Page 32 of Echoes of a Muted Song

Rebel passed it over while we watched a chase not unlike all of the chase scenes on theDukes of Hazzard, only without all the dust of the dirt roads. Cops were still kind of bumbling, though.

“Do you ever think it’s futile?” I asked, as the chase continued on as Ozzy had promised it would, but without any of the thrilling, jaw-dropping maneuvering I’d hoped for. NASCAR was more thrilling, even with the traffic and the obstacles they’d tried to work in.

“What?”

“Chasing something so relentlessly,” I muttered. “Like, what if the universe is really hoping you’ll catch a hint because you’re not supposed to have the thing in the first place?”

Silence met my words, but I knew my bandmates, they were thinking about what I said.

“Maybe,” Dash said, cocking an eyebrow at me. “Isn’t it splitting hairs, though?”

“How do you mean?”

“If it’s too easy and you don’t have to struggle,it’s hard to appreciate what you have,” Dash said. “But chasing, fighting, sacrificing, that makes it that much more valuable when you attain it because you know what you sacrificed to get to that point. I guess it can make people complacent, too, and they forget that the fight doesn’t stop once a goal’s been attainted.”

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Ozzy said.

“More like a triple-pronged trident,” I amended. “Attain the goal and you may have everything you’ve ever dreamed of, or it may absolutely ruin you in the end. Attain the goal and have it snatched away because you weren’t diligent enough in guarding it, or quit and never know what could have been. I mean, look at that car. It’s worthless at this point, so the cops are just chasing the guy to try and bring him to justice and the guy is just running to get away. Sometimes the cops win, sometimes the robbers win, but tomorrow there’ll be another chase, another outcome, and another reason it all kicked off in the first place.”

“That’s profound, dude,” Rebel said, squeezing the back of my neck. “Now where’d it come from, ‘cause it sure as hell didn’t come from this movie?”

“Ozzy, I’m going over your name in permanent marker this time, there’s just not going to be any more erasing for you,” Dash declared.

“Oh, ouch. Come on, man, seriously,” Ozzy said, pressing his hands to his chest and feigninga wounded look.

“I second that,” Rebel concurred. “This is the worst one yet.”

“Until one of my worst is worse thanLamageddon, none of you have any room to talk,” Ozzy cautioned.

Dash snorted, while Rebel hung his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’m never going to live that down, am I?” Rebel asked.

“You’d have been the champ if you’d waited until the officialWorst Moviemarathon, but you tried to break that out on a horror night when you knew we were gonna break out shit likeAlien,The Silence of the Lambs, andThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Dash reminded him.

“Not one of my finer moments.”

“Naw, but we love you anyway,” I said before elbowing him away from the pizza flavored Chex Mix so I could grab a handful.

“If that’s love, I’m in trouble,” he groaned as he rubbed the spot where my elbow had dug in.

“I guess I’ve been thinking a lot about what we all gave up to get here,” I admitted. “Having ‘Ghosts of Enemies Past’ hit number one, after how close we’ve come over the years only to just miss out, that’s phenomenal and I want to bask in the joy of it and soak up every accolade, but on the other hand, man, I’ve still got this case hanging over my head, and we’ve got a rapidly growing tour stretched out in front of us. Whatif it’s too much for us to handle? What if we are never able to capture the magic and hit that number one spot again?”

“What if the rest of the album is filled with nothing but chart toppers?” Ozzy said. “Looking at the words you’ve got written here, and the ones I’ve started adding, what if the next album outsells this one and folks start reaching out for us to bring the band overseas?”

“Yeah, man,” Rebel said. “What if we finally blow up? We’ve earned this!”

“What he said,” Dash chimed in. “We did shit the right way, even when it was hard, and we stuck together. Good, bad, we didn’t give up on each other or the vision we had, and we’ve never compromised. If it turns out we’re one hit wonders, so what? It was still a hit and we’re gonna keep on playing, and if it turns out were destined for mega stardom, then we’ll ride that wave, too, and make a pact to keep each other grounded so we never forget it what it took to get there or how little we had at the start.”

“I still say we should write a cookbook with all the Spam, tuna, and Ramen Noodle recipes we came up with other the years,” Ozzy said.

“The Poor Rocker’s Guide to Feeding Four Guys on Five Bucks a Day,” Dash declared.

Rebel let out a long, low whistle.

“You’d better hope they don’t charge by the letter with a title like that,” Ozzy muttered.

“Yeah, that’s a mouthful,” I said. “But also anaccurate description of what life was like for us. I'll never forget the infamous Day of Spam, where Ozzy diced it and sprinkled it in the pancake batter and Rebel sliced it thin, fried it up and added it to the grilled cheese sandwiches.”

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