Then Again

by Rick Boling

  “Far out,” I said. “Sounds like fun.”

  “It would be, but I’m a realist, and I know I’ll probably never be a hundred percent again. I’ll most likely end up teaching elementary school kids how to spell and punctuate and write little poems their mommies can hang on the refrigerator.”

  “That’s odd,” I said. “Unlike me, you know what you want, but you’re giving up before you even get started. Who says you can’t get back to a hundred percent? Not the doctors, that’s for sure.”

  “Who says you have to waste your talents playing for a bu ... bunch of drunks who only half listen to your music, instead of shooting for the stars?”

  “Touché,” I said, laying my head on her chest.

  “What is it, Rix?” she asked, her voice softening. “What are you so sc ... scared of?”

  “I’m not scared!” I said, though I wasn’t sure that was the truth. “Maybe I just don’t want to give up the security of working with a successful group of musicians I like and admire. Or maybe I’m like you, figuring the chances are slim that I could ever break into the Big Time. I’ve been talking to a producer lately, playing him some of my original songs, and he keeps telling me I have to write more commercial stuff. You know, with hook lines and repetition and something called pathos. Hell, I don’t even know what that word means.”

  “Pathos?” she said. “It means stir ... stirring emotions. Something personal that evokes passion or sorrow or tenderness. That’s what all those writers of what you call bubblegum are doing. What makes it sound so silly to you is that they’re writing for teenagers, kids who are going through all the emotional confusion of puberty and adolescence. The kids don’t hear the silliness. All they hear is words that res ... resonate with their own emotions, their crushes and breakups and parental grievances. And, of course, their sexual frustrations, though the writers have to disguise those references with innuendo and double-meaning phrases.”

  “Sounds like you should be a songwriter,” I grumbled. “I sure as shit don’t want to write that kind of crap. I write from my own experiences so I can feel the emotions myself, not fake them for a bunch of teenyboppers. The first song I ever wrote was pretty juvenile and silly, but at least it came from things I had experienced.”

  “What was that?” she asked, running her fingers through my hair.

  “Just some stupid little thing about skipping school. And, no, I’m not going to play it for you. I’ve written a few songs since then, but from what the producer says, they aren’t very commercial.”

  “Well, if you’re not going to play me your stupid little song, then what about some of the others? Hey, here’s an idea: why don’t you write a song about this whole experience? It’s almost stranger than fiction, and it is, after all, real.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said, but the idea lingered in the back of my mind. I’d always had a hard time refusing a challenge, and for days thereafter all I could think about was how to put some of the emotions we were both feeling down on paper. I actually ended up writing three songs, but only one of them struck me as being something Carla might like. Two weeks later, when we were left alone in her hospital room, I pulled out my guitar and, without any introduction, started to sing ...

  And sometimes she will tell me

  That she thinks she’s kind of slow

  And wonders if the world sees her that way

  And I laugh at her a little, and I cry inside to know

  That I can’t find the reassuring words I want to say

  And then she smiles

  And I can see somehow that she has all the answers

  Though she doesn’t seem to understand or know

  And then she laughs

  And I feel sorry for the ones who cannot know her

  And hear her gentle words and watch her grow

  For she is love and all around her shines a rainbow

  And she is hope and holds the promise of the sparrow

  She is peace and in her eyes

  This old world loses its disguise

  And I thank God, for this I know

  She is tomorrow

  “Damn,” she said, tears threatening to choke her words. “That’s incredible, Rix. And believe it or not, it has all those elements you were talking about. Not only that, but it yanks at the heartstrings, mine at least. There has to be more, though. You can’t leave it there.”

  “There is,” I said, “but it gets a little flaky after that. The rest of it still needs a lot of work.”

  “So do I,” she said, “but I’m not ashamed of being a work in progress. Come on, let’s hear what you’ve got so far. Please? Maybe I can help.”

  I hated playing anything I wasn’t yet satisfied with, but her offer to help was intriguing. “Okay,” I said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I started out with a little instrumental break I’d been working on, hoping the complex fingerstyle solo would distract her from the unrefined lyrics. But once I’d exhausted the stall, I knew I had to get on with it, so I took a deep breath and continued ...

  There are days that I’m so caught up

  In the frenzy and the fray

  I forget to feel her presence in my world

  Then suddenly I realize another precious day

  Has come and gone without my little girl

  But then she’ll softly tell me

  That I really am all right

  Though I feel I must have surely gone insane

  And I feel for all the others who must make it through the night

  Without her there to laugh away the rain.

  For when she smiles

  I somehow realize that she has all the answers

  Though she doesn’t seem to understand or know

  And when she laughs

  I find myself in tears of joy that I was chosen

  To hold her fragile love and watch it grow

  For she is love and all around her shines a rainbow

  And she is hope and holds the promise of the sparrow

  She is peace and in her eyes

  This old world loses its disguise

  And I thank God, for this I know

  She is tomorrow

  And this time, the tears came in earnest.

