At some point the old piano called to me again and I began playing it in the evenings, drawing a little crowd to the café, which was good for business. Every night I would play the same long piece of music I wrote. It included the movements I shared with Will on both the CD and the Sinead O’Connor tape earlier that year. I added and changed parts as the healing took place inside of me. I mourned my father and Jackson and my relationship through that piece of music. It eventually evolved into a familiar score that the regular customers recognized. It was the soundtrack from the year and half I had spent in New York figuring out who I was and who I didn’t want to be. It was pure catharsis until I realized I had a fairly decent finished product. Jenny and Tyler encouraged me to pursue writing music and for the first time I felt like I had a real purpose. I had a piece of the puzzle and it was something that resembled faith in myself.
One warm spring day I made the decision that it was time for closure. Jackson’s ashes were housed in a small redwood box that I’d had engraved with the words Jackson: My Friend. The Best. I took the box along with a small garden shovel to Tompkins Square Park, where I discreetly buried it under his favorite tree overlooking the children’s playground. I fell asleep under that tree, thinking back to the way Will treated Jackson, so loving and affectionate, the same way he was toward me. I had so carelessly rejected that warmth and love and I was learning the hard way what happens when you take the people who love you for granted.
After my nap, I was ready for the next step. I went to Kell’s and asked Martha if she could cover the café for the next couple of days.
“I’m taking Pops to Memphis,” I said, struggling to hold it together.
“He’ll love that.” When she began to cry, I wrapped my arms around her.
“I know. Thank you for helping me do this,” I whispered.
“Helping you do what?” she said, dumbfounded.
“Thank you for helping me mourn… live… find myself, and thank you for loving me.”
“Oh, sweetie, like your father, you’re easy to love.” I smiled at the idea of being like him.
“Thank you. I love you.”
Back at my apartment, I opened my father’s metal urn, relieved to find his ashes packed nicely in a velvet bag. It was going to make flying with Pops a lot easier. I packed light, bringing only a few necessities inside the hemp backpack Martha had given me.
I arrived in Memphis in the late afternoon. It started getting dark, so I took a cab straight to Beale Street. I walked to the end and stared out at the Mississippi until the sky darkened and I could no longer see the ripples in the water. It became a black void. The only light came from a tugboat slowly disappearing in the distance. I wondered what sort of magic that dark river had swallowed in its day.
Okay, Pops, time to find the music.
I turned and followed the poignant sound of a Southern blues guitar floating through the thick, spring air. The music lured me to a dive bar right off Beale. The poster read:
Tonight: The Legendary Tommy Ray Booker
When I got inside I looked up to the stage to find a man dressed in a bright red suit, complete with a red fedora and red harmony guitar. He was playing fast blues; everyone in the place was moving to the beat. When he lifted the guitar to his mouth and began plucking the strings with his teeth, the bar went crazy with applause. The saxist got on his knees, belting out the riffs while Tommy Ray continued shredding his vintage guitar. I felt alive, letting the pulse of the town, the patrons of that bar, and Tommy Ray Booker course through my veins.
My father would love it… Will would love it.
“We’re gonna take a little break. Be back in five,” Tommy said to the crowd.
I slowly made my way toward the stage. When it looked like the musicians were getting ready to go back on, I approached the drummer. He was a John-Goodman-looking character, an overweight and disheveled middle-aged man wearing faded jeans and a Hawaiian shirt.
“Excuse me.” I caught his attention right as he was about to climb the first step up to the stage.
“What can I do you for, poppet?”
I giggled at the nickname and then pointed to a very old upright piano sitting to one side of the drum kit. “Is she tuned?”
He appraised me for a long beat. Tommy came into my view at the top of the stairs. Without taking his eyes off me, the drummer said, “Hey Tommy, I think Poppet here wants to play.”
I looked up at Tommy and he smiled and then adjusted the feather in his bright red fedora before speaking. “You got the blues, baby?”
“Just the good kind,” I yelled up to him.
“Well let’s hear it, little girl.”