Long Way Gone

by Charles Martin

I said, “Let me set the record straight on something. You’re not playing for judges. If anyone in that room tonight listens to you and doesn’t like what you play, they need to go suck on a lemon.”

  He liked that.

  “And further, if they utter one negative word about you, it’s got to go through Daley and me to get to you. Jubal, you might as well understand this now. Music is a gift. We make it to give it away. All those people in there, they might not know it, but they need what you got, because you’re the only one out of something like six billion people on the planet who has your song. God chose you. Not your grandfather. Not me. Not Daley. Not anyone else. So you can bottle it up and drink it all alone out here by the fire if you want, but before you let the fear of failure keep you from walking in there and playing, you should know that some of those people in there are sick. Some have been burned. Broken. Left out in the cold. Some are wrestling with painful words spoken over them by someone they love or walking around in chains of their own making. A few are dying inside. Whatever the reason, when you sit down in front of them and say, ‘Let me play a song for you,’ you’re giving them something that no amount of money can buy.”

  He looked confused. “What’s that?”

  “Hope.”

  He considered this.

  “Think about it. It’s Christmas Eve and there’s a couple hundred people sitting in what was once an old, abandoned church. Waiting on three people to walk up onstage and make some noise.” I inched closer. My voice barely a whisper. “You know why they’re in there?”

  “Yeah, ’cause you and Miss Daley are really good.”

  “Nope. There are lots of people that are really good.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because they are all living with the singular hope that maybe tonight, in this place, under this blanket of snow, within the sound of our voices, God can take their pain and give them something in return that makes all the broken and dying stuff new and alive again.”

  “You really think it’s that important?”

  “I do.”

  He stared up into the snow. Then at me. His big, brown eyes as curious as his question. “Can He?”

  “He did with me.”

  He looked surprised. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Before I met you, I’d made a pretty big mess. He took the ashes of my life and gave me something beautiful in their place.”

  “You tell me about it sometime?”

  “Sure.”

  He nodded as if he understood. “Uncle Coop?”

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  His lips grew tight and his face took on an unashamed confidence I’d grown to love. “You think my grandfather knew that?”

  “Don’t know. What I do know is this—the kind of music we were made to play breaks chains. It walks deep inside us and everyone within earshot, drives a stake in the ground, and silences the thing that’s trying to kill us. And I think your grandfather knew a good bit about that. I think that’s why he did what he did, and I think that’s what he was doing when I met him, and I think that’s why he gave you that guitar.”

  “I wish he were here.”

  “Me too.”

  Jubal turned and began walking toward the entrance. When he got to the door, he pulled it open and spoke around it. “Okay, but if I screw this up, it’s your fault.”

  He disappeared inside, and I stood there laughing while the snow settled on my shoulders.

  On the other side of the fire stood Blondie. He was sucking on a Tootsie Pop. When he spoke, he pointed it at me. “Nice job.”

  “I had a good teacher.”

  He stuck the sucker back in his mouth and gave me an approving nod. “That you did.”

  I turned. “You coming?”

  He stepped around the fire, alongside me. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  I nodded toward the door Jubal had just passed through. “Can he see you?”

  Blondie motioned with his sucker while one end of his mouth turned up. “Not yet.”

  I laughed. “This ought to be good.”

  When I walked onto the stage, Daley brushed my arm and stomach with her hand. Another sonar ping. I loved it when she did that. I took my seat opposite her, and she turned toward the audience.

  Daley stepped from her stool and stood next to Jubal, putting her hand gently on his shoulder. “Ladies and gentlemen, Cooper and I would like to introduce to you Jubal Tyre.” She smiled. “He’s the newest member of our band, and at twelve he’s also the youngest.”

  Laughter and applause rippled across the audience.

  “We’ve asked him to play and sing on this record for reasons that will soon become obvious.” She returned to her stool and sat waiting on me. I turned on my mike and glanced at Jubal.

  My voice echoed across the stone walls. “You ready?”

