Page 61 of No Rhyme or Riesling
John sighed, started the machine running, and continued into the house, having to stop and go back since he'd forgotten to shut the garage door.
Christ!
By the time he ate, showered, finished his laundry, made a grocery list, and haphazardly tackled a couple of chores, he was beat.
John sank onto the couch with a groan. It was only eight o'clock, but he seriously considered going straight to bed. Maybe a good night's sleep in his own familiar space would help.
He opened his eyes and spotted his guitar straight ahead of him. John got up and snatched the thing out of its case, then dropped back onto the couch, laying his head back and closing his eyes as he idly strummed.
The one complete verse ofAdam's Songran through his head. John tried to find the right notes with his fingers as he imagined Adam singing the words. A frown took over his face. There was still something sooffabout it all. For one thing,plansandmandidn't rhyme. Granted, when sung, it probably wouldn't be noticeable to the average listener, but John would know.
But there was something else. Something he couldn't put his finger on.
John muttered a curse and tried to think of the lines Ward had given him instead. He went through them over and over, trying to make a line of verse out of each one, trying to find rhymes for them. The words raced about in his mind. John felt like he was chasing them, the words always just out of reach.
He set the guitar aside and grabbed his notebooks, scribbling things down, hoping that putting them on paper might help. But no matter how long he sat there, the rhymes eluded him.
Eye-to-eye. What rhymes with eye? Pie? Sky? Why? Guy? High? Shit.
John wrote several variations of lines ending with those words, but none of them felt right.
He swept out an arm, flinging the notebooks aside, then cursed as he got up to retrieve them all, straightening the pages and stacking them neatly before tucking them away, out of sight. Maybe he should start entirely over. He wished there were some way to purge all the ideas from his mind and start fresh.
Burn it all down to a clean slate.
But that wasn't going to happen that night. He was exhausted, mentally and physically. John shut off the lights and went to bed, collapsing almost instantly into sleep.
He woke up the next morning, relieved to find himself in his own familiar surroundings. That sense of peace lasted right up until he looked at the clock and realized he was going to be late.
“Shit!” John lurched upright in bed. He flung back the covers, raced into the bathroom to use the toilet, then hurried out to the kitchen to get some coffee. Except the machine sat there, silent and empty. He'd forgotten to preset it last night. “Fuck!” John quickly set the pot to run, then went to get dressed while the coffee brewed.
He eyed himself in the bathroom mirror while he brushed his teeth.Who are you?John shook his head, barely recognizing himself. He wasn't supposed to be this chaotic disaster. Everything in his life was carefully organized and controlled. Planned out and predictable.
But he couldn't seem to keep anything straight lately.
John filled a travel mug with coffee, got into his truck, and rushed off to work. He arrived only a few minutes late thanks tohis hurry and skipping breakfast, but he still cursed himself for it. John rushed into his office so he could talk to Ward and get their day started.
But he no sooner set foot inside than he heard a crash just beyond his office wall.
“What now?” John muttered, racing into the warehouse to see what happened.
He went to the barrel room first, worried that one of the barrels had fallen over somehow. Everything there looked intact. Nothing broken. The racks of barrels all stood silent and still, patiently waiting for their time to come. John went to the storage warehouse part of the building next and immediately ran into a commotion.
In the midst of the main aisle, a full pallet of wine lay on its side, the boxes mangled within their plastic wrapping. As John drew nearer, a puddle of dark red wine began to ooze out from under the cases, like a body losing blood. John froze, staring at it while warehouse workers swarmed about, bringing in mops and buckets and trash cans. He stood there dumbly as they started to tackle the mess, carefully separating cases to sort the broken bottles from those that were still intact.
“What happened?” John asked no one in particular.
Someone stepped out from behind the mess and said, “Looks like a board snapped. The pallet itself gave way, and the weight of the cases brought the whole thing down.”
“Shit.” John went to see for himself. Sure enough, the pallet itself had broken, and even with just one board snapped, it had been enough to tip the weight of the entire assembly forward, and gravity had taken over from there. Now fifty-six cases of wine lay in a heap on the floor while the puddle continued to spread.
John jumped in to help with the cleanup, desperate to see the mess fixed. It took the lot of them over an hour to sort theintact cases from the ruined ones, plus get a final count on how many bottles had broken and how many needed to be relabeled because of the wine stains. And all that on top of mopping up the wine and sweeping the broken glass away.
Once all was said and done, there was still a dark stain blotting the concrete floor. It wasn't the first and it wouldn't be the last, but it was definitely the worst one John had ever seen. He couldn't help standing there, staring at it. Like a chalk outline at a crime scene.
That accident seemed to set the tone for the rest of the week. John felt like he was constantly racing from one problem to another, putting out fires, cleaning up messes, trying to fix an endless list of things. He was so behind that when Adam texted him on Thursday morning, it took him far too long to understand what the simple message even meant.
Adam: Heading to my consultation. Did you still want to come with me?
