“Just stay out of his hair, okay?”
That’s what she tells me when Dad is busy with something, so I’m wondering what type of something is keeping Gavin so busy.
Gavin’s bedroom door is closed and I’m down the hall strumming the Gibson on the studio couch. I’m putting my chords in a new order and the sound makes me feel heavy and that’s when I know I’m writing a crying song.
Normally when I’m strumming a few chords I can turn to Dad and ask him how they sound. Without him here, I decide to turn to the next best person: John Lennon.
John Lennon’s Ten Rules of Songwriting is a set of rules I came up with after listening closely to John’s forty best songs. I’m not sure yet what I want my song to be about but it should probably follow rule no. 4, which is Use First Person Unless You’re Writing “Nowhere Man.” That means the lyrics to my song should use I instead of he or she or Bungalow Bill.
I grab my iPod and record myself playing my new chord pattern and humming a quick melody that comes into my head without me having to do anything. I put on a pair of Dad’s big headphones and walk around the studio listening to the recording over and over. I’m thinking about Arizona because Mom mentioned it at breakfast.
It was last year, on the third Sunday in July, that I met Dr. M at the college in Tucson. He knew all about my certain kind of memory, how it isn’t “photographic,” which means I can’t fit everything in my brainbox, just memories. When it comes to remembering facts and trivia like the name of the eleventh president or how many sides there are on a trapezoid, I have to study like everyone else. And if Mom says, “Shut the light when you leave the room,” I’ll remember she said it, but sometimes not at the exact time I’m leaving the room, so I’ll “forget” to shut the light. But that kind of small forgetting doesn’t bother me. It’s the other kind, the big kind, when people forget what happened in their lives, that gives me the blues.
I asked Dr. M, “Does HSAM hurt?” He asked me, “Are you in any sort of pain?” I didn’t know what to say and that’s when he told me, “Many HSAMers find it helpful to keep a journal. They find it provides some relief. A way to unload.”
Thinking about Arizona and Dr. M gives me an idea. I open my journal and write down a few lyrics.
I went to Arizona
To meet a smart man
He told me not to worry
He could understand
There are lots of songs about California by artists like the Beach Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Katy Perry. But I can think of only one song that talks about Arizona and that’s “Get Back” by the Beatles. That makes me feel like I’m on the right track with my song.
I wonder if Gavin has ever been to Arizona because I know it’s pretty close to California, which is where all the actors live. When he comes out of his room, I’ll ask him. I also want to know why he was standing still in front of that giant fire instead of running away, which is what I would have done, unless that fire was just special effects and Gavin was only acting. An actor seems like a fun thing to be, but more people listen to old music than watch old TV shows, which means music is remembered more. Also, Dad is a songwriter, so that’s what I want to be.
I think of the hundreds of songs Dad wrote and recorded down here in his studio. I can hear the songs in my head and I can also see the things that took place here, like the string quartet that Dad hired, and the picture that fell off the wall when Dad was playing his drums too hard, and the blackout that erased one of his songs and made him have to go back and record each instrument a second time.
It’s hard to think about what’s going to happen to the studio next. I see it every school year when we change classrooms or when a restaurant closes down at the shopping center and a new one opens up in the same spot. Soon Dad will clear out his things and this apartment will look empty and the new people will want to fill it up with all their stuff. But this place will never look empty to me, it’ll always be full, because everywhere I turn, all around me, I see what no one else sees: the memories.
8
“So, wait, you’re in New Jersey?” my sister asks.
“Yeah.”
“Does Mom know you’re there?”
“Not yet.”
I pull the phone away from my ear. I can hear someone strumming faintly through the wall. I count only two musicians in the house and one of them left before the sun came up. It must be Joan.
“You could’ve come here, you know,” Veronica says.
She says it in her nonchalant way, but I worry I’ve broken some sacred law in the sibling handbook. She’s right, I could’ve flown down to Florida. Veronica moved to Key West from Miami about a year ago and I’ve yet to visit her new place. But then I would’ve had to hang with her boyfriend too, and that would’ve required more energy than I can muster right now.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be sorry.”
Such a simple request and yet most thoughts of my sister begin with an apology. She was just a baby when our father died and ever since I’ve felt an obligation to her, never met, that goes far beyond the normal duties of an older brother.
“I’ll come visit you next,” I say.
“Only if you want to.”
“Of course I do. How are you? How’s island life?”
“I see what you did there,” Veronica says. “Don’t think I’m letting you get off the phone without telling me what happened.”
Veronica never seems to experience anxiety about her own life, but she isn’t immune to worrying about mine. “I told you I would’ve stayed after the funeral,” she says.
“I’m sorry I made you worry. I’m good now. I’m with friends here and I’m taking it one day at a time.”
“One day at a time? Did you really just say that to me? Now I definitely don’t believe you.”
She’s right. It sounded scripted, a go-to phrase for mourners. It’s just so damn taxing thinking up fresh ways of assuring people that I’m all right. Besides, it happens to be true. I am very much taking it moment by moment, ignoring what will and won’t happen tomorrow.
“I know how you are, Gavin.”
I don’t like where this is going.
“You don’t know how to shake anything off,” she says.
It’s unsettling getting this from my sister. First, because losing the most important person in your life is not something you just shake off. Second, because I’m the one in our sibling relationship who’s supposed to pass down the wisdom, the one with ten more years of life experience to draw from. Third, because Veronica is someone who doesn’t like to waste time on silly things like feelings, so if she’s trying to unpack mine, that tells me she’s even more worried than I thought. And last, because she’s absolutely right.
“You see,” Veronica says. “There you go again, pondering.”