  It was all wrong, of course—our relationship—based on guilt and pity and the emotional upheaval of the shooting. We were married in the hospital, mainly because she wanted to get out of there, and the doctors wouldn’t discharge her unless someone could be with her twenty-four-seven for the first few weeks. Since I worked at night and her mom worked during the day, I rented an apartment near the Skyway Bridge, halfway between Clearwater and Sarasota, and we split the caretaking duties. Things went well for a while, but as Carla struggled to regain her physical and mental abilities, she often took her frustration out on me, and I soon lost patience with her emotional tirades.

  She did, however, keep her promise to help with my writing, and even though our collaborations often led to vehement arguments, her input had a positive effect. In fact, She is Tomorrow and two other songs we worked on together made it onto my first album years later, and I made sure she was credited and received royalties for her half of the writing.

  The marriage lasted two years, and our divorce was as amicable as could be expected. There were no kids to support, and she demanded no alimony. We stayed in touch for a while, but when she moved to California to take a job teaching communication skills to students recovering from brain injuries, our letters and phone calls became fewer and farther between, eventually stopping altogether except for an occasional birthday or Christmas card.

  Her legacy, however, would live on in my life. She turned me on to poetry and folk music, which led me to discover the genius of Bob Dylan, who I had ignored up until then because I couldn’t stand his voice. She also taught me a lot about syntax and composition and other aspects of writing I’d ignored in my less-than-illustrious career as an indifferent high-school student. And, of course, the sex was great, even when we weren
’t getting along.

  Probably her single most important contribution to my career was the way she constantly harped on my musical cowardice, admonishing me to forget about The Madisons and break out on my own. As it had been with Pat, this was also one of the reasons for our frequent fights, and she never let up even after we split. In fact, the first letter I got from her ended with a PS that said, “Someday you’re going to have to stop basking in the comfort and security of The Madisons, and take a chance.”

  Those words would eventually lead me to leave the band and strike out on my own. It was the toughest decision of my life at the time, not only because it led to many years of instability and frustration, but because it meant leaving a group of close friends and musical collaborators, the likes of which I would never find again. The Madisons broke up shortly after I left, with Billy going on to get a degree in chemistry and abandoning music except for an occasional gig as a sideman with his uncle’s Guy-Lombardo-type orchestra. Kenny died a few years later in a horrific car accident, and Jimmy ended up doing the piano-bar thing until he died of an overdose at the age of fifty.

  A couple of months after the breakup, we were surprised to find ourselves at the same local bar one Sunday night, though what we thought was a coincidence turned out to be part of a plan. We were laughing and talking about old times, when the lights came up and couple of dozen local musicians walked out of the back room holding a cake aglow with five candles, one for each of the five years The Madisons had been together. They also presented us with four gold-plated Zippo lighters inscribed with our names and the name of the group, along with a plaque that read: “In commemoration of The Madisons, the finest band ever to hit the West Coast of Florida.” There followed the best jam session I ever participated in, with every one of our musician friends joining us at one time or another, and the unfettered freedom of not having to play to a crowd of unappreciative assholes whose only interest was in getting laid or losing themselves in a bottle of booze.

  I spent the rest of that year struggling to write and work as a single, while delving into stronger drugs in a futile effort to enhance my creativity. The gigs were sparse, mostly playing for tips at the last few remaining coffee houses, or doing dinner hours at intimate restaurants along the beach. To keep from going broke I also did a lot of studio work, writing and singing silly radio jingles for local businesses. It was during this time that I met the luthier Harley Day and became fascinated with the idea of building classical guitars. I was so strung out and frustrated by then, I decided to take him up on his offer to hire me as an apprentice, trading the ego satisfaction of performing on stage for the challenge of carving the perfect bridge or neck with a razor-sharp chisel.

  As my twenty-fourth year came to a close, I was more lost and confused than I’d ever been in my life. The night before my birthday, angry and resentful over how my career had stalled, I sat on the seawall behind my apartment with a bottle of rum and that chisel, contemplating the most efficient way to carve death out of the veins in my wrist.

  Georgia On My Mind

  Do you want to talk about it?” Aurélie said. We were sitting in the lounge under a panorama of the Grand Canyon projected on the simulated window next to our table.

  “Talk about what?” I said, taking a drink of the fake Jack I’d come to enjoy more than the real stuff.

  “Whatever it is that’s been bothering you ever since you returned from 1968. Judging by your physiological reactions there at the end, I’d have to assume it was a pretty painful episode.”

  “It’s all painful, Aurie,” I said. “Why do you think I’m agreeing to take a chance on a do-over?”

  “I understand, and I’m sorry. But tell me something: why do you keep rubbing your wrist? I’m worried you’re having circulation problems, and if that’s the case we need to—”

  I stopped her by holding my arm up and turning it so she could see the spidery white lines, almost invisible now after more than forty years. She leaned forward and stared for a moment, then gasped, touching my skin and running her fingers over the web of ancient scars.

  “Oh, shit,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up old wounds.”