  He smirked. “Waiting on you, Old Man.”

  More laughter. I set Jimmy across my knee, touched the strings with my fingers, and looked toward the back where Andy sat in headphones staring at a flashing board. “Andy, you ready?”

  He adjusted a slide control and then gave me a thumbs-up. I studied the audience, letting my fingers roll across the strings. Jimmy’s aging and rich voice rose out of his bullet-holed body and resonated off the rafters, where Blondie sat swinging his feet. The choir began parading single file into place, humming as they walked. While they made their way across the stage, Big-Big walked to the piano bench behind me, sat down, and began quietly constructing the scaffolding we would soon stand upon. Jubal began lightly embellishing the melody, filling the air above the piano. Mary, sitting just a few feet in front of me, stopped twitching.

  I said, “Let’s start at the beginning. The first date I had with my wife was an impromptu at the Ryman. She caught me with my hands on her guitar, so I wooed her with this one . . .”

  Given Jubal’s innate talent, one of the first songs I had taught him was “Let It Out.” He started tapping out a percussive rhythm on the body of his guitar, I re-created the shrill sound of the wind with whistles, and Daley sang my song back to all of us. It was a good beginning.

  Midway through I quit playing, the stage lights dimmed, and the spotlight singled on Jubal, who didn’t seem to mind at all. It was fun to watch him come into his own, listen to the audience’s surprise at his ability, hear the resulting applause, and then watch the smile spread across his face. I don’t think he was scared anymore.

  Over two hours we played all of Daley’s number ones. Several songs off our new record. A few covers that had become favorites. We closed the concert with “Long Way Gone.”

  I said, “This last song was twenty-five years in the making, and the last time I tried to play it for a group of folks like you, it didn’t go so well, so—”

  The audience identified the song, laughed, and began clapping in anticipation. For many of them, it was the reason they’d come.

  “It follows the course of my life. From promise to pain to . . .” I stretched both hands high into the air. Palms out. Reaching out as far as I was able. When I did, Blondie stood up on the rafters and pulled back the ceiling. I continued, “To coming home. It’s called ‘Long Way Gone,’ and it goes something like this.”

  We walked off the stage to a standing ovation. Backstage we stood in a circle. The player’s high. Even Big-Big. We’d had a lot of fun. While Daley and I felt like we’d taken a deep breath, Jubal’s attention was elsewhere. He kept staring around the corner.

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “You good?”

  He pointed toward the stage. “What’s up with that guy?”

  “Who?”

  He pointed toward the center of the stage where his guitar stood. “The dude playing my guitar.”

  The stage was empty.

  I smiled. “How big is he?”

  “Bigger than Big-Big.”

  Beyond the stage, they were calling for an encore. “Is he any good?”

  Jubal nodde
d and frowned at the same time. “Better than you.” A few seconds passed. He looked confused. “You can’t hear him?”

  I removed the notebook from the small of my back, handed it to him, and began walking back out onstage.

  “What am I supposed to do with this? Ask him if he wants a cheeseburger?”

  I smiled. “You’ll figure it out.”

  We returned to the stage, where Jubal leaned against his stool and timidly picked up his guitar. While I spoke to the audience, his head rotated on a swivel and his attention was focused on the choir. Blondie was sitting in the front row. Leaning back. Feet crossed in front of him. Arms crossed. A smug, satisfied look.

  My fingers touched the strings and I began playing a song I’d only rehearsed for Daley. I played remembering my father’s admonition that the great players are great because of the notes they choose not to play. Once through the intro, I leaned toward the microphone, then thought better of it. The same was true for too many words.

  Daley and the choir picked up on the melody and began humming. Big-Big filled the air beneath us with chords. Between the visitor in the choir and the song I was now playing, which he’d never heard, Jubal was lost. Over the last year, as we’d learned and transposed songs from one key to another, I’d taught him the Nashville Number System. It was a fun exercise to begin a song in one key, modulate on the fly, and finish in a second or third. He’d gotten pretty good at it. I whispered around the mike, “Key of E. One, six, five, four.”

  Jubal started strumming and watched me for the changes.

  Jubal had several musical gifts. One of which was the rhythm in his strum hand. He did unconsciously what some studied for years, never to perfect. I spoke into the mike but kept my eyes on him. “Folks, he’s never heard this song before.” Applause rose up beneath me. “Your career will be fun to watch.”

  I loved to hear that kid play.

  I turned to the audience. “When I think back over my life, several images flood my mind. If you know my story, our story, you know that around this time last year in a concert at the Falls I had a bit of a health scare.”

  Up front, Mary laughed out loud. “You think!”

  “Well, you would too, if somebody had tried to drown you in subfreezing water.” I nodded behind me toward Big-Big.

  “I don’t pretend to understand all of what happened. But I do know this—this right here is just prelude. Dress rehearsal. The intro. One of these days each one of us is going to get called up and given the chance to join our voices in a song we’ve never heard, yet one we’ve known our whole lives.

  “My dad used to give a sermon about how we were custom-made for music. How each of us is a walking instrument. I used to laugh at him and his ridiculous ideas, his animated theatrics, but now not so much. Dad was right. He was right about most everything. He loved to sing at the top of his lungs most anywhere. Didn’t care a lick what others thought. We’d be walking down the aisle at the grocery store and he’d start singing “Frère Jacques” with the same emotional intensity as an aria from Handel’s Messiah. I’d stand next to him and want to hide my face. Let a crack in the earth open and swallow me. But Dad just kept on singing.”

  I stood and nodded for Jubal to follow. Strumming louder, I said, “One of these days I’ll get to sing with my father again. Get to hear his beautiful voice. Between here and there, we get to make music of our own. With that in mind, here’s a new song. It’s simple. Nothing fancy. Four chords and a bridge. I don’t even think it has a title. I wrote it for us to sing together. To put our voices on a pedestal. Not just mine. So stand. Sing with me. Loud as you want.” I glanced over my shoulder where Andy had projected the words on the screen. “This is a love song for my father . . .”

  The End

  NO GONE IS TOO FAR GONE

  Iimagine he stunk. Clothes tattered. Hair matted. Beard stained. One shoe missing. Fingernails bit to the quick. The once-high chin now drags his chest. His eyes scour the ground—afraid to make eye contact lest he bump into a creditor. One missing front tooth. Another cracked. A puffy, purple shadow rests beneath his right eye. The chest full of gold chains are gone. Sold. Gambled. Stolen. And the ring his father gave him? Pawned weeks ago.

  This silent and passive ending had a boisterous and in-your-face beginning. Not uncommon. It sounded like this: “I want what I want, when I want it, because I want it and I want it right now.” His friends poured gasoline on the fire and he was soon spitting flames. Full of himself, he went to his father. Stared down his nose. Disdain spread across his lips. Always thought his father such a little man. He spouted, “I want my share. Now!” Given the culture, his demand was unconscionable. Sort of like saying, “You are dead to me. I want nothing more to do with you and your silly, pathetic life. I’ll take what’s mine. From this moment, you’re no longer my father and don’t ever speak to me again.”

  Amazingly, the father granted his request.

  Pockets full, he turned his back and, surrounded by a fair-weather posse, walked away. Laughing. Skipping. Slapping backs. Sucking courage from a brown bag. Glorious sin on the horizon.

  Behind him, the father stood on the porch, cheeks wet, a piercing pain in his chest.

  The distance increased. Time passed. The boy lived it up. Drunk whatever. Smoked whatever. Bought whatever. Slept with whomever. Whenever. Wherever. He was a man with no control over his spirit. A city broken down without walls. A poor fund manager, and unwise in every way, his prodigal living was short-lived. Highlife led to no life.

  To make matters worse, famine entered the story. Once the sugar daddy had been picked clean, the posse stampeded.

