Page 23 of Guitars and Cages

God, it just…really wasn’t a good day. I felt like I was twitching outta my skin, like I’d been high for days and the crash was creeping up on me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this restless, this anxious and unhinged, and the shit part of it was that there was nothing I could do about it. I needed to fight, to fuck, to surrender all my control to someone else. To drown in heated skin and moans of pleasure and touch—rough, bruising, soft, teasing, I didn’t care at the moment—I just, I needed to be outside myself for a while.

The zoo smelled like shit and cotton candy and the occasional whiff of hay. I wished there was a stall somewhere that I could hide in—bury my face against a mane, inhale the scent of horse and go for a ride to nowhere. I needed whisky and oblivion, firm thighs and long hair. I needed something I could drown in before I found a way to drown myself, and right then, everything was too raw. Like the road had finally scrubbed off all my skin and revealed the scared soul underneath.

How the hell was I ever supposed to cover all that back up again? This was not a good day. I wanted to be in bed, under the covers with the music on, a bottle of booze, and my blade. I wanted to feel,neededto feel something, anything besides the hollow cold of emptiness. This was not a good time to be here; this was not a good idea—any other time, maybe, but not that day. I took Rory’s hand and told him it was time to go, that I’d get him caramel corn and the wolf hat he wanted if he’d come on without making a fuss. Thankfully he did, following me to the vendor, and then into the gift shop where I bought him the wolf hat and myself a bat necklace because I’d always liked bats and it was black and shiny and carved from stone with just enough detail to look real and not like some damned cartoon.

As soon as we left I felt a little bit better—not great, but no longer faced with all those bars. I could stop thinking, at least for a while, about the past and the mistakes I could never make up for: Gage, my brothers and the worry I’d caused without meaning to, and the trail of broken promises I’d managed to leave along the way. Right then I was living in some strange, twisted limbo of hope and ground-up despair, with some laughter sprinkled in and a drop or two of tranquility and about a mile of reckless dreams.

I wasn’t used to wanting. I wasn’t used to caring. It was easy when you ran and stayed gone not to think about everything you’d left behind. When it was in your face, though, it got pretty damned hard to ignore. I felt trapped and edgy, nervous and twitchy, sleep grinding down to a nap or two here or there when I wasn’t being woken by flooded sinks and an energetic child who wasn’t content to sit down and play video games.

Maybe that was a plus, that he’d rather be outdoors than perched on a couch exercising his thumbs, but it was hell on my brooding and sleeping time, and I sort of needed those. I was scared, and I’d freely admit it to one of my brothers if only they’d answer their goddamned phones. I could feel the butterflies building in my stomach, the nervous anticipation that always came before getting on stage, only this time it was stronger. This time it actually fucking hurt.

At twenty-six-years-old I was facing what could be my final chance at doing something I could be proud of, and for all I’d accomplished in the past, it meant nothing if I couldn’t come back from the damage I’d done to myself and the tragedy that pushed healing farther and farther from my mind. So stupid, so senseless, so utterly and completely fucking careless.

I’d fought so hard to get off the streets: saving every dime I made, letting myself be used when the opportunities to fight were few and far between. Once I’d made a big enough rep for myself fighting I hadn’t had to sell myself anymore, but still, I’d always expected it to be jail that kept me from my dreams, but in the end, that didn’t happen. Nor was it the bike that cast me down from the stage, the shiny chrome-and-gray Harley I’d ridden from Maine to Seattle, Wyoming to somewhere south of Mexico. It wasn’t some accident on some long stretch of highway that stole me from the mistress I loved, though it was an accident that did it. An asinine, moronic, complete dipshit of an accident that shattered my left hand and for half a year cost me my ability to play.

From shining star to stardust, all in the span of a minute and five seconds of utter and complete stupidity. Listen closely, cause I’m gonna tell you the top thing drunk people should never do. Hell, it’s the top thing people who want to stay in one piece shouldn’t do, period, and that’s sledding down an ice hill on a fucking silver disk at three in the goddamned morning. No matter how good you might think your night vision is, you can’t see to steer, and even if you can, the goddamned booze makes your reflexes too slow to respond to the things you see in time to avoid striking them and launching yourself violently into a rock, a tree, or the cold, frozen ground.

Ten weeks in a cast, four weeks longer than normal since I decided to be a dumbass and insisted on trying to force my fingers to move. Four extra weeks because I refused to allow anyone to help me do a goddamned thing. Stubborn fucking pride. I’d have been willing to eat that pride right then for a moment of honest conversation with Morgan and the dexterity in that hand back. You’d have thought I’d have learned from the skateboard and the scars that made my face look hideous even in dim light, but I was a thrill junkie on top of everything else, and sledding down the hill that night had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Told ya I was stupid.

Rory stumbled and bumped into my leg, and I looked down to see him huffing as he steadied himself. It was then that I looked around and saw we’d already gone five blocks since leaving the zoo, with me no doubt dragging Rory along with my strides. I forgot sometimes that at four feet two inches he had a hard time keeping up with a six-foot-five-inch grown man. I sighed and scrubbed a hand down my face, willing myself to calm down and relax before I strung myself too far out on the edge to pull back from.

“Are we gonna be late for something?” Rory asked.

“No,” I told him with another sigh.

“Are you mad? You look mad. I said I was sorry for knocking the postcard rack down,” Rory said.

“Enh, them postcards ain’t my problem; someone gets paid to clean up after kids like you. I’ll bet it happens all the time,” I told him, still trying to find the calm center that Michael was always talking about.

“Well, then, if you’re not mad can we go for pizza?” Rory asked.

“No, we’re going home and I’m going to cook you a proper meal, and then you can brush your teeth and watch a movie. I’ve got some stuff to do,” I told him as we headed back to the apartment.

Thankfully, he did as I told him, eating the burgers and potato salad and corn with minimal mess, leaving me little cleanup and plenty of time to climb out on the fire escape and brood, my eyes narrowing as I glared into the night, trying not to think of the gig to come. That was the problem with trying not to think about something, though: it was always there, always in the back of your mind—a shadow, a specter, a ghost haunting you, holding you in a nightmare you could only escape from by confronting the cause. I was raring to confront, but I had to wait, and I hated waiting. I flexed my hand. It was always a little sore, a little stiff. I could still play, though, just not as good as before.

“Uncle Asher?”

“Aw, hell...what now, Rory.”

“Can I come outside?”

“Why?”

“I wanna watch the stars with you. Dad and I used to watch the stars together all the time, but Mom never wants to.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Huh? How do you know?”

“Oh, I meant about your dad. When I was little, he’d watch the stars with me.”

“Did you ever see one fall?”

“Oh, yeah,” I told him, thinkingin more ways than one, but how would I explain a thought like that to an eight-year-old? Like so many other times in the past few weeks, I found myself wishing my brother’s son was the brother I’d lost, ’cause then I could turn to him and say I was nervous, and ask him if he wanted to play a couple songs with me. He’d say yes and we’d grab those old Gibsons and we’d jam until the sun came up, and maybe then he’d tell me how he could always seem to play so effortlessly when I had to think or I’d hit the wrong note. Goddamn but I missed him. I pulled Rory close and stared up at the sky, the stars bright and shining overhead.

“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight,” I heard him whisper, but the wish he didn’t say, choosing instead to keep it silent.

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