  “The hell you didn’t!” I said. “That’s all you’ve been doing from the start.”

  “But, but Rix, it’s the only way we can help you make a decision.”

  “I know, goddammit. And I’m not blaming you. It’s just that it’s like having my guts ripped out every time I relive some of that stuff. As for this”—I pulled my hand back and rubbed my wrist again—“it’s no big deal. It only bothered me because I hadn’t thought about it in a long time and I wasn’t prepared. I skipped over a lot during the earlier preview, and having to live through those episodes now can be a little shocking. Anyway, it didn’t work, so let’s forget it, okay?”

  “Okay. Sure. So what about the next trip? You know, you don’t have to bother with it if you’ve already made up your mind.”

  “I haven’t,” I said. “I keep thinking the farther back I go the more chances I’ll have to make positive changes, but I don’t know if that’s true. So many of my later accomplishments depended on luck and being in the right place at the right time. By 1978, I’d had two top-forty hits, and even though that didn’t make me a superstar, at least it was more than ninety-nine percent of the other struggling singer-songwriters had managed. So I have to decide if I’m willing to take a chance on screwing all that up by going back before then and trying things when I have no way of knowing what the repercussions might be.”

  She didn’t answer. Hell, there weren’t any answers. With all their extraordinary scientific breakthroughs, neither she nor Heyoka had given much thought to the human factor: the emotional consequences and unpredictable results of their experiment. But that’s what guinea pigs were for, weren’t they? I’d never been a big fan of PITA, but now that I’d become a research animal I could sympathize with their efforts.

  As the Grand Canyon dissolved into a misty forest scene of deer and chipmunks and fluttering birds, I thought back to those days in Georgia when Robin and I had lived in that leaky little two-room cabin on a hundred acres of virgin hardwoods. It was there that I’d discovered something new, something so alien to my city-boy lifestyle it seemed as if I’d been transported to another planet. But those memories were bittersweet, and I had no desire to revisit them.

  “I need to take a nap,” I said.

  Aurélie nodded. “Why don’t we head back to the villa? You’ll be more comfortable sleeping in your own bed.”

  My own bed, I thought. It had been decades since I’d slept in a bed I could call my own. Even here, although I did feel at home and comfortable, it wasn’t really my bed or my home. And with all the memories and remorse beginning to hammer at my sanity, that thought alone was enough to drive me deeper into depression. I closed my eyes and did my best to clear my mind. “Good idea,” I said. “Sorry I’m being such a stick-in-the-mud. I’m a little freaked out right now is all.”

  “It’s perfectly understandable, Rix,” she said, rising and reaching for my hand. “I can give you something to help you sleep if you’d like.”

  “Thanks but no thanks. I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open as it is.”

  We didn’t speak on the way back to the villa, and when we reached the door to my bedroom, she hugged me. “Call if you need anything,” she said. As she turned and started down the hall, I thought about changing my mind and asking her to come in, but I knew that would only lead to more frustration. Besides, I really was dead on my feet.

  Closing the door behind me, I stumbled to the bed and fell on my face, kicking my shoes off and pulling a pillow over my head. The fragrance of some night-blooming flower drifted in from an open window, again reminding me of those days in the north-Georgia woods. I tried to sweep the memory from my mind by repeating my mantra, but the mere act of meditating—ironically, a practice I’d learned from Robin—brought it into even clearer focus.

&nb
sp; One drawback to the effects of Heyoka’s magical elixir was that the memory enhancement was universal: everything became crystal clear, even those bits I preferred not to remember. There were many positive things about that era, awakenings and flashes of creativity that could only have occurred in that specific place and time. But there were also details I was happy had been blurred by drugs and the tricks an aging mind plays to protect one from emotional whacks to the heart. Now, however, those filters had been removed, and the memories were nearly as vivid as the ones evoked by Aurélie’s elaborate gadgetry.

  Unable to stop my mind from replaying the past, I decided to try and recall the events of 1973 that led to my self-imposed exile from civilization. I remembered the whole scenario had been set in motion by a phone call from my old boss, Harley Day, shortly after the Sunday Morning Sentinel debacle.

  When the phone rang that morning, I figured it was a bill collector, or maybe my uncle looking for another payment on the loan he’d given me to pay for the trip to Muscle Shoals. Broke and wallowing in self-pity, I let the answering machine pick up and was surprised to hear the voice of Harley Day. It seemed he’d accepted a commission from The Smithsonian to build a reproduction of an 18th-century Ruckers-Taskin harpsichord; a project that would leave him little time to deal with the steady stream of guitar orders and restoration work. He needed my help, he said, so would I please consider coming back to work at the shop.

  Having few other options, and desperately in need of money to support my growing drug habit, I called him back. And after negotiating for a while, I accepted his offer of a raise and a percentage of the profits from guitar sales. By then I was on a roller-coaster ride of Quaaludes, cocaine, and speed, sometimes going days without sleep, and I dove into the work with a zeal that surprised even me.