “No.”

The sound in my ears was growing louder. I stared out at all the people, at Daley alone on the stage, at Big-Big, and then down at the guitar. “I'd like to finish what was started in me.”

“Why?”

I didn't know how to answer him. “Last time I was here, I said some things.” The reflection of the ring caught my attention. “Did some things—”

He glanced at the stage. “I remember.”

I swallowed. “Those things left scars. On the inside. I trip over them a lot.”

He did not look impressed with my revelation. “And?”

“Sometimes I think if I could go back and start over—”

“There are no do-overs.”

“I just thought—”

“You just thought what?”

“I thought that the only way I know to get rid of them is to offer up what I held back.”

“Which is?”

A shrug. “My song.”

“Shouldn't you have thought about that twenty years ago?”

“Yes. And every day since I left here has hurt more than the one before.”

He closed the book and slid it behind him, between his belt and his back. Then he reached out and placed his finger in front of my mouth. Holding it there. He said, “Stick out your tongue.”

“You want me to stick out my tongue?”

He tilted his head slightly and waited.

When I stuck out my tongue, he touched it with the tip of his finger. It was the first time he'd ever touched me, and when he did, it felt hot. Like fire. With his hand so close, I noticed the calluses on the tips of his fingers—like mine. He gestured toward the aisle in front of me. “Go ahead.”

I pointed at the calluses. “You play?”

He faced showed no expression. “A bit.”

I took a step and stopped. “We should play sometime.”

He leaned down. His face inches from mine. “We used to.” His breath warm on my face. “I've been waiting twenty years for you to say that.”

“Really?” I scratched my head. “How come you didn't say something sooner?”

“I've been screaming at the top of my lungs.”

“How come I never heard you?”

He touched my chest, just above my heart. “You haven't been listening.”

“Good point.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I ask you one more thing?”

His tone was matter-of-fact. “You can ask.”

“If this goes badly—”

“If?”

I backtracked. “Okay,
when
it does, will you please stand between Daley and me? I don't want her to see—”

“It's a little late for that.”

“If my dad were here, he'd tell you that it's never too late. That nothing disqualifies us. That no matter where we end up, no matter what mess we make, we can always turn around. Come home.”

“So you were listening?”

I shrugged.

“Why does this matter?” he asked.

I looked at Daley standing on the stage. “She's been hurting a long time. I'm the source of a lot of her pain. I don't want to hurt her any more than I already have.”

A tear cascaded down his face and landed on my cheek. He glanced at Daley, then back at me, and nodded.

I took a step toward the stage, then turned back and spoke louder. “I'm sorry about before.”

“Me too.”

Between us there were words still unsaid, but when I looked for him again, he was gone. Every few minutes a shiver would ripple through me. My thawing out continued. I was pretty sure I could make it through the concert and pretty sure I would not make it through the night. I needed to plan an exit that did not include Daley.

That said, I wasn't dead yet, and there was music to be played.

Big-Big's voice had just finished echoing off the cliff walls. I
remembered that angry storm and Dad walking from the back toward the front with nothing and no one but Jimmy. In memory of that, I started tapping out a rhythmic percussive beat on the top of the guitar.