  Broke, hungry, alone, and ashamed—but not quite humbled—he “joined” himself to another. Said another way, he sold himself as a slave. Don’t miss this—he’s a Jewish boy going to work for a Gentile farmer raising pigs. This is apostasy. He could not have been any more unclean. There were laws about this, and he had broken all of them.

  Standing in that pen, surrounded by manure, maggots, and swarming flies, holding the slop bucket, he stands just one final rung from the bottom.

  We pick up the story in Luke 15. Thirty pounds lighter, it’s easy to count his ribs. He is staring into the bucket with a raised eyebrow, watering mouth, and thinking, That’s not so bad. I could probably get that down. The New English Translation speaks of “carob pods”—sort of a bean-looking thing with the consistency of shoe leather (v. 16). One of the only fruit-producing plants to actually produce fruit in that area during times of famine. It’s a last resort—even for the pigs.

  Can you see him scratching his head? Staring around to see who might be watching? This is where he steps off the ladder. Feet on the bottom—of the bottom. He has “attempted to pull fire into his bosom,” and it is here that we see the third-degree burns. Not only has he sinned and fallen short, gone his own way, astray, he has missed the target entirely. To quote Isaiah, his righteousness is as “filthy rags.” By “rags,” Isaiah means used menstrual cloths. Let me spell this out. Left to our own devices—like our prodigal—the best that we can produce, absent a right relationship with the Father, is no better than a bunch of used feminine products. That may offend you, but that’s Isaiah’s point. Everything about the prodigal is offensive, and he is paying the price of his offense.

  But notice what finds him. There in that muck and mire, sour stench, poor choices, and sin piled high, something swims past the reason-filter of his mind and into the still-tender, yet-to-be-calloused places of his heart. And it’s not condemnation and finger-pointing shame. It’s the memory of his dad. The love of the father.

  Of all places for love to find him. (If you could see me, I am fist-pumping.)

  Someone once asked me, “When is gone too far gone?” Here’s my answer in a nutshell: There is no place on Planet Earth that the love of the Father—the blood of Jesus—can’t reach. “His arm is not so short that it cannot save.” This side of the grave, no one—and I don’t care who they are or what sin
or sins they have or are committing—is too far gone.

  “But . . .” You raise a finger and shake your head in protest. “You don’t know what I’ve done.” You’re right. I don’t. What I do know is that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That means at our worst, most offensive, suffering the consequences of our own shame and defiant choices, a long way from home, Jesus poured out His soul unto the death. Paul to the prodigals in Corinth said this: “He made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.” If ever God drove a stake in the ground, it’s that.

  Scripture doesn’t say it, but I think our prodigal ate the pods. A guess, yes, but it may well be an educated guess because Scripture does say, “When he came to himself . . .” What better than the bitter, nasty aftertaste of the pod to shake some sense into him.

  I love what happens next. So subtle yet so world-rocking. He turns around. Note: he is turning his back toward his sin and setting his face toward his father. Isaiah talked about this too. He called it “setting his face like a flint.” Look up repentance in the dictionary and you will see a picture of this. The humbled prodigal manages a hesitant jog at first. Then a chin-raising trot. Lungs taking in air. When he reaches the hill a mile out from the farm, he is sprinting. Arms flinging sweat, a trail of dust in his wake. If you listen closely, you can hear the beginning of a sound emitting from his belly. Low. Guttural. It is the sound of pain leaving his body.

  And here’s my favorite picture in this story. It’s the father. Still standing on the porch. Yet to leave his post. One hand shading his eyes. Scanning the horizon. Searching for any sign of movement.

  Something atop the hill catches his eye. He squints. Leans. The space between his eyes narrows. The father exits the porch as if shot out of a canon. This picture always gets me. Son running to father. Father running to son.

  Having closed the distance, the son falls at his father’s feet. He is groveling. Face to toes. Snot mixing with tears. He can’t even look at him. “Father, I have sinned . . .”