Page 5 of Songbird: Black Kite
That was three days ago.
Since then, I’d managed to make it through nearly the entire box, tearing through the letters that our fans had taken the time to write.
In the beginning, I’d been reckless, tearing open envelopes and tossing them carelessly aside. It wasn’t until I had come across a letter from a teenager undergoing cancer treatment that I realized I might have wanted to actually respond to some of them, and I started being more cautious. I retrieved a letter opener from the drawer of my study—I’d never used either the letter openerorthe study before—and began the painstaking process of sorting and cataloging the mail.
At first, it had just been into two piles, ones I thought deserved a response and ones that didn’t.
But when Harry finally stopped directing the cleaning staff like a three-star general and actually noticed what I was doing, she stepped in, gathering several bins from somewhere in the house and setting up a detailed and nuanced system for sorting that I never would have considered devising, but appreciated all the same.
There was now a bin for letters to the band in general, one for each of the members if they were addressed individually, one for letters that needed attention and should be responded to in some way, and one for the letters that gave off scary stalker vibes and should be handed over to security.
That one was alarmingly full.
“You’re barely six inches out the door, son. All that smoke is just blowing right back inside. You know I can’t stand the stuff.”
I did. And she was right. I also knew that even though it was my house, I’d respect her wishes, because of all the people who had drifted into my life since the ink had dried on my first contract, Harry was the only one who had stayed.
“Sorry, Harry,” I said, giving in to her chastisement and stubbing out the smoke before setting aside the letter I was reading and standing, pushing my fists into my aching lower back. I’d basically lived in this study since finding the boxes, taking my meals at the desk and then rotating from the couch to the chair to the deck chair I’d dragged over and situated just outside the French doors. I’d only made it to my bed last night because Harry had basically forced me, telling me if I didn’t get a decent night’s sleep, she’d stop cooking for me, and that was a threat I was going to take seriously.
“I know you are, son,” she replied, a soft smile on her face. Harry had called me ‘son’ since the first time we’d met. I’d been a snot-nosed nineteen-year-old kid who’d chased off every other house manager that the label had hired.
And by chased off, I mean fucked on the kitchen counter and then rudely ignored until she’d finely quit in a fit of tears and rage.
But with Harriette, the label got smart. They’d hired a widow who was more than twenty years older than me, and a lesbian to boot. No amount of rock star charm was going to get me into Harry’s pants, and that meant there wasn’t much I could do to chase her away.
And I had fuckin’ tried, believe me.
The things I put that poor woman through in the last twenty-three years would make a porn star blush. I would bet that Harry had seen me naked and in more compromising positions than she would probably like to recount. She’d picked my ass up from the floor and from jail, and she’d never once left me hanging. She was the one person in the entire world I knew I could count on, and it may have taken me a fuck of a long time, but these days, I treated her with nothing but respect.
“You didn’t finish your salad,” she stated, gathering the remnants of the tray that she’d brought me a few hours ago.
“You know I hate that green shit, Harry.”
“You’re getting too damn old to still be avoiding eating your vegetables, Hawk,” she chastised. “Don’t make me start having to hide them in your tomato sauce like you’re a toddler.”
“Can I at least get some dressing on it next time?” I grumbled, and Harry laughed.
“It had dressing. A heart-healthy vinaigrette. Ranch dressing is for young men. Men who drink water more often than just when they brush their teeth. You start acting your age in other ways, and I’ll slip you a little ranch dressing every now and again.”
She cackled as she left the room, leaving me frowning after her. She knew I hated being reminded that I was over forty. So many of my fellow rockers were aging up, looking and sounding as old as I sometimes felt, and I hated the reality of time more and more every day.
Rock and roll never died, but sometimes, it lingered on life support.
Folding up the letter I had just finished and sliding it back into the envelope carefully, I tossed it into the general mail bin. That one was filling up fast, and would probably have to be dumped into something else and dealt with later.
I didn’t exactly knowhowI would deal with it, but I knew I had to do something.
Because it turned out that our fans fucking loved us. I had known that on an academic level. Our sales had always been good, our shows sold out, and our bank accounts were full. How could that mean anything else but that we had a fuckton of fans?
But reading these letters? Actually seeing into the souls of some of the people who bought and listened to our records? That shit was harrowing. Because the people who took the time to write to us fuckinglivedfor our music. They ate, slept, and bledBlack Kite, and I felt like a massive bag of shit for having ignored them for so long.
In the last few days, I had read passionate letters from people who had gone to one of our shows and had the time of their lives. From people who had gone through something terrible in their lives and used our music to cope. There had been letters from people who had gotten our logo or our lyrics or our fuckingfacestattooed on their bodies, permanent reminders of what our music meant to them.
People had named their pets and their kids after us—the sheer number of pit bulls out there named Hawk was both flattering and a little hilarious—and there were more demo tracks than I could have ever imagined.
So many talented musicians out there, slaving away at their craft, desperate to make it big and just looking for that one chance, that one person to take a minute, a single moment out of their lives, and give them a listen.
And I had ignored every single one of them, spending my time drowning in booze and pussy and wasting every one of my own opportunities before I had even known how much I wanted